"I do not do cross-era comparisons." - David Jacoby
That's how a lot of smart people view the NBA throughout history, as distinct eras, each with their most dominant players and most dominant teams - the 1960s with Russell's Celtics battling the individual greatness of Wilt, the coke-addled 70s with the rise of Kareem, the star power of the 1980s, featuring Magic's Lakers, Bird's Celtics, the Bad Boy Pistons, and Dr. J's Sixers, Jordan in the 90s, the barren wasteland of the early to mid-2000s with Shaq and Kobe, and then LeBron's world.
Another way to distinguish these eras are through playing styles: The 1970s were all about gliding as close to the hoop and making smooth finishes near the rim. The 1980s were about pushing the pace and finding an open man in space. Jordan ushered in an era of hero ball with an emphasis on surrounding good post up players with cutting (i.e. MJ in Chicago, Hakeem in Houston, and Ewing in New York), something that continued on with the dominant bigs of the early 2000s (Shaq, Duncan, Garnett, and Webber). The early to mid-2000s also brought back the ball dominant wing, who loved taking control of the team (Iverson, Kobe, T-Mac, Carter), continued on with LeBron and Wade, to an extent. Now, the playing style is veering back to the 1980s - fluid, team-oriented offense, high pace, with more of an emphasis on shooting and space.
And that's your quick basketball history lesson for the day. I wanted to run through that quickly as a baseline for this column. Through the years, there's always been a handful of players in the NBA who have faltered, solely because the league was either a couple years away from or a couple years removed from the style of play that would let them flourish.
There are some obviously examples of players that can be plugged into any era. Like putting MJ in today's league isn't going to change his career. Larry Bird as a stretch four in this league is also an obvious pick. Melo in the late 70s and early 80s would be perfect, bullying players for mid-range jumpers from the low post. LeBron in the 80s as a better scoring, better defending Magic is scary to think about. Let's talk about some of these players, both new and old. This one's going to be a doozy, so bear with me.
Jahlil Okafor
I could have easily put Greg Monroe or Brook Lopez in this slot, but both of those players had productive stretches in their career. I don't want to deem prematurely that Okafor's time in the NBA will be a bust, but his first year and a quarter have been a little odd, for lack of a better term. I feel for Okafor, a plodding, huge center with brilliant footwork on the block, soft touch on hook shots and runners. He also has a beautiful face-up game, sizing up slower centers with his fleet-footed blow bys and an array of head fakes. He also has great handles for a big man, especially such a young one. Watch him keep Nikola Vucevic on his toes as he glides into the lane and finishes through him, a show of pure grace, precise footwork, and strength.
So, at first glance, we have a center who can easily get 20 points a night if he gets the minutes. But why doesn't he fit in the current NBA? We don't need to peel away too many layers before it becomes obvious. If Okafor can't get within 7 or 8 feet of the tin, his awkward, but effective, runners and hooks become entirely inefficient. Just outside 3 feet, Okafor is only a 40% paint shooter, down from 80% around the rime, and beyond 10 feet, his field goal percentage drops even further. In that very same game against the Magic, Okafor catches the ball on the elbow, the most effective spot for the modern big, and has no idea what to do. Instead of probing the defense with a couple dribbles in the post, he backs down Vucevic and throws up a shot.
Take a look at these post-up plays. Each time, Okafor catches the ball at an awkward angle against the stronger and bigger Roy Hibbert. Obviously, he can't back him down for a suitable shot, so, instead, he fades away and makes his lack of shooting touch wholly apparent.
