Minstrel

Likewise, I keep hoping I'll make a statistical model of the world compelling to you someday.

Although, I do see your point of view. I do sometimes have a hard time seeing old-time football players competing with NFL players of today, and I've often wondered how dominant Cousy or Russell could be today.

Tough questions.

__________________
Jon Stewart: "[Michelle Obama] must prove she loves America! Because she's a Democrat. Republicans don't have to prove it, everyone knows they love America. They just hate half the people living there."

Mike Goodman

Pettit is listed at 6-9, 205 pounds. He never dunked.

jericho

He probably finished his career at about 225, and dunking was in many ways frowned on in those days. The style of play was different, and so were conditioning regimes and coaching strategies. That's why these cross-era comparisons are so difficult.

Put 1960 Bob Pettit in today's game, and he'd struggle. He'd still be tough as nails, stronger than he looks, and be a good shooter and crafty scorer. But he might end up as a rich man's Mike Dunleavy.

However, if Bob Pettit, with his drive and instincts
and natural gifts, had been born in 1979, I think he'd be playing today as one of the greatest power forwards of this era...and of all time.

__________________
Favorite players: Hakeem Olajuwon, Moses Malone, Bill Russell, Alex English, Kiki Vandeweghe, Sidney Moncrief, Lafayette Lever, Dan Issel, Bobby Jones, Julius Erving, Rick Barry, John Havlicek, Oscar Robertson, Jerry West...and Brooks Thompson

cpawfan

You're giving rebounding rate to much credit over raw rebounding numbers. Barkley only had 4 seasons that equaled or exceeded Elvin's career rebounding average. Considering that they were both starters and both played major minutes, raw rebounding is far more impressive than rebounding rate. Plus, Elvin played more seasons with Unseld than Barkley played with Moses both of which clearly impacted rebounding numbers.

Elvin also was a superior defender and led the NBA in minutes played 4 times. In all those minutes, he was always less than Barkley's career TO average.

Neither player belongs in the Duncan & Malone conversation

__________________


Come visit the best

Diophantos

I'll jump in on the Barkley/Hayes question for a moment...

This doesn't make any sense to me. Rebounding rate is the right stat to use here, because it evaluates percentage of possible rebounds that the player got. The fact that they were both starters has nothing to do with it.
Using raw rebounding numbers overrates Hayes, because he played on faster-paced teams in an era with more possessions, thus leading to more rebounding opportunities. The right way to compare is through percentages--Barkley consistently rebounded about 18-20% of possible misses, and Hayes consistently rebounded about 16% of possible misses (with one outlier 19% season). Barkley was the better rebounder.

Barkley achieved the highest rebound rate of his career (20.8) playing with Moses. Hayes' rebound rates before playing with Unseld are not much different than those he achieved while playing with Unseld (besides that one year I mentioned). I'm not sure the correlation is as straightforward as you imply.

Elvin was the superior defensive player, but Barkley was a far superior offensive player, by a larger margin. You bring up turnovers, but Hayes' TO-rate (from the years we know it) was around 11, much the same as Barkley's in his prime. Barkley just used more possessions, and he used them much more efficiently. Much higher PER, TS%, etc.

I think Barkley does, though I'm not sure he comes out on top.

__________________
A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

- Stephen Crane

cpawfan

Using rebounding rate puts Swen Nater and Tom Boerwinkle as better rebounders than Wilt Chamberlain and also puts Greg Ostertag on the same level as Olajuwon. Rebounding rate has its place, but it isn't more important than raw numbers.

There are no rebounding rates for Hayes' first 2 seasons in the NBA so your analysis is missing a key piece of data. Additionally, Barkley achieved the 20.8 in the 1986-1987 season when Moses was a member of the Bullets. The next highest rebounder on that Sixers team was Tim McCormick

You are attempting to compare the late years (age 32+) of Hayes career with Barkley's overall career. That doesn't fly with me. At some point, efficiency and effectiveness have to be compared. Yes Barkley was far, far more efficient, but at the end of the day, Elvin still finished in the top 10 of the NBA for PPG 7 times and Barkley 9 times and there is a 1.1 PPG game difference in their career scoring averages. Actual output matters and Hayes could compete with Barkley in terms of output.

Defense is the main reason why he doesn't belong in the conversation.

__________________


Come visit the best

Minstrel

I think Rebound Rate is a much better tool, since it's context-sensitive. Normalizing for pace and chances is important.

As for Nater and Bowerwinkle being rated better than Chamberlain, most of that is due to not having Rebound Rates for most of Chamberlain's career, including his prime. As far as Ostertag being on the same level as Olajuwon, A. Ostertag was a very good rebounder and B. Olajuwon was still consistently better through his prime.

You can't logically criticize a measure because it doesn't conform to your prior beliefs. A lot of the point of a good measure is that it reveals things you didn't already know. If you have methodological criticisms, that's different.

Barkley was consistently significantly better through their careers. It's hard to fathom that Hayes' first two years could have been SO good as to reverse that for a career. His first two seasons' raw rebounding average were not significantly different from his third season...while that's not the same as Rebound Rate, the two are surely correlated to some extent. It's unlikely a fraction of a rebound from one season to the next would result in vastly different Rebound Rates.

Actual output matters when blended with efficiency. If a player finishes in the top-10 for PPG by taking 60 shots per game, for example, is that a great feat? Is he helping his team win? Raw output without context tells only half the story.

Barkley scored MORE (actual output) on far, far better efficiency. It's hard to overstate how much more valuable that is. It's kind of the difference between having Zach Randolph of the last few seasons and Tim Duncan. Sure, the scoring outputs aren't hugely different, but the efficiency is.

__________________
Jon Stewart: "[Michelle Obama] must prove she loves America! Because she's a Democrat. Republicans don't have to prove it, everyone knows they love America. They just hate half the people living there."

Diophantos

Minstrel handled these pretty well, I thought, but I'll chime in as well...

First off, Nater, Ostertag, etc. were all very good rebounders. For the most part, rebounding was the only reason they were in the league. Overall, Olajuwon and Chamberlain had more time on the floor to grab rebounds, and obviously weren't offensive liabilities like Ostertag, etc. But as far as actual rebounding production when on the floor, no Hakeem was not significantly better than Swen Nater.

Barkley and Hayes played similar minutes throughout their career, and Barkley consistently grabbed a higher percentage of rebounds.

Yes, I messed up that one stat; sorry about that. My point remains--it hasn't really been established that there is a simple correlation between having a good rebounding teammate and a player's own rebounding rate. I remember a huge discussion about that on this board a while ago (I believe it was Hakeem and Yyzlin who had it.)

And as Minstrel said, I find it hard to believe that Hayes's first two seasons make up for consistently lower rates than Barkley.

Yes, but certainly PPG is not all there is to "actual output"? Efficiency combined with raw output is what matters. Barkley was scoring similar volumes to Hayes (23-28 ppg) at much higher efficiencies. Throughout his career, Hayes needed 19 shots and 6 fta's a game to score 21 ppg (TS% of .491). Barkley needed just 14.5 shots and 8 fta's a game to score 22 ppg (TS% of .612). As scorers, they're not in the same ballpark.

It's possible. But, of Duncan, Malone, and Barkley, I think one could seriously argue that Barkley was the best scorer, rebounder, and passer of the three. Which at least puts him in the same range, IMO.

__________________
A man said to the universe:
"Sir I exist!"
"However," replied the universe,
"The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation."

- Stephen Crane

cpawfan