RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #98 (Luka Doncic)

[homecourtloss]

Vote: Luka Doncic

Needs longevity, but his playoffs rising and ability to create offense even with defenses geared to stop him has been incredibly impressive.

Nomination: Marc Gasol

Fits into any scheme at any time in any era. Incredibly good team defender who can also provide rim resistance who has shown that he can develop a three point shot as well.

[Clyde Frazier]

Vote 1 - James Worthy
Vote 2 - Chet Walker
Nomination 1 - Carmelo Anthony
Nomination 2 - TBD

Big Game James
Worthy was quite talented offensively. Used a combination of length and speed with a great first step to make extremely quick finishes around the basket. Great finisher off the catch as well and had a nice array of post moves for a bit of a hybrid forward. Just amazing ball control taking advantage of his athleticism.

Definitely played to his strengths, which is even more important when you're helping a team make deep playoff runs every season. Elevated his play in the playoffs, which does make me question his regular season play a bit, but not going to knock a guy for playing better in the post season. Whether or not he deserved finals MVP in '88 is up for debate, but the hyper efficient 36 point triple double in the game 7 clincher is more than impressive on its own.

Melo
While accolades aren't everything, Carmelo was recognized for his stellar play throughout his prime:

- 6x All NBA (2x 2nd, 4x 3rd)
- Finished 3rd and 6th in MVP voting

He also ranks 10th all time in total career points.

Below are players already voted in in Melo’s VORP and Win Shares range. I left out older players who had some seasons before VORP was calculated since it's cumulative:

VORP
Dwight Howard 38.97
Rasheed Wallace 38.36
Kevin Johnson 37.27
Jack Sikma 37.02
Carmelo Anthony 36.71
Ben Wallace 36.15
Kevin McHale 34.29
Dikembe Mutombo 33.86
Sidney Moncrief 33.14
Tony Parker 30.13
Alonzo Mourning 27.45
Dennis Rodman 21

Win Shares
Paul Arizin 108.8
Carmelo Anthony 108.52
Manu Ginobili 106.4
Rasheed Wallace 105.09
Rudy Gobert 104.65
Kawhi Leonard 99.16
Allen Iverson 98.97
Tracy McGrady 97.27
Ben Wallace 93.51
Kevin Johnson 92.77
Sam Jones 92.29
Bob Cousy 91.11
Sidney Moncrief 90.32
Dennis Rodman 89.83
Alonzo Mourning 89.74
Dave Cowens 86.32
Isiah Thomas 80.69

Peak carmelo developed into a very good offensive player. The “iso melo” narrative was overstated in his best seasons. This coincided with having a decent PG rotation to keep the ball moving (a little different, but billups certainly got the best out of him in denver). He became one of the better off ball players in 12-13, actually shooting more efficiently and on higher volume than durant in catch and shoot situations. His transition to a good volume 3PT shooter also opened up his game, and he stepped into transition 3s about as well as anyone in the league.

He’s obviously known for his post up and face up game, but not acknowledged as much for being a great offensive rebounder for his position. He had a deceptively quick second jump and soft touch around the rim for put backs. He also possessed a unique rolling spin move to the hoop which created a lot of space on his drives. The one thing he was really average at is finishing at the rim, and i’d say that partially has to do with him not being able to take advantage of the way the game is called these days. He wasn’t a freak show athlete like lebron, and he didn't have those long strides like durant/harden where they know the angles and draw fouls easily.

I'd also point out that while melo's transition to a role player was a bit rocky, he didn't call it quits like iverson when asked to come off the bench. You could make the argument that he was scapegoated in houston (to be clear, no conspiracy theories here about him getting blackballed -- that was just dumb). There's some revisionist history there as he did what he was told. Then his first year in in portland he did exactly what you'd want from a role player in year 17: 38.5% from 3 on 3.9 attempts per game, posting a positive net rating and on/off along with being a great teammate.

