RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #28 (Dwyane Wade)

[Joao Saraiva]

Davis getting recognition is even stranger than Kawhi to me. He's been a star in 2014-20 period, but he missed 99 games in this period and outside of 2020 he has no playoffs resume. Do you really think that we didn't have any player in the league history that is more worthy considering...?

Good point. Somehow I forgot how many games he missed.

[Dutchball97]

Davis getting recognition is even stranger than Kawhi to me. He's been a star in 2014-20 period, but he missed 99 games in this period and outside of 2020 he has no playoffs resume. Do you really think that we didn't have any player in the league history that is more worthy considering...?

I think some people on this board - the ones voting for AD and Kawhi already - just started watching basketball in 2014.

I think some people on this board - the ones posting comments like this - should actually try to read the arguments given and threat other people's opinions with respect. You don't see me saying all the people voting for Mikan in the top 20 are going senile either. Just because someone holds opinions that are different from yours doesn't mean you're better than them.

[Odinn21]

Vote 1 - Patrick Ewing
Vote 2 - Walt Frazier
Vote 3 - Clyde Drexler

Drexler over Wade?..

Better longevity and durability, very comparable skillsets.

Comparable skillset is not true entirely though. Drexler was so limited on half court for a superstar. He didn't create as much.

Wade was a better defender, their passing was similar but Wade was better playmaker, Wade was just as threatening as Drexler on open court and he was definitely better on half court, Wade's slashing abilities created far more and better looks for his teammates.

Drexler's overall longevity is better but interestingly and arguably, not his prime duration. Just thinking of top 5 and top 10 seasons between the two and Drexler isn't coming close enough.

[Dr Positivity]

1. Dwyane Wade - huge peak, already seems low for him

2. James Harden - has his issues but still a #1 guy for 8 years now, in a field with little MVP talents left

3. Patrick Ewing - his best scoring seasons he has pretty solid peak (even if he was slightly worse on defense in 89 and 90), high impact player who almost won the title with role guys.

[Jordan Syndrome]

Drexler over Wade?..

Better longevity and durability, very comparable skillsets.

Comparable skillset is not true entirely though. Drexler was so limited on half court for a superstar. He didn't create as much.

Wade was a better defender, their passing was similar but Wade was better playmaker, Wade was just as threatening as Drexler on open court and he was definitely better on half court, Wade's slashing abilities created far more and better looks for his teammates.

Drexler's overall longevity is better but interestingly and arguably, not his prime duration. Just thinking of top 5 and top 10 seasons between the two and Drexler isn't coming close enough.

Drexler's longevity is extremely overrated. Wade has 384 games in 5 seasons (05, 06, 09, 10, 11) which are better than any one Drexler season--we can use the 5-gamen sample from
390 games from 88-92. Then Wade has 2012 which is similar to 1995 Drexler--Wade missing a few more games gives this to Drexler.

After that it gets murky--is Drexler from 1985-1987 really meaningful or more meaningful than 2013-2015 Wade? Drexler was a .142 WS/48 player over this period with terrible to mediocre playoff performances in all three years. Clyde played 43 games in 1993--thats not adding any value. Clyde misses 14 games the next year in 1994 and isn't even his teams best player and he gets bounced in the 1st round after a disappointing post-season.

If you truly want to prop up a Shooting Guard due to longevity over Wade, pick Miller. Miller was an Ironman who played over 10k minutes more than Wade in the regular season while Drexler played 2k more regular season minutes than Wade.

[70sFan]

If you truly want to prop up a Shooting Guard due to longevity over Wade, pick Miller. Miller was an Ironman who played over 10k minutes more than Wade in the regular season while Drexler played 2k more regular season minutes than Wade.

Or cheat and call Hondo a SG - he also played over 10k minutes more than Wade and was better than Drexler.

[colts18]

How is Anthony Davis better than Bill Walton?

[Odinn21]

If you truly want to prop up a Shooting Guard due to longevity over Wade, pick Miller. Miller was an Ironman who played over 10k minutes more than Wade in the regular season while Drexler played 2k more regular season minutes than Wade.

Or cheat and call Hondo a SG - he also played over 10k minutes more than Wade and was better than Drexler.

I have Wade over Havlicek as well but yes, Havlicek makes way more sense.

[Jordan Syndrome]

How is Anthony Davis better than Bill Walton?

I can see the arguments for Davis being better than Walton at peak (I don't have it) but for CORP I see Davis being ahead. As someone who valued Stockton so highly I don't think you can reasonable ascertain the idea of Walton ahead of Davis.

[Owly]

Fair enough with regard to Barry being at very least not harmful on D (at that time), GS RS offense and on Hawkins.

