trex_8063 wrote:Kinda putting aside my consideration for Bob Cousy, as it seems impractical at this stage (there's just no other support for him).
Have been considering Nique, too. But just not feeling him as much as I am either Elvin Hayes or Bob Lanier (which became the two front-runners).
Statistically Lanier looks a bit better (not counting totals). To augment that I sort of did a quick and dirty subjective grading of five broad-strokes categories (which I have weighted for importance in a big man): Defense, Scoring, Rebounding, Intangibles, and Passing.
Basically I rate Hayes better defensively by a moderate margin, but Lanier better as a scorer by an equal margin (however, for big men I weight defense marginally more heavily). Rebounding I give a small edge to Hayes. For intangibles and passing (the categories I weight the "lightest", intangibles slightly heavier than passing), I rate Lanier significantly better in both.
Overall, Lanier rates a slightly better by this subjective scale (consistent with the stat comparison).
However, the last major factor to consider is longevity/durability, and it's just not remotely close.
We could probably call Lanier's prime '72 thru '79: that's 8 seasons (562 rs games, 21,231 rs minutes).
Hayes' prime is '69-'80: 12 seasons (978 rs games), 40,741 rs minutes).
So as measured by seasons, Hayes had 50% more prime. As measured by games played (because Lanier did miss a fair number), Hayes had 74% more prime. And given Hayes also played considerably more minutes, as measured by minutes played he had 92% more prime.
That's a lot of added career value. Even measured in career WS---which win shares absolutely loathes Hayes' inefficient shooting, and conversely loves Lanier's efficient scorring---Hayes has so many games/minutes/seasons on Lanier that even in this category that should heavily favor Lanier, Hayes still has the slight edge: 120.8 to 117.1 in career rs WS. Has the edge (11.7 to 8.6) in career playoff WS, too.
Anyway, the longevity/durability gap is just too much for me. Vote for #57: Elvin Hayes.
The thing is the one thing WS loves more than efficiency is minutes. In large part because it isn't wins above replacement level or wins above average (or indeed Wins Above Very Good tm
). So long as you aren't rookie Austin Rivers bad, you can accumulate Win Shares without ever being good. Hayes' Win Share totals suggest he was as good Buck Williams, if you like big minute guys. And Williams was the consumate pro, and was more non-boxscore in his defensive contributions so WS will tend to underrate him on D. Hayes accumulates 19 Win Shares by playing big minutes in his final 5 seasons. In each of those seasons WS/48 says he was a below average player. What is the value of that. It's not nothing, not everyone can be above average and you need field a team for 240 player-minutes (so at least some below average minutes have value). But does it mean much at this point in the ranking, amongst all NBA players in history, still in the top 60? I'd suggest not. Wins above 0 is too low a baseline.
Then too the gap between their scoring and D the same? Lanier was a premier scorer who combined usage and efficiency and could score from inside and out (and that scoring is the more valuable because, due to his vast passing advantage, you can't just focus on him). I'm not convinced Hayes' brand of volume scoring adds much to a good offensive team. I just don't see that gap on D. I'm guessing that's Lanier as average (note, this isn't what -what I've seen of - contemporary opinion suggests from the '74 season on) and Hayes as a premier defender (again, from what I can tell the suggestions from the time suggest a good but hardly exceptional defender). It's hard to know but boxscore stats don't suggest a large gap either. Seeing that seems to me contingent on looking at the team level stuff, which I guess is fine, but surely needs fine toothcomb level work isolating each players impact (probably not possible) or else seems to be largely chance (what teammates you have).
Finally career playoff Win Shares, to me, just looks like "Who got to play with Unseld, Chenier, Dandridge, Truck Robinson, Kupchak etc in his prime? Who got to play with Chris Ford and Curtis Rowe?"
Just my opinions anyway.
