Prime : Dr . J or Oscar?

[1993Playoffs]

Two perimeter players that I usually see ranked close to each other in the 12-18 range

Who was better in their prime?

[tsherkin]

Oscar for me. Far better offensive player and rebounder. Doctor J was exciting and did a lot of things, great player, but Oscar was Oscar.

[Stalwart]

Dr. J

[1993Playoffs]

Oscar for me. Far better offensive player and rebounder. Doctor J was exciting and did a lot of things, great player, but Oscar was Oscar.

“Far better offensively?”

Kinda seems like a stretch doesn’t it?

[tsherkin]

Oscar for me. Far better offensive player and rebounder. Doctor J was exciting and did a lot of things, great player, but Oscar was Oscar.

“Far better offensively?”

Kinda seems like a stretch doesn’t it?

Not at all, no.

[SickMother]

Oscar for me as well pretty easily.

Dr. J had three seasons with a 110 TS+ and a career mark of 105.

Oscar is career 115 TS+ with eleven seasons at 113 TS+ or greater.

So Oscar was a much more efficient scorer, while also having the edge in creating for his teammates.

I've got Oscar in the 5-13 tier for multi-season prime with Dr. J in the next tier from about 14-25.

[G35]

I've got Dr. J, but I never saw Oscar so I wouldn't be giving a fair comparison.....

[70sFan]

Oscar's prime was more consistent, so I'd go with him. It's like Magic vs Kobe for me - Kobe had longer prime but Magic was just better. Same applies to Oscar vs Julius.

[70sFan]

Oscar for me. Far better offensive player and rebounder. Doctor J was exciting and did a lot of things, great player, but Oscar was Oscar.

Julius was comfortably better rebounder than Oscar. How is Oscar "far better rebounder"?

[LukaTheGOAT]

I go Robertson. There are just more examples of his having demonstratably massive impact than Erving. He basically was like pre-merger Magic, in that he consistently anchored some of the most prolific offenses of the time.

For example, the Royals were about middle of the pack before Robertson joined.

In his rookie year, he turned them into the best offense in the league. In the 9 games he missed as a rookie, the Royals fell from a 36-win pace to a 9-win pace.

In 1970, Robertson missed 12 games, and Royals fell from a 42-win pace with him (+0.3 SRS) to an 18-win pace without him (-8.7 SRS).

We don't quite see this same magnitude of shift when Dr. J sat out games throughout his career. He played on some unspectacular offenses in the heart of his prime, and it is hard to imagine that being the case with Oscar...I therefore see Oscar in a different tier of offensive player.

For me to go Dr. J., I would have to be convinced he was a superstar defender, and I am not quite sure I see enough evidence for that.

Robertson's WOWY metrics

Prime WOWYR: 8.4
Scaled WOWYR: 7.8
Alt Scaled: 8.4
10-year Scaled GPM: 7.7

Kevin Garnett WOWY metrics

Prime WOWYR: 6.1
Scaled WOWYR: 5.7
Alt Scaled: 4.6
10-year GPM: 2.7

[Owly]

Don't see this is as close.

All this is mostly going to be otoh.

I think Robertson played in a league tilted towards bigs for box production (and maybe ABA without elite bigs tilted toward slashers and bigger wings). I don't this means players of other archetypes weren't impactful. Desspite Erving's ABA peak, I think Robertson's career numbers may be better.

I think WOWY type stuff paints Robertson as all-time elite.
I think plus minus for Philly Erving looked quite disappointing.

FWIW, (early?, circa '88-'12) published rankings had Robertson among the conventional wisdom absolute elite, his rank averaging out roughly equal to Bird (6.4 average over 17 lists). Erving was also behind West, O'Neal, Baylor and Pettit and clearly lower average (13.7, never top 10 from 1997 on). Not that this carries much weight in evaluating them as players but incidental supporting evidence that they perhaps aren't in the same tier.

So I'd hope to be open to hearing new info, but don't see this as particularly close.

Edit: I guess I should caveat, interpretation of prime differs and how one compares primes is at least not immediately clear and agreed by all and can be awkward (different lengths? do you reward longevity or are we just talking average/total value of best X years). If one were talking just the last 3 years of ABA then Erving doesn't have the same impact stigma nor the drop in production on coming to the NBA (though whatever we think the causes are, it may somewhat inform perception of ABA production).

[Jaivl]

I see Oscar as a superior class of player. Kinda like Curry vs KD in a way.

