Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor)

[70sFan]

I wanted to put these two points back together. First, let's look at Walton's teammates in '76-77 in terms of the type of player they were in their career from a bkref page.

These are the 5 other guys who played major minutes for the Blazers in the playoffs that year, order by who played most.
Next to their name I'm going to put details about their career:

1. Mo Lucas, 5-time all-star, legit defensive stud and tough guy, but also a generally inefficient lead scorer and shot taker who really shouldn't have been in that role on any NBA team.
2. Lionel Hollins, 1-time all-star, 2-time All-D, the next year again with Walton in Portland. Is the next main scorer after Lucas & Walton and is considerably less efficient than Lucas. Also basically shouldn't be used with the primacy he was used.
3. Bob Gross, non all-star but All-D in '77-78, only scored above 10 points twice - this year, and the next.
4. Johnny Davis, non all-star journeyman
5. Dave Twardzik, an all-star once in the ABA, but from here on out a guy playing mid-20s MPG.

That's the core. Now look, I'm not going to say that was a weak defensive supporting cast, though Walton's work is unimpeachable on that front, but offensively, remember that in '76-77 this was the #2 ORtg offense in the league out of 22 teams.

Does that look like a "stacked" offensive lineup around Walton to you?

It definitely doesn't look like a stacked offensive lineup, but teams like that are usually underrated at first glance. Lionel Hollins was legit good offensive player, Twardzik could play in his role as well as anyone, Lucas was excellent passer which you didn't mention and Portland also had very strong bench.

You dismiss my point about '78-79 by saying the Lakers were "poorly structured". Let's keep what we're talking about straight.

I'm saying that Walton's teammates weren't that talented, and your rebuttal for '78-79 was not to deny this but to blame "structure" for the difference in success. And what is structure? How the team plays. Well, yeah. That's the whole thing.

The structure isn't how team plays. It's how each player fit with another and Lakers team had terribly built roster - Wilkes and Dantley played in the starting lineup, so they didn't have PF. Nixon liked to shoot too much and the rest of the roster was simply weak. None of these players fit well with Kareem and they wouldn't fit well with Walton either.

The Blazers played differently than everyone else and this allowed Bill Walton to win a championship and lead a dominant team without a ton of help around him.

Because we're talking about an apples-to-oranges comparison it isn't straight forward how to say which player between Kareem and Walton deserves more credit. I prefer to say that Walton couldn't do what Kareem did and Kareem couldn't do what Walton did and thus it's really up to what you value more.

But it is also true that Walton's offenses literally seemed to be doing more with less than Kareem's while he was also flat out out playing Kareem on defense.

The problem is that Walton didn't have less than Kareem though - by Ben Taylor estimations, Blazers played at ~9th offense pace without Walton - the truth is that Ramsey built excellent system that Walton made better, but he wasn't necessary to make it work. Blazers look weak without Walton because of his defense, not his offense.

In short - you look at Blazers offense through "Walton made it work" lenses, but there is no reason to believe that. They did quite well without him in RS, they did well against the Supersonics in 1978 playoffs offensively and even in 1979 when the team already changed a lot, they were above average offensively.

Walton's famous impact on Portland is related to his defense, not offense.

It is also visible in 1976 before Portland got Ramsey - they were still very good defensively, but their offense sucked and Walton couldn't change that alone.

Eh, I would say the data seems to indicate to me that the '77 Blazer offense stood out more than the '70 Bucks offense, you're right it wasn't a big gap though.

Blazers were +3.8 offense in 1977 and 1978 in games Walton played in RS. Bucks were +3.1 which is worse of course, but then we should also talk more about playoffs offense which I will touch later.

First, as I've said, I don't think Walton could be a better Kareem than Kareem.

Just to be clear - I don't think Kareem could be better Walton either, they are much different players

Second, given that Walton was a better playmakers than Kareem or anyone else on either team, wouldn't that make it easier for his guards?

Not in 1977 case, seriously these guards were worse than anything I've seen in NBA playoffs history...

I'm curious how many playmakers you see on the '76-77 Blazers roster that were in the same ballpark as rookie Magic and old Oscar as playmakers.

None, but again - in games I've seen Oscar wasn't Oscar anymore in 1974. I don't want to completely reject his impact, but he wasn't good in playoffs.

I'd ask you why this specific thing matters to you though.

We're in clear disagreement of how good this Blazers team was offensively, that's why I think your arguments doesn't do Jabbar justice.

Re: "could overstate his abilities though". Please be specific. What is it you think I'm overstating?

Let me also make clear before you answer: I see the offense Ramsey ran as a reinvention of a pre-Mikan offense. A throwback to how teams used to play. I'm not trying to credit Walton with inventing the scheme, but the fact that Walton would be less effective in another scheme doesn't matter to me from an MVP perspective given that I don't see any reason to think that that scheme represented some unfair advantage. Ramsey built that scheme around Walton. It was the way to build around Walton. Other guys have schemes built around them too.

You can certainly argue that Kareem would do better with a better plan around him, and I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but it's no minor thing to build a Top 2 offense around any player who doesn't dictate the possession of the offense from the start.

Ramsey built offense around off-ball movement and fast pace, an offense that did very well without Walton. That's my point - I think you give Walton a bit too much credit for the Blazers results. I don't want to sound harsh on him, because he was the best offensive player on that team overall but the fact that Blazers didn't do badly at all without him shows that this system wasn't built around Walton, but it was built around overall roster structure. Walton's amazing passing ability certainly helped, but it wasn't the essence of this offense.

