RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #52 (Kevin McHale)

[sansterre]

As always, I restrict myself to only voting for players that have received #1 votes in this round.

1. Manu Ginobili - I know his longevity isn't great (though is more than comparable to McHale, for example) but his peak boasts some pretty insane AuRPM seasons and at least one epic playoff run. Ginobili combining several Top 5 seasons (according to AuRPM) combined with at least decent longevity puts him over the edge for me at this stage.

2. Kevin McHale - I'm not a huge McHale fan, but there's no denying his extremely efficient scoring (especially in the playoffs) and that his blocks/steals certainly undersell his considerable defensive value. Remember that he played a 4 on offense, but he often had to defend 3s on defense and made it work. I'm leery of his 1) longevity, 2) low passing numbers and 3) comparably low usage. But his efficiency and defensive value are so notable that I'm comfortable with him here.

3. Adrian Dantley - My arbitrary metrics like Dantley a little more than McHale, but I'm giving McHale the benefit of the doubt for his defense. It's impossible not to like Dantley's amazing blend of efficiency and usage. For all of McHale's virtue as a scorer, Dantley is clearly better . . . in the regular season. As soon as the playoffs come McHale becomes considerably more competitive. I may be underselling Dantley here, but I like McHale's all-around game.

And should it come to this Cousy > Cowens for me for now.

[DSMok1]

Does anyone know of any strong evidence for Mutombo's defense moving the needle? Obviously it did, but how much? BPM takes a fairly dim view of steals, but AuRPM gives Mutombo several very strong seasons, and his WOWYR is bonkers. I would really like to give him some love, but I'm cautious about voting players that BPM is so meh about. I know he was better than BPM says; I just don't know how much better.

Resurrecting this post from early in the thread. I just want to say--take defensive BPM with a huge pile of salt. It's enough to give a general outline of a player, but it is far better at measuring offense than defense. It is constrained to the box score, which is quite limited on defense. I can't make information appear on defense that isn't in the box score already.

[DQuinn1575]

As always, I restrict myself to only voting for players that have received #1 votes in this round.

1. Manu Ginobili - I know his longevity isn't great (though is more than comparable to McHale, for example) but his peak boasts some pretty insane AuRPM seasons and at least one epic playoff run. Ginobili combining several Top 5 seasons (according to AuRPM) combined with at least decent longevity puts him over the edge for me at this stage.

2. Kevin McHale - I'm not a huge McHale fan, but there's no denying his extremely efficient scoring (especially in the playoffs) and that his blocks/steals certainly undersell his considerable defensive value. Remember that he played a 4 on offense, but he often had to defend 3s on defense and made it work. I'm leery of his 1) longevity, 2) low passing numbers and 3) comparably low usage. But his efficiency and defensive value are so notable that I'm comfortable with him here.

3. Adrian Dantley - My arbitrary metrics like Dantley a little more than McHale, but I'm giving McHale the benefit of the doubt for his defense. It's impossible not to like Dantley's amazing blend of efficiency and usage. For all of McHale's virtue as a scorer, Dantley is clearly better . . . in the regular season. As soon as the playoffs come McHale becomes considerably more competitive. I may be underselling Dantley here, but I like McHale's all-around game.

And should it come to this Cousy > Cowens for me for now.

Does this mean you may not be voting for the player you think is best?

[sansterre]

As always, I restrict myself to only voting for players that have received #1 votes in this round.

1. Manu Ginobili - I know his longevity isn't great (though is more than comparable to McHale, for example) but his peak boasts some pretty insane AuRPM seasons and at least one epic playoff run. Ginobili combining several Top 5 seasons (according to AuRPM) combined with at least decent longevity puts him over the edge for me at this stage.

2. Kevin McHale - I'm not a huge McHale fan, but there's no denying his extremely efficient scoring (especially in the playoffs) and that his blocks/steals certainly undersell his considerable defensive value. Remember that he played a 4 on offense, but he often had to defend 3s on defense and made it work. I'm leery of his 1) longevity, 2) low passing numbers and 3) comparably low usage. But his efficiency and defensive value are so notable that I'm comfortable with him here.

3. Adrian Dantley - My arbitrary metrics like Dantley a little more than McHale, but I'm giving McHale the benefit of the doubt for his defense. It's impossible not to like Dantley's amazing blend of efficiency and usage. For all of McHale's virtue as a scorer, Dantley is clearly better . . . in the regular season. As soon as the playoffs come McHale becomes considerably more competitive. I may be underselling Dantley here, but I like McHale's all-around game.

And should it come to this Cousy > Cowens for me for now.

Does this mean you may not be voting for the player you think is best?

Yes it does. But I don't really trust my ability to determine who is best accurately. I tend to use made up formulas that broad-strokes work but need to be taken with a massive grain of salt.

I find it a helpful method to wait until the second day to see who's getting votes and constrain myself to that. It's a useful filtering tool and it reduces the risk of my votes being ghosted repeatedly.

And you may reasonably argue that I would better serve the community by making long, well-researched and impassioned cases for the players that I think merit consideration, and you're probably right. But my time is limited and already heavily committed to the Top Teams project. This current method, where everybody else brings the menu by and I get to say "I'll take one of those, then that and then that" is a way for me to participate and contribute (in moderation) while keeping the time investment to manageable levels for me.

