[Project] Top 5 single season peaks by franchises: The 76ers

[Odinn21]

Hello.

Link to the project thread.

Pick the top 5 individual single seasons in the 76ers franchise history.

As Philadelphia 76ers from 1963-64 to today
As Syracuse Nationals from 1949-50 to 1962-63

Things to follow;
- This project is franchise bound, not city bound. Quick example; Philadelphia Warriors from 1949-50 to 1961-62 is part of the Golden State Warriors franchise history and 1952 Arizin is eligible for the GS Warriors history.
- We'll follow continuity of the franchise. I.e. Seattle SuperSonics and Oklahoma City Thunder are the same franchise. We'll use BBRef as reference for this.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/OKC/
- ABA seasons are included.
- 2020-21 season is yet to be completed, so, it's not eligible for this project.
- One season per player, no duplicates within the franchise history. Quick example; Shaquille O'Neal can be voted for only once for the LA Lakers franchise history, and he can be voted for the Orlando Magic franchise history. They are separate occasions.

- Reg. season and postseason play, both are included in evaluations.
- Votes will be counted per player, not per version of player.
- An easy going point system of 10/7/5/3/1, the same as Retro PoY project, will be used. Number of higher placement votes will be the tiebreaker (if two players are tied at 27 points for the 1st place, the player with more 1st place votes will get it).
- Explanation is needed, even in short forms.
- The time frame for each franchise is 2 days (10:00 EST). This very first thread will have nearly 55 hours voting window.
- We'll be going alphabetically with franchise nicknames.

Spoiler:

Philadelphia 76ers
Milwaukee Bucks
Chicago Bulls
Cleveland Cavaliers
Boston Celtics
Los Angeles Clippers
Memphis Grizzlies
Atlanta Hawks
Miami Heat
Charlotte Hornets
Utah Jazz
Sacramento Kings
New York Knicks
Los Angeles Lakers
Orlando Magic
Dallas Mavericks
Brooklyn Nets
Denver Nuggets
Indiana Pacers
New Orleans Pelicans
Detroit Pistons
Toronto Raptors
Houston Rockets
San Antonio Spurs
Phoenix Suns
Oklahoma City Thunder
Minnesota Timberwolves
Portland Trail Blazers
Golden State Warriors
Washington Wizards

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[Odinn21]

1. 1967 Wilt Chamberlain
I think this is one of the most obvious picks can be made.

2. 1983 Moses Malone
Very strong season all around. He was great offensively and he performed at quite a good level defensively. The 76ers were already a strong team but Moses' arrival made them a historic team.

3. 1990 Charles Barkley
He had an absurd offensive level. One of the most efficient offensive seasons ever (25.2 ppg on +12.4 rts, +4.37 ts add per 36). His defensive level was just average (that's actually a good season for him, lol). And if he was not hated by some of the media, he could've won the MVP award over peak/prime Jordan and Magic. He's the only player that got the most 1st place votes and did not win the award. I'm not saying he should've won it or anything, 1990 MVP race was a legit 3 horse race and Barkley was one of them. Considering the other 2, that's pretty telling.

4. 1982 Julius Erving
Well, it's not easy to pick a season for Erving from 1980 to 1982, all 3 seasons are quite strong. 1982 feels the most complete. 1982 has the most complete box score metrics across regular season + playoffs, also in terms of raw +/-, 1982 has the highest on/off NRtg swing for Erving by a big margin.

5. 2001 Allen Iverson
TBH, I'm not that comfortable with this selection. I might change this vote to Schayes.

---

I love how close Moses, Dr. J and Chuck are. Looking at their ranks in the peaks project;
1976 Erving was #16
1983 Malone was #22
1993 Barkley was #26
Erving's 1982 season season is not as strong as his 1976, and I think 1990 should've been Barkley's peak in there. That's a pretty close company.

