THREE-D forwards (with good offense)

[penbeast0]

Shawn Marion
Rasheed Wallace
Larry Nance

Highest career value?

[sansterre]

I have them Rasheed, Nance, Marion but I think they're really, really close.

[feyki]

Larry Nance and three?

[penbeast0]

Larry Nance and three?

Three choices -- trying for a catchy title, not sure it worked.

[Texas Chuck]

Marion
Sheed
Nance

Marion definitely peaked the highest and was just as valuable as Sheed as he reduced his role. His problem is that he was incorrectly blamed for the SSOL Suns not even winning a title and that his shooting form was ugly. He's been sort of relegated to that guy Nash made look good for a few years and he was way more than that.

[PistolPeteJR]

‘08 Kirilenko?

[70sFan]

Nance
Rasheed
Marion

[Odinn21]

Sheed and Marion had nearly identical career trajectories. It's very interesting to look at.

Sheed at his 22-28 in Portland and Marion at his 22-28 in Phoenix had bigger scoring roles. Then they had bigger defensive roles, Sheed in Detroit and Marion in Dallas. They were also traded to a team between in those transitions from high scoring roles to title winning defenses.

Nance's career trajectory is also similar. Bigger scoring role in Phoenix at his 23-27, then slightly a lesser scoring role in Cleveland though Sheed and Marion had a bigger drop in their scoring.

I'd assume this is about the top 100 project and I have Sheed clearly ahead of the other 2 since I started to have him on my ballots.
TBH, this might be a winning-bias because one of the major reasons why I have Sheed is how he limited players like Duncan and Garnett.
I remember Duncan really struggling to score against Sheed in '99 playoffs. After game 2, Popovich had to change minutes allocations to avoid Duncan vs. Sheed matchup as much as possible. Then Garnett struggled against him '00 playoffs, there was an infographic in game 2 about how KG scored 3 for 15 when he was guarded by Sheed in game 1. Then there was '05 Finals. Sheed also owned Jermaine O'Neal's soul in '04 ECF.
My memory is full of these stuff for Sheed. All 3 are good defenders, probably elite at that. But he was way more effective at forcing his matchups outside of their comfort zones.

Marion was more versatile than Sheed. He arguably peaked higher in 2006 in terms of single season peaks. He was the better facilitator/passer/playmaker. But he wasn't as problematic as Sheed for his opponents. He was also not as impactful.
https://public.tableau.com/profile/dsmok1#!/vizhome/BPMvs_RAPM/BoxPlusMinusvs_14YearRAPM
The time frame on there favours Marion over Sheed because it has Sheed's twilight seasons in Boston and NY but not 3 seasons of prime play before '00, and Marion's last 2 seasons in the NBA are not included.
And Sheed is in top 4%, Marion barely makes top 10%. That is a significant gap.

TBH, I didn't see Larry Nance night in and night out as I did with the other 2. So my perception of him is mostly hindsight. That's why I can't be sure if I might be underrating him but I don't see a much case for him to be the best. He's easily the most athletic of the 3. His consistency throughout the seasons is massive. He was also the most efficient player by some distance.

But there's another thing I'd see going in Sheed's favour.
Sheed from his 22 to his 34; 15.4 pts per game, 24.3 pts per 100 on .539 ts, +1.4 rts
Marion from his 22 to his 34; 16.5 pts per game, 23.5 pts per 100 on .545 ts, +1.1 rts
Nance from his 23 to his 33; 18.4 pts per game, 25.1 pts per 100 on .590 ts, +5.3 rts
Now, all these scoring numbers close, Nance is the clear winner but close nonetheless.

However, in terms of scoring quality and impact, I'm taking Sheed because he was a bigger scoring gravity to be defended harder and his creation was definitely higher.
Marion's best scoring seasons happened when he was playing next to Kidd, Marbury and Nash.
Nance's scoring matter in his sophomore season when DJ was in Phoenix, then the Suns became gradually worse and worse while he had his top productions, especially efficiency wise. Then he was traded to Cleveland where he get to play with Mark Price. Nance's scoring mattered when he had a player creating a quality offense.
Surely, Sheed had Billups at one point but that was later in his prime. In his scoring days, Rasheed was the driving force, the driving scoring threat of his offense in Portland, unlike the other 2. If the Blazers had Marion or Nance at their best scoring seasons, they wouldn't do just as well. On the flip side, I don't see the Suns or the Suns/the Cavs doing worse with Sheed instead of Marion/Nance. To me, that's an upgrade.

With all these things, I'd go Wallace > Marion > Nance Sr. on overall.
Keep that in mind that I might be underrating Nance, at least against Marion. I don't think I'd have him over Wallace if I had a chance to watch him on a regular basis, but I'm not that sure between him and Marion.

[penbeast0]

...
TBH, this might be a winning-bias because one of the major reasons why I have Sheed is how he limited players like Duncan and Garnett....

