RealGM 2023 TOp 100 Project - #91 (Bill Walton)

[ShaqAttac]

okay


ill go

WALTON

CHIP n MVP and swept KAreem

HAGAN

led team to a chip

Gonna nom

TATUM

luka better but he led his team to finals and cfs galore and doc pointed out he has really good impact stats so

Luka

he should probably win mvp ngl

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Good stuff to point out. It doesn't change the fact that the Colonels zenithed with a championship when they focused the offense around Gilmore instead of Issel though, so if we were to conclude that the '74-75 to '75-76 drop off was primarily about losing Issel - which would indicate pretty dang big impact for Issel, I don't think it's obvious how exactly he's achieving that much impact in that role when it would seem he had less impact when he scored more, and scoring is generally considered his main skill.

I'll note that for the Colonels in '75-76, the big drop off was on defense. Defense remained better than average and better than the offense, but the team went from decent offense being carried by an outlier defense to a decent offense not being able to be carried by a merely good defense. If that came from losing Issel while adding guys like Lucas & Jones we see as defensive specialists, that really raises a lot of questions for how that could be possible that I'd love to hear theories on.

I cannot fully explain the drop, but I think the fact that it's there when there are no other significant factors changed other than a few teams folding is something we shouldn't ignore.

Also, WRT to the bolded, I'm not entirely sure what you're basing that on. I suppose it's that the SRS/Net in Issel's rookie year, 1970-71, before GIlmore was there, was significantly lower than after Gilmore got there, and the fact that Issel only averaged 17.7ppg when Kentucky won the championship(we should point out that his minutes were cut by six minutes going from 74 to 75, so the drop in scoring volume is a bit exaggerated).

Ok, but we should also acknowledge that Kentucky, despite the unimpressive SRS/Net, got one game away from winning the championship in 1971. They took Zelmo's Utah Stars, who had a much higher SRS, to seven games. And before that they defeated a Virginia Squires team that had better numbers all around. They did this with Issel as the main guy, averaging 29.9ppg, and no Gilmore. The previous season, when Dampier was the #1 guy, they lost in the division Finals in five games. So I would argue that Issel did have impact as a ceiling rasier.

Also, in 1972-73, Kentucky again got within one game of a championship(this time with Gilmore) with Issel still averaging 27.3ppg on +3.6 rTS.

- I'm with you that it shouldn't be ignored - and the discrepant event should be further investigated = but that doesn't mean that the most likely explanation is that Issel was secretly a DPOY level player, which is what that data seems to indicate.

- Re: what I'm basing that on. I was referring specifically to 74 to 75. They made Issel a smaller part of the offense, and team generally, and they hit the jackpot with it. Not saying it means Issel was a bad player, but its clearly a case where the choice to make the offense focus on Artis Gilmore instead of Issel - as it had done before - was a pretty dang big improvement.

Also to be clear: Issel then had a long career of success where the longevity plays a major role in why he's seen as a candidate here, and I'd say he did so because he continued to be a secondary or lower primacy guy from that point onward, which I admire a great deal. I love when guys accept a slightly less glamorous role and can really thrive for a long time in doing so.

Sigh, I'm talking myself into re-evaluating him. I'd be a lot more comfortable siding with him though if I really could confidently classify him as a much stronger defender than I ever thought he was.

I appreciate the explanation, but you make it sound like the Colonels suddenly got much better when Issel's role got a bit smaller. It's just not the case.

Like, I said before, they got to the Finals in 1971 with just Issel and Dampier(no Gilmore yet) and took Zelmo and the Stars to seven games, with Issel averaging 29.9ppg in 39.4mpg.

In 1973, with Gilmore, they had a 5.63 SRS/+5.9 Net Rtg(1st in league, both) with Issel averaging 27.3ppg in 42.0mpg and again fell in Game 7 of The Finals vs the Mel Daniels/Roger Brown Pacers.

And in 1972, even though they were upset in the playoffs, they posted their highest SRS/Net Rtg of the era - 7.99 and +8.1(1st in league, both) - with Issel averaging 30.6ppg in 43.0mpg.

So twice they got within one game of a championship, and twice they posted league-leading team numbers, with Issel in a bigger role.

But just to take it from another angle - if I were to agree with you that Issel had to take a smaller role in order for the team to win, why is that disqualifying when their are inductees who had to do just that?

David Robinson didn't win it all until he was in a smaller role next to Duncan.
Paul Pierce and Ray Allen didn't win their ring until they sacrificed their numbers as part of their Big 3(KG did too, but not to the same extent, I don't think).
Kyle Lowry's numbers went down, not just in 2019 when he won the title with Kawhi, but in 2018 when the Raptors posted their best SRS/Net Rtg of the era.

