RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #37 (George Gervin)

[Doctor MJ]

DeRozan? Maravich?

So as I'm saying, my statement wasn't really about "If you're DeRozan bad then I don't care about you."

That said, I literally think Danny Green has had a more worthwhile career than either DeRozan or Maravich.
Not saying Green should get Top 100 consideration though because he's nowhere close, only that if we made the project long enough, I'd vote in Green before I voted in the other two.

So Green really benefits because we probably see best case for him - maybe 4th best player on a championship team. Maravich was never in that situation, so dont really know how he would do if teamed with 3 players better than him.

And on the reverse, Maravich took a 2nd year awful expansion team to a near 500 record in 1975 - No way Danny Green takes that team anywhere near that. I don't really know how to look at seasons like that.

We've certainly seen Maravich with 3 or more teammates better at basketball than him. Dude went to the best offense in the league as a rookie and disrupted everything.

But that's really not the big point now that I think about it. The big point is that I don't rank player overall simply based on their ability to play alpha. It matters a good deal to me if you can play a valuable role on a championship team, and most of those roles are not alphas.

[Hal14]

1. Gervin
2. Miller
3. Leonard

[70sFan]

Rookie Maravich was clearly worse than prime Lou Hudson, Bill Bridges and old Walt Bellamy. I'd also argue that Walt Hazzard was better.

[Owly]

So as I'm saying, my statement wasn't really about "If you're DeRozan bad then I don't care about you."

That said, I literally think Danny Green has had a more worthwhile career than either DeRozan or Maravich.
Not saying Green should get Top 100 consideration though because he's nowhere close, only that if we made the project long enough, I'd vote in Green before I voted in the other two.

So Green really benefits because we probably see best case for him - maybe 4th best player on a championship team. Maravich was never in that situation, so dont really know how he would do if teamed with 3 players better than him.

And on the reverse, Maravich took a 2nd year awful expansion team to a near 500 record in 1975 - No way Danny Green takes that team anywhere near that. I don't really know how to look at seasons like that.

We've certainly seen Maravich with 3 or more teammates better at basketball than him. Dude went to the best offense in the league as a rookie and disrupted everything.

But that's really not the big point now that I think about it. The big point is that I don't rank player overall simply based on their ability to play alpha. It matters a good deal to me if you can play a valuable role on a championship team, and most of those roles are not alphas.

I think Maravich is as overrated, or at least has been, as the next guy. That said "went to the best offense" and "disrupted everything" is an interesting framing.

1) Other changing pieces: Caldwell out to ABA (I think an off-ball energy wing, i.e. not a Maravich shaped hole, coming off somewhat of an outlier peak year in PER, offensive win shares and TS% - 2nd on the team in all the above), other edge of rotation changes
2) Best offense: Yes but ... Caldwell gone, narrowly so, overall a thin spread league, 5th the year prior with Beaty so maybe a touch lucky ...
3) He did it: Did he pull down their FT%? His was circa 12% better than Caldwell's broadly similar number of attempts. Three of the top 5ft% guys are gone from last year (all fringe rotation), one similar % guy added, Bellamy functionally arrives (for full season) and shoots circa 60%; Hudson, Hazzard, Bridges, Davis (3-6 in attempts, Maravich being 2, Bellamy 1) all drop in % significantly (I think I've looked at this before but can't find it). The fg% drop is worse than a 2nd rank to 3rd rank would have you believe but not catastrophic. What I'm saying is you'd want to look closer at the parts, which isn't always possible but at least try. What is plausible that his poor fit (functionally replacing Pogo Joe, but wanting to be a lead/high primacy playmaker guard on a team that already has a point, and shunts Hudson up to forward) meant less offensive boards (and less transition points off steals) and that he was turnover prone.
4) Consistency: Are we saying he improved their D?

Rookie Maravich was a poor fit, likely a sloppy, harmful (like most rookies) player and had a lot of baggage (high paid, high endorsed, "great white hope", "next West") that didn't help him integrate. Saying he did the damage the leagues best offense seems a bit much/harsh/one-sided though (undersells Caldwell; shooting esp ft%; fit; morale factors outside his control).

