Vote players into our alltime top 160, etc.

[Need To Argue]

Also, I need to mention: there was an adjustment made for when a player played. Basically, the earlier his career took place, the more his rating was scaled down. Players in the 50s didn't have to play against blacks, in the 60s they didn't have to play against Southern blacks, and not until the 2000s did they have to play against lots of internationals. I wanted the ratings to reflect that the competition's gotten better.

.

I guess you can say I disagree with this immensely. Black players were playing in the 50's gradually, but had to deal with the whole don't do too well. Guys like Clifton were doing all of the dirty work. The shame is he would be one of the greatest players if he wasn't handcuffed by on style of play. The next few years players were coming in and making everyone adjust to them. Less than a decade later you have Oscar coming in and showing the future. But, for you to say competition is better today, I think you are missing a big point. Today we have 12th men making a million dollars (please no lists proving or disproving) and are more content and not as hungry as a player making ten thousand and fighting to make the team and some more to stay. Today players get cut and go overseas to many more leagues than were ever available or the minor leagues (NBDL and such) which were not options. In those days if guys didn't have other careers (because they had degrees) they ended up selling insurance or working at Sears (or whatever misery you can imagine). Even stars weren't making tons as of yet until possibly Wilt. The physicality of the game was a lot tougher then as well. The officiating was still developing so fouls had to be real fouls (not like if you tip a pinky stuff like today). Where do you think the phrase 'no blood, no foul' came from?
There is a lot of assuming being thrown around. You think getting hit on the hand affects the shooting percentages that we keep mentioning? Remember the other common early phrase 'hand's part of the ball' which is a way of saying play on.
I am not seeing how it is tougher today. Coaches then had players play all out in practice. There was no 'gee you need to rest that' mentality and what about travel? They didn't take 1st class flights; they took all night bus trips, carried their own bags, bought their food...I think we are missing the point by scaling down the era that actually had it harder.
There are more teams today, but there are more bad teams today with more players who aren't NBA caliber. Careers were shorter because being a pro athlete then was more similar to the military than the current country club. I'd scale down today's players if you are to scale down anyone at all.

[Need To Argue]

Elvin Hayes was guarded by centers and forwards depending on the matchups. Tough forwards like Maurice Lucas (I take over all those guys mentioned earlier) would guard him, but would switch with Walton (when he was around) if he was in foul trouble. Bob Love would try to guard him with quickness (similar to what Carmelo tries with big forwards), but Hayes was a tough matchup and would go through many teams options and draw fouls on multiple players similar to Duncan. I look at matchups, not statistical info that could argue in either direction with ease.

[Mike G]

Hayes played a lot of minutes, so that speaks in his favor. He was apparently a sufficient challenge for opponents on both ends of the floor.

I wasn't totally convinced by the casual assertion that olden-days players had systematically shorter careers. After all, there are about 4 times as many players as there were in the '50s-60s. Maybe there are also more players with shorter careers?

Complicating the issue is that better players tend to play longer than average ones.
I've separated players by how good they seem to be (arbitrary cutoffs, random stat) and by the era they played in (based on first year in NBA or ABA) from 1954 onward, in 10 year blocks.

Code: Select all

1st yr.   Avg years, start to finish
.era    greats   stars   good   decent
54-63    11.8    12.4    11.6    10.8
64-73    13.9    11.1    11.3    10.8
74-83    14.7    12.3    12.5    11.9
94-98    15.4    14.3    13.2    13.0   

Note: Maurice Stokes (3 yr career) brings the oldest group of 'greats' avg career span down from 12.7 to 11.8 years.
The four 'grades' of players are roughly equal size groups, and the 'decent' ones were still above average (in statistical production).
As implied by 'start to finish', this does not subtract years missed in military service, from injury, temporary retirement, suspension, etc. Just duration of career.
The early guys had shorter tenures, as well as fewer games in the season.
But in the middle decades, a lot of good players had short careers. There was cocaine and I forget what else. League growing pains?
The bottom line (rookies in '94 thru '98) shows the most uniform increase in career length; and some of those aren't done playing.

