RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #88 (Jeff Hornacek)

[Odinn21]

About Lucas’ defensive performances, I had many postseason games of the Royals in the ‘60s. In the full series I had, all the Celtics series + ‘65 Sixers series, he was quite inconsistent..

When you say "had", do you mean to say you have/had those games on video? If so, would it be possible to share? Would be super SUPER interested in logging them [and watching them in general] once I'm able to get back to the game logging project.

I had a massive full game archive on a hard drive which got destroyed several years ago. I was an undergrad/grad student and couldn’t afford to pay for its repair. By the time I was able to, the damage was permanent. I rely on what I tracked and noted on MS Excel right now.

[penbeast0]

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Fantastic post on Melo.

There's no question Carmelo Anthony has been overrated by the media throughout much of his career [as most high volume scorers tend to be]. But I often feel the blow-back [on this forum] against that mainstream perception is a bit over the top. imo, he clearly has a place somewhere on this list.

And from a consistency standpoint, I'll again note other wings who are largely just scorers ONLY [without adding too much value in any other ways] whom we've already voted in:

Dominique Wilkins (#73)
Alex English (#68)
Paul Arizin (#60)
Sam Jones (#56)
Adrian Dantley (#55)
George Gervin (#37!)

And yet are we [in some cases, the same people who strongly advocated for one or more of the above] going to push Melo out of the top 100 entirely?

And for whatever it's worth, I'd note that Melo [prior to the start of this current season (which is ineligible)] was:
*Ahead of all of them in career rebounds.
**Ahaed of all of them except English in career assists.
***Ahead of all of them except Nique and Gervin in career points.
****Ahead of English and Jones in career rs [and total (rs + ps)] Win Shares.
*****Ahead of English and Wilkins in career playoff VORP (and at least not terribly far behind both English and Gervin in career rs VORP).

All of the above mentioned guys (unless you believe Frank Layden on Dantley which I don't because of the countering evidence from Chuck Daly who I respect more) came off as classy human beings though; unless Carmelo who came off as selfish and willing to throw the Denver Nuggets under the bus. Now Carmelo against King or Aguirre from that same era as most of the above might be a different answer on this question.

I don't know how much this factors in, but it should factor in to some degree.

[trex_8063]

All of the above mentioned guys (unless you believe Frank Layden on Dantley which I don't because of the countering evidence from Chuck Daly who I respect more) came off as classy human beings though; unless Carmelo who came off as selfish and willing to throw the Denver Nuggets under the bus. Now Carmelo against King or Aguirre from that same era as most of the above might be a different answer on this question.

I don't know how much this factors in, but it should factor in to some degree.

I'm unaware of Carmelo's instances of not a "classy human being".
I mean, he never struck me as a saint or a truly admirable person, but......that's most of the people you encounter in the world.
He never struck me as someone I wanted to call out with such distaste either, though.


As far as throwing Denver under the bus......I wonder if there's more here I'm unaware of. As I understand it, his contract was about to expire, and he opted not to extend it with the Nuggets [because they were going into a rebuild], and asked to be traded.
Does it show a certain lack of loyalty? Perhaps, but not to the degree of saying he "threw them under the bus".

At any rate, I'm not sure these things factor in to the degree one can use it to justify putting 50-70 places between him and someone like Alex English or Dominique Wilkins. They simply weren't that much better at playing basketball.

[Owly]

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That's the one question I have about him and his impact which led me to think his defense must have been a legitimate liability and his rebounding may not be quite as good as the numbers suggest which is why I dropped him down like 5-6 spots after having him on my ballot for a bit.

Jerry Lucas one of poster boys how box numbers can overrate the sh.t out of a player.
He was a true defensive liability. I mean I’m talking about Starbury level liability, arguably even worse.

If Lucas was a neutral (let alone positive) impact player, the Knicks wouldn’t lose out that much of quality when Lucas basically replaced Reed and Frazier an overall team depth were getting better.

Not saying you're wrong, but what are you basing this assessment of his defense on?