I think the (small) distance to old man Hagan (or for a larger sample Freeman) is more harmful, to me. I feel like guys playing around the NBA MVP-discussion tier of that time should have smashed up the early ABA and maybe bar that small sample in year 1 I don't feel like he did (ABA getting better as his numbers get worse but still, little overlap with NBA star/all-star talent guys - 2 years with Beaty, 1 year with rookie Erving, Gilmore and McGinnis, none with Thompson, Gervin, Jones, Cunningham or even Maurice Lucas).

For clarity on my side, regarding winning with D, I was talking more to the '75 playoffs given "lead a team to a championship" was advanced for him. In his defense he played the league's two best defenses and the team's apparent Offensive Rating versus Chicago is excellent (though Barry shot poorly and the 4 factors for GS don't look that amazing versus league RS norms, though I'm not nearly into the numbers to know if something is off or if so where).

I'm totally down to analyze more of these ABA guys but I'm really not sure where you seeing Hagan or Freeman as being close to Barry. Freeman played longer so maybe you're focused on a particular stretch of time, but the Hagan comparison is really strange to me. By the time Barry is in the ABA Hagan is playing less than 20 MPG.

To the point of Barry leaving less of a mark on the ABA than we'd expect from his hot start in '68-69 before the injury, I would not disagree. The fact that he seemed to be outperformed by a lesser NBA-er in Zelmo Beaty is eye-brow raising. But I've never really seen anything in the ABA years that makes me seriously drop Barry in my estimation. If we were making a GOAT list based on only guys who played in the ABA, how many guys can we seriously expect to put above Barry?

Erving? Yes.
Moses? Yes.
Gilmore? I don't think so. Better ABA career definitely, but Barry's 2 NBA stints give him the edge.
Gervin? I don't think so.
Hawkins? Not enough longevity.
Jones? I don't think so.
Cunningham? I don't think so.
Daniels? I don't think so.
Beaty? I don't think so.
Haywood? I don't think so.

I say this with a ton of respect for all of these guys, but I think Barry's coming in 3rd on that list and any notion of "but shouldn't he be separating himself further from other players" to an extent leaves me scratching my head. I see a lot of fantastic guys who I don't think I can put ahead of Barry.

Okay you seem perhaps to have interpreted what was intended as adjacent points as a (different) single point.

Versus Freeman it's the ABA box-composite numbers '69-72.

https://stathead.com/basketball/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=combined&order_by_asc=1&order_by=ws&per_minute_base=36&per_poss_base=100&type=advanced&is_playoffs=N&year_min=1969&year_max=1972&ccomp%5B1%5D=gt&cval%5B1%5D=16&cstat%5B1%5D=per&ccomp%5B2%5D=gt&cval%5B2%5D=.110&cstat%5B2%5D=ws_per_48&ccomp%5B3%5D=gt&cval%5B3%5D=5000&cstat%5B3%5D=mp&positions%5B%5D=G&positions%5B%5D=GF&positions%5B%5D=F&positions%5B%5D=FG&positions%5B%5D=FC&positions%5B%5D=C&positions%5B%5D=CF&lg_id=ABA&birth_country_is=Y&age_min=0&age_max=99&height_min=0&height_max=99&season_start=1&season_end=-1&college_id=0&as_comp=gt&as_val=0

As before he's ahead but even just on rate he's not, again, separating himself that much from a guy who I don't even really have a mental file on. Hagan had been out of the NBA for a year and ceased being a star after '63. He comes back to the ABA in '67-68 and then when you look at 68-69 numbers he's posting a 26.1 PER and .247 WS/48 ... on a limited sample (579 minutes) but better than his best NBA numbers and not so far off Barry's debuting numbers. The early ABA was, I believe, a second rate league, which NBA rejects like Red Robbins and Larry Jones were, at points, tearing up. Beaty arrives (70-71, last NBA season 68-69) and his PER jumps by more than 6, his WS per 48 by more than .100, at age 31. Haywood and Hawkins' numbers drop off (Hawkins PER by 10, and WS/48 by .146). These might be partially mitigated as individual incidents by injuries or ABA weakness at the big positions, but my impression on the whole is that this was a poor league. Barry was good in the ABA, he wasn't a colossus dominating the league and collaring MVPs (or deserving to). What a player "should" be doing is a clunky phrasing for me (what does "should" mean), but I guess I'd want someone here to have been clearly better than, say, Beaty in these years (or else had more amazing years than I think Barry did elsewhere, but just imagining a "typical" career arc).

