RealGM 2017 Top 100 List #72 (Paul Arizin)

[Narigo]

Runoff vote: Bobby Jones


Jones had a underrated peak in 1977. He was 3rd best player in the league behind Kareem and Walton based off metrics. Also he was a excellent defender and can defend multiple positions

[trex_8063]

Bobby Jones has been my favorite pre-1990 player for quite a while now. Incredible efficiency that would be elite for any era, and one of the best perimeter defenders of all-time. On a per-minute basis, their raw counting stats are actually pretty similar and even era-adjusted Arizin has a career PER of 19.7 compared to 18.2 for Jones which with Jones’ incredible defense would give him the edge.....

In my admittedly limited eye-test, I've not been overly "wowed" by Bobby Jones' halfcourt man defense, though I want to look at some H2H studies to better support/refute my impressions (which are that he was decent/good, but not great, on halfcourt man D). The thing that appears to have made him special defensively [the thing his proponents have been emphasizing itt] was his help defense, and noting that he skated near 2 bpg/2 spg multiple seasons. So unlike a defensive stud like Joe Dumars, for example (intense, physical, and intelligent half-court defender, but who doesn't get many steals/blocks/DRebs, and thus is having his defensive value missed by the box-based metrics), a large portion of Bobby Jones' defensive value is being accounted for by the boxscore (the steals/blocks that he accrues on the help D): it's why his DBPM are frequently among the best in the league (very respectable DWS, too, despite the low minutes).
In short, I don't think his defensive attributes significantly elevate his value above what available box-based metrics are suggesting.

And then I'll once again emphasize that the above bolded "On a per-minute basis" statement is operative to me. Jones achieved those per-minute metrics at a career 27.3 mpg, Arizin's on 38.4 mpg......that's an additional 11.1 mpg (basically an entire quarter every game) where Arizin is on the court, providing whatever value he provides; 11.1 additional mpg in which Bobby Jones' team would have to field a presumably replacement-level player. That's not irrelevant, imo.

[trex_8063]

On Marion character issues (and if either of us raised it would be Pen, I haven't really discussed Marion other than passing mentions amongst other fairly well-rounded, defensive, often stat-sheet stuffing forwards) versus Parker ...

It was documented in SSoL (doubtless amongst other places) that Marion sometimes chafed at being percieved as the 3rd guy (or to be fair, often just ignored because if you're not top 2 and you're not a "superteam" where you've established yourselves on your own team, the "third" guy doesn't necessarily get much pub). There's a possible asking for a trade near the end of the Phoenix stint and this may have been a factor in dealing him for O'Neal...

Still I think versus Parker ... I don't know the details about the Parker-Barry situation (a quick google makes it seem like it was less than was originally reported), I don't know the state of the Barry's relationship when whatever happened, happened (assuming that something did, which Parker seemed to have admitted). Well having typed the last sentence, I don't even know whether, this stuff can fairly be factored in. But if there's some truth to some of it, if there was some hope for the Barrys (or even if there wasn't, but Brent didn't know, or was only just finding out) ... this type of stuff could destroy a lockerroom, destroy trust and plausibly make an x cents on the dollar trade necessary.

Firstly, my apologies for vaguely mis-crediting you with the statements. I couldn't remember who it was (not 100% sure it was pen either, tbh). Some of the things you've mentioned above is what I was referring to, though (as well as some comments credited to him----not mentioned by name, but thinly veiled and not hard to figure out who was being referred to----by Paul Shirley in his book Can I Keep My Jersey? (which is an entertaining read, btw, for anyone reading this)).

I was aware of the whole Parker illicit romance thing (or at the least the rumor of "something" having happened). However, with love/lust/relationships being so dependent upon individual specs, chemistry, etc, I sort of looked at that as more of an "isolated incident" (i.e. not likely to happen in just any circumstance); whereas ego issues, grumbling about not getting recognition as a player, requesting trades out of what is already a good situation, etc.......those are more likely to be issues in multiple settings. Does that make sense?

