RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #27 (Dwyane Wade)

[penbeast0]

Yeah, they were. And +12.3 better with Stockton on than when he was off, fwiw.

Stockton was a very good player. This shouldn't surprise. My point was mostly a response to this idea that some keep advancing that Stockton wasn't working with a lot of help, especially relative to someone like Steve Nash. The Jazz were a very good team. And of course, in the RS, when he was shooting well and offering assists and such, he looked good. I think somewhat inflated relative to his actual value in terms of what he was doing to create shots (particularly in that season), but he was still a good player and it was inevitable that they'd be worse with him off than on.

I'd be careful calling it a "glaring indictment," myself, because that implies that I believe it to be a big deal for Stockton as opposed to one more little thing which off-sets the point to which I was responding, you know?

Understand, I think Stockton was a very good player. That's my baseline. I think RAPM and other plus-minus overrates him and I think we don't speak of his postseason performances as much as we could when evaluating him against others, but ultimately, he's a guy who maxed himself out and was part of good teams. He had good skills, he made sound plays, he was an excellent passer, he mastered the PnR at a volume that we wouldn't really see again [i]until[/] Nash, I mean dude was a master at the pocket pass. He was without a doubt an exceptionally skilled guy. But we're still talking about top 30 guys. Guys who could shoulder franchises on their own. Some of them are guys who elevated in the postseason. Most/all of them enjoyed physical tools whose absence held Stockton back. And while Stockton had legendary durability and longevity, that means only so much to me because the back end of his career wasn't littered with contention, but impressive performance for a guy of that age in the NBA against all the young guns. That isn't championship-contending value added, that's nice to have and a graceful decline (IMHO), so it means only so much to me against, say, a guy who has a 15-year career with a 7- or 8-year prime who managed to be That Guy, you know?

To be a bit more nuanced, the claim is that Stockton worked with a lot less OFFENSIVE FOCUSED talent than Nash. Consistently, over his career, Karl Malone was the only good offensive player (better than league average) he worked with after he reached his prime and before they got Jeff Hornacek. That does not mean the players were bad, many of the Jazz centers and shooting forwards were strong defenders like Ty Corbin, just not good offensive players.

One could say the opposite about Nash. His defensive woes may be overrated because he worked with some very poor rim protectors at center so his weaknesses were exposed by having Amare or Diaw as the main help defender. Like Stockton had Malone, he had Marion (and Raja Bell) to help him but not good defense from the C position. When he had a good defender like Kurt Thomas, the team defense was pretty good.

[tsherkin]

To be a bit more nuanced, the claim is that Stockton worked with a lot less OFFENSIVE FOCUSED talent than Nash. Consistently, over his career, Karl Malone was the only good offensive player (better than league average) he worked with after he reached his prime and before they got Jeff Hornacek. That does not mean the players were bad, many of the Jazz centers and shooting forwards were strong defenders like Ty Corbin, just not good offensive players.

Jeff Malone was a reasonably above average offensive player for them, and many of the roleplayers were selected for their ability to slot into specific roles inside Sloan's system to function around the core dynamic of the PnR. Corner shooters and the like. That was an intentional structural decision to foster the very specific driver Sloan wanted out of the Malone/Stockton pairing. That isn't any different than running set shooters with Nash. And again, you saw what he was able to do without Amare at all.

In the case of Utah, their organization and precision was just as much an advantage to Stockton as the arrangement of talent around Nash in Phoenix.

I'm not trying to slander Stockton here, I think it's the same thing, except that Sloan was demanding more specific structure and D'Antoni was demanding freedom and the ability to hit anyone, anywhere, for a jumper off a pass from Nash as he widdley-widdleyed in the paint. Wherefore our earlier discussion about improvisational ability and resetting after a broken set.

[Doctor MJ]

Induction Vote 1:

Barkley - 6 (rk, OaD, Clyde, OSNB, trex, LA Bird)
Wade - 5 (AEnigma, HBK, falco, iggy, Doc)
Ewing - 2 (beast, ZPage)
Harden - 3 (trelos, f4p, Ohayo)
Pettit - 1 (Samurai)

No majority. Going to Vote 2 Barkley vs Wade:

Barkley - 1 (Barkley)
Wade - 2 (trelos, Ohayo)
neither - 3 (beast, ZPage, f4p)

Barkley 7, Wade 7, looks like we've got ourselves a run-off. Cranking up the Bat signal.