As I noted earlier, melo's best years came when he had decent PG play around him. Knicks management largely failed him in this regard post 2013. In 12-13, a merely average PG rotation of felton, kidd and prigioni was quite beneficial to him. In 13-14 felton was out of shape and kidd retired. After that:

14-15: Shane Larkin, Langston Galloway, 37 yr old Prigioni, 33 yr old Calderon

15-16: Langston Galloway, rookie Jerian Grant, 34 yr old Calderon — this PG rotation was so poor that Carmelo ended up leading the team in APG and just about equaled Calderon in AST%

16-17: Rose, Jennings, rookie Ron Baker

Jennings was really the one penetrate and dish PG the knicks had in those 3 seasons.  He even seemed to buy in to the fact that he couldn't shoot and really got everyone involved.  Of course, he had rose starting in front of him, so his time on the floor with melo was limited.  He was used more in bench lineups that actually thrived, relatively speaking.

In an era where dynamic PG play is paramount, knicks management abhorrently ignored the position.  I don’t think you can find such ineptitude in a front office with playoff aspirations outside of the cousins-era kings.  

Then we get to the clutch play.  82games.com looked at shot data from '04-'09 in the regular season + '04-'08 in the post season.  Carmelo was 6th in the league in game winners, but #1 in the league by far in FG% on game winners at 48.1%:

http://82games.com/gamewinningshots.htm

By 2011, he already had enough game winners to choose from to create a top 10 for his career:

Watch on YouTube

For clutch data from 2000-2012, carmelo was 7th in the league in FG%, and 50% of his FGs were assisted, which is interesting to note for being criticized for holding the ball too long.

http://bit.ly/1wnySdJ

[I’d obviously prefer eFG% or TS% for these figures, but they weren’t available here]

Carmelo gets a decent amount of flack for his playoff resume, and I think it’s a little overstated, so I’d like to provide some context for each season.  It also seems to get pushed aside that making the playoffs 10 seasons in a row is no big deal or something, especially when the majority of them came out west.  Below is carmelo’s team SRS rank and the opponent’s SRS rank that he lost to in the playoffs in his prime.

CARMELO SRS RANK / OPPONENT SRS RANK
'04 - 11th / 2nd
'05 - 10th / 1st (eventual NBA champion spurs)
'06 - 15th / 9th
'07 - 9th / 1st (eventual NBA champion spurs)
'08 - 11th / 2nd
'09 - 8th / 3rd (eventual NBA champion lakers)
'10 - 8th / 3rd
'11 - 15th / 6th
'12 - 11th / 4th (eventual NBA champion heat)
'13 - 7th / 9th

Aside from 2013, the team he lost to has always been favored in SRS, with 4 of the 10 series losses coming to the eventual NBA champs.  To me, this doesn’t reflect a player who’s come up short when he’s been expected to go farther in the playoffs.  You can make the argument that if he was a better player, he may have been favored in more series, but that only goes so far.  

Some details on his later playoff appearances:

'09 - This run to the WCF almost gets glossed over at times.  Nuggets were 2 wins away from the finals, losing to the eventual NBA champion lakers, who were just flat out the better team. He had some great performances during that run.

'11 -  Billups gets hurt in game 1 against boston (out for rest of series), then amare gets hurt in game 2 only playing 17 min.  First 2 games are decided by 2 and 3 points respectively.  

Tony douglas forced to play PG for the rest of the series, basically putting it out of reach.

'12 - Disastrous number of injuries.  Tyson chandler finishes off a DPOY season, and of course gets the flu as soon as the playoffs start.  Lin doesn’t come back for the playoffs, shumpert and douglas only play 1 game a piece, baron davis eventually goes down, and the knicks are only left with 33 yr old mike bibby to run the point, who already had 1 foot in retirement.