Speaking for myself, I've only got <3 games of eye-test on him. I have 1.5 games viewed when I was working on my Game Log project [put on hiatus when this project started]--->half a game from '66 [while with Cincinatti], plus a quarter of another game and three-quarters of third game [both from '70, with the SFW]; otherwise I believe I've seen one playoff game from his Knick days.

While doing the game-logs I didn't really get a chance to fully scrutinize his defense [to many other things I'm focusing on], though generally I recall thinking his defense was "meh". Perhaps not terrible, but not good.

That said, his WOWYR [which I've been critical of as a metric, fwiw] is among the worst ever among notable "stars". This, combined with.....
*the lack of higher-end success while teamed with Oscar [and which seems to entirely caused by their poor team defense]
**and his habit of not consistently boxing out, but rather "chasing" rebounds [this is both something I observed AND is by his own admission in interview].

.....does make me think he may have been a significant liability on defense, too.
But just wondering if you had something more than that to go on.


btw, I'm glad to see the Bailey Howell mention [though I won't be supporting him within this project]. But I do think he's in a similar tier all-time as Jerry Lucas, even if he never gets that credit in the mainstream.

Lucas's rate of scoring was actually pretty pedestrian in his career: his pts/100 is typically at league average, or just marginally below. His scoring numbers sometimes look big because he was playing well above 40 mpg.
His efficiency is outstanding however, and he does have a floor-stretching benefit.
And his rebounding rates are excellent [though the "chasing" thing still a consideration where this is concerned].

Howell's scoring rates, otoh, are fairly consistently above league average [occassionally by a pretty solid margin], AND his efficiency is even more outstanding than Lucas's [he has TWO seasons above +9.6% rTS (peaking at +10.36%), and SEVEN consecutive years > +6%]; and he too stretches the floor a bit.
His assist rates are similar. His rebounding rates are less, though still at least adequate/decent.

To my eye, Howell didn't look too bad defensively [have 2.3 games logged with him playing].
Granted all of this is on smaller mpg than Lucas; though on the flip-side he also played one more season than Lucas.

On the whole, they feel very comparable to me. For whatever reason, Lucas simply obtained a much greater narrative, though.

Personally, insofar as I am suggesting the problem is primarily on D, it's mainly best guess.

If you're overprioritising rebounding, on whichever end, the cost is on D. If you're loafing it's more likely and more costly (especially if you're a shooter and offensive rebound threat) on D. The targeting rebounding numbers is a thing I'd heard (I think repeatedly) and bodes ill for him as a teammate.

Robert Kalich's "Basketball Rating Handbook" (1969) rated him a 4 out of 10 on D (and was bullish on him overall rating him as the 2nd best forward active in the NBA at that time - seemingly based on peaks). And the high profile players didn't get the very lower grades. The next highest rated (active) forward to get a 4 or lower (a 4) was Cazzie Russell - a notorious sieve. Going to the centers for a second Walt Bellamy got a 5 (the highest overall rated [active] center to get a 4 on D was Connie Dierking). Obviously nothing rock solid here but a bit of contemporary evidence of his D being held in (very) low regard.

I too am iffy on WoWY but here it's probably the least worst impact metric available here and the result is "strong" enough that even if you think some is noise, I think it puts a dampener on his upside and his viable range.

Looking at him, and I'm thinking off the top of my head here, he also has some markers that might tend to get a player overrated. Big college star. High draft pick. Played in New York. Won a ring. Won a ring in New York. Was a white "star" in an increasingly black sport. Had big stats (playing big minutes) - hit some nice base-ten thresholds (20-20 seasons).

As I say it's some best guess stuff and given less information the older guys have a greater viable range. For me though he's been overrated in the narrative history of the NBA and tends to get overrated in these lists as a result and isn't a player (subject to new info) that I see as particularly likely to crack my top 100 (if I ever get criteria/process I'm happy with).

[trex_8063]

Well, it's been 12 hours and not a single runoff vote received. As per protocol in that instance, we award it to the Condorcet leader and move on. I'll get the next up in a moment.....

Spoiler:

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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