RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #61 (Anthony Davis)

[DQuinn1575]

1 Parish - so much career value. Yes there are players left who had better peaks - Walton, McGrady, others. But he had a lot of real good seasons, and accumulated more value than anyone left.

2 Cousy - fairly long career as one of the top players in the league. Shooting accuracy is questioned; but that is why he is the 60s and not higher.

3 Iverson - compared to Cousy, and maybe that is fair. Gets a lot of grief for carrying a team to the finals. Unfortunately for him, he played a great team there. A worse opponent, who knows what happens, but I rank based on reality and not what-ifs. I put more value on volume scoring with lousy offenses than most.


Others in contention:
Alonzo Mourning
Alex English
Bill Walton
Anthony Davis
Giannis Antetokounmpo

[Baski]

1.Alonzo Mourning
This guy would follow Mutombo if I had my way. Peaked way higher due to being roughly in the same tier (or a bit lower) defensively and leagues better offensively, but age and kidneys limited what could've been a top 40-50 career well above Dike's.

I compared Dike to Bill Russell offensively, but Zo is a lot better scoring wise. A legit 20 ppg scorer with consistently elite high 50s TS% throughout his 1st 8 years. Gametape showed he was solid in the post, like legitimately good enough to dump it down to, but was really amazing in the Dwight role and then some with the midrange shot, which is way more than I can say for the other two. His passing was bad though, which limited him, but not to the extent Russell's poor scoring affected his team's offense so there's that.

His was a defensive monster: 6th in career blocks per game and 11th in total blocks, of course validated by 2 DPOYs, 2 All D 1st teams, league leading defenses and once capturing the No. 1 seed in the East all on the back of his play on both ends and 2 top-3 MVP finishes. I noticed he really lacks individual accolades compared to his peers in the mid-late 90s, but those peers were pretty damn amazing and are all in already.

The kidney issue abruptly turned him into a role player, but one that was still highly valuable (when he could play) as he showed with the 2006 run where he led the Heat in Block% and all pace adjusted Block stats, Drtg and Net rtg for both the RS and PS. 2nd to Wade in WS/48 for both too. And he was 35. The stats I'm using are all over the place, but point is Zo at his peak got shafted by injury and disease but still managed to retain a lot of value, which I like to attribute to his portable offensive skillset and enduring defensive acumen.
The mental fortitude to come back from the ordeal and intangibles in accepting his new role as an aging legend and mentor for the 2nd Heat stint is pretty commendable as well.

2.Dominique Wilkins
3. Alex English
Originally not even close to this position for me, but Penbeast's breakdown on the similarities and differences between him, Nique and TMac is every convincing and now I can't see him that far below Nique. Underrated legend, surely by me.

Order of preference:
Bob Cousy
Robert Parish
Tony Parker
Allen Iverson
Giannis Antetokoumpo
Anthony Davis
Nate Thurmond
TMac
Luke Walton's Dad

[trex_8063]

Thru post #22:

Anthony Davis - 2 (Joao Saraiva, Dutchball97)
Robert Parish - 2 (DQuinn1575, trex_8063)
Alonzo Mourning - 2 (Baski, Odinn21)
Bob Cousy - 1 (Hal14)
Tracy McGrady - 1 (sansterre)
Alex English - 1 (penbeast0)
Bill Walton - 1 (HeartBreakKid)


~19 hours left. Hal14, will need to know where Davis sits among all tractioned players.

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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[Hal14]

Man, modern players get sooooo overrated on this board..

Uhh, so, your position is that "Anthony Davis has never been a second option until this year, but he's being credited for it therefor . . . modern players are overrated"? Seems a stretch.

To be clear, when I refer to him as a second option, I'm primarily referring to him being the second highest usage player (and to being the secondary driver of the offense). Points per game is a pretty imperfect measure of which players are "first options", so I generally don't use it.

You and I value different things in ranking players. For example, awards seem to mean a lot more to you than to me (which doesn't take much, since they mean nothing to me). Rings seem to mean more to you than to me (but again, that doesn't mean much). And for that matter, I don't really care about "greatness" or a player's "place in history". For me I'm pure Career Value / expected career championship yield. For better or for worse.