They're all in. (Chris Bosh isn't in yet, but he got in last time, and he too didn't get anywhere close to a ring until he took a smaller role next to LeBron and Wade.)

If they're not being punished for it, why should Issel?

[Owly]

On Issel and the debate currently on him

I don't know whether him being in a smaller offensive role helped the Colonels.

If I did think it did, I might think that "harms" Issel's case not because he's being "punished" but because his case is primarily (I think) a box orientated one driven by offensive production, particularly scoring via above average volume attempts on good efficiency (he has 11 seasons with a TS add north of 100, with a 12th above 90).

If one did believe he was more helpful in '75 it wouldn't be - as it may understandably seem - dinging him for fitting in, but the questions that raises about his value in other years. If Issel is optimally useful or close to ... in this one context ... playing less, shooting less often and whilst being less efficient (a little below average) it raises questions about the value of him being on court and his scoring.

This is all caveated with an "if" (that certainly isn't a given) and conditions. And one wouldn't have to come out with a simplistic, linear, "more of efficient Issel scoring is bad". But it could cast doubt on whether his higher production years are as valuable as they seem on paper and whether giving him the ball is as profitable as it would seem. One could take his production with a pinch of salt and still argue for him here. It depends on priors, other views, where the thinking this through leads you ...

[LA Bird]

I know I sound like a broken record at this point but I don't think I will have any free time before the end of this project for anything more than copy pastes.

Vote: Bill Walton
Nom: Dennis Johnson

Spoiler:

Walton is one of the most polarizing player on all time rankings so I don't really expect this writeup to change the minds of most voters. But I did switched sides myself so maybe one or two of you might also join me in the Walton camp after reading this.

The first thing with Walton is the number of seasons. Many will immediately disqualify him from a career list because he played too little but not all seasons are equal. Like LeBron said, 2 points isn't always 2 points. Similarly, 2 seasons isn't always 2 seasons. ElGee's CORP method has become quite popular on this board but I don't think many still grasp the difference between an all time level peak like Walton's and 'regular' superstars. If we refer to the graph below, the equivalent of a +7 season is about 3 seasons in the top 10, 4.5 seasons as an All Star, or 10+ seasons as an average starter. Walton's short peak loses him the debate against any elite player with a sustained peak but those guys have all been voted in a long time ago. We have reached a point in the project where some of the candidates were rarely or even never top 10 in any season. Rodman was inducted recently - how many top 10 and All Star level seasons did he have in his career? How about Horford who is likely to be nominated soon? The number of seasons matter in a career comparison but so does the value of each season.



Estimating peak Walton as a +7 player might seem high but arguments for his impact at his peak is pretty ironclad. He was the clear leader on both offense and defense for a title team that completely fell apart without him. Walton is the WOWY GOAT in ElGee's dataset with a +10 net difference in 77/78 (raw MOV change without any teammate adjustment is even higher at +12) and he is ~100th percentile in Moonbeam's RWOWY graphs. Furthermore, the team's second best player was another big in Maurice Lucas, and they had a good backup center in Tom Owens so there is no question either if Walton's impact metrics were inflated by poor replacements. He is arguably the best passing center besides Jokic, one of the top 3 defensive rebounders ever by era-relative percentage (which synergizes perfectly with his outlet passing), and he is among the GOAT defensive players. Walton's skillset checks all the boxes you would expect from an impact monster and he has the numbers to back it up too. And since this is a career not peak list, I should also point out Walton consistently had massive impact outside of his peak years.

This is often overlooked but Walton actually played more than just 77/78/86. Obviously, him missing the 79-82 seasons is a giant red flag but unless we are penalizing players for missed potential, those years just get a zero from me. Now, from the team's point of view, was he a negative contract because he was getting paid a lot for nothing? Of course. But salaries and contracts are not a consideration in this project. The best player and the best player relative to salary (ie the most underpaid) are separate topics. Moving on to the seasons where Walton actually played over half the games, we get 76/84/85, three more years where he averaged 58 games per season. It is not a lot of games but we normally still count seasons of that length for other players. For example, 96/97/98 Shaq over three years averaged 55 games per season and I don't believe anybody is writing off those years because he didn't hit a threshold in games played. Such seasons get valued less than full 82 game seasons but they still usually get some credit.