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Nomination Vote 1:

Miller - 2 (rk, falco)
Kawhi - 2 (OaD, HBK)
Stockton - 6 (Clyde, beast, OSNB, trex, iggy, LA Bird)
Pippen - 4 (AEnigma, trelos, ZPage, Ohayo)
Frazier - 2 (Samurai, Doc)
none - 1 (f4p)

No majority. Going to Vote 2 Stockton vs Pippen:

Stockton - 1 (Samurai)
Pippen - 4 (rk, falco, OaD, Doc)
neither - 2 (HBK, f4p)

Pippen 8, Stockton 7.

Scottie Pippen will be added to Nominee list when this Induction vote ends.

[Doctor MJ]

Voting Wade. Should have been on board a few spots ago.

Damn, dude will be voted top 40 on these lil projects in 2029 at this rate.

I'm afraid there's a process to go through before you're added on the voting panel. Participate positively for a while without voting and then I'll consider adding you.

[tsherkin]

Ooh, this is gonna be interesting!

[Joao Saraiva]

Vote D. Wade

I'm voting D. Wade over Barkley. Of course winning isn't it all, but at some extent it has to matter. Wade won as a #1 option. Wade won as a 2nd option and even when he was less impressive (13) he still managed to pull up a big road game that ended up being very important for the Miami Heat.

I believe he was a better guy to build your offense arround, since he's creating from the perimeter. I also believe he was a much better defender than Barkley. Rotated fast, was strong, was a good one on one defender...

Yes Wade had some injuries and somewhat of a short prime considering games played, but it's not like Barkley always showed up in shape.

Barkley was an MVP and Wade wasn't, but I don't think peak wise Barkley was the superior player.

Sorry for only voting on the run off but for me Wade is clearly a step ahead of Charles.

Do I have to make alternte and nomination since we're already in the run off?

[Owly]

Over to Barkley & Harden. There's something of a lost-benefit-of-the-doubt thing for both of these guys in a comparison with Wade with my criteria. I'm not going to put them below every guy who led a team to a chip because luck aside, some supporting casts are better than others. But the thing that is Heat Culture is built on the solid rock foundation of Wade, and there's a lack of professionalism in Barkley & Harden that to me makes it hard to imagine such positive aftershocks.

This is, imo, overblown. Unless I'm forgetting something, this narrative is mostly concentrated on the 1991-92 season(which is probably one of the reasons why the "I am not a role model" commercial came out in 1993) - Barkley's last in Philly, where he really didn't want to be there anymore and was trying to force himself out, perhaps giving less effort on the floor, and getting in that barfight. And then there was 1998-99 in Houston when Pippen was complaining about Barkley being out-of-shape despite Barkley's box stats being better and their RAPMs being identical.

Beyond this, I can't think of Barkley ever being unprofessional, at least to a point where it hurt his team.

And I've said this before, but let's not go overboard with giving Wade credit for "Heat Culture". He was a good leader during his prime years, no doubt, but Riley built every team he played on, Spo coached most his career, and those two guys are the ones who are still around running the Butler-era Heat.

Barkley's conditioning, defensive effort and internal role-model leadership were questioned quite a bit in Phoenix.

I have seen it written that Barkley's lack of commitment to condition and rehab led to more injuries and either rubbed off negatively on or else was unhelpful to Oliver Miller (now Miller had his own problems long before Barkley, so be aware of the context) who may have take a cue from the star.

I don't know the degree but I can see a case that Barkley's off court choices and behavior is one where real harm is done, some of which will not be directly reflected in any stats.

[tsherkin]

Barkley's conditioning, defensive effort and internal role-model leadership were questioned quite a bit in Phoenix.

I have seen it written that Barkley's lack of commitment to condition and rehab led to more injuries

Mmm. He was still reasonably healthy in Phoenix as he had been in Philly. He averaged 36.3 mpg, but he was mostly in his 30s, 93 notwithstanding. His major issues were in Houston, not Phoenix, when he was in his mid-30s and had major mileage on him. And he was an undersized PF who banged around in the post and for rebounds, so there's a degree of expectation of injury, no?

His rebounding in Phoenix was the same as in Philly, but in 1 less mpg. He scored about as much, but his efficiency tailed off as he aged. And likely in part because he was seeing Olajuwon and Robinson more. And Mutombo, who was on Denver until the 97 season. But also, of course, because we lose some explosiveness and leaping ability as we age. He shot better from the line on average, as it happens, in Phoenix vs. in Philly.

I think it's maybe a little bit of a BS argument. Barkley averaged 70 GP in Phoenix and 76 in Philly, but played under 70 games twice with each. I don't know how much we want to bank on conditioning being the primary driver for that given the aforementioned size and play style issues.