You and I are coming at this problem totally differently. And we're coming up with considerably different answers. Which is fine; we each are seeing things that the other is missing. It's only when such different views come together in a list like this that everybody gets a chance to learn something.

Tempting as it would be for everyone to agree with me, and for me to assume that everyone who disagrees with me is *obviously* wrong, the current system of having lots of people who disagree talk about this stuff is the best way. Discussions about Arizin led to me looking at him harder, and trying to figure out why my rating system of the time didn't like him as much. This led to changes and at the time of his election, he was #4 on my ballot, which isn't great, but it was part of him getting in when he did. And I made those changes because of people who disagreed with me making impassioned arguments on his behalf.

In a world with open (but respectful) disagreement, everybody wins.

Ok, we might be sweeing things differently and that's fine.

But "first option" or "2nd option" on a team I take that to mean scoring option..meaning throughout the course of a game, if a team is trying to get the ball to go into the basket, the guy most likely to take the shot is the "1st option" and after him, the next player most likely to take the shot is the "2nd option"..I honestly don't see much room for debate here, it's basic logic.

So I suppose the better statistic to judge 1st option, 2nd option is field goal attempts per game. And to account for differences in minutes (because a guy can only be a scoring option when he's on the court so if Player A plays 3 more mins per game than Player B then of course player A will get more chances to shoot the ball so what really matters is Player A - during the time he is actually on the court, is he the 1st scoring option, 2nd or 3rd? So IMO the best indicator of that is shot attempts per 36 mins. Last year LeBron averaged less than 1.5 more shot attempts per game than AD in both reg season and playoffs so I see that less as LeBron = 1st option, AD = 2nd option and I see that as more of 1A and 1B situation since the difference in shots per 36 mins is so small. This season LeBron is only averaging 1.6 more shots attempts per 36 mins more than AD so again, very small difference. I don't see that as enough to justify saying 1 guy is clearly the 2nd option compared to the other.

So that gives us a sample size of 0 years that Davis has been a clear-cut 2nd option.. we have 1 season (plus 23 games of a 2nd season) where he was 1A / 1B with LeBron where their shot attempts have been too close to truly say without question 1 guy is the 1st option and 1 guy is the 2nd option...I mean if we really want to reach we can give Davis credit for 1.25 seasons as a 2nd option. But even then is it really enough of a sample size to say that AD is INSANE as a 2nd option as you said with all caps? It just seems like you might be reaching here and overselling AD.

Lastly, there's no need to try and make this into a bigger conversation about my criteria for ranking players vs yours. I simply pointed out 1 part of your post that I took issue with and explained why I didn't think the statement you made made any sense. All you have to do is respond to that - no need to try and make it into anything bigger.

[sansterre]

My apologies sir!

I read your initial post to contain two points.

1. Anthony Davis wasn't a 2nd option;
2. This is yet another example of how modern players are overrated on this board.

The first is a specific point. As it turns out you and I define those terms somewhat differently. No harm no foul.

The second point is . . . some might call it a "bigger thing".

The majority of my post was only to respond to your second point, to basically say that much of the board disagreeing with you on certain things is an inevitable and productive byproduct of this kind of setting. I doubt anyone in these discussions feels like they're in the majority on much of anything.

However, if you meant the "modern players are overrated on this board" as a sort of throwaway comment that wasn't meant to be addressed so much as just exist as flavor . . . well, my bad for interacting with it then.

[DQuinn1575]

1 Parish - so much career value. Yes there are players left who had better peaks - Walton, McGrady, others. But he had a lot of real good seasons, and accumulated more value than anyone left.

2 Cousy - fairly long career as one of the top players in the league. Shooting accuracy is questioned; but that is why he is the 60s and not higher.

3 Iverson - compared to Cousy, and maybe that is fair. Gets a lot of grief for carrying a team to the finals. Unfortunately for him, he played a great team there. A worse opponent, who knows what happens, but I rank based on reality and not what-ifs. I put more value on volume scoring with lousy offenses than most.