[Mike G]

..Today we have 12th men making a million dollars (please no lists proving or disproving) and are more content and not as hungry as a player making ten thousand and fighting to make the team and some more to stay. ...
I'd scale down today's players if you are to scale down anyone at all.

Lots of perfectly sound arguments up there, but I think the pay scale, like the rest of them (roughness of play, etc) cuts both ways. The pay scale has to be competitive with other sports, and other walks of life generally, to attract athletes into the profession, and to keep them there. Before the early 50s at least, salaries were so weak that some better players just didn't bother to play for a living.

Just because every argument can be used both ways, I don't scale anyone up or down according to era. I actually adjust early players up to the totals they'd have gotten in an 82-game season. This doesn't quite compensate those who lost a year or 2 to military service, but it helps.

The shorter careers are not 'fair', perhaps; but as we've seen, playoffs were a bigger share of total minutes for the old-timers. So that's a bit of compensation, too, if you put more weight on playoffs.
I might take a harsher view of the 'talent pool' the early players were in, but for the fact that white Americans have almost abandoned the game in recent decades. Have overseas players made up for that talent drain? I doubt it.

[Mike G]

My highest-ranked guy who is not currently headed for promotion is Terry Cummings. He's got 2 of 5 possible votes, with 20-some votes being withheld.

He's one of 20 players with 19,000 points and 8500 rebounds (RS). Of these, TC has more assists than Parish or Moses; more steals (since 1974) than those 2 or Kareem, Ewing, Nowitzki, Duncan, Hayes, Lanier, or Shaq; fewer turnovers than all but Dirk.

The 6 players with more points, rebounds, and (known) steals: Olajuwon, Malone (Karl), Garnett, Barkley, Bird, Robinson.
He got into just about his fair share of playoffs, and his PO/RS ratio is .99 -- 18th best among the 54 names in this round.

Of course, there were 2 stages in his career: The twice-all-NBA TC before a major knee injury (10 years), and the role player afterward (7 more yrs.)
Cummings has 77 Win Shares in those first 10 years and 14 thereafter.

He's 76th in minutes played. Of the top 100 in minutes, he ranks 69th in Win Shares; 62nd in WS/48; 44th in PER; 34th in TReb%; 38th in Stl%; 40th in Blk%; 17th best in TO%

He not only played a lot of minutes, his per-minute rates were above average in most categories, among those with many minutes.
And his teams were winners. Between 2 years in SD and his 2 final years in GS, he made the playoffs in 13 of 14 seasons. Past the first round 7 of those times.

[Mike G]

Carmelo Anthony has been in 6 All-Star games. A handful in this round have been in more, but not since 1975 or so.
'Melo has also made 6 all-NBA teams. That's more than Archibald, Drexler, Cunningham, TBug, Hill, KJ, Johnston, J Lucas, Moncrief, Paul, Reed, Isiah, Ben Wallace, Webber (all with 5); it's twice as many as Billups, Bing, Cowens, Dumars, English, Gasol, Penny, Marques, Sam Jones, Kemp, Reggie, Mutombo, Jermaine, Parker, Westbrook.

He's not LeBron, and he's not even Durant; then again, nobody else is, either.
Since 2004, there are 53 players with at least 20,000 minutes. Of these, only LeBron and Kobe have scored as many points, total or per game.
Carmelo is 18th in Reb/G and 28th (median) in Ast/G. He's above the median in Stl and Blk per game.

Among all player careers (at least 10,000 minutes), he's 9th in 'standardized' scoring rate -- 25.9 points per 36, per 100 pts/team/game. This will likely drop as he slows down; but that's truly elite company.
Of the top 20 'scorers' alltime, he's 13th in equivalent rebounding rate -- ahead of Jordan, Pierce, Dantley, Wade, Kobe, West, and Iverson.
He's also 13th in Assist rate, ahead of Pettit, Dantley, Shaq, Dirk, 'Nique, Yao, and Amar'e.
Just a handful are better in all 3: LeBron, Mikan, Malone, and Durant.

