POINT FORWARD

basketball webzine based out of Gainesville, FL. we post about your favorite historical players on their birthdays a couple times a week, plus we do some occasional op-eds.

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blue jersey, blue collar.

As a 6′9″ 240 lb center in early/mid-2000s, Ben Wallace was frequently matched up against guys that were much taller and heavier than he was. However, his scrappy, blue-collar ethic and almost unparalleled strength allowed him to be arguably the best rebounder and low post defender of his era. Here’s a few stats that might help show his effectiveness as a rebounder:

The only player with more seasons averaging 10 or more rebounds per game and fewer than 10 points per game is Dennis Rodman with 8 (Wallace had 7).

Big Ben also stands alone with 7 seasons of 10+ RPG, fewer than 10 PPG, and 2+ BPG. Next is Marcus Camby and Mark Eaton tied at 2.

He’s also tied for third all-time in total seasons with a Defensive Rating better than 100, with 9. Tied with him? KG and Hakeem. Ahead of him? David Robinson and Tim Duncan.

He is one of 10 players since 1983 with multiple games of 10+ rebounds and 10+ blocks.

Only Shawn Bradley (30) has more career games of 10+ rebounds, 5+ blocks, and 5 or fewer points - Wallace and Manute Bol are tied with 16.

His 02-03 campaign saw a defensive rebound percentage of 34.94% - the fifth best single-season mark ever. His career mark is 12th all-time (career ORB% is 19th all-time, TRB% is 11th).

With Big Ben running the frontcourt, the Pistons were able to make consistent deep playoff runs, including multiple Finals appearances and a championship in 2004. His ability to give his team second-chance opportunities not only helped the Pistons’ otherwise-sluggish offense put enough points on the board to win games, but it also deflated their opponents - this was invaluable in playoff series that often became low-scoring wars of attrition (generally characteristic of Pistons teams, especially during this era).

Aside from Dennis Rodman or Bill Russell, there aren’t really many other players who were able to impact the game they way Big Ben did and play that inglorious role as effectively or with as much dedication as he did. These guys were frontcourt floor generals who could force turnovers and completely change the trajectory of the game without them even scoring a point.

This role never really brought these men the amount of attention they deserved, but that’s probably how they wanted it. It’s no coincidence that 2 out of those 3 were Detroit Pistons, either. The franchise’s entire culture has been built around doing the “dirty work” since the 1980′s Bad Boys teams.

Just like Rodman and Russell, Wallace gave some of the best big men of all time absolute fits during the postseason. Just ask Shaq.

Many casual fans don’t really see the importance these types of players have on championship teams, but having someone to play this role allows offense to be created out of effective defense via the fastbreak. The early 2000′s Pistons, 60′s Celtics, and 90′s Bulls all perfected this art to different extents, which is what made them so tough to beat. It all starts with the blocked shot or the rebound.

Here’s a good example of the type of impact these players could have on a game. Once the Pistons’ 4 enter, the Western Conference’s offensive possessions become incredibly inefficient. Almost every time they bring the ball down, the shot clock almost completely winds out before they either turn the ball over or allow a defensive rebound on a missed field goal. This often leads to fast breaks or easy possessions for the other team, and when the game’s finally over, you’re usually left with a low-scoring affair in the Pistons’ favor that more often than not made the opponents’ best scorers look sloppy at best.

Here’s some more notes on Wallace’s individual defensive statistical achievements:

His career block percentage, at 4.98%, is good for the 17th best in history.

Of players 6′9″ and shorter, he has the most career seasons with 2+ BPG and 10+ RPG.

His 87.48 defensive rating in 03-04 is the greatest single-season mark of all time. His career number is 5th.

For anyone not named Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain, he boasts the second best defensive win shares season in history, and is 14th all time in career DWS.

5 of the best 9 defensive box plus-minus seasons belong to Big Ben, and he is the all-time leader in DBPM.

In case I didn’t make myself clear enough, I ABSOLUTELY believe Wallace belongs in the Hall of Fame. It’s funny how most bitter rivalries turn into respect and admiration eventually, and that’s exactly what happened with me (a diehard Heat fan since the early 2000s) and Big Ben.

Happy birthday!

(all stats from basketball-reference.com)

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“mo cheeks, less problems.”

