Real GM Top 100 List #11

[Fencer reregistered]

a finals MVP for the losing team (how often has that happened?)

Once, and it happened the first time the Finals MVP was ever voted.

[Fencer reregistered]

I voted Garnett last thread, and hence am leaning to voting that way again.

Certainly it's Garnett over Malone for me. A mobile, talkative defender clearly adds a great deal beyond the stat sheet, except for stats like +/- that measure team results. So I put a lot of credence in the team-result stats favoring Garnett over Malone. Garnett also has the amazing peak and the ring. And while both guys had their offensive-end playoff screwups, Malone's matter more has his value was more offensive.

Garnett also gets bonus marks for being a pathbreaking high school draftee.

[mysticbb]

Garnett also gets bonus marks for being a pathbreaking high school draftee.

Moses Malone?


Vote: Karl Malone

Nomination: Bob Pettit

[drza]

My thoughts on Kobe vs KG:

Kobe is a better offensive player imo. We all know about KG's ridiculous defensive impact, but sometimes, in the playoffs, you need your main guy to be a reliable go-to scorer, and to go for 40+. KG never did that, nor did he ever even go for 30+ in an elimination game. He's thrown up some stinkers in elimination games, in terms of scoring. Obviously, Kobe's not perfect, but more often than not, you can rely on him to give you 25-30 ppg. KG can explode for 30+ points in a game, but then he can go on a stretch of games where he's only giving you 18-22 ppg. Sometimes, that's not enough, and many times in KG's career, it wasn't. From 98-00, his offensive performance in the closeout games is pathetic, to be honest. In 01, against SA, he does play very well, holding off Duncan and Robinson, and he has a 19/15/5 closeout game...but in a 7 point loss, that's where only scoring 19 points is not enough. In 02, dominant series, but he gets lit up by Dirk, and the Mavs as a whole have no problem putting points up. In 03, dominant series against LA, but he saves his worst game of the series for last. In 04, closeout game against the Lakers, 6 point loss, KG goes for 22 points, fouls out, and commits 8 TOs. Again, saved his worst game for last.

I mean, I think Kobe is a guy who the least excuses are made for, in terms of his struggles in big games. Everyone picks him apart, but they turn a blind eye to the failures of the players they're trying to prop over him. Similar to what fatal9 said with regards to Kobe vs Malone, I think Kobe's best in the playoffs trumps KG's best in the playoffs. Did KG ever have a multiple year stretch in the playoffs that is superior to Kobe from 06-10?

(Continuing this from a post I never got to finish in the #10 thread, perfectly adaptable to this thread)

We spoke on this a bit during the thread you began about KG vs Robinson in the postseason, but at that time we focused more on comparing them than on KG's impact in general. We know that Garnett's TS% drops a bit in the postseason and that he isn't the volume scorer that some of these all-time players are. On the other hand, I contend that Garnett's postseason impact is as big or bigger than some of the top-10 players already voted in. Scoring is naturally the first thing that people consider, so it is incumbent on me to make the case that Garnett's results aren't a case of a player struggling a bit (TS% or PER) but still being great...it's that Garnett's postseason impact tends to be HUGE, and that the TS% really isn't that relevant when it comes to judging him. Know off the bat that as I make my case I'll be looking at team impact as best I can, including +/- info where it's available and team trends as well. I'm going to start with 1999 (first year KG was All NBA), going into more detail from 1999 - 2001 as it was before any +/- info is available. From 2002 on I'll probably use less description and rely on the trends I've already shown, the postseason +/- trends, and the known regular season APM info as well as I argue about impact. As always, it's up to the reader to determine if I make my case.


1999: Wolves played the Spurs in the playoffs. The Wolves were 25 - 25 with a -0.2 SRS, while the Spurs were 37 - 13 with a +7.1 SRS, 1st in league. The Spurs ended the season on a huge run, and ran through the playoffs on the way to the title, going 15 - 2. Garnett was matched up on Tim Duncan, and here are their averages against each other that series followed by Duncan's averages over the rest of the playoffs (against Lakers, Trailblazers and Knicks):

Garnett averaged: 21.8 points (44.3% FG, 4.3 FTM/game), 12 reb, 3.8 ast, 2.3 blk, 1.5 stl
Duncan averaged: 18.8 points (46% FG, 4.3 FTM/game), 10.8 reb, 3.3 ast, 3 blk, 0.8 stl
Duncan (non-Wolves): 24.6 points (52.5% FG, 6.9 FTM/game), 11.7 reb, 2.7 ast, 2.5 blk, 0.8 stl

