Jordan: I could score 100 in current NBA

[Gustavus Adolphus]

I'm more concerned that Lefty doesn't give any dap to Walt Frazier.

 

[RamiTheBullsFan]

Aside from a championship ring??

37% vs 32% in three point shots
Gets to the free throw line much more than Clyde did
Better offensive win share over the career
Better defensive win share over the career


Clyde was a better rebounder though.

And passer, and overall scorer... I strongly disagree with any arguement that Pierce>Drexler, but hey... that's me.

And Drexler has a championship ring. He may not have a finals' MVP, but even a player like Tony Parker can get one of those.

 

[RamiTheBullsFan]

Also, I feel like KG was the best player on that 2008 Celtics' team. So I would say that both Drexler and Pierce have a ring as the 2nd best player on each of their respective teams. That's my opinion, at least.

"defensive win shares" is a stat that has a lot to do with the type of defensive players surrounded by that paticular player on the same team; Manu Ginobili has one of the better "defensive win-shares" in NBA history for a reason... (Bowen, Duncan, Popovich's system, etc.)

 

[Lefty]

Prope, Drexler was barely a better rebounder than Pierce, we're talking 0.5 rebounds per 36 minutes here.

And passer,

So what?

and overall scorer...

No, you dolt. How many times does it need to be pointed out to you that this is not the case? Pierce and Drexler are close in PP36, but as I have pointed out to you before, when you account for the scoring environment the two have played in, Pierce emerges as the better scorer by far (Pierce averages 24.2 PP36 adjusted to Drexler's era). What's more, the two of them have equal career Effective Field Goal Percentages, at .495, and Pierce bests Drexler in True Shooting Percentage, which takes into accounts free-throws as well as 2- and 3-point shots.

So then, since Pierce is clearly the better context-adjusted scorer (you would have to be an imbecile to argue this point further), and because scoring is more important in the NBA than anything else, Pierce is worth more than Drexler, even after you take into account Drexler's assist totals, because Pierce out-performed Drexler by a wide margin in the most important facet of basketball. It's really not that hard to understand.

I strongly disagree with any arguement that Pierce>Drexler, but hey... that's me.

Oh, so you're completely biased on top of being irrevocably dense? Fantastic. You are clearly not a rational person, and it seems that you have absolutely no control over your biases, whatever they may be. This leads you to making outlandish points and sticking to them regardless of what facts are presented to you, while offering little more than "I'm right" in response. FT was right: do everyone a favor and just stop talking about basketball.

 

[RamiTheBullsFan]

Well, luckily for me, I don't really care what a couple of trolls think of me. And I'm smart enough at this point to know that making a case for what I believe to you would be an epic waste of time, and merely would help you get off n get your jollies.

 

[Lefty]

There is no case for you to make. None. You have indicated that your case hinges on Drexler being a better overall scorer than Pierce, which I have shown (twice now, though you still don't seem to get it, which I guess isn't all that much of a surprise) to not be the case. Drexler didn't out-class Pierce in any categories like Jordan did to him, so scoring is really the only way Drexler would be able to come out ahead of Pierce, and it has been shown that he doesn't. You have no credible case to make, and anything you say after this is just you incessantly rambling on about your biased beliefs, for which you do not have a leg to stand on. Get lost from the basketball section.

 

[RamiTheBullsFan]

What are you talking about? If I really wanted to make a "case" I would have. I merely threw in a couple of points for Prope to consider and respectfully disagreed with him. That was it. I'm not spending countless hours debating stuff on a basketball forum.

 

[Lefty]

And I'm sure any case you made would have been just as easily ripped apart as the stupid ass points you offered up. You're a joke.

 

[RamiTheBullsFan]

Lefty, you think you know everything about everything- much like FT. But, when it comes to basketball, you go out on a limb way too much and you aren't actually the God of NBA knowledge. Sorry to dissappoint you.

 

[FirstTimer]

Lefty, you think you know everything about everything- much like FT. But, when it comes to basketball, you go out on a limb way too much and you aren't actually the God of NBA knowledge. Sorry to dissappoint you.