Second thing is that I think you overstate how good these Blazers teams were offensively. As I mentioned earlier, they were +3.8 with Walton in RS, which is excellent but nothing close to all-time great level. Of course Walton didn't have all-time great teammates so it's fair to be impressed, but Kareem did better than that in 3 prime seasons: 1971, 1972 and 1980 (1970 was close at +3.1 and 1974 at +3.5). I don't have the data for 1975 and 1978 team with Kareem, but I'd expect that 1978 Lakers were over +3 with him.

The bigger point is how well 1977 Blazers played in playoffs on offense and results weren't staggering - +2.1 offense is nice again, but Kareem topped that in 1970-72, 1974 and 1978-80. Even if we exclude years when Jabbar had clearly better supporting cast (and 1978 because that's only 3 games), that leaves us with 1970, 1972, 1974 and 1979. I don't think he had better supporting cast in any of these seasons and he faced ATG defenses in all of them.

So even if you want to say that Walton did more with less in RS (which is arguable), there is no proof that Walton was capable of carrying elite defense in playoffs, when Jabbar did that consistently.

I think that the whole argument for Walton here is on defensive side of the court.

[Doctor MJ]

I wanted to put these two points back together. First, let's look at Walton's teammates in '76-77 in terms of the type of player they were in their career from a bkref page.

These are the 5 other guys who played major minutes for the Blazers in the playoffs that year, order by who played most.
Next to their name I'm going to put details about their career:

1. Mo Lucas, 5-time all-star, legit defensive stud and tough guy, but also a generally inefficient lead scorer and shot taker who really shouldn't have been in that role on any NBA team.
2. Lionel Hollins, 1-time all-star, 2-time All-D, the next year again with Walton in Portland. Is the next main scorer after Lucas & Walton and is considerably less efficient than Lucas. Also basically shouldn't be used with the primacy he was used.
3. Bob Gross, non all-star but All-D in '77-78, only scored above 10 points twice - this year, and the next.
4. Johnny Davis, non all-star journeyman
5. Dave Twardzik, an all-star once in the ABA, but from here on out a guy playing mid-20s MPG.

That's the core. Now look, I'm not going to say that was a weak defensive supporting cast, though Walton's work is unimpeachable on that front, but offensively, remember that in '76-77 this was the #2 ORtg offense in the league out of 22 teams.

Does that look like a "stacked" offensive lineup around Walton to you?

It definitely doesn't look like a stacked offensive lineup, but teams like that are usually underrated at first glance. Lionel Hollins was legit good offensive player, Twardzik could play in his role as well as anyone, Lucas was excellent passer which you didn't mention and Portland also had very strong bench.

Hollins shot 47.7 TS% on a team where he was the 3rd option and you yourself have said it was a strong offensive structure. Think about that 70s. You're continuing to insist he was good while knocking Magic & Oscar. Come on dude.

"Twardzik could play his role as well as anyone". I mean, if you play a role well enough, don't we ant to play you more minutes? You're talking about a guy who never played 30 MPG and was out of the NBA before he turned 30, and you're trying to use him against Walton.

Re: Lucas was an excellent passer. Well passing was the strength of the team no doubt. Walton had more passing capability than anyone else combined of course, but he was not the only one excelling at passing in this passing-oriented attack.

You dismiss my point about '78-79 by saying the Lakers were "poorly structured". Let's keep what we're talking about straight.

I'm saying that Walton's teammates weren't that talented, and your rebuttal for '78-79 was not to deny this but to blame "structure" for the difference in success. And what is structure? How the team plays. Well, yeah. That's the whole thing.

The structure isn't how team plays. It's how each player fit with another and Lakers team had terribly built roster - Wilkes and Dantley played in the starting lineup, so they didn't have PF. Nixon liked to shoot too much and the rest of the roster was simply weak. None of these players fit well with Kareem and they wouldn't fit well with Walton either.

The '78-79 Lakers is what you get if you think all you need are individualist scorers like Kareem. And yeah, doesn't work that well.

Re: Wouldn't fit with Walton either. I mean, you could build an offense around Dantley with Walton filling in the gaps, meanwhile Walton improves the defense. I'm not saying I'd be in love with the roster, but you can't say "Horrible fit because they're all scorers" and then say "But it wouldn't be any better with a guy who was better at all aspects of the game than Kareem except scoring". You can argue they'd be worse with Walton than Kareem of course, but you can't just dismiss the notion of fit here as if it's a binary thing.

The Blazers played differently than everyone else and this allowed Bill Walton to win a championship and lead a dominant team without a ton of help around him.

Because we're talking about an apples-to-oranges comparison it isn't straight forward how to say which player between Kareem and Walton deserves more credit. I prefer to say that Walton couldn't do what Kareem did and Kareem couldn't do what Walton did and thus it's really up to what you value more.

But it is also true that Walton's offenses literally seemed to be doing more with less than Kareem's while he was also flat out out playing Kareem on defense.

The problem is that Walton didn't have less than Kareem though - by Ben Taylor estimations, Blazers played at ~9th offense pace without Walton - the truth is that Ramsey built excellent system that Walton made better, but he wasn't necessary to make it work. Blazers look weak without Walton because of his defense, not his offense.