His Playoff/Regular Season production ratio is .95, which is above average for all players, slightly below avg for top-100 types.

[MW00]

My highest-ranked guy who is not currently headed for promotion is Terry Cummings. He's got 2 of 5 possible votes, with 20-some votes being withheld.

He's one of 20 players with 19,000 points and 8500 rebounds (RS). Of these, TC has more assists than Parish or Moses; more steals (since 1974) than those 2 or Kareem, Ewing, Nowitzki, Duncan, Hayes, Lanier, or Shaq; fewer turnovers than all but Dirk.

The 6 players with more points, rebounds, and (known) steals: Olajuwon, Malone (Karl), Garnett, Barkley, Bird, Robinson.
He got into just about his fair share of playoffs, and his PO/RS ratio is .99 -- 18th best among the 54 names in this round.

Of course, there were 2 stages in his career: The twice-all-NBA TC before a major knee injury (10 years), and the role player afterward (7 more yrs.)
Cummings has 77 Win Shares in those first 10 years and 14 thereafter.

He's 76th in minutes played. Of the top 100 in minutes, he ranks 69th in Win Shares; 62nd in WS/48; 44th in PER; 34th in TReb%; 38th in Stl%; 40th in Blk%; 17th best in TO%

He not only played a lot of minutes, his per-minute rates were above average in most categories, among those with many minutes.
And his teams were winners. Between 2 years in SD and his 2 final years in GS, he made the playoffs in 13 of 14 seasons. Past the first round 7 of those times.

As above Cummings is 2nd on WS/fauxEWA list. My concern is he was considered a poor/lazy defender for most of his peak, I seem to recall Larry Brown improved him on this end. As such he's close to the opposite of what I was looking for (i.e. a big, a poor defender, a recent player, longevity rather than peak). Still he's certainly on my radar.

Carmelo Anthony has been in 6 All-Star games. A handful in this round have been in more, but not since 1975 or so.
'Melo has also made 6 all-NBA teams. That's more than Archibald, Drexler, Cunningham, TBug, Hill, KJ, Johnston, J Lucas, Moncrief, Paul, Reed, Isiah, Ben Wallace, Webber (all with 5); it's twice as many as Billups, Bing, Cowens, Dumars, English, Gasol, Penny, Marques, Sam Jones, Kemp, Reggie, Mutombo, Jermaine, Parker, Westbrook.

He's not LeBron, and he's not even Durant; then again, nobody else is, either.
Since 2004, there are 53 players with at least 20,000 minutes. Of these, only LeBron and Kobe have scored as many points, total or per game.
Carmelo is 18th in Reb/G and 28th (median) in Ast/G. He's above the median in Stl and Blk per game.

Among all player careers (at least 10,000 minutes), he's 9th in 'standardized' scoring rate -- 25.9 points per 36, per 100 pts/team/game. This will likely drop as he slows down; but that's truly elite company.
Of the top 20 'scorers' alltime, he's 13th in equivalent rebounding rate -- ahead of Jordan, Pierce, Dantley, Wade, Kobe, West, and Iverson.
He's also 13th in Assist rate, ahead of Pettit, Dantley, Shaq, Dirk, 'Nique, Yao, and Amar'e.
Just a handful are better in all 3: LeBron, Mikan, Malone, and Durant.

His Playoff/Regular Season production ratio is .95, which is above average for all players, slightly below avg for top-100 types.

Part of the problem may be the LeBron comparison and the media insistance on pushing him as a superstar, elite, MVP type level player. Because the metrics are clear that whilst good, he wasn't close to that until last year (he was 4th in PER, 9th in OWS, the first time he'd finished in the top 10 of any of these bkb-ref all-in-one metrics). Though again his typically poor defense means he's worse than his numbers. His manner of leaving Denver might count against him too.