Defense is another issue for Okafor, but it's easy why he's a bad defender - he doesn't understand defensive help rotations and lacks timing when he tries to block shots. His low defensive rebounding percentage doesn't do him any favors either. Let's plug Okafor into the early 2000s, right after the lockout season when teams featured Duncan and Robinson, Ewing and Larry Johnson, Shaq on the Lakers, Mourning on the Heat, Kevin Garnett, Webber, Sheed, McDyess, all playing with their backs to the basket (Wallace and McDyess played a little more faceup, but still post-up centric players nonetheless). Entire offenses were based on the slow-pace, limited possessions with multiple post-entry and re-entry passes. Okafor could flourish alongside another center or large power forward, a player who wouldn't need the ball and could do all the dirty work Okafor is averse to. Slide him in next to a high energy big like Theo Ratliff or Lorenzen Wright, and we'd have a frontcourt that could pull a team to the playoffs.
Peja Stojakovic
Drafted in 1999, years before the influx of three-point shooting, Peja Stojakovic made his mark on a Sacramento Kings team that was ahead of its time, playing a motion offense with constant post-playmaking from Chris Webber and Vlade Divac. The point guards for those teams were all quick, flashy guards, in Mike Bibby, Jason Williams, and Bobby Jackson. Check out the beautiful ball movement that this team exhibited.
Looks a lot like the current edition of the Warriors, doesn't it? But here's the key difference. The Kings would move the ball and find easy layups for their bigs and the last option would be a bomb from the outside from Peja or Bibby. The Warriors, however, search for threes, because tautologically three's more than two. On those fluid Kings, Peja, a career 40% three point shooter, never averaged more than 7 threes a game. That was the most potent offensive team that could create spacing for any shot just with their ball movement.
The other thing about Peja was that he was a pretty decent defensive rebounder, given the dominant bigs he played alongside. He was also an adept secondary playmaker, catching the ball on spot-ups and head-faking his way into drives. He also shot a remarkable number of free throws for a primarily spot-up shooter. Now, consider Ryan Anderson's role on the Houston Rockets. Almost 60% of his shots are spot-up three pointers, and more than 70% are shots beyond 16 feet. His total rebound percentage is right around 10%, meaning he secures one out of ten caroms on either side of the ball. In his heyday, Peja's rebounded at around 8-9% at the small forward position, flanked by two good to great rebounders.
It's my belief that Peja could fit in today's NBA as a lethal stretch four. He could play in pick and pop situations with a ball-dominant guard, shooting more than 10 threes a game. He could also hold his own on the defensive boards, given he had a strong interior defender playing beside him. Sure, he'd be eaten alive on the block against players like Dirk and Kevin Love, but the lack of back-to-the-basket power forwards would be particularly beneficial for him. What would separate him from the regular stretch fours in the NBA right now like Anderson, Mirza Teletovic, and Channing Frye is his passing vision and touch. Because this... just this.
Eric Bledsoe
Mini-Lebron was built for the defense-first, low-scoring, attack-the-rim playing style of the early 2000s. Bledsoe does everything that a lead guard in 2016 needs to do:
He can play-make in the pick-and-roll.
He can score off the pick-and-roll.
He can defend lead guards and off-ball guards.
He can hero-ball his way into clutch shots.
But what he can't do is shoot from distance. He's a career 31% three point shooter, and as a lead guard in Phoenix, he's even less effective than that career average. But that's not an issue in the early 2000s. I don't think it's a stretch to claim that Eric Bledsoe is a better version of Baron Davis, a slashing lead guard who prospered with the Charlotte Hornets in the early 2000s. He wasn't the best distributor back then and wasn't a particularly good shooter either, but he was the most effective players on a good team. Bledsoe's defensive motor and attacking mentality would fit right in in the early aughts, especially with a strong post presence.
Grant Hill
There have been twelve players in NBA history with at least 5 complete seasons with 20 point, 5 assists, and 5 rebounds a game: LeBron leads the lot with 13, Bird and Oscar Robertson with 10, Kobe and MJ had 9, Clyde, Walt Frazier, Hondo, McGrady, and Jerry West had 6. Rick Barry had 5 such seasons. Grant Hill is the last on the list with 5 as well. Hill's rookie season would have counted if he had scored 6 more total points that season. (Sidenote: Russell Westbrook is going to join that club at the end of the season). Let that list sink in for a little bit. That's a list with the best playmaking wings and scoring point guards in NBA history. Now, we have to remember that Hill blew out his ankles after his sixth season in the NBA. So, let's look at the number of 20-5-5 seasons in a player's first six NBA seasons. Hill's tied for third on that list, behind LeBron and Oscar with 6 each.