Sorry for the tangent. And insofar as this was an opportunity to "fit in" I think it is probably fair to say he failed (albeit (a) rookie (b) fitting into a non-Maravich shaped hole ... though maybe there aren't many such holes and that's the point and he arguably walked away from the chance to fill one not wanting to come off the bench for a full year and so retiring in Boston, iirc).

[trex_8063]

Update: Kawhi is definitely out. Still haven't heard from one of the original 12 on his opinion, but of the 11 we have heard from, Reggie leads Kawhi by a solid margin of 8-3 (Kawhi also loses to Gervin 8-4, fwiw).

It's still undecided between Reggie and Gervin. I only have 9 of 12 voters heard from on this (Reggie leading 5-4 so far). Still need to hear from euroleague, Joao Saraiva, and Magic Is Magic on choice between Reggie and Gervin. As soon as you can, please.

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[Dutchball97]

I still find it a bit odd how Kawhi's longevity is a problem to some but those same people have no problem with Gervin's longevity. Sure he is a 12 time All-Star but he really didn't do much in the play-offs. I understand teammates play a part and I'm not saying he should have multiple rings but there are guys like Kawhi, Reggie Miller, IT etc who did so much more in the play-offs that I'm having a hard time even seeing Gervin as a comparable player.

[Doctor MJ]

So Green really benefits because we probably see best case for him - maybe 4th best player on a championship team. Maravich was never in that situation, so dont really know how he would do if teamed with 3 players better than him.

And on the reverse, Maravich took a 2nd year awful expansion team to a near 500 record in 1975 - No way Danny Green takes that team anywhere near that. I don't really know how to look at seasons like that.

We've certainly seen Maravich with 3 or more teammates better at basketball than him. Dude went to the best offense in the league as a rookie and disrupted everything.

But that's really not the big point now that I think about it. The big point is that I don't rank player overall simply based on their ability to play alpha. It matters a good deal to me if you can play a valuable role on a championship team, and most of those roles are not alphas.

I think Maravich is as overrated, or at least has been, as the next guy. That said "went to the best offense" and "disrupted everything" is an interesting framing.

1) Other changing pieces: Caldwell out to ABA (I think an off-ball energy wing, i.e. not a Maravich shaped hole, coming off somewhat of an outlier peak year in PER, offensive win shares and TS% - 2nd on the team in all the above), other edge of rotation changes
2) Best offense: Yes but ... Caldwell gone, narrowly so, overall a thin spread league, 5th the year prior with Beaty so maybe a touch lucky ...
3) He did it: Did he pull down their FT%? His was circa 12% better than Caldwell's broadly similar number of attempts. Three of the top 5ft% guys are gone from last year (all fringe rotation), one similar % guy added, Bellamy functionally arrives (for full season) and shoots circa 60%; Hudson, Hazzard, Bridges, Davis (3-6 in attempts, Maravich being 2, Bellamy 1) all drop in % significantly (I think I've looked at this before but can't find it). The fg% drop is worse than a 2nd rank to 3rd rank would have you believe but not catastrophic. What I'm saying is you'd want to look closer at the parts, which isn't always possible but at least try. What is plausible that his poor fit (functionally replacing Pogo Joe, but wanting to be a lead/high primacy playmaker guard on a team that already has a point, and shunts Hudson up to forward) meant less offensive boards (and less transition points off steals) and that he was turnover prone.
4) Consistency: Are we saying he improved their D?

Rookie Maravich was a poor fit, likely a sloppy, harmful (like most rookies) player and had a lot of baggage (high paid, high endorsed, "great white hope", "next West") that didn't help him integrate. Saying he did the damage the leagues best offense seems a bit much/harsh/one-sided though (undersells Caldwell; shooting esp ft%; fit; morale factors outside his control).

Sorry for the tangent. And insofar as this was an opportunity to "fit in" I think it is probably fair to say he failed (albeit (a) rookie (b) fitting into a non-Maravich shaped hole ... though maybe there aren't many such holes and that's the point and he arguably walked away from the chance to fill one not wanting to come off the bench for a full year and so retiring in Boston, iirc).

C'mon, when you hand a ball to a rookie and say "Do your thing", it's probably going to be worse than the #1 offense in the league, which is what the team had before. The crazy thing here isn't that Maravich wasn't that good as a rookie, the crazy thing is that Atlanta really didn't care about being good, what they saw was an opportunity to connect with white Southerners.

