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

[Colbinii]

What would you think could be the ceiling for Embiid?
To be honest, when he's been playing he's been as good as any center I have witnessed

Well his foul draw rate is equivalent to Peak Shaq. He is a more diversified scorer already than him and a significantly better defender.

I would say his realistic peak could be GOAT big-man but health, like Shaq, will be a factor.

I think that playoffs will tell us a lot this year (and next years). To reach GOAT level, you need to prove that you can't be stopped when it matters. So far Embiid was far from GOAT in the playoffs, but he still has a lot of time to prove himself.

I don't think that his defense alone is enough to reach that level to be honest.

Embiid was great last post-season on a small sample size.

[70sFan]

Well his foul draw rate is equivalent to Peak Shaq. He is a more diversified scorer already than him and a significantly better defender.

I would say his realistic peak could be GOAT big-man but health, like Shaq, will be a factor.

I think that playoffs will tell us a lot this year (and next years). To reach GOAT level, you need to prove that you can't be stopped when it matters. So far Embiid was far from GOAT in the playoffs, but he still has a lot of time to prove himself.

I don't think that his defense alone is enough to reach that level to be honest.

Embiid was great last post-season on a small sample size.

He played well in the series that was lost by 12 ppg. I don't blame him for that, Sixers had no chance winning the series, but putting up big stats under these circumstances won't tell us much.

I hope to see him exploding this year, especially against Nets

[HeartBreakKid]

Embiid is much improved from 2019 it's not just a streak or fluke season, he's going to have a good scoring post season. He would be a top 5 guy, and can probably challenge the 2-4 guys for this franchise this season.

We probably should have done this project in the off season but oh well.


I'm considering changing my vote from 77 Erving to an early 80s Erving but not really sure who to chose. I get the logic that 80s Erving might be better than 70s Erving, but I'm not sure how some people can think 76 was Erving's peak but 77 Erving is behind like 3 seasons in the 80s.

[70sFan]

I'm considering changing my vote from 77 Erving to an early 80s Erving but not really sure who to chose. I get the logic that 80s Erving might be better than 70s Erving, but I'm not sure how some people can think 76 was Erving's peak but 77 Erving is behind like 3 seasons in the 80s.

To be fair, I'm not sure if Erving had 3 better 1980s seasons than 1977. I'd take 1980 over 1977 and I'd also consider 1982, though his situation was much different. Despite winning MVP in 1981, it was his weakest season in 1980-82 period. I also think that he wasn't much worse in 1978 and 1979, Sixers team just weren't as good then. All these seasons are reasonably close, I think it's basically athleticism vs improved defense - it's up to you to decide.

[Goudelock]

1 - 1966-67 Wilt Chamberlain: As others have more eloquently said before me, this was probably the best version of Chamberlain and the closest he ever got to basketball perfection. Completely bought into his role as an in-the-flow scorer who only took high-percentage shots and as a playmaker. And if we had more comprehensive footage and statistics from that era, we'd probably see that season as one of the GOAT defensive seasons. From what I've heard, he was a menace on that end of the floor and completely locked in.

2 - 1982-83 Moses Malone: Probably the best player in the league at the apex of his powers. Moses wasn't as shot-happy as he was in Houston, but still put up highly-efficient scoring numbers as the interior foul-drawing scorer (.60 FTr) Philadelphia had needed for years. He was the engine of the one of the best teams of all time and went through some excellent centers in Cartwright, Lanier, and Abdul-Jabbar during his playoff run.

3 - 1977 Julius Erving: Other versions of Dr. J were more consistent and aggressive, so maybe I'm just letting his 1977 finals make me overrate him (since that's 75% of the footage that we have of him from that season). But I don't know if any other version of the Doctor would be able to rip apart a set Portland defense with Walton patrolling the middle quite like 1977 Doc. Hell, I don't even know if there are five other players in NBA history who could've done what Erving did to the Blazers. He had an alltime first step that season and he could got right or left with it from a standstill, which put immense pressure on Portland's help defenders. Erving also had a good enough jumpshot that season to score from the outside, and was maybe the team's best point guard on top of that. If he had been told to score like the Finals during the entire season, I feel like Erving would be giving Malone a run for his money as the #2 player on the list.