[Rishkar]

I feel like Barkley was quite the defensive liability due to his height and effort. While I do believe he is a better scorer and rebounder, I feel Wade was a better passer. Both players have pretty equivalent turnover numbers despite Wade having higher usage statistics and throwing more assists. Additionally, Wade has similar blocks per game and higher block % numbers. He was only 2 inches shorter than Barkley, and one of the most talented shotblocking guards ever. I wonder if he had greater value as a rim protector than Barkley. Wade was only a point behind Barkley in Dipper 13's net ORTG

LeBron 2008-2013: +11.6

Barkley 1989-1992: +11.5

Nash 2005-2010: +11.4

Wade 2009-2012: +10.7

Kobe 2006-2010: +10.3

Dirk 2005-2011: +10.0

This leads me to think that while Barkley was better on offense, that Wade was a more impactful defender despite being a guard (and a much better defender relative to position).

[penbeast0]

To be a bit more nuanced, the claim is that Stockton worked with a lot less OFFENSIVE FOCUSED talent than Nash. Consistently, over his career, Karl Malone was the only good offensive player (better than league average) he worked with after he reached his prime and before they got Jeff Hornacek. That does not mean the players were bad, many of the Jazz centers and shooting forwards were strong defenders like Ty Corbin, just not good offensive players.

Jeff Malone was a reasonably above average offensive player for them, and many of the roleplayers were selected for their ability to slot into specific roles inside Sloan's system to function around the core dynamic of the PnR. Corner shooters and the like. That was an intentional structural decision to foster the very specific driver Sloan wanted out of the Malone/Stockton pairing. That isn't any different than running set shooters with Nash. And again, you saw what he was able to do without Amare at all.

In the case of Utah, their organization and precision was just as much an advantage to Stockton as the arrangement of talent around Nash in Phoenix.

I'm not trying to slander Stockton here, I think it's the same thing, except that Sloan was demanding more specific structure and D'Antoni was demanding freedom and the ability to hit anyone, anywhere, for a jumper off a pass from Nash as he widdley-widdleyed in the paint. Wherefore our earlier discussion about improvisational ability and resetting after a broken set.

Jeff Malone was a pure jump shooter with a well above average midrange shot who didn't have a 3 or drive well and was below average at everything else (handles, rebounding, defense, etc.). I watched him a lot in Washington, but he was what he was even then, and by the time he got to Utah, his speed/motor was slipping as well. I don't think he would have been any less of a fit with an improv style PG than Raja Bell as both were catch and shoot off ball players who were smart and moved without the ball; I think Raja was a clearly better player in terms of defense and his added ability to shoot the 3.

Phoenix sacrificed defense for offense playing Amare at center and Marion at PF (rather than at their more natural FOR THAT ERA PF and SF). Utah sacrificed offense for defense playing the likes of Eaton, Spencer, etc. at center and Benoit, Corbin, Russell, etc. at SF. There were stylistic differences that the PGs played into but there was also a difference in coaching/system focus.

[tsherkin]

Jeff Malone was a pure jump shooter with a well above average midrange shot who didn't have a 3 or drive well and was below average at everything else (handles, rebounding, defense, etc.). I watched him a lot in Washington, but he was what he was even then, and by the time he got to Utah, his speed was slipping as well.

All of that is true, however, he was also an above-average scorer in terms of efficiency for a good chunk of his stretch in Utah even still. In that way, he wasn't a lot different than Hornacek as a scoring threat. Horny obviously offered superior spacing, and also passing, but I was addressing the root remark about offensive-minded players. Utah had a third guy for a lot of their run, it just was the case that they weren't (by design) iso-heavy guys because Sloan didn't like them. They were shooters. And Hornacek was dog-crap for Utah against Chicago in both 97 and 98, which did not work out well for them.

Phoenix sacrificed defense for offense playing Amare at center and Marion at PF (rather than at their more natural FOR THAT ERA PF and SF). Utah sacrificed offense for defense playing the likes of Eaton, Spencer, etc. at center and Benoit, Corbin, Russell, etc. at SF. There were stylistic differences that the PGs played into but there was also a difference in coaching/system focus.

Utah didn't really sacrifice offense for defense, though, because the way they structured their offense, Malone played a lot like a classic center and like most teams, they didn't eke out offense from all 5 starters. It's not like the Bulls were really pushing offensive boundaries with Luc Longley and Bill Wennington at the 5, you know what I mean? Longley ripped a riveting 5 ppg on 44.4% FG in the 98 Finals and Wennington played 5 minutes the whole series. Rodman couldn't shoot to save his life, which is a component of why Jordan rocked a 41.2% USG in that series.

