Horford is the 3rd best big man in the league

[walker834]

Draymond is more a forward but ranks pretty high.  I think that it's Durant, Giannis, Kawhi, Paul George, Lebron, Draymond, Hayward etc..  I'm probably missing some people and Giannis is playing pg this year.

[walker834]

Durant
Giannis
Kawhi
Butler
Harden
George
Draymond
Porter
Lebron
Hayward

Funny thing is Gay, Crowder, Ariza, Harkless, Harris probably rank right after those guys.  Carmelo is overrated. Parker is coming on. 

Also forgot Kristaps and Drummond in the big man rankings but they are about in that same tier as griffin and towns and guys like that.

Lebron is the enigma there like Cousins.  He's overrated imo but not that overrated.  He still deserves to be in the top 3-5 or so forwards and players in the league.  I dont know if I think Lebron is the best.

He's probably better than Boogie as far as stat stuffing monsters.

[walker834]

pg's

Curry
Paul
Lillard
Westbrook
Lowry
Wall
Kemba/IT
Kyrie
George Hill
Conley

After that there is a big drop off and you are talking about the jeremy lins of the world. jeff Teague.  Bledsoe etc..  Deangelo Russell etc.  jrue. Rubio, Rose.   Beverly.  Then Rondo... Even spot players like Mills and Frazier rate in this class. Elfriid payton.

SG's

Butler
Harden
Klay
Mccollum
Derozan
Beal
Bradley

AFter that it's guys like Lavine, Lou Williams, Dwade, Eric Gordon and then a huge drop off.

Take Harden and Butler out of the forward class. They are sg's and more 2/3's.

[PhoSita]

I find the subject of this thread to be misleading.  I was expecting some article or stats that cite this.   

But I guess in today's world facts are whatever we want them to be so maybe it's fine.

I mean, there isn't a statistic out there that definitively ranks players at specific positions. It is inherently a subjective discussion.

It is but you can you use statistics to support your position.  I mean you can say he is top 5 in points, rebounds, blocks, assists, steals, etc.  Well you can't say that with Horford, but if those were his stats you could.

For me, the best way to rank is to ask "Who would I trade this player for straight up, if I could only have anybody for a single season?"

I posted my answer to that question re: Horford earlier.

Essentially, Horford is for me a top 10 big man in the league.  He's on a similar level to around 6 or 7 other big men, but for the Celtics I prefer Horford to the lot of them.  There are, though, at least 4 or 5 bigs I would unequivocably take ahead of him.

[walker834]

In the league all around probably

1. Curry
2. Durant
3. Lebron
4. AD
5. Kawhi
6. Westbrok
7. Cousins
8. Paul
9. Giannis
10. George

Horford is top 20 imo.  IT is top 30 and might be better than Horford actually.  But he is primarily a scorer.  IT is very underrated because he can match a guy like Westbrook in a lot of ways without hurting his team.  Not the greatest defender but we have Smart.  So IT + Smart equals westbrook.

Bradley is also in the top tier of players.  Top 50-60 players.  Crowder is on the fringe.  We are an underrated team that way once we get everyone together.  We are lacking a couple things but have a good bench and young players.

I'd rate Horford as the next big man up though in the top 20. Klove would also make my top 20.  Kristaps and guys like that would make my top 30.  Millsapp and Blake would be in my top 30 players or so. So would Towns.  People rate Towns much higher based on potential.  He isn't that good yet though.  He's about as good as Kristaps and Horford is better than both of them right now.

[Moranis]

I find the subject of this thread to be misleading.  I was expecting some article or stats that cite this.   

But I guess in today's world facts are whatever we want them to be so maybe it's fine.

I mean, there isn't a statistic out there that definitively ranks players at specific positions. It is inherently a subjective discussion.

It is but you can you use statistics to support your position.  I mean you can say he is top 5 in points, rebounds, blocks, assists, steals, etc.  Well you can't say that with Horford, but if those were his stats you could. 

So basically, you just go around making claims to suit your narrative without actually backing them up, but then go and claim it's everyone else that is doing it.  That's too funny.

Here's some stats (among NBA centers) on Horford for you:

#1 in assists per game - http://stats.nba.com/players/traditional/#!?Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PlayerPosition=C&sort=AST&dir=-1

#4 in blocks per game - http://stats.nba.com/players/traditional/#!?Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PlayerPosition=C&sort=BLK&dir=-1

#8 in points per game - http://stats.nba.com/players/traditional/#!?Season=2016-17&SeasonType=Regular%20Season&PlayerPosition=C&sort=PTS&dir=-1

Horford isn't in the top five in points, rebounds, blocks, assists, and steals among big men.  Just assists, though he doesn't actually qualify in any statistical category because he hasn't played enough games.  And for the record, Horford is 6th in bpg at 2.29.