Other than the numbers of games, the next thing with non-peak Walton is his minutes per game. He did play less but I think there is too much emphasis on the number of minutes itself rather than his impact in those minutes. Which, if we are being honest, seems a bit inconsistent for a board that already voted for a career 6th man in Ginobili at #39 because of his high impact in low minutes. Looking at samples with more than 10 games, Walton's raw WOWY scores were consistently quite strong even during his non-peak years (outside of an ugly rookie season)

Walton WOWY (MOV)
1975: -5.0
1976: +3.7
1980: +4.9
1983: +5.9
1984: +4.7
1985: +2.7

By the same measure, Dantley had 3 prime seasons with a negative raw WOWY (1980: -0.1, 1983: -2.0, 1988: -2.0) and Hagan, as trex_8063 pointed out before, often saw his teams perform better without him too. In other words, if we remove any preconceptions about his health, these forgotten years of Walton still provided more lift for his team than prime Dantley and Hagan did. The box scores are not as favorable to Walton but then again, his box score stats were never that impressive even at his peak. Still, a 13/10/3 slash line is comparable to some of the prime seasons of non-scorers like Unseld and Draymond. Walton is often penalized for having a GOAT-level peak because seasons which would otherwise be viewed as prime for lesser players get written off as meaningless for him, which in turn makes his already short career look even shorter than it really is.

1986 is the only non-peak season of Walton that gets any recognition but it is still underrated in my opinion. Winning 6MOY is nice but it relegates him to a mere footnote as just a good bench player when his impact was so much more. The Celtics saw a bigger jump after adding Walton than the Sixers did with Moses or the Warriors with Durant.

Celtics RS SRS / PO Relative Rating
1984: +6.4 / +6.9
1985: +6.5 / +5.8
1986: +9.1 / +13.1
1987: +6.6 / +3.5
1988: +6.2 / +4.7

The Walton team stands far above the rest despite the starters in 86 playing fewer minutes than in 85 and 87. The only other roster change in 86 was swapping Quinn Buckner for Jerry Sichting but that doesn't explain the improvement on defense or why the team fell back down to earth in 87 with Sichting still playing. Walton was the difference maker that elevated the Celtics from great to GOAT team status. I am guessing Walton's naysayers will still bring up his low minutes off the bench as rebuttal but focusing on minutes alone is pointless without evaluating his contribution in those minutes. There is no guarantee that a 40 minute starter would have more impact than a 20 minute reserve just because he played more. And once we move pass the labels, it's obvious to see how big of a difference Walton made to the Celtics.

TLDR
• Walton's peak is so much higher that one season from him is equal to the top 3 or more seasons of the other candidates.
• His non-peak impact signals are still better than prime Dantley, Hagan and he had 3 of those years averaging at ~60 games.
• He added All Star level lift to the Celtics as a ceiling raiser despite overlapping with an existing All Star at the same position.

[eminence]

Getting a vote in, will edit reasoning later in the day:

Vote #1: Bob Davies
Vote #2: Horace Grant
Nom #1: Chris Bosh
Nom #2: Dominique Wilkins

[Doctor MJ]

Personal Vote:

Induction 1: Bob Davies
Induction 2: Bill Walton

As alluded to earlier, Davies goes straight to the top of my list. I see him as the clear #2 player from the first era of the NBA, and I like what I see from him better than many later point guards.

Looks like the spot is going to come down to Walton vs Grant. Extremely hard to decided between such different careers. I respect Grant a great deal, but the indelible nature of Walton just rings a bit too loud for me to ignore.

Nomination 1: Jayson Tatum
Nomination 2: James Worthy

With Davies through, Tatum goes back to the top of my Nomination list.

For the second spot, I'll give Worthy a mention. I always feel like I should be championing him harder but lack the right argument. Definitely someone people should be considering.

[Doctor MJ]

Tallies:

Induction 1:
Grant - 3 (AEnigma, beast, trex)
Davies - 3 (trelos, eminence, Doc)
Cunningham - 2 (Samurai, Clyde)
Walton - 4 (OSNB, Ohayo, ShaqA, LA Bird)

Eliminating Cunningham:

Grant - 1 (Clyde)
Davies - 0 (none)
Walton - 0 (none)
none - 1 (Samurai)

Eliminating Davies:

Grant - 1 (eminence
Walton - 2 (trelos, Doc)

Bill Walton 6, Horace Grant 5
Bill Walton is Inducted at #91.

Nomination 1:

Gus - 2 (AEnigma, OSNB)
Tatum - 3 (beast, ShaqA, Doc)
Lucas - 2 (trelos, Samurai)
Melo - 1 (Clyde)
Nique - 1 (trex)
Luka - 1 (Ohayo)
DJ - 1 (LA Bird)
Bosh - 1 (eminence)

Continuing between Tatum, Gus & Lucas:

Gus - 0 (none)
Tatum - 1 (Ohayo)
Lucas - 0 (none)
none - 4 (Clyde, LA Bird, trex, eminence)

Jayson Tatum 4, Gus Williams 2, Jerry Lucas 2
Jayson Tatum is added to Nominee list.