Both might be disadvantaged by a perception that you're just good enough to lose with them, i.e. their best, most useful role is as the leading scorer, but with them in that role your team's upside is (without some luck) low 50s wins and out in the 2nd round, on real contender they'd probably have to be 2nd option (unless perhaps it was one of those deep, defensive, ensemble champions)

[Mike G]

Carmelo Anthony's career is already as big as these guys' --

Code: Select all

diff   career equiv.   ePts    eReb   eAst    PF     Stl    TO    Blk
.00   Carmelo Anthony 20,474   5386   2310   2451    878   2357   365

.18   Glen Rice       20,179   4893   2202   2496   1010   1833   279
.29   Bernard King    19,438   5174   2745   2983    895   2867   238
.29   Mark Aguirre    19,227   5232   2935   2886    763   2530   321
.33   Dale Ellis      20,297   4716   1788   2732   1039   1913   200
.34   Eddie Johnson   18,885   5335   2455   3178    794   2202   197

.41   James Worthy    18,795   5655   3018   2328   1223   2159   721
.47   Chet Walker     20,117   6533   2254   3038   1107   2394   938
.48   Rashard Lewis   18,093   6171   1853   2528   1142   1698   578
.48   Michael Finley  19,911   5629   3654   2112   1146   1828   367
.50   Mitch Richmond  20,405   3982   3353   2581   1242   2656   263

These all took longer than 10 years to get here.

In per minute rates, he looks more like these:

Code: Select all

diff   career per36      Sco   Reb   Ast    PF   Stl   TO   Blk
.00   Carmelo Anthony   25.9   6.8   2.9   3.1   1.1   3.0   .5

.13   Paul Pierce       24.4   6.4   3.9   2.9   1.4   3.0   .6
.14   Adrian Dantley    24.7   5.9   2.8   2.8   1.0   3.0   .2
.15   Bernard King      23.4   6.2   3.3   3.6   1.1   3.4   .3
.19   Dominique Wilkins 24.7   7.0   2.5   2.0   1.3   2.6   .6
.21   Mark Aguirre      22.2   6.0   3.4   3.3    .9   2.9   .4

.25   Paul Arizin       23.2   6.3   2.3   3.7   1.1   2.6   .9
.25   George Gervin     24.3   5.5   2.6   3.3   1.3   3.2  1.1
.28   Kevin Durant      27.4   7.0   3.0   1.9   1.2   3.0  1.0
.28   Glenn Robinson    21.1   6.6   2.8   2.7   1.2   3.1   .6
.29   Vince Carter      23.5   5.6   4.0   3.1   1.2   2.2   .7

Pierce was leading scorer on a team that won a title. Arizin awhile back. Worthy, too.
It's not bad to have had a career as big and good as King or Aguirre, before age 30.

Cummings, after 18 years, had rates like these:

Code: Select all

diff   career per36     Sco   Reb   Ast    PF   Stl   TO   Blk
.00   Terry Cummings   19.3   9.3   2.2   4.0   1.3   2.3   .7

.09   Cliff Robinson   18.2   9.9   2.2   3.5   1.2   2.9   .8
.10   Dan Issel        20.7   8.5   2.2   3.1   1.1   2.3   .6
.11   Luis Scola       18.4  10.0   2.2   3.9    .9   2.2   .4
.12   Keith Van Horn   18.7   8.1   1.9   3.4    .9   2.5   .6
.14   Xavier McDaniel  18.0   7.7   2.4   3.6   1.1   2.6   .6

.14   Bailey Howell    19.1   8.2   2.0   4.2   1.0   2.4  1.3
.15   Paul Millsap     17.6  10.0   2.2   4.3   1.4   2.0  1.2
.16   Nene Hilario     16.5   9.0   2.3   4.1   1.5   2.4  1.0
.16 Shareef AbdurRahim 20.1   8.5   2.8   3.0   1.1   2.7   .8
.17   David West       19.5   8.8   2.3   2.8    .9   2.0   .9

That's the Cliff R who played in the early '80s and not very long.
By playing so long, TC racked up totals like these:

Code: Select all

diff   career equiv.   ePts    eReb   eAst    PF     Stl    TO     Blk
.00   Terry Cummings  20,324   9763   2277   4180   1374   2415    729