Similarly, in the season the Spurs averaged 92.8 ppg on 45.6% FG
In the first round against the Wolves, the Spurs averaged 86.8 ppg on 44.3% FG
In the rest of the playoffs, the Spurs averaged 88.9 ppg on 45.3% FG

2000: Wolves played the Blazers in the playoffs. The Wolves were 50 - 32 with a +2.7 SRS, while the Blazers were 59 - 23 with a +6.4 SRS, 2nd in league. The Blazers were one of two legitimate title contenders that year, and were an epic 4th quarter choke in game 7 of the WCF away from the title. Garnett was matched up on Rasheed Wallace.

Garnett averaged 18.8 points (38.5% FG, 3.3 FTM/game), 10.8 reb, 8.8 ast, 0.8 blk, 1.3 stl

Here is what I wrote about that series in a previous thread: in that series KG had 2 triple-doubles in 4 games; was obviously drawing the defenses attention (I like NO-KG-AI's description on page 1: "that was about as much double and triple teaming as I've ever seen a team do") and distributing well (9 apg) which helped contribute to teammates shooting well; he defensively erased the best player on the opposing team in his 1-on-1 match-up (Sheed averaged 13.5 ppg in 42 min/game against Wolves in round 1, 22.3 pp42 against Jazz and Lakers in next 2 rounds), and was the anchor for a defense that held the Blazers to 3 pp 100 possessions fewer than the Jazz and Lakers were able to in the next 2 rounds (Blazers averaged 97.5 ppg, 47% FG reg season; 87.3 ppg, 43.6% against Wolves).

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1118778&start=45

2001: Wolves played Spurs again in the playoffs. Wolves were 47 - 35 (+1.8 SRS), Spurs were 58 - 24 (+7.9 SRS, 1st in league). Garnett was again matched up on Tim Duncan, and here are their averages against each other that series followed by Duncan's averages over the rest of the playoffs (Mavs and Lakers):

Garnett averaged: 21 points (46.6% FG, 7.5 FTM/game), 12 reb, 4.3 ast, 1.5 blk, 1 stl
Duncan averaged: 22.5 points (46% FG, 5.5 FTM/game), 13 reb, 3.5 ast, 2 blk, 1 stl
Duncan (non-Wolves): 25.2 points (49.7% FG, 6 FTM/game), 15.1 reb, 3.9 ast, 3 blk, 1.1 stl

Similarly, in the season the Spurs averaged 96.2 ppg on 46.1% FG
In the first round against the Wolves, the Spurs averaged 88.5 ppg on 42.9% FG
In the rest of the playoffs, the Spurs averaged 92.9 ppg on 44.3% FG

Quick summary: Already TL;DR, but some key points.

From 1999 - 2001, KG averaged 20.5 points (42.8% FG, 49.9% TS), 11.6 reb, 5.6 apg, 23.2 PER in the postseason and the Wolves lost all 3 series. Now, you can stop there and say that Garnett had some shooting trouble but still posted overall good numbers but his team couldn't get out of the first round. Or, you can note that:

1) In 3 straight years the Wolves faced either the best or 2nd best team in the NBA in the first round

2) In those 3 years, KG faced off against 3 straight all-world power forwards (including twice against the consensus best PF of all time), who also are very arguably the 2 best defensive PFs (outside of KG) of their generation.

3) Over those 3 series, Garnett held Duncan and Sheed to about 76% of what they scored against their other postseason opponents. In other words, he cut their scoring by about 1/4. This is huge, against superstar opponents.

4) Over those 3 series, the Spurs and Blazers both experienced consistent and sizable scoring drops against the Wolves (average 8 fewer ppg, 2.6% lower FG% against the Wolves compared to regular season), and in all 3 instances the Spurs and Blazers then improved both their ppg and their FG% against their remaining postseason opponents outside of the Wolves.

5) Over those 3 series, Garnett either scored or assisted on more than 38% of the Wolves' points.

Even those sympathetic to Garnett tend to compare him to other greats by saying things like, "Garnett had good numbers and was obviously a defensive anchor, but player X was just a better scorer and ...". To me, that misses the point. Garnett's impact on the court was massive, well beyond just a dominant scoring presence, because he was having massive effects on the game with his defense, rebounding and playmaking. It's not just a "start with scoring, give a few bonus points for defense and passing" kind of thing. It's more like a list of several ways in which a player can impact a game, scoring being one of them, and KG making big marks in all of the categories (including scoring) for a combination that can't be touched by any other individual of his generation. His team might not have won, but KG's individual impact in the postseason was massive. How massive? Well, let's try to quantify it a bit more specifically for the future years but in a cliff notes format, using available +/- info.