Those number don't really mean much since 20-5-5 are arbitrary thresholds, but the point holds that Hill, at his career's best, was a lethal playmaking forward who shared the floor with ball-dominant wing in Jerry Stackhouse. But he was best as the lead guard on his team, facilitating from the high post or the wing. Grant Hill tape is hard to find, but look at his ball skills and his passing touch in these grainy Pistons highlights. Hill's playing style ushered in the ball dominant wing that's transformed the league after Jordan retired - the Tracy McGradys, Paul Georges, Jimmy Butlers, and dare I say, the LeBron Jameses.
It's true that Hill fit brilliantly in the mid-90s, and he aged into a really efficient three-and-D player with the Suns. But plug him in with a rim-running center, a stretch four, and a three-and-D backcourt, and you've got a playoff team, maybe even a deep playoff team. He never overused his athleticism; it was a means to an end, an afterburner of sorts. Hill was also a blend of the power that characterized the 80s and 90s and the finesse that the new century ushered in. Pippen and Kemp, finishers of yesteryears, would go through defenders to finish; MJ and Clyde would choose usually to evade defenders. Hill did both. Right when Hill started hitting his peak, the NBA started devolving into a trenchwar between plodding bigs. In fact, the Orlando Magic, when they signed Hill, were actually interested more in signing Tim Duncan to the team, to build a team that fit the system. Hill was simply insurance.
Hill's transformation into a defensive-minded, ball-moving shooter late in his career is also very important in the current NBA setting. The aging superstar who can willingly accept his role is an archetype that's often remiss. Vince Carter and possibly Paul Pierce are the only two wings that I can think of off-the-top of my head who fit that bill. But after years of playmaking at the highest level, a Grant Hill in today's NBA would accept his place as a role player and would fulfill it with the utmost level of care and precision.
Harrison Barnes
Coming out of North Carolina, Barnes garnered comparisons to Paul Pierce, Danny Granger, Glen Rice, and at a worst-case scenario, Dorell Wright. But, the most apt comparison, after a few years in the NBA, might be someone like Jamaal Mashburn, a player who flourished in the early 2000s.
Barnes's biggest asset is his size and athleticism on the block. The Warriors before Kerr and the Mavericks this year love running decoy sets to free up shooter because opposing defenses fear Barnes facing up slower power forwards and bully-balling smaller wings into turnaround jumpers. After coming to the Mavericks, Barnes has shown considerable prowess in creating from high-post situations, usually with action running around him and finding open cutters from the weakside.
Barnes is also a volume scorer, averaging just a shade over 20 points a game on nearly 18 shots a game. That doesn't mean he's an inefficient scorer; his splits are actually quite on par with his shooting with the Warriors, with a slight dip on three point field goal percentage, since he's shooting more contested threes. Barnes's workman-like demeanor en route to his scoring fits right into a scheme from the early 2000s. He could play on a slow-paced offensive team possibly as a large shooting guard, where he could pound the ball on offense and post and repost against smaller shooting guards.
Take Paul Pierce, for example, on the 2002-2003 Boston Celtics, who would operate exclusively from the right wing with Antoine Walker spaced out for him. He'd shoot 20 times a game for his 26 point nightly average on pretty bad 41/30/80 splits. Yet, Pierce was one of the most lethal scorers of the era. Barnes is bigger and quicker than Pierce, has better post up skills, and is a better shooter. It's not inconceivable to think that Barnes, only 12 years ago, could lead a team to strong regular season and deep playoff run as a primary scorer.