[HeartBreakKid]

1) 1967 Wilt Chamberlain - Fairly obvious. Greater defensive dominance than all his other competition and is a comparable offensive hub to nearly everyone else.

2) 1977 Julius Erving - Conventional wisdom would say to pick 81 or 82 since that is around his MVP years and his regular season numbers are the best. However, 77 is only one year removed from his peak. He wasn't that good during the RS but I think a lot of that has to do with the type of team he was thrusted into and his coach not using him to the best of his abilities (new league probably did not help either). I think athletically he was quite a bit better than in his early 30s, and he likely was a better defender which is why I have him over Moses and Chucky. His playoff run was really good, game 6 into the NBA finals averaging 27 points per game. I think Dr.J understood team basketball much better than Chucky and Moses did as well, and his offensive numbers undersold his impact or his ability to take over when needed. I think a lot of the Sixers weaknesses came down to coaching (and not the best fit either roster wise).

3) 1990 Charles Barkley - Was either this one or 1991. He's pretty consistent in the post season so I just took his best RS scoring wise. I just think he's on another level of a offensive player than Msoes, and his ball handling ability might make his offensive more scalable (or perhaps just make me biasly think he's better). I'm not really rating them much as defenders though I think Moses was a comfortably better there.

4) 1983 Moses Malone - No brainer at this point.

5) 1982 Bobby Jones - This might be a hot take (it almost certainly is considering how many great Sixers are left), because you could argue that perhaps Mutumbo makes him obsolete as a defensive specialist - but I feel more comfortable with Bobby on a championship team than say Iverson or Embiid. Schayes is a good pick here but maybe a bit too unspectacular due to era biases for me to give him the nod. I'm really not sure about Mutumbo vs Jones, more so I'm not positive of how good Mutumbo really was at his age. He was still legit but was his DPOY a bit of media hype? Jones on the other hand seemed like a pretty oppressive guy for someone whos boxscore stats were modest - it would have been great to get impact stats from him, would not be surprised if he was +/- monster. I don't penalize heavily for minutes or lack of.


Ranks 2-4 are close. My 5th pick (Jones) has a lot of competition from the 60s and 00s.

[Dutchball97]

1. Wilt Chamberlain, 1966/67 - In the running for best peak of all time regardless of franchise. I don't think the number 1 spot will be a hot topic here unless some voters downgrade players who played before the modern era.

2. Julius Erving, 1981/82 - All around amazing season. He had a legit argument to be the best player in both the regular season and the play-offs.

3. Moses Malone, 1982/83 - I think Moses was better in the regular season the year before but his 83 post-season was clearly his best. Although this is also a very strong complete season, it's not as high level throughout as Dr. J's season imo. Moses is in general pretty hard to rank as I believe he was overrated in his own time and underrated now but I think #3 is a good spot for him here.

4. Charles Barkley, 1989/90 - Even though Barkley's level of play might put him ahead of Dr.J and Moses, I do think it matters that the 76ers didn't have that much post-season success with Barkley as their best player. Because of this it is a less complete season than the guys above had. I contemplated dropping Barkley to 5 for a bit but I don't think Schayes' era was strong enough to warrant placing him above Barkley. I also thought about picking the 90/91 season instead as his per minute production was higher in both the regular season and the play-offs but since I'm looking for "complete" seasons it wouldn't make sense to go with a season where he missed a good chunk of time over a comparable season where he didn't.

5. Dolph Schayes, 1953/54 - It was difficult to pick a year for Schayes. His title winning year in 55 was my first go to but I think he was overall better in 54. I think it's fair to have him below the likes of Dr. J, Moses and Barkley as Schayes' era was clearly weaker but in his time he was similarly dominant as those guys. He had a legit argument to be the best player in the league during those two years so I wouldn't take guys like AI, Mutombo or Bobby Jones ahead of something like that, even in a weaker era.

