Dwight vs Bill Walton

[Jimmy76]

Which player contributed/contributes more to winning?

[Laimbeer]

Easily Walton if healthy. But that 'if' is as big as all outdoors.

[Dr Positivity]

Walton very easily. He has a passing element to his game Dwight has no match against. Portland had one of the best offenses in the league and it was run through setting up Walton on the high block and letting him work. Also he was one of the very best outlet passers. I'd also take Walton as a scorer over Dwight because of his shooting range and versatility

From what I've seen I'd also take him defensively over Dwight. Walton in the 77 Finals is one of the most dominant defensive players I've seen and the stats back up his rep. His DRTG his 4 prime years is 91, 92, 91, and 89. In comparison Hakeem's lowest was 93, Robinson's pre Duncan was 94, Duncan's is 93, Dwight has been at a very good 95 the last two years, Eaton is 97, Garnett's is 92. Walton had 4 seasons where his team played better defense with him on the floor than anyone of these guys ever did! That's incredible.

Walton has IMO a top 10 peak of all time... very comparable to Russell, and this was in the late 70s which was arguably harder to dominate. There are few players who have complete offensive/defensive skillset like him

[Jimmy76]

topic came up in my mind because i was wondering if Howard can crack top 10 all time center

(in no paticular order)

1.Shaq
2.Hakeem
3.Wilt
4.Russel
5.Robinson
6.Mikan
7.Malone
8.Ewing
9.Cowens
10. Walton

and then theres a whole host of others (Thurmond, Gilmore, and a bunch im forgetting) who are arguable with Dwight plus Duncan if he's considered a center is easily over Dwight.

Does the best center of our era have no chance at cracking the top 10?

[Doctor MJ]

Easily Walton if healthy. But that 'if' is as big as all outdoors.

This. A healthy Walton might have been the best offensive big man in history in addition to being strong on defense.

[Dr Positivity]

topic came up in my mind because i was wondering if Howard can crack top 10 all time center

(in no paticular order)

1.Shaq
2.Hakeem
3.Wilt
4.Russel
5.Robinson
6.Mikan
7.Malone
8.Ewing
9.Cowens
10. Walton

and then theres a whole host of others (Thurmond, Gilmore, and a bunch im forgetting) who are arguable with Dwight plus Duncan if he's considered a center is easily over Dwight.

Does the best center of our era have no chance at cracking the top 10?

I think he has a shot against Ewing and Cowens. If Dwight adds some offensive moves he can still get to 25ppg level and make an offensive leap 5 years+ into his career like Moses and Ewing. But we'll see.

[bastillon]

A healthy Walton might have been the best offensive big man in history

even when he was healthy he wasn't much of a scorer and for example Kevin Garnett is better in every single aspect of the offense.

Walton had 4 seasons where his team played better defense with him on the floor than anyone of these guys ever did! That's incredible.

DRtg doesn't mean that, not even close.

microfeb4thewin, with all due respect, but...

you explained ? haha, if anything you exposed your knowledge. individual DRtg (from basketball-reference for example) has essentially NOTHING to do with +/- stats because it's ALL based on boxscore numbers. how the hell would they calculate DRtg in the 70s, 80s and 90s if there was no +/- stats whatsover, smart ass ?

http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=4516

Neil Paine (one of the guys who run basketball-reference blog):

Defending DPOY Dwight Howard dominates this list, posting a defensive rating 3 full pts/100 poss. better than #2, Gerald Wallace. The Magic have the 5th-best defense in the league in 2010 (last year, they were #1), and Howard shows up very strong in 2 of the 3 individual categories that make up DRtg:

and then he mentions:
-DRb%
-Blk%

after that, he says where Dwight isn't as good and mentions:
-Stl%

the other thing that's important in individual DRtg is team DRtg. that's why always this statistic is dominated by players who play on dominant defensive teams. I wrote about it earlier, go ahead and read it if you wanna know more.

in the last discussion (Baron Davis) I was about to laugh your ass out, but IIRC you stopped responding to my posts (or I didn't see your responses). DRtg is boxscore based metric which is strongly connected with steals, blocks, defensive rebounds and team defensive rating. it has nothing to do with +/- statistics. that's why it's essentially useless, because you can't judge defense by the boxscore. players like Bruce Bowen, Joe Dumars or Raja Bell get disrespected by this metric, because their boxscore stats indicate they're poor defenders. +/- stats, however, clearly indicate they're valuable players as both Bruce Bowen and Raja Bell always were impactful in terms of defensive APM.

next time you wanna laugh at me, at least educate your ass.