In short - you look at Blazers offense through "Walton made it work" lenses, but there is no reason to believe that. They did quite well without him in RS, they did well against the Supersonics in 1978 playoffs offensively and even in 1979 when the team already changed a lot, they were above average offensively.

Walton's famous impact on Portland is related to his defense, not offense.

It is also visible in 1976 before Portland got Ramsey - they were still very good defensively, but their offense sucked and Walton couldn't change that alone.

Several things here:

1. I've said before that it's really worth analyzing Ramsay's scheme, how it worked and what it's limitations are. After all, if it worked so well that you could have a good offense without Walton, why the hell didn't the entire league shift to it? My feeling is that it's a system where once guys figure out how to play they get good at it, but it's tough to get started in the first place which is why even Ramsay didn't really try it until he had Walton (and he came to Portland specifically for the opportunity to coach Walton).

I think it's important to recognize Walton as essentially the best player to play in the style Portland played based on specific attributes like mental quickness.

2. The team utterly fell apart without Walton in '76-77 and '77-78. You're trying to argue that because the reason for that was defense not offense, and I get that's what certain stats say, but remember:

In '76-77 the Blazers were the best team in the world. Without Walton they went 5-12, which would have made them the 2nd worst team in the league.

In '77-78 the Blazers were the best team in the world by FAR. Without Walton they went 10-14.

You're essentially taking that data, chopping out the parts where Walton's impact is most evident, and then saying "See, he had way more help than Kareem!"

I'm uncomfortable with this sort of approach.

I was like most people: Skeptical that Walton could have actually been the Most Valuable Player in the league as contemporary experts named him. When I saw the in/out data, I understood what folks back then were noticing. Walton's apparent impact was HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE.

To look at that same data as a way to say "Eh, not really that impressive when you really dig down at X" to me seems like systematic confirmation bias.

Second, given that Walton was a better playmakers than Kareem or anyone else on either team, wouldn't that make it easier for his guards?

Not in 1977 case, seriously these guards were worse than anything I've seen in NBA playoffs history...

Again, it's not a binary thing. Saying "No, changes to offensive approach couldn't possibly change anything because these players were so bad that basketball strategy was irrelevant" just doesn't make sense.

I'm sure that at least part of what you're referring to here is the tendency for Laker guards to struggle against the Blazer press. What's the number one way to not only beat the press but make a defense realize that it's getting exploited?

Get out in transition with great passing. If you're on Walton's team, after he gets the rebound, you're expecting him to kick start the break. That's a huge advantage with beating the press.

Then in the half court, Walton's guards spend way less time with the ball than normal guards do.

Want to argue it wouldn't matter that much? Okay, but don't talk like it doesn't matter at all when Walton has basically the exact attributes you'd dream of to help teammates on stuff like this.

I'm curious how many playmakers you see on the '76-77 Blazers roster that were in the same ballpark as rookie Magic and old Oscar as playmakers.

None

Glad you can say that, but to be clear, the answer was probably one.

Bill Walton.

I'd ask you why this specific thing matters to you though.

We're in clear disagreement of how good this Blazers team was offensively, that's why I think your arguments doesn't do Jabbar justice.

What I mean is why are you insisting on looking at what a player would do in a scheme specifically not built for his strengths?

I understand you're saying "That's what Kareem had to deal with!", but in general I prefer to think first about what a player can do if he's being well used.

This is why I say you can argue that a better scheme for Kareem would have him more valuable than Walton, because doing so has the potential to resonate with me.

Saying "But if you put the best big man passer in a scheme where he doesn't get to do much passing he's not going to be as good" though doesn't resonate with me. It's in the same ballpark for me as "But if you make Shaq a corner 3-point shooter he wouldn't have much offensive value!". It's true, but it's not really a way to evaluate what Shaq actually did when used competently.

Re: "could overstate his abilities though". Please be specific. What is it you think I'm overstating?

Let me also make clear before you answer: I see the offense Ramsey ran as a reinvention of a pre-Mikan offense. A throwback to how teams used to play. I'm not trying to credit Walton with inventing the scheme, but the fact that Walton would be less effective in another scheme doesn't matter to me from an MVP perspective given that I don't see any reason to think that that scheme represented some unfair advantage. Ramsey built that scheme around Walton. It was the way to build around Walton. Other guys have schemes built around them too.

You can certainly argue that Kareem would do better with a better plan around him, and I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, but it's no minor thing to build a Top 2 offense around any player who doesn't dictate the possession of the offense from the start.

Ramsey built offense around off-ball movement and fast pace, an offense that did very well without Walton. That's my point - I think you give Walton a bit too much credit for the Blazers results. I don't want to sound harsh on him, because he was the best offensive player on that team overall but the fact that Blazers didn't do badly at all without him shows that this system wasn't built around Walton, but it was built around overall roster structure. Walton's amazing passing ability certainly helped, but it wasn't the essence of this offense.

Second thing is that I think you overstate how good these Blazers teams were offensively. As I mentioned earlier, they were +3.8 with Walton in RS, which is excellent but nothing close to all-time great level. Of course Walton didn't have all-time great teammates so it's fair to be impressed, but Kareem did better than that in 3 prime seasons: 1971, 1972 and 1980 (1970 was close at +3.1 and 1974 at +3.5). I don't have the data for 1975 and 1978 team with Kareem, but I'd expect that 1978 Lakers were over +3 with him.