I prefer Drexler over Pierce but I also realize that there isn't a real statistical argument to be made over the course of their careers that i really want to dive into so I'm not going to fight Lefty on it too much. The one thing I will say though in Drexler's defense is that at his peak I believe he was better than Pierce and a more well regarded/respected player in comparison to his peers. In fairness Drexler is seen by many as one of the Top10 players at his position all time. Pierce I'm not sure will ever break into that. It's arbitrary and not objective I know but I've never been a huge fan of Per36 stats and also aren't a huge fan of trying to apply sabremetric-esque statistic analysis to basketball.

 

[Gustavus Adolphus]

Whoah, whoah, whoah......saying I would take Pierce over Drexler is not anything the same as me thinking Drexler is anywhere near Jordan. Don't think for a second I was ever considering Pierce or Drexler in the company of Jordan. Never, never, never.


And I still want to know where is the DAP for Walt Frazier?

 

[Gustavus Adolphus]

Walt Frazier NBA & ABA Statistics | Basketball-Reference.com

 

[Lefty]

It's arbitrary and objective I know but I've never been a huge fan of Per36 stats and also aren't a huge fan of trying to apply sabremetric-esque statistic analysis to basketball.

It's not overly-sbrmetric, though, it's giving these numbers context. Drexler and Pierce are close, statistically speaking, when you look at their career numbers, but what those numbers don't tell you is what the league as a whole was doing at that time, and how that player's contribution looks against the backdrop of the league. It isn't some whimsical formula that few people know and fewer still understand, and it isn't attempting to break the game down into different probabilities and ratios, it's simply giving the numbers a sense of context so they can be better compared against one another.

Think about it, if there were two completely independent basketball leagues, one in which the average team scored 10 points a game and in the other 100, and we are looking at two very similar statistical players, both averaging 20 PPG. Their context-independent stat lines would put them on roughly equal footing. But when we consider the context of each respective player's league, we can understand that players that put up 20 PPG in the 10-point league have done a lot more than similarly situated scorers in the 100-point league. They may have been similar in their raw stats, but the contribution of the players in the 10-point league is inherently more valuable, and they are thus better than their counterparts in the 100-point league.

And so, because we can adjust for context (which doesn't include reducing games to math equations or anything like that), we know that if player X put up 20 PPG in the 10-point league and player Y put up 20 PPG in the 100-point league, we can see that player X was way more valuable to his team than player Y, and is better because of it. This assertion may offend the senses at first, but it is really the only logical conclusion to be had outside of a few instances at the extremes (like, if player X turned out to be some kid in a YMCA league and player Y was an NBA regular), but all other things roughly being equal (I don't think the NBA has gone from a Superstar League to YMCA-level over the time separating Drexler and Pierce, do you?), that is the conclusion one must eventually come to.

 

[FirstTimer]

It's not overly-sbrmetric, though, it's giving these numbers context.

Yeah, but it's not giving the players themselves context. And in all honesty basketball is such a team driven game that at time individual statistics may not be the end all be all indicator of things. For example most of Pierce's higher PPG came along side Antione Walker. Drexler was splitting points with guys like Terry Porter, Cliff Robinson, Duckworth, Kersey and Williams. Some of those early 90's Portland teams had 5-7 guys averaging double digit points. Drexler assimilating himself into that team and system and taking a scoring hit isn't exactly a bad thing when you look at how good those Portland teams were and how many games they won. Although your analysis puts Drexler's points in context of what the league was doing it overlooks the more important and basic context of what his team was doing and how it was constructed. Especially after Drexler willingly cut his scoring to spread the ball around more and make Portland better. I think most basketball experts would take Drexler over Pierce in a heartbeat and I'm in that group.

Like I said, many consider Drexler a top 10 SG of all time. Is Pierce a top 10 SF of all time? I doubt you'd find many that would put him in that catagory.


Basketball is too much of a team game IMO to simply rely on statistically analyzing what the individual did relative to the league and make a judgement based on that.

 

[TheStig]

Statistical context please. You talk about higher team scoring but ignore the rule changes that made game much more perimeter oriented. If someone sneezes near Wade he gets to free throws. Meanwhile in Drexler's era they could hold grab and not get the calls on the perimeter. Your telling me that isn't a big factor for scoring guards? Drexler would probably double his free throws playing today, which would boost a lot of his scoring and efficiency numbers across the board.

Also despite a lower scoring game Wade has a much higher usage rate that makes up for whatever team scoring difference there was. The game has definitely become more perimeter oriented and the rules have changed to give them a big advantage.