So it's not about separating himself from the ABA greats' careers, it's separating himself (or not) from the ABA at a point when the other stars weren't there, and I believe the league was there for the taking. In this respect, for me, Barry's ABA career is quite underwhelming for someone with his overall stature/perception.

[ZeppelinPage]

1. Dwayne Wade
2. Kawhi Leonard
3. Walt Frazier

Wade has some of the best stats of any SG in NBA history, and some great playoff performances. Kawhi is on his way to being among the greats, I think this year wasn't exactly the best look but in terms of pure stats and production there is few with his resume. Frazier comes in 3rd for me--severely underrated player that arguably deserved an MVP and 2x Finals MVP. I've watched a decent amount of film on him and every game he pops on both sides of the court. He was a solid passer with good ball handles and scoring ability through his jumper and getting to the rim, as well as an absolute menace on the defensive side of the ball. He is among the greatest defenders of all-time at the PG position, and probably averaged around 4 steals per game in his prime based on the film I've seen.

[DQuinn1575]

Fair enough with regard to Barry being at very least not harmful on D (at that time), GS RS offense and on Hawkins.

I think the (small) distance to old man Hagan (or for a larger sample Freeman) is more harmful, to me. I feel like guys playing around the NBA MVP-discussion tier of that time should have smashed up the early ABA and maybe bar that small sample in year 1 I don't feel like he did (ABA getting better as his numbers get worse but still, little overlap with NBA star/all-star talent guys - 2 years with Beaty, 1 year with rookie Erving, Gilmore and McGinnis, none with Thompson, Gervin, Jones, Cunningham or even Maurice Lucas).

For clarity on my side, regarding winning with D, I was talking more to the '75 playoffs given "lead a team to a championship" was advanced for him. In his defense he played the league's two best defenses and the team's apparent Offensive Rating versus Chicago is excellent (though Barry shot poorly and the 4 factors for GS don't look that amazing versus league RS norms, though I'm not nearly into the numbers to know if something is off or if so where).

I'm totally down to analyze more of these ABA guys but I'm really not sure where you seeing Hagan or Freeman as being close to Barry. Freeman played longer so maybe you're focused on a particular stretch of time, but the Hagan comparison is really strange to me. By the time Barry is in the ABA Hagan is playing less than 20 MPG.

To the point of Barry leaving less of a mark on the ABA than we'd expect from his hot start in '68-69 before the injury, I would not disagree. The fact that he seemed to be outperformed by a lesser NBA-er in Zelmo Beaty is eye-brow raising. But I've never really seen anything in the ABA years that makes me seriously drop Barry in my estimation. If we were making a GOAT list based on only guys who played in the ABA, how many guys can we seriously expect to put above Barry?

Erving? Yes.
Moses? Yes.
Gilmore? I don't think so. Better ABA career definitely, but Barry's 2 NBA stints give him the edge.
Gervin? I don't think so.
Hawkins? Not enough longevity.
Jones? I don't think so.
Cunningham? I don't think so.
Daniels? I don't think so.
Beaty? I don't think so.
Haywood? I don't think so.

I say this with a ton of respect for all of these guys, but I think Barry's coming in 3rd on that list and any notion of "but shouldn't he be separating himself further from other players" to an extent leaves me scratching my head. I see a lot of fantastic guys who I don't think I can put ahead of Barry.

Okay you seem perhaps to have interpreted what was intended as adjacent points as a (different) single point.

Versus Freeman it's the ABA box-composite numbers '69-72.

https://stathead.com/basketball/psl_finder.cgi?request=1&match=combined&order_by_asc=1&order_by=ws&per_minute_base=36&per_poss_base=100&type=advanced&is_playoffs=N&year_min=1969&year_max=1972&ccomp%5B1%5D=gt&cval%5B1%5D=16&cstat%5B1%5D=per&ccomp%5B2%5D=gt&cval%5B2%5D=.110&cstat%5B2%5D=ws_per_48&ccomp%5B3%5D=gt&cval%5B3%5D=5000&cstat%5B3%5D=mp&positions%5B%5D=G&positions%5B%5D=GF&positions%5B%5D=F&positions%5B%5D=FG&positions%5B%5D=FC&positions%5B%5D=C&positions%5B%5D=CF&lg_id=ABA&birth_country_is=Y&age_min=0&age_max=99&height_min=0&height_max=99&season_start=1&season_end=-1&college_id=0&as_comp=gt&as_val=0