.35   Rasheed Wallace 20,471   9373   2426   3931   1250   1955   1712
.45   Otis Thorpe     18,833  11293   2820   4378    881   2916    518
.49   Tom Chambers    20,356   7539   2282   4112    957   2801    701
.50   Shawn Kemp      17,963  10603   1925   4189   1301   3092   1440
.50   Walt Bellamy    20,467  12083   2521   3733    835   2762    770

.57   Bob Lanier      19,702   9882   3124   3276   1103   2853   1596
.57   Antawn Jamison  20,525   8851   1756   2743   1099   1821    453
.58   Sam Perkins     17,310   9058   2165   3618   1236   1822   1077
.62   Shawn Marion    19,184  10746   2210   2688   1822   1810   1333
.63   Bailey Howell   18,452   7894   1937   4038    947   2264   1170

Howell is in both groups.

[Mike G]

In my big player list of 685 'significant' careers, the average number of rings (NBA or ABA titles) per player is 0.68
(463 rings accounted for)
The avg career span is 12.0 years

Because some players seem to hoard the rings, just .33 of players have any. Just 14% have more than one.
"The 1%" -- 7 or more rings: Russell, Sam Jones, Heinsohn, Havlicek, Sanders, KC Jones, Cousy, and Horry -- own 15% of all rings held by these 685 players.
[My counts could be off.]
The top 4.4% of ring-winners hold 36% of the rings. These are players with 4 or more.

On average, a player puts in 38,000 minutes per ring. Almost 18 seasons.
Outside the blessed 4.4%, it's 26.4 seasons, or 56,000 minutes per ring. Elvin Hayes territory.

Of course, in a 30-team league, you'd expect one ring per 30 player-seasons. Scrubs and guys who barely play also get a ring.

[Mike G]

Amar'e Stoudemire has a career roughly the size of these players:

Code: Select all

diff   career equiv.    ePts    eReb    eAst   PF    Stl    TO    Blk
.00   Amare Stoudemire 17,431   6576    974   2573   641   1957  1078

.41   Chris Bosh       16,586   7544   1551   2011   641   1656   883
.42   Spencer Haywood  16,028   7954   1517   2517   591   2419  1065
.47   Clyde Lovellette 14,892   6738   1414   3029   608   1673   878
.48   Neil Johnston    15,615   6800   1812   2313   649   1595   817
.56   Paul Arizin      17,781   5011   1782   2937   782   1850   647

.56   Rik Smits        14,761   6208   1341   3421   422   1768  1195
.57   Rashard Lewis    18,093   6171   1853   2528  1142   1698   578
.63 Shareef AbdurRahim 15,740   6661   2203   2391   826   2122   613
.63   Zelmo Beaty      16,249   8636   1502   3736   808   2143  1343
.64   Jermaine O'Neal  14,862   8096   1473   3056   496   1995  1945

He's also gotten his totals in a rather short time. His per 36 minute rates look like these, once standardized:

Code: Select all

diff   career per36     Sco   Reb   Ast    PF   Stl    TO   Blk
.00   Amare Stoudemire 25.1   9.5   1.4   3.7    .9   2.8   1.6

.18   Clyde Lovellette 21.8   9.4   2.0   4.2   1.0   2.8   1.5
.22   Bob McAdoo       22.5   9.9   2.3   3.6   1.1   3.3   1.7
.23   Yao Ming         25.6  11.1   1.8   3.7    .4   3.0   2.1
.30   George Yardley   21.9   7.7   2.0   3.3   1.0   2.6   1.2
.30   Neil Johnston    23.8  10.2   2.8   3.4   1.3   3.1   1.6

.31   Patrick Ewing    23.0  11.0   2.0   3.7   1.0   3.1   2.6
.32   Brook Lopez      20.9   8.7   1.4   3.1    .6   2.3   2.0
.41   Kevin McHale     20.8   8.6   1.8   3.3    .4   2.2   2.0
.43   Spencer Haywood  19.6   9.6   1.8   3.0    .7   2.9   1.3
.43   Chris Bosh       21.0   9.5   2.0   2.5    .8   2.1   1.1

Amar'e is in elite territory as a Scorer. He also rebounds and blocks some shots.