Others in contention:
Alonzo Mourning
Alex English
Bill Walton
Anthony Davis
Giannis Antetokounmpo

To be clear - that is my ranking of others in contention in order, not my thoughts of who should be, nor not necessarily my ranking of all remaining players after the Top 3.

[Hal14]

My apologies sir!

I read your initial post to contain two points.

1. Anthony Davis wasn't a 2nd option;
2. This is yet another example of how modern players are overrated on this board.

The first is a specific point. As it turns out you and I define those terms somewhat differently. No harm no foul.

The second point is . . . some might call it a "bigger thing".

The majority of my post was only to respond to your second point, to basically say that much of the board disagreeing with you on certain things is an inevitable and productive byproduct of this kind of setting. I doubt anyone in these discussions feels like they're in the majority on much of anything.

However, if you meant the "modern players are overrated on this board" as a sort of throwaway comment that wasn't meant to be addressed so much as just exist as flavor . . . well, my bad for interacting with it then.

In response to no. 1 - not saying AD was never a 2nd option but just saying that in New Orleans he was always the no. 1 option during his prime years and in LA I wouldn't really consider him a 2nd option..because of such a tiny difference in shot attempts per 36 mins for LeBron and AD, I think it's more like a 1A and 1 B situation and it's a reach to call one of them a 2nd option. Not only is it a reach to call AD a 2nd option but he has only played a whopping 1.25 seasons in LA so even if we do make that reach and call AD a 2nd option in LA, we have a sample size of only 1.25 seasons with him as a 2nd option - which is most certainly too small of a sample size to warrant making a statement that he is INSANE in all caps as a 2nd option as part of an explanation for ranking him in the top 65 in a poll ranking the top 100 players of all time.

In response to your 2nd point - yes, exactly. I took your reaching and overselling of AD to be yet another example of modern players getting overrated on this board - yes.

[HeartBreakKid]

1.Alonzo Mourning
This guy would follow Mutombo if I had my way. Peaked way higher due to being roughly in the same tier (or a bit lower) defensively and leagues better offensively, but age and kidneys limited what could've been a top 40-50 career well above Dike's.

I compared Dike to Bill Russell offensively, but Zo is a lot better scoring wise. A legit 20 ppg scorer with consistently elite high 50s TS% throughout his 1st 8 years. Gametape showed he was solid in the post, like legitimately good enough to dump it down to, but was really amazing in the Dwight role and then some with the midrange shot, which is way more than I can say for the other two. His passing was bad though, which limited him, but not to the extent Russell's poor scoring affected his team's offense so there's that.

His was a defensive monster: 6th in career blocks per game and 11th in total blocks, of course validated by 2 DPOYs, 2 All D 1st teams, league leading defenses and once capturing the No. 1 seed in the East all on the back of his play on both ends and 2 top-3 MVP finishes. I noticed he really lacks individual accolades compared to his peers in the mid-late 90s, but those peers were pretty damn amazing and are all in already.

The kidney issue abruptly turned him into a role player, but one that was still highly valuable (when he could play) as he showed with the 2006 run where he led the Heat in Block% and all pace adjusted Block stats, Drtg and Net rtg for both the RS and PS. 2nd to Wade in WS/48 for both too. And he was 35. The stats I'm using are all over the place, but point is Zo at his peak got shafted by injury and disease but still managed to retain a lot of value, which I like to attribute to his portable offensive skillset and enduring defensive acumen.
The mental fortitude to come back from the ordeal and intangibles in accepting his new role as an aging legend and mentor for the 2nd Heat stint is pretty commendable as well.

2.Dominique Wilkins
3. Alex English
Originally not even close to this position for me, but Penbeast's breakdown on the similarities and differences between him, Nique and TMac is every convincing and now I can't see him that far below Nique. Underrated legend, surely by me.

Order of preference:
Bob Cousy
Robert Parish
Tony Parker
Allen Iverson
Giannis Antetokoumpo
Anthony Davis
Nate Thurmond
TMac
Luke Walton's Dad

Why Wilkins over English?

