RealGM Top 100 List #72

[penbeast0]

Criteria: Take into account both peak and career play, era dominance, impact on the game of basketball, and how well their style of play and skills would transcend onto different eras. To be more exact, how great they were at playing the game of basketball.

Voting Will End In 2 Days -- Please vote and nominate

Newest addition: NOTE THAT WE WILL TAKE ONE EXTRA DAY FOR THE THANKSGIVING HOLIDAY, THANKS

Hal Greer

Hall of Fame 1982
7x All-NBA 2nd
1x NBA Championship
10x All-Star

David Thompson

Hall of Fame 1996
2x All-NBA 1st Team
1x All-ABA 2nd team
ABA Rookie of the Year 1976
5x All-Star

Adrian Dantley

Hall of Fame 2008
2x All-NBA 2nd Team
Rookie of the Year 1977
6x All-Star

Chauncey Billups

1x ALL-NBA 2nd
2x ALL-NBA 3rd
2x All-Defense 2nd
Finals MVP 1987
NBA CHampion
5x All-STar

James Worthy

Hall of Fame 2003
2x NBA 3rd Team
Finals MVP 88
3x NBA Champion
7x All-Star
Tiny Archibald

Hall of Fame 1991
3x All-NBA 1st team
2x All-NBA 2nd team
NBA Champion in Boston 1981
6x All-Star


Bobby Jones

1x All-ABA 2nd team
NBA Champion 1983
10x All-Defense 1st team (2x in ABA)
1x All-Defense 2nd team
Sixth Man of the Year 1983
5x All-Star

Billy Cunningham

Hall of Fame 1986
ABA MVP 1973
3x All-NBA 1st team
1x All-NBA 2nd team
1x All-ABA 1st team
NBA Champion 1967
5x All-Star

[penbeast0]

VOTE:

At the defensive end, we have the versatile Bobby Jones who made 1st team All-Defense more than anyone else in history in his 1st 10 seasons. An extremely efficient shooter who regularly made top 10 in fg% despite not being a center, a good shotblocker who racked up steals, and a very good passer and coach on the floor as well -- the man Larry Brown called Superglue.

For scorers, we have multitalented Billy Cunningham who was a very good NBA player for years plus an ABA MVP in his short stretch there. James Worthy was the best finisher on those Showtime breaks with a finals MVP. Adrian Dantley's raw numbers put everyone except maybe prime Shaq and Barkley in the shade for his combination of scoring and efficiency, while David "Skywalker" Thompson was the man Michael Jordan says he modeled his game after. Hal Greer was a solid second banana to Dolph Schayes then to Wilt Chamberlain for more than a decade. Finally, Nate "Tiny" Archibald combined great scoring and high assist totals, only man to ever lead the league in both in the same year.

I will go with Bobby Jones here, he led a team of weak defense scorers to the best record in either league as a rookie star and he was superb in a variety of roles from F/C in his early years to F/G in his final ones, from starter at 2 different positions to sixth man of the year. This is a guy who gladly sacrificed minutes and numbers for his team and who could be a key part of virtually any contending team.

Denver's rise to prominence came Jones' rookie year, and their fall away from elite SRS status came in '77-78.

How did that fall happen?

Denver's DRtg in '76-77: #1 in the league
Denver's DRtg in '77-78: 15th out of 22

The big difference? Denver went from being amazing at generating turnovers, to not so much.

We look at steals and see they went down a ton, and that much of that was Jones getting less steals (though steal leading the team in steals).

We consider that the lack of steals might be due to inability to recover from perimeter gambling and look at blocks. We see that blocks when down quite a bit, and that much of that was Jones getting less blocks.

Of course even if you're convinced, you might say, "Well that makes for a really short period for Jones as having huge impact", and that's a good point. I'm coming down similar to what I said about Ginobili: Minutes are a major issue, but per minute wise, Jones was still having strong positive impact for quite a while. In the end, in terms of the total amount of elite-level minutes, I think Jones is pretty solid compared to the competition he's facing this far down in the project.

VOTE BOBBY JONES

[penbeast0]

Point Guards -- not seeing these guys yet, the other positions are stronger
Tim Hardaway
Mark Price
Dennis Johnson?

