Unseld vs Reed vs Cowens

[Narigo]

Who is the best player out of the three career -wise

[trex_8063]

For peaks, I rank them Reed > Cowens > Unseld.
Ironically, for career ranking, the order is exactly reversed for me.

You may recall from past top 100 projects that my criteria hinges on TOTAL career value [above replacement], so it "leans" rather heavily on meaningful longevity.
Reed took a few years to really become a stud in the NBA, and injuries soon took their toll: he lasted just 10 seasons, playing <20 games in two of those (was a somewhat limited-minute player for the last THREE).

Cowens came into his own a tiny bit quicker in the NBA, and lasted 11 seasons, playing 50+ games in all except his final season with the Bucks (in which he had degraded to barely a league-average player).

Unseld was an instant "big deal" [winning MVP his rookie year, if certainly a dubious selection] and played 13 total seasons, never missing more than 26 games in any of them. That amounted to playing >55% more minutes than Reed, for example.

And whereas Cowens was barely league-average in his final year, Unseld was still a legit decent NBA player [probably marginally above average] in his 13th and final season (still playing >32 mpg for a basically .500 team).

He thus accumulates the most value for me and my criteria (and Reed the least).

[Dutchball97]

My approach is pretty different than trex as I value longevity mostly when comparing players of a similar level or when the difference is immense.

I consider Reed on another level than Cowens and Unseld. To me Unseld and Cowens are comparable with Unseld taking a clear longevity lead. I do think Unseld's longevity is enough to get him a look vs Reed but it isn't enough to convince me honestly. It isn't like Reed's longevity is like Walton or Rose, it's more like Kawhi.

So Reed > Unseld > Cowens for me.

[Dr Positivity]

Offensively I like Reed's game the most, defensively I like Cowens. I might put Unseld as the worst on both ends of the three in their primes. In terms of longevity Unseld's is the best, Cowens is reasonable, Reed's is most abbreviated.

Career ranking 1. Cowens 2. Unseld 3. Reed. Reed just doesn't have quite enough years as the first two years he is volume scoring but has pretty mediocre efficiency and WS/48 on a losing team.

[70sFan]

For peaks, it's clearly Reed at number one for me. He was legitimate all-time great during his brief peak, very strong MVP candidate.

Cowens vs Unseld are close for peaks, but I think that Dave game was a bit more versatile on both ends of the floor. Unseld is very good though, some may argue he was better offensively despite lack of scoring game.

For careers, I guess Unseld is the first one given his longevity advantage. Cowens and Reed are close, Dave's whole relevant career is 1972-80 (I don't think he was that good as a rookie) and he missed a ton of games in 1975, 1977, 1979 and 1980. Reed's prime is 1967-71, so only 5 seasons but at least he didn't miss games in that period. I also would say that 1966 and 1973 aren't that far apart from 1979 or 1980 Cowens.

I guess that's my ranking:

1. Peaks:

Reed >> Cowens >= Unseld

2. Careers:

Unseld > Reed >= Cowens

[DQuinn1575]

Peak - Reed - Cowens - Unseld
Career - Reed - Unseld - Cowens

THese guys were in the league 4 years together 1971-1974.
In that time period the 2nd highest center in BPM was Bob Lanier

https://stathead.com/tiny/AhVAA

[Jaivl]

Peak: Reed > Cowens > Unseld
Career: Cowens > Reed > Unseld

Not very high on Unseld's prime

[70sFan]

Not very high on Unseld's prime

How could you!

On a serious note, is it because of his low scoring game?

[wojoaderge]

Peak:
Reed
Unseld
Cowens

Career:
Reed
Cowens
Unseld

[ty 4191]

Who was the best in the playoffs?

[feyki]

Not very high on Unseld's prime

How could you!

On a serious note, is it because of his low scoring game?

It's probably about both Reed and Cowens were MVP level players.

Best player career-wise is a paradox, to me; but I would take Cowens, here. His peak,prime and career all were better than Reed and Unseld.

Unseld and Reed good comparison, though. One is with super peak but with lacking at longevity and other one is with great longevity but not much high at his peak.

[Cavsfansince84]

Career wise I think I had Cowens at around 55, Reed at about 60 and Unseld at around 75 when I was part of the last top 100 here. Reed definitely wins peak as others have noted.

[70sFan]

Not very high on Unseld's prime

How could you!

On a serious note, is it because of his low scoring game?

It's probably about both Reed and Cowens were MVP level players.

Best player career-wise is a paradox, to me; but I would take Cowens, here. His peak,prime and career all were better than Reed and Unseld.

Unseld and Reed good comparison, though. One is with super peak but with lacking at longevity and other one is with great longevity but not much high at his peak.

