APBRmetrics

Two points here, one, building a D around him (or catering one to him) was more important than catering a good offense for him, as offensively his greatest virtue was as a usage sponge who could maintain an okay ts% at huge usage rates, whilst on D he really needed a big pg who could cover twos beca...

I know having Isiah outside the top 30 already distinguishes our list from most opinion based rankings but I'd suggest Isiah is peripheral to a top 60 (and plausibly much lower) Supposing that half of players in the current poll are deserving in the top 60, lets look at their Allstar Game selection...

I don't trust Win Shares all that much, nor PER alone; but together with minutes they don't miss a whole lot. I've multiplied WS* PER and divided by games to get the exquisitely-named XYG stat. Pistons playoff leaders: 1984 G Min PER WS/48 WS XYG 1988 G Min PER WS/48 WS XYG Laimbeer 5 165 19.1 .181...

Hayes I've said before I didn't get. If you wanted career totals wasn't Dominique better? Well, let's see: http://bkref.com/tiny/HlqR4 Regular Seasons: With 1/3 more minutes, Hayes has the distinct edge. Nique comes close in points, but Hayes has 2.2 times the rebounds. Wilkins was 'better' per min...

I rank Isiah's "playoff career" 28th best of all time. He's ahead of Cousy, Moses, Barry, Pettit, Ginobili, Pierce, Worthy, Billups, Parish, Sam Jones, Hayes, Parker, Heinsohn, Cowens, Kidd, Reggie, Frazier, Gasol, Oscar, Horry ... He's just #51 in playoff Win Shares. Among the top 100 in...

Was surprised Barry and Hayes made it in a metrics board (and that Thomas is consensus thus far). Barry's 37th in career win shares if we don't deduct anything from early era ABA numbers (and you should). Faux EWA had him 31 (in 2009, with Pierce and Wade surely overtaking him in that time and possi...

I don't particularly want in on the Iverson debate but I notice amongst all the numbers above turnovers are missing. I couldn't do a comprehensive search, but I could only see Magic and Isiah above him in (NBA) career tpg. Maravich, too but on a limited sample.

FWIW the faux EWA-win shares pythagorean ranking I've refered to in earlier iterations of this discussion, has all of it's top 21 in our top 23. It doesn't have Erving (though if ABA numbers were included in both sets of numbers he would be, as would Artis Gilmore) or Baylor in its top 23. Erving's ...

Some thoughts on Russell, the number two guy on my list: 1) Having 3 all-stars for teammates isn't all that special when there are only 4-5 teams per conference. 2) How can we use win shares to evaluate other players and not mention Russell's Ruthian dominance on the defensive side of the ball acco...

AYC: You realize that to vote, you have to check candidates' names in the Poll ? Many of your names have been selected already, so are not still available. I haven't heard of "the predator". Voting will conclude Tues. morning (tomorrow) as usual. Someone dropped in with 3 votes recently. ...

Elvin Hayes only once shot over 50% from the field for a season. ... He really excelled at playing big minutes and shooting a lot. He played on a team that won a title. Let's not forget that he was also a premier rebounder of his day. And he was a shotblocker, so we might guess he was something of ...

The bullet point version of my response: -Boston probably were better with Russell. Er, yes...probably. ..But the difference is relatively marginal. So, I'm guessing poor ol' Bill doesn't have your vote for top 5 player then? ...The important point to take is that they were good without him. As in,...

Given Elvin Hayes and Isiah Thomas are already getting votes: Elvin Hayes only once shot over 50% from the field for a season. Elvin Hayes only thrice in his extended prime (i.e. everything but the last spell in Houston) had a TS% above .500 Elvin Hayes twice shot above 70% from the free throw line....

MW00, you make several interesting points. First, you offer an alternative perspective of Point (1) of my argument on behalf of the "Russell Dynasty" (Coincident with Russell's arrival and departure, the Celtics took a discrete and large step up and down in defensive performance.) As for ...

The playoff "decline" is because his best teams (and the longer playoffs) came when Robertson was past his apex. That's only part of his playoff decline. He consistently could not keep up his regular season numbers in the postseason. Same deal with Wilt. You could argue that they frequent...