Vote for top 50 all-time NBA/ABA players/careers

[Mike G]

Does anyone have a theory or two about why FG% were so low in Mikan's era, and after?
Was it that defenses were so much better than now? Traveling was enforced? Offenses were primitive and therefore players seldom got an open look?

In the high-paced '60s, weren't there a lot of fast break opportunities? Aren't those the highest efficiency shots? Bob Cousy never cleared 40% FG shooting for a season.

If we assume that shooters are just better today, then the Mikans and Cousys and Baylors might be just scrubs off the bench in the modern era.
If we assume that today's offensive players are favored by lax traveling rules (or whatever), then they'd have to learn all new moves to compete in the '50s.

[Mike G]

The vote distribution is very different for this second group of 25. While the first 50 was highly stratified between top and bottom -- most players were nearly unanimous or virtually ignored -- subsequent 50's are much more homogeneous.

With 5 voters leaving their marks, there are 22 players with 3 or more votes; 30 have 2 or more.
5 - Pettit, Ewing, Gilmore, Payton, Cowens
4 - Drexler, Kidd, Pierce, Schayes, Hayes, Barry, Isiah, Dwight, McHale
3 - Cousy, Parish, McGrady, Iverson, Mikan, Frazier, Nash, Paul
2 - Lanier, Gasol, Issel, Ginobili, Mourning, Cunningham, Durant, BEN WALLACE
1 - Webber, McGinnis, Carter, Kemp, Wilkins, Miller, McAdoo, Billups, Gervin, Ray Allen, Worthy, Rasheed, Sikma, English, Nance, Marion, THURMOND, MUTOMBO
0 - Parker, Cummings, Boozer, Divac, Johnston

If you have commented generally and favorably on a player but haven't specifically said "write-in vote" for him, there's no write-in vote.

[Need To Argue]

Well they wouldn't be scrubs. Cousy=Stockton; Mikan=Shaq; Baylor=Erving-LeBron combo.
One thing that you didn't mention is that while these leagues were just developing is that so was the officiating. It was a much more physical game. Mikan scoring while guys were hanging on him was a regular occurrence. The physicality was closer to football than to today's game.
The other issue of the day was money. Guys weren't making much and could do better doing something else. Remember the pro game had to be sold to the public as an opening act with the headliner being a college game.

[Mike G]

In his career, Ben Wallace had 33% more blocks at home than he had on the road.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 01/splits/

One year (2005) he had twice as many at home. The two years prior, he had about 50% more.
Was he that much better at home? Or were Detroit scorekeepers just promoting his defensive reputation?
If he was "really" making 20 to 40% fewer blocks than were counted, does this affect his xRAPM in those years?

NBA and ABA, 104 players have played more minutes than Ben. Was he better than the majority of them?
His career PER is better than 15 of them. His WS/48 is right at the median.
If 16% of his blocked shots are discounted, he'd rank lower in those stats.

[Mike G]

Well they wouldn't be scrubs. Cousy=Stockton; Mikan=Shaq; Baylor=Erving-LeBron combo.

Well, my post was specifically about shooting percentages. Cousy and Stockton are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

On 2-point shots, Stockton hit .541 -- Cousy hit .375 of his.
Cousy shot 21 times per game. When Stockton shoots 21 times, he averages 25 points.
(Cousy averaged 18.4 ppg)

http://bkref.com/tiny/SSxjo
Baylor averaged 28 shots to get 27.4 points. When LeBron takes 28 shots, he scores 32.
Mikan scored 23 points on 24 shots per game. Shaq would get 28.

Money doesn't make a player shoot better. Shaq got paid pretty well to miss 47% of his free throws.

[schtevie]

@schtevie: I agree with your opinion that defense is hugely underrated in popular player evaluation, but I also think xRAPM pretty clearly overrates big players on defense, especially ones who block shots. And I'm very sure this is a result of J.E.'s box score metric that he uses as (part of) the prior. Some examples: Kevin Durant is a +2.3 on D this year and Kevin Love is a +2.1. Ben Wallace as +9.8 (!!) in 2004. And perhaps the most alarming, Shawn Bradley at +7.5 in '01. In my opinion VERY FEW if any have ever reached +7 in a single season on defense. +4 seems to me to be an extremely elite number for defense and yet there seem to be quite a few every year according to xRAPM. If you look at the prior informed RAPM numbers without any box score prior, or if you look at, say IPV, another RAPM based model, the very best defensive players usually hover around the +4 mark or a bit better.