The bigger point is how well 1977 Blazers played in playoffs on offense and results weren't staggering - +2.1 offense is nice again, but Kareem topped that in 1970-72, 1974 and 1978-80. Even if we exclude years when Jabbar had clearly better supporting cast (and 1978 because that's only 3 games), that leaves us with 1970, 1972, 1974 and 1979. I don't think he had better supporting cast in any of these seasons and he faced ATG defenses in all of them.

So even if you want to say that Walton did more with less in RS (which is arguable), there is no proof that Walton was capable of carrying elite defense in playoffs, when Jabbar did that consistently.

I think that the whole argument for Walton here is on defensive side of the court.

And what I'd emphasize is that Ramsay didn't invent this out of nothing.

From what I can see, this is more how teams actually played pre-NBA, meaning that the way Kareem was utilized is actually the more recent innovation, yet we wouldn't think to knock Kareem relative to his coach simply because the coach was using Kareem correctly.

Ramsay's method was a minority back then and is a minority today because most in the NBA think it would make the offense worse. Maybe they're wrong in their assessment, but it bothers me the notion that we're going to penalize a guy because he played in a scheme most see as a worse system simply because he led his team to proficiency with it.

Re: playoffs. A fair point to bring up certainly. I'll let that stand.

[70sFan]

Hollins shot 47.7 TS% on a team where he was the 3rd option and you yourself have said it was a strong offensive structure. Think about that 70s. You're continuing to insist he was good while knocking Magic & Oscar. Come on dude.

Fair enough, I didn't realize that Hollins was this inefficient. Point for you

"Twardzik could play his role as well as anyone". I mean, if you play a role well enough, don't we ant to play you more minutes? You're talking about a guy who never played 30 MPG and was out of the NBA before he turned 30, and you're trying to use him against Walton.

He was out of the league because he was small and injury prone - this combination doesn't give you long NBA career usually. Look at his stats in the NBA though:

9.5 ppg, 3.4 apg and 2.0 tov in 24.7 mpg on 55 FG%, 82 FT% and 64 TS%
He was 14/5 player per36 on ridiculous efficiency. The craziest thing is that he didn't regress in playoffs at all and he was one of the best players in 1977 finals. I know he wasn't all-time great, but you're acting like he was a scrub but in reality he was better than a lot of "stars":

Watch on YouTube

I'm not trying to use him "against" Walton, come on... We're better than this, I don't use anything against Walton - I already said that Walton was all-time great player at his best

Re: Lucas was an excellent passer. Well passing was the strength of the team no doubt. Walton had more passing capability than anyone else combined of course, but he was not the only one excelling at passing in this passing-oriented attack.

We're in agreement here

The '78-79 Lakers is what you get if you think all you need are individualist scorers like Kareem. And yeah, doesn't work that well.

Re: Wouldn't fit with Walton either. I mean, you could build an offense around Dantley with Walton filling in the gaps, meanwhile Walton improves the defense. I'm not saying I'd be in love with the roster, but you can't say "Horrible fit because they're all scorers" and then say "But it wouldn't be any better with a guy who was better at all aspects of the game than Kareem except scoring". You can argue they'd be worse with Walton than Kareem of course, but you can't just dismiss the notion of fit here as if it's a binary thing.

I don't say that they wouldn't fit next to Walton because they didn't with Kareem. It might be true that Walton would fit a bit better than Kareem on that team, but this team was the opposite of how Blazers played - Dantley and Nixon wouldn't play to Walton's strengths.

I don't think he'd solve their defensive problems either, even though he was better defender than 1979 Kareem.

1. I've said before that it's really worth analyzing Ramsay's scheme, how it worked and what it's limitations are. After all, if it worked so well that you could have a good offense without Walton, why the hell didn't the entire league shift to it? My feeling is that it's a system where once guys figure out how to play they get good at it, but it's tough to get started in the first place which is why even Ramsay didn't really try it until he had Walton (and he came to Portland specifically for the opportunity to coach Walton).

Why didn't other teams play like Celtics in the 1960s? Why didn't more teams play like the Knicks in the 1970s? I don't know the answer, but it's important to remember that perfect system doesn't exist and you have to create your system around players you have. Most players didn't have as well suited roster to play Ramsey basketball.

By the way, it's not the only team in NBA history which played that way. Bulls did that in the early 1970s for example.

2. The team utterly fell apart without Walton in '76-77 and '77-78. You're trying to argue that because the reason for that was defense not offense, and I get that's what certain stats say, but remember:

In '76-77 the Blazers were the best team in the world. Without Walton they went 5-12, which would have made them the 2nd worst team in the league.

In '77-78 the Blazers were the best team in the world by FAR. Without Walton they went 10-14.

You're essentially taking that data, chopping out the parts where Walton's impact is most evident, and then saying "See, he had way more help than Kareem!"

I'm uncomfortable with this sort of approach.

I was like most people: Skeptical that Walton could have actually been the Most Valuable Player in the league as contemporary experts named him. When I saw the in/out data, I understood what folks back then were noticing. Walton's apparent impact was HUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE.

To look at that same data as a way to say "Eh, not really that impressive when you really dig down at X" to me seems like systematic confirmation bias.

Wait, when did I say that Walton's impact wasn't huge? I always say that, I'm just in disagreement that it's because of his offense - it's his defense that was ground breaking.

By the way, Kareem showed similar lift in 1975 Bucks for example - so it's not like we don't have any evidences of Jabbar's team falling apart without him.

