NBA: NBA Playoff PPG leaders on Championship teams since 2000, RPG and APG leaders as well

[ambchang]

Oh and as far as leadrship goes I dontknow if either Kobe or Duncan win without Pop or Phil. We may never know what Tim looks like with a lessor coach but Tim has never really ever had to lead a team. Avery was the early leader of the Spurs and Pop is pretty much been the leader since. Phil was the real leader of the Lakers along with fisher ...

True, that's why I had an issue with people ranking David Robinson so poorly. I can guarantee that he would have won with a decent PG/SG, and a coach of the Phil/Pop/Riley status. He would have won if Larry Brown stayed a little longer and relinquish his player picking rights.

The same happened to Dirk in the mid 00s btw, I always felt he was underrated, and it was funny how after 11, when he won, people started to recognize him as one of the greatest players in the last decade or so when 11 wasn't even his prime.

[Killakobe81]

Oh, don’t get me wrong, I have biases for sure, but the funny thing is, the stats backed those biases. And when they don’t, there are legitimate reasons behind it.

I hope there will be better stats in the future for us to really gauge the effectiveness of a player. As for Rondo, the guy is like stat-padder extraordinaire. I am no fan of him at all because of the reasons you listed, but guess what? WS backed that up. I didn’t even attempt to discredit Rondo, but he was actually #4 in WS with the 08 Celtics. Since they he was #3, #1 (because Pierce and Garnett missed quite a few games, as Rondo actually was third in WS/48), #4 and #3 (Rondo missed a lot of games, but was still behind Pierece and Garnett in WS/48).


Even this year, Rondo was #4 in WS (because he missed a lot of games, he is actually #3 in WS/48 for all the regulars), which really speaks to the fact that the numbers backed up what we saw, Rondo put up great stats, but he does it to the detriment of the team.

Yep but like I said my eyes guide me here ... he does things I just dont like from my PGs ... and I think Ainge is the same, which is why they tried hard to trade him despite being younger and until this year healthier than CP3 ...and even for Westbrook if rumors are true.

[Latarian Milton]

gives solid evidence that dirk's one of the best playoff players and it's gonna be a real pity to watch the playoffs w/o dirk participating tbh . kobe just went HAM in 09 cuz he knew that would be his first NBA le won w/o shaq.

[Killakobe81]

True, that's why I had an issue with people ranking David Robinson so poorly. I can guarantee that he would have won with a decent PG/SG, and a coach of the Phil/Pop/Riley status. He would have won if Larry Brown stayed a little longer and relinquish his player picking rights.

The same happened to Dirk in the mid 00s btw, I always felt he was underrated, and it was funny how after 11, when he won, people started to recognize him as one of the greatest players in the last decade or so when 11 wasn't even his prime.

Did you see the center rankings on ESPN Sports nation this week? They had a center poll (cuz of Shaq jersey night) David was behind Ewing. Now let me say this I liked Pat. Hard worker, warrior. One of the best defensive college big men EVER. but IF you use the eye test or advanced stats (not sure about traditional) David is CLEARLY better. I saw some Dream team games recently and outside of MJ no one stands out more (atheltically) than david on that team. Not drexler, Pip or Chuck. He ran the floor better than prime Malone (maybe not as hard) but faster and more graceful. Post game was kind of ugly but few bigs defended ran, then dunked in transition better than David in is prime. Not surprised his son played football David looked like a WR or the new hybrid TEs as he ran the court ...was also a better offensive player at Navy than Shaq was at LSU or Ewing at Georgetown or Hakeem at Houston. Ewing was the best defensive big I ever saw in college though. Great shot blocker great at defending pnr ...was not as good in the pros but developed a lethal jumper ...

Put him in this era and despite his short-comings he s on Dwight howard and Tyson Chandler ...