[HeartBreakKid]

1 - 1966-67 Wilt Chamberlain: As others have more eloquently said before me, this was probably the best version of Chamberlain and the closest he ever got to basketball perfection. Completely bought into his role as an in-the-flow scorer who only took high-percentage shots and as a playmaker. And if we had more comprehensive footage and statistics from that era, we'd probably see that season as one of the GOAT defensive seasons. From what I've heard, he was a menace on that end of the floor and completely locked in.

2 - 1982-83 Moses Malone: Probably the best player in the league at the apex of his powers. Moses wasn't as shot-happy as he was in Houston, but still put up highly-efficient scoring numbers as the interior foul-drawing scorer (.60 FTr) Philadelphia had needed for years. He was the engine of the one of the best teams of all time and went through some excellent centers in Cartwright, Lanier, and Abdul-Jabbar during his playoff run.

3 - 1977 Julius Erving: Other versions of Dr. J were more consistent and aggressive, so maybe I'm just letting his 1977 finals make me overrate him (since that's 75% of the footage that we have of him from that season). But I don't know if any other version of the Doctor would be able to rip apart a set Portland defense with Walton patrolling the middle quite like 1977 Doc. Hell, I don't even know if there are five other players in NBA history who could've done what Erving did to the Blazers. He had an alltime first step that season and he could got right or left with it from a standstill, which put immense pressure on Portland's help defenders. Erving also had a good enough jumpshot that season to score from the outside, and was maybe the team's best point guard on top of that. If he had been told to score like the Finals during the entire season, I feel like Erving would be giving Malone a run for his money as the #2 player on the list.

I think you need to rank 5 players for your vote to count.

[Baski]

1. 1967 Wilt Chamberlain
A GOAT candidate. The only Sixer of that status. Arguably the best combination of defense, playmaking, and efficient scoring for a centre. Spearheaded arguably the best team of all time.

2. 1990 Charles Barkley
The peak of a truly transcendent offensive stretch. It's rare for a player to generate league leading offenses based mainly on scoring. When you're competing with Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson for best offensive player in the league there's a lot you're doing right. Defense is very important for his position but less so than for the centre position, which makes it a bit less of a negative.

3. 1983 Moses Malone
Top 5 scorer and the league's best rebounder. Had a really great defensive year ending up 2nd in DWS. He was the engine of one of the greatest Sixers teams of all time. The playoffs were insanely good as they ran through a bunch of elite centres en route to a title on the back of his fo fo fo fi declaration.

4. 1977 Julius Erving
Arguably his best offensive year in the NBA. Top 5 scorer and top 5 in multiple advanced stats. Had the Sixers so good on offense that the addition of Moses the next year didn't cause a material improvement in their rank.

5. Allen Iverson is the one I'm most familiar with, but I just know for sure that he isn't a top 5 sixer. I'd put 2021 Embiid here if eligible so he's the honorable mention with AI as a placeholder for 5th.

[Doctor MJ]

5. '18-19 Joel Embiid - a force of nature, putting him in even though the superior '20-21 is ineligible.

I do appreciate the votes for Schayes, but I can't honestly say I think he was better than the 5 above.

Also want to give a shout out to Wilt's '67 teammates (Greer, Walker, Cunningham) and Moses & Erving's '83 teammates (Jones, Cheeks, Toney) along with the iconic AI.

I agree that 2021 Embiid (if he wouldn't suffer from anything) would be a clear cut choice.

Though I think it's quite a race between Embiid, Schayes, Iverson and Cunningham. (Greer and Walker feel a step down respectively)
Embiid had durability issues. Also there's a trade off between 2019 and 2020 versions. 2019 version was quite high in RAPM, 2020 version not so much. But he definitely had a better postseason showing in 2020.
With Iverson, durability is not an issue. He was consistent throughout the season in 2001. I think his edge in motor is bigger than Embiid's edge in quality.
Cunningham was a top 5 player in 1970. Right after Kareem, West, Frazier and Reed. That's quite the company. Considering their position to the top players, Cunningham looks better than Iverson I guess? 26/14/4 in regular season with slightly above average efficiency. Despite the slightly low W numbers, he led the Sixers to top 3 SRS in the season. Then 29/10/4 in playoffs. The only major drawback is his turnover numbers in ABA suggest that he was more turnover prone than he should've been.
TBH, I'm always too sceptical about the '50s because my knowledge about the decade is so little compared to the '60s or onwards. That was why I initially went with Iverson over Schayes.