Shooting Guards -- Surprised Greer went in ahead of Sharman
Joe Dumars
Bill Sharman
Earl Monroe

Shooting Forward -- Some incredible talent -- though short peaks really hurt Hawkins and Hagan:
Shawn Marion
Connie Hawkins
Cliff Hagan
Carmelo Anthony? Dandridge/Wilkes/Wise?

Power Forward -- the strongest position with lots of good candidates
Jerry Lucas
Larry Nance
Amare Stoudamire/Terry Cummings/Elton Brand
Not quite ready for Chris Webber or Shawn Kemp yet (two guys I didn't like their games but talented enough to start getting a look here over the Paul Silas/Buck Williams types that would be the main alternatives)

Centers: starting to run a little short here
Mel Daniels
----------?
Walt Bellamy
Neil Johnston
Yao Ming

Looking at the candidates -- Lucas and Nance are the best PF types (and probably over Shawn Marion too) for consistency and star quality over time. Jerry Lucas wasn't a great defender but he was the other main star on those great Cinncinnati offenses with his rebounding and outside game allowing Oscar to work his magic inside -- then Lucas turned around and helped the defense and passing oriented Knicks win another title with Willis Reed injured and ineffective. He was a great rebounder, a very efficient outside scoring big, and a terrific passer who gets less love than his numbers because of his Asberger's type personality but one of the best for a long time. For peak, Mel Daniels won TWO MVP's and 3 championships in the ABA -- yes it was an inferior league and his career wasn't that long but it was better ball than the NBA in the 50s and he was basically Alonzo Mourning as a player with better rebounding but less shotblocking -- similar offense and attitude. He'd be a star even today though probably not a 20ppg scorer.

For now, NOMINATE JERRY LUCAS -- a stretch big with great IQ who is also a top rebounder.

[Dr Positivity]

Vote Cunningham

Nominate Melo

[penbeast0]

Any answer to my problem with Cunningham? It seems to me that he was a high volume, low efficiency scorer which is the main category of player that was/is traditionally overrated by media and accolades -- solid rebounder, passer and defender but not that special -- it's his scoring that was his calling card and he didn't do it that well.

[JordansBulls]

Vote: James Worthy
Nominate: Shawn Kemp

[therealbig3]

Vote: Cunningham
Nominate: Price

[ronnymac2]

Vote: Billy Cunningham

Nominate: Chris Webber

Very open to changing my nomination. Big Ben, Richmond, Dumars, Mel Daniels, Kemp, Melo, Amar'e, Price, Hardaway, Dandridge, and Brand are on my radar. Ben, Melo, Kemp, and Dandridge have an edge. They're all very lucky Amar'e was injured last year in the playoffs, because if he had even given me a hint of being dominant with NY in the playoffs, he'd go above those guys.

I'm voting for Cunningham because, well, his relative inefficiency doesn't worry me too much. I remember saying Dave Cowens was a combination of Lamar Odom and Dennis Rodman, but maybe Cunningham can be compared to that combination as well, just with slightly different concentrations of each in the formula. He's got Worm's motor, Lamar's rebounding and passing and ball-handling for a forward, and a good scoring game. Maybe like Webber's actually.

I don't think Bobby Jones compares at all. Jones would be a perfect compliment to Cunningham, but Billy would be the base of the team in that tandem.

[ronnymac2]

I shouldn't even need to justify my Dantley nomination again considering I brought him up about 50 threads ago and simply questioned how he could be such a poor player to have on a team when 1984, 1987, and 1988 existed, but I will.

Look at 1984, 1987, and 1988.

There.

Look, I know Dantley isn't as good as his box score stats suggest, but he isn't as bad as the plus/minus numbers suggest either. He can be part of a good, solid team as a first option. He can be the number two guy on a title contender. This isn't speculation on my part; these things actually happened.

[ElGee]

I shouldn't even need to justify my Dantley nomination again considering I brought him up about 50 threads ago and simply questioned how he could be such a poor player to have on a team when 1984, 1987, and 1988 existed, but I will.

Look at 1984, 1987, and 1988.

There.

Look, I know Dantley isn't as good as his box score stats suggest, but he isn't as bad as the plus/minus numbers suggest either. He can be part of a good, solid team as a first option. He can be the number two guy on a title contender. This isn't speculation on my part; these things actually happened.

