Real GM Top 100 List #51

[penbeast0]

Criteria: Take into account both peak and career play, era dominance, impact on the game of basketball, and how well their style of play and skills would transcend onto different eras. To be more exact, how great they were at playing the game of basketball.

Voting Will End In 2 Days -- Please vote and nominate

Newest addition:

Manu Ginobili

2x All-NBA 3rd
3x NBA Champion
Sixth Man of the Year 2008
2x All-Star

Dennis Rodman

2x All-NBA 3rd Team
5x NBA Champion
2x Defensive Player of the Year
7x All-Defense 1st Team
1x All-Defense 2nd Team
2x All-Star


Grant Hill

1x 1st Team All-NBA
3x 2nd Team All-NBA
7x All-Star
Rookie of the Year


Wes Unseld

Hall of Fame 1988
MVP 1969
All-NBA 1st 1969
NBA Champion 1978
Finals MVP 1978
5x All-Star


Bob Lanier

HOF 1992
8x All-Star

Ray Allen

1x All-NBA 2nd
1x All-NBA 3rd
NBA Champion 200
10x NBA All-Star


Alex English

Hall of Fame 1997
3x All-NBA 2nd Team
8x All-STar

Bob McAdoo

Hall of Fame 2000
MVP (1975)
1x All-NBA 1st Team
1x All-NBA 2nd Team
2x NBA Champion (LAL)
5x All-Star
Rookie of the Year (1973)


Kevin Johnson

4x2nd Team All-NBA
1x3rd Team All-NBA
NBA Most Improved Player 1989
3xAll-Star

Sidney Moncrief

1x All-NBA 1st Team
4x All-NBA 2nd Team
2x Defensive Player of the Year
4x All-Defense 1st Team
1x All-Defense 2nd TEam
5x All-Star

[Dr Positivity]

Vote KJ

Nominate Pau

Flip flopping on Pau and King

[JordansBulls]

Vote: Kevin Johnson
Nominate: Penny Hardaway

[therealbig3]

Vote: KJ
Nominate: Marques

[Snakebites]

I've been choosing KJ over Moncrief for a while now.

Its a tough call, but I'll see it through.

Vote: KJ
Nominate: King (yeah, I'm flipping here, so sue me)

[drza]

I've been nominating Rodman/Ginobili so long that I almost don't know what to do with myself now. I think I'm leaning towards the old school...maybe a Schayes, Arizin, or Jones. Laimbeer, where are you? I'm also not averse to Pau or King. Someone sell me on Penny (he was very briefly my favorite player, so I shouldn't be TOO hard of a sell). Or one of the Big Ben/Thurmond/Deke big guys could get some attention as well. For the first time in awhile I'm wide open on the nom.

As far as the vote goes, McAdoo is currently in the driver's seat. Someone will have to have some good arguments to knock him off the top of my ballot.

[lorak]

vote: McAdoo
nominate: Arizin

[ronnymac2]

Vote: Bob McAdoo

Nominate: Bernard King

[ronnymac2]

As far as the vote goes, McAdoo is currently in the driver's seat. Someone will have to have some good arguments to knock him off the top of my ballot.

Officially vote, so you don't forget to officially vote.

[lukekarts]

Vote: Bob McAdoo
Nominate: James Worthy

[penbeast0]

I've been choosing KJ over Moncrief for a while now.

Its a tough call, but I'll see it through.

Vote: KJ
Nominate: King (yeah, I'm flipping here, so sue me)

Having watched them both, their offensive impact is reasonably equal with a slight edge to KJ; but Moncrief was just such a nasty defender I see him having a clear peak edge. And his 5 seasons of pretty much full time play are not that much less than KJ's 9 seasons of consistently missing 15 games+ in most of them so it's not like KJ was Alex English or Dominique Wilkins as a guy who had a strong consistent run for a long long time.

As for McAdoo, while his offensive peak was a level above either Moncrief or KJ, by his 5th year, teams were already shying away from him because of his selfishness, poor defense (Amare or less), and rumors of substance abuse (which were true) -- the man was traded for journeyman John Gianelli and a late 1st; then dumped again from NY, Boston, etc. . . . nor did he make any of those teams other than Buffalo any better. His cancerous influence has to be balanced against his strong peak when evaluating him and because of it, I have him below the likes of Sid and KJ (he seemed to be more poisonous than a David Thompson or Bernard King -- possibly because as a center it was more important that he put in consistent effort particularly defensively).