[Dutchball97]

My apologies sir!

I read your initial post to contain two points.

1. Anthony Davis wasn't a 2nd option;
2. This is yet another example of how modern players are overrated on this board.

The first is a specific point. As it turns out you and I define those terms somewhat differently. No harm no foul.

The second point is . . . some might call it a "bigger thing".

The majority of my post was only to respond to your second point, to basically say that much of the board disagreeing with you on certain things is an inevitable and productive byproduct of this kind of setting. I doubt anyone in these discussions feels like they're in the majority on much of anything.

However, if you meant the "modern players are overrated on this board" as a sort of throwaway comment that wasn't meant to be addressed so much as just exist as flavor . . . well, my bad for interacting with it then.

In response to no. 1 - not saying AD was never a 2nd option but just saying that in New Orleans he was always the no. 1 option during his prime years and in LA I wouldn't really consider him a 2nd option..because of such a tiny difference in shot attempts per 36 mins for LeBron and AD, I think it's more like a 1A and 1 B situation and it's a reach to call one of them a 2nd option. Not only is it a reach to call AD a 2nd option but he has only played a whopping 1.25 seasons in LA so even if we do make that reach and call AD a 2nd option in LA, we have a sample size of only 1.25 seasons with him as a 2nd option - which is most certainly too small of a sample size to warrant making a statement that he is INSANE in all caps as a 2nd option as part of an explanation for ranking him in the top 65 in a poll ranking the top 100 players of all time.

In response to your 2nd point - yes, exactly. I took your reaching and overselling of AD to be yet another example of modern players getting overrated on this board - yes.

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here. You say AD isn't an insane 2nd option because he's so good he's pretty much a second 1st option. Which to me just means insane 2nd option. The difference is neglible in terms of the reality of it.

It isn't like AD's case is entirely based on his role for the Lakers last year but why wouldn't it move the needle significantly? Not like Cousy ever performed in the same ballpark as AD but you've been championing him for a while now because Cousy won a very undeserved MVP and made a bunch of All-NBA teams in the 50s.

[Baski]

1.Alonzo Mourning
This guy would follow Mutombo if I had my way. Peaked way higher due to being roughly in the same tier (or a bit lower) defensively and leagues better offensively, but age and kidneys limited what could've been a top 40-50 career well above Dike's.

I compared Dike to Bill Russell offensively, but Zo is a lot better scoring wise. A legit 20 ppg scorer with consistently elite high 50s TS% throughout his 1st 8 years. Gametape showed he was solid in the post, like legitimately good enough to dump it down to, but was really amazing in the Dwight role and then some with the midrange shot, which is way more than I can say for the other two. His passing was bad though, which limited him, but not to the extent Russell's poor scoring affected his team's offense so there's that.

His was a defensive monster: 6th in career blocks per game and 11th in total blocks, of course validated by 2 DPOYs, 2 All D 1st teams, league leading defenses and once capturing the No. 1 seed in the East all on the back of his play on both ends and 2 top-3 MVP finishes. I noticed he really lacks individual accolades compared to his peers in the mid-late 90s, but those peers were pretty damn amazing and are all in already.

The kidney issue abruptly turned him into a role player, but one that was still highly valuable (when he could play) as he showed with the 2006 run where he led the Heat in Block% and all pace adjusted Block stats, Drtg and Net rtg for both the RS and PS. 2nd to Wade in WS/48 for both too. And he was 35. The stats I'm using are all over the place, but point is Zo at his peak got shafted by injury and disease but still managed to retain a lot of value, which I like to attribute to his portable offensive skillset and enduring defensive acumen.
The mental fortitude to come back from the ordeal and intangibles in accepting his new role as an aging legend and mentor for the 2nd Heat stint is pretty commendable as well.

2.Dominique Wilkins
3. Alex English
Originally not even close to this position for me, but Penbeast's breakdown on the similarities and differences between him, Nique and TMac is every convincing and now I can't see him that far below Nique. Underrated legend, surely by me.