I don't think Cowens peaked higher than Reed. It isn't unreasonable to take Dave here, but Reed was far better scorer while being excellent defensively as well (better rim protector, probably slightly better man defender and good mobility, though not as good as Cowens).

[Owly]

Gut response without checking any data (for whatever that's worth) for career is Cowens first (being better than his boxscore - even if the MVP was robbery - in a fairly consistent way across most of his career. Then I'd struggle maybe, I think Reed has more consistent evidence of goodness (via his productivity) in prime , but once his prime is gone, he's gone whereas Unseld plays longer as - I think - more limited (though still useful) version of himself. I might prefer the less heralded Lanier to all of them.

Published print list average (not including the last two Slam lists partly I haven't updated the list lately, partly because there's plenty of Slam influence already and partly because penultimate Slam list was pretty awful as I recall and that put me off really looking at the latest, though I think I've seen it online) went Reed narrowly from Cowens then Unseld third (both the average and Reed making 15 lists, Cowens making 14, Unseld 12). Again take this for whatever it's worth.

We're looking at guys who
- peaked before the full boxscore
- played before the less crude impact numbers came in
- have positive non-boxscore reputations (some or all for defense, toughness, hustle, spacing, passing)
- aren't such complete boxscore or career impact (i.e. Russell, though winning [titles] might have been as much of his rep initially) monsters that they're top tier, pantheon type guys where the gaps are bigger.
So - and this is the main point here - we'd have to acknowledge pretty large windows of uncertainty on all of them.

Each's place within their team's heirarchy isn't necessarily always crystal clear either, another instance where noise, lack of data could allow for reasonable debate in assigning credit.

None seems to stand out on ElGee's WoWY table (again caveat emptor - WoWY numbers are noisy and not necessarily like for like)
prime WoWY, career WoWY
Unseld: 1.8, 1.8
Cowens: 1.6, 1.7
Reed:1.3, 0.9

Don't have time to look at it closer - as I would want to if looking to come up with something firmer.

[Jaivl]

Not very high on Unseld's prime

How could you!

On a serious note, is it because of his low scoring game?

It's that I don't really think he was the same class of player as the other two, who peaked as ~top 3 guys for me.

When I look at Unseld I see a guy that has a couple of very strong offensive ancillary skills, but nothing that's really going to drive a big offensive impact, and in terms of defense - I think we have talked about this before - he's doesn't really look like a top tier rim protector nor a lock-down defender, and his crude impact numbers are not that eye-popping either (not like Cowens' or Reed's are either). He also seems to have some weird-ass boxscore fluctuations that I'm not sure about.

He's still in my top 100, mind you, and, as always when we look to the past, the margin of error in my analysis is quite big, so who knows lol.

[Doctor MJ]

For peaks, I rank them Reed > Cowens > Unseld.
Ironically, for career ranking, the order is exactly reversed for me.

You may recall from past top 100 projects that my criteria hinges on TOTAL career value [above replacement], so it "leans" rather heavily on meaningful longevity.
Reed took a few years to really become a stud in the NBA, and injuries soon took their toll: he lasted just 10 seasons, playing <20 games in two of those (was a somewhat limited-minute player for the last THREE).

Cowens came into his own a tiny bit quicker in the NBA, and lasted 11 seasons, playing 50+ games in all except his final season with the Bucks (in which he had degraded to barely a league-average player).

Unseld was an instant "big deal" [winning MVP his rookie year, if certainly a dubious selection] and played 13 total seasons, never missing more than 26 games in any of them. That amounted to playing >55% more minutes than Reed, for example.

And whereas Cowens was barely league-average in his final year, Unseld was still a legit decent NBA player [probably marginally above average] in his 13th and final season (still playing >32 mpg for a basically .500 team).

He thus accumulates the most value for me and my criteria (and Reed the least).

Largely lays out my thoughts. I tend to go back and forth on where I rank the guys by career, but the factors laid out here are the main things I think about.

[trex_8063]

Peak:
Reed
Unseld
Cowens

Career:
Reed
Cowens
Unseld

These respective orders are a little puzzling to me: Unseld has [in your opinion] the 2nd-best peak, but somehow falls to 3rd in career rank, despite having the best effective longevity among the three [rather handily, in fact]??

"Handily" because he's the best of the three in terms of:
*years played
**fewest games missed [despite playing the most seasons]
***showing the least amount of decline by end of his career, and....
****being "great" the quickest [immediately in his rookie season].

It would seem as though his career rank among the three can only go UP [relative to his peak rank].
I feel like the only way one could justify the respective ranks you have would be if you think Unseld's peak season to be a notable outlier from the rest of his career.......but that just clearly isn't the case.
What am I missing?

