RealGM Top 100 List #18

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Well the Rockets only shot 35% from deep against the Spurs. They didn't play that well outside of Hakeem. He averaged 35 ppg and 5 apg out of the team's 99 ppg. Now Robinson did have to deal with more but both teams kind of had the same strategy when it came to guarding Hakeem and Pat limited him while he flourished against Robinson.

not really, Robinson went in single coverage while they were staying with the shooters to avoid open threes. That's why the rest of the Rockets underperformed.

[ThaRegul8r]

Sorry to bump again, but I do want to voice some resentment at the accusations of putting words in your mouth (particularly with the condescending phrases like "apparently I need to make my words bigger so they can't be missed"). Admittedly, it's not that I didn't infer some things from your statements; but the statements were so close to what I inferred that I actually had to go back and read your original statement to make sure:

"Speaking solely for myself, this doesn't particularly mean much to me, considering he * stat-padded in the last game to win it." I must have mentally inserted the words "had to" where the * is; because it is just those five letters away from saying exactly what I interpreted it as. Further, the context/tone of your arguments did nothing to sway me away from my original (mis)interpretation--->I don't think it can be denied (with honesty) that your choice of words seem to be aimed at discrediting, to at least a small degree, Robinson's scoring title.
So if I read a bit more into your remarks than you'd intended, I'm sorry, but given all of the above I'd expect little more understanding (or at the very least a less snarky retort) on your part.

First, let's actually look at the portion of my post in question. My comment on putting words in my mouth was specifically in response to this:

Most of the rest of your post labored the point that winning scoring titles doesn't necessarily help your team win games, and isn't terribly relevant to an all-time ranking.

I'll kindly ask you not to put words in my mouth. I said that winning scoring titles isn't terribly relevant to my all-time ranking. I don't know how many times I can possibly say "speaking solely for myself," or "isn't particularly important to me." Apparently I need to make the words bigger so they can't be missed. I just finished saying the other day that different people have different criteria, and thus one can't say one's choice is "wrong" without first understanding the criteria used:

Spoiler:

I don't want to offend you, but yeah, pretty much voting for Walton IS wrong.

As I keep saying, it depends on the criteria. Some people rank players by "how good they were at their best," which basically makes the exercise one of arranging players by who had the best peaks. If this is one's criteria, then Walton will have to come up at sone point. At least one is being consistent with one's own criteria.

The thing is, everyone has their own criteria, no one's actually explicitly stated their criteria or referenced it when making a choice, but then they're judging other people's decisions by their own unstated criteria without bothering to consider what criteria the other guy is using or bothering to attempt to understand it.

Sometimes other people make different choices than I would make, but if they're not going by the same criteria as I, it wouldn't make sense for me to say they're "wrong" if we're not going by the same standards.

No one ever says on the internet, "I disagree with your choice, but I respect your right to make that choice." And the irony is, when someone else may disagree with their choice, they then proceed to get emotional over it while having no problem telling someone else their choice is wrong without even knowing the rational behind it.

I don't dictate what someone else's all-time ranking should be. Everyone makes his own choice, which I also just finished saying recently.

Which is the actual "original statement" that prompted my "snarky retort," not the portion you quoted. (Which you admit was an additional misinterpretation separate from the one which inspired the comment that drew your resentment.) Which is odd considering you made a point to reference my statement about needing to add bigger words so they wouldn't be missed, yet somehow you still managed to miss the actual portion of the post responsible for the comment which elicited your resentment when it was directly above it. I fail to see your grounds for resentment when you actually served to further prove my point.

Anyways. You said that the rest of my post belabored the point that winning scoring titles doesn't necessarily help you (which is true), and that it isn't terribly relevant to an all-time ranking. Which is putting words in my mouth, twisting my words, misinterpreting them, whatever you want to call it. Your revision paints me out as dictating what other people should value when making their all-time rankings. (Considering the fact that another voting member of this project earlier leveled the accusation at me that I was attempting to dictate what was going on in the project, I'm not putting up with it again.) Which comes after I just posted about how different people have different criteria, and thus people can't say that someone else's list is "wrong" if they're going by different criteria. This whole project I've only talked about my own rankings. I don't tell other people what they should value. Seeing how I JUST made a post defending the right of people to make their own lists according to their respective criteria regardless of whether I agree with them or not--not just if it so happens to reflect my thoughts, I don't appreciate someone falsely saying that I'm arbitrating what should or should not be relevant for an all-time ranking, thus telling other people how they should make their lists.