Makes sense in general. I saw it as a clear cut Top 4 and then just didn't feel comfortable taking the other guys ahead of Embiid, but I could certainly be wrong.

With Cunningham, there's a part of me that wants to rank him higher than I do in general, but a couple things give me pause.

First, post-Wilt, Cunningham only ever won 1 playoff series (Against a 30 win Nets team in the year between Barry's departure and Erving's arrival), and his teams lost series to teams with worse RS records 3 times.

I'm a big ABA guy and really don't like dismissing guys based on the idea that the ABA made them look better than they actually were, but I've always been struck by the fact that Cunningham's big ABA MVP year ended with his best-record in the RS team losing to another team that didn't win the title. One incident is not necessarily damning, and I respect Cunningham a lot, but I think Cunningham's legacy would be a lot stronger if he'd actually led team to series victories against serious opponents, and they really didn't do that.

Now, you might say that neither has Embiid, and you've got a point, but Embiid did terrify the hell out of the team that would go on to win the title in '18-19, and in that off-season I really felt like no one looked at Embiid as anything other than a top tier superstar. With Cunningham, I feel I need to move him down a peg from there.

Re: Iverson. I can see arguments for Iverson over Embiid as well, but I suppose the reality is that at this point I'm just not a believer in what AI was doing. (In 2001, AI was my favorite player and I was cheering for him, so this isn't what I've always thought.)

[HeartBreakKid]

1. 1967 Wilt Chamberlain
A GOAT candidate. The only Sixer of that status. Arguably the best combination of defense, playmaking, and efficient scoring for a centre. Spearheaded arguably the best team of all time.

2. 1990 Charles Barkley
The peak of a truly transcendent offensive stretch. It's rare for a player to generate league leading offenses based mainly on scoring. When you're competing with Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson for best offensive player in the league there's a lot you're doing right. Defense is very important for his position but less so than for the centre position, which makes it a bit less of a negative.

3. 1983 Moses Malone
Top 5 scorer and the league's best rebounder. Had a really great defensive year ending up 2nd in DWS. He was the engine of one of the greatest Sixers teams of all time. The playoffs were insanely good as they ran through a bunch of elite centres en route to a title on the back of his fo fo fo fi declaration.

4. 1977 Julius Erving
Arguably his best offensive year in the NBA. Top 5 scorer and top 5 in multiple advanced stats. Had the Sixers so good on offense that the addition of Moses the next year didn't cause a material improvement in their rank.

5. Allen Iverson is the one I'm most familiar with, but I just know for sure that he isn't a top 5 sixer. I'd put 2021 Embiid here if eligible so he's the honorable mention with AI as a placeholder for 5th.

Moses joined way later.

[Odinn21]

...

I'd trust your knowledge about the ABA more than mine, so I can't comment on that part. My impression of Cunningham always has been that he's a great but somewhat limited offensively. From the NBA games I had seen, my take away from those games was Cunningham made his team overachieve with great regular season performance because the coaching tools and approach at the time did not care enough limiting a solo gun. It became a thing in the playoffs because it was required. That's how Cunningham led teams did not shine in the playoffs. However I don't think Cunningham was overrated necessarily because the offensive pieces around him was more limited than himself. Though like I said, I'm talking strictly about his time in the NBA.

I'm not big on Embiid's 2019 performance by the way. He missed a game in the playoffs, he had to play limited minutes, in the minutes he played he had just awful offensive output. It's true that the Sixers forced a game 7, they were on the verge of forcing an OT too. It was Butler who had the lion's share, Embiid was a major contributor but Embiid scored 17.6 ppg on -1.5 rts in the Raptors series. That is not top 5 worthy in the 76ers franchise history.

---

...

You need a complete top 5 for your vote to count.

[Goudelock]

I'll get the last two in later today.

[Odinn21]

I'll get the last two in later today.

It's 35 minutes until the deadline fyi.