Among 405 players with at least 20,000 RS NBA minutes, he's 43rd in WS/48
http://bkref.com/tiny/2pOMh
From the top 100 in WS/48, he's 24th in PER; 14th in TS%; 18th in eFG%; 24th in OReb%; 35th in DReb%; 20th in Blk%; better than the median in TO%; 36th in ORtg

For those of you who like Peak value, Amare's 2007-08 WS/48 of .262 is 42nd highest all-time. His PER that year (27.6) is 44th.
Only 16 players with higher PER in a year: Wilt, LeBron, Jordan, Robinson, Shaq, McGrady, Paul, Kareem, Garnett, Karl Malone, Mikan, Durant, Pettit, Nowitzki, Bird, and Oscar.
Some players who have never reached this level in PER for a season : Barkley, Wade, Magic, Duncan, ... well, everyone else.

In WS/48, the list would be similar. His betters are Kareem, Wilt, LeBron, Jordan, Robinson, Paul, Durant, Shaq, Dirk, Oscar, Garnett, Magic, Barkley, Malone, Johnston, Schayes, Mikan, and McGrady.
[ I may have missed someone; b-r.com is acting mighty funny of late]

In his "Thru 11 years" Similarity Score at b-r.com, his season WS resemble (among forwards) -- Brand, Hill, Baylor, McGrady, Mikkelsen, Hagan, Peja, Cedric Maxwell, Ben Wallace, Marques Johnson.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... dam01.html

He's a 6-time allstar and 5 times all-NBA 1st or 2nd team. I count just 30 others in the 3-pt era who have done that.

[Mike G]

Voting for this round closes in the morning, and we have had just 5 voters casting a total of 99 votes, plus a couple of write-ins.

Only 16 players have as many as 3 votes. With 2 or more votes are 30 players.
With such low participation, I'm not excited about the prospect of advancing players with just 2 of 5 votes. That's like a .400 team (32-50 W-L) getting into the playoffs, isn't it?

[MW00]

Write in: Frank Ramsey, Terrell Brandon, Yao Ming, Mark Price, Joe Dumars

[Mike G]

final tallies for round 5 of the voting:
5 - Bailey Howell
4 - Maurice Lucas, Mark Jackson, Bill Laimbeer, Chet Walker
3 - Alvan Adams, Horace Grant, Bob Dandridge, Gus Williams, Mark Aguirre, Willis Reed, Lenny Wilkens, Bobby Jones, Hal Greer, Nate Archibald
2 - Terry Cummings, Carmelo Anthony, Baron Davis, Sam Cassell, Rod Strickland, Larry Foust, Jermaine O'Neal, Detlef Schrempf, Maurice Cheeks, Andre Miller, Charles Oakley, Bernard King, Tom Chambers, Mel Daniels, Johnny Kerr
1 - Boozer, Odom, Stoudemire, Hamilton, Antoine Walker, Coleman, Penny Hardaway, Rondo, Josh Smith, Thorpe, Walter Davis, Camby, Yao, Bridges, Smits, Haywood, Eddie Jones, Brandon, Price, Kirilenko, Dumars, Maravich, Gus Johnson, Ramsey
0 - Daugherty, Westbrook

The 15 players with 3 or more votes will be promoted to the 'tentative top 115'. The others in the list will again be available for votes in the next round, with the exception of those who were 'write-ins' in the previous round and also failed to be promoted in this round.
Bernard King, Walter Davis, Eddie Jones, and Kirilenko fall into that category. King and Davis are up for selection through the normal process. Jones is on deck, and AK is still out there.
EDIT: Eddie Jones just barely got in, on his own statistical merits.

[mark kieffer]

I don't get how Rondo or Westbrook or D-Will could even be considered as an alltime great at this point. Definitely on the path, but too early in their career to tell.

[mark kieffer]

I went with:

Camby, Cassell, Chambers, Cheeks, Cummings, Jamison, Jones, Macualey, Mikkelsen, Andre Miller, Oakley, Perkins, Schrempf, Amar'e, Strickland, Terry, Thorpe, and Williams.