I'm confused. And I didn't see a Dantley argument from you, sorry. Just remember you saying "he should go and I'm nominating him even if it's a wasted act."

In 1984 Utah had a bunch of scorers on their team and finished with an 0.81 SRS and and +1.4 ORtg, all with near perfect health to said players and Mark Eaton. Their top 7 players missed 7 games combined!

In 1987 Dantley was added to the Pistons (for Benson and Tripucka). Note he wasn't an AS that year. Detroit's offense declined from +1.8 to +0.9. The defense improved - here's the rotational changes:

Laimbeer 2900 --> 2900
Isiah 2800 --> 3000
Cureton 2000 --> Green 1800
Johnson 2000 --> 2200
Dumars 2000 --> 2400
Mahorn 1400 --> 1300
Campbell 1300 --> Rodman 1200
Long 1200 --> Salley 1500

So an increase of Dumars, Salley and Dennis Rodman too the defense from +0.7 to -2.5...maybe it was Adrian Dantley? (Or is that supposed to be obvious?)

1988 Detroit is +6.9 without Dantley and +4.9 with him. How is that an indication that it's obvious he should be voted in? (The following year they loved him so much they traded him...the 5th time he was traded in 11 years. And they were SIGNIFICANTLY better following the trade.

The issue with Dantley isn't merely a single fuzzy stat. It's the combination of
(1) large-sampled in/out
(2) In different environments
(3) Over and over
(4) Combined with negligible (or bad) team changes with/without Dantley from year to year
(5) Combined with the eye test (he was a player who was deliberate in looking to score and finally kicked it out if in trouble)
(6) Combined with the reputation he had (traded 5 times despite the stats) and even being benched at one point in his career

Makes it hard to assume that this is a really good player. All I'm asking is why on earth people are assuming that. And if the answer is "stats," I think we've clearly seen enough to know that's a really bad assumption AND it's totally inconsistent with many votes in this project, or as I said, bring on Steve Francis and Shareef Abdul-Rahim!

[-Kees-]

VOTE: Bobby Jones
NOMINATE: Shawn Kemp

[Doctor MJ]

Any answer to my problem with Cunningham? It seems to me that he was a high volume, low efficiency scorer which is the main category of player that was/is traditionally overrated by media and accolades -- solid rebounder, passer and defender but not that special -- it's his scoring that was his calling card and he didn't do it that well.

I hear that, and it's on my mind as well. I would say perhaps the key thing then is that I don't see his calling card as scoring, but more as a do-it-all guy with great BBIQ and energy. I mean, this is a 6'6" skinny white guy who rebounded like Karl Malone while also playing the point. That's crazy.

I look then at evidence of team impact, and it seems pretty easy to find.

In '68-69, the 76ers lost Wilt and shocked the world by how good they remained. You know this of course, but given the questioning of his scoring impact, it begs the question, what happens to the offense when Cunningham becomes the team's leading scorer? Well...

'67-68, team ORtg is 2.5 above league median (by LG's estimate in the RPOY thread)
'68-69, team ORtg is 3.6 above league median

So the team loses Wilt (24 PPG), Greer and Walker score about as much as before, and Cunningham alone among the big name players sees his scoring increase to the point where he's scoring more than anyone had done that year or the previous year...and the team's offense gets more impressive.

I'm not saying that means that if you've got Cunningham you want him shooting as much as possible, but if in replacing the hyper-efficient Wilt as lead scorer we actually see improvement, it's just hard for me to see him as a player who is wasting a ton of possessions on offense.

Then of course, he moves to the ABA and wins an MVP immediately there. Cunningham leads the team in points, rebounds, assists, and steals (blocks not recorded), the team improves its SRS by over 7 points and the team goes from 35-49 to the best record in the league. They do get "upset" in the playoffs, but actually lose to Kentucky who had almost the same record and a better SRS.

I see all this, and my cautious streak says, "On what basis do I say Cunningham was NOT a worthy MVP candidate?"

And then I can't help but contrast that with Jones, who I absolutely love, but whose limited minutes made it pretty much impossible to consider him a true MVP candidate, and Cunningham wins out.