[Colbinii]

1. Wilt Chamberlain 1967

2. Julius Erving 1982

It took Erving a couple/few years to fully adjust to the NBA style, but once he did he was arguably the best perimeter player in the league (1980-1982). He was efficient scoring the ball and figured out how to defend at a high-level. All-time greats improve every year barring a major set-back or physical decline and Erving was still a physical anomaly in 1982. In comparison to Chuck and Moses, I like what Erving brings to the table as a playmaker and defender and he was multi-faceted as an offensive weapon.

3. Charles Barkley 1990

There are no shortages of elite offensive big men on this list and Chuck comes in at #2 for me. His offensive rebounding and scoring near the rim allowed him to be a unique offensive talent with efficiency and volume never seen before. Defensively Chuck had some shortcomings which puts him below my top-2 here but those shortcomings weren't necessarily detrimental to his impact on winning as much as others.

4. Moses Malone 1983

It isn't often a top 30 Peak is to be ranked 4th on a franchise, but alas here we are. Great offensive player with scoring and rebounding, left something to be desired as a playmaker given his talents and while his defense wasn't elite he could still hold his own against the best of the best. I'm a little biased here and open to hearing considerations ahead of Barkley and even Dr J.

5. Joel Embiid 2020

Yes, I went there. He is a better offensive player than Jones, Iverson and Iguodala while being a better defender than each (Jones being close). Unfortunately with Simmons injury we didn't see post-season team success but we saw his individual ability full-force. I'm trying not to let this season get in the way too much of what he was in 2020--which is clearly worse than this season--but I can't help to think Embiid wasn't a half-step away from 2021 in 2020.

[Jaivl]

1. 1967 Wilt Chamberlain (+6.50)
Duh.

2. 1990 Charles Barkley (+5.00)
I don't think he was a negative on defense at small forward, so he comes ahead of Julius and Moses.

3. 1982 Julius Erving (+4.50)
Every time I watch 76ers Julius and think of the other positional greats I come out underwhelmed. And with that I don't only mean LeBron and Bird, but also Durant, and even Kawhi. In fact I think 2019 Kawhi at 95% is a good comp. Don't really think you can go lower on him than I do, lol.

4. 1983 Moses Malone (+4.25)
I'm also low-ish on him. Probably a tiny bit worse than on Houston on the offensive end.

5. 2019 Joel Embiid (+4.10)
Healthier than 2020, I think he's clearly the best player avaliable. He might've been even higher if his "healthier" was "healthy". Next best players I can think of I rate at about +3.50 (Iverson, Cunningham - it's more than possible than Schayes is at the +4 range but I haven't analyzed him yet).

[HeartBreakKid]

One thing that bothers me about Billy Cunningham is that when I looked into his ABA numbers he had 4.5 turnovers on 6 assist and 24 PPG. The next season he scaled down to 20.5/4.7 on 4 turnovers. We dont have turnover numbers for the NBA during this period, but it's something that makes me a bit hesitant about how efficient he really was.

[Odinn21]

1977 is an interesting debate for Erving but 1982 Erving over 1983 Malone is kind of weird to me.
Moses was already better than Erving in 1982. And in 1983, his scoring volume went down but he was also performed significantly better and more consistent on defense compared to his 1982 self.

I truly believe that this CORP type of evaluation causing some unearned damage to some players outlook in quality and Moses is definitely one of them.

[sansterre]

Predictably, I went stats-heavy for my analysis.

#1. 1967 Wilt Chamberlain. Not going to justify it. Wilt was pretty obviously the #1 player here.

#2. 1954 Dolph Schayes. Sure, I'm crazy. But he put up comparable Win Shares to Malone, Barkley or Erving. He anchored the best defense in the league while taking 24% of his team's shots and shooting around +5%. And then in the playoffs he went absolutely nuts, taking 29% of his team's shots in the playoffs and shooting around +10%. And his team fell just short against Mikan's Lakers in the Finals, but Schayes played out of his mind.