And at any rate, I can't think of an organization that is more sensitive and attuned to team chemistry, health of the team culture, etc, than the San Antonio Spurs.......and whatever did occur was apparently not sufficient for Popp, or Duncan, or Buford to lose faith in Tony Parker. That fact carries some weight for me.

Without opining on his merits versus Arizin, I think you're underselling Jones too. I don't really get the circa 26mpg. Jones was 27.3 mpg for his career and that includes at least two back-end years that we'd probably call post-prime. Through '84 he's at 28.5mpg and that brought down by two years in which the first the team went 65-17 (starting 57-9) and didn't need maximise his RS minutes, and then the defending champs after that season (and fo-fi-fo). Those numbers go to 28.4 and 29 through '84 when looking at the playoffs. It's perhaps not a big difference but seems like an undersell for no reason, even more so for his most productive years.

Then when you say not a transcendant player ... well "transcendant" is a very high bar (I wonder where I'd/we'd say that stopped being the case on the list) but the plus minuses are pretty strongly suggestive of big impact.

It wasn't an intentional "massaging the numbers" to undersell him, if that's what you're saying. I didn't look it up at the time, just thought I remembered his career mpg being something like 26.5; perhaps I was remembering his NBA mpg avg (26.1), and at any rate it's not far off the actual full career average (27.3). My point being (as stated in my reply to iggymcfrack in post #22) is that it's a big difference from Arizin's 38.4 mpg. Looking at it in terms of per game value added, Jones basically has to be 40% more impactful than Arizin per minute to achieve equal impact per game, because he's on the court so much less (not wanting to derail with another semantic debate, but 40% more impactful than Arizin would perhaps of necessity be "transcendent"????).

It's from this standpoint (of per game, and thus per season impact) where I think Bobby's minutes are against him.

One might try to counter that from "per career" standpoint Jones has 831 more recorded rs minutes to his career. But then we note they didn't record minutes played in Arizin's first season. A reasonable estimate would likely be somewhere between 2200-2500 minutes played for that season, bringing him ~1,500 minutes over Bobby's career total.......and that before noting Arizin likely had two full seasons [of prime-level play, which would likely elevated his career metrics, fwiw] taken from him by military service. Not sure how other people wish to mentally adjust for that [if at all]; but I personally don't think it would unreasonable to mentally adjust his career minutes up another 5,000 or so.

[penbeast0]

It was me; I love Marion and hadn't heard the whining much if at all before the last time we did this project but I got myself pulled up short by other posters on it. I have read Paul Shirley's book since then too.

And, in terms of Bobby Jones, I think you can also look at strength of league as being an extremely large factor as well . . . even v. 1975 when Jones was the clear best player on the best regular season team over teams featuring Gilmore (and Issell/Dampier), Erving (and Kenon/Paultz/Taylor)), as well as the McGinnis led Pacers and the Moses led Stars.

I am pretty sure no one has been downgrading Tony Parker (never played 35mpg) because they didn't play big minutes per game. Bobby Jones's minutes were right in line with Kawhi the last few seasons or Tony Parker's career before Jones went to Philly and in Philly, Doug Collins followed the Red Auerbach rule of making your third best player play 6th man so you wouldn't lose energy when you went to your bench. Yes, Jones had some physical issues which might have limited his minutes but mainly it was coaching style, not his health issues that limited his play.

[trex_8063]

I am pretty sure no one has been downgrading Tony Parker (never played 35mpg) because they didn't play big minutes per game. Bobby Jones's minutes were right in line with Kawhi the last few seasons or Tony Parker's career....

Well......Bobby Jones has precisely three seasons (out of 12) where his mpg were in line with Kawhi or what Tony Parker was doing for a decade or more. Parker had NINE seasons where he avg >35 mpg in the playoffs, fwiw (Jones has zero). And whereas Jones has just three seasons of >30 mpg in the rs, Parker had 11 consecutive seasons >30 mpg (including eight seasons equal or higher mpg than Jones' 2nd-highest season).
And then, of course, he has a longer prime and longer career in general (even prior to this season, Parker's already had 41% more rs minutes and 79% more playoff minutes........he's got literally half again the total career on the court that Jones had, with most of it being "relevant").
Again, I put high premium on longevity and total career value; it's simply a hard sell for me that Jones is basically ">50% better" per minute than someone like Parker to sufficiently counter-balance that massive edge in minutes. You and others are welcome to disagree; but that's where I'm coming from.