If that strikes you as too cynical, I'll just say that I've read stuff directly to this effect. Something from the owner like "Of course I want you to make the team good, but if you get a chance to get that Maravich kid, I need you to go get him because he'll put butts in seats."

It's interesting that handing teams over to rookies who team hope will become superstars is something that NBA teams have always done, so it's not that weird really that Maravich had major primacy while not being that effective as a rookie. What's weird is that the team had just had the best offense in the league built around Lou Hudson, and they were more interested in Maravich than they were in capitalizing on the on-court success they already had.

Re: Lost Caldwell. Didn't they lose Caldwell after they acquired Maravich because the Hawks weren't willing to pay Caldwell more after they gave Maravich a huge contract? Regardless, if Maravich were a player worth talking about, he should make up the difference and then some, no?

Re: Did he make them shoot worse at FT%? Honestly I don't have a lot of patience with trying to make excuses here. The Hawks made major changes to their roster construction and offensive approach to accommodate Maravich, their offense got a lot worse immediately and never got back to the elite level it was before despite the fact they still had their lead offensive player from before.

We got on this thread because of a notion that Maravich didn't get to play with good teammates. This is what people thought at the time, but they were flat out wrong. They didn't have access to the data we do now, and that data has everything to do with why we can know definitively otherwise.

[Doctor MJ]

I still find it a bit odd how Kawhi's longevity is a problem to some but those same people have no problem with Gervin's longevity. Sure he is a 12 time All-Star but he really didn't do much in the play-offs. I understand teammates play a part and I'm not saying he should have multiple rings but there are guys like Kawhi, Reggie Miller, IT etc who did so much more in the play-offs that I'm having a hard time even seeing Gervin as a comparable player.

I'm not sure why you'd see these things as related. If you think Kawhi's just a better player in part because of his playoff success, cool, but Gervin was what he was for a long time, hence, longevity is definitively not an issue for him.

[nolang1]

I still find it a bit odd how Kawhi's longevity is a problem to some but those same people have no problem with Gervin's longevity. Sure he is a 12 time All-Star but he really didn't do much in the play-offs. I understand teammates play a part and I'm not saying he should have multiple rings but there are guys like Kawhi, Reggie Miller, IT etc who did so much more in the play-offs that I'm having a hard time even seeing Gervin as a comparable player.

I'm not sure why you'd see these things as related. If you think Kawhi's just a better player in part because of his playoff success, cool, but Gervin was what he was for a long time, hence, longevity is definitively not an issue for him.

He wasn't the exact same player his whole career. If you're saying that Gervin at age 30+ was less efficient and more of an empty calories one-dimensional scorer who didn't do very well in the playoffs, then his extra longevity didn't contribute anything of much importance to make up for Kawhi having a much higher peak.

[Doctor MJ]

I still find it a bit odd how Kawhi's longevity is a problem to some but those same people have no problem with Gervin's longevity. Sure he is a 12 time All-Star but he really didn't do much in the play-offs. I understand teammates play a part and I'm not saying he should have multiple rings but there are guys like Kawhi, Reggie Miller, IT etc who did so much more in the play-offs that I'm having a hard time even seeing Gervin as a comparable player.

I'm not sure why you'd see these things as related. If you think Kawhi's just a better player in part because of his playoff success, cool, but Gervin was what he was for a long time, hence, longevity is definitively not an issue for him.

He wasn't the exact same player his whole career. If you're saying that Gervin at age 30+ was less efficient and more of an empty calories one-dimensional scorer who didn't do very well in the playoffs, then his extra longevity didn't contribute anything of much importance to make up for Kawhi having a much higher peak.

Again, I'm not saying that anyone has to have Gervin > Kawhi because of longevity, I'm just saying it really doesn't make sense to attack a guy's longevity because he didn't play on top contenders who went deep into the playoffs. That's potentially a reason to knock him as a player, but it says nothing about, say, his health and aging.