'13 - First time since carmelo came to the knicks that they really looked like a team who could make a run to the finals.  PG play was always an issue prior to this season, and felton came up big in the 1st round against boston.  Ball movement flowing with kidd and prigioni as well.  Then in the 2nd round against indiana, chandler again doesn’t look himself, which would later be revealed that he had an “undisclosed illness” during the series.  I think there’s a good chance they beat the pacers with a healthy chandler, and who knows what happens from there.

Here are the best players carmelo’s played with in his prime: andre miller (first few seasons of carmelo's career), kenyon martin (often injured), post 30s iverson, camby (often injured), JR smith, nene (often injured), billups, afflalo, amare (often injured), tyson chandler (often injured), kidd in his last season, in shape felton and porzingis' rookie/soph year.  

Outside of iverson, that’s a collection of good players, but nothing that screams "consistent second option", or even "consistent first option" if you want to push carmelo down a notch.  Porzingis and carmelo actually had great chemistry until rose came along, but their timelines unfortunately didn't match up.  Fit is clearly important, too, and while iverson and carmelo never had "problems" with each other, it wasn't working.  It’s not an accident that carmelo’s best seasons came with billups running the show in 2009 and a knicks team in 2013 which focused heavily on keeping the ball moving and quick decision making.

When he made it to OKC with westbrook and george it was just too little too late. Not denying the growing pains, but he was in year 15 and not the same player since his knee surgery. Took him time to adjust his game to a true role player like he did with the blazers and the lakers. 

[AEnigma]

Late in the game here and sorry if it's already been discussed, but what swayed Chet Walker over Hal Greer? For what it's worth I'd have them both in the top 100.

Speaking for myself, more impressed by his peak/prime and by his results as an ostensible team leader. I also give Chet credit for more total postseasons because of Greer’s functional absence in 1962.

Highlighting what may be some influencing factors on Clyde here:

Hal Greer will have the most all-league selections without being inducted (or nominated). He is tied for second-most all-star appearances without being inducted (or nominated).

[trex_8063]

On the topic of Chris Bosh.....

I'm going to come at it from a different angle, that of sort of arbitrary (though nonetheless relevant [perhaps]) benchmarks or thresholds......and then whittle things down by adding other thresholds. Yes, again I acknowledge this is arbitrary, and even a bit cherry-picky; yet some of the thresholds have been expressly cited as important or relevant to various posters.
Additionally, I think it can scarcely be denied that, once a few are layered on top of each other, we're talking about a pretty historically relevant player.......


How many NON-inducted players ever received 11 [or more] All-Star selections?
Just one: Chris Bosh
No additional whittling necessary; he is the stand-alone among all non-inducted players in this. I realize that's just a media-awarded accolade, which is frequently mis-assigned; however, his 11 nods is not like Kobe's 9 All-Defensive Team honours, nor even like Gary Payton's 9 All-D honours: most of them are legitimately earned.


So let's use the same starter, but make it a little wider/more permissive.....
How many NON-inducted players ever received 10 [or more] All-Star selection?
Three: Hal Greer, Carmelo Anthony, and Chris Bosh.

How many of ^^^those also have an All-NBA honour? All three, so that doesn't narrow the field.
How many of them also won a chip [as a starter, no less]? Two: Hal Greer and Chris Bosh.
How many of them won TWO titles as a starter? Only Chris Bosh.

Or suppose we leave it at the threshold of ONE title [still have Bosh and Greer], but then for the other NON era-relativists ask: which of those careers occurred in the post-merger era? Again, only Chris Bosh.

fwiw, I could widen the All-Star requirement to 9, but that adds only ONE player to the starting pool [Lenny Wilkens], and he would be eliminated by any one of the follow-up categories (no All-NBA honours, no titles, did not play in post-merger league).