[walker834]

every site i looked at has him tied for 4th with turner and whiteside at 2.3 behind embiid, davis and gobert.  he had 1 block on sunday and was up higher just a day ago.

yahoo fantasy is fantasy  but it's the only metric that averages fg percentage, ft percentage, turnovers, steals, blocks, assists, rebounds, points, 3's.   averaging those 9 major categories he's rated the 3rd best big man.  behind davis and love. Cousins, Turner and Porzingis are next. Gobert, Towns, Gasol and Millsap.

There is some give and take there.  Like I wouldn't necessarily rate certain guys ahead of others but it makes some sense for what it is if you look at what players are doing.

It changed in teh last day too.  GAsol was up higher just a day ago.  Horford has consistantly been up there most years.  Gasol and Love fell off for a couple.

[walker834]

I think the best comparison is comparing Horford to a guy like Parish.  His stats are nearly identical to Robert Parish in his career.  Parish was consistently up there as the next guy behind some of the major stat stuffers when he played. He didn't score as much but was capable of that.  Same with his rebounding. 

i'm more just watching Horford play for what he is regardless of stats and people say he isn't a good rebounder and that's not true. He just isnt inside as much  as some of these other guys.  He's a big dude and mobile and can rebound. He might not be Cousins but he's a big dude. He has less questions about his character as well.  He reminds me of Ray Allen that way as well.  He's more polished than a guy like Towns at this point in his career.  Towns might do certain things but as far as knowing when to do what Horford is a more experienced player.

Ray Allen didn't necessarily stuff the stat sheet as much later in his career but as far as knowing w hen to do what he was still a great player. He and Rondo didn't get along too much though.  Probably because he was a 3rd option.

[Celtics4ever]

I think the best comparison is comparing Horford to a guy like Parish.  His stats are nearly identical to Robert Parish in his career.  Parish was consistently up there as the next guy behind some of the major stat stuffers when he played. He didn't score as much but was capable of that.  Same with his rebounding.

I call BS


http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/horfoal01.html

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/parisro01.html


As one can see Parrish had better stats in a lot of areas, especially rebounds.  They are not that close and they do not play a similar game.

[PhoSita]

I think the best comparison is comparing Horford to a guy like Parish.  His stats are nearly identical to Robert Parish in his career.  Parish was consistently up there as the next guy behind some of the major stat stuffers when he played. He didn't score as much but was capable of that.  Same with his rebounding. 

i'm more just watching Horford play for what he is regardless of stats and people say he isn't a good rebounder and that's not true. He just isnt inside as much  as some of these other guys.  He's a big dude and mobile and can rebound. He might not be Cousins but he's a big dude.

Eh, at a similar age Parish was pulling down 17-20% of available rebounds.  Horford is at 10% so far this year.

Meanwhile, Horford is much more involved in the offense.  This year he has a 27% assist percentage.  That's nutso high for a big man.  Parish had an assist rate well below 10% at a similar age.

[walker834]

I think the best comparison is comparing Horford to a guy like Parish.  His stats are nearly identical to Robert Parish in his career.  Parish was consistently up there as the next guy behind some of the major stat stuffers when he played. He didn't score as much but was capable of that.  Same with his rebounding.

I call BS


http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/h/horfoal01.html

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/p/parisro01.html


As one can see Parrish had better stats in a lot of areas, especially rebounds.  They are not that close and they do not play a similar game.

their careers stats are nearly identical. What are you talking about?  Already listed this above

But

14.4 ppg, 8.8 rebounds, 1.2 blocks, 2.8 assists, .533 fg percentage, .746 ft percentage

14.5 pph, 9.1 rebounds, 1.5 blocks, 1.4 assists, .537 fg percentage, .721 ft percentage

They aren't nearly identical?  The top one is Horford.  Parish  is listed below. They are nearly identical.

Horford is shooting the 3 ball now where the game has changed that way the last few years. Parishes rebounds also dropped off as he got older. Different reasons.  But the nba is different now.

[vjcsmoke]

They are pretty similar except in a couple of vital ways.

Parish was a post player who scored the vast majority of his points in the paint.
Horford is a jump shooter, and his ability to space the floor with the 3 is huge for a big man.
Parish never recorded a 3 pointer in his entire NBA career.

Also Horford is the much better passer as a big man, averaging almost double the assists.
Parish was a better "rim protector" and rebounder though.

Statistics are misleading.  Numerically they might look similar on the surface, but are entirely different players.

Overall impact-wise on winning, each is more than capable of being part of a "Big Three" however neither is a #1 potato.  We're still searching for that.  I believe that IT is a good #2 and Horford is a good #3, but who brings our championship steel?  Where's our #1 guy?