Just one thing, about playoff defense against ATGs, when LeBron had his finals meltdown against Dallas in 2011, the main defender that was on the frustrated LeBron was Shawn Marion. fwiw

[Odinn21]

...
TBH, this might be a winning-bias because one of the major reasons why I have Sheed is how he limited players like Duncan and Garnett....

Just one thing, about playoff defense against ATGs, when LeBron had his finals meltdown against Dallas in 2011, the main defender that was on the frustrated LeBron was Shawn Marion. fwiw

Yeah, I know. Sheed's track record is backed up with more occurrences like that. Rasheed almost always made his matchup suffer so dearly. And I highlighted the top offensive pieces he directly defended. It was not just about quality of the matchup, it was also about frequency.

The next best cases for Marion is him limiting Durant in '11 playoffs (Durant's efficiency suffered for 4.7% efg), Nowitzki in '05 playoffs (Nowitzki's efficiency suffered for 1.3% efg) and him helping Clifford Robinson to choke Chris Webber out in '01 playoffs but Marion was not the direct matchup.

Surely, Marion's track record is also elite. It's just not Rasheed level elite though, Sheed was taking away 3+% efg from his matchups way more consistently.

[cupcakesnake]

Sheed and Marion are two of my favorite players. I love star-level talents with the versatility to become elite role-players in winning situations. That being said, despite these guys having this profile and similar career trajectories, their mentalities couldn't have been more different!

Sheed came across like he wanted to be a role-player. His best life was locking up dudes in the post, boxing out (but having someone else rebound), and shooting open threes (sometimes with his left hand if he got bored). He just so happened to have an unguardable baseline fadeaway. His teams had to force him or trick him to use it. He'd get mad every now and then and go on a little scoring binge, but in general, Sheed was extremely reluctant to do the stuff most players would kill for the chance to do. Marion on the other hand, had very little in the ways of on-ball scoring tools, but had an ego that demanded star level attention. He was such an elite cutter and athlete, and he was criminally underrated in his day. To this day he's one of the best 5-position defenders ever imo (but no media cared much about that back then). He was unstoppable as a source of off-ball offense, with or without Nash (obviously way cooler with Nash). I think he was 1000x more valuable than Amar'e overall, but he was constantly regarded as the 3rd option. He did all the dirty work in Phoenix and had to prop up an otherwise poor defensive personnel on back to back WCF trips. But his ego couldn't stand this in the long term and he was part of Phoenix's deconstruction. Ironically, his time as a star also ended there. He moped around Miami and Toronto for a second, and then embraced his best life as a do-it-all Dirk supporter for an extremely solid late career.

Sheed was a better man-to-man defender against his position. That was pretty great for him since his value was high in an era where he played against arguably the 3 best power forwards ever. He later got to spring Ben Wallace free to be a full-time help defender against everyone except Shaq. Marion wasn't tall enough to be as scary against Dirk/KG/Duncan, but he was a much more versatile defender, checking centers for Amar'e and point guards for Steve Nash.

Offensively, I think Sheed gets massively overrated considering how bad he was after leaving Portland. Reluctant or not, this was a 6'11 dude with probably a 7'4 wingspan, who really struggled with interior scoring once he hit 30. The % inside 3-feet is so bad and he clearly avoids it more and more as the hops fade. I think we overrate Sheed's offense because we love the idea of a dominant defensive big who hits threes. In reality, Sheed was only an okay shooter, and he didn't love doing stuff on offense. He wanted to hang out and help out. On the other hand, I think Marion is underrated offensively, because his shot looked so ugly, he didn't have any go-to moves with the ball, and people somewhat unfairly credit Steve Nash for his good scoring numbers. While he wasn't a very efficient scorer without Nash, his hyperactivity kept generating points well into his 30s. Even when he stopped being able to shoot threes, he maintained a great offensive rebound rate, and he had an ugly little post up game that Dallas could use in a pinch.

I'm sorry to be incomplete here, but I have logged very few minutes of Nance footage, and only ever watched him as a kid. Not a player I've studied or re-visited.

[cupcakesnake]

...
TBH, this might be a winning-bias because one of the major reasons why I have Sheed is how he limited players like Duncan and Garnett....

Just one thing, about playoff defense against ATGs, when LeBron had his finals meltdown against Dallas in 2011, the main defender that was on the frustrated LeBron was Shawn Marion. fwiw

Yeah, I know. Sheed's track record is backed up with more occurrences like that. Rasheed almost always made his matchup suffer so dearly. And I highlighted the top offensive pieces he directly defended. It was not just about quality of the matchup, it was also about frequency.

The next best cases for Marion is him limiting Durant in '11 playoffs (Durant's efficiency suffered for 4.7% efg), Nowitzki in '05 playoffs (Nowitzki's efficiency suffered for 1.3% efg) and him helping Clifford Robinson to choke Chris Webber out in '01 playoffs but Marion was not the direct matchup.

Surely, Marion's track record is also elite. It's just not Rasheed level elite though, Sheed was taking away 3+% efg from his matchups way more consistently.