[ambchang]

Did you see the center rankings on ESPN Sports nation this week? They had a center poll (cuz of Shaq jersey night) David was behind Ewing. Noy let me say this I liked Pat. Hard worker, warrior. One of the best defensive college big men EVER. but IF you use the eye test or advanced stats (not sure about traditional) David is CLEARLY better. I saw some Dream team games recently and outside of MJ no one stands out more (atheltically) than david on that team. Not drexler, Pip or Chuck. He ran the floor better than prime Malone (maybe not as hard) but faster and more graceful. Post game was kind of ugly but few bigs defended ran, then dunked in transition better than David in is prime.

Put him in this era and despite his short-comings he s on Dwight howard and Tyson Chandler ...

Didn’t see it, but I am not surprised. One guy was the face of the Knicks, and the other was … Spurs. Robinson’s image never sold, he was too goody-two-shoes throughout his career, and was destroyed in the playoffs time and again (hey, I have yet to see any center do well in the playoffs with horrible guards like Avery Johnson and Vinny Del Negro). This is just typical media bias. And when you put up the polls, NY got 12 million people, San Antonio got like 1 million, it’s not even a compe ion.

Robinson had a very choppy post game, he was actually more suited as a PF or even a SF. His game is very similar to one of Garnett, but he was never given that luxury. He won a scoring le, DPoY, RoY, MVP, all D teams, All-NBA teams and everything against Hakeem and Shaq playing out of position.

Duncan is actually the perfect teammate for Robinson, a guy who plays C on offense and PF on D, someone who can command the lowpost and benefit from Robinson’s mid range game.

Robinson is not as easy to build around as Duncan, but if you give him a PG of the caliber of, say Terrell Brandon, a shooting guard like Mario Elie, and a PF like Otis Thorpe, or a Horace Grant, then a coach of say, Larry Brown or Rick Adelman, and the Spurs would have rung at least once, even in the 90s dominated by the Bulls. Those are not really extremely hard players to find, just that the Spurs settled on guys like Tarkanian, Avery Johnson, Vinny Del Negro (this was particularly frustrating, he is not even a 6th or 7th man caliber for a championship team, forget about starting) and Dennis Rodman (without a psychologist like Daly or Jackson), Carl Herrera and such. The only consistently good help Robinson ever had was Elliott, that was it. , if the Spurs kept the Spurs rookie team and mings didn’t get old, the Spurs would have rung.

[Killakobe81]

Was a tough decade so wont go as far as saying they would have rung with the guys you mentioned ... especially considering the limits to his game. But people forget what a specimen David was. Not as skilled as Lebron but if you watch him go from end to end David more akin to Lebron, Malone Pippen than the centers he is compared to. Dont get me wrong shaq is the ultimate specimen at center he was not as fast as David but quick with so much size/muscle (before he got fat) Shaq should of been the GOAT tbh ...

Center rankings click here

[ambchang]

Aside from Ewing > Robinson, I also had trouble with a few of the rankings.

Shaq > Hakeem. Shaq was great, really great, but I would take Hakeem over Shaq all day, especially considering Hakeem's defense.

How the flying did Parish got ranked so high? He ran the floor well, great. But > Walton, Reed Hayes and Thurmond? GTFO! To me, Parish was clearly the least of that group.

Thurmond once again got underrated. Although I am more familiar with him when he was way past his prime, his quickness and defense even after his prime was enough to convince me that, during his prime, he was a lot better than people gave him credit for.

Walton was great, could have been top 5, too bad for injuries. Very much like Yao's career, but much much better. Walton was the best passer out of all big men, great defensively, extremely high IQ basketball player (not sure why he is such a horrible commentator though), can score when he wanted to. I would have loved to see him, KAJ and Moses fighting against each other uninjured and during their primes.

Moses was way underrated, once again. He dominated, and I mean dominated KAJ. Sure KAJ wasn't at his absolute peak, but Moses just straight out abused him. Also, greatest offensive rebounder of all time. Not as great defensively, as say Hakeem or Robinson, and could be a black hole at times, but the dominance he had in the middle was only bettered by Shaq and Wilt.

Overall, that was a pretty damn bad list.