Most casual NBA fans are probably at least a little familiar with Mo Cheeks’ ability as a defender. He retired as the league’s all-time steals leader and was named to four of the league’s All-Defensive first teams (and once to the second team). He was also a four-time All-Star and helped his team to the 1983 NBA title.

Although he never demanded the same amount of attention and spotlight that some of his teammates did, he was still an irreplaceably important piece to a franchise that routinely contended and made deep playoff runs throughout the 1980′s. Here are a few of his major statistical achievements:

His eight seasons with a FG% over 50% and 150+ steals are tied with John Stockton’s for the most all time.

He is currently 5th all time in total steals, with 2310.

At 3.18, his career steal percentage is 12th in league history.

His career playoff SPG (2.22) is 3rd all time, and his 295 total playoff steals is 9th.

He is 73rd all-time in career defensive win shares.

The 1980′s Sixers teams that Cheeks helped orchestrate were loaded with offensive talent: Dr. J, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Andrew Toney, Bobby Jones, and Darryl Dawkins all were all-star (if not HOF) caliber talent, and they all benefited from Cheeks’ ability to run an offense and distribute the ball. Cheeks’ exceptional court vision and passing ability allowed all his teammates to get their touches exactly when and where needed.

Unfortunately there isn’t currently any reference material on the internet that would allow us to compare (with sufficient depth) his team’s stats (and his teammates’) with him on the court vs with him off it, but plenty of video highlights like these show how disruptive he was on defensive and how intelligent he was on offense. He was consistently able to force turnovers, put his team back on offense, and either put the ball in the basket himself or get his teammates great looks.

On one hand, spending most of his career on these star-studded Philly rosters caused Cheeks offensive abilities to get lost in the fold and not get the amount of attention it arguably deserved. But on the other hand, although Mo’s offensive numbers were admittedly never anything to really write home about, he could facilitate, shoot from outside at an above-average clip, and effectively take it inside when necessary - all contributed to the symbiotic relationship he had with his legendary teammates. His offensive dependability, presence as a legitimate secondary or tertiary scoring threat, and penchant for shrewd off-ball movement were all invaluable to set up openings for the teams’ primary scorers.

Happy birthday Mo!

(all stats from basketball-reference.com)

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”the third degree”

thoughts on Allen Iverson’s career & “scoring when it counts”

"Clutchness" always gets brought up if you're talking about the best scorers of the 21st century. Usually it's to give Kobe the nod over Lebron, or Ray Allen the nod over Steph Curry.

However, I thought this stat sheet (after the jump) from the Basketball Reference twitter (@bball_ref) was pretty interesting. It gives a brief readout of a few players’ statlines when the game is within 5 points with 2 minutes or fewer remaining.

My favorite part is how Allen Iverson, typecast as an inefficient scorer who couldn’t lead his team when it counted, actually has by far the best FG% on this list - exactly .100% higher than his career mark of .425%.

Compare that to Kobe’s, whose FG% here is .029% lower than his career mark, or Lebron’s whose is .090% lower. I mean, Steph Curry’s is .227% lower (admittedly with a much smaller sample size)!

Obviously, Iverson never won a championship, so his case for being the most “clutch” player of the 21st century is definitely much more limited than those of Kobe, Lebron, Ray Allen, Derek Fisher, etc. But to me, if nothing else, this spreadsheet documents how exciting of a player he was as well as any numbers ever could.

I’m not the biggest Bill Simmons fan, but I think he does a pretty good job in The Book of Basketball of putting into words what put AI in his own league. In the early 2000′s late summers when you looked through the upcoming NBA schedule for “must-watch” games (or through your favorite team’s schedule for tickets to buy), Iverson’s teams almost always ended up marked and circled. At the risk of sounding embarrassingly trite, he had that “X” factor.

If someone never really watched his games, it’s usually pretty hard to use that vague intangible as an argument for including him among the top 3/5 scorers or clutch performers of this century. But I think this stat sheet does a good job of illustrating at least a small part of what we’re talking about when we make AI’s case.

Everyone has different criteria for what constitutes an all-time great, but very few players drew attention & impacted the game’s culture the way he did. In a league where the average height of all players was nearly 6′7″, this barely-6-foot point guard won an MVP award. A penchant for high-octane & relatively inefficient scoring definitely didn’t do his advanced metrics any favors, but if you were there, you know what made him “The Answer.”