That's how a lot of smart people view the NBA throughout history, as distinct eras, each with their most dominant players and most dominant teams - the 1960s with Russell's Celtics battling the individual greatness of Wilt, the coke-addled 70s with the rise of Kareem, the star power of the 1980s, featuring Magic's Lakers, Bird's Celtics, the Bad Boy Pistons, and Dr. J's Sixers, Jordan in the 90s, the barren wasteland of the early to mid-2000s with Shaq and Kobe, and then LeBron's world.
Another way to distinguish these eras are through playing styles: The 1970s were all about gliding as close to the hoop and making smooth finishes near the rim. The 1980s were about pushing the pace and finding an open man in space. Jordan ushered in an era of hero ball with an emphasis on surrounding good post up players with cutting (i.e. MJ in Chicago, Hakeem in Houston, and Ewing in New York), something that continued on with the dominant bigs of the early 2000s (Shaq, Duncan, Garnett, and Webber). The early to mid-2000s also brought back the ball dominant wing, who loved taking control of the team (Iverson, Kobe, T-Mac, Carter), continued on with LeBron and Wade, to an extent. Now, the playing style is veering back to the 1980s - fluid, team-oriented offense, high pace, with more of an emphasis on shooting and space.
And that's your quick basketball history lesson for the day. I wanted to run through that quickly as a baseline for this column. Through the years, there's always been a handful of players in the NBA who have faltered, solely because the league was either a couple years away from or a couple years removed from the style of play that would let them flourish.
There are some obviously examples of players that can be plugged into any era. Like putting MJ in today's league isn't going to change his career. Larry Bird as a stretch four in this league is also an obvious pick. Melo in the late 70s and early 80s would be perfect, bullying players for mid-range jumpers from the low post. LeBron in the 80s as a better scoring, better defending Magic is scary to think about. Let's talk about some of these players, both new and old. This one's going to be a doozy, so bear with me.
Jahlil Okafor
I could have easily put Greg Monroe or Brook Lopez in this slot, but both of those players had productive stretches in their career. I don't want to deem prematurely that Okafor's time in the NBA will be a bust, but his first year and a quarter have been a little odd, for lack of a better term. I feel for Okafor, a plodding, huge center with brilliant footwork on the block, soft touch on hook shots and runners. He also has a beautiful face-up game, sizing up slower centers with his fleet-footed blow bys and an array of head fakes. He also has great handles for a big man, especially such a young one. Watch him keep Nikola Vucevic on his toes as he glides into the lane and finishes through him, a show of pure grace, precise footwork, and strength.
So, at first glance, we have a center who can easily get 20 points a night if he gets the minutes. But why doesn't he fit in the current NBA? We don't need to peel away too many layers before it becomes obvious. If Okafor can't get within 7 or 8 feet of the tin, his awkward, but effective, runners and hooks become entirely inefficient. Just outside 3 feet, Okafor is only a 40% paint shooter, down from 80% around the rime, and beyond 10 feet, his field goal percentage drops even further. In that very same game against the Magic, Okafor catches the ball on the elbow, the most effective spot for the modern big, and has no idea what to do. Instead of probing the defense with a couple dribbles in the post, he backs down Vucevic and throws up a shot.
Take a look at these post-up plays. Each time, Okafor catches the ball at an awkward angle against the stronger and bigger Roy Hibbert. Obviously, he can't back him down for a suitable shot, so, instead, he fades away and makes his lack of shooting touch wholly apparent.