[AEnigma]

Highest finish for Walton since 2011, by 7 spots…

[trex_8063]

Skepticism on Sam Jones and Bob Cousy

Spoiler:

As an era-relativist, I get irked when the only(or predominant) argument someone can come up with for one player over another is "tougher era".

I also take issue with "reasonably equivalent offensive production" when Sharman was significantly more efficient relative to his competition.

Ultimately though, my real gripe isn't that you might take Jones over Sharman(though I disagree with it), it's the fact that Sharman didn't make the Top 100 at all last time(or the time before that) while Jones made it both times. I just want to make sure Sharman is in the conversation because I don't see any argument for him not to make the list if Jones is in.

Or we can exclude both

Sam Jones does look better by WOWY, mostly by default:

In ’61, Sharman missed 18 games and the Celtics were (again) better without him.

This trend would hold throughout most of Russell’s career. In ’66, Sam Jones missed eight games and Boston’s performance didn’t budge. Jones missed 11 more contests in ’69 and the team was about 2 points worse without him. All told, as the roster cycled around Russell, his impact seemed to remain

I would have pause considering either for the top 100 simply because they were on championship teams. I also know some voters here have put stock into moonbeam's version of psuedo-rapm where Russell is the gold standard regularized and torches the field to a degree no one else across history does with his raw inputs(doubles 2nd place Wilt iirc over a certain stretch). Lots of emphasis on points and ts add on average offenses seems odd. Sam Jones defense has been praised but he is a guard and the defenses don't actually seem to care too much about whether he's there or not. 1969 is probably not fair since it's 6th man Sam Jones, but 1966 Sam Jones put up one of his highest point totals and fg percentages so if that version is not making a signficant impact, why is he being voted in here, let alone Sherman?

Honestly would be wierd to be putting more of Russell's teammates on this list than last time when we have a bunch of new evidence/argumentation suggesting Russell is more valuable individually than people were crediting him as the last go around and we have a bunch of new players to consider. Do these players actually warrant being considered over 100 other nba players?

Am pretty open to Cousy since he was post-prime with his own unimpressive signal and I assume he did something to earn the MVP but...

Will first emphasize that your above comments appear to specifically delineate Cousy's post-prime. And I'll also acknowledge that the league/game progressed faster than Cousy did as a player.

That said, the limited/noisy impact metric from the very same source (Ben Taylor) reflects decently upon Cousy: his prime WOWYR is +4.4, career +3.9.

As always, when using these sorts of numbers I think it can be worthwhile to check what the sample here is. I don't know what exact years are factored into prime, but up until 1957, Cousy doesn't really miss time with the exception of 52 and 51 where the Celtics see a +1.3 SRS improvement when Cousy joins. I don't highlight that to criticize rookie Cousy, but rather to highlight a potential discrepancy:

With how WOWYR works(this is true in general when you take stretched singals vs concentrated ones but WOWYR's "adjustments" compound this considerably), that +3.9(and perhaps to a degree the +4.4) is disproportionately operating off that 1951 and 1952 wothout sample and transposing it as part of the off for all the other years(where cousy barely misses time) as well. Also note, unlike Moonbeam's version, the much larger sampled +1.3 mark is not factored in at all.

In other words, that score, mantained over a very small per-season sample, is likely significantly inflated by 9 games coming with a much weaker cast from Cousy's first two years.

I am also somewhat concerned with the lack of success in this pre-russell prime period where the team does not make a single final in a very weak league winnig a grand total of 4 series. The term "offensive dynasty" is thrown around for the Cousy years, but success on one side of the court is really not the point.

The Celtics having goat-level defenses is cool, but it matters to the degree it helped produce the most successful team ever, not because the goat defense isinofitself of extreme importance. Good on them for having the best offenses pre-Russell, but does it really matter if they weren't the all that close to being the best team?

On Cousy.

I think his early career WOWY signal is unfortunately impossible to pin down.

He/Macauley arrive in Boston at the same time, the league contracts from 17 to 10.5 teams, both the without and with samples have large gaps between their ratings/win% (in opposing directions). It all combines to make the '50 vs '51 Celtics comparison very difficult, though I think it's clear the two combine with Red to turn the franchise around (they were absolute garbage their first four seasons and turned into a consistent .500+/playoff squad).

He then misses a grand total of 1 RS game prior to '57.

Agreed that 'offensive dynasty' oversells the Celtics of the period (hey, sometimes we're all sellers). They were a decent to good team, built around a strong offense. Related - I believe they only won 3 series over that period (you may have counted the '54 round robin as two wins).