Again, it's not a binary thing. Saying "No, changes to offensive approach couldn't possibly change anything because these players were so bad that basketball strategy was irrelevant" just doesn't make sense.

I'm sure that at least part of what you're referring to here is the tendency for Laker guards to struggle against the Blazer press. What's the number one way to not only beat the press but make a defense realize that it's getting exploited?

Get out in transition with great passing. If you're on Walton's team, after he gets the rebound, you're expecting him to kick start the break. That's a huge advantage with beating the press.

Then in the half court, Walton's guards spend way less time with the ball than normal guards do.

Want to argue it wouldn't matter that much? Okay, but don't talk like it doesn't matter at all when Walton has basically the exact attributes you'd dream of to help teammates on stuff like this.

It could work if Kareem wasn't comparably good outlet passer, but he was. Sometimes it's tough to rebound the ball and make outlet passes when your teammates force you to contest every single shot inside though...

No, Walton wouldn't make 1977 Lakers better. Lakers desperately needed Jabbar's scoring and Walton wasn't good enough in that aspect to make it work.

Glad you can say that, but to be clear, the answer was probably one.

Bill Walton.

Well, of course

What I mean is why are you insisting on looking at what a player would do in a scheme specifically not built for his strengths?

I understand you're saying "That's what Kareem had to deal with!", but in general I prefer to think first about what a player can do if he's being well used.

This is why I say you can argue that a better scheme for Kareem would have him more valuable than Walton, because doing so has the potential to resonate with me.

Saying "But if you put the best big man passer in a scheme where he doesn't get to do much passing he's not going to be as good" though doesn't resonate with me. It's in the same ballpark for me as "But if you make Shaq a corner 3-point shooter he wouldn't have much offensive value!". It's true, but it's not really a way to evaluate what Shaq actually did when used competently.

I only mentioned this because Kareem didn't play in optimal environment in 1975-79 period. We've seen him in proper system in 1980 or in Milwaukee and his teams did spectacular things then.

And what I'd emphasize is that Ramsay didn't invent this out of nothing.

From what I can see, this is more how teams actually played pre-NBA, meaning that the way Kareem was utilized is actually the more recent innovation, yet we wouldn't think to knock Kareem relative to his coach simply because the coach was using Kareem correctly.

It's not about Kareem being used in not correct way - it's about Kareem being forced to play with incompetent rosters in 1975-77 period.

Ramsay's method was a minority back then and is a minority today because most in the NBA think it would make the offense worse. Maybe they're wrong in their assessment, but it bothers me the notion that we're going to penalize a guy because he played in a scheme most see as a worse system simply because he led his team to proficiency with it.

I don't think it's worse at all, it's just more complex system that requires certain type of roster. Some coaches prefer just giving the ball to superstar and hope it works. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. As I said - there is no ideal system.

Re: playoffs. A fair point to bring up certainly. I'll let that stand.

I'm glad to hear that

I also hope that you didn't come up with conclusion that I don't understand Walton's impact. Believe me, to me he's among the best basketball players ever when he was healthy. I think it's fine to argue him against Kareem (and any other player ever), I just disagree with taking him over Jabbar It's all subjective in the end at this point - we're comparing top 10 peaks ever basically.

[Doctor MJ]

Hollins shot 47.7 TS% on a team where he was the 3rd option and you yourself have said it was a strong offensive structure. Think about that 70s. You're continuing to insist he was good while knocking Magic & Oscar. Come on dude.

Fair enough, I didn't realize that Hollins was this inefficient. Point for you

"Twardzik could play his role as well as anyone". I mean, if you play a role well enough, don't we ant to play you more minutes? You're talking about a guy who never played 30 MPG and was out of the NBA before he turned 30, and you're trying to use him against Walton.

He was out of the league because he was small and injury prone - this combination doesn't give you long NBA career usually. Look at his stats in the NBA though:

9.5 ppg, 3.4 apg and 2.0 tov in 24.7 mpg on 55 FG%, 82 FT% and 64 TS%
He was 14/5 player per36 on ridiculous efficiency. The craziest thing is that he didn't regress in playoffs at all and he was one of the best players in 1977 finals. I know he wasn't all-time great, but you're acting like he was a scrub but in reality he was better than a lot of "stars":

Watch on YouTube

I'm not trying to use him "against" Walton, come on... We're better than this, I don't use anything against Walton - I already said that Walton was all-time great player at his best

Really appreciate the video in particular! I'll also say up front that I'm not going to address all your points, but I appreciate your earnest communication.

Re: not using players against Walton. But in a very real sense, you are. It's fine for you to say "I'm just talking about context", but you're bringing the context up in a particular direction. Not saying you're an awful person for doing this, but you have made a point to talk up Walton's supporting cast while arguing that Walton wasn't as impressive as some (like myself) think.

1. I've said before that it's really worth analyzing Ramsay's scheme, how it worked and what it's limitations are. After all, if it worked so well that you could have a good offense without Walton, why the hell didn't the entire league shift to it? My feeling is that it's a system where once guys figure out how to play they get good at it, but it's tough to get started in the first place which is why even Ramsay didn't really try it until he had Walton (and he came to Portland specifically for the opportunity to coach Walton).

Why didn't other teams play like Celtics in the 1960s? Why didn't more teams play like the Knicks in the 1970s? I don't know the answer, but it's important to remember that perfect system doesn't exist and you have to create your system around players you have. Most players didn't have as well suited roster to play Ramsey basketball.