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“don’t get too low when things go wrong, and don’t get too high when things are good.”

That quote from his dad pretty much encapsulates the nature of Robert Parish’s long career. He never led the league in any major statistic, he played at least 74 games every season from 1980 to 1996, his numbers scarcely deviated from his career means, and he rarely lost his temper (even as many times as he went head-to-head with Bill Laimbeer - 63 games over which Parish went 40-23 - we somehow have only one instance where Parish really lost his cool)

Over their careers, however, few players have been as productive for as long as Chief was. Here are a few stats that might help to illustrate his consistency, dependability, and longevity:

He is the ONLY player to have more than 700 NBA games started in the 1980′s.

Of all players with 600 or more NBA starts in the 1980′s, he is 2nd in both total rebounds and blocks.

He has 15 total NBA seasons with an ORB% AND a DRB% both over 10% - only Moses Malone has more, with 16. 

He is among 11 players in NBA/BAA history to have 10 or more seasons with 10 RPG and 10 PPG (while qualifying for the scoring title). Unsurprisingly, 8 of the other 10 are Hall of Famers (the other two are Dwight Howard and Tim Duncan).

He is 15th all-time in total Defensive Win Shares.

He has more total seasons (20) than anyone else in NBA/BAA history with a TRB% over 10%  - Kareem and Tim Duncan are tied for 2nd with 19.

The 80s Celtics were an ideal situation for him. He spent most of his career playing alongside a legendary scorer in Larry Bird, above-average frontcourts, great low post players like Kevin McHale, and great backup centers like Bill Walton. Of course, that doesn’t take anything away from how good he was - it just helps explain how his teams were able to win as much as they did.

Happy Birthday Chief!

(all stats from Basketball Reference’s play index)

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“nobody roots for goliath…” 

Since his 80th birthday passed the other day, here’s a belated post about my thoughts on Wilt Chamberlain’s career.

To a lot of casuals Wilt’s 100-pt game seems to be emblematic of his career & personality - that he cared more about padding his insane statistics than he did about winning championships, which i think is maybe only partially true.

His rival & counterpart Bill Russell won 11 rings while Wilt only won 2 - one not coming until 3 years after Russell’s retirement. That will obviously always haunt his legacy among people who don’t care to fully appreciate how impressive of an athlete he was.

I say “athlete” instead of “player” for a couple reasons. firstly, he’s not just an NBA legend, but he’s also a member of the volleyball Hall of Fame. not to mention, when working together on the set of the movie Conan, Arnold Schwarzenegger said of all the strong people and professional bodybuilders who worked out in their gym, Wilt was far & away the strongest. He dwarfed everyone in any sport or profession of any era. Stronger than Arnold, bigger than Shaq, & more skilled than anyone else anywhere near his physical magnitude.

Contrary to popular belief, Wilt did not play in a significantly smaller era. he played against centers with an average height of 6'10 & against legends like Russell, Thurmond, Kareem, Bellamy, Lanier, Reed, Gilmore, Lucas & more. who did Shaq, for example, compete against in the 2000s? centers with an average height of 6'11 such as Yao, Wallace, Duncan (if you’d count him), Camby, & Stoudemire? If you stretch it to include the 90’s, then you also have Ewing, Olajuwon, Robinson, Mutombo & Mourning.

In Wilt’s 10 prime years he competed more frequently against more HOFers than any 90s/2000s centers did throughout their entire careers.

Despite that, he continues to hold 72 NBA records (68 all by himself). the 100-point game is admittedly a little overrated because his team deliberately tried to help him reach that milestone, but that triple-figure scoring effort barely scratches the surface of what made him so great.

How about the fact that even as a large, aggressive, physical big man he never even ONCE fouled out of a game? How about the fact that over the course of an entire season he once averaged 48.53 minutes per game? The fact that he’s the only center to ever lead the NBA in assists? He could put up whatever numbers he wanted virtually at will & he proved it every night against some of the greatest players the game has ever seen.

Wilt may have never seen postseason success comparable to Russell’s, but he could do more on the court with greater effectiveness than just about anyone to ever play the center position (or arguably any position).