I had them ranked as:

1. K. Abdul-Jabbar
2.Moses Malone
3.Wilt Chamberlain (haven't really witnessed his prime, tbh)
4.Hakeem Olajuwon
5.Shaquille O'Neal
6.David Robinson
7.Patrick Ewing
8.Bill Russell (haven't seen him in his prime, but honestly, if I were to go with stats and les, he would be top 5, no question)
9.Bill Walton
10.Nate Thurmond
11.George Mikan (haven't seen him at all)
12.Wes Unseld (again, past his prime)
13.Elvin Hayes (memory hazy, tbh)
14.Willis Reed (again, one of the more overrated guys because he played for NY. Fantastic leader, great tough guy, great mid range game, great passer, but his impact of the game was over credited at the expense of their backcourt).
15.Robert Parish (really, how the would he be here, I would put Mourning, or even Brad Daugherty in his place. I mean, come on, clear 3rd option, never led any teams. He was never the best player on his team, or even 2nd best, how the could he be ranked in the top 15 centers of all time?)

[Deuce Bigalow]

See my stance on regular stats, PER, and Win Shares
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/show...=1#post6461167

To summarize, at the end of the day, I don't care about a player's stats as long as he helps the team wins. In an extreme case, I would take a player who averaged 0 points, 0 rebounds, 0 assists, but did all the unmeasured stuff like setting picks, hustling, getting loose balls, etc .. than a guy who averages 20/5/5 if those stats came at the expense of the team (ie, ball hog)

Also, calculating PER is extremely straightforward, anybody with an excel sheet and the stats lined up can do it in about 3 minutes.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/about/per.html

Kobe Bryant is the only supposed top 10 player of all time who is an exception to everything. It's not that he failed one of two of them, he failed every single one of them.

His best PER season was ranked #49 of all time for players who played more than 42 games in a season. And it came during the 05-06 season when his team was horrible.
His best WS season was ranked #95 of all time, and #55 of all time since the 77-78 season.
He was the only player to miss the playoffs in his prime. Kareem's case was unique due to injuries and wonky divisional rankings, and the mid 70s was wonky in general.
He was the only player to run a dominant teammate off the team during both of their primes. (Magic only did it to his coach)
He was never the clear cut #1 player in the league at any point in his career. In fact, he was the only player replaceable by multiple other players at any point in his career with another player in the league, and his team would have had the same success.

Bird's highest PER season is 55th alltime. Magic's is 76th alltime. Magic never led the league in PER. Although Bird did twice, Kobe has surpassed those PER numbers twice. And no he was not the only player to miss the playoffs in his prime, like you mentioned, Kareem did, twice. If Kareem gets a pass because he played in a weak era, which doesn't even make sense, then Kobe gets a pass because he and his best teammate were injured.

[Killakobe81]

Aside from Ewing > Robinson, I also had trouble with a few of the rankings.

Shaq > Hakeem. Shaq was great, really great, but I would take Hakeem over Shaq all day, especially considering Hakeem's defense.

How the flying did Parish got ranked so high? He ran the floor well, great. But > Walton, Reed Hayes and Thurmond? GTFO! To me, Parish was clearly the least of that group.

Thurmond once again got underrated. Although I am more familiar with him when he was way past his prime, his quickness and defense even after his prime was enough to convince me that, during his prime, he was a lot better than people gave him credit for.

Walton was great, could have been top 5, too bad for injuries. Very much like Yao's career, but much much better. Walton was the best passer out of all big men, great defensively, extremely high IQ basketball player (not sure why he is such a horrible commentator though), can score when he wanted to. I would have loved to see him, KAJ and Moses fighting against each other uninjured and during their primes.

Moses was way underrated, once again. He dominated, and I mean dominated KAJ. Sure KAJ wasn't at his absolute peak, but Moses just straight out abused him. Also, greatest offensive rebounder of all time. Not as great defensively, as say Hakeem or Robinson, and could be a black hole at times, but the dominance he had in the middle was only bettered by Shaq and Wilt.

Overall, that was a pretty damn bad list.