Wanted to dwell on this for a second.

Remember, Ramsay came to Portland to coach Walton, and devised this scheme around Walton. When you speak to the entire roster playing in this way, I think it's really important to this is something that developed in the way of the Ramsay/Walton model, not the other way around.

Might you be able to argue that Walton benefit by having more GM/coach competence around him than most? Sure, but as I say, I think it's a real problem in general to look at this stuff as a zero-sum game. Competence around Walton is what he should be able to expect to have.

By contrast, incompetence around Kareem is a reasonable topic of conversation. If we weren't able to see Kareem as his most effective because he wasn't being used properly, including team construction, this is far more relevant to me than trying to hold Walton's coach/GM arguably doing a great job.

But I'll also say, I just look at Walton's teammates and by and large I think "I don't see how this cane be seen as a drastic advantage". ElGee has often said that from his analysis you generally need to have a team that can basically play .500 ball without you in order to win titles. The fact that Walton led by far the best team of the second half of the '70s without a supporting cast like this is pretty astonishing to me.

I also hope that you didn't come up with conclusion that I don't understand Walton's impact. Believe me, to me he's among the best basketball players ever when he was healthy. I think it's fine to argue him against Kareem (and any other player ever), I just disagree with taking him over Jabbar It's all subjective in the end at this point - we're comparing top 10 peaks ever basically.

This is a good note to close on.

I do think you understand the essence of what Walton was doing out there 70s, and I don't think it's impossible to understand that and still rank Kareem ahead.

I think the ugly part though comes when we try to make arguments in the player ranking. To anyone who doesn't understand Walton, hearing arguments about Walton's great supporting cast paints a picture that gives the wrong idea of what was going on out there.

[sansterre]

I just wrote up the '77 Blazers for my project, so I feel like I can weigh in a little.

In the box score stats, Kareem smokes Walton hard, whether in the regular season, in the playoffs, or in the WCF. This isn't a matter for discussion. For Walton to be comparable to Kareem it needs to be in stuff that's not in the box score, which is to say, defense.

However, Walton's With/Without numbers are insane. We're talking 10+ point MoV swings in both '77 and '78. The Blazers didn't have much in the way of backup bigs, but still. It's hard to know how seriously to take it (because such number are stupid volatile). But if those numbers are legit, then we are definitely talking impact in the same realm as Kareem.

Of course the easy way to test this would be to compare it to Kareem's With/Without numbers. Then you realize that Kareem didn't miss a single game in '77. If we try the same experiment with Kareem in '78 (he missed 20 games) you get:

With Kareem 37-25, +4.0
Without Kareem 8-12, -1.5

A big swing, not a Walton-level swing.

So, for me, my position comes down to the following:

Given how insane the swing between having and not having Walton was the the Blazers in '77 and '78, it is *not* irresponsible to suggest that their peaks are comparable on the court. The giant asterisk is that Walton could never stay on the court. If Kareem's peak was literally no better than "Walton if he could have stayed on the court for 10-12 straight years" that sounds pretty damned good to me.

I still lean toward the more quantifiable and favor Kareem, but I've definitely been persuaded of Walton's value, and that I could well be wrong.

[70sFan]

Thank you for nice discussion Doctor MJ! We often disagree, but this kind of disagreement is the essence of my existence on this board

I can't wait for Magic video by the way. I'm surprised that Ben decided to use 1987-89 period without 1990.

[70sFan]

With Kareem 37-25, +4.0
Without Kareem 8-12, -1.5

A big swing, not a Walton-level swing.

If you make the calculation for 1975 Bucks, then Kareem looks Walton-esque.

[freethedevil]

Passing is simply an aspect of creation, Bird's pure passing doesn't really matter when curry creates more.

How would Curry create more if they were both in the modern NBA or both in the mid-80's? You can't compare Curry in today's NBA with Bird in the mid 80's because that's comparing apples and oranges.
Are you trying to make a time machine argument? For a player from the mid 80's? seriously?

I was comparing their relative to era impact, but okay, we can do the time machine argument. It just makes this easier for curry.

1. Curry is a VASTLY more dangerous shooting threat so he draws far more defensive attention and can draw that attention all over the court. Only some defenses even bothered to try and cover bird at three. Curry doesn't need to be as good of a 'pure passer' to create more because, well he draws more defensive attention. Reminder, bird only shot 34% from deep against good defenses, iow those that were bothering to guard him.


On top of that curry is FAR QUICKER which means, not only is he drawing more defensive attention, but trying to mark him stretches defenses alot more than tying to cover bird.

2. Since you want to do a time machine argument, its time to remind everyone the talent pool the league picked form in 2003 was more than twice as big as what the league was picknig from in 1991(courtesy trex). Bird gets worse facing better talent.

3. Curry created shots are often more than double his recorded assists.

In Game 2 of the 19 finals he created..17 open shots.. and only recorded 2 assists on a single turnover.

We've seen that hin the plauoffs, curry assists a similar or higher percentage of his team's shot than bird does(note this is % so its era/team relative).

We know bird gets a much higher percentage of his creation from passing than curry does, so even relative to era, curry is creating signifcantly more.

There's zero reason to hink bird would somehow get better relative to curry if we transported him into the 2000's, so I really dont know why you're compalining about "apples to orange."

Whether its era relative or absolute, curry creates more.