0-2 vs Knicks '51
1-2 vs Knicks '52
2-0 vs Nats '53
1-3 vs Knicks '53
2-2 '54 Round Robin (2-0 vs Knicks, 0-2 vs Nats)
0-2 vs Nats '54
2-1 vs Knicks '55
1-3 vs Nats '55
1-2 vs Nats '56

For comparison the other Eastern conference squads from '51-'56 (not counting tiebreakers).
Knicks 6 series wins
Nats 8 (counting the '54 round robin as 2 wins)
Warriors 2 (their '56 title)

A worse but healthier version of the Lob City Clippers.

My current sentiment on inclusion in the top 100 for both is Cousy as a maybe(entirely on the basis of him winning an MVP really), and Sam Jones as a no. The former does not have notable team-success in the "prime" we don't have substantial data for and Russell's Celtics play better without him in the post-period.

For the latter, we have a peak signal where the Celtics do not drop-off without him, a marginal bit of lift in the year he's a 6th man, and is his claim to fame is scoring prowess on an average offense with the possiblity that this is a result of scheme(which still only works if we assume Sam Jones had substantially better impact than what can be discerned statistically).

Possible he's just gotten unlucky with the games he's missed, but the evidence for Jones being top-100 worthy just isn't there I think.

FYI, In the copy/pasta, I keep getting quoted in relation to two players who were long since inducted.

[OhayoKD]

Skepticism on Sam Jones and Bob Cousy

Spoiler:

As an era-relativist, I get irked when the only(or predominant) argument someone can come up with for one player over another is "tougher era".

I also take issue with "reasonably equivalent offensive production" when Sharman was significantly more efficient relative to his competition.

Ultimately though, my real gripe isn't that you might take Jones over Sharman(though I disagree with it), it's the fact that Sharman didn't make the Top 100 at all last time(or the time before that) while Jones made it both times. I just want to make sure Sharman is in the conversation because I don't see any argument for him not to make the list if Jones is in.

Or we can exclude both

Sam Jones does look better by WOWY, mostly by default:

In ’61, Sharman missed 18 games and the Celtics were (again) better without him.

This trend would hold throughout most of Russell’s career. In ’66, Sam Jones missed eight games and Boston’s performance didn’t budge. Jones missed 11 more contests in ’69 and the team was about 2 points worse without him. All told, as the roster cycled around Russell, his impact seemed to remain

I would have pause considering either for the top 100 simply because they were on championship teams. I also know some voters here have put stock into moonbeam's version of psuedo-rapm where Russell is the gold standard regularized and torches the field to a degree no one else across history does with his raw inputs(doubles 2nd place Wilt iirc over a certain stretch). Lots of emphasis on points and ts add on average offenses seems odd. Sam Jones defense has been praised but he is a guard and the defenses don't actually seem to care too much about whether he's there or not. 1969 is probably not fair since it's 6th man Sam Jones, but 1966 Sam Jones put up one of his highest point totals and fg percentages so if that version is not making a signficant impact, why is he being voted in here, let alone Sherman?

Honestly would be wierd to be putting more of Russell's teammates on this list than last time when we have a bunch of new evidence/argumentation suggesting Russell is more valuable individually than people were crediting him as the last go around and we have a bunch of new players to consider. Do these players actually warrant being considered over 100 other nba players?

Am pretty open to Cousy since he was post-prime with his own unimpressive signal and I assume he did something to earn the MVP but...

Will first emphasize that your above comments appear to specifically delineate Cousy's post-prime. And I'll also acknowledge that the league/game progressed faster than Cousy did as a player.

That said, the limited/noisy impact metric from the very same source (Ben Taylor) reflects decently upon Cousy: his prime WOWYR is +4.4, career +3.9.

As always, when using these sorts of numbers I think it can be worthwhile to check what the sample here is. I don't know what exact years are factored into prime, but up until 1957, Cousy doesn't really miss time with the exception of 52 and 51 where the Celtics see a +1.3 SRS improvement when Cousy joins. I don't highlight that to criticize rookie Cousy, but rather to highlight a potential discrepancy:

With how WOWYR works(this is true in general when you take stretched singals vs concentrated ones but WOWYR's "adjustments" compound this considerably), that +3.9(and perhaps to a degree the +4.4) is disproportionately operating off that 1951 and 1952 wothout sample and transposing it as part of the off for all the other years(where cousy barely misses time) as well. Also note, unlike Moonbeam's version, the much larger sampled +1.3 mark is not factored in at all.

In other words, that score, mantained over a very small per-season sample, is likely significantly inflated by 9 games coming with a much weaker cast from Cousy's first two years.

I am also somewhat concerned with the lack of success in this pre-russell prime period where the team does not make a single final in a very weak league winnig a grand total of 4 series. The term "offensive dynasty" is thrown around for the Cousy years, but success on one side of the court is really not the point.