2002 - 2004:
Garnett averaged 24.9 ppg, 15.3 rpg, 5.1 apg, 2.1 bpg, 1.4 spg, 25.2 PER over 27 games.

In those years the Wolves faced the Shaq/Kobe Lakers twice, the 57-win Mavericks, the 55-win Kings, and the early Carmelo Nuggets in the postseason. I'll point out that, unlike in the examples above, Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavs posted excellent offensive numbers against the 2002 Wolves. I've said before that to my view the Mavs as a team just overwhelmed the Wolves' inferior perimeter defensive players and KG was spread too thin trying to help, but there are many that believe that Dirk just outplayed him. I won't even argue that here, it's not germane to the point. Suppose, for this post, I stipulate that one series to be the exception to KG's general rule of postseason match-ups, so that I can stay with the overall point.

One has to take postseason +/- results with large grains of salt because of the sample size issue. When looking at an individual season, I don't even pay much attention to results for any less than 2 rounds, and even for long playoff runs I note the +/- results more as a data point to be vetted and compared with the other information we have at hand. That said, when the same thing keeps happening again and again year after year, and it is totally consistent with the other data we have, I think that we start having something worth talking about.

So, I want you to keep in mind all of the non-box-score/non-scoring impacts that I pointed out in more detail for the 1999 - 2001 playoff runs when you read that from 2002 - 2004, KG's postseason on/off +/- was +21.4 in 1173 minutes on court and 125 minutes off. Still not rigorous by any means, still not enough minutes (especially off-court) for comfort, but a definite trend is taking shape. A +21.4 net on/off would be huge, but to put it in perspective based on current players that have already been voted into the top-10 in this project:

*Shaq topped that mark in the 2004 playoffs (+28.4), and presumably did it previously as well though I haven't run his numbers for 2002 or 2003. He hasn't touched it in the years since.

*Duncan topped that mark in his legendary 2003 postseason run (+23.4), but he's never really approached it since (I don't have his 2002 calculated) and never had a 3-year run anywhere near that.

*Kobe has never come close to that mark in any postseason from 2003 on (I don't have his 2002 calculated).

Again, not conclusive. Small sample size. Just a data point, with comparisons for perspective, which is consistent with the more in-depth analysis I did from the three previous playoff performances. Something to chew on when you look at the other data that you usually use for analysis.

2008:

Garnett averaged 20.4 ppg, 10.5 rpg, 3.3 apg, 1.1 bpg, 1.3 spg, 23.0 PER over 26 games.

In that championship run the Celtics faced the Kobe/Pau Lakers that had been scorching since the Gasol trade, the 59-win Pistons, a LeBron-led Cavs team and the Hawks. Getting straight to the point, a journey over to basketballvalue.com tells us that in the 2008 postseason http://basketballvalue.com/teamplayers. ... C&team=BOS :

*Garnett had an on/off +/- of +19.9 in 987 minutes on court, 261 minutes off court, and the team was -10 per 48 min in the time Garnett was off the court.

*Pierce (+8.0) and Allen (+8.3) had much lower marks, and more interestingly, when either Pierce or Allen were off the court the Celtics still broke even. Compared to how when Garnett was off the court, the Celtics went through the floor (-10/48 off court).

Conclusions: NOW, I think this is a trend worth putting some weight into. KG's +/- results in the Celtics' championship run looked exactly like they had in his last three postseasons in Minnesota. In fact, if you put 2008 with KG's 3 previous playoff runs, you see him posting an on/off +/- of up near 20 over a 6 year period that encompasses 4 playoffs, 53 games, more than 2000 minutes on-court and almost 400 minutes off-court, and two entirely different teams. Some other things to keep in mind:

*KG's postseason on/off +/- from 2002 - 2008 crushes any of the other players of his generation over that time period. Duncan was at +7.4 (03 - 08; 4135 min on, 980 min off), Kobe was +5.4 (03 - 08, 2885 min on, 348 min off), and Dirk was +3.1 (03 - 08; 2913 min on, 425 min off). The only player that we've mentioned that was close was LeBron, who was +17.5 (06 - 08; 2046 min on, 178 min off)

*This is very consistent with the regular season results that we have. From 2004 - 2009 Ilardi's APM calculation already indicated that KG dwarfed the rest of the NBA over that 6 years.

