Diophantos

Raw scoring numbers certainly don't tell the whole story, far from it, in this case. While they scored similar amounts per game and per minute, Barkley was BY FAR the more efficient scorer.
For his career, Barkley boasts a 61.2 TS%, 8th all-time, which is amazing for a guy who scored 22 ppg over 16 seasons. In his prime, Barkley put up seasons of 25+ ppg and 65+ TS%, which is fantastic scoring efficiency.
For his career, Hayes has a TS% of 49.1, which doesn't speak well of his scoring efficiency, during his peak years he was regularly well below 50 TS%.

To perhaps put this more clearly:
For his career, Barkley scored 22 ppg on 14.5 fga and 8.1 fta (~18 "scoring possessions" used up).
For his career, Hayes scored 21 ppg on 18.6 fga and 6.1 fta (~21 "scoring posessions used).
So Hayes wasted 3 more possessions per game to score less points, and the difference is even bigger in their respective primes. So raw scoring numbers certainly don't tell the whole story: Barkley was the far superior scorer.

I'd also call Barkley the better overall passer, as he posted better raw assist numbers and Ast-Ratios over his career.

These offensive advantages are more or less reflected in their career PERs, to use a total offensive measure: Barkley sits at 24.6 career PER (with prime PERs around 27-29), while Hayes sits at 17.7 career PER (with prime PERs in the 18-20 range).

So I'd be very comfortable calling Barkley the significantly better offensive force.

Again, rebounding average doesn't tell the whole story as far as rebounding is concerned, as Hayed played in a faster era. Rebound Rates (% of available rebounds grabbed) squarely favors Barkley, both for career (18.2 to 15.6) and prime (17-19 to 14-16). As far as offensive vs. defensive rebounding, it's hard to tell exactly, but I think it's clear that Barkley was the better offensive rebounder, and I wouldn't put too much between them defensively. Barkley was the better overall rebounder.

As an overall defender, Hayes was clearly better, yes.

Yes Hayes was more durable, but I think that's of far less significance in this debate than actual production. It's not as if we're comparing Hayes to Bill Walton here (a guy with what, 2 healthy seasons?). Barkley is an 11-time all-star, 58th all-time in games played, 25th all-time in minutes played. Durability is not a particular strength, but I don't think it's an over-arching weakness for Sir Charles either. As I say, he wasn't Bernard King or Bill Walton.

As I've pointed out, I think Charles's advantages in scoring and rebounding (and offensively overall) are far more than arguable, and I think they do outweigh the defensive disparity.

I think you're right about Barkley's conditioning being not up to par, and he perhaps could have been greater still had he put in the work there. But I think it's really only fair to judge a guy for what he actually produced on the court, not to fault him for some preconceived notions of what he "could have done".

__________________
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

BadBaronRudigor

oh, and if you consider Duncan a C playing PF, you have to say the same about Hayes. On offense, he set up in the post to shoot his turnaround; Unseld was the one with the faceup game getting his points off putbacks and a flatfooted foul line jumper. On defense, Hayes was the taller player, the shotblocker and help defender, Unseld was the banger. But, they called Hayes the PF because Unseld was already established as the C on the Bullets when Hayes (never considered anything but a center in college or with the Rockets) came in.

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JPSeraph

Great point about Duncan and Hayes. People seem to always regard Hayes as a power forward, but I have a feeling Duncan will come to be seen as - or at least compared with - one of the game's all time great centers.

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Najee

Charles Barkley has a career .541 field-goal percentage, which is extraordinary considering his size. Elvin Hayes sports a career .452 clip, but also consider The Big E started in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when teams typically shot less than 45 percent from the field. When aggregate and overall individual shooting percentages climbed, Hayes' did according.

Both players were in different eras, and at the start of Hayes' career shooting 45 percent was the equivalent of someone in Barkley's career shooting better than 50 percent. You're employing the number without any context.

OK, I can buy that one. Just like Hayes was the much better shot-blocker, both on raw numbers and on a per-game basis. That's not even considering that the league didn't keep official shot-blocking stats in Hayes' first five seasons.

Of course, the PER wasn't even invented when Hayes played and some of the statistical measures used to compute the number aren't accurately reflected. The PER doesn't quite translate well for some players whose careers started prior to 1980; for instance, John Havlicek's PER is 17.5. I'm not confident that the calculation is adjusted for eras.

I will say Barkley was a better offensive rebounder than Hayes; in fact, I would say Barkley was one of the best ever in that category. I will say that both Barkley and Hayes are equal in defensive rebounding.

It is on the same basis in which people NOW rate Karl Malone ahead of Barkley all time. During their peak playing days, Barkley was the better overall talent and better player of the two. But as both got into their 30s, Barkley's poor conditioning started betraying him and Malone's dedication and discipline helped elevate him over Barkley. It doesn't matter that Barkley is more talented, because in a close issue of production the biggest difference between the two is Malone's durability -- a difference that is the result of Barkley not taking care of his body.

That's the same difference between Hayes and Barkley, IMO. Hayes played in 12 All-Star Games, so it's not like The Big E wasn't considered a top-level player. Hayes was able to play in substantially more games and clock more minutes because of that discipline and still give you comparable production to Barkley's.