All that said, defensive specialists are certainly underrated and, imo, deserve more mention/credit. Most fans will consider a high positive offense/slight negative defense player a superstar but a slight negative offense/high positive defense player an expendable role player.

jbrocato, let me try to persuade you that a defensive +4 shouldn't be considered "extremely elite" and that +7 shouldn't be considered outrageously high. And the argument has nothing to do with technical arguments about xRAPM priors.

Think of who centers are and where they play (and we are primarily talking about centers or center-like players). They are relatively tall and large, and they tend to play in the lane (center) protecting the basket. Just by virtue of these facts, we would expect that, on average, centers would have a positive defensive rating. And indeed they do. For 2008, Eli Witus tells us that centers averaged a +2.5 APM rating (and this is unbiased and without priors).

What does +2.5 mean? In the contemporary game, there are about 100 scoring opportunities (FGAs and trips to the line) per 100 possessions. For context then, a +2.5 is akin to saying that the average center lowers the average scoring opportunity by 1.25%. Alternatively it can be said that the average center prevents about one basket per game. Does this not accord with general intuition?

So then, if this is the measured average, what should we expect of an "extremely elite" defensive player? +4, only 1.5 points per 100 possessions more than average? Seems a bit low, no? Sticking with 2008, in that year there were 13 players who had a defensive xRAPM of 4.0 or more (and two others at 3.9). That doesn't seem about right? KG was actually "only" a +5.5 that year. I mention him specifically only because I was lucky enough to see him play in person a few times where the defensive pressure he brought was palpable, and that rating actually seems rather stingy. I certainly was then under the impression that he was preventing at least more than one basket per game, compared to an average NBA center. But, of course, such impressions can mislead.

Anyway, we agree that defense is hugely underrated in popular player evaluation. My suggestion here is that a belief that +4 is "extremely elite" is part and parcel of such underrating.

[Mike G]

Here I was just wondering why we 'underrate' offensive superstars like Carter, Gervin, Wilkins, English, McAdoo ...

In 2000-01, his 3rd season in the league, Vince Carter was in Toronto, where his teammates, in order of minutes played were: Charles Oakley (age 37), Antonio Davis (32), Alvin Williams, Morris Peterson, Mark Jackson (35). Nobody else played 1000 minutes!
Coach was Lenny Wilkens.

The team went 47-35. In the playoffs they beat the Knicks and lost to Philly in 7.

Vince took 22 shots a game. Antonio Davis was #2 at half that rate.
Vince averaged 27.6, Davis 13.7, nobody else over 10.

Would this team have been better off with some 'defensive specialist superstar', in place of Carter?
Carter's .551 TS% was not world-beating; but next-best was Keon Clark's .544, among Raptors with at least 400 minutes.

This was Vince Carter's peak year in WS (12.9), WS/48 (.208), PER (25.0), ORtg (114).
His eFG% (.509) that year was a career best, until last year. In 2013, 12 years past his peak, he hit .530 -- Almost half his shots were threes, and he hit .406 of them.

He's reported to be 27th in all-time NBA scoring, 56th in PER, 29th (best) in TO%, #41 in offensive Win Shares and 49 in overall WS (regular seasons).

[jbrocato23]

Does anyone have a theory or two about why FG% were so low in Mikan's era, and after?
Was it that defenses were so much better than now? Traveling was enforced? Offenses were primitive and therefore players seldom got an open look?

In the high-paced '60s, weren't there a lot of fast break opportunities? Aren't those the highest efficiency shots? Bob Cousy never cleared 40% FG shooting for a season.

If we assume that shooters are just better today, then the Mikans and Cousys and Baylors might be just scrubs off the bench in the modern era.
If we assume that today's offensive players are favored by lax traveling rules (or whatever), then they'd have to learn all new moves to compete in the '50s.

I think the answer is pretty clear why shooting percentages were so low in the 60s when you watch the games. Players basically just dribbled up and hucked it on most possessions Westhead Nuggets style, but actually much worse - and defense was almost nonexistent. The 50s was slower paced though, so it's probably a combination of bad shot selection (like the 60s), bad defense (again, like the 60s), and player simply not being able to shoot. Watch shooting techniques back then, they're ridiculous.