Defense is another issue for Okafor, but it's easy why he's a bad defender - he doesn't understand defensive help rotations and lacks timing when he tries to block shots. His low defensive rebounding percentage doesn't do him any favors either. Let's plug Okafor into the early 2000s, right after the lockout season when teams featured Duncan and Robinson, Ewing and Larry Johnson, Shaq on the Lakers, Mourning on the Heat, Kevin Garnett, Webber, Sheed, McDyess, all playing with their backs to the basket (Wallace and McDyess played a little more faceup, but still post-up centric players nonetheless). Entire offenses were based on the slow-pace, limited possessions with multiple post-entry and re-entry passes. Okafor could flourish alongside another center or large power forward, a player who wouldn't need the ball and could do all the dirty work Okafor is averse to. Slide him in next to a high energy big like Theo Ratliff or Lorenzen Wright, and we'd have a frontcourt that could pull a team to the playoffs.
Peja Stojakovic
Drafted in 1999, years before the influx of three-point shooting, Peja Stojakovic made his mark on a Sacramento Kings team that was ahead of its time, playing a motion offense with constant post-playmaking from Chris Webber and Vlade Divac. The point guards for those teams were all quick, flashy guards, in Mike Bibby, Jason Williams, and Bobby Jackson. Check out the beautiful ball movement that this team exhibited.
Looks a lot like the current edition of the Warriors, doesn't it? But here's the key difference. The Kings would move the ball and find easy layups for their bigs and the last option would be a bomb from the outside from Peja or Bibby. The Warriors, however, search for threes, because tautologically three's more than two. On those fluid Kings, Peja, a career 40% three point shooter, never averaged more than 7 threes a game. That was the most potent offensive team that could create spacing for any shot just with their ball movement.
The other thing about Peja was that he was a pretty decent defensive rebounder, given the dominant bigs he played alongside. He was also an adept secondary playmaker, catching the ball on spot-ups and head-faking his way into drives. He also shot a remarkable number of free throws for a primarily spot-up shooter. Now, consider Ryan Anderson's role on the Houston Rockets. Almost 60% of his shots are spot-up three pointers, and more than 70% are shots beyond 16 feet. His total rebound percentage is right around 10%, meaning he secures one out of ten caroms on either side of the ball. In his heyday, Peja's rebounded at around 8-9% at the small forward position, flanked by two good to great rebounders.
It's my belief that Peja could fit in today's NBA as a lethal stretch four. He could play in pick and pop situations with a ball-dominant guard, shooting more than 10 threes a game. He could also hold his own on the defensive boards, given he had a strong interior defender playing beside him. Sure, he'd be eaten alive on the block against players like Dirk and Kevin Love, but the lack of back-to-the-basket power forwards would be particularly beneficial for him. What would separate him from the regular stretch fours in the NBA right now like Anderson, Mirza Teletovic, and Channing Frye is his passing vision and touch. Because this... just this.
Eric Bledsoe
Mini-Lebron was built for the defense-first, low-scoring, attack-the-rim playing style of the early 2000s. Bledsoe does everything that a lead guard in 2016 needs to do:
He can play-make in the pick-and-roll.
He can score off the pick-and-roll.
He can defend lead guards and off-ball guards.
He can hero-ball his way into clutch shots.
But what he can't do is shoot from distance. He's a career 31% three point shooter, and as a lead guard in Phoenix, he's even less effective than that career average. But that's not an issue in the early 2000s. I don't think it's a stretch to claim that Eric Bledsoe is a better version of Baron Davis, a slashing lead guard who prospered with the Charlotte Hornets in the early 2000s. He wasn't the best distributor back then and wasn't a particularly good shooter either, but he was the most effective players on a good team. Bledsoe's defensive motor and attacking mentality would fit right in in the early aughts, especially with a strong post presence.
Grant Hill
There have been twelve players in NBA history with at least 5 complete seasons with 20 point, 5 assists, and 5 rebounds a game: LeBron leads the lot with 13, Bird and Oscar Robertson with 10, Kobe and MJ had 9, Clyde, Walt Frazier, Hondo, McGrady, and Jerry West had 6. Rick Barry had 5 such seasons. Grant Hill is the last on the list with 5 as well. Hill's rookie season would have counted if he had scored 6 more total points that season. (Sidenote: Russell Westbrook is going to join that club at the end of the season). Let that list sink in for a little bit. That's a list with the best playmaking wings and scoring point guards in NBA history. Now, we have to remember that Hill blew out his ankles after his sixth season in the NBA. So, let's look at the number of 20-5-5 seasons in a player's first six NBA seasons. Hill's tied for third on that list, behind LeBron and Oscar with 6 each.