[Dutchball97]

I still find it a bit odd how Kawhi's longevity is a problem to some but those same people have no problem with Gervin's longevity. Sure he is a 12 time All-Star but he really didn't do much in the play-offs. I understand teammates play a part and I'm not saying he should have multiple rings but there are guys like Kawhi, Reggie Miller, IT etc who did so much more in the play-offs that I'm having a hard time even seeing Gervin as a comparable player.

I'm not sure why you'd see these things as related. If you think Kawhi's just a better player in part because of his playoff success, cool, but Gervin was what he was for a long time, hence, longevity is definitively not an issue for him.

The longevity is there for the regular season but how many good play-off runs does he have? I count just one in 1979. It just seems a bit underwhelming for a top 40 player ever.

[nolang1]

I'm not sure why you'd see these things as related. If you think Kawhi's just a better player in part because of his playoff success, cool, but Gervin was what he was for a long time, hence, longevity is definitively not an issue for him.

He wasn't the exact same player his whole career. If you're saying that Gervin at age 30+ was less efficient and more of an empty calories one-dimensional scorer who didn't do very well in the playoffs, then his extra longevity didn't contribute anything of much importance to make up for Kawhi having a much higher peak.

Again, I'm not saying that anyone has to have Gervin > Kawhi because of longevity, I'm just saying it really doesn't make sense to attack a guy's longevity because he didn't play on top contenders who went deep into the playoffs. That's potentially a reason to knock him as a player, but it says nothing about, say, his health and aging.

It would be more attacking his longevity because he had a ~0 BPM in games he played while older than Kawhi, so if you think Kawhi's accomplished more than Gervin did up to age 29 it's not like he did that much afterwards to change anyone's mind. That's definitely not too crazy if you place substantially more weight on seasons where someone was a top 5-10 player rather than a lower-level all-star (or even maybe an undeserving all-star some years who got chosen for volume scoring).

[Doctor MJ]

I still find it a bit odd how Kawhi's longevity is a problem to some but those same people have no problem with Gervin's longevity. Sure he is a 12 time All-Star but he really didn't do much in the play-offs. I understand teammates play a part and I'm not saying he should have multiple rings but there are guys like Kawhi, Reggie Miller, IT etc who did so much more in the play-offs that I'm having a hard time even seeing Gervin as a comparable player.

I'm not sure why you'd see these things as related. If you think Kawhi's just a better player in part because of his playoff success, cool, but Gervin was what he was for a long time, hence, longevity is definitively not an issue for him.

The longevity is there for the regular season but how many good play-off runs does he have? I count just one in 1979. It just seems a bit underwhelming for a top 40 player ever.

Again, if you're talking about "longevity" in terms of him continuing to do his thing for a long time, it doesn't make sense to bring this up.

I'm not saying you can't be a Gervin skeptic based on what you don't see in the playoffs, but when you talk as if "longevity" is the issue, that's specifically a criticism of his inability to sustain his play rather than a criticism of his play. If that's not what you're looking to criticize, use a different word.

[Doctor MJ]

He wasn't the exact same player his whole career. If you're saying that Gervin at age 30+ was less efficient and more of an empty calories one-dimensional scorer who didn't do very well in the playoffs, then his extra longevity didn't contribute anything of much importance to make up for Kawhi having a much higher peak.

Again, I'm not saying that anyone has to have Gervin > Kawhi because of longevity, I'm just saying it really doesn't make sense to attack a guy's longevity because he didn't play on top contenders who went deep into the playoffs. That's potentially a reason to knock him as a player, but it says nothing about, say, his health and aging.

It would be more attacking his longevity because he had a ~0 BPM in games he played while older than Kawhi, so if you think Kawhi's accomplished more than Gervin did up to age 29 it's not like he did that much afterwards to change anyone's mind. That's definitely not too crazy if you place substantially more weight on seasons where someone was a top 5-10 player rather than a lower-level all-star (or even maybe an undeserving all-star some years who got chosen for volume scoring).

You're still rebutting a point that wasn't made by the post you replied to. Do you understand the issue?

[Dutchball97]

I'm not sure why you'd see these things as related. If you think Kawhi's just a better player in part because of his playoff success, cool, but Gervin was what he was for a long time, hence, longevity is definitively not an issue for him.

The longevity is there for the regular season but how many good play-off runs does he have? I count just one in 1979. It just seems a bit underwhelming for a top 40 player ever.