Utah led the entire league offensively in 98, and were 2nd in 97. This didn't happen because they sacrificed offense for defense. They had tons of offense. It just folded against certain kinds of defensive pressure because they tended to lack athleticism and dynamic dribble attack, relying a lot on jumpers. Malone himself shot more and more Js as his career progressed. In 97, he took more than a quarter of his shots from 16+ feet and a year later, more than a third. And then layer in that those same seasons, he took about 24 and 21 percent of his shots from 10-16 feet as well, also a lot of the time coming off the screen, or taking that fade, etc. They were a very, very jumper-heavy team.

They ground you down with high-end execution and team off-ball movement. Phenomenal execution, usage of the corner, options out of the high screen from wing or center. And when those weren't working, they had trouble. They had the Malone iso, but that worked only so well for them, as he tended to see major drop-offs in his FG% during the postseason.

EDIT: Hell, I forgot to talk about Phoenix while I was rambling.

Yes, they sacrificed some defense for offense because Amare was incompetent on defense, but that wasn't stylistic, that was due to a specific player. At the 4, Marion actually defended pretty well and they didn't usually get boned because of his presence. With his length and athleticism, he was actually more of a net-positive. They surely ate it from someone like Timmy, but they also didn't lose the Lakers series because of Pau, if you follow. So the degree to which their play was impacted because of their offensive-centric roster is somewhat overstated. It certainly presented some weaknesses, but wasn't the core reason for when they went down in the postseason. It certainly didn't stop them in the RS.

[falcolombardi]

Induction Vote 1: Dwyane Wade



Repeating vote:

Spoiler:

Well, this one wasn't hard for me. Voted for him before, voting for him again. To put it in a new way:

Can we agree that Wade did more for the Heat than any of the other Nominees did for any of their teams? Not saying this alone clinches him the spot for me, but yes, I think Wade did more for the Heat in total than Giannis & Jokic have done for their respective teams to this point, as well as more than what Barkley & Harden did for any of their teams.

And yes, this is a perspective that values his role in forming the Heatles around himself, not in spite of one of those guys being better than himself, but very much helped by this fact. Understandable anyone who would choose not to consider something like this.

As I say that, I don't think it's clear cut that, say, Giannis has a higher peak than Wade in terms of how they dominated in their era. Giannis is the greater regular season player sure, but he's very much known for his playoff stumbles at this point. Wade by contrast was consistently a playoff "overachiever" in his early years to the point where the term became absurd. Dude was just a buzzsaw that was exceptionally resilient against playoff defense. And when he had that playoff motor going, I do believe that Wade had some serious defensive impact too. As much as Giannis? Eh, I won't make that claim, but impressive to the viewer and intimidating to opponents.

I won't say it's even necessarily clear cut that Jokic peaks higher than Wade, though I wouldn't want to try to make a case against Jokic at this point. What he did last season is just unreal to me.

Over to Barkley & Harden. There's something of a lost-benefit-of-the-doubt thing for both of these guys in a comparison with Wade with my criteria. I'm not going to put them below every guy who led a team to a chip because luck aside, some supporting casts are better than others. But the thing that is Heat Culture is built on the solid rock foundation of Wade, and there's a lack of professionalism in Barkley & Harden that to me makes it hard to imagine such positive aftershocks.

I do see a serious argument for Barkley over Wade on the back of his utterly unique physical talent. If you see him as having both the stronger peak and longer longevity, makes sense why you'd pick him.

I do see a serious argument for Harden over Wade based on a more 2020s-oriented criteria. I'm on record being concerned with Wade's limited shooting. But I also have concerns with Harden's reliance on trickery for foul calls, as that seems to cause his dominance to tend to decrease over the course of tight playoff series...which is not remotely how I see Wade. Wade didn't always peak late in the series, but it was like he had the ability to spike at particular moments when needed, making the gap between his outlier athleticism and mere mortal NBA playoff players all the more jaw-dropping. I don't know if this difference would be enough to make Wade better than Harden in today's league, but that's not my criteria.

Induction Vote 2: Bob Pettit

Spent most of my time really focused on Petti vs Barkley. Siding with Pettit at this time. I don't think era-talent differences are enough to explain away the difference era success.

Nomination Vote 1: Walt Frazier



Repeat vote:

Spoiler:

I'm going to re-post what I said last time for Frazier without spoilers because I still feel unsettled on the matter:

Yeah, so I've been agonizing over this one. Makes sense given that this is where the the structure that narrows the field in Induction stops. It's the place to consider all of the players not yet Inducted or Nominated, and of course that's the vast majority of'em.