How many NON-inducted players scored at least 17,000 career pts and had at least 26,000 pts+reb+ast?
Ok, actually quite a few (32, to be precise), though some of the names constitute some pretty strong company:
George McGinnis, Spencer Haywood, Grant Hill, Chris Webber, Kevin Willis, Otis Thorpe, Rudy Gay, Bailey Howell, Lenny Wilkens, Dave Bing, Zach Randolph, Chet Walker, Jason Terry, Reggie Theus, Gail Goodrich, Eddie Johnson, Terry Cummings, Walter Davis, Clifford Robinson, Bernard King, Antawn Jamison, Tom Chambers, Joe Johnson, Mitch Richmond, Walt Bellamy, Hal Greer, DeMar DeRozan, LaMarcus Aldridge, Alex English, Dan Issel, Carmelo Anthony......and Chris Bosh.

Now, I could again utilize the "who has a title [as a starter]" question, and that's going to narrow the field DRAMATICALLY (I think down to just six: Chet Walker, Hal Greer [same team as Walker], Gail Goodrich, Jason Terry, Bailey Howell, and Chris Bosh). And if I stipulated TWO titles, then it's down to just Bosh and Howell (and only one of them was in the post-merger era)......

Or I could use some threshold of All-Stars or All-NBAs again, too.....

But let's instead use another statistical requirement; how about something that hones in on efficiency (since we're starting with a field based upon mass of box production)?

I could go with turnover economy; something like fewer than 2,000 career TO's [Bosh had just 1,807, btw]. That would also narrow the field substantially (Aldridge still makes the cut easily, but most do not). However, we don't have turnover data for the old guys.

So we'll use relative shooting efficiency: how many of those 32 players ALSO had a positive career TS Add (like even +0.1)?
Well, now the field's down to 22, because the following are all removed: LaMarcus Aldridge [barely, though again: TO's], George McGinnis, Chris Webber, Kevin Willis, Rudy Gay, Eddie Johnson, Terry Cummings, Clifford Robinson, Antawn Jamison, and Joe Johnson.

To whittle further, how about a more relevant positive TS Add?......How many of those 22 would still remain if we required at least 500 TS Add?
Down to a pool of just 14 [slightly more distinguished] players: Grant Hill, Otis Thorpe, Bailey Howell, Lenny Wilkens, Chet Walker, Jason Terry, Hal Greer, Walter Davis, Bernard King [very turnover-prone, however], Mitch Richmond, Walt Bellamy, Alex English, Dan Issel.....and Chris Bosh.

What about at least 1000 TS Add?
Now it's just six: Otis Thorpe, Bailey Howell, Chet Walker, Walt Bellamy, Dan Issel, and Chris Bosh.


How many of those six won a title?
Bailey Howell, Chet Walker, and Chris Bosh.

How many won TWO? Bailey Howell and Chris Bosh.
How many in the post-merger era? Or with 9+ All-Star selections, etc (you get the point)? Chris Bosh.


Was going to do more of these, but it's taking longer than I thought.
To me, he's just such an easy inclusion in the top 100. The combination of peak play, overall prime/career player quality, versatility/adaptability and spacing, longevity, individual accomplishment, team accomplishment (all in a super-competitive era), quality as a teammate, etc........his candidacy is a slam-dunk to me.

[OhayoKD]

\Vote

1. Luka Donicic

Best player left, strong impact profile over larger samples, paticularly with playoff elevation, best era. on the shortlist of most talented players ever

2. Bob Davies

Second best player of Mikan's era, probably should have gone ahead of other 50's stars.


Nomination

1. Marc Gasol

He seems to have some legitimate prospects now, so I'll start a more concentrated push. First some data:

2010-18: +1.2 net rating / 47-win pace with,

-5.3 net rating / 31-win pace without

[/quote]

As a lead, Gasol led good teams, and even an arguable contender with the 2015 Grizzlies posting impact significantly better than multiple players who have been voted ahead of him peaking as the best paint-protector and, at least arguably, defender in the league.

As a supplementary piece, Gasol anchored one of the best playoff defenses en route to a title and a great 2-season defense that contended even without a certain Kawhi Leonard(#35). When he left, so did the concept of Toronto as a strong defense, and consequently, as a relevant team. 

To put it simply, he was more proven as a lead than Bosh or Worthy, and as a supplementary figure he excelled post-prime with minimal opportunity.