I've been on internet sports forums for a long time. People do not like the length of my posts, referring to them as "essays" or "books," saying that they're too long to read. Thus they skim over them without actually reading them. Consequently, posters have attributed things to me that I did not say in the post they're referencing. I've long since grown tired of it, and, yes, I get snarky whenever posters say things I said things I did not, or demonstrate that they haven't read a post of mine they're responding to. I do not apologize for that. Particularly when, instead of leaving it, a follow-up post is made which only confirms the accuracy of what I said.

Nonetheless, I apologize for not being literal enough in evaluating your words. But for the record, you appear to be guilty of the exact same indiscretion (more on that below).

"I apologize, but..." There's always a "but." (Which is also how the post began: "Sorry to bump again, but..." Which was later followed by another "I'm sorry, but...") Any apology which includes a "but" is an insincere and ungenuine apology. Corroborated by the fact that the very first thing you said was that you were writing the post in order to voice resentment, as well as by the passive aggressive "I apologize for not being literal enough in evaluating your words." Which in turn is immediately followed by tu quoque, which is common, particularly if one is already resentful. "I may have been wrong, but I'm going to see if he's just as wrong!" Which now ropes me into this again. So let's see where this goes, since I now have some time to fully deal with this, and put this to bed once and for all.

Overall, I sense in you a general reluctance to acknowledge what was shutupandjam's larger point in the first place: that Robinson was a formidable scorer and offensive player. (again the scoring title thing appeared to be merely an after-thought, something that could be mentioned quick and without elaboration but which would nonetheless support the aforementioned point).

My comment that the scoring title didn't particularly mean much to me considering he stat-padded in the last game to win it was also something mentioned quickly, but here we are. I said nothing about Robinson being "a formidable scorer and offensive player," or even about his scoring ability in general at all in my reply to shutupandjam. My throwaway comment was solely about the scoring title. Shutupandjam didn't find it worth commenting on, because it was irrelevant to his larger point (more on that below). You were the only one who took exception to it and made it a bigger issue than it actually was when the OP didn't care since it was unimportant.

Furthermore, shutupandjam didn't even say anything about Robinson being "a formidable scorer and offensive player" in the post I quoted. The only thing he actually said with the words he actually typed was that Robinson's offense was better than the defense of the other players in consideration. That's it. That's the extent of the words he actually wrote. And then he said Robinson won a scoring title, which Barkley and Moses never did.

Then he said Robinson led his team in assists while being one of the NBA's premier defenders. Then he went into the defensive gap between Robinson, Barkley and Moses:

Spoiler:

Vote David Robinson

Everyone seems to be talking about this like it's offense vs. defense, but David Robinson's offense is quite clearly better than the defense of the others in consideration. This is a guy who led the league in scoring - for reference, neither Barkley nor Moses ever did this - while also leading his team in assists! All while being one of the NBA's premier defenders.

And look at the defensive gap:

Career Blocks per 100:
Robinson: 4.4
Moses: 1.8
Barkley: 1.1

Career Steals per 100:
Robinson: 2.1
Barkley: 2.1
Moses: 1.2

Career DReb per 100:
Robinson: 11.2
Barkley: 10.5
Moses: 10.1

Avg Team Defense:
Robinson: +3.9
Moses: -0.9
Barkley: -1.0

You are the one who then made this about Robinson as an offensive player:

Eh, citing the stat-padded final game is really minimally relevant wrt Robinson winning the scoring title, and is completely irrelevant to shutupandjam's larger point (which is that Robinson was a very good scorer and offensive player)

In the very first sentence of your first post to me, you chose to interject with a statement that was categorically false, as is completely clear from the original post in its entirety. His "larger point" was that Robinson's offense > Barkley and Moses's defense, and Robinson's defense >>> Barkley's and Moses's defense, and hence Robinson was his vote. What I said about Robinson's scoring title was completely irrelevant to his larger point. Oddly enough, you said this in your second post to me:

That's the point he was fairly clearly trying to drive home. Robinson's offense was better than the defense of Barkley or Malone. He mentions the scoring title almost as an after-thought, as a quick-reference bit of evidence for his former assertion.

Which contradicts your first post. (So whence came the initial interpretation of the point being about Robinson's being "a very good scorer and offensive player?") If you knew this was the point, then why did you falsely begin your first post to me by saying that his "larger point" was "Robinson was a very good scorer and offensive player?" (I retract my reply to that since that was what you read into the OP, not what the OP actually said.) If you knew the scoring title was an after-thought, and I wasn't particularly impressed by the scoring title--which you yourself was an after-thought, then exactly what was he point in your first post to talk about what was mentioned "almost as an after-thought?" Had Robinson not won the scoring title, his point would still stand. Which makes the entire resulting line of discussion a complete waste of time.