VOTE Moncrief

[penbeast0]

Not seeing Penny or King yet though neither are a bad choice; having seen King close up for his years in Washington, he was a great scorer but selfish as hell -- I'd take Dantley over him even with ElGee's analysis although he impressed me more in NY than Dantley did in Utah but Dantley's consistency and longer peak push him over King for me. I was never impressed with Penny's playmaking or defense, excellent scorer with Shaq--was not much of a team guy either after coming back from his injury, always thought he was overhyped. I'd take Chauncey Billups over Penny pretty consistently.

Would love to see someone with time and knowledge compare SAM JONES to PAUL ARIZIN and JAMES WORTHY -- off the top of my head, Jones and Worthy are similar in that they were strong scorers on great teams who had a deserved rep for stepping up in the playoffs -- I have Jones higher because he had at least one season where he was a true lead scorer (ie Kevin McHale) where Worthy was always at best the second option and frequently the third -- also Jones did it with KC Jones (and Russell) as his playmaker while Worthy had Magic. But willing to be convinced.

Arizin and Neil Johnston were a good 50s combo -- which was truly the lead? The RPOY project seemed to give the edge to Arizin. Again, he and Jones are at least comparable, I'd love to see a good analysis.

For now:

Changing to PAUL ARIZIN

[drza]

Re: Schayes, Arizin and Jones

From the RPoY project, my impression was that Schayes was a true competitor with Petit for potentially the best big man in the late 50s era, and that upon reflection it seemed that Schayes often performed as well if not better than Petit individually (as far as the boxscore measures go) and that he was doing good things with his level of teammates, but that his teams just weren't as good and he didn't extend his period of influence as far into the 60s as Petit did which raised some questions as to whether his style and impact would translate.

Edited to keep my idiocy from being inflicted on new readers and confusing them. Will go back through Arizin later.

With Jones, I see him more in the Worthy/Ray Allen mold of being a very good scorer on a team that wins in other ways. A key player, but one that may have been reasonably replaceable without the team identity changing. But again, this is mainly impressions from the RPoY. Jones seemed like he got votes essentially for being the leading scorer on championship teams, but I don't remember many strong cases being made for his impact personally. I would love to see that type of case made, here.

[lorak]

With Arizin, the lasting impression that I get is that he was a playoff assassin in his later career after being a superstar in his early career. The RPoY project was really my first in depth intro to Arizin, and I remember being shocked that year after year it was Arizin, and not Petit, that seemed like the postseason leader and arguably best player on those Hawks teams.

I think you mistaken Arizin with Hagan ;]

But no doubt Arizin was great on his own in Philadelphia.
The same with Greer, who should be in discussion if Sam Jones is.

[drza]

With Arizin, the lasting impression that I get is that he was a playoff assassin in his later career after being a superstar in his early career. The RPoY project was really my first in depth intro to Arizin, and I remember being shocked that year after year it was Arizin, and not Petit, that seemed like the postseason leader and arguably best player on those Hawks teams.

I think you mistaken Arizin with Hagan ;]

But no doubt Arizin was great on his own in Philadelphia.
The same with Greer, who should be in discussion if Sam Jones is.

I think I'll go slink to the corner now and try to wash the egg off my face. Sometimes it's not good to try to go from memory...

[Laimbeer]

I've been nominating Rodman/Ginobili so long that I almost don't know what to do with myself now. I think I'm leaning towards the old school...maybe a Schayes, Arizin, or Jones. Laimbeer, where are you? I'm also not averse to Pau or King. Someone sell me on Penny (he was very briefly my favorite player, so I shouldn't be TOO hard of a sell). Or one of the Big Ben/Thurmond/Deke big guys could get some attention as well. For the first time in awhile I'm wide open on the nom.

As far as the vote goes, McAdoo is currently in the driver's seat. Someone will have to have some good arguments to knock him off the top of my ballot.

I was pushing Schayes for a few threads, let it go when he was out of contention. Let the momentum begin.

Vote: Unseld
Nominate: Schayes

[ElGee]

vote: Kevin Johnson
nominate: Marques Johnson

shout out: Matt Johnson
MDE Track star: Michael Johnson
athlete with the most pornographic name: Randy Johnson
president with the most subtly pornographic initials in Spanglish: Lyndon Johnson

[Dr Positivity]

Athlete with the most pornographic name clearly goes to Magic Johnson!

[ElGee]

You're forgetting that Randy Johnson's nickname is also the Big Unit.

[lukekarts]

Athlete with the most pornographic name clearly goes to Magic Johnson!

I don't get how either Magic or Johnson is pornographic? (Randy I understand)