Again, if you're talking about "longevity" in terms of him continuing to do his thing for a long time, it doesn't make sense to bring this up.

I'm not saying you can't be a Gervin skeptic based on what you don't see in the playoffs, but when you talk as if "longevity" is the issue, that's specifically a criticism of his inability to sustain his play rather than a criticism of his play. If that's not what you're looking to criticize, use a different word.

It is a criticism of his ability to have consistent deep play-off runs. He simply didn't achieve a lot in the play-offs and not all of that can be attributed to not having great teams around him.

[trex_8063]

Good points, but I guess my counter is that Reggie is getting beat out by John Starks, Michael Adams, Kenny Anderson etc.
It's not like he's Hal Greer or Sam Jones finishing behind West and Oscar, or forwards in the 90s always behind Barkley and Malone. His point is that Reggie wasnt 1st or 2nd team all-nba, so not in top 10 players in league (basically), which is what he was looking at.

He's mostly cited the All-NBA 1st/2nd team, FMVPs, etc......but when pressed [previously] on the rather arbitrary tunnel-vision on those things he was citing, he acknowledged that this formula he refers to DOES include other things: I could be wrong but I believe he said All-NBA 3rd team and All-Stars were included.

There are posters that engaged him here [Doctor MJ in particular] who dove a lot deeper and thought a lot harder about this question [where to rank Reggie] than this mere surface-scraping of accolades, rings, ppg leaders, etc. So to say to these people who have explored it more thoroughly "you're wrong, you're WAY off because [insert surface-scraped findings]", feels a little......idk, unsavory for me.
If one is going to stick to things like awards/accolades as a major component in rankings, it at least behooves them to look a little closer to see what was actually merited, and not just what was given. Which is why I suggested pumping some totals that are more fitting with what he actually did.

Looking at the awards obtained, one would likely walk away with the impression that he peaked as a maybe top 12-15(ish) player, and probably only had a handful of years where he was even solidly top 25.........when in actuality he probably peaked more like a fringe top-10, has at least 3-4 [arguably more] seasons as a top-15 player, probably at least 7-8 seasons as a top-20 player, and likely 11 consecutive years ('90-'00) where he was never worse than a fringe top 25 player.
Some may even argue more generously for him than I have here.

[DQuinn1575]

Good points, but I guess my counter is that Reggie is getting beat out by John Starks, Michael Adams, Kenny Anderson etc.
It's not like he's Hal Greer or Sam Jones finishing behind West and Oscar, or forwards in the 90s always behind Barkley and Malone. His point is that Reggie wasnt 1st or 2nd team all-nba, so not in top 10 players in league (basically), which is what he was looking at.

He's mostly cited the All-NBA 1st/2nd team, FMVPs, etc......but when pressed [previously] on the rather arbitrary tunnel-vision on those things he was citing, he acknowledged that this formula he refers to DOES include other things: I could be wrong but I believe he said All-NBA 3rd team and All-Stars were included.

There are posters that engaged him here [Doctor MJ in particular] who dove a lot deeper and thought a lot harder about this question [where to rank Reggie] than this mere surface-scraping of accolades, rings, ppg leaders, etc. So to say to these people who have explored it more thoroughly "you're wrong, you're WAY off because [insert surface-scraped findings]", feels a little......idk, unsavory for me.
If one is going to stick to things like awards/accolades as a major component in rankings, it at least behooves them to look a little closer to see what was actually merited, and not just what was given. Which is why I suggested pumping some totals that are more fitting with what he actually did.

Looking at the awards obtained, one would likely walk away with the impression that he peaked as a maybe top 12-15(ish) player, and probably only had a handful of years where he was even solidly top 25.........when in actuality he probably peaked more like a fringe top-10, has at least 3-4 [arguably more] seasons as a top-15 player, probably at least 7-8 seasons as a top-20 player, and likely 11 consecutive years ('90-'00) where he was never worse than a fringe top 25 player.
Some may even argue more generously for him than I have here.

I'm pretty much in agreement with where you put Reggie. I didnt follow the conversation enough.