Order of preference:
Bob Cousy
Robert Parish
Tony Parker
Allen Iverson
Giannis Antetokoumpo
Anthony Davis
Nate Thurmond
TMac
Luke Walton's Dad

Why Wilkins over English?

Generally better counting stats, more personal accolades, basic advanced stats liked him more, bloomed earlier, stats-wise appeared to do more of the heavy lifting offensively in their primes (worse teammates) with roughly similar RS and PS success, just a bigger name in general with over half of their careers overlapping.

[sansterre]

In response to no. 1 - not saying AD was never a 2nd option but just saying that in New Orleans he was always the no. 1 option during his prime years and in LA I wouldn't really consider him a 2nd option..because of such a tiny difference in shot attempts per 36 mins for LeBron and AD, I think it's more like a 1A and 1 B situation and it's a reach to call one of them a 2nd option. Not only is it a reach to call AD a 2nd option but he has only played a whopping 1.25 seasons in LA so even if we do make that reach and call AD a 2nd option in LA, we have a sample size of only 1.25 seasons with him as a 2nd option - which is most certainly too small of a sample size to warrant making a statement that he is INSANE in all caps as a 2nd option as part of an explanation for ranking him in the top 65 in a poll ranking the top 100 players of all time.

The main thrust of my point was that often guys that post gaudy scoring numbers as the #1 option on a bad team don't actually integrate well onto a better team. Carmelo Anthony leaps to mind, but there are other examples of guys who look like strong/dominant scorers as long as the offense is built around them, but when they have to share the load actually play worse despite getting less defensive attention. I wish I could think of more examples, but it's a fairly documented phenomenon (Ben Taylor had a podcast about it at one point). Kind of like how Kobe went from 35% usage and 56.7% shooting from '05-'07 (no help) to 31.9% usage and 56.1% shooting (drop in usage *and efficiency* when he got help. One interpretation (which is certainly somewhat true) is that he was simply better in those years but another is that the offense transitioned from all-Kobe to Kobe-driven, and his performance suffered as the offense tried to integrate other scorers. Hard to know.

AD's scoring numbers in New Orleans were good, but he was clearly the #1 there. That, when made to share the offense with another scorer, he sees no drop in performance (and seems to improve in the playoffs) is a strong endorsement of the robustness of his scoring game.

Perhaps it would have been more accurate to say "Has consistently shown strong scoring chops, and actually seems to improve when paired with another strong scorer instead of regressing."

This is a valuable trait; a scorer who is only strong on bad teams has pretty limited championship equity. But a strong scorer who can score as well or better on a great team has unusually high championship equity. So to people who are looking for the average expected championship increase (such as myself), this is a particularly valuable trait.

Granted, the conclusion is based on a limited sample size (one season), but still.

[trex_8063]

In response to no. 1 - not saying AD was never a 2nd option but just saying that in New Orleans he was always the no. 1 option during his prime years and in LA I wouldn't really consider him a 2nd option..because of such a tiny difference in shot attempts per 36 mins for LeBron and AD, I think it's more like a 1A and 1 B situation and it's a reach to call one of them a 2nd option. Not only is it a reach to call AD a 2nd option but he has only played a whopping 1.25 seasons in LA so even if we do make that reach and call AD a 2nd option in LA, we have a sample size of only 1.25 seasons with him as a 2nd option - which is most certainly too small of a sample size to warrant making a statement that he is INSANE in all caps as a 2nd option as part of an explanation for ranking him in the top 65 in a poll ranking the top 100 players of all time.

The main thrust of my point was that often guys that post gaudy scoring numbers as the #1 option on a bad team don't actually integrate well onto a better team. Carmelo Anthony leaps to mind, but there are other examples of guys who look like strong/dominant scorers as long as the offense is built around them, but when they have to share the load actually play worse despite getting less defensive attention. I wish I could think of more examples, but it's a fairly documented phenomenon (Ben Taylor had a podcast about it at one point).