With Frazier, the pros and cons are clear. I think his prime was really damn strong, and I think he was the keystone of the Red Holzman Knicks more so than any other player. In comparison with contemporary rivals like John Havlicek, Rick Barry & Wes Unseld, I just think Frazier was better than any of them.

He didn't last all that long though, so there's a major question of whether longevity should favor someone else. To be honest, I kinda felt myself thinking that I should pick someone other than Frazier here...but I couldn't make myself anoint any particular guy.

I probably spent the most time considering Mr. Guard longevity John Stockton, and so that means that next time he might be the most likely for me to switch my vote to.

I'll tell you though, I'm really not sure about Stockton over Reggie Miller. I kinda think Reggie was the better playoff player and extreme longevity himself.

And then there's a guy I'm already soft-championing in Manu Ginobili. On a per minute basis, I'd definitely take Manu over Reggie (or Stockton). I'm seriously considering him over them.

I'd be remiss not to mention Scottie Pippen. I rank his prime play ahead of Stockton & Miller...but his career fell off abruptly somewhat like Frazier's did. It really doesn't seem right to me to favor Pippen over Frazier based on longevity. Feels like you have to prefer Pippen to Frazier, and I just don't. I think we see a gap in shooting ability that puts them in fundamentally different tiers as scorers, and I think Frazier stacks up pretty dang well in the rest of the game too.

That's me mentioning a lot of guys I could see possibly Nominating over Frazier, and there are others as well, but Frazier's the one still standing out most as I look at this right now.

Nomination Vote 2: Scottie Pippen

Repeat vote;

Spoiler:

So, this is me continuing with something of a quality over quantity theme in this current discussion. Like Frazier, Pippen doesn't have as good longevity as others being discussed, but I feel strong enough about his prime to - at least possibly - prefer him over the guys with longevity advantages.

An outstanding 9 years run may not sound like that much compared to what others can claim, but realistically if you're a franchise, you're going to prioritize that 9 years over anything that would come outside of it.

I will say as I select Pippen here, there's always a case for Havlicek over Pippen based on him being a similar player with much greater longevity. I've gone back and forth on this myself. I'll say two main things here:

1. When I did my recent POY Share consideration, Pippen just ended up well ahead of Havlicek. I think so much of this comes down to how impressed you are by Hondo's post-Russell years as an MVP/POY candidate. If you're placing him extremely high there, then I absolutely get coming away with an extremely high evaluation of his career holistically. I have him as a guy making the back end of my Top 5 a couple of those years and giving Cowens a bit more love than Hondo for that era.

2. I'm not that high on the '70s Celtics. They broke through winning 2 chips and that's a big deal to be sure, but I don't think beat the competition that, say, their contemporary rivals the Knicks took down. If you had a perspective that these two runs were roughly as good, then I think Hondo over Frazier starts to look like a pretty clear cut thing, but I just think the Knicks were something special in comparison. And of course, the '90s Bulls are an entirely differently. Yes Pippen had Jordan leading the way, but the Jordan-Pippen 1-2 punch was arguably the most dominant in history, and it had everything to do with the diverse package of skills Pippen brought with him.

Not that i diaagree with wade pick as he is also my vote but it is a bit (very) odd to me that you mention his defense being good too in a comparision with giannis as if the latter was not a dpoy contender amd a whole different level of impact on that end

Imagine if i said
" i do believe that giannis had some serious offfensive impact too. As much as wade? Eh, I won't make that claim, but impressive to the viewer and intimidating to opponents"

Or i said
"i do believe that wade had some serious offfensive impact too. As much as curry? Eh, I won't make that claim, but impressive to the viewer and intimidating to opponents"

Wouldnt you point out giannis being good on offense doesnt mean he is as good as wade?

Seems like that thingh ben taylor has talked about (while ironically still partaking in it to my view at times) about offense being evaluated to a milimeter in comparisions but defense is "ehh both were good" and left at that

[iggymcfrack]

Vote D. Wade

Do I have to make alternte and nomination since we're already in the run off?

You never have to. It’s always strictly optional. In this case, it would be pointless as Pippen’s already been nominated and the runoff is strictly between Wade and Barkley.

[f4p]

To be a bit more nuanced, the claim is that Stockton worked with a lot less OFFENSIVE FOCUSED talent than Nash. Consistently, over his career, Karl Malone was the only good offensive player (better than league average) he worked with after he reached his prime and before they got Jeff Hornacek. That does not mean the players were bad, many of the Jazz centers and shooting forwards were strong defenders like Ty Corbin, just not good offensive players.