The Celtics having goat-level defenses is cool, but it matters to the degree it helped produce the most successful team ever, not because the goat defense isinofitself of extreme importance. Good on them for having the best offenses pre-Russell, but does it really matter if they weren't the all that close to being the best team?

On Cousy.

I think his early career WOWY signal is unfortunately impossible to pin down.

He/Macauley arrive in Boston at the same time, the league contracts from 17 to 10.5 teams, both the without and with samples have large gaps between their ratings/win% (in opposing directions). It all combines to make the '50 vs '51 Celtics comparison very difficult, though I think it's clear the two combine with Red to turn the franchise around (they were absolute garbage their first four seasons and turned into a consistent .500+/playoff squad).

He then misses a grand total of 1 RS game prior to '57.

Agreed that 'offensive dynasty' oversells the Celtics of the period (hey, sometimes we're all sellers). They were a decent to good team, built around a strong offense. Related - I believe they only won 3 series over that period (you may have counted the '54 round robin as two wins).

0-2 vs Knicks '51
1-2 vs Knicks '52
2-0 vs Nats '53
1-3 vs Knicks '53
2-2 '54 Round Robin (2-0 vs Knicks, 0-2 vs Nats)
0-2 vs Nats '54
2-1 vs Knicks '55
1-3 vs Nats '55
1-2 vs Nats '56

For comparison the other Eastern conference squads from '51-'56 (not counting tiebreakers).
Knicks 6 series wins
Nats 8 (counting the '54 round robin as 2 wins)
Warriors 2 (their '56 title)

A worse but healthier version of the Lob City Clippers.

My current sentiment on inclusion in the top 100 for both is Cousy as a maybe(entirely on the basis of him winning an MVP really), and Sam Jones as a no. The former does not have notable team-success in the "prime" we don't have substantial data for and Russell's Celtics play better without him in the post-period.

For the latter, we have a peak signal where the Celtics do not drop-off without him, a marginal bit of lift in the year he's a 6th man, and is his claim to fame is scoring prowess on an average offense with the possiblity that this is a result of scheme(which still only works if we assume Sam Jones had substantially better impact than what can be discerned statistically).

Possible he's just gotten unlucky with the games he's missed, but the evidence for Jones being top-100 worthy just isn't there I think.

FYI, In the copy/pasta, I keep getting quoted in relation to two players who were long since inducted.

My bad. I'll cut it from future copy and pastes

[Samurai]

Highest finish for Walton since 2011, by 7 spots…

Must have had some good post-peak seasons between 2011 and now! Or there haven't been any great players during that time period to push him down. Both statements seem unlikely.

[Owly]

Highest finish for Walton since 2011, by 7 spots…

Must have had some good post-peak seasons between 2011 and now! Or there haven't been any great players during that time period to push him down. Both statements seem unlikely.

Whilst, personally, I struggle to see the case for him on the stated criteria for the project "1. Career, rather than Peak or Prime. How you weigh Longevity is up to you, but consider the entire Career." The difference is obvious: it's the voters. Whether one finds the reasoning (they've) offered here compelling (or find earlier lists, back end voter reasoning more compelling) ...

[AEnigma]

Highest finish for Walton since 2011, by 7 spots…

Must have had some good post-peak seasons between 2011 and now! Or there haven't been any great players during that time period to push him down. Both statements seem unlikely.

That is never what this project has been (which you know). If it were, the earliest one would have been immortalised, and only players active or not yet drafted at the time of that project could be admitted.

If you are going to do this schtick, I may as well note Walton was top 50 until the 2014 project, where he was dropped from the list entirely. Guess there must have been fifty active players displacing him, right.

[Samurai]

Highest finish for Walton since 2011, by 7 spots…

Must have had some good post-peak seasons between 2011 and now! Or there haven't been any great players during that time period to push him down. Both statements seem unlikely.

Whilst, personally, I struggle to see the case for him on the stated criteria for the project "1. Career, rather than Peak or Prime. How you weigh Longevity is up to you, but consider the entire Career." The difference is obvious: it's the voters. Whether one finds the reasoning (they've) offered here compelling (or find earlier lists, back end voter reasoning more compelling) ...

Clearly voter preferences/criteria change, different people voting, and persuasive or non-persuasive arguments can move someone up or down. Although it would seem that even if one's criteria changes to favor high peak and disregard longevity, one might think that the emergence of other high-peak bigs since 2011 (Giannis, Jokic, Embiid) who received no votes in 2011 would push Walton (or other high-peak, no longevity types) down rather than up. Personally I haven't seen an argument that adds to his longevity to move up on my preferences but to each their own.

[OhayoKD]

Must have had some good post-peak seasons between 2011 and now! Or there haven't been any great players during that time period to push him down. Both statements seem unlikely.