[Odinn21]

The 76ers results;

Code: Select all

1. 15-0-0-0-0 / 150 points / 1.000 share / '67 Wilt Chamberlain
2.  0-6-6-3-0 /  81 points / 0.540 share / '83 Moses Malone
3.  0-5-3-7-0 /  71 points / 0.473 share / '82 Julius Erving
4.  0-5-3-7-0 /  67 points / 0.447 share / '90 Charles Barkley
5.  0-1-0-0-6 /  13 points / 0.087 share / '54 Dolph Schayes

6.  0-0-0-0-3 /   3 points / 0.020 share / '01 Allen Iverson
7.  0-0-0-0-3 /   3 points / 0.020 share / '19 Joel Embiid
8.  0-0-0-0-1 /   1 points / 0.007 share / '82 Bobby Jones
9.  0-0-0-0-1 /   1 points / 0.007 share / '71 Billy Cunningham

Results on Google Sheet

[trex_8063]

The 76ers results;

Code: Select all

1. 15-0-0-0-0 / 150 points / 1.000 share / '67 Wilt Chamberlain
2.  0-6-6-3-0 /  81 points / 0.540 share / '83 Moses Malone
3.  0-5-3-7-0 /  71 points / 0.473 share / '82 Julius Erving
4.  0-5-3-7-0 /  67 points / 0.447 share / '90 Charles Barkley
5.  0-1-0-0-6 /  13 points / 0.087 share / '54 Dolph Schayes

6.  0-0-0-0-3 /   3 points / 0.020 share / '01 Allen Iverson
7.  0-0-0-0-3 /   3 points / 0.020 share / '19 Joel Embiid
8.  0-0-0-0-1 /   1 points / 0.007 share / '82 Bobby Jones
9.  0-0-0-0-1 /   1 points / 0.007 share / '71 Billy Cunningham

Results on Google Sheet

There should be 1 pt for '58 Dolph Schayes [he was my 5th-place vote]; unless you simply grouped that one vote in with his '54 sample.

[sansterre]

The 76ers results;

Code: Select all

1. 15-0-0-0-0 / 150 points / 1.000 share / '67 Wilt Chamberlain
2.  0-6-6-3-0 /  81 points / 0.540 share / '83 Moses Malone
3.  0-5-3-7-0 /  71 points / 0.473 share / '82 Julius Erving
4.  0-5-3-7-0 /  67 points / 0.447 share / '90 Charles Barkley
5.  0-1-0-0-6 /  13 points / 0.087 share / '54 Dolph Schayes

6.  0-0-0-0-3 /   3 points / 0.020 share / '01 Allen Iverson
7.  0-0-0-0-3 /   3 points / 0.020 share / '19 Joel Embiid
8.  0-0-0-0-1 /   1 points / 0.007 share / '82 Bobby Jones
9.  0-0-0-0-1 /   1 points / 0.007 share / '71 Billy Cunningham

Results on Google Sheet

There should be 1 pt for '58 Dolph Schayes [he was my 5th-place vote]; unless you simply grouped that one vote in with his '54 sample.

To reduce the risk of a player having multiple years that split the vote, Odinn is grouping all votes by player, and then taking the year with the most votes for that player.

[Odinn21]

There should be 1 pt for '58 Dolph Schayes [he was my 5th-place vote]; unless you simply grouped that one vote in with his '54 sample.

To reduce the risk of a player having multiple years that split the vote, Odinn is grouping all votes by player, and then taking the year with the most votes for that player.

Yeah, this is exactly how I tracked the votes. Cheers.

[Baski]

1. 1967 Wilt Chamberlain
A GOAT candidate. The only Sixer of that status. Arguably the best combination of defense, playmaking, and efficient scoring for a centre. Spearheaded arguably the best team of all time.

2. 1990 Charles Barkley
The peak of a truly transcendent offensive stretch. It's rare for a player to generate league leading offenses based mainly on scoring. When you're competing with Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson for best offensive player in the league there's a lot you're doing right. Defense is very important for his position but less so than for the centre position, which makes it a bit less of a negative.

3. 1983 Moses Malone
Top 5 scorer and the league's best rebounder. Had a really great defensive year ending up 2nd in DWS. He was the engine of one of the greatest Sixers teams of all time. The playoffs were insanely good as they ran through a bunch of elite centres en route to a title on the back of his fo fo fo fi declaration.

4. 1977 Julius Erving
Arguably his best offensive year in the NBA. Top 5 scorer and top 5 in multiple advanced stats. Had the Sixers so good on offense that the addition of Moses the next year didn't cause a material improvement in their rank.

5. Allen Iverson is the one I'm most familiar with, but I just know for sure that he isn't a top 5 sixer. I'd put 2021 Embiid here if eligible so he's the honorable mention with AI as a placeholder for 5th.

Moses joined way later.

Oof that's a mistake on my part. I started thinking about 77 Julius but then changed my mind to 82 Julius and forgot to change the name.