You've essentially refused to acknowledge (at least within our exchanges to this point) that Robinson might have won the scoring title even without stat-padding, as well as seemingly refused to acknowledge the point penbeast made: that being in a position (based on the 79 previously played games) to win a scoring title vs. prime Shaq with a good single-game performance is pretty impressive.

If you want to undermine Robinson's credibility as a scorer, that's your choice.

One, when I factually stated, quote: "We don't know whether Robinson would have scored 36 in the flow of the game or not," you replied, quote: "Fair point already acknowledged." Now that you're posting to voice resentment however, I've now "essentially refused to acknowledge [...] that Robinson might have won the scoring title even without stat-padding." Secondly, what penbeast said to me had no more to do with you than what I said to shutupandjam. I replied to penbeast's post to me just as I have replied to your posts to me. Thirdly, you continue to spend a lot of time on something you said was mentioned "almost as an after-thought."

I have no agenda to "undermine Robinson's credibility as a scorer." I care nothing about the players that were discussed in this thread one way or another. I said the scoring title in and of itself--which was irrelevant to shutupandjam's larger point (which even you said in your second post to me)--wasn't a particularly compelling point for me due to the circumstances of how it was won. (Which says nothing about how other people should value it.) But whether Robinson won a scoring title or not was irrelevant to the statement that Robinson's offense was better than Barkley or Moses's defense. Which again makes your insistence on dwelling on this point bizarre.

I just looked back over the thread and see in post #74 that you voted for Robinson, and now the fact that you took such exception to my statement becomes more clear. You're a poster with a vote (and are thus personally invested in the results while I am not) defending your choice--to a guy who isn't voting in the project and thus isn't a vote against your guy, and your guy won anyway, which just adds to the pointlessness.

I guess I don't quite understand the tactic of discrediting his scoring title, and simply turning your head away from his '94 rs accomplishments as a means of doing so; because a single stat-padded game aside, it's still quite obviously a noteworthy scoring season.

I don't recall any discussion about Robinson's regular season accomplishments as a whole in '94 by either shutupandjam or myself. Unless you mean that his winning the scoring title was the totality of his accomplishments that season? (I supposed it is in keeping with the common belief that scoring > all.) And, again, if the scoring title was mentioned "almost as an after-thought" to his point, why is this so important to you?

You've made mention of Robinson's playoff failings (an argument with much more traction wrt down-playing his offensive impact/skill, fwiw) only once, in response to penbeast (and only a single sentence at that). The playoff angle would be a point worth laboring in critiquing Robinson's offense.

I've made mention of Karl Malone's playoff failings as well previously. Robinson's offensive failings in the postseason have been well documented. I see no need to beat a dead horse. I have no interest in campaigning against Robinson. As I said above, I have no vote in this project and thus no effect upon the results, so I have no vested interest in who goes where. I said earlier after Nowitzki was voted in that both Robinson and Karl Malone had their failings in the postseason, so it wasn't as was the case with Nowitzki that one player was clearly superior in utilizing what he brought to the table in the postseason. They both were able to put aside ego and disregard statistics if that's what the team needed from them, which is a plus for me. I need to balance Robinson's failings in his prime with his contribution to the two Spurs' titles. With regard to the latter, I said I was going to re-read posts made about Robinson after Duncan's arrival. Both posters in this thread and in the past, as well as sports writers like Sam Smith said that Robinson was miscast as the lead scorer, so perhaps he would have been better able to help his teams had he been able to perform in the role he demonstrated he was capable of when Duncan arrived.

As to your own indiscretion:

I don't think anyone is trying to claim Robinson is a better offensive player than Barkley. I don't wish to speak for him, but I'm fairly certain shutupandjam invoked Barkley's name in relation to scoring titles (or lack thereof) as means of simply saying, "Look: it's not any old player that wins a scoring title. Even some of the GOAT-level scorers (like Barkley) sometimes don't win scoring titles."

I'm only going by what was said:

"This is a guy who led the league in scoring - for reference, neither Barkley nor Moses ever did this."

Robinson's scoring title is irrelevant in comparison to Barkley, because the latter was better offensively. I'm not sure why that statement would be disputable.

The above statement in dark blue came out of left field to me, as no one had made any such claims about Robinson > Barkley offensively: a point I spoke to in my original reply. Which you then responded with the above dark green statement. Now I would hate to be accused of putting words in your mouth again, but in North American English parlance when someone replies to the effect of "Hey, that's not what I/we/he/she was trying to say," and then you reply, "I'm only going by what was said" without acknowledging the validity of the prior reply........that generally that means you think your interpretation of original statements was accurate.