Chris Bosh [though he had to alter multiple aspects of his game]
Or heck, the aforementioned Bob Cousy.

Guys like Scottie Pippen, Kyrie Irving, or maybe Russell Westbrook didn't "play worse" as 2nd options, however, nor did their efficiency improve on going to a 2nd option.

[Dutchball97]

To begin with, the statement modern players are overrated on this board seems like it's just not true. Sure LeBron is #1 on the list but the next active player to show up is KD at #22. How is that biased towards modern players? If anything, certain voters have expressed their hesitance on voting for players that are still active mainly due to lacking longevity compared to most retired greats. Go on any other basketball related form of social media and try putting Curry as only the fifth best PG of All-Time and see how people react.

[sansterre]

To begin with, the statement modern players are overrated on this board seems like it's just not true. Sure LeBron is #1 on the list but the next active player to show up is KD at #22. How is that biased towards modern players? If anything, certain voters have expressed their hesitance on voting for players that are still active mainly due to lacking longevity compared to most retired greats. Go on any other basketball related form of social media and try putting Curry as only the fifth best PG of All-Time and see how people react.

That said, if rings / awards / rankings are a major factor in your personal rankings, older players are *way* underrated. Cousy won a lot of rings, a lot of awards and was the best PG in the league for a long time. And these factors are disproportionately good relative to where we are in the voting. But then, in an eight-team league, players are disproportionately likely to win rings/awards/be ranked higher compared to how they would be in a 30-team league. Which leads the best players of the sub-10 team era to having far better accolades than comparable modern players, which makes them unequivocally underrated . . . as long as those things are a major part of what drives your rankings.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #34:

Anthony Davis - 2 (Joao Saraiva, Dutchball97)
Robert Parish - 2 (DQuinn1575, trex_8063)
Alonzo Mourning - 2 (Baski, Odinn21)
Bob Cousy - 1 (Hal14)
Tracy McGrady - 1 (sansterre)
Alex English - 1 (penbeast0)
Bill Walton - 1 (HeartBreakKid)


10 votes requires 6 for a majority. The bottom four are eliminated, which transfers two votes to AD, and the other two are ghosted....

Davis - 4
Parish - 2
Mourning - 2
(ghosted ) - 2

Next step makes Davis a non-majority default victor, which we'll need to validate against the last two eliminated [Parish and Mourning]. Thank to all those who provided complete listing of other players with traction for this purpose. I'm deficient of one poster's opinion on the placement of Davis [Hal14]; but luckily we have enough to make a determination from the other 9 voters.....

Davis leads Parish 5-4 with Hal14's opinion being unknown......so the worst possible finish for AD is a tie [we'd still uphold the default victory in a tie]
And Davis leads Mourning 6-3.

So Anthony Davis takes this spot. I'll get the next one up.....

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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[Dutchball97]

To begin with, the statement modern players are overrated on this board seems like it's just not true. Sure LeBron is #1 on the list but the next active player to show up is KD at #22. How is that biased towards modern players? If anything, certain voters have expressed their hesitance on voting for players that are still active mainly due to lacking longevity compared to most retired greats. Go on any other basketball related form of social media and try putting Curry as only the fifth best PG of All-Time and see how people react.

That said, if rings / awards / rankings are a major factor in your personal rankings, older players are *way* underrated. Cousy won a lot of rings, a lot of awards and was the best PG in the league for a long time. And these factors are disproportionately good relative to where we are in the voting. But then, in an eight-team league, players are disproportionately likely to win rings/awards/be ranked higher compared to how they would be in a 30-team league. Which leads the best players of the sub-10 team era to having far better accolades than comparable modern players, which makes them unequivocally underrated . . . as long as those things are a major part of what drives your rankings.

Even then as a board in general I still don't think we underrate old players compared to most other basketball fans. Cousy is in a way an outlier as casual fans might see his rings, his All-Star and All-NBA selections and his MVP and be higher on him than people like us who are more into the stats behind it, in which Cousy is a lot less impressive. I think it is the wrong conclusion to say that means Cousy and older players in general are underrated. It's more so that the majority of voters here try to look past accolades and rings, which leads to players like Cousy, Iverson and Rose to name a few to be regarded much worse here than elsewhere.