*Again, we can see on the court how this could be. KG was carrying huge loads for his teams in multiple areas, and was doing a lot of things at an extremely high level. People say "great defense" or "great all around" player, but I don't think many really internalize that when it comes to Garnett. He was impacting the game in such a huge way even in addition to his strong scoring.

*For those keeping track at home, I started this long post for the 1999 postseason and finished it with the 2008. So that's a solid decade of top-5 caliber play from Garnett, including large swatches of MVP-caliber production with a historic peak. Just a point to indicate that Garnett's longevity and quality stacks up well to anyone at this point.

[ronnymac2]

Garnett also gets bonus marks for being a pathbreaking high school draftee.

I hope you're kidding about this. Giving a player bonus points for something so arbitrary leads down a dangerous path for future threads. I may as well vote for Jerry West because he is The Logo.

[lorak]

I'm a big pusher of Oscar getting consideration this high, I just can't find a way to say he's not below West,

Oscar was better offensive and all around player (only Magic beats him here), he wasn't worse in playoffs than West, defense is hard to evaluate, but even if West was better defender (what isn't so sure) he's impact on D was minimal or none at all.

[fatal9]

Won't have time to make many arguments myself in this thread, will be more reading (very busy until Friday). Have no idea who to vote for.

But is there a reason why Barkley isn't being mentioned along with KG/Malone? Him and Dirk are the greatest offensive PFs to me. He peaked higher than Malone in my mind, better playoff performer in general, though has his share of failures. In '93 playoffs, he took over in ways I've never seen KG or Malone take over in games consistently (some really underrated moments in that Spurs series btw, everyone is only aware of the Sonics series it seems). I personally prefer KG over both them usually, but surely he should be getting mentions. He doesn't quite have the longevity and could cause distractions around the team but based on how good he was? Should be mentioned especially if it's looking like KG/Malone are gonna garner a lot of votes.

This vote would have been a lot easier if bizarro LeBron didn't show up again this year.

[Fencer reregistered]

Garnett also gets bonus marks for being a pathbreaking high school draftee.

I hope you're kidding about this. Giving a player bonus points for something so arbitrary leads down a dangerous path for future threads. I may as well vote for Jerry West because he is The Logo.

When I nominated West, I referred to the fact that he is literally iconic. THAT was a bit of a joke.

But yes -- I am giving extra marks to guys who transformed the game in some way. Their accomplishments are more impressive if they had to chart new paths, rather than travel ones already well-worn.

[mysticbb]

But yes -- I am giving extra marks to guys who transformed the game in some way. Their accomplishments are more impressive if they had to chart new paths, rather than travel ones already well-worn.

Again, what is with Moses Malone? He went from Highschool to Pro directly, when he was 19.

[Pistol Pete Vescey]

V: Big-O
N: Pettit

Just to let you know, your vote doesn't count because you aren't on the list. If you want in, you need to get through The Pen and The Baller. This scenario sounds dangerous, but they're peaceful.

Blasphemy!

[Pistol Pete Vescey]

But yes -- I am giving extra marks to guys who transformed the game in some way. Their accomplishments are more impressive if they had to chart new paths, rather than travel ones already well-worn.

Again, what is with Moses Malone? He went from Highschool to Pro directly, when he was 19.

Indeed, but Moses did not open the floodgates like KG. KG brainwashed a decade's worth of general managers. (That said, I think you both have good arguments. Should we award 'transformation points' for guys that have been critical to the evolution of the sport? )

[Fencer reregistered]

But yes -- I am giving extra marks to guys who transformed the game in some way. Their accomplishments are more impressive if they had to chart new paths, rather than travel ones already well-worn.

Again, what is with Moses Malone? He went from Highschool to Pro directly, when he was 19.

Indeed, but Moses did not open the floodgates like KG. KG brainwashed a decade's worth of general managers. (That said, I think you both have good arguments. Should we award 'transformation points' for guys that have been critical to the evolution of the sport? )

Not sure I'd phrase it that way , but you have the essence. I didn't mention Moses in that context because he wasn't much of a precedent.

Speaking of precedents -- part of my reasoning in voting for Russell at #1 was how tranformational he was. And another part was that I dislike the transformation to the iso game that Jordan led.

[penbeast0]

For Wade fans, how do you get around the fact that he has only 8 years in the league and 3 of them had serious injury issues?