That's the point you're missing -- Barkley's poor discipline is what caused him to become injury-prone in the latter part of his career. Unlike a Bill Walton who had chronic injuries that showed up in high school or a Bernard King who had one fluke, horrific injury, Barkley's breakdowns were the result of his lifestyle choices and choosing not to manage his weight and conditioning (things he controlled).

Barkley scored more efficiently, but that's more of an indication of Barkley being more efficient than most players in NBA history. Barkley was a better offensive rebounder than Hayes. But those advantages aren't huge advantages, nor does it indicate that Hayes was poor at those categories.

Conversely, Hayes has a decided advantage over Barkley defensively. Hayes' advantage isn't relative to the player or the times -- he was a top-tier defender while Barkley was average at best because he was not as disciplined on that end of the floor. You're talking about a decided advantage where and how one-half of the game is played (defensive contributions) vs. quibbling over slight advantages in two aspects of the game.

I also feel that Hayes should get some consideration for leading the Washington Bullets to three NBA Finals during his career, winning the title in the 1977-78 season. It's arguable that Barkley played with better talent than Hayes but The Big E's teams were overall more successful than Barkley's.

Like I said before, I feel that Barkley and Hayes are interchangeable in terms of all-time rankings. It's not like we're discussing placing an inferior player over a superior player -- at their level, it's clearly a preference of who would you choose first. It's not an incredible stretch to choose Hayes over Barkley (especially when the difference is what I would call incredibly miniscule).

Najee

The difference is that if Tim Duncan was on any other team except San Antonio's he would be that team's starting center. Elvin Hayes was the classic power forward who was forced to play center in Houston because of the team's lack of size (and also because one of the team's best players -- Rudy Tomjanovich -- was a power forward-type).

Players like Hayes and Bob McAdoo were slotted as centers back in the 1970s more by necessity than by style of play and/or preference. They didn't have the requisite size or game of a classic center, unlike Duncan. Hayes was more like an Elton Brand-type player while McAdoo playing center was like putting Dirk Nowitzki at that spot.

Diophantos

In this case, the gap in scoring efficiency is so large, that context doesn't really help Hayes's case. For his career, the Big E shot 49.1 TS%. The AVERAGE player in 1976 (to take a random year near the middle of Hayes's career) shot a TS% of around 50, so Hayes was consistently average-to-below-average in terms of scoring efficiency.
For Barkley's career he shot a TS% of 61.2. The AVERAGE player in 1992 (again, around the middle of Barkley's career) shot around 53 TS%. So Barkley was regularly 20% or more above the league average in scoring efficiency, while being a top-10 per game scorer 9 times. In fact, Charles led the league in scoring efficiency 4 straight years (87-90), years in which he was scoring 23-28 ppg. That's unheard of.

They're simply not close as scorers, context or otherwise.


Yes, Hayes was the better shot-blocker.

It was meant to be a very rough point. PERs are completely accurate from the 1977-78 season, as I recall, which gives us the last 7 years of Hayes's career (age 32 and after). Before that, there are no stats for things like turnovers and offensive rebounds, so PER is ssomewhat inaccurate.
At ages 32, 33, 34 (accurate PERs) Hayes put up PERs of 17,19,17 (accurate PERs).
His "unaccurate PERs" (before 1978) are all around the same range, 18-19. While PER may not be the best overall offensive measure for those years, I find it very unlikely that including TO and OReb stats would bump Hayes's PER from 18-19 into the 25-28 range he would need to be comparable with Barkley in those years.


Sure.

Again, I really think peak production is more important. I can certainly understand ranking Malone over Barkley, because his peak production is similar and his durability better. But I wouldn't rank Hayes over Barkley, because while Hayes has an advantage in durability, his actual production takes a significant back seat to the Round Mound. I can't call Hayes a "better" player than Barkley, when I don't feel that he was actually comparable to Barkley at any point in their respective careers. For durability to make an impact on this kind of discussion, IMO, the actual production of the two players needs to be closer.

And again, I'm not "missing" the point about Barkley's lack of conditioning being his own fault (as opposed to the freak/chronic injuries Walton). I just don't think that has any bearing on an evaluation of what he did on the court. If Barkley had missed whatever games he missed because of Walton-esque injuries, rather than conditioning issues, would you rank him higher.

And remember, it's not as if we're talking one-hit wonder here. Barkley is 25th all time in minutes played.


They don't necessarily indicate that Hayes was poor, but that Barkley was really really good. I don't see what that has to do with anything--a gap is a gap, and Barkley holds a big advantage over Hayes there.

To call it "quibbling over slight advantages in two aspects" is just using rhetoric instead of argument. I've showed that Barkley has a LARGE (not slight, large) advantage as a scorer, was a better passer, and offensive rebounder. These points give him a LARGE (not slight) advantage as an overall offensive player. That's also half the floor, by the way, and the half on which it makes more sense to look at individual contributions.

Yes Hayes was the better defender. And no, I don't believe that bridges the gap.

I think Barkley probably played in stronger leagues throughout his career (late 80s to mid 90's for Barkley vs. mid 70's for Hayes). It's true that Hayes has a ring and overall greater playoff success, but Barkley's teams were losing to Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Karl Malone. The teams Hayes was up against in the playoffs were not as talented.

Personally, I wouldn't call the difference as small as all that, but maybe that's just my perspective on things.

__________________
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

Najee

Kirk64