[ElGee]

vote: David Thompson
nominate: Chris Webber

[lorak]

vote: Worthy
nominate: Mark Price

[penbeast0]

Cunningham was a legit MVP candidate in the ABA in 73 . . . but if you look at team impact, so was Bobby Jones in 75 and his minutes for the year weren't that much below Cunningham's. Again, if you beelieve defense counts then it's much easier to believe in a Bobby Jones MVP . . . he was the main difference in a team that went from mediocre with weak defense to the best in either league with very good defense . . . to be fair, he and Larry Brown.

Just that you had Julius Erving and George McGinnis putting up ridiculous scoring/rebounding/assist numbers to say nothing of Artis Gilmore. But people that can't see past the numbers would never look at a Bobby Jones.

[fatal9]

regarding Dantley...

- did not play defense in the first part of his career, though with the Pistons he did a good job at times. Bird had problem scoring on him (and Rodman) in the '88 series, and I'd credit Dantley's man D at least somewhat in that series (but Bird was just "off"). But overall not a team player at all defensively.
- NEVER rebounded on defense. he was a phenomenal offensive rebounder but on defense he didn't have the same hunger for the ball, instead he usually ran up the court as the shot went up. sometimes this would be okay to get the easy basket, sometimes his man would get his own miss and put it back, sometimes when his team is having trouble rebounding on that end he still wouldn't adjust his game to what is needed.
- unguardable one on one, put a smaller defender and he's overpowering them, put a bigger defender and he'll be too quick. master of using contact to create space, amazing finisher around the basket. watch him sometimes just to help out my pickup bball game.
- watching the Pistons games, he stalls the offense a lot. when you're playing on offense with Dantley, it's either 1 on 5 or 4 on 5. Dantley is literally where ball movement goes to die. He's not creating for anyone and rarely is anyone creating for him (didn't move well off the ball except for getting offensive boards, didn't really have range past 15-18 feet and even then his release was slow). On the Pistons I don't think Daly cared about this (they needed a guy like him on offense), but watching a playoff game of the Jazz from 1984, commentators repeatedly point out how Frank Layden was concerned with Dantley turning rest of his teammates into spectators. For some weird reason, the best I've seen him look offensively "with the team" is in limited games (like 5-6) I've seen of his during the Lakers stint, him and KAJ actually seemed to have chemistry on offense.
- underachieving teams, remarkable how teams he went to usually got worse and teams he left usually got better.

I really don't know what to make of him.

[Doctor MJ]

So...

Vote: Cunningham

Nom: Kemp

[bastillon]

regarding Dantley...

- did not play defense in the first part of his career, though with the Pistons he did a good job at times. Bird had problem scoring on him (and Rodman) in the '88 series, and I'd credit Dantley's man D at least somewhat in that series (but Bird was just "off"). But overall not a team player at all defensively.
- NEVER rebounded on defense. he was a phenomenal offensive rebounder but on defense he didn't have the same hunger for the ball, instead he usually ran up the court as the shot went up. sometimes this would be okay to get the easy basket, sometimes his man would get his own miss and put it back, sometimes when his team is having trouble rebounding on that end he still wouldn't adjust his game to what is needed.
- unguardable one on one, put a smaller defender and he's overpowering them, put a bigger defender and he'll be too quick. master of using contact to create space, amazing finisher around the basket. watch him sometimes just to help out my pickup bball game.
- watching the Pistons games, he stalls the offense a lot. when you're playing on offense with Dantley, it's either 1 on 5 or 4 on 5. Dantley is literally where ball movement goes to die. He's not creating for anyone and rarely is anyone creating for him (didn't move well off the ball except for getting offensive boards, didn't really have range past 15-18 feet and even then his release was slow). On the Pistons I don't think Daly cared about this (they needed a guy like him on offense), but watching a playoff game of the Jazz from 1984, commentators repeatedly point out how Frank Layden was concerned with Dantley turning rest of his teammates into spectators. For some weird reason, the best I've seen him look offensively "with the team" is in limited games (like 5-6) I've seen of his during the Lakers stint, him and KAJ actually seemed to have chemistry on offense.
- underachieving teams, remarkable how teams he went to usually got worse and teams he left usually got better.

I really don't know what to make of him.

amazing post.