[Doctor MJ]

The longevity is there for the regular season but how many good play-off runs does he have? I count just one in 1979. It just seems a bit underwhelming for a top 40 player ever.

Again, if you're talking about "longevity" in terms of him continuing to do his thing for a long time, it doesn't make sense to bring this up.

I'm not saying you can't be a Gervin skeptic based on what you don't see in the playoffs, but when you talk as if "longevity" is the issue, that's specifically a criticism of his inability to sustain his play rather than a criticism of his play. If that's not what you're looking to criticize, use a different word.

It is a criticism of his ability to have consistent deep play-off runs. He simply didn't achieve a lot in the play-offs and not all of that can be attributed to not having great teams around him.

Is it? So you're saying that you have no doubt that Gervin could lead teams to deep playoff runs with superstar play, you're just looking to point out his inconsistency in play when you talk about "longevity"? Strange but okay, speak to that then. Where did he let you down? Dive into specific years and how he played.

[nolang1]

Again, I'm not saying that anyone has to have Gervin > Kawhi because of longevity, I'm just saying it really doesn't make sense to attack a guy's longevity because he didn't play on top contenders who went deep into the playoffs. That's potentially a reason to knock him as a player, but it says nothing about, say, his health and aging.

It would be more attacking his longevity because he had a ~0 BPM in games he played while older than Kawhi, so if you think Kawhi's accomplished more than Gervin did up to age 29 it's not like he did that much afterwards to change anyone's mind. That's definitely not too crazy if you place substantially more weight on seasons where someone was a top 5-10 player rather than a lower-level all-star (or even maybe an undeserving all-star some years who got chosen for volume scoring).

You're still rebutting a point that wasn't made by the post you replied to. Do you understand the issue?

No, the main issue is you're saying Gervin was the same player his whole career when what you mean is he played the same role his career. For a player whose positive contributions are almost entirely tied to their volume scoring, it makes a bigger difference whether they're doing that at 60% vs. 55% true shooting. Obviously he aged to a point where he wasn't scoring as effectively as in his prime and didn't have much else to fall back on, so it's debatable what he was adding past the age of 29 (and he was out of the league at 33, so not exactly phenomenal longevity we're talking about either way) or if he was even deserving of all-star status some of those later years. And of course you're pretending as though there's little to no correlation between how good a player is and how far his team advances in the playoffs; even if you were to put aside how Gervin performed in a given playoffs, obviously him being a better defender/all-around player would've resulted in his teams having a better regular season record and getting to play worse opponents early on.

In a more exaggerated example, Jamal Crawford is in the top 60 in career points and I wouldn't be surprised if he's like top 5 in points scored after age 35, but his overall contributions from 35+ are limited enough that I'd have to be really far down the list of best players to before that extra 'longevity' vaulted him over a better overall player who retired sooner.

[Doctor MJ]

It would be more attacking his longevity because he had a ~0 BPM in games he played while older than Kawhi, so if you think Kawhi's accomplished more than Gervin did up to age 29 it's not like he did that much afterwards to change anyone's mind. That's definitely not too crazy if you place substantially more weight on seasons where someone was a top 5-10 player rather than a lower-level all-star (or even maybe an undeserving all-star some years who got chosen for volume scoring).

You're still rebutting a point that wasn't made by the post you replied to. Do you understand the issue?

No, the main issue is you're saying Gervin was the same player his whole career when what you mean is he played the same role his career. For a player whose positive contributions are almost entirely tied to their volume scoring, it makes a bigger difference whether they're doing that at 60% vs. 55% true shooting. Obviously he aged to a point where he wasn't scoring as effectively as in his prime and didn't have much else to fall back on, so it's debatable what he was adding past the age of 29 (and he was out of the league at 33, so not exactly phenomenal longevity we're talking about either way) or if he was even deserving of all-star status some of those later years.

In a more exaggerated example, Jamal Crawford is in the top 60 in career points and I wouldn't be surprised if he's like top 5 in points scored after age 35, but his overall contributions from 35+ are limited enough that I'd have to be really far down the list of best players to before that extra 'longevity' vaulted him over a better overall player who retired sooner.

I never said Gervin was the same player his whole career, and I think that's the issue in a nutshell. Your "main issue" is something you assumed I said when you didn't read carefully enough.