Best 6 Years is Moses Malone closer to David Robinson or Patrick Ewing

[mdonnelly1989]

Take the best 6 years of each player and combined them.

Is Moses Malone closer to David Robinson or Patrick Ewing?

[wojoaderge]

Moses is better than both to me

[dygaction]

What? MMalone-DRob>DRov-Ewing…

[70sFan]

So 1979-84 Moses (or 1980-85 Moses) vs 1991-96 Robinson and 1989-94 Ewing, right?

I think that is a tough question. I think 2-3 years Moses peak is definitely closer to Robinson's, as Ewing has only one huge outlier season. On the other hand, Moses had some weaker years like 1984 in that span, while Ewing was quite consistent.

I'd say he's closer to Robinson though. I have them relatively close all-time as well, though for different reasons.

By the way, we shouldn't create threads like this one. Plenty of people have Moses ahead of Robinson and Ewing, I don't think it's very unreasonable.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

Stylistically Moses is closer to Ewing.
For value to a team / talent Moses is closer to Robinson.

[tsherkin]

I guess this becomes a question of how much you think offense matters vs. D. Moses wasn't anywhere near the echelon of defense we saw from Ewing or Robinson at all. Like, not even in sight of their impact on that end. He was a more resilient scorer in the postseason, for sure and he's got a couple more accolades/team achievements than they do in his primary role, so there's an interesting discussion to be hand, but this isn't something where you casually wave off Ewing/Robinson, IMHO. Winning bias is a thing, and so is scoring-tilted award voting. Moses was very, very good, but if he didn't hit the 83 Sixers, we probably aren't having this conversation in the first place.

[OhayoKD]

I guess this becomes a question of how much you think offense matters vs. D. Moses wasn't anywhere near the echelon of defense we saw from Ewing or Robinson at all. Like, not even in sight of their impact on that end. He was a more resilient scorer in the postseason, for sure and he's got a couple more accolades/team achievements than they do in his primary role, so there's an interesting discussion to be hand, but this isn't something where you casually wave off Ewing/Robinson, IMHO. Winning bias is a thing, and so is scoring-tilted award voting. Moses was very, very good, but if he didn't hit the 83 Sixers, we probably aren't having this conversation in the first place.

Shouldn't that be determined by what the o and d adds up to? What is the point of weighing them seperately?

[tsherkin]

Shouldn't that be determined by what the o and d adds up to? What is the point of weighing them seperately?

I didn't mean to imply that they should be. But Moses' O was only so good relative to those two, and his D was dramatically inferior, so the net result of their impact is what we should be considering here, yes?

[OhayoKD]

Shouldn't that be determined by what the o and d adds up to? What is the point of weighing them seperately?

I didn't mean to imply that they should be. But Moses' O was only so good relative to those two, and his D was dramatically inferior, so the net result of their impact is what we should be considering here, yes?

Yeah. Would you say the o gap is smaller than the d gap then?

How do you compare them?

[tsherkin]

Yeah. Would you say the o gap is smaller than the d gap then?

How do you compare them?

It's a good question, really. Moses was pretty good in both the regular season and the playoffs at scoring. Not quite as efficient, so he wasn't one of the epic guys who maintained or rose in the playoffs, but he was inside conventional drop levels. 79-83 in the playoffs, he was at 26.1 ppg and 55.1% TS, which was pretty good. Wholly unremarkable as a passer, but for a rough, imperfect idea of his offensive impact in that stretch, +5.5 OBPM, .195 WS/48. Negative DBPM. 26.4% USG, 15.8% ORB as other defining stylistic features. He scored well for his possession usage, and of course we all know about his offensive rebounding (and how that affected his FG%, and thus his overall efficiency) and such. .442 FTr, 72.8% FT.

Again, we're talking about a good player on O. He was a pretty good man defender in the post, an okay shot-blocker but very much worse than Ewing/Robinson. In 81, he had a fine run and took Houston to the Finals (the only time they advanced past the second round with him). 26.8 ppg across 45.5 mpg. 53.7% TS, ,174 WS/48, +4.6 OBPM. Similar usage, similar offensive rebounding. .481 FTr, 71.2% FT. So, similar stuff. Nothing properly epic, and less efficient than usual, Calvin Murphy lit it up that year in the playoffs for them. Dominant in the first round, strong in the semis and the conference finals. Stank as hell against Boston in the Finals. 40.3% from the field, 69.1% at the line, 46.8% TS on the series. 9/21 from the field in the close-out Game 6. Relative to RS league average TS%, he was +1.9%, +3.4%, +2.8% and then -6.6% by round.

And that's the pinnacle team season he had prior to joining the Sixers. Sort of a classic volume scorer who couldn't provide much else offensively. Philly actually dropped slightly in terms of raw ORTG when he joined, then noticeably dropped off in 84 (he was brutal about turning the ball over in their first-round loss that year, too).

So in as much as his offense is his main argument against the other guys, it's not epic, "all-time great" type of stuff above and beyond what they provided.