[Hal14]

My apologies sir!

I read your initial post to contain two points.

1. Anthony Davis wasn't a 2nd option;
2. This is yet another example of how modern players are overrated on this board.

The first is a specific point. As it turns out you and I define those terms somewhat differently. No harm no foul.

The second point is . . . some might call it a "bigger thing".

The majority of my post was only to respond to your second point, to basically say that much of the board disagreeing with you on certain things is an inevitable and productive byproduct of this kind of setting. I doubt anyone in these discussions feels like they're in the majority on much of anything.

However, if you meant the "modern players are overrated on this board" as a sort of throwaway comment that wasn't meant to be addressed so much as just exist as flavor . . . well, my bad for interacting with it then.

In response to no. 1 - not saying AD was never a 2nd option but just saying that in New Orleans he was always the no. 1 option during his prime years and in LA I wouldn't really consider him a 2nd option..because of such a tiny difference in shot attempts per 36 mins for LeBron and AD, I think it's more like a 1A and 1 B situation and it's a reach to call one of them a 2nd option. Not only is it a reach to call AD a 2nd option but he has only played a whopping 1.25 seasons in LA so even if we do make that reach and call AD a 2nd option in LA, we have a sample size of only 1.25 seasons with him as a 2nd option - which is most certainly too small of a sample size to warrant making a statement that he is INSANE in all caps as a 2nd option as part of an explanation for ranking him in the top 65 in a poll ranking the top 100 players of all time.

In response to your 2nd point - yes, exactly. I took your reaching and overselling of AD to be yet another example of modern players getting overrated on this board - yes.

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here. You say AD isn't an insane 2nd option because he's so good he's pretty much a second 1st option. Which to me just means insane 2nd option. The difference is neglible in terms of the reality of it.

My point is that guy said AD deserves a vote because he's an insane 2nd option. But he's only been a 2nd option for 1.25 seasons which is not even close to a large enough sample size to base anything off of. This isn't a peaks project - this is top 100 greatest players of all time.

[sansterre]

In response to no. 1 - not saying AD was never a 2nd option but just saying that in New Orleans he was always the no. 1 option during his prime years and in LA I wouldn't really consider him a 2nd option..because of such a tiny difference in shot attempts per 36 mins for LeBron and AD, I think it's more like a 1A and 1 B situation and it's a reach to call one of them a 2nd option. Not only is it a reach to call AD a 2nd option but he has only played a whopping 1.25 seasons in LA so even if we do make that reach and call AD a 2nd option in LA, we have a sample size of only 1.25 seasons with him as a 2nd option - which is most certainly too small of a sample size to warrant making a statement that he is INSANE in all caps as a 2nd option as part of an explanation for ranking him in the top 65 in a poll ranking the top 100 players of all time.

In response to your 2nd point - yes, exactly. I took your reaching and overselling of AD to be yet another example of modern players getting overrated on this board - yes.

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here. You say AD isn't an insane 2nd option because he's so good he's pretty much a second 1st option. Which to me just means insane 2nd option. The difference is neglible in terms of the reality of it.

My point is that guy said AD deserves a vote because he's an insane 2nd option. But he's only been a 2nd option for 1.25 seasons which is not even close to a large enough sample size to base anything off of. This isn't a peaks project - this is top 100 greatest players of all time.

To be clear, I vote based on my set of formulas. AD is #2 in my formulas because the blend of the different metrics I use (BackPicks BPM, PIPM, CORP, Win Shares, VORP, WOWYR and a manual playoff adjustment) likes him the second most. But if I post stuff like "I'm voting for AD #2 because my formulas like him the second-most. PEACE!" that may be seen as insufficient reasoning. So I basically try to put those things into words that I think will be persuasive to other readers. And the fact that (for a limited sample size) AD scaled really well next to another strong scorer will be persuasive to some other voters, so I include it, and trust their judgment to give it the appropriate amount of respect (whatever that might be). As with all limited sample size patterns, it means considerably more than it would if it had never happened, but but less than if that trend had continued for several seasons.