I dont agree with Sheed being considered the better defender because he defended his matchup better. Marion was less elite at guarding power forward, no question (mostly due to one player being 6'11 and the other being 6'7), but Marion had much greater versatility and burden. Sheed played his whole career with a second rim protector (Sabonis, Dale Davis, Ben Wallace), allowing him to focus specifically on man-to-man defense. I always felt the Portland defenses underperformed, considering they played big minutes to Sheed, Pippen, The Kobe Stopper (lol) and a second rim protector. I guess they did play a lot of guards though. It's hard to credit Sheed much for Detroit's defense, considering how good their defense was before Sheed arrived. (I do think he made them impregnable in the playoffs though, especially considering the Indiana matchup). Marion on the other hand, was given immesnse responsibilties to prop up the defense on an offensive slanted team with 2-glaring liabilities in Amar'e and Steve Nash. Marion had to toggle between Tony Parker and Tim Duncan while also having to be the team's primary rebounder, due to more Amar'e shortcoming (+injuries that meant Boris Diaw was their starting center on a WCF run). All that and D'Antoni's notorious 6-man playff rotations and I sometimes wonder whether that 2-year span from Marion was one of the biggest defensive loads a player has ever carried.

I have both these guys as all-time defenders at their position, but I'm more impressed with Marion's versatility than Sheed's lockdown work in iso.

[Odinn21]

It's hard to credit Sheed much for Detroit's defense, considering how good their defense was before Sheed arrived.

This part looked as the most interesting part in there because the Pistons before Sheed;
2003 r. season; -4.0 rDRtg, 4th
2003 playoffs; -3.7 rDRtg
Coach; Rick Carlisle

2004 r. season; -4.6 rDRtg, 5th until Sheed's arrival
2004 r. season; -13.9 rDRtg, 1st after Sheed's arrival (they had -7.1 rDRtg over the 2nd placed Spurs)
2004 playoffs; -11.9 rDRtg
Coach; Larry Brown

2005 r. season; -4.9 rDRtg, 3rd
2005 playoffs; -6.8 rDRtg
Coach; Larry Brown

Surely, after Larry Brown's departure the Pistons defense suffered under Saunders' coaching. But Sheed literally did what people thought Deke did in '01. That swing is insane. And the Pistons having almost -7 rDRtg defense in '05 shows that '04 wasn't a fluke. (Having -6 or better postseason rDRtg is almost an outlier in itself, so the gap between -11.9 and -6.8 might look too big but having 2 consecutive 15+ game playoffs in that range is a sign of consistency.)

Sheed was in the top 2% in advanced +/- metrics for year in and year out in a league with Wallace, Duncan, KG, Robinson. Making into the top 1% meant he was also in the historic tier 1.

As I posted earlier;
https://public.tableau.com/profile/dsmok1#!/vizhome/BPMvs_RAPM/BoxPlusMinusvs_14YearRAPM
Sheed comes ahead of Marion defensively in multi season RAPM, Sheed in the top 1.5% in D-RAPM and Marion in the top 7% (among 50k+ recorded possessions players). Also the time frame in there slightly favours Marion's career.
I also credited Marion for being more versatile fwiw.

[cupcakesnake]

It's hard to credit Sheed much for Detroit's defense, considering how good their defense was before Sheed arrived.

This part looked as the most interesting part in there because the Pistons before Sheed;
2003 r. season; -4.0 rDRtg, 4th
2003 playoffs; -3.7 rDRtg
Coach; Rick Carlisle

2004 r. season; -4.6 rDRtg, 5th until Sheed's arrival
2004 r. season; -13.9 rDRtg, 1st after Sheed's arrival (they had -7.1 rDRtg over the 2nd placed Spurs)
2004 playoffs; -11.9 rDRtg
Coach; Larry Brown

2005 r. season; -4.9 rDRtg, 3rd
2005 playoffs; -6.8 rDRtg
Coach; Larry Brown

Surely, after Larry Brown's departure the Pistons defense suffered under Saunders' coaching. But Sheed literally did what people thought Deke did in '01. That swing is insane. And the Pistons having almost -7 rDRtg defense in '05 shows that '04 wasn't a fluke. (Having -6 or better postseason rDRtg is almost an outlier in itself, so the gap between -11.9 and -6.8 might look too big but having 2 consecutive 15+ game playoffs in that range is a sign of consistency.)

Sheed was in the top 2% in advanced +/- metrics for year in and year out in a league with Wallace, Duncan, KG, Robinson. Making into the top 1% meant he was also in the historic tier 1.

As I posted earlier;
https://public.tableau.com/profile/dsmok1#!/vizhome/BPMvs_RAPM/BoxPlusMinusvs_14YearRAPM
Sheed comes ahead of Marion defensively in multi season RAPM, Sheed in the top 1.5% in D-RAPM and Marion in the top 7% (among 50k+ recorded possessions players). Also the time frame in there slightly favours Marion's career.
I also credited Marion for being more versatile fwiw.

What can I say, ball don't lie!