Whilst, personally, I struggle to see the case for him on the stated criteria for the project "1. Career, rather than Peak or Prime. How you weigh Longevity is up to you, but consider the entire Career." The difference is obvious: it's the voters. Whether one finds the reasoning (they've) offered here compelling (or find earlier lists, back end voter reasoning more compelling) ...

Clearly voter preferences/criteria change, different people voting, and persuasive or non-persuasive arguments can move someone up or down. Although it would seem that even if one's criteria changes to favor high peak and disregard longevity, one might think that the emergence of other high-peak bigs since 2011 (Giannis, Jokic, Embiid) who received no votes in 2011 would push Walton (or other high-peak, no longevity types) down rather than up. Personally I haven't seen an argument that adds to his longevity to move up on my preferences but to each their own.

You can reduce it to peak vs longetivity I guess. But sometimes it is about the player evaluation.

I think early meta-discourse quite largely overrated the impact "longevity" was having in list-shifts, when the true driver(which is now becoming clearer the further we go), has been a creeping elevation of great defensive bigs, including those who get the bulk of their value defensively.

A list where draymond shoots to 51 foreshadows Walton jumping as well.

[Owly]

One other thing is ... voting methodology has changed.

And more generally, not wrt this methodology versus previous ones, but any method looking at top candidate (versus deep list aggregation ... or I suppose being given a list and asking to reverse rank by eliminating the least favored) will favor polarizing players. The group on average prefers the guy at 120 on everyone's list but he never gets any votes because we only get to any one voters ... say ... 90th player, whilst the guy who is, say 75 (or perhaps above, but say 75) on 1/3 of voters lists and say 400th on 2/3rds may well get in. This isn't to say this is necessarily or precisely the case here, but I believe Walton is a polarizing candidate.

Of course criteria is not just to accurately represent/average a group's views at a moment in time but includes factors around facilitating conversation and ensuring the project is manageable.

[Owly]

With regard to the case for Walton specifically and the reasoning offered, peak seems to have been explicitly or perhaps sometimes implicitly a significant factor in expressed reason for preference:

see posts 7 (2nd preference), 37 (1st preference), 41 (1st preference) and perhaps to a lesser degree, but to my reading 46 (2nd preference, regarding "indelible" as decisive). At a glance all Walton votes ended up being used (no 2nd places to Grant) and there's a single explicit unique argument around Walton's career value and one countersign/approval thereof.

This does not mean other trends may not have been at play nor reason gone unstated.

[OhayoKD]

Grant took care of the ball; like.....REALLY well. Thus: among big-men, I don't think it's misleading to say he's of the GOAT-tier in terms of ball-control.
As is LMA. It's interesting noting Aldridge is still respectable in terms of Ast:TO, even though he was never a playmaker at all. He just turned it over so damn infrequently.....

I still wouldn't go that far. For much of the same reason we were signing Iverson's praises, beyond a "bbr limited" qualifier, turnover economy should factor in how much a player is using the ball(and what they are achieving with it) before a final pass or shot, and I think if you factor that in, it's hard to envision a Grant being able to avoid turning the ball over more than a jokic or even a giannis if he is forced to scale up.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Whilst, personally, I struggle to see the case for him on the stated criteria for the project "1. Career, rather than Peak or Prime. How you weigh Longevity is up to you, but consider the entire Career." The difference is obvious: it's the voters. Whether one finds the reasoning (they've) offered here compelling (or find earlier lists, back end voter reasoning more compelling) ...

Clearly voter preferences/criteria change, different people voting, and persuasive or non-persuasive arguments can move someone up or down. Although it would seem that even if one's criteria changes to favor high peak and disregard longevity, one might think that the emergence of other high-peak bigs since 2011 (Giannis, Jokic, Embiid) who received no votes in 2011 would push Walton (or other high-peak, no longevity types) down rather than up. Personally I haven't seen an argument that adds to his longevity to move up on my preferences but to each their own.

You can reduce it to peak vs longetivity I guess. But sometimes it is about the player evaluation.

I think early meta-discourse quite largely overrated the impact "longevity" was having in list-shifts, when the true driver(which is now becoming clearer the further we go), has been a creeping elevation of great defensive bigs, including those who get the bulk of their value defensively.

A list where draymond shoots to 51 foreshadows Walton jumping as well.

One other thing is ... voting methodology has changed.

And more generally, not wrt this methodology versus previous ones, but any method looking at top candidate (versus deep list aggregation ... or I suppose being given a list and asking to reverse rank by eliminating the least favored) will favor polarizing players. The group on average prefers the guy at 120 on everyone's list but he never gets any votes because we only get to any one voters ... say ... 90th player, whilst the guy who is, say 75 (or perhaps above, but say 75) on 1/3 of voters lists and say 400th on 2/3rds may well get in. This isn't to say this is necessarily or precisely the case here, but I believe Walton is a polarizing candidate.