[Hal14]

To begin with, the statement modern players are overrated on this board seems like it's just not true. Sure LeBron is #1 on the list but the next active player to show up is KD at #22. How is that biased towards modern players? If anything, certain voters have expressed their hesitance on voting for players that are still active mainly due to lacking longevity compared to most retired greats. Go on any other basketball related form of social media and try putting Curry as only the fifth best PG of All-Time and see how people react.

That said, if rings / awards / rankings are a major factor in your personal rankings, older players are *way* underrated. Cousy won a lot of rings, a lot of awards and was the best PG in the league for a long time. And these factors are disproportionately good relative to where we are in the voting. But then, in an eight-team league, players are disproportionately likely to win rings/awards/be ranked higher compared to how they would be in a 30-team league. Which leads the best players of the sub-10 team era to having far better accolades than comparable modern players, which makes them unequivocally underrated . . . as long as those things are a major part of what drives your rankings.

Yes, but how about you also factor in:

-the era Cousy played in, he played with no 3 point shot - even though he was a perimeter player who often times made shots from far away - so if there was a 3 point shot back then his scoring would have been higher than it was
-Cousy played in an era where they were much more strict about what counted as an assist. Yet he still averaged over 9 assists once, over 8 APG 3 times and over 7 APG 10 times...if he played in modern era those assist numbers would be significantly higher
-When Cousy played, he played with a ball that was much more difficult to dribble and shoot than the ones modern players get to play with. His shooting efficiency numbers would be much higher if he played today
-The backboard and rim back when Cousy played was also less favorable for getting it in - you had to really shoot it just right to make the shot - especially when shooting from further away - combined with the pathetic ball they played with back then - I mean c'mon, are people really hating on Cousy's shooting %? People who know the game know how good that guy was.
-The sneakers the players were in Cousy's era would literally be painful to wear for a modern player - the fact that he shot the % he did is actually really good considering all of this stuff

In 54-55, Cousy's FG% was 39.7%. NBA league average was 38.5%. So Cousy was quite a big higher than the league average - which is even more impressive when you consider that that season (and each of Cousy's first 6 years in the league) there was no Russell to help take the pressure off him (no Heinsohn yet, no Hondo, no Sam Jones) so defenses were focused on stopping Cousy and also since he was a smaller player and taking shots from further away from the basket compared to a guy like Mikan, Arizin or Schayes it added to the higher degree of difficulty for Cousy's shot attempts.

[Hal14]

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue here. You say AD isn't an insane 2nd option because he's so good he's pretty much a second 1st option. Which to me just means insane 2nd option. The difference is neglible in terms of the reality of it.

My point is that guy said AD deserves a vote because he's an insane 2nd option. But he's only been a 2nd option for 1.25 seasons which is not even close to a large enough sample size to base anything off of. This isn't a peaks project - this is top 100 greatest players of all time.

To be clear, I vote based on my set of formulas. AD is #2 in my formulas because the blend of the different metrics I use (BackPicks BPM, PIPM, CORP, Win Shares, VORP, WOWYR and a manual playoff adjustment) likes him the second most. But if I post stuff like "I'm voting for AD #2 because my formulas like him the second-most. PEACE!" that may be seen as insufficient reasoning. So I basically try to put those things into words that I think will be persuasive to other readers. And the fact that (for a limited sample size) AD scaled really well next to another strong scorer will be persuasive to some other voters, so I include it, and trust their judgment to give it the appropriate amount of respect (whatever that might be). As with all limited sample size patterns, it means considerably more than it would if it had never happened, but but less than if that trend had continued for several seasons.

So longevity, durability, eye test, team success and intangibles like how much of a headcase they are, how coachable they are, good for team chemistry/team morale/locker room presence, being a good teammate - none of that factors in at all, huh?

If that's your formula, you mine as well not even watch any games. Just crunch the numbers, plug them into a spreadsheet and voila, there's your rankings.