If he tailed off for another 3 years of mediocrity then retired, I think he's just barely ahead of Sidney Moncrief (another guy with a terrific 5 year prime but injury issues who I am probably the biggest fan of on this board admittedly) and below Walt Frazier at the moment. Not sure he should be ahead of Drexler either.

[FJS]

My vote goes to Karl Malone
Nominate: Pettit

Why the mailman above KG?

Mailman gave 1471 games giving 25 points and 10.1 rpg in every of those games.
17 seasons of not losing games with more than 20 ppg
15 seasons of more than 22 ppg
14 seasons of more than 23 (KG hit more than 23 two times)
12 seasons of more than 25 ppg
9 seasons of more than 26 ppg
8 seasons of more than 27 ppg
4 seasons of more than 28
3 seasons of more than 29

2 MVP He was top ten for a while (14 seasons) and top 5 9 years.

He never missed playoffs, with worse or better teanmates.
He was able to change his game as he was getting old and being as good or better than he was young. Some of his "not prime seasons" would be prime for almost every player in the league.
He provided elite offense, and great deffense.

His only fault it's not getting a ring.
Altough he failed in some moments, he provided great performances in playoffs too.
Remind he was the first, and sometimes the one option in offense, and still he delivered.
He was good enough for 24.7 ppg in playoff and 10.7 rpg who aren't too different that his RS averages.


KG doesn't deserve to be above Malone. He was in his prime a great defender, but his teams weren't elite in defense and his teams (as the alpha dog) only passed one time first round if not missed playoffs.
Wolves needed him to score more, because they weren't super talented. KG was not the answer. He had some low % in the postseason... and he only played 47 playoff games in his 12 years as a Wolve. (58 with Celtics in 4 years and one missed by injuries)
Then he goes to the Celtics, and after his great 1st year (still was PP's team) and his rings thanks to play with 2 allstar who help his inability to step up in offense when needed, he start to decline pretty fast.

I'm not saying KG it's not great. He was great, but I think he is pretty overrated here by two facts
1) The year when he was MVP (he deserved it, he was a beast that season)
2) The year he won the ring.
But two great years can't deny the fact that as the big dog he only managed with:
7 years above 50 in W-L % (6 if you consider 98-99 his first prime season)
7 first round exits (5 if you consider 98-99)
3 years of missing playoffs in his prime (you can say he played with terrible teammates, but players like Lebron, Kobe, AI, Kidd made it with terrible teammates)

In 9 prime seasons with Wolves all his great deffense, all his rebound ability, all his all around game was good enough for 1 wcf and 1 MVP and then 5 first round exits (where his teams never fight, they never lost in a final game, 3-0, 3-1 or 4-2) and 3 seasons of no playoffs.

I'm sorry but this is not good enough to be the 11th best player ever in history of NBA.

[pancakes3]

disingenuous factoids that i can't get my feeble mind over when considering KG:
- for his first 7 playoff series, he won a cumulative 7 games.
- only four 50+-win seasons with minny, 7 overall. dirk has 11. chuck has 8. Malone has 11.
- in his 3 deep playoff runs, he went from 24/15/4 (very impressive) to 20.5/10.5.3 (mildly impressive) to 15/7/2.5 (fairly unimpressive). that's it! 3 series where he hit double-digit games as a sample size...
- in comparison, DRob who entered the league 6 years older than KG to a crappier squad had 4 "deep" playoff pushes before Duncan arrived (7 overall) and had better numbers in those series - even if he did take a hit in production from the regular season.
- DRTGs (RS/PS):: KG (pre-Celtics): 100/100.6 KG(career): 99/99.5. Drob (pre-duncan): 97/101. Drob(career): 96/96

1 - i really dislike the "his production took a hit" argument, especially when the net results are ignored. Kidd's apg and fg% all took a hit in the postseason whereas billups' points, assists, and rebounds all rose yet nobody's making a case that kidd is better than billups... are they? if someone "shut down" DRob to 20/10 whereas KG "stepped his game up" to 20/10... does it really matter?

2 - i didn't care much for the post that outlined the "shut down" factor of KG. no basketball team is going to force the issue by feeding the ball to a guy being guarded by the opposing team's best player unless you've got a scoring dynamo like MJ or Shaq. Duncan is no such dynamo and he would gladly share the ball with manu or Drob if it meant that they could get their jollies off Rasho or Flip Murray.