Bird attracted significant double teams, in fact markedly more than Curry does and if he shot 5-6 threes per game he would likely create incredible spacing ala Dirk as well when he put himself further from the basket. Combine that with his GOAT passing and I can't see how Curry comes close to him as an overall creator.
Bird, shot 34% from three when guarded on absolutely paltry volume. So no actually, I don't think bird doubling his volume (remember effiency tends oto go down with increased volume) is going to turn him into a good shooter from deep.
Bird isn't the goat passer. So that's probably a good place to start.
Maybe I'm missing a piece of your argument. Please enlighten me.
Bird, Nash are clearly better passers via both eye and passer rating, and pass prod.(volume of passes) and kill bird in creation metrics while creating almost solely from passes.

The warriors without kd --were a itle contender-- and actually won a title and made multiple finals. The warriors also 'were not affected by Kd' and the warriors were in trouble against a 41 win team before curry returned and played like a 48 win team without him.

Everything that can be said of bird here, can be said of curry exacept curry's teams were arguably better, even if we take out durant from the equation.

Actually the Warriors without KD have to be one of the most historically overrated teams and I don't say that lightly. Th 2015/2016 Warriors were definitely a very very good team but their level invariably dropped in the playoffs.
I could care less about whether they're dropped a level or not. They're not being comapred to their rs selves, they're being compared to bird's celtics
One part of me has to think that if Kyrie and Love were healthy in 2015 that the Warriors pre-KD would not have won a championship.
Given that the 16 finals was far closer than the 15 finals, i really dont know how you can question the 15 chip without awarding them the 16 chip. Curry had an injury which, according to professionsals, requires months to heal and which forced curry to get surgery. Draymond was suspended for a crucuial close out game, and the series came down to a couple of possessions.

Either they won in 15, or they won in 16. Either way they, at the minimum, were good enough to win oen ring, and get very close of a second one.
I know that this kind of injury what-if can be done for almost any team but between going 6 games against the Grizzlies and crippled Cavs and then going 7 games against the Thunder and Cavs the following year I'm not convinced they were an invincible juggernaut.
The thunder played 65 win basketball when helathy and beat a 70- win team en route to the conference finals. Beating okc while not at full strength sort of implies they actually were legit. You mention the the cavs in 15 but ignore how they had a very good cleveland team dead to rights before a bunch of things happened indepednent of curry's play.

Then in 19, a deep gutted version of those warriors nearly went to game 7 against a toronto team that

-> played 50-60 win basketball
-> made the conference final and second round

AND THEN

-> traded an ineffecient scorer for a top tier rim protector
-> switched out a bad coach for arguably the best coach in the league
-> added a better version of durant in kawhi
-> saw siakim and their bench signifcantly improve
-> beat a bucks team that as of that pioint had completely romped the regula season and the playoffs



I just think they throttled all the weak teams in the regular season and the fact that they chased an ultimately meaningless 73-9 regular record made people oversell their dominance. I think a lot of championship teams could match what the pre-KD Warriors did.
Okay? What does this have to with bird?
With that being said...

Curry was more impactful on the Warriors than Durant was. The Warriors' form with Curry/no Durant and with Durant/no Curry clearly shows that. However the Warriors dependence on Draymond Green is also shown quite well in impact stats.

Good thing Curry was incredibly impactful on the mark jackson warriors rivalling peak RS KD. Not that draymodn being good is mutally exclusive with curry being good. Even if draymodn was thereotically a better player than curry, it wouldn't really be relevant to bird, because the warriors without curry wer eby no measure better than the celtics without bird. It would just mean all the other pieces suck.
When Curry is predictably doubled at 25 feet from the basket, Green is the guy with the court vision to take advantage of a 4-on-3 situation. From 14-15 to 16-17 Green has unreal ON/OFF impact on the Warriors... Without him on the floor, Curry can be taken care off by forcing the ball out of his hands on the perimeter especially if the clock is running low and forcing someone else to make a play. Not that Curry is a one-trick pony because he can finish at the basket but he does the lion's share of his damage from the 3pt line.
We've seen curry play extremely well without draymond klay in a backewards scheme. The Jackson warriors were able to challenge contenders in the playoffs, knocking off a 55 win nuggets team in 6 off a curry series that even just bball referencing it looks as good as any of bird's(never mind off-ball creation). The celtics without mchale weren't clearly better than the jackson warriors.
Take that away and he's merely very good instead of great.
Curry's three year aupm from 13-15 kills guys like dwade, kd, kobe, cp3, nash, ect, ect. And his regular seasons rivalled peak rs durant.

So no, Actually, I'm inclined to think curry was great without dray, but yes, then he got a good team and he elevated them to titles and knocked off title worthy teams while injured.

You do not need the kd warriors to make the case for curry vs bird.

[Djoker]

@freethedevil

This 34% against good defenses that you and Ben Taylor are citing... From how many games is this data? Bird in his 5-year peak took 860 3pt shots in total which is less than what Curry took in one season in 15-16. On one hand the higher volume is an argument for Curry but on the other hand Bird's sample sizes are too small to use as strong evidence; especially if we're looking at a few opponents we might be looking at 100-200 3pt shots taken which is tiny sample size that could very well underrepresent his shooting ability. I'm inclined to believe this is the case because from the footage I've seen Bird is more than capable of hitting 3pt shots at an elite clip. The man took part in 3 consecutive 3pt shooting contests and won all of them. I won't believe for a second that he's a 34% 3pt shooter. He's definitely a lot closer to Curry than he is to Lebron. I think his average of 40% across his 5 peak seasons is what you can realistically expect and if he's making 3-4 a game at a minimum because he would shoot those a lot more today he would create SIGNIFICANT gravity ala Dirk. Plus Dirk also created gravity with 2pt shots which Bird was equally deadly with. You couldn't leave Bird open anywhere on the court and not suffer really.

