Post#76 » by drza » Mon Oct 13, 2014 8:58 pm
Vote: Isiah Thomas
I've been voting him for awhile now, so there's been a lot of repeat in my reasoning. Cliff notes: he was a gifted playmaker/scorer; I believe that his addition to the Pistons/tenure on the Pistons was clearly the biggest factor in their improvement from a bottom-tier offense (DFL in 1980, 81) to a top-tier offense (top 7 - 10 over Zeke's entire prime, peaking at #1); he was a great postseason performer; he was the team leader; by my eye-test he was about the 3rd best player in the NBA over a five year-or so span of 83 - 87, then showed himself able to fit into/lead an excellent ensemble cast from about 88 - 90.
Just for kicks, I pulled up a comp of Chris Paul's current 9-year career vs Isiah's first 9 seasons:
Reg season avgs.
Paul: 617 games, 36.4 mpg, 18.6 points (57.5% TS), 9.9 apg, 4.4 rpg, 2.4 TO
Zeke: 716 games, 36.7 mpg, 20.0 points (52.2% TS), 9.8 apg, 3.7 rpg, 3.9 TO
Reg season per 100:
Paul: 617 games, 36.4 mpg, 27.2 points (20.2 FGA + 7.8 FTA =23.6 shots), 14.5 ast, 3.5 TO
Zeke: 716 games, 36.7 mpg, 25.9 points (21.6 FGA + 7.3 FTA = 24.8 shots), 12.6 ast, 5.0 TO
Playoffs per 100
Paul: 53 games, 38.8 mpg, 28.5 pts (21.5 FGA + 7.5 FTA = 24.8 shots), 13.4 ast, 4.1 TO
Zeke: 93 games, 38.5 mpg, 28.8 pts (23.6 FGA + 8.5 FTA = 27.3 shots), 12.0 ast, 4.5 TO
OK, so clearly Paul is more efficient as both a scorer and a distributor. There's no way around that. However, when you look at win shares saying that Paul is almost twice as valuable in the regular season as Zeke based purely on those efficiency differences (or the huge PER difference), when by both style and volume they are so similar and we're talking about Zeke using about 4 more possessions to achieve it I just think the efficiency difference is WAY overvalued in our 1-number box score stats.
Then, you also have to look at that Zeke was a lot more durable than Paul...almost 100 more regular season games (and 40 more playoff games) over the same time span.
And that once the playoffs came around, the efficiency gap shrunk a bit...Paul still more efficient, but to a much closer degree...and considering Zeke's playoff pedigree is an important part of his legacy, I think this is significant.
Anyway, Paul has long been voted in and I'm not really making a case for Zeke over Paul in this thread. The point is, stylistically I could see Paul as essentially the evolutionary Zeke. He's a bit more efficient, but less durable. And in the postseason, I don't see much gap between them. Plus, I've long been on record with my belief that the way we use efficiency in evaluations is overdone.
I guess this became a bit of a ramble (keep having to stop and come back to it as work interferes). Lost my train of thought a bit. Bottom line: I think Zeke is more than deserving here, and despite Owly's inevitable rebuttal post that I probably won't have time to address, I'm hoping that this is finally his spot.