In the past we had KG, PP, and Ray Allen.  With KG being the alpha dog imo but PP being our best scorer, and Ray Allen being deadly from outside.

Now we have IT as our volume scorer, and Big Al Horford as our versatile big man, but who can we get to be our #1 guy?

[mmmmm]

Hmm.... ranking Horford #3 might be a bit of a stretch, but there have been a lot of names tossed out in this thread that have no business being ranked above him.

Al obviously does not rank well in scoring or rebounding categories.  The former because his USG is modest (just 21%, making him firmly just a 3rd option scorer) and the latter because of the way he is deployed, spending a lot of time away from the post on both ends of the floor.

But in pretty much every other type of measurement, Al does extremely well.  In particular several 'analytic' stats rate him very highly so far this year.   Filtering for guys 6' 9" or taller who have played at least 500 minutes and are predominantly PF or C, Al is currently ranking:

WS/48:  9th
VORP:  10th
BPM:   4th
DBPM:  5th
OBPM:  5th
AST%:  1st
BLK%:  4th

On scoring, even though he hasn't put up a huge volume of points, he's actually been pretty dependable.  He's only scored below 10 points (9) in one of his 17 games.  And he's scored 17 or more in over half of them.

And I personally blame the one really low-scoring game on Steven's strategy for that game.  That was the DET game where we kept trying to post up Al and SVG kept doubling him, forcing him to pass out.  So he only got 5 shots in that game.   

In the first DET game,  we had Al take 8 of his 12 shots outside of 13 feet, which helped pull Drummond out of the paint - and we won.   I don't know why Stevens decided it would be a good idea to try to post him up down low in the second DET game.

But I digress.  Taken as a whole, Horford's overall numbers stack up pretty well against the other bigs in the NBA so far this year.  I don't think I'd put him at #3 though.   I'd probably rank him overall somewhere between 5th - 8th.   

At some point, it starts to become a matter of whether you like strawberry, chocolate or vanilla ice-cream best.   So exact rankings become pretty dubious.  I'm comfortable with knowing that we have one of the top 10 PF/C bigs in the game.   And I especially like that we have one who's game is so versatile and well-rounded.

I don't think statements about who you would trade him for 'straight up' really answer this question, btw.   I would trade Al in a heartbeat for KAT ... but that's because KAT has so much more future value.   KAT isn't really a better basketball player right this minute.

[straightouttabahstun]

They are pretty similar except in a couple of vital ways.

Parish was a post player who scored the vast majority of his points in the paint.
Horford is a jump shooter, and his ability to space the floor with the 3 is huge for a big man.
Parish never recorded a 3 pointer in his entire NBA career.

Also Horford is the much better passer as a big man, averaging almost double the assists.
Parish was a better "rim protector" and rebounder though.

Statistics are misleading.  Numerically they might look similar on the surface, but are entirely different players.

Overall impact-wise on winning, each is more than capable of being part of a "Big Three" however neither is a #1 potato.  We're still searching for that.  I believe that IT is a good #2 and Horford is a good #3, but who brings our championship steel?  Where's our #1 guy?

In the past we had KG, PP, and Ray Allen.  With KG being the alpha dog imo but PP being our best scorer, and Ray Allen being deadly from outside.

Now we have IT as our volume scorer, and Big Al Horford as our versatile big man, but who can we get to be our #1 guy?

 One of our draft picks. Possibly Jaylen Brown. We need a solid wing that can score consistently and come in clutch. Jaylen provides the athleticism and defense. When he puts that shot of his together and starts to see more minutes....he may be our Kawhi Leonard.

[walker834]

Oh I agree. I compare him to a guy like ray allen as well. Not the best of the best but right up there.  Ray later in his career was not as much a stat stuffer and he and rondo had their arguments because he was a 3rd option but as far as a guy w ho could make plays when needed Ray was still very much a great player.

Why we have to be careful who we add in that top tier as well. Durant would have been great here but we have to be careful.  Cleveland has Lebron and Love and Kyrie.  GS has Curry, Klay, Durant and Draymond.  I dont know if we want to like jerry west's lakers were to us even with Chamberlain.  Because that's what Boogie kind of is.  We have to be careful  is all who we target.

We have IT and Smart.  We have Crowder and Brown.  WE have Horford.   We have Bradley.  We have a decent bench and good mix.   Picking the right players to go with it isn't that simple.

Cleveland and GS have kind of turned the tables on us a bit getting guys like Love and Durant. And steph and lebron and guys like that. Ainge has been going through the process but maybe not aggressive enough there.

I would be patient at this point though.