Of course criteria is not just to accurately represent/average a group's views at a moment in time but includes factors around facilitating conversation and ensuring the project is manageable.

Just to elaborate a bit on my support of Walton(as I was one of the posts Owly referenced):

I had been unsure of how much I would support Walton given his longevity issue(despite always being a fan), but as we got further along, and he got on the ballot, and I took a closer look at his numbers(and, in all honesty, watched the four-part 30-for-30 doc) about him), I started feeling more strongly about him.

We can have general rules and preferences about the types of players we support, but there can also be exceptions to those rules and preferences based on certain standout factors.

So, for example, I don't generally go out of my way to support players for whom their primary skill is volume scoring on mid-to-poor efficiency(while I love volume scoring on high efficiency), but Allen Iverson was an exception to that, given how dependent the team was on him to generate any offense at all, and given the Finals run and taking a game off the Lakers. Gus Williams might be another exception, though I'm not sure I'd call volume scoring his primary skill.

In this case, while I've never been a big longevity guy, I do have a line where I'm reticent when the longevity is below a certain level. Walton does fall below that level, but like I said in an earlier post, I felt that his peak was significant enough, and his championships meaningful enough, that I could make the exception for him(whereas I don't think I'll be supporting Tatum and Doncic this round, despite being big fans of both). I mean, in simple terms, he was a more efficient scorer than Tatum(+2.9 rTS career vs +1.3 career, and Walton's efficiency in his best years was higher than that), a different universe of defender from Doncic, and given his reputation as an ATG playmaker at the big position, better in that area than Tatum as well, and maybe not such a big gap between Walton/Doncic on that front.

I took particular note, given the longevity issue, of how well Walton's production held up in 1986 vs 1977 despite having nearly a decade and many careers' worth of injury troubles between them. He was obviously only playing 19-20mpg in 86 as opposed to the 35mpg he was playing in 77, but looking at PER 100 numbers, box composites and efficiency in both RS and PO, he held up very well:

RS:
In 1977: 23.7pp100, 18.3rpp100, 4.8ap100, 1.3sp100, 4.1bp100, +5.2 rTS, .215 WS/48, 6.7 BPM
In 1986: 18.6pp100, 16.7rpp100, 5.1ap100, 1.2sp100, 3.3bp100, +6.5 rTS, .157 WS/48, 3.0 BPM

PO:
In 1977: 20.4pp100, 17.1rp100, 6.2ap100, 1.2sp100, 3.8bp100, 52.7% TS(-3.3% from RS), .162 WS/48, 6.0 BPM
In 1986: 21.3pp100, 17.3rp100, 4.5ap100, 1.0sp100, 2.0bp100, 61.6% TS(+1.0% from RS), .175 WS/48, 3.1 BPM

This, to me, gives me reason to believe he'd have been a consistent force if he'd been able to stay healthy. I know we're supposed to vote based on what happened and not what could have happened, but this had an impact on me - 1986 wasn't a throw-in, it mattered a great deal to my evaluation.

[trex_8063]

One other thing is ... voting methodology has changed.

And more generally, not wrt this methodology versus previous ones, but any method looking at top candidate (versus deep list aggregation ... or I suppose being given a list and asking to reverse rank by eliminating the least favored) will favor polarizing players. The group on average prefers the guy at 120 on everyone's list but he never gets any votes because we only get to any one voters ... say ... 90th player, whilst the guy who is, say 75 (or perhaps above, but say 75) on 1/3 of voters lists and say 400th on 2/3rds may well get in. This isn't to say this is necessarily or precisely the case here, but I believe Walton is a polarizing candidate.

Of course criteria is not just to accurately represent/average a group's views at a moment in time but includes factors around facilitating conversation and ensuring the project is manageable.

I would agree: Walton is a polarizing candidate. And I do believe our current voting methodology is......"advantageous" to polarizing candidates, in that they may find opportunity to sneak in whereas they may not ever get over the hump in other methodologies.

The nomination process in particular I think favours these candidates: because support from [roughly] a third of the panel could see them added to the candidate list, and we [I know this is the case for me, at least] often have threads where we are enthusiastic for few [if any?] of the field, and support ends up scattered such that the same [roughly] third of the panel pushes him through.

If ever I chair this project again, I'd be curious to try something like the nomination process [5 or 6 candidates], but then have people RANK the available candidates first to last, and then do a point system.
Makes a little more work for me as the chair, and there is a risk it will be deemed too much work by some of the panel as well.......but would be interesting to know how such a system would have changed some of the outcomes we've had (even with the same nominees).