As before he's ahead but even just on rate he's not, again, separating himself that much from a guy who I don't even really have a mental file on. Hagan had been out of the NBA for a year and ceased being a star after '63. He comes back to the ABA in '67-68 and then when you look at 68-69 numbers he's posting a 26.1 PER and .247 WS/48 ... on a limited sample (579 minutes) but better than his best NBA numbers and not so far off Barry's debuting numbers. The early ABA was, I believe, a second rate league, which NBA rejects like Red Robbins and Larry Jones were, at points, tearing up. Beaty arrives (70-71, last NBA season 68-69) and his PER jumps by more than 6, his WS per 48 by more than .100, at age 31. Haywood and Hawkins' numbers drop off (Hawkins PER by 10, and WS/48 by .146). These might be partially mitigated as individual incidents by injuries or ABA weakness at the big positions, but my impression on the whole is that this was a poor league. Barry was good in the ABA, he wasn't a colossus dominating the league and collaring MVPs (or deserving to). What a player "should" be doing is a clunky phrasing for me (what does "should" mean), but I guess I'd want someone here to have been clearly better than, say, Beaty in these years (or else had more amazing years than I think Barry did elsewhere, but just imagining a "typical" career arc).

So it's not about separating himself from the ABA greats' careers, it's separating himself (or not) from the ABA at a point when the other stars weren't there, and I believe the league was there for the taking. In this respect, for me, Barry's ABA career is quite underwhelming for someone with his overall stature/perception.

So Barry goes to the ABA, and first year plays well, his WS/48 is .301 (by far his best ever), he scores 34.0 a game. Then he gets hurt, team gets sold and moved to Washington, and he is really unhappy and it shows as he doesnt want to go to Washington, and then especially to Virginia. He was friendly with the original owner, wanted to stay on west coast, didnt want his kids to grow up with Southern accent saying y'all - not really making friends. Which was Barry's problem; he wasnt well liked. He goes to New York, and averages 30.5 for his ABA career, and takes the team to the finals in 72, where they lose to Indiana, the ABA dynasty. Doctor J takes the Nets to the title 2 years later, beating a Utah team that isnt as good as the Indiana team, but we have Doctor J rated enough higher than Barry. So Barry goes to the NBA, and his stats translate higher. It's like he found the game again in his return, his assist % pre ABA was 15.1 at best, his ABA average was 15.4%, but by 1974 he is at 24.7%. Then he takes one of the worst starting lineups ever to the title in 75, and in 76 the team
is best in regular season, but get upset in playoffs. Oh, and in 1967 he takes a Warriors team to the finals, wins 2 games against maybe the best team ever, scoring 40.8 per game. He is a great shooter, a great passer at forward - probably the best passing forward pre Bird, underrated defender, pretty average rebounder. Had two great playoff perfomances, winning 2 games against
76ers in final, and taking Butch Beard, Cliff Ray, Charles Johnson, rookie Keith Wilkes to title with Derrick Dickey as sixth man.

[Baski]

1.Dwyane Wade
2. Elgin Baylor
3. Isiah Thomas

Wade is one of the few remaining "championship No. 1 option" type players, and arguably the best at peak.
3x NBA champion
NBA FMVP
13x All Star
8x All NBA, which greatly understates his actual ability because of how much time he lost due to injuries during his prime
Scoring champion, in a spectacular season that was unfortunately outshone by LeBron James, the #1

Tremendous scorer, excellent defender-Wade makes the Iverson model work, which is extremely valuable for all teams. Off the court, he's an excellent leader, great teammate by all accounts and low enough of an ego to cede primacy to a new player in LeBron

Durability sucks, but that's why he's here at #28 instead of top 15-20.

For the guys with traction who might go to a runoff, the order for me is Wade>Isiah>Ewing>Hondo>Harden

[Doctor MJ]

Vote:

1. Dwyane Wade
2. John Havlicek
3. Patrick Ewing

So, I am picking from the list of guys who have votes here, but not as a hard & fast rule. I really have a bunch of guys I'm struggling to choose from here, and these 3 are on that list.

I've already gushed about Wade earlier in the thread.

On Havlicek, I voted for Pippen in my 3rd spot last time, but honestly it's a struggle for me siding with Pippen over Havlicek given that I really feel like Pippen should have been able to stay relevant longer like Hondo did.

I'll add that I had Barry ahead of Havlicek on my list before, and at least for the moment am moving Havlicek ahead, but may change my mind again.

Strongly considered putting Barry in for the 3rd spot, but honestly it's hard to feel that strongly about Barry vs Ewing because they are two entirely different players. Ewing's getting some voter love, and he clearly was a top tier defensive anchor who was a strong scorer at his peak.

The other two with votes so far are Baylor & Harden, and I'll just say I'm not considering them right now.

Aside from the players mentioned so far, Walt Frazier is likely the next on my list.