Jeff Malone was a reasonably above average offensive player for them, and many of the roleplayers were selected for their ability to slot into specific roles inside Sloan's system to function around the core dynamic of the PnR. Corner shooters and the like. That was an intentional structural decision to foster the very specific driver Sloan wanted out of the Malone/Stockton pairing. That isn't any different than running set shooters with Nash. And again, you saw what he was able to do without Amare at all.

In the case of Utah, their organization and precision was just as much an advantage to Stockton as the arrangement of talent around Nash in Phoenix.

I'm not trying to slander Stockton here, I think it's the same thing, except that Sloan was demanding more specific structure and D'Antoni was demanding freedom and the ability to hit anyone, anywhere, for a jumper off a pass from Nash as he widdley-widdleyed in the paint. Wherefore our earlier discussion about improvisational ability and resetting after a broken set.

i mean it's not even close in terms of who played with more offensive talent in terms of it being nash. stockton played almost every year of his career with either an eaton, spencer, donaldson, or ostertag. that alone is a massive hit to offense. nash played with dirk, who is a better offensive talent than malone, and then got an exceptional pick-and-roll/pick-and-pop counterpart in amare. and his teams were purposely slanting hard towards offense while sacrificing defense. don nelson was running small ball lineups with heavy does of van exel and finley and jamison and lafrentz, and that's obviously in addition to dirk. the 2004 mavs were practically a gimmick team, stretching the limits of ignoring defense in favor of offense.

in phoenix, they had maybe the fastest C and fastest PF in the game to get out and run against anybody and were openly willing to do things like let teams have layups to avoid potential fouls because they could get out and run after the make and they couldn't after free throws. then they had tons of shooters. even if you take out steve nash's own 3 point shooting (to not influence the results), here's how the suns ranked in 3 point shooting. again, nash's shots entirely removed:

3 Point Makes
2005 Suns - 1st
2006 Suns - 1st
2007 Suns - 3rd

3 Point %
2005 Suns - 1st
2006 Suns - 1st
2007 Suns - 1st

now some people will say nash is the reason they shot so well, but either way, that is a bevy of shooters for the halfcourt, with 2 gazelles for the fastbreak in the frontcourt, with offensive slanted coaching. and that was arguably the more "defensive" of his 2 teams compared to dallas. and even old nash was playing on teams with channing frye as the center.

[tsherkin]

i mean it's not even close in terms of who played with more offensive talent in terms of it being nash.

Mmm, yeah, I mean he didn't play with a big lug at center. But the rest of the guys around him were pretty much shooters, aside from Amare. Which isn't too different from Stockton's scenario, just flashed forward to an era with better shooters and higher emphasis on the 3pt line in particular. In Dallas, you have a different story. Dirk, Finley, Jamison, etc, etc, that was a separate scenario. But he also didn't have the focal play or freedom that he did in Phoenix. Too many iso specialists working their game in Dallas and Dirk was the clear lead (which, of course, made a fair degree of sense).

now some people will say nash is the reason they shot so well, but either way, that is a bevy of shooters for the halfcourt, with 2 gazelles for the fastbreak in the frontcourt, with offensive slanted coaching. and that was arguably the more "defensive" of his 2 teams compared to dallas. and even old nash was playing on teams with channing frye as the center.

Yes, they loaded up on shooters. That was a specific strategy to work around Nash's dribble-drive and continuity game, and to have options out of the pick-and-roll. This is comparable to the way that Sloan picked system players for Utah as well.

[rk2023]

I feel like Barkley was quite the defensive liability due to his height and effort. While I do believe he is a better scorer and rebounder, I feel Wade was a better passer. Both players have pretty equivalent turnover numbers despite Wade having higher usage statistics and throwing more assists. Additionally, Wade has similar blocks per game and higher block % numbers. He was only 2 inches shorter than Barkley, and one of the most talented shotblocking guards ever. I wonder if he had greater value as a rim protector than Barkley. Wade was only a point behind Barkley in Dipper 13's net ORTG

LeBron 2008-2013: +11.6

Barkley 1989-1992: +11.5

Nash 2005-2010: +11.4

Wade 2009-2012: +10.7

Kobe 2006-2010: +10.3

Dirk 2005-2011: +10.0

This leads me to think that while Barkley was better on offense, that Wade was a more impactful defender despite being a guard (and a much better defender relative to position).