[Owly]

Peak:
Reed
Unseld
Cowens

Career:
Reed
Cowens
Unseld

These respective orders are a little puzzling to me: Unseld has [in your opinion] the 2nd-best peak, but somehow falls to 3rd in career rank, despite having the best effective longevity among the three [rather handily, in fact]??

"Handily" because he's the best of the three in terms of:
*years played
**fewest games missed [despite playing the most seasons]
***showing the least amount of decline by end of his career, and....
****being "great" the quickest [immediately in his rookie season].

It would seem as though his career rank among the three can only go UP [relative to his peak rank].
I feel like the only way one could justify the respective ranks you have would be if you think Unseld's peak season to be a notable outlier from the rest of his career.......but that just clearly isn't the case.
What am I missing?

I don't go too tightly on individual years so I don't know that I would put him over Cowens for peak. But a possible angle on Cowens for better longevity of quality

The dings real and occasionally percieved would be ...
Just playing less, between that weird leave of absence thing he did, later year injuries.
Stuff with team numbers hurt (e.g. WS) hurt because the Celtics declined at the back end of his career whilst the Bullets were strong with Dandridge and Hayes and then transitionioned to Ballard, Mahorn etc. They didn't have the full on down period of Celtics 77-79 (now arguably Cowen hurt '77 by his absence).

But I think it comes down to injuries and non-tangible stuff.
If you think Unseld, between screens, passing and not-missing was a really good offensive player and you have him as a very good defender latterly, I can see a bullish angle on him. On this vein one might see him as an angel for putting up with Hayes and a lunchpail worker bringing it every day.
If you take the slightly more negative angle a luxury on offense (very low usage, ft% doesn't indicate spacing), if you credit Hayes (which I have been moved towards on here) and then perhaps even Dandridge too as the top defenders and if you buy in a touch more to the negative angle on Unseld (Hayes wasn't so bad, at least had substantial positives e.g. was a great worker himself and there's some discussion of Unseld not being committed to the game - talking of becoming a teacher, or after '76 the Hollander Handbooks has ... "says he can't remember the last time he got excited about a basketball game, and critics say his blase attitude shows up on the court sometimes" - though he certainly kept turning up) ... I could see being lower on Unseld.

Does one think the '74 dip was a turning point for Unseld, is the year-to-year inconsistency in production thereafter a sign that he's a decidedly lesser player overall or do we imagine him as some numbers do as coming back into (and out an into) his prime.

Finally on peak ... " if you think Unseld's peak season to be a notable outlier from the rest of his career.......but that just clearly isn't the case."
Box-wise I'd agree. I think some might credit him heavily with the Bullets' turnaround but be less confident of his impact thereafter. I think that would broadly justifiable to an extent though how far I'd go would depend on the nuances of the take.

On Cowens I think you can get 72-78 as a mostly uninterrupted prime that might be better. If you're bullish on the ultimate warrior, dive on the floor, run the opposing center into the ground stuff, Cowens' prime (and presumably he has these qualities in year one, and the last two proper years of his career) might build a lead that "role player" Unseld years don't make up. One might use Cowens's more consistent MVP ballot presence to support this.

As noted in my original post Cowens has trended higher in historical rankings for what that's worth.

In summary:
I don't necessarily buy 100% into all the arguments above.
I do trend - mostly instinctively rather than by deep dive - more pro Cowens and bearish on Unseld.
As before huge noise in this. Lots of room for difference in non-box stuff.
The conventional wisdom tilts pro-Cowens.
I think a lot hangs on how you see the defense, mobility and perhaps also effort and intangibles of mid- (and to a lesser extent late-) 70s Unseld in terms of where you have him for longevity of quality. Of course some will ding him just for not being a 10ppg scorer (which seems overly simplistic though per the above there is a cost to a very low-usage player).

[trex_8063]

Peak:
Reed
Unseld
Cowens

Career:
Reed
Cowens
Unseld

These respective orders are a little puzzling to me: Unseld has [in your opinion] the 2nd-best peak, but somehow falls to 3rd in career rank, despite having the best effective longevity among the three [rather handily, in fact]??

"Handily" because he's the best of the three in terms of:
*years played
**fewest games missed [despite playing the most seasons]
***showing the least amount of decline by end of his career, and....
****being "great" the quickest [immediately in his rookie season].

It would seem as though his career rank among the three can only go UP [relative to his peak rank].
I feel like the only way one could justify the respective ranks you have would be if you think Unseld's peak season to be a notable outlier from the rest of his career.......but that just clearly isn't the case.
What am I missing?

