The requisite and criteria in player comparisons, especially over different era's, is inescapably subjective. It all depends on the angle that you're viewing the players. I tried to reflect some of the primary angles - ranking relative to position, individual ability assessment (based on 5 year peak performances, efficiency metrics (against league avg.), defensive impact, box scores stats, expert opinions, ect.), and of course career achievements. Some parameters are fairly easy to draw up, eg Jabbar was strong in virtually all areas of his position, even 72% FT shooting (maybe he weakest area) isn't bad for his position. Jabbar performed at a high level consistently both regular season and postseason, for a long period time quantified by his wins shares and career achievements. Also, considering the importance of the Center position on offense (close to the basket, high % scoring) and on defense (last-line and more often than not anchoring the defensive strategy), its difficult to justify him not being in anyone top 10, or really top 5. After inserting Dantley in each of the criteria I discussed, it's easy to conclude that he underachieved, his high individual ability (particularly offensively) didn't translate into the correlative career success that you might expect from a player of his caliber (6 AS appearence, no All NBA 1st teams, 2 2nd team selections vs. George Gervin an AS every year of NBA career w SA, and All NBA 1st team 5 consecutive seasons). Gervin was a better defender, according to box scores, esp. under Coach Moe opposed to Albeck, but neither Gervin or Dantley were known for their defensive impact, it was their scoring ability. It could be argued that Gervin was more consistent offensively esp if you consider his time in the ABA, he was definitely more durable than Dantley, but from '80-82 seasons by all offensive metrics (both players' staple), Dantley was easily the better player in my opinion. If you consider each players top 5 seasons, which I believe if enough of a body of work to set a template for ability (potential):AcrossTheCourt wrote:
Would the analogue then be Allen Iverson? Iverson has a lot of inherent ability, but I wouldn't rank him as high as Garnett (although Iverson's problem was largely height.)
Maybe if you make conditions perfect for Dantley, surround him with defensive players and shooters, feed him the ball a lot, keep his personality in check (though I think the team cancer stuff is a bit overblown), then he can led a successful team. But that's a lot of maybe's and it hasn't been proven yet....
I'm not going to fault a guy for being in a bad position. People doubted Garnett, but once he had good teammates and a good system in Boston his team won the title. I'll give the guy the benefit of the doubt, but the problem is Dantley was traded again and again, had loads of teammates, and still had problems finding the right situation. If it's so difficult to find a situation for him, and he can't fit well with a Detroit team that soon won a title, is he really all that great?
I feel like I need to write a long article following his career, looking at every change in his career and his role, putting the numbers in better perspective....
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Gervin TS% OWS OWS/48 AST% USG% ORB% FTA/MP% Off Rt PPG Adj. PER
1979-80 0.587 9.3 0.173 11.0 31.7 5.7 20.2% 115 33.1 48.6
1981-82 0.562 8.7 0.182 11.4 35.0 5.2 22.8% 114 32.3 48.3
1978-79 0.591 8.1 0.189 11.5 30.0 5.4 19.7% 112 29.6 43.6
1977-78 0.594 9.2 0.201 16.1 29.5 4.5 21.2% 111 27.5 42.5
1980-81 0.555 8.1 0.182 15.8 32.3 5.2 22.4% 113 27.1 41.6
Average 0.578 8.7 0.185 13.2 31.7 5.2 21.3% 113 29.9 44.9
Dantley TS% OWS OWS/48 AST% USG% ORB% FTA/MP% Off Rt PPG Adj. PER
1983-84 0.652 13.0 0.235 16.2 28.2 6.7 31.7% 126 30.6 55.2
1985-86 0.629 10.4 0.223 16.7 30.0 7.2 29.0% 121 29.8 52.3
1981-82 0.631 11.9 0.187 15.5 27.9 7.6 25.4% 121 30.3 48.3
1979-80 0.635 9.5 0.189 12.3 27.8 8.3 19.7% 119 28.0 44.5
1980-81 0.622 12.3 0.191 16.3 28.4 6.5 22.9% 118 30.7 44.4
Average 0.634 11.4 0.205 15.4 28.5 7.3 25.7% 121 29.9 48.9
As far as Iverson-Garnett in relation to the Gervin-Dantley comparison. While it's true I've determined Iverson to posses more Offensive ability than Garnett by a wider margin than Dantley is to Gervin, Garnett's raw potential to impact a game defensively (position relative = 250.0), over Iversons (111.5) is a much wider disparity than Gervin (98.4) vs Dantley (78.2) despite that in my model offense is weighed more than defense. Garnett overall is better than Iverson in each of my ranking sets. Meanwhile Dantley possess higher offensive ability than Gervin, with Gervin having the much better career.
And I've watched Dantley play. He could certainly shoot the ball from midrange, but I favor Melo (only as a pure shooter!) because he can stretch the floor with the 3-ball, while still being a proficient midrange shooter.