I had them ranked as:

1. K. Abdul-Jabbar
2.Moses Malone
3.Wilt Chamberlain (haven't really witnessed his prime, tbh)
4.Hakeem Olajuwon
5.Shaquille O'Neal
6.David Robinson
7.Patrick Ewing
8.Bill Russell (haven't seen him in his prime, but honestly, if I were to go with stats and les, he would be top 5, no question)
9.Bill Walton
10.Nate Thurmond
11.George Mikan (haven't seen him at all)
12.Wes Unseld (again, past his prime)
13.Elvin Hayes (memory hazy, tbh)
14.Willis Reed (again, one of the more overrated guys because he played for NY. Fantastic leader, great tough guy, great mid range game, great passer, but his impact of the game was over credited at the expense of their backcourt).
15.Robert Parish (really, how the would he be here, I would put Mourning, or even Brad Daugherty in his place. I mean, come on, clear 3rd option, never led any teams. He was never the best player on his team, or even 2nd best, how the could he be ranked in the top 15 centers of all time?)

This we agree on mostly ...but i missed the primes or whole careers for most of those guys so mine staring cica 1980:

1. KAreem (missed his peak but saw an MVP season)
2. OLajawon (a bit high) but his defense
3. Shaq at his peak pprobably better than Hakeem but his defense was mediocre (relative to this list) a primary center responsibility...
4. Moses
5. David
6. Ewing
7. Walton
8. ALonzo (loved his defense heart was a underachiever at Gtown (comapred to hype) but a over-achiever as a pro
9. Parish
10 Laimbeer

GOd I hate my last two but they played key roles on le squads ... and their fight in the 80's was classic. PArish beat Bill down!!!

[ambchang]

Bird's highest PER season is 55th alltime. Magic's is 76th alltime. Magic never led the league in PER. Although Bird did twice, Kobe has surpassed those PER numbers twice. And no he was not the only player to miss the playoffs in his prime, like you mentioned, Kareem did, twice. If Kareem gets a pass because he played in a weak era, which doesn't even make sense, then Kobe gets a pass because he and his best teammate were injured.

That's why I don't like using PER, and prefers WS. Besides, what stats do you prefer to use? Magic ranks even lower if you take his peak PPG season, he probably won't even be in the top 100 (haven't looked it up).

As for KAJ, it wasn't that he played in a weak era, it was that he was injured for one season (Bucks was on pace to make the playoffs if KAJ was healthy for the entire season, much like Hakeem did in 90), and in the other season, the Lakers were actually good enough, they actually had a better record than all the teams in the Midwest Division, but had to miss the playoffs because of Divisional rankings. In Kobe's case, the Lakers' record who NOT have allowed them to make the playoffs if his team was in the East in 05.

While Kobe did miss 16 games that season, it didn't have any impact, because unlike Jabbar missing games with the Bucks, the Lakers were on pace to pretty much the exact same record with or without Kobe. The Lakers won 34 games that season, and had a 28-38 record with Kobe in the line up. Well, guess what? If projected to an 82 game season, that 28-38 record would have been projected to 34.8 wins, an astounding total of 0.8 games more over 16 games.

[ambchang]

If I was to rank centers since 1980, KAJ wouldn't be #1, his prime was before that, and his 1980 to 1984 years weren't even close to Hakeem, Shaq, or even Robinson during their primes, and this is when he had a player of Magic's caliber playing next to him.

Since 1980, I would put
Moses (really a hair above Hakeem, and I am fine with switching them around)
Hakeem
Shaq
Robinson
KAJ
Mourning
Laimbeer
Dwight Howard (his few years with Orlando alone makes it, in fact, he's not that far behind Laimbeer or Mourning)
Parish
Yao (late addition. Forgot about him. If it wasn't for his injuries, he would have been ranked behind KAJ for centers since 1980)
Mutombo
Ben Wallace
Daughtery
Walton (too injured)

[Arcadian]

1. Wilt
2. Kareem
3. Hakeem
4. Shaq
5. Robinson
6. Moses
7. Russell
8. Ewing
9. Mikan
10. Walton

[Black&Silver]

1. kareem
2. wilt
3. russell
4. shaq
5. hakeem
6. Moses
7. Robinson
8. Mikan (gets points deducted for playing in a bad era)
9. Walton (injured, but still rang)
10. Ewing