90-94 in the PS, Ewing was a 23.8 ppg guy, 56.5% TS, +2.6 OBPM, .188 WS/48, .370 FTr (again, recognizing the limitations of b-ref's OBPM and WS/48). Lower draw rate, higher usage, better ball protection, lower volume, similar efficiency even with his 94 Finals performance (which lines up well with Moses' 81 Finals performance vs Boston). And of course a wildly superior defender at basically all points of his career.

Robinson from 90-95 in the playoffs was a 24.1 ppg guy, 59.2% TS, +5.3 OBPM, .255 WS/48, .572 FTr, and I think that mostly illustrates what needs to be said on the subject.

In 1990, Terry Cummings outscored him in their second-round loss. He shot like crap at the line and was 7/21 from the field in game 7, and 6/11 at the line. In 91 as Run TMC crushed them in the first round in games, he was actually exceptional over the series. Quiet in the final game (18 pts, 6 turnovers, but 66% TS, in 45 MP). Rod Strickland and Sean Elliott outscored him and those two plus WIllie Anderson (who was 4/16 from the field) all outshot him. Passive play in that one when he needed to step it up, but they were outclassed; San Antonio did not offer him much assistance most seasons. Didn't play in the 92 playoffs. Second round vs the Suns in 93, he shot a mediocre, sub-70% from the line, but was otherwise good on the balance of the series. Shot like ass in game 6 in a 2-point loss (6/15 from the field, though 10/14 from the line). Jazz blew them apart in 94, Robinson vanished up his own butt. 20 ppg on 41.1% from the field, 47.1% TS. Tough, physical defense was always Robinson's bane. He needed to beat up on smaller guys and get out in transition, and the Jazz forced that series to 87 possessions per game.

And most of us have at least discussed and seen the highlights of the 95 conference finals. Outclassed badly by Olajuwon, who dropped like 35, 12.5 and 5 on him. Managed 23.8 ppg on 44.9% FG (11.8 FTA/g), 55.3% TS. A decent series, but not a good one, and getting taken badly on the other end of the floor.

So you see sort of a pattern with him. Weak in the clutch, weak against physical defense, struggled against high-end competition in general, weak against slower teams.

But in this particular conversation, that puts him largely in good stead. Moses wasn't a killer ATG postseason monster on offense, and neither Ewing nor Robinson were as bad as their reputations suggested... and were both generally working without a ton of good help on offense, shouldering a higher usage load than did Moses (how much, well, someone smarter than me can do the math to sort that out, it probably isn't actually that much).

Robinson and Ewing were both consistently superior on D. So prime to prime, I lean in their direction. How much do you weigh longevity? How much do you care about Moses' longevity when he hopped to many different teams, and was a really low-impact player in his later seasons?

Lots of different factors to consider here.

[ronnymac2]

I think you can argue Malone's top-6 years over Ewing's and Robinson's.

I don't think people appreciate Moses Malone's prime. He was a 22-year old kid with two years in the ABA under his belt when he went to Houston and delivered a very solid 13/13 line for an above average team. Then in the playoffs that year, he went up against legendary frontcourt partners Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld and outplayed them, giving them 19/17/2, including a 31/26 game. Then he faced future partner Dr. J in the ECF where he dropped 18/17 including a 30/25 game. How crazy would the C matchup have been if HOU broke through and faced Bill Walton and the Blazers?!

For the next six years, which is the timeframe I would take in this thread's comparison (1978, 1979, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983), all Moses did was outplay MVPs, create the foundation for impressive all-time figures in total offensive rebounds (1st) and made free throws (2nd), and lead a team to a title in dominant fashion. This guy made 40/20s cool before Shaq and Giannis did.

Dragging HOU to the '81 Finals was his greatest accomplishment. One of the underrated series of the era was the 7-game ECSF vs. George Gervin's favored Spurs where Malone averaged 28/12 in an upset victory.

This guy grabbed 21 offensive rebounds in one game. 21. Like, it's one game, and it's not why you take one player over another, but that's an underappreciated NBA record. To digress further, Moses is so far ahead of the guy with the second most offensive rebounds in NBA history (Robert Parish) that that record appears to be unbreakable unless they go back and video track all of Wilt Chamberlain's games.

Moses has a track record of dragging mediocre squads past where the team in totality should go. Even in losses, did Moses ever not perform like the best player on the court in every playoff series he played in from 1978-1983?

For me, the arguments go like this:

Pat from 1990-1995: Starts with monster peak year, then anchors most dominant defensive dynasty of the post-Russell era, warrior
Admiral 1993-1996, 1998-1999: GOAT-tier defense, then unselfish and sublimates offensive game for good of the team
Moses (1978-1983): GOAT offensive rebounding, outplays All-NBA legends and MVPs so his team overachieves, crushes 1983

I'm not mad about any order.

[ty 4191]

Here is Moses' Sixers On/Off Data:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ZxRM9p2dFil5w6s21VEB4HnQZJymEY8_2vej-jREuUo/edit#gid=459687126