I don't go too tightly on individual years so I don't know that I would put him over Cowens for peak. But a possible angle on Cowens for better longevity of quality

The dings real and occasionally percieved would be ...
Just playing less, between that weird leave of absence thing he did, later year injuries.
Stuff with team numbers hurt (e.g. WS) hurt because the Celtics declined at the back end of his career whilst the Bullets were strong with Dandridge and Hayes and then transitionioned to Ballard, Mahorn etc. They didn't have the full on down period of Celtics 77-79 (now arguably Cowen hurt '77 by his absence).

But I think it comes down to injuries and non-tangible stuff.
If you think Unseld, between screens, passing and not-missing was a really good offensive player and you have him as a very good defender latterly, I can see a bullish angle on him. On this vein one might see him as an angel for putting up with Hayes and a lunchpail worker bringing it every day.
If you take the slightly more negative angle a luxury on offense (very low usage, ft% doesn't indicate spacing), if you credit Hayes (which I have been moved towards on here) and then perhaps even Dandridge too as the top defenders and if you buy in a touch more to the negative angle on Unseld (Hayes wasn't so bad, at least had substantial positives e.g. was a great worker himself and there's some discussion of Unseld not being committed to the game - talking of becoming a teacher, or after '76 the Hollander Handbooks has ... "says he can't remember the last time he got excited about a basketball game, and critics say his blase attitude shows up on the court sometimes" - though he certainly kept turning up) ... I could see being lower on Unseld.

Does one think the '74 dip was a turning point for Unseld, is the year-to-year inconsistency in production thereafter a sign that he's a decidedly lesser player overall or do we imagine him as some numbers do as coming back into (and out an into) his prime.

Finally on peak ... " if you think Unseld's peak season to be a notable outlier from the rest of his career.......but that just clearly isn't the case."
Box-wise I'd agree. I think some might credit him heavily with the Bullets' turnaround but be less confident of his impact thereafter. I think that would broadly justifiable to an extent though how far I'd go would depend on the nuances of the take.

On Cowens I think you can get 72-78 as a mostly uninterrupted prime that might be better. If you're bullish on the ultimate warrior, dive on the floor, run the opposing center into the ground stuff, Cowens' prime (and presumably he has these qualities in year one, and the last two proper years of his career) might build a lead that "role player" Unseld years don't make up. One might use Cowens's more consistent MVP ballot presence to support this.

As noted in my original post Cowens has trended higher in historical rankings for what that's worth.

In summary:
I don't necessarily buy 100% into all the arguments above.
I do trend - mostly instinctively rather than by deep dive - more pro Cowens and bearish on Unseld.
As before huge noise in this. Lots of room for difference in non-box stuff.
The conventional wisdom tilts pro-Cowens.
I think a lot hangs on how you see the defense, mobility and perhaps also effort and intangibles of mid- (and to a lesser extent late-) 70s Unseld in terms of where you have him for longevity of quality. Of course some will ding him just for not being a 10ppg scorer (which seems overly simplistic though per the above there is a cost to a very low-usage player).

(I hope I don't break the page with too many quotes within quotes within quotes)....

Some good talking points in your reply. However, I just don't see how one can arrive at Cowens having better longevity of quality, personally.

As mentioned, the only way I can really get there is if one thinks Unseld's peak was an outlier (such that even though his peak is better [than Cowens'], his prime as a whole is not as good [as Cowens']). However, Unseld's peak [by the numbers] is not at all an outlier within his prime: indeed, statistically it's even difficult to to pick which year is Unseld's peak. From '69 thru '73, his numbers are about as steady as anyone ever is for a 5-year period. Then he has a down year ['74, possibly injury-related?? as he misses 26 games] before bouncing back to nearly the same level [statistically] for the next TWO years.

So in an 8-year period, Unseld has 7 seasons that are really darn consistent with each other (just one down/injury year in the middle). Assuming one of these years is his peak----a peak which is supposedly better than Cowens'---that presumbably means 5-6 additional seasons that are at least in the same general neighborhood as Cowens' peak [because they're all similar in all-around quality as whichever season you choose as Unseld's peak].

Given Cowens' prime only lasts 7 years, and given Unseld also has more useful "role player" type seasons.........how then do we arrive at Cowens having the better career (again: IF we're sticking to the conclusion that Unseld peaked higher)?
That's my confusion.

[Dutchball97]

Peak - Reed - Cowens - Unseld
Career - Reed - Unseld - Cowens

THese guys were in the league 4 years together 1971-1974.
In that time period the 2nd highest center in BPM was Bob Lanier

https://stathead.com/tiny/AhVAA

The BPM there is only for the 73/74 season. There is no BPM for earlier seasons, which is why Wilt doesn't have a BPM listed there either.