Interesting. Let's go back to the original post that started all of this:

"Everyone seems to be talking about this like it's offense vs. defense, but David Robinson's offense is quite clearly better than the defense of the others in consideration. This is a guy who led the league in scoring - for reference, neither Barkley nor Moses ever did this."

Regarding Robinson winning a scoring title, I said it didn't mean as much to me considering he stat-padded in the last game to win it. I am on record as expressing my not being impressed by statistical achievements in which stat-padding was involved, so I am consistent in that. The player who does it is irrelevant to me. Since shutupandjam only mentioned it "almost as an after-thought" to help his point that Robinson's offense was better than Barkley and Moses's defense, it wasn't important since Robinson's offense > their defense regardless of the scoring title. His point stands with or without it.

Regarding him having won a scoring title and Barkley not having done so, one, that was irrelevant to shutupandjam's point that Robinson's offense > Barkley and Moses's defense. I said Barkley was a better scorer and offensive player than Robinson regardless of however many scoring titles Robinson won and Barkley didn't, so the fact that Robinson has a scoring title and Barkley doesn't doesn't really mean much to me either. Which was in response to the part in the original post I replied to about "for reference, [...] Barkley [never] did this." Whether Barkley won a scoring title was completely irrelevant to whether Robinson's offense was better than Barkley's defense, and Barkley was better than Robinson both scoring-wise and offensively, which is why mentioning the fact that Robinson has a scoring title and Barkley didn't was both irrelevant to me and to the original point. Which means this all "Much Ado About Nothing."

Even more so considering the fact that I said that "And if" someone were to hold up Robinson's winning a scoring title and Barkley never having done so as "evidence" that Robinson > Barkley on offense, I would have difficulty taking such an assertion seriously. Yet I don't see where I said anything about shutupandjam doing this. He only mentioned it as part of his point that Robinson's offense > Barkley and Moses's defense, which you finally acknowledged in the second post to me if not in the first.

So let's compare and contrast:

Most of the rest of your post labored the point that winning scoring titles doesn't necessarily help your team win games, and isn't terribly relevant to an all-time ranking.

This is referring to points I made in my post. It's talking me and about what I said.

And if someone were to hold up Robinson's winning a scoring title and Barkley never having done so as "evidence" that Robinson > Barkley on offense, I would have difficulty taking such an assertion seriously. Barkley >> Robinson offensively regardless of however many scoring titles Robinson won and Barkley didn't.

While here, I'm not talking about what shutupandjam wrote, nor claiming he was making that assertion. "And if someone were to __________" is clearly not referring to anything that has been done. This is simple English. I can't think of any instance in which "If ________ were to ________" is referring to something that's actually happened. Perhaps someone can enlighten me.

Yet this is the "smoking gun" that you made a point to bold and highlight in that nice dark blue.

This is the tu quoque card you were so eagerly waiting to spring on me.

I'm only going by what was said:

"This is a guy who led the league in scoring - for reference, neither Barkley nor Moses ever did this."

Robinson's scoring title is irrelevant in comparison to Barkley, because the latter was better offensively. I'm not sure why that statement would be disputable.

My response to what was said about Robinson leading the league in scoring while Barkley never did was that Robinson's scoring title is irrelevant in comparison to Barkley, because Barkley was a better scorer. Again, I don't see where I'm putting words in anyone's mouth. I gave my replies to what was written. Those are my words, not words I am attributing to shutupandjam. Read above. When does "If ________ were to ________" ever refer to something that's been done? You also took the liberty of connecting the quote in dark blue and the quote following the dark green, when the former came in a post in reply to something which shutupandjam never actually said, but you attributed to him. I.e., the larger point being about however good a scorer and offensive player Robinson was, when it was about Robinson's offense being better than Barkley's defense, with the addition that "he even won a scoring title too, which Barkley didn't." To which my quote following the dark green applies without putting words in anyone's mouth when those words were my own.

"Look: it's not any old player that wins a scoring title. Even some of the GOAT-level scorers (like Barkley) sometimes don't win scoring titles" is irrelevant to shutupandjam's point that Robinson's offense being better than Barkley's defense. And since the scoring title, in your words, was mentioned "almost as an after-thought," I don't see why you care so much that I said that the fact that a player who was inferior as a scorer to another led the league in scoring while the superior scorer didn't didn't mean much to me. Despite calling it almost an after-thought, you clearly care more about it than the OP did.

You want me to spell out one reason why it doesn't matter to me? (Which should be patently obvious if one actually gave it thought instead of trying to tick as many points off as they can in favor of their guy.)