Incase you're interested, here's the O and D splits from Barkley's 1985-92 Sixers tenure from Pollack (I'd guess Dipper was citing from that). Agree with your premise, by the way

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZxRM9p2dFil5w6s21VEB4HnQZJymEY8_2vej-jREuUo/htmlview#
Courtesy of Harvey Pollack - On/off Net-swing for Barkley's 76ers tenure of 1985-1992 RS (formatted as "Net Swing", "ORTG - DRTG on", "ORTG - DRTG off"):

Code: Select all

1.9, 111.6-106.8, 110.9-108.0
10.6, 110.7-105.7, 102.5-108.0
7.9, 109.3-107, 106.1-111.8
2.7, 109.7-110.6, 105.5-109.2
11.0, 115.3-111.4, 104.7-111.8
8.3, 115.5-108.5, 106.6-107.9
8.8, 112.4-109.3, 100.5-106.2
6.0, 112.3-112.0, 97.9-103.7

[rk2023]

I've never been the most keen on saying that Nash was more or less a merchant / product of "Dantoni, 7SOL system, offensive talent et al" - when it shows that Nash has the highest lift (by a decent margin, at that) ITO increasing teammates' scoring efficiency; all of this cited from JE's 2001-14 study.

[Owly]

Barkley's conditioning, defensive effort and internal role-model leadership were questioned quite a bit in Phoenix.

I have seen it written that Barkley's lack of commitment to condition and rehab led to more injuries

Mmm. He was still reasonably healthy in Phoenix as he had been in Philly. He averaged 36.3 mpg, but he was mostly in his 30s, 93 notwithstanding. His major issues were in Houston, not Phoenix, when he was in his mid-30s and had major mileage on him. And he was an undersized PF who banged around in the post and for rebounds, so there's a degree of expectation of injury, no?

His rebounding in Phoenix was the same as in Philly, but in 1 less mpg. He scored about as much, but his efficiency tailed off as he aged. And likely in part because he was seeing Olajuwon and Robinson more. And Mutombo, who was on Denver until the 97 season. But also, of course, because we lose some explosiveness and leaping ability as we age. He shot better from the line on average, as it happens, in Phoenix vs. in Philly.

I think it's maybe a little bit of a BS argument. Barkley averaged 70 GP in Phoenix and 76 in Philly, but played under 70 games twice with each. I don't know how much we want to bank on conditioning being the primary driver for that given the aforementioned size and play style issues.

There is some reasonable expectation of injury.

There's also contemporary sources saying

Suns were highly incensed when he put a half-hearted attempt into this rehab in January ... They claim he could have come back sooner and possibly even prevented later injuries that occurred in the playoffs... Others, among them hefty Oliver Miller, seemed to take Barkley's cue as a conditioning laggard

when barkley bolted from his physical rehabilitation program, the one designed to save his career, it was Fitzsimmons who was ent across the country to track him down and persuade him to get with the program. In the end, the program got with Barkley. The Suns physical conditioning expert, Robin Pound, followed Barkley around the country that summer, making sure he did his exercises.
...
Barkley relaxed standards for his life had been a source of worry for Colangelo and others
...
But the more he got to know Barkley, the harder time [KJ] had understanding Barkley's jack-in-the-box-like focus on the task at hand, especially with the Suns so close to winning a title. In addition to his reluctance to stay in top shape, Barkley had a maddening tendancy to turn his jets on and off (particularly against the lesser teams ...
[goes on to suggest the Suns, including KJ followed his lead in this]
Barkley's attempt to put the game in "perspective" by saying, "Win of lose, I'll be playing golf," didn't go over well with Johnson. He knew he didn't have many more chances to win a title. Now it was an all-consuming goal

the superstar had faded a but too much, was more than a bit too reluctant to work out

I'm not arguing about the specific number of games he played and the value derived there.

Someone said that concerns focused on '92 and then Pippen (the later somewhat dismissed) and

beyond this, I can't think of Barkley ever being unprofessional, at least to a point where it hurt his team.

and the sources I have from the time suggest that Barkley was lazy to negligent with rehab ("bolted from his physical rehabilitation program") in a manner that may have led to further injuries and harmed team cohesion/focus.

This is not a theoretical ... "bs" thought experiment. It is what reporting from the time said happened and how sources inside the team reportedly felt about it. I am more cautious in the use of intangibles than Doc MJ. I stand by what I said.

[Joao Saraiva]

To be a bit more nuanced, the claim is that Stockton worked with a lot less OFFENSIVE FOCUSED talent than Nash. Consistently, over his career, Karl Malone was the only good offensive player (better than league average) he worked with after he reached his prime and before they got Jeff Hornacek. That does not mean the players were bad, many of the Jazz centers and shooting forwards were strong defenders like Ty Corbin, just not good offensive players.