3 - APM is not only variable through lineups, but also matchups and teammates. in a league where PFs are beastly, and KG playing on crap teams, his APM would be significantly greater than say... Amare's simply because Amare could have either marion and nash on the court when he took a breather due to foul trouble or whatnot. you take KG out and you put in Rasho/Kandiman and you've got +/- problems out the wazoo. So yes, if you want to show consistency in the APM throughout the various TWolves teams... fine. you can draw the conclusion that KG was the best player on those teams, and that his teammates were consistently crap. however, i don't know if you can use that as a way to figure out "intangibles".

[drza]

3 - APM is not only variable through lineups, but also matchups and teammates. in a league where PFs are beastly, and KG playing on crap teams, his APM would be significantly greater than say... Amare's simply because Amare could have either marion and nash on the court when he took a breather due to foul trouble or whatnot. you take KG out and you put in Rasho/Kandiman and you've got +/- problems out the wazoo. So yes, if you want to show consistency in the APM throughout the various TWolves teams... fine. you can draw the conclusion that KG was the best player on those teams, and that his teammates were consistently crap. however, i don't know if you can use that as a way to figure out "intangibles".

A few things.

1) You are oversimplifying APM to the point that you aren't even accurate. Raw +/- is, in fact, heavily team dependent. But the whole purpose of APM is to ADJUST for the factors that you name. In the example that you name, APM would be looking at how Amare performs with/without Marion and with/without Nash, as well as how Nash and Marion perform with and without Amare. So no, it's not an example where good teammates mean's lower +/-. That's incorrect.

2) The biggest problems with the "adjustments" I mentioned are noise and collinearity. Non-technical terms aside, that's saying that you have to have a lot of data from many different combinations of players for the "adjustments" to be solved accurately. Those issues can be present even in a year or two of data. Which is why multi-year studies are the best for APM results. They provide a very large sample size, and we get to see the player with and without a large group of teammates. Which means that an individual player's impact can be isolated to a great extent from his teammates, and that those results are much more accurate. So again, your protests above are just wrong when applied to the APM results that have been presented in this project.

3) The 2004 - 2009 APM study widely referenced here was NOT just from KG's poor Wolves teams. In that 6 years, KG played for a 66-win team, a 61-win team, a 58-win team, a 44-win team, a 33-win team, and a 32-win team. AND HIS HUGE APM MARKS STAYED CONSISTENT! So no, you can't just draw the conclusion that because KG was the best player on crap Minnesota teams his APM would be higher. He had the huge marks on both crap teams and great teams, consistently. On the flip side, back to your example, Amare had poor APM marks whether with Nash in Phoenix or on his own in New York. Again, the entire purpose of APM is to try to isolate a player's impact from his teammates as much as possible. And in KG's case, APM indicated that he had a similar impact on his 32-win team in 2007 and his 66-win team in 2008, and in both cases that his impact was HUGE.

Both your complaints, and the logic behind them, are just factually incorrect here.

[Gongxi]

Neither Frazier nor Pettit have been nominated yet, Laimbeer.

Aaaand in the time I posted that, you deleted your post, which sucks because I think it was an informative one.

[An Unbiased Fan]

I'm still trying to parse out my pick here. There's a comparable bigman cluster that includes Malone, Barkley, Dirk, Moses, DRob, and KG. 2 dynamic wings with Dr. J & Lebron. And 2 amazing guards in Oscar/West.

If I had to pick the best of each postion, it would look like this...

G-West
G-oscar
F-Dr.J
F-Malone
C-Moses

So that's the 5 I'm choosing from. I'm also big on playoff impact, so in this group, I have to drop Malone, because the other 4 were better regular season + playoff performers.

G-West
G-Oscar
F-Dr. J
C-Moses

Era dominance means a lot to me, so I have to drop Moses. It's not that he wasn't dominant during th early 80's, it just wasn't the 10 year+ dominance that the other 3 had.

G-West
G-oscar
F-Dr. J

So this leaves me with 3 very different guys. I have to think about this some more, and listen to the arguments in the thread. All 3 have a case for #11.

[cpower]

Vote: West
Nomination: Wade

The logo gets it, Dr. J comes second for me.

[Laimbeer]

For reference, a list of top players from the RealGM 2008 list that still need to be nominated. Needs update for recent achievements and new insight.

2008 Rank, Player

14 John Havlicek
16 Bob Pettit
19 Walt Frazier
21 Elgin Baylor
24 Rick Barry
25 Isiah Thomas
26 Scottie Pippen
27 John Stockton
28 Patrick Ewing
29 Bob Cousy