Because Barkley's scoring prime coincided with that of a player who was an even greater scorer than he was.

Michael Jordan.

The guy with a record 10 scoring titles and the highest career points-per-game average in NBA history.

Robinson won the same amount of scoring titles that Barkley--and everyone else in the league--did when Jordan was there and began his stranglehold on the scoring title.

Zero.

The season after Jordan left, Robinson was in his fifth season while Barkley was in his tenth and had passed his scoring prime. The mere fact that Robinson won a scoring title and Barkley didn't is irrelevant when Robinson didn't have Jordan blocking the way the year he won his scoring title. Sometimes GOAT-level scorers don't win scoring titles because a scorer even higher on the GOAT list is in the league at the same time. Robinson was behind both Jordan and Barkley when they were all in the league before Jordan's (first) retirement, finishing in the 8-10 range, while Barkley was actually a Top 5 scorer as far as per-game average while Jordan was there, with a couple of sixes thrown in as well. So the fact that Robinson has a scoring title and Barkley doesn't is irrelevant to shutupandjam's point and irrelevant period. Context can't be omitted. The presence or absence of the guy regarded by most as the greatest scorer in NBA history would seem to be a rather pertinent point when talking about who has scoring titles and who doesn't. (Just as the presence of Wilt during his scoring years is a pertinent point as far as which players from that era have scoring titles and which don't.) Robinson has the same amount of scoring titles Barkley does if his first nine years in the league coincided with Jordan because Jordan wasn't not winning the scoring title--that's something he never compromised on, even after Phil Jackson wanted him to trust and involve his teammates more.

It's the same thing as when I said in regards to the statement that Karl Malone was a Top 5 player in the league during the 90's more often than Dirk Nowitzki was a Top 5 player in the league during the 00's, that among the contemporaries listed for Nowitzki were six players this board has voted above both himself and Karl while among the contemporaries listed for Karl were only two this board voted above himself and Nowitzki. While it's factually correct, it's meaningless without context. Just as Barkley's lack of a scoring title in comparison to Robinson is. Which is why it doesn't mean much to me.

That's the problem when people who have a voting interest advocate for a player. Relevant details often get left out somehow. I can't believe this thought never once occured to anyone other than me, or that I would actually have to explain that when anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of the NBA should know that.

My only failing is that--as I've posted before--I've been having computer problems. On some posts, I've put a header that I was editing in my response to a post I was quoting so that I wouldn't lose it completely. In my last post, I lost my reply two times, and finally wrote the post on my phone, which is tedious compared to writing it on an actual computer, and was impatient to be done with it, so I didn't fully write my original reply because I had other things to do, and I dislike repeating the same actions. I'll point out that the last post prior to this one was shorter than the one preceeding it, with only three of the eight paragraphs of my typed words exceeding one or two lines. While in the prior post, of the 12 paragraphs of my typed words, only four of them had only one to two lines. One was on a computer with a full-sized screen and keyboard, while the other was on my phone, on which I cannot scroll through a post while typing it in the window, so I can't write long posts on it. It has to be typed continuously, which makes my posts composed on a phone more brief than those composed on a computer. Posting quotes is even more of a pain. Obviously, this post is being typed on an actual computer with full screen and keyboard. Nevertheless, in what I wrote in the final post that made it, no words are put in anyone's mouth.

When you hold all of us to such strict literal standards for interpretation of your words, it hardly seems fair that you get to take such liberties with interpreting another person's words; words that you quoted yourself above:
"This is a guy who led the league in scoring - for reference, neither Barkley nor Moses ever did this."

All he has said is that Robinson won a scoring title, and Barkley and Moses did not. No more, no less. Show me where that statement (interpreted literally) claims anything more.

And my reply to the mention that "Barkley [never] did this" was that it didn't mean much to me--just as the mere fact that Robinson won a scoring title didn't (which, yet again, was irrelevant to the point about Robinson's offense being better than Barkley's defense)--because Barkley was a better scorer and offensive player regardless of however many scoring titles Robinson won and Barkley didn't. No more, no less. There's no interpretation, only my own words. Yet, again, if the scoring title was nothing more than "almost [...] an after-thought" to the point, why have you devoted so much time to it?

This is what happens when one posts while in the grip of emotions.

You loathe other people putting words in your mouth, but appear to have no qualms about doing it to shutupandjam (and by association, me).

Perhaps I'm guilty of misinterpreting you, but......people with glass houses, you know?

I did no such thing. You'll want to hit the English books again though.

Nice try.

The moral of the story is not to post while emotional. It often doesn't end well. One should wait until one is more clear-headed.

The End.