I also think it's notable that Toronto never really showed the ability to withstand Gasol's absence in a playoff setting being way worse before and way worse after. The Lakers were able to win 2 conference final games and make the finals with worthy as a non-factor. Similarly, the Heat won a series against a decent opponent without Bosh and won in spite of him missing half the playoffs.

All considered, I think he's the best candidate left.


2. Connie Hawkins

Would prefer to vote for gasol but may swap depending on who gets support.

[eminence]

Vote #1: Bob Davies
-Best 1st generation combination of scoring/assisting, it tended to be more split than it is now (things like Phillip getting a lot of assists, but Arizin/Fulks carrying the scoring load, fewer Harden/Luka top of the league in both sorts)
-Great team success as the lead decision maker for a team that consistently won with its offense

Vote #2: Chet Walker
-Luka seems to be running away with the round, but just getting it in here that I've decided to go with Chet narrowly over Worthy, wasn't a comp I'd thought about much before, but it's a pretty good one

Nomination #1: Chris Bosh
-Trex laid out a pretty solid list of his accomplishments a couple of posts up
-Accomplished all that as a versatile big, probably the most perpetually useful type of NBA player

Nomination #2: Hal Greer
-He won't be getting in, but wanted to give a nod to a guy who's pretty cleanly in my own top 100
-I have him as the fairly clear #2 guy on the '67 Sixers, and that's quite an accomplishment
-No strong preferences between guys in the running (seems like Connie/Gasol vs Bosh)

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Induction Vote #1: Cliff Hagan
Induction Vote #2: Chet Walker

I think Hagan is the best era-relative player here, not including Luka, who I feel does not have enough longevity or playoff accomplishment to be making his list yet.

Nomination Vote #1: Connie Hawkins
Nomination Vote #2: Chris Bosh

Struggled with Hawkins and Bosh, but it seems like Hawk has the votes already and maybe a slightly higher peak

[Doctor MJ]

Personal vote:

Induction 1: Bob Davies
Induction 2: Cliff Hagan

Continuing to support these old-timers for reasons specified many times, and now...

Nomination 1: Connie Hawkins
Nomination 2: Zelmo Beaty

Going with these guys for the nominees.

So first, Hawk's my guy as folks know. I see him as someone who showed he could be ultra-dominant in the pros when he had all his tools, and his set of tools was unlike anyone else.

But clearly with all 4 guys you're seeing me favor more dominant older players while others favor guys from more recent eras, and also how often have longer longevity. Completely understand why others side with those other guys.

Last note: I will say I haven't thrown Bosh totally off to the side. Will consider him for next round as I definitely see him as a serious contender.

[Doctor MJ]

Tallies:

Induction 1:

Luka - 5 (AEnigma, beast, f4p, LA Bird, hcl)
Hagan - 2 (Samurai, OSNB)
Davies - 3 (trelos, eminence, Doc)
Worthy - 2 (trex, Clyde)

Comes down to Luka vs Davies, but the only shift there comes from 1 more vote (Samurai) going to Luka.

Luka Doncic 6, Bob Davies 3
Luka Doncic is Inducted at #98.


Nomination 1:

Hawk - 4 (AEnigma, LA Bird, OSNB, Doc)
Lucas - 1 (Samurai)
Daniels - 1 (beast)
Bosh - 2 (trelos, trex, eminence)
Gasol - 2 (hcl, Ohayo)
Melo - 1 (Clyde)
none - 1 (f4p)

Comes down to Hawk vs Bosh, but the only shifts are 2 more (Samurai, beast) for Hawk.

Connie Hawkins 6, Chris Bosh 3
Connie Hawkins is added to Nominee list.

[eminence]

I also had a nomination vote for Bosh, though I don't believe it changes the outcome.

[Doctor MJ]

I also had a nomination vote for Bosh, though I don't believe it changes the outcome.

My apologies. I believe I've fixed it now.