[Need To Argue]

Did you mean Doug Moe's Nuggets of the 70's?
Team defense was better in the 50's and 60's than you're remembering. Moe's team was the minority. They were the Kurt Warner Rams, where they dared you to out score them while having maybe one guy play defense, usually T.R. Dunn or Bill Hanzlik. Most teams played defense (yes, more so than today).

Mike, you immediately start throwing numbers, but my point is there are guys who would be stars in any generation as opposed to being a star because of their generation. Bob Cousy today would be John Stockton. Baylor too would be a superstar. I chose two players who show signs of similarities. Shaq and Mikan on the other hand are extremely similar. Fast forward thirty years and people will say that O'Neal fella was just bigger than everybody else; I'm just saying it today. I never thought he was more talented than the guys he played against early in his career (Olajuwon, Robinson, Ewing, Moses...)though later in his career he had no real legitimate competitor other than a much lighter Duncan. We said it a few years ago that Shaq is just a slightly more talented Darryl Dawkins.

Another note: some choices that I didn't understand as possible top 75 guys besides Carter who you seem to like, Boozer and Marion. Hypothetical: When your Karl Malone and my Bob Petit both get hurt or foul out or whatever, if you're putting Boozer in and I put in Gus Johnson or Jerry Lucas or even Buck Williams, I like my chances enough to take a flight to Vegas. Translation: There are enough forwards to go around that I'd never mention those two. Not even stars: Happy Hairston, Luke Jackson, Paul Silas, Caldwell Jones....

[Mike G]

..Bob Cousy today would be John Stockton. ....

So my question might be: What would cause Cousy to make half-again as many of his shots, just because he's playing 40 years later? There's a big difference between 37% shooting and 57%. Like 7 to 8 points per game, on the same number of shots.

... if you're putting Boozer in and I put in Gus Johnson or Jerry Lucas or even Buck Williams, I like my chances...

The numbers don't like your odds - http://bkref.com/tiny/cgXOS

Boozer may be one of those guys whose stats overstate his actual contributions. But of those 4, he seems to be the best scorer AND the best rebounder. Best PER and best WS/48.

... Watch shooting techniques back then, they're ridiculous.

So why isn't this obvious to everyone?
I admit I haven't tried to watch whole games. "Technique" only matters insofar as it's effective or not.

[Need To Argue]

That last line isn't me because I disagree with that statement.

The Cousy stuff seems to be two different conversations. I never said anything about his shooting. I said he would be a star in any generation just as Stockton would.

Visual test, Boozer is just an ok player. He scores more on teams that need him to. I mentioned Caldwell Jones only for that point. On the Conquistadores he scored because someone had to, yet on the Sixers he played defense and rebounded or whatever they needed, so does that make him a weaker player? Of course not. I mentioned average guys because that's where I picture Boozer. When I mentioned the great players like Johnson and Lucas, it is because he doesn't belong with them. I try not to play the game on paper. Stats say he is good, then watching him changes that. It's the old "Marbury" argument. Stats alone he could be a great player, but there is no way I'd have him on my team.

[jbrocato23]

... Watch shooting techniques back then, they're ridiculous.

So why isn't this obvious to everyone?
I admit I haven't tried to watch whole games. "Technique" only matters insofar as it's effective or not.

I probably overstated my case with the whole "technique" thing. Since FT% is generally the same across all eras, the disparity in shooting percentages probably can be mostly attributed to shot selection. It'd be an interesting thing to look into. From the late 50s to the early 60s, FG% rose sharply and generally stayed consistent from the mid-60s on. Were Bob Cousy's poor shooting numbers a result of the circumstances or his own inability to shoot? It really is hard to say.

[schtevie]

From the late 50s to the early 60s, FG% rose sharply and generally stayed consistent from the mid-60s on.

Ai yi yi yi!

This. Is. Simply. Not. True. (The "stayed consistent" part, that is.)

I am at a loss for words...

[Mike G]

Carlos Boozer, in the last 10 years, has played for teams that have averaged 11 games over .500
He's led these teams in scoring (per game) 4 times and in rebounding 6 times.