[bastillon]

Cunningham was a legit MVP candidate in the ABA in 73 . . . but if you look at team impact, so was Bobby Jones in 75 and his minutes for the year weren't that much below Cunningham's. Again, if you beelieve defense counts then it's much easier to believe in a Bobby Jones MVP . . . he was the main difference in a team that went from mediocre with weak defense to the best in either league with very good defense . . . to be fair, he and Larry Brown.

Just that you had Julius Erving and George McGinnis putting up ridiculous scoring/rebounding/assist numbers to say nothing of Artis Gilmore. But people that can't see past the numbers would never look at a Bobby Jones.

you wouldn't accuse me of not looking past boxscore, but I don't regard Bobby Jones as highly as some of you guys here. it's not even the minutes that concern me, but I've never seen the evidence for him being a defensive anchor. he was just a great role player on a lot of good teams, but not to the level where you would think he's league's MVP. even moreso when he's allegedly great defense gets torched in the playoffs year after year... Erving and Bird put up some their greaters numbers against this guy. I'm having the same doubts concerning Moncrief, I watched rookie Michael Jordan torturing this guy...

[ElGee]

regarding Dantley...

- did not play defense in the first part of his career, though with the Pistons he did a good job at times. Bird had problem scoring on him (and Rodman) in the '88 series, and I'd credit Dantley's man D at least somewhat in that series (but Bird was just "off"). But overall not a team player at all defensively.
- NEVER rebounded on defense. he was a phenomenal offensive rebounder but on defense he didn't have the same hunger for the ball, instead he usually ran up the court as the shot went up. sometimes this would be okay to get the easy basket, sometimes his man would get his own miss and put it back, sometimes when his team is having trouble rebounding on that end he still wouldn't adjust his game to what is needed.
- unguardable one on one, put a smaller defender and he's overpowering them, put a bigger defender and he'll be too quick. master of using contact to create space, amazing finisher around the basket. watch him sometimes just to help out my pickup bball game.
- watching the Pistons games, he stalls the offense a lot. when you're playing on offense with Dantley, it's either 1 on 5 or 4 on 5. Dantley is literally where ball movement goes to die. He's not creating for anyone and rarely is anyone creating for him (didn't move well off the ball except for getting offensive boards, didn't really have range past 15-18 feet and even then his release was slow). On the Pistons I don't think Daly cared about this (they needed a guy like him on offense), but watching a playoff game of the Jazz from 1984, commentators repeatedly point out how Frank Layden was concerned with Dantley turning rest of his teammates into spectators. For some weird reason, the best I've seen him look offensively "with the team" is in limited games (like 5-6) I've seen of his during the Lakers stint, him and KAJ actually seemed to have chemistry on offense.
- underachieving teams, remarkable how teams he went to usually got worse and teams he left usually got better.

I really don't know what to make of him.

This is what I see as well -- I honestly am more perplexed on other people's *idea* of Dantley than maybe any other player discussed in the last 2 projects.

As a teaser to a future blog post, I've finally organized my In/Out runs neatly. Using the new Simple Adjustment over multiple-seasons, here are the 5 worst SIO scores in my database of over 300 seasons:

Tony Parker -1.7 (49g) -- 08-10
Jerry Lucas -1.5 (35g) -- 65, 70
Jermaine O'Neal -1.1 (57g) -- 02-05
Jamal Mashburn -0.9 (166g) -- 96, 98, 99, 02
Adrian Dantley -0.6 (170g) -- 79, 80, 83, 85, 88, 89

There are only four more players in the negatives, as 99% of the seasons are run on high profile players -- guys we think would be having at the least positive impact. I'm not saying these guys had negative impact, but as the No. of seasons (and No. of games) increases, it's not good to be sitting at the bottom of the heap with Jermaine O'Neal and Jamal Mashburn. (As an aside, I think it's fairly possible that Mashburn's pseudo-health cost Miami big for 2 consecutive years against the Knicks.

Sidney Moncrief is also near the bottom with 67 games over 4 years (83-87) and a +0.2 score. Some new players for people to think about:

R. Wallace +5.0
Price +5.0
E. Jones +4.9
Bosh +4.2
Daugherty +3.9
H. Grant +3.8
S. Smith +3.2
Richmond +3.2
Schrempf +3.0
B. Davis +2.4

For reference, Top score is +8.0. 10th-best score +5.3.