Jeff Malone was a reasonably above average offensive player for them, and many of the roleplayers were selected for their ability to slot into specific roles inside Sloan's system to function around the core dynamic of the PnR. Corner shooters and the like. That was an intentional structural decision to foster the very specific driver Sloan wanted out of the Malone/Stockton pairing. That isn't any different than running set shooters with Nash. And again, you saw what he was able to do without Amare at all.

In the case of Utah, their organization and precision was just as much an advantage to Stockton as the arrangement of talent around Nash in Phoenix.

I'm not trying to slander Stockton here, I think it's the same thing, except that Sloan was demanding more specific structure and D'Antoni was demanding freedom and the ability to hit anyone, anywhere, for a jumper off a pass from Nash as he widdley-widdleyed in the paint. Wherefore our earlier discussion about improvisational ability and resetting after a broken set.

i mean it's not even close in terms of who played with more offensive talent in terms of it being nash. stockton played almost every year of his career with either an eaton, spencer, donaldson, or ostertag. that alone is a massive hit to offense. nash played with dirk, who is a better offensive talent than malone, and then got an exceptional pick-and-roll/pick-and-pop counterpart in amare. and his teams were purposely slanting hard towards offense while sacrificing defense. don nelson was running small ball lineups with heavy does of van exel and finley and jamison and lafrentz, and that's obviously in addition to dirk. the 2004 mavs were practically a gimmick team, stretching the limits of ignoring defense in favor of offense.

in phoenix, they had maybe the fastest C and fastest PF in the game to get out and run against anybody and were openly willing to do things like let teams have layups to avoid potential fouls because they could get out and run after the make and they couldn't after free throws. then they had tons of shooters. even if you take out steve nash's own 3 point shooting (to not influence the results), here's how the suns ranked in 3 point shooting. again, nash's shots entirely removed:

3 Point Makes
2005 Suns - 1st
2006 Suns - 1st
2007 Suns - 3rd

3 Point %
2005 Suns - 1st
2006 Suns - 1st
2007 Suns - 1st

now some people will say nash is the reason they shot so well, but either way, that is a bevy of shooters for the halfcourt, with 2 gazelles for the fastbreak in the frontcourt, with offensive slanted coaching. and that was arguably the more "defensive" of his 2 teams compared to dallas. and even old nash was playing on teams with channing frye as the center.

Jeff Malone did put up points. But let's not pretend he was a good/great offensive player.

[tsherkin]

There's also contemporary sources saying

Suns were highly incensed when he put a half-hearted attempt into this rehab in January ... They claim he could have come back sooner and possibly even prevented later injuries that occurred in the playoffs...

I take anything that comes out of Rick Barry's mouth with a grain of salt, but it's certainly one example of a source talking about it. Whether or not it was true is another thing, of course. In the meantime, Barkley played 24, 10, 10 and 4 postseason games for Phoenix... aka "all of them." Did it affect his efficacy? Maybe. Did it keep him out of games? No. Was he why they lost to Houston in 94 and 95, and the Spurs in 96? In 94, they ate 37/17 from Olajuwon in game 7 while Barkley and KJ played quite well. In 95, he struggled at the line, but he popped 34 (game-high, 64.4% TS)/14 on the Rockets in game 6 (which Houston won) and grabbed 23 boards in Game 7. In game 5, they ate 30/8/10 from Olajuwon (with 5 blocks) while he shot 59% from the field. In Game 7, Hakeem and Drexler both popped off for 29 and Alien had 18 off the bench. Barkley had 18/23 and 6 offensive boards. Struggled with turnovers and didn't shoot amazingly well. You could point maybe to that as an issue if you could tie it to mobility, but he was still generally getting it done and KJ went mad for 46/10 on 26 FGAs. D-Rob had an outstanding series in the 96 matchup with Phoenix. Barkley put up about 26/14/4 on 56% TS but they got outscored by like 10 a game. They went down in 4, but Barkley drew 10+ FTA in all but game 2 (he had 9) and had 12+ boards in all but game 4 (he had 9), including an 8-OREB, 20-TRB performance in Game 2.

Tough to look at that relative to his other production and really grief Barkley or look at minor injuries costing him in those matchups. Other issues, sure, but it retrospectively and from watching some of the games and highlights, it really doesn't look like he was hurting too badly.

His attitude wasn't amazing for his teammates, for sure. Everyone knows about his party habits and what-not, but I hesitate to believe that they got in the way of his play that much. I can absolutely believe it would cause some issues with teammates who had a more disciplined approach. That, I won't contest. But how much it impacted his own actual play, I question.