 

[Lefty]

Statistical context please. You talk about higher team scoring but ignore the rule changes that made game much more perimeter oriented. If someone sneezes near Wade he gets to free throws. Meanwhile in Drexler's era they could hold grab and not get the calls on the perimeter. Your telling me that isn't a big factor for scoring guards? Drexler would probably double his free throws playing today, which would boost a lot of his scoring and efficiency numbers across the board.

Also despite a lower scoring game Wade has a much higher usage rate that makes up for whatever team scoring difference there was.

1) Who the hell was talking about Wade?

2) You cannot say with any certainty that Drexler would have excelled in this era of basketball for any particular reason. You just can't. It may sound nice, it may even be logical, but you lack descriptive and predictive tools necessary to make that call, and doing so anyway is just erroneous ass-talking again. All we can really know for sure is that the game was a much better scoring environment some 20 years ago than it is today, and players in recent times receive a value boost because of it.

The game has definitely become more perimeter oriented and the rules have changed to give them a big advantage.

Then why hasn't this "advantage" manifested in supremely higher scoring averages per game across the league? Someone needs to answer this before anyone else can say "yeah, well the game is more perimeter oriented now, and that gives them a huge advantage". We've already established that this advantage doesn't show up in overall scoring environment, and we've also seen that it doesn't show up in the number of fouls called per game per era, so where does it come up? I'm sick of people getting away with just generalizing bullshit like this; where does this supposed "advantage" come up? Explain yourself and show your work, otherwise shut the **** up about it.

 

[TheStig]

1) Who the hell was talking about Wade?

2) You cannot say with any certainty that Drexler would have excelled in this era of basketball for any particular reason. You just can't. It may sound nice, it may even be logical, but you lack descriptive and predictive tools necessary to make that call, and doing so anyway is just erroneous ass-talking again. All we can really know for sure is that the game was a much better scoring environment some 20 years ago than it is today, and players in recent times receive a value boost because of it.



Then why hasn't this "advantage" manifested in supremely higher scoring averages per game across the league? Someone needs to answer this before anyone else can say "yeah, well the game is more perimeter oriented now, and that gives them a huge advantage". We've already established that this advantage doesn't show up in overall scoring environment, and we've also seen that it doesn't show up in the number of fouls called per game per era, so where does it come up? I'm sick of people getting away with just generalizing bullshit like this; where does this supposed "advantage" come up? Explain yourself and show your work, otherwise shut the **** up about it.

First, I was talking about Wade and it also applies to Paul Pierce. Secondly, this is a discussion thread not an advanced statistics class. You can certainly apply that the game going from post dominated to perimeter oriented would have increased Drexler's usage and impact on the game. Furthermore, the rule changes, getting rid of hand checking and calling ticky tack fouls would have certainly opened things up. Thats what MJ said and I agree with it. Wade wouldn't have his guady numbers playing in that era.

It has for perimeter scorers. How many years in that era did you not have a post scorer in the top 5 in scoring? It happened last year. The game is perimeter oriented. Drexler certainly would have benefited from that. He'd have added at least 3-4 fta a game and it would have increased his efficiency across the board.

 

[Lefty]

First, I was talking about Wade and it also applies to Paul Pierce. Secondly, this is a discussion thread not an advanced statistics class. You can certainly apply that the game going from post dominated to perimeter oriented would have increased Drexler's usage and impact on the game. Furthermore, the rule changes, getting rid of hand checking and calling ticky tack fouls would have certainly opened things up. Thats what MJ said and I agree with it. Wade wouldn't have his guady numbers playing in that era.

It has for perimeter scorers. How many years in that era did you not have a post scorer in the top 5 in scoring? It happened last year. The game is perimeter oriented. Drexler certainly would have benefited from that. He'd have added at least 3-4 fta a game and it would have increased his efficiency across the board.

Wait, do you mean that the calling of ticky-tack fouls has increased, and because of that Drexler would have seen more trips to the foul line?

 

[TheStig]

Wait, do you mean that the calling of ticky-tack fouls has increased, and because of that Drexler would have seen more trips to the foul line?

Yeah, with no hand checking the lane has really opened up for guards. The rule changes have made the game more perimeter oriented.

 

[Lefty]

Oh, well that's interesting, because the number of fouls per game has actually gone down from Drexler's day, and with the, as you said, increase in ticky-tack fouls and with hand-checking getting called, wouldn't we expect to see more fouls per game? Got any other ones?