#3. 1983 Moses Malone. VORP doesn't like him, but his Win Shares think he was huge with the '83 Sixers. And his OBPM jumped a ton in the playoffs, by +2.8. Did he have a lot of advantages playing on a loaded roster? Sure. But we're talking levels of performance that few reach.

#4. 1982 Julius Erving. Barely edged out Barkley on account of getting better in the playoffs.

#5. 1991 Charles Barkley. Slightly moved back in the playoffs, so Dr. J got the nod.


I'm serious. '54 Dolph Schayes. Check it out. It was a monster season.

[Jaivl]

1977 is an interesting debate for Erving but 1982 Erving over 1983 Malone is kind of weird to me.
Moses was already better than Erving in 1982. And in 1983, his scoring volume went down but he was also performed significantly better and more consistent on defense compared to his 1982 self.

I truly believe that this CORP type of evaluation causing some unearned damage to some players outlook in quality and Moses is definitely one of them.

You may have a point, but take into consideration these are the two greats I'm (by far) the lowest on, and somebody had to come down on top... I mean, on bottom!

Spoiler:

Even non-peak, 1983 Moses, is probably the #3 offensive center ever. But I'm not sold on his defense. At all.

[70sFan]

My votes:

1. 1966/67 Wilt Chamberlain - easy choice, I don't think I have to elaborate that.

2. 1979/80 Julius Erving - it's very close between him, Moses and Barkley but I'm higher on 1980s Julius defense than most and his offense was very resiliant. He was also more agressive offensively in 1980 than in 1982, that's why I picked this version.

3. 1982/83 Moses Malone - I think that Moses didn't have the same issues on defense as Barkley - he wasn't high motor defender but he could play positive role on strong defensive team with his post defense (very underrated), rebounding and decent (though unspectacular) rim protection. Offensively he was a monster, he created inside shots better than almost anybody but unlike Shaq/Wilt he could also create from midrange.

4. 1989/90 Charles Barkley - monster offensive season, could be higher but I don't like his defense compared to Moses and Julius.

5. 1970/71 Billy Cunningham - very underrated player historically, he could do everything well and was one of the most versatile forwards ever.

If you want me to make longer elaboration, let me know.

[Odinn21]

1977 is an interesting debate for Erving but 1982 Erving over 1983 Malone is kind of weird to me.
Moses was already better than Erving in 1982. And in 1983, his scoring volume went down but he was also performed significantly better and more consistent on defense compared to his 1982 self.

I truly believe that this CORP type of evaluation causing some unearned damage to some players outlook in quality and Moses is definitely one of them.

You may have a point, but take into consideration these are the two greats I'm (by far) the lowest on, and somebody had to come down on top... I mean, on bottom!

Spoiler:

Even non-peak, 1983 Moses, is probably the #3 offensive center ever. But I'm not sold on his defense. At all.

Consider this;
Caldwell Jones was a great defensive C in the early '80s and he was almost as important/valuable as Bobby Jones on defense in 1982 Sixers team. The Sixers were 7th in DRtg with -3.0 relative value.

In 1983, Caldwell Jones out - Moses Malone in, and the Sixers were 5th in DRtg with -3.8 relative value.
I'm not big on raw NRtg numbers but looking at this;
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZxRM9p2dFil5w6s21VEB4HnQZJymEY8_2vej-jREuUo/edit#gid=459687126
Moses looks quite significant on defense.

In the games I had in my archive at the time, like I stated early in the thread, Moses was quite good and consistent in 1983. He definitely was not in 1982. But he was a legit defensive force in 1983. A proper rim protector with good lateral movement and quick hands.

---

If you want me to make longer elaboration, let me know.

That was plenty! Cheers.

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5) Embiid, 2021

Season not over obviously and I’m not sure if this violates project rules, but this season can climb further up the list.

Yeah, 2021 versions are not eligible. If you feel strongly about 2021 Embiid, please have him as an honourable mention and pick an eligible candidate for your 5th spot.