[tsherkin]

Oscar for me. Far better offensive player and rebounder. Doctor J was exciting and did a lot of things, great player, but Oscar was Oscar.

Julius was comfortably better rebounder than Oscar. How is Oscar "far better rebounder"?

Because I made a mistake while I was reading, haha. I was wrong.

I still stand on the Oscar selection, though, because of his dramatic offensive superiority. Good catch on the rebounding, though

[No-more-rings]

Oscar seems like the better player to me. The passing/playmaking advantage is pretty big.

[capfan33]

Oscar, I've never been a huge fan of Dr. J's skillset on O even though he was awesome to watch. Oscar is probably the greatest offensive played pre-Magic and Bird. And I don't think the defensive edge for Dr. J is enough to make up for it.

[DQuinn1575]

Oscar for me. Far better offensive player and rebounder. Doctor J was exciting and did a lot of things, great player, but Oscar was Oscar.

Julius was comfortably better rebounder than Oscar. How is Oscar "far better rebounder"?

1962, Cinci players totalled 4,900 rebounds, Oscar played 18.2% of minutes - that prorates to 22.0% of rebounds - call it half and he is at 11.0% rebound percentage. I didn't do other years, but Doc is 12.5% best NBA year, 11%+ other years.

So Doc is not "comfortably" better - he's a little better.
Defense I'll call even as both were called very good by contemporaries and have no good reason to give a big edge to either.
Oscar was a better scorer, more efficient, and a much better passer.

So Oscar was a much better player in my book, Doc is only ahead in excitement.

[70sFan]

Oscar for me. Far better offensive player and rebounder. Doctor J was exciting and did a lot of things, great player, but Oscar was Oscar.

Julius was comfortably better rebounder than Oscar. How is Oscar "far better rebounder"?

1962, players totalled 4,900 rebounds, Oscar played 18.2% of minutes - that prorates to 22.0% of rebounds - call it half and he is at 11.0% rebound percentage. I didn't do other years, but Doc is 12.5% best NBA year, 11%+ other years.

So Doc is not "comfortably" better - he's a little better.
Defense I'll call even as both were called very good by contemporaries and have no good reason to give a big edge to either.
Oscar was a better scorer, more efficient, and a much better passer.

So Oscar was a much better player in my book, Doc is only ahead in excitement.

Here is my source for TRB% estimates:

viewtopic.php?t=955514

Going by these calculations, Oscar had 8.1 TRB% rate in 1965. Granted, it wasn't his best rebounding RS, but Oscar rarely went above 10%, which is Julius NBA career average (without counting past-prime years, his rate is actually 11.1 TRB%).

[Doctor MJ]

Two perimeter players that I usually see ranked close to each other in the 12-18 range

Who was better in their prime?

This is a place where I think the distinction between prime and peak is important.

I think Erving's '75-76 campaign was a bigger accomplishment than any year in Oscar's career.

I think Robertson's impact all throughout his prime was much more reliably awesome than the Doctors.

I'd be inclined to give Oscar the nod for prime and career (with Dr. J getting peak).

[DQuinn1575]

Julius was comfortably better rebounder than Oscar. How is Oscar "far better rebounder"?

1962, players totalled 4,900 rebounds, Oscar played 18.2% of minutes - that prorates to 22.0% of rebounds - call it half and he is at 11.0% rebound percentage. I didn't do other years, but Doc is 12.5% best NBA year, 11%+ other years.

So Doc is not "comfortably" better - he's a little better.
Defense I'll call even as both were called very good by contemporaries and have no good reason to give a big edge to either.
Oscar was a better scorer, more efficient, and a much better passer.

So Oscar was a much better player in my book, Doc is only ahead in excitement.

Here is my source for TRB% estimates:

viewtopic.php?t=955514

Going by these calculations, Oscar had 8.1 TRB% rate in 1965. Granted, it wasn't his best rebounding RS, but Oscar rarely went above 10%, which is Julius NBA career average (without counting past-prime years, his rate is actually 11.1 TRB%).

The main difference is positional, pre 3 point era an 8% rebounding guard was probably worth at least as much as an 11% rebounding forward. Lucas and Embry are getting a lot of the rebounds here, while Doc was frequently the #2 rebounder without a dominant rebounder until he got with Moses.

[1993Playoffs]

I feel some are underestimating the defensive gap imo.

Neither are lockdown defensive stoppers but Erving definitely has an edge in this area