As for AST% I already said that Curry being a primary ballhandler has the ball in his hands more meaning he has more opportunities to make passes. AST% measures the number of assists per possessions used but not assists per time of possession. Curry has much higher time of possessions.

I don't want to discuss the Warriors anymore except to say that the 1986 Celtics are widely considered the greatest team ever. Not sure what you meant by saying "they're being compared to Bird's Celtics". I think most people would consider the 1986 Celtics a better all-time team than the 2015 or 2016 Warriors. My point simply was that I can't consider a team a GOAT-level team when they are taken to two 6-game and two 7-game series over the course of two postseasons. And we all know what we saw. The no-KD Warriors didn't lose to historical juggernauts. You won't see the 2016 Cavs (or 2019 Raptors who they faced without KD) anywhere among the greatest teams ever.

[LukaTheGOAT]

With Kareem 37-25, +4.0
Without Kareem 8-12, -1.5

A big swing, not a Walton-level swing.

If you make the calculation for 1975 Bucks, then Kareem looks Walton-esque.

Looking at 75 Kareem, he has a WOWY score of 3.6. He has a PWins of 49 and SRS of 2.6 in and a SRS change of 7.1.

78 Bill Walton has the highest WOWY score on record I believe. He has a score of 9.1. He has a PWins of 64. He had a SRS in of 8.5 and a SRS change of 9.7

Walton has a sample of about 10 more games, but there is still a noticeable gap between them.

[DQuinn1575]

2. Since you want to do a time machine argument, its time to remind everyone the talent pool the league picked form in 2003 was more than twice as big as what the league was picknig from in 1991(courtesy trex). Bird gets worse facing better talent.

THis is just plain wrong.
US Population age 25-34 in 1990 is 43,2 million
US Population age 25-34 in 2000 is 39.8 million

So about 8% LESS people - but international impact, let's say 20% more (make up another number if you like, I'm sure I'm not right but not real real far wrong)- so that makes it 43.2 versus an equivalent 48 - so the talent pool might be 10% more or so.

The baby boom means lots of people were born between 1946-1980, and there were more people of basketball playing age in 1990 than in 2000 or 2010. and 1980 has almost has many as 2010

[LukaTheGOAT]

The Magid vid has come out for everyone

Watch on YouTube

[70sFan]

I think that Ben overstated Magic's problems on defense in comparison to Bird, but I agree with the conclusion that Magic has a strong case for GOAT offensive player taking everything into account. I also wish he spent more time on his post game, but maybe it's just my fetish

[limbo]

So who's left? Judging by the intro i'm seeing Jordan, Hakeem, Shaq, Duncan, KG and LeBron... Which seems reasonable enough.

I don't think he'll do Curry, though if he included Walton, who knows...

[LukaTheGOAT]

So who's left? Judging by the intro i'm seeing Jordan, Hakeem, Shaq, Duncan, KG and LeBron... Which seems reasonable enough.

I don't think he'll do Curry, though if he included Walton, who knows...

I'm certain he is going to do 2016 and 2017 Curry. Curry was in the trailer and he is super high on him.

[DQuinn1575]

I think that Ben overstated Magic's problems on defense in comparison to Bird, but I agree with the conclusion that Magic has a strong case for GOAT offensive player taking everything into account. I also wish he spent more time on his post game, but maybe it's just my fetish

I agree he spent too much time on his defense, i think for 87-89 he covered his post game about right. I think he should have mentioned how Magic improved a lot in his outside shooting during his career

[WestGOAT]

Some nice graphs by Elgee in this video, including:


Has he made these stats freely available, or given the formulas to calculate these stats (Box Creation and Passer Rating)?

Also how does he measure spacing?

Edit:
Did some googling; Box creation (https://fansided.com/2017/08/11/nylon-calculus-measuring-creation-box-score/) and Passer Rating (behind Patron paywall I believe).

Westrbrook 2017 being number 1 in Box creation, on one hand, makes sense, but he should definitely have penalized him some way considering how ball dominant he was.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Some nice graphs by Elgee in this video, including:


Has he made these stats freely available, or given the formulas to calculate these stats (Box Creation and Passer Rating)?

Also how does he measure spacing?

Edit:
Did some googling; Box creation (https://fansided.com/2017/08/11/nylon-calculus-measuring-creation-box-score/) and Passer Rating (behind Patron paywall I believe).

Westrbrook 2017 being number 1 in Box creation, on one hand, makes sense, but he should definitely have penalized him some way considering how ball dominant he was.

I don't think Ben is particularly impressed by Westbrook's box-creation considering he rates 2017 Westbrook the exact same as 2016 Westbrook on offense and defense.

[LukaTheGOAT]

I'm not going to spoil it but after watching Michael Jordan's GOAT Peak's vid, I can already tell some people might have some issue with how he describes Jordan's defense and the final conclusion he comes to. Nonetheless, the vid was excellent and probably the most extensive deep dive we have gotten yet.

[Jaivl]

This is just great, great stuff every single time; the hightlight of my thursdays. Which makes the prologue ever the more dissapointing.