[Lakers LeBron]

Davis getting recognition is even stranger than Kawhi to me. He's been a star in 2014-20 period, but he missed 99 games in this period and outside of 2020 he has no playoffs resume. Do you really think that we didn't have any player in the league history that is more worthy considering...?

I think some people on this board - the ones voting for AD and Kawhi already - just started watching basketball in 2014.

If anything I would say this list isn't giving enough credit to modern players. Outside of LeBron, there's no one who peaked in the 2010s* in the top 20. While there are four players from the 60s and one from the 50s in the top 20 alone. Fans who actually started watching in 2014 would laugh at the idea of Curry and Durant not being top 15

*You could say Dirk peaked in 2011, but really the majority of his great seasons were in the 2000s and his statistical peak was 2006

[trex_8063]

Thru post #75:

Dwyane Wade - 11 (Baski, Doctor MJ, Dr Positivity, Dutchball97, iggymcfrack, Joao Saraiva, Jordan Syndrome, Odinn21, trex_8063, Whopper_Sr, ZeppelinPage)
James Harden - 2 (DQuinn1575, Magic Is Magic)
Patrick Ewing - 2 (Clyde Frazier, penbeast0)
John Havlicek - 1 (Cavsfansince84)
Elgin Baylor - 1 (Hal14)


Wow. Wade had been SUPER-close to winning in both the #26 and #27 thread. Now, I think a combination of ALL of his relevant competition being off the table and the re-appearance of a couple voters we've not heard from consistently [all going for Wade] has resulted in the biggest landslide victory I think we've had in the project so far.

Flash takes this one easily, and well-deserved (marginally OVERdue, imo, and this from someone who favours longevity).

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[Cavsfansince84]

Davis getting recognition is even stranger than Kawhi to me. He's been a star in 2014-20 period, but he missed 99 games in this period and outside of 2020 he has no playoffs resume. Do you really think that we didn't have any player in the league history that is more worthy considering...?

I think some people on this board - the ones voting for AD and Kawhi already - just started watching basketball in 2014.

If anything I would say this list isn't giving enough credit to modern players. Outside of LeBron, there's no one who peaked in the 2010s* in the top 20. While there are four players from the 60s and one from the 50s in the top 20 alone. Fans who actually started watching in 2014 would laugh at the idea of Curry and Durant not being top 15

*You could say Dirk peaked in 2011, but really the majority of his great seasons were in the 2000s and his statistical peak was 2006

True though Curry, KD and Harden are still in their primes and could easily end up with strong top 20 cases in 5-6 years. So its premature to make any judgements regarding where 2010's players will end up given all these other players finished their careers they are being compared to.

[Jordan Syndrome]

Wade wraps up this tier of players.

[Odinn21]

I'll whine about Wade getting in too late one last time because it just boggles my mind. Then I'll leave it alone.

I know that we're not using 2017 list as a baseline. It just doesn't make sense that;
Paul, Curry, Durant, Nash, all 4 jumped Wade.

First, two of those 4 do not surpass in Wade in prime duration. Curry and Nash.
Second, three of those 4 also had major durability issues. (We could include Nash as well but he managed to stay healthy enough in Phoenix.)
Third, none of them were as good as 2006, 2009 and 2010 Wade.

Overall career value is a good thing to consider but what's the point of penalizing the player that had the best sustained peak? Doesn't it count towards overall career value?

10 prime seasons of Stockton isn't as valuable as 6* prime seasons of Wade. (*8 minus 2 from 2005 to 2012) Not close enough. Nah, it's straight up not close.
And those 4 also had durability issues. When we look at it as "top 10 seasons between Wade and Nash/Paul/Curry/Durant", not only Wade doesn't lose, he wins with more top heavy results.

I mean, Garnett got voted in at #11 and for that tier of players his number of great seasons was so low. Yet he still got in. Interestingly, the very same people (at least many of them) who argued Garnett being almost top 10 ever, went with those 4 jumped + Stockton over Wade because Wade wasn't durable enough, thus he didn't have enough great seasons. But, despite his durability, he did.

Simply can't agree with Wade going from almost top 20 ever to barely making top 30 (28, if 30's not precise for some).

This is by far the worst decision this group of voters had and I very strongly disagreed with Erving making the top 20 just barely.

[penbeast0]

I think some people on this board - the ones posting comments like this - should actually try to read the arguments given and threat other people's opinions with respect. You don't see me saying all the people voting for Mikan in the top 20 are going senile either. Just because someone holds opinions that are different from yours doesn't mean you're better than them.

I am NOT going . . . um, where was I going?