[trex_8063]

As always, I restrict myself to only voting for players that have received #1 votes in this round.

1. Manu Ginobili - I know his longevity isn't great (though is more than comparable to McHale, for example) but his peak boasts some pretty insane AuRPM seasons and at least one epic playoff run. Ginobili combining several Top 5 seasons (according to AuRPM) combined with at least decent longevity puts him over the edge for me at this stage.

2. Kevin McHale - I'm not a huge McHale fan, but there's no denying his extremely efficient scoring (especially in the playoffs) and that his blocks/steals certainly undersell his considerable defensive value. Remember that he played a 4 on offense, but he often had to defend 3s on defense and made it work. I'm leery of his 1) longevity, 2) low passing numbers and 3) comparably low usage. But his efficiency and defensive value are so notable that I'm comfortable with him here.

3. Adrian Dantley - My arbitrary metrics like Dantley a little more than McHale, but I'm giving McHale the benefit of the doubt for his defense. It's impossible not to like Dantley's amazing blend of efficiency and usage. For all of McHale's virtue as a scorer, Dantley is clearly better . . . in the regular season. As soon as the playoffs come McHale becomes considerably more competitive. I may be underselling Dantley here, but I like McHale's all-around game.

And should it come to this Cousy > Cowens for me for now.

Does this mean you may not be voting for the player you think is best?

Yes it does. But I don't really trust my ability to determine who is best accurately. I tend to use made up formulas that broad-strokes work but need to be taken with a massive grain of salt.

I find it a helpful method to wait until the second day to see who's getting votes and constrain myself to that. It's a useful filtering tool and it reduces the risk of my votes being ghosted repeatedly.

It's up to you how you want to participate, and I certainly understand being strapped for time with other projects.

However, with the way we're validating non-majority winners, etc, it allows voters a say in who wins the spot even if all three of your picks are players whom no one else has on their radar yet. "Ghosted" doesn't = irrelevant with the protocol we've adopted, is what I'm saying.
As long as you're reasonably "available" to respond to notifications asking for your opinion regarding finalists (or anticipate them and state your ranking preemptively, as you have done [thank you]).....you're good to make your picks for whomever you see fit, while still having a say in who actually wins.

[Joao Saraiva]

Votes
1. Manu Ginobili
2. Adrian Dantley
3. Sam Jones

My vote goes for Manu. Yes limited minutes, we know that. But his impact was very good in those minutes and he was a big part of San Antonio's success. As a matter of fact, even in the early championships with Duncan and Parker the offense got better results with him being the driving force instead of playing trough Duncan.

His longevity seasons wise is very good, and he was both a positive on offense and defense.

I'm not that high on Parker, so I think Manu deserves a ton of credit for the success of the Spurs, along with Duncan and Pop.

[DQuinn1575]

I saw at least one post downgrading Sam Jones because he wasn't first-team All-NBA.
He lost out every year in his peak to Oscar Robertson and Jerry West, two Top 20 players of all time. He was twice in the Top 5 of MVP voting.

HIs longevity is shortened due to the fact he spent two years in the military. He retired at age 35, at that time he posted the second highest WS amount for a player 45 and over, behind Bob Davies, so he did have pretty good longevity for his era.

In the 9 Game 7's that Jones played in, Jones shot 49.3% from the field (100 out of 203), while the rest of the team shot 38.9% (295 out of 758).

So in 9 deciding games, 7 of which were decided by 5 points or less, including a 1 pointer, 3 two point games, and an overtime, Jones shot about (technically more) 10% better than the rest of all these hall of famers - also shooting 89.8% from the line vs the rest of the team's 73.8%

So take Sam Jones out of those games, and assume the rest of the team shoots the same in his place - they lose 4 of the games -
62 vs LA, 65 vs PHI, 66 vs LA, 69 vs LA, with 62 vs PHI being a tie. Does that mean no Jones, 4-5 less titles? That may be a bit much.

And yes, it's only 9 games. But each and every time the Celtics won. Jones was a big reason they won. He wasn't along for the ride.
Even in 1959, when he was a sub behind Sharman and Cousy, he went 6-12 while the rest of the team shot 35.8% (44 out of 123).




1. Sam Jones
2. Dave Cowens
3. Paul Arizin

Both Cowens was a top player in the league for a span, and impactful on 2 championships.
Arizin is similar, with 1 championship.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #27:

Manu Ginobili - 4 (Dutchball97, Joao Saraiva, penbeast0, sansterre)
Kevin McHale - 2 (Hal14, trex_8063)
Bob Cousy - 2 (euroleague, Joe Malburg)
Sam Jones - 1 (DQuinn1575)
Dave Cowens - 1 (Cavsfansince84)
Adrian Dantley - 1 (Odinn21)


11 votes requires 6 for a majority. So we'll eliminate the bottom three, which transfers one to McHale and ghosts the other two....

Manu - 4
McHale - 3
Cousy - 2
(ghosted) - 2

So Cousy is next eliminated, which transfers one more to McHale and ghosts another....

Manu - 4
McHale - 4
(ghosted) - 3

Now either from statements within this thread, or from declarations they've made previously, I know the opinion of the three ghosted votes: DQuinn1575 and Joe Malburg have both declared McHale > Manu, while Cavsfansince84 has said Manu > McHale; which makes it......

McHale - 6
Manu - 5

McHale takes this one.

Spoiler:

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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