The Seattle title was before the modern era, so I don’t know if you can count it or not.

To say someone with a .511 TS% is one of the best SGs of all-time would take him being a truly incredible defender. I just take exception to saying Johnson was clearly better than Reggie Miller.

Ted, I’m pretty sure Dennis Johnson and Seattle went to back to back finals against Washington, mind you it was b4 the 3 point era but he was Finals MVP when they won. He was a much bigger star with Seattle than is generally rememmbered. But, be that as it may, its still a guy who we’re quibbling about putting on 2nd or 3rd or 4th team 2G who played in Boston along Ainge all those years so he might be classed as a PG anyhow.

I agree with a lot of your point, but I just can’t get on board with saying that SGs are necessarily less efficient. That they are at a necessary disadvantage because they take outside shots.

There are SGs who do score efficiently, and there are those that don’t. There are ones who slash more, and ones that take more outside shots. Some of both groups are efficient/inefficient. It may or may not be theoretically weird, but I can’t get on board with your idea that taking outside jumpers hurts scoring efficiency. Only if you’re a bad shooter (or, at least, not a very good world-class shooter). You could say C is a very demanding position defensively or that setting up the offense is hard on a PG, but in both cases some guys manage to do it better than others.

Ignoring the fact that Knicks SG Bill Walker leads the league in TS% (haha), you’ve got 2 SGs in the top 10. You’ve got one PG and one SF. In the top 50 you’ve got 10 or more guys I would or could list as SGs. (Put Paul Pierce as a SG, which some people might have a problem with. He can certainly play the 2, though, and has in the past.) Manu, Q Richardson (maybe a SF at this point, but mostly a perimeter shooter), and Raja Bell are right outside or in the top 50 too (not sure since there are injured guys and half-seasons before/after trades… didn’t bother to count them.)
http://www.knickerblogger.net/stats/2010/jh_ALL_TSP.htm

“I just tend to give a little extra weight to the outside shooters when comparing them to slashers and post players. (the exception would be a guy that takes a lot of stupid outside shots)”

Slashing to the basket is not necessarily easy, either. Nor is being a high volume post player. If you want to doc the Chris Andersen’s and Mikki Moore’s of the world a little, I have no problem with that.

“he looked always on the right place to be. very smart, very clutch. I remember him hitting some great shots in the playoffs. and it says a lot about a player larry bird trusts enough to take the last shot.”

In comparing him to Reggie Miller, I’m not sure that clutch shooting is what you want to use to decide. Even if you want to argue that Johnson was THE BEST clutch shooter of all-time, it’s not like Reggie was far behind.

If Larry Bird played with Reggie Miller, I’m pretty sure he would have trusted him to take the last shot.

“he won 3 titles and 1 finals mvp.”

He played 7 seasons before getting to Boston. He was an All-Star and played on 6 playoffs teams. He never won a title. While I think it’s fair to say he was a big part of Boston’s titles, those were very good teams.

“that to me balances his “average” offensive game.”

Could. It’s hard to say. One thing that makes this discussion so hard is how hard it is to compare defense objectively.
Reggie Miller played on some good defensive teams. There’s no evidence that he was a real plus defensively, but there’s also no evidence that he was below-average. So, Johnson was average offensively and great defensively. Miller was average defensively and great offensively. I just don’t see why you would jump on Johnson’s side so quickly. Mostly because of the Boston teams he played on, I would suspect. Had he never moved from Phoenix to Boston, would you still be putting him ahead of Reggie?

“Third, he achieved the All-NBA First Team for a year, and that’s no easy task. Miller just reached the Third team”

That’s totally subjective. It’s a nice honor, but why did he make it and not Adrian Dantley or Moses Malone?
Allen Iverson made 1st team All-NBA three separate times. Still not on the list. Latrell Sprewell made it in ’94. Tim Hardaway made it in ’97 and wasn’t strongly featured in our PG discussion. Penny Hardaway made it twice and hasn’t figured into our discussions at PG or SG. Isiah Thomas made it 3 times. Gus Williams made it and I haven’t heard anyone mention him. Amare Stoudamire made 1st Team All-NBA in 2007, he’s no more complete for a PF than Reggie was for a SG. KG and Howard were on the 3rd team that year.

I agree that the smaller pool of very tall people makes for more volatile results among Cs and PFs and that allows some to significantly outperform their peers.

However, I would argue that the opposite is also true. That is, the larger the pool of people the more likely you are to find many players of super elite talent and skill.

So in theory, the NBA should be loaded with great SGs that can’t differentiate themselves from their peers!

What woudl make sense to me is if the broad statistical measurements said that the NBA was loaded with SGs with PERs of 20-25 but that it was hard to find any value at the position because they are a dime a dozen.

That would be consistent with both out points.

However, if we look at most broad statistical measurements (like PER), it looks like there’s a real dearth of very good SGs in the NBA these days.

So what I am suggesting is that perimeter players (typically SGs but not always) may play an important role that does not allow them to accumulate the box score stats we do measure and also lowers their scoring efficiency a little relative to slashers, inside players, and combo guards.

I believe this is corrected for in some models with positional adjustments (although that is not perfect either because of all the combo players these days).

In summary, I think we are both right. I just tend to give a little extra weight to the outside shooters when comparing them to slashers and post players. (the exception would be a guy that takes a lot of stupid outside shots)

I take it you won’t agree with me, but that’s cool. ;-)

http://www.wagesofwins.com/BestSG78-09.html

http://www.nbadraft.net/node/16527

by these rankings, Kobe is the clear #2, and this was before the last title, I think Simmons moved him into the top 10 now.

First, I’m old enough and I remember him in his play days.
he looked always on the right place to be. very smart, very clutch. I remember him hitting some great shots in the playoffs. and it says a lot about a player larry bird trusts enough to take the last shot.
he won 3 titles and 1 finals mvp.

in this aspects pf the games, he’s on the same level of miller, if not better.

Second, he was a great defender. strong body, good legs. he was in nine straight All-Defensive Teams and could defend 3 positions, and all the scary matchups, the magic, erving,jordan type.
statistically, he had some good years on blocked shots, a rare commodity for a guard.

that to me balances his “average” offensive game.

Third, he achieved the All-NBA First Team for a year, and that’s no easy task. Miller just reached the Third team

So, what ‘s your choice?