Individual defensive rating does not include box score stats, I don't know why you would think that. The glossary says it's +/- numbers, and if you compare, say, Garnett's 07-08 season to Hakeem's 92-93, KG ends up with a lower number even though Hakeem has better production across the board.

DRtg
Defensive Rating (available since the 1977-78 season in the NBA); for players and teams it is points allowed per 100 posessions. This rating was developed by Dean Oliver, author of Basketball on Paper. I will point you to Dean's book for complete details.

I don't know where did you see +/- numbers ?
Garnett had better DRtg than Hakeem because of defensive rebounds and much better team DRtg. Hakeem was better in terms of steals and blocks. I'm not saying if it was right or not. I'm just explaining why KG looks better by this metric in that particular season.

Walton's DRtg was so low just because league DRtg was very low.

[kasino]

I'll take Dwight over many HOFers

[Jimmy76]

I'll take Dwight over many HOFers

like who

[Point forward]

I assume we are talking about prime Walton, and then it is Walton by a fair margin. Dwight is a superb rebounder, shotblocker and defender with a powerful, but limited offensive game. Walton was equally strong on the boards, in swatting and on D, and was not a dominant scorer, but had that INSANE passing. He was like a point center. Lakers coach Bill Sharman compared him to Bill Russell.

Walton led a bunch of role players (M. Lucas, Hollins, Twardzik) to a ring, reduced George McGinnis to a pile of rubble (McG's ppg went from 21 to 13) and outplayed Doc - Doc averaged 31/7 but played Nash-like D, while Walton got 19/19 (!) and played DPOY-level D.

On D, both were about equal (as far as you can compare 1970s D to current D), but on O, Dwight has fewer weapons than Walton. Dwight still has to equal the team success, but he still has time. Walton was done quickly, even if his Celtics 6MOY stint was very decent.

[kasino]

all centers except
Shaq
Wilt
Hakeem
maybe Ewing
russell play center but would play pf on my team so

[Jimmy76]

all centers except
Shaq
Wilt
Hakeem
maybe Ewing
russell play center but would play pf on my team so

Over Malone and Robinson?

[Point forward]

all centers except
Shaq
Wilt
Hakeem
maybe Ewing
russell play center but would play pf on my team so

*Cough* Kareem Abdul Jabbar *Cough*

[Jimmy76]

all centers except
Shaq
Wilt
Hakeem
maybe Ewing
russell play center but would play pf on my team so

*Cough* Kareem Abdul Jabbar *Cough*

damn knew i was missing a big one

wilt too

mikan i guess its debatable how he would do in this era but within his era definitely over Dwight

[Dr Positivity]

I'll admit individual ORTG/DRTG is a pretty new stat for me and it's impossible to find the real calculation for it, I assumed it just took the team DRTG and applied to when the player is on, but you're right that would be hard to measure pre +/-.

Right now Redick is 3rd overall in ORTG and Sheed is 2nd overall in DRTG. Sheed's especially doesn't seem to jive with the pure stats case because he's averaging 5.4 defensive rebounds, 1.3 blocks and 1.7 steals per 36. So from that I would guess DRTG HEAVILY favors team performance - and then from there it's a matter of among the teams performing this well defensively, who has the clear most individual contributions. Thus why Sheed and Odom are 2nd and 3rd on the list.

With that said you don't need DRTG to measure Walton's impact. His Blazers were near the top of the league defensively and just watching the games he clearly dominated

[kasino]

oh oh KAJ my bad basketball gods
but yea over DRob and moses

[Jimmy76]

oh oh KAJ my bad basketball gods
but yea over DRob and moses

whats your reasoning

[kasino]

Dwight is the most athletic center i've ever seen i think most athletic over 6' 10
he is already a favorite for DPOY maybe for the next 10 years. I've been watching his offensive game sky rocket lately.
so i'll take my chances that he'll be the better player
maybe not more accomplished when it comes to hardware moses roamed for rings and drob had duncun.
but if they were on the court together he would outshine them IMO

[writerman]

Walton played with an intensity seldom seen in the NBA, before or after...incredible passer, great rebounder, superb defender...offensively I think he had the quickest move to the basket of any center to ever play the gam, and had a nice midrange game to compliment his play in the paint...Howard is athletic, big and strong, but, while improving, is still far less polished/skilled than the truly elite centers in the history of the game. Prime Walton would simply be too quick for him.

Bastillon out in left field again...

[Blame Rasho]

Without question... a healthy Walton... but a motivated David Harrison might give him a run for his money.