Code: Select all

year   tm   W-L     Scoring  (next)          Rebounds (next)
2004  Cle  37-45   15.5  (LeBron 20.9)      11.4  (Ilgauskas 8.1) 
2005  Uta  26-56   17.8  (Kirilenko 15.6)    9.0  (Okur 7.5)
2006  Uta  41-41   16.3  (Okur 18.0)         8.6  (Okur 9.1)
2007  Uta  51-31   20.9  (Okur 17.6)        11.7  (Okur 7.2)
2008  Uta  54-28   21.1  (D Williams 18.8)  10.4  (Okur 7.7)
2009  Uta  48-34   16.2  (D WIlliams 19.4   10.4  (Millsap 8.6)
2010  Uta  53-29   19.5  (D Williams 18.7)  11.2  (Okur 7.1)
2011  Chi  62-20   17.5  (Rose 25.0)         9.6  (Noah 10.4)
2012  Chi  50-16   15.0  (Rose  21.8)        8.5  (Noah 9.8)
2013  Chi  45-37   16.2  (Deng 16.5)         9.8  (Noah 11.1)  

When he didn't lead in scoring or rebounding, he was 2nd.

Of players with at least 20,000 minutes in the last 10 years, just 5 have averaged 10 rebounds per game. With points per game, true shooting%, assists per game, win shares, and WS/48:

Code: Select all

per game:   Pts    TS%    Reb   Ast     WS    WS/48
Garnett    18.1   .563   10.5   3.6   108.8   .213
Duncan     18.5   .546   10.5   3.0   102.2   .207
Howard     18.3   .598   12.9   1.5    95.1   .181
Boozer     17.8   .562   10.2   2.5    68.7   .157
Randolph   19.1   .523   10.4   1.9    53.3   .112

Boozer has missed some games, averaging just 63 per season in 10 years. But in these averages, he's in some good company.
He's 64th all-time in WS/48, minimum 20k minutes.

[jbrocato23]

From the late 50s to the early 60s, FG% rose sharply and generally stayed consistent from the mid-60s on.

Ai yi yi yi!

This. Is. Simply. Not. True. (The "stayed consistent" part, that is.)

I am at a loss for words...

Code: Select all

Year	FG%	Increase
2013	0.453	0.5%
2012	0.448	-1.1%
2011	0.459	-0.3%
2010	0.461	0.3%
2009	0.459	0.2%
2008	0.457	-0.1%
2007	0.458	0.5%
2006	0.454	0.6%
2005	0.447	0.9%
2004	0.439	-0.3%
2003	0.442	-0.3%
2002	0.445	0.2%
2001	0.443	-0.6%
2000	0.449	1.2%
1999	0.437	-1.3%
1998	0.450	-0.4%
1997	0.455	-0.7%
1996	0.462	-0.4%
1995	0.466	0.0%
1994	0.466	-0.8%
1993	0.473	0.1%
1992	0.472	-0.2%
1991	0.474	-0.2%
1990	0.476	-0.1%
1989	0.477	-0.3%
1988	0.480	0.0%
1987	0.480	-0.7%
1986	0.487	-0.4%
1985	0.491	-0.1%
1984	0.492	0.7%
1983	0.485	-0.6%
1982	0.491	0.5%
1981	0.486	0.4%
1980	0.481	-0.4%
1979	0.485	1.6%
1978	0.469	0.4%
1977	0.465	0.7%
1976	0.458	0.1%
1975	0.457	-0.3%
1974	0.460	0.4%
1973	0.456	0.1%
1972	0.455	0.5%
1971	0.450	-1.0%
1970	0.460	1.9%
1969	0.441	-0.5%
1968	0.446	0.5%
1967	0.441	0.8%
1966	0.433	0.7%
1965	0.426	-0.7%
1964	0.433	-0.8%
1963	0.441	1.2%
1962	0.428	1.4%
1961	0.415	0.5%
1960	0.410	1.5%
1959	0.395	1.2%
1958	0.383	0.3%
1957	0.380	-0.7%
1956	0.387	0.1%
1955	0.386	1.3%
1954	0.372	0.2%
1953	0.370	0.2%
1952	0.368	0.0%

Ok, to be fair, fg percentages rose in small increments then generally went up again in the early 80s then dipped back down when players started shooting more threes. But the point I was making was that there has never been an increase like what we saw from 1959-1963. Does anyone have any evidence on the shot selection vs. shooting ability debate? It's an important distinction, after all.