[homecourtloss]

1) Wilt, 1967

Not much explication necessary here as this is a GOAT type peak

2) Moses, 1983

RS + PS dominance, and perhaps his best defensive performance in the playoffs. Had the Lakers completely demoralized halfway through the Finals with his offensive rebounding and trips to the FT line. Very good plus/minus estimates

3) Dr. J, 1982

Best combination of RS + PS by a small margin. Very good efficiency, great turnover economy.

4) Barkley, ‘90

Barley ‘91 was in ways better but this ‘90 version didn’t miss games and was incredibly efficient while gaining his team extra possessions, a primary reason that the Sixers has the second best ORtg.

5) Dolph Schayes, 1954

With an argument as best player in the league , I feel he belongs here.

HM. Embiid 2019. Underwhelming impact stats in regular season but dominant in the post season. Posted an absurd +20 on court and +40 on-off, dominated the eventual champion Raptors while on court.

HM. Embiid 2021. Season not over obviously and I’m not sure if this violates project rules, but this season can climb further up the list. He’s drawing fouls like prime Shaq and shooting them better than prime Jordan.
RPM/RAPM/RAPTOR looks good though not overwhelmingly good.

[70sFan]

4. 1983 Moses Malone (+4.25)
I'm also low-ish on him. Probably a tiny bit worse than on Houston on the offensive end.

I've been scouting and taking notes on Moses recently and I disagree that he was worse offensively than in Houston. He peaked on offense in 1982 and 1983, but he had lesser role because of better team around him. He was inarguably better offensively in 1983 than in 1981 for example, when he didn't use jumpshot much. He improved his faceup game in 1982 by clear margin.

Another thing is that Moses was clearly better defender in 1983 (and 1982) than in 1979-81.

[70sFan]

I think athletically he was quite a bit better than in his early 30s, and he likely was a better defender which is why I have him over Moses and Chucky.

From my eye test, Julius clearly improved defensively in the 1980s. He was much less active without the ball in 1977.

[Djoker]

Some really good posts in this thread already. Let me think about my list for a bit. I will post tonight but Wilt will definitely be my #1. The other contenders are Dr J, Moses, Barkley, Iverson, Embiid, Schayes, Greer, Cunningham...

[Colbinii]

I think athletically he was quite a bit better than in his early 30s, and he likely was a better defender which is why I have him over Moses and Chucky.

From my eye test, Julius clearly improved defensively in the 1980s. He was much less active without the ball in 1977.

Not only does the eye test back this up, the numbers do as well. Erving became a well-rounded defender and more complete player in the 1980s before his physical decline starting in 1984.

[HeartBreakKid]

I think athletically he was quite a bit better than in his early 30s, and he likely was a better defender which is why I have him over Moses and Chucky.

From my eye test, Julius clearly improved defensively in the 1980s. He was much less active without the ball in 1977.

Do you think he was a better defender than when he was in the ABA?

[Dr Positivity]

1. Wilt 1967
2. Erving 1980 - I'm not sure which 80s Dr J to pick. He is younger here and his performance in the finals seems strong.
3. Moses 1983 - With moses playing good defense this year I will rate him above
4. Barkley 1990
5. Schayes 1958 - played well against increasingly solid competition. Torn on him, Cunningham, Iverson

[70sFan]

I think athletically he was quite a bit better than in his early 30s, and he likely was a better defender which is why I have him over Moses and Chucky.

From my eye test, Julius clearly improved defensively in the 1980s. He was much less active without the ball in 1977.

Do you think he was a better defender than when he was in the ABA?

We don't have as much footage from that era, but from what I've seen - yeah, most likely. He was never bad, but he became better with more experience.

Early 1980s Julius was a terror help defender. He's not among the best ever only because he's not great man defender and he gambled too much at times, but to me he peaked as elite perimeter defender.