Those number don't really mean much since 20-5-5 are arbitrary thresholds, but the point holds that Hill, at his career's best, was a lethal playmaking forward who shared the floor with ball-dominant wing in Jerry Stackhouse. But he was best as the lead guard on his team, facilitating from the high post or the wing. Grant Hill tape is hard to find, but look at his ball skills and his passing touch in these grainy Pistons highlights. Hill's playing style ushered in the ball dominant wing that's transformed the league after Jordan retired - the Tracy McGradys, Paul Georges, Jimmy Butlers, and dare I say, the LeBron Jameses.
It's true that Hill fit brilliantly in the mid-90s, and he aged into a really efficient three-and-D player with the Suns. But plug him in with a rim-running center, a stretch four, and a three-and-D backcourt, and you've got a playoff team, maybe even a deep playoff team. He never overused his athleticism; it was a means to an end, an afterburner of sorts. Hill was also a blend of the power that characterized the 80s and 90s and the finesse that the new century ushered in. Pippen and Kemp, finishers of yesteryears, would go through defenders to finish; MJ and Clyde would choose usually to evade defenders. Hill did both. Right when Hill started hitting his peak, the NBA started devolving into a trenchwar between plodding bigs. In fact, the Orlando Magic, when they signed Hill, were actually interested more in signing Tim Duncan to the team, to build a team that fit the system. Hill was simply insurance.
Hill's transformation into a defensive-minded, ball-moving shooter late in his career is also very important in the current NBA setting. The aging superstar who can willingly accept his role is an archetype that's often remiss. Vince Carter and possibly Paul Pierce are the only two wings that I can think of off-the-top of my head who fit that bill. But after years of playmaking at the highest level, a Grant Hill in today's NBA would accept his place as a role player and would fulfill it with the utmost level of care and precision.
Harrison Barnes
Coming out of North Carolina, Barnes garnered comparisons to Paul Pierce, Danny Granger, Glen Rice, and at a worst-case scenario, Dorell Wright. But, the most apt comparison, after a few years in the NBA, might be someone like Jamaal Mashburn, a player who flourished in the early 2000s.
Barnes's biggest asset is his size and athleticism on the block. The Warriors before Kerr and the Mavericks this year love running decoy sets to free up shooter because opposing defenses fear Barnes facing up slower power forwards and bully-balling smaller wings into turnaround jumpers. After coming to the Mavericks, Barnes has shown considerable prowess in creating from high-post situations, usually with action running around him and finding open cutters from the weakside.
Barnes is also a volume scorer, averaging just a shade over 20 points a game on nearly 18 shots a game. That doesn't mean he's an inefficient scorer; his splits are actually quite on par with his shooting with the Warriors, with a slight dip on three point field goal percentage, since he's shooting more contested threes. Barnes's workman-like demeanor en route to his scoring fits right into a scheme from the early 2000s. He could play on a slow-paced offensive team possibly as a large shooting guard, where he could pound the ball on offense and post and repost against smaller shooting guards.
Take Paul Pierce, for example, on the 2002-2003 Boston Celtics, who would operate exclusively from the right wing with Antoine Walker spaced out for him. He'd shoot 20 times a game for his 26 point nightly average on pretty bad 41/30/80 splits. Yet, Pierce was one of the most lethal scorers of the era. Barnes is bigger and quicker than Pierce, has better post up skills, and is a better shooter. It's not inconceivable to think that Barnes, only 12 years ago, could lead a team to strong regular season and deep playoff run as a primary scorer.
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