[Outside]

Late to the thread, but in this runoff, it seems clear that Arizin is the choice. Bobby Jones was a very nice complementary player, but he never played starter-level minutes (his peak was 34.3 in his second season, and he averaged 23.6 in the Sixers' title season), and his production looks like a role player:

RS - 12.1 pts, 6.1 reb, 2.7 ast, 1.5 stl, 1.4 blk, 60.7 TS%
PS - 11.9 pts, 5.5 reb, 2.5 ast, 1.1 stl, 1.2 blk, 59.4 TS%

He had excellent efficiency, but the production just isn't there.

Arizin's longevity is about the same as Jones minutes-wise, but his averages are at a different level:

RS - 22.8 pts, 8.6 reb, 2.3 ast, 50.6 TS%
PS - 24.2 pts, 8.2 reb, 2.6 ast, 49.7 TS%

Arizin's efficiency is actual very good for his era.

Arizin was the main guy on a championship team. His longevity takes a hit because he lost two seasons in his prime to military service.

Runoff vote: Arizin

[dhsilv2]

It was me; I love Marion and hadn't heard the whining much if at all before the last time we did this project but I got myself pulled up short by other posters on it. I have read Paul Shirley's book since then too.

And, in terms of Bobby Jones, I think you can also look at strength of league as being an extremely large factor as well . . . even v. 1975 when Jones was the clear best player on the best regular season team over teams featuring Gilmore (and Issell/Dampier), Erving (and Kenon/Paultz/Taylor)), as well as the McGinnis led Pacers and the Moses led Stars.

I am pretty sure no one has been downgrading Tony Parker (never played 35mpg) because they didn't play big minutes per game. Bobby Jones's minutes were right in line with Kawhi the last few seasons or Tony Parker's career before Jones went to Philly and in Philly, Doug Collins followed the Red Auerbach rule of making your third best player play 6th man so you wouldn't lose energy when you went to your bench. Yes, Jones had some physical issues which might have limited his minutes but mainly it was coaching style, not his health issues that limited his play.

Parker was I guess one of the test cases of lower minutes but wasn't that out of line with his era. Jones played really low minutes for his era. Does the era adjustment not have to be addressed at least?

[dhsilv2]

Late to the thread, but in this runoff, it seems clear that Arizin is the choice. Bobby Jones was a very nice complementary player, but he never played starter-level minutes (his peak was 34.3 in his second season, and he averaged 23.6 in the Sixers' title season), and his production looks like a role player:

RS - 12.1 pts, 6.1 reb, 2.7 ast, 1.5 stl, 1.4 blk, 60.7 TS%
PS - 11.9 pts, 5.5 reb, 2.5 ast, 1.1 stl, 1.2 blk, 59.4 TS%

He had excellent efficiency, but the production just isn't there.

Arizin's longevity is about the same as Jones minutes-wise, but his averages are at a different level:

RS - 22.8 pts, 8.6 reb, 2.3 ast, 50.6 TS%
PS - 24.2 pts, 8.2 reb, 2.6 ast, 49.7 TS%

Arizin's efficiency is actual very good for his era.

Arizin was the main guy on a championship team. His longevity takes a hit because he lost two seasons in his prime to military service.

Runoff vote: Arizin

If that's role player stats....my god he's the GOAT role player, lol. I mean Steve Kerr is goat level role player!

[trex_8063]

Thru post #28:

Paul Arizin - 5 (Outside, dhsilv2, Doctor MJ, trex_8063, Clyde Frazier)
Bobby Jones - 3 (Narigo, LABird, penbeast0)


I'm a little over 2 hours early here, but I don't think we're going to reach 11 votes in the next two hours (with all three new votes being for Jones) to turn the result. Calling it for Arizin. Will have the next thread up in a moment.

Spoiler:

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.