RealGM Top 100 List #2

[penbeast0]

Rules: Vote for 1 player. You may change your vote as consensus emerges but if so, go back and EDIT YOUR ORIGINAL POST. Votes without analysis will not be counted. If, after 2 days, there is not a majority consensus, the top; 2 nominees will have a 1 day runoff election to determine the spot on our list. NBA/ABA only, no college, international play, ABL, NBL, BAA or other pre-NBA play considered.

[penbeast0]

Since I have stated that I think Russell is the #1 GOAT, he clearly is my vote here.

However, I have far less certaintly about who I think is his greatest competition. In terms of individual brilliance, it would be Wilt, then Shaq, then Kareem from what I've seen of them. In terms of longevity, it would be Kareem, then Moses, then Garnett (or possibly Karl Malone in that trio somewhere). However, my problem with Wilt and Kareem particularly, and several of the other great scorers, is this . . . I think they chose to maximize their own abilities, possibly at the expense of maximizing the team ability. ( I have hopes to learn from ThaRegul8r's Kareem thread on this very issue.)

An anecdote. This season, my school's JV team went into a game against another team. Watching them shoot around before the game, at first I thought we would get killed. The biggest kid on our team is about 5'10 and almost half our squad were 5th or 6th graders, they had 3 guys over 6 foot including one guy who looked about 18, maybe 6-4 (with a goatee no less) and he was possibly the most fluid athlete out there. Then they started their layup drill and I told our coach, "We've got this." The kid was easily the most talented guy on the court but when his team started their layup drill, he took one of the balls, went to the other end of the court and just shot around . . . and his coach let him. Yes, he was the best player out there; but the two most valuable players out there were on our team and we won by about 8.

That's my question about Wilt, about Kareem, even about Shaq (to a lesser extent) . . . and why I might consider LeBron, Magic, Bird, or Duncan before the more talented monster centers.

My vote is Russell, of course, but just wanted to throw this idea out there.

[MacGill]

Ok, reserving this spot here. Gotta go for a 10km but I think we'll see much more KAJ support which I'll be following closely. As of yet, I don't think I can be swayed off Russell...but TrueLAFan has started his magic. Ready for round 2

Vote Bill Russell as per Round #1

[colts18]

From the other thread

2011- 116.0 O rating (+8.7 relative to league average)
2012- 112.8 O rating (+8.2 rel to league average)
2013- 117.1 O rating (+11.2 rel to league average).

How do you find this info?

B-R has that information. The lineup finder tool lets you find information on 2-man, 3-man, 4-man, and 5-man lineups since 2001.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... finder.cgi

[ceiling raiser]

Russell is my pick for reasons stated in the first thread. The defensive impact (which I do think would translate quite well, based on what we know about him physically/mentally) is too much to ignore, and the scoring, while a weakness obviously, isn't a huge deal for me because of Boston's offensive philosophy.

That being said, in this thread I'm looking forward to learning more about Kareem. Particularly, would be nice to hear about his defense and mobility in general.

I asked about the range on his skyhook in a recent thread, and got some good responses. Here's the link in case anybody is interested in reading:

forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1326518

[Baller2014]

Vote: Kareem

For me Kareem is the clear #2 all-time player. Since it looks like Kareem’s main competition is Russell, I’ll be focusing this post on the differences between them.

Bill Russell would have been a great player in any league, but transported to the modern day he would never be a GOAT candidate, I doubt he’d even be thought of as better than Duncan, Shaq or even Hakeem. As I and others discussed in the first thread, Bill Russell played most of his career in a weak sauce, whitebread league whose status as a “professional league” is highly dubious. The NBA had limited popularity in the 50’s, and was not seen as a viable career path. Prior to Russell entering the NBA the 2nd best big man in the NBA had declined to play pro ball, instead opting to become a salesman. There was very little training by pro coaches at an early age, and blacks were almost wholly excluded. Russell was the only black player on the 1957 title team in his rookie year, and some teams (I won’t name them) were not picking players up because they were black. Russell himself was the victim of intense racism through his career which made him loathe the city of Boston during his playing days. By 1970 (Kareem’s rookie year) blacks made up well over 50% of the NBA playing 61% of the minutes. This was a league with no free agency, territorial picks, 8 teams, short playoffs, and wholly unbalanced rosters and front office competence. I’m not sure to what extent the NBA was a pro-league through most of Russell’s career. I’ll come back to the tail end of his career in a minute.

Russell’s career is overrated for other reasons too. The first of these is his gaudy stats (ditto Wilt). In reality of course the pace was so much higher that those bloated stats aren’t a reasonable comparison for the modern NBA (pace is not the same thing as speed, in case anyone is about to argue how this proves “modern players couldn’t keep up with these guys!” Pace is about how many shots you’re taking, and back then people didn’t have proper offensive schemes, or use the whole shot clock, so there were a lot more shots and rebounds to be had). In 1959 the pace in the playoffs was 137.4 (impossibly high by today’s standards). In 1969 it had fallen back to 111.6 (still really high, but not unheard of). The rules were also highly favourable to Russell- no 3pt shot, minimal offensive schemes to help spacing, and the ability to throw elbows in the faces of (mostly smaller) opposing players with virtually no penalty. The things you could get away with in the 60’s make the bad boys look clean.

Then there’s the question of how much Russell really helped his team win. Russell joined the 57 Celtics midway through the season when they were 16-8. They finished the season 44-28, so they had a better win% without him. Does anyone really dispute he had the strongest team in the NBA anyway? People try to argue that the tail end of Russell’s career was not much different to the period Kareem came in and dominated, and that’s mostly true, but how was what Russell was doing at that point comparable to Kareem (or other all-time greats) impact? The Celtics were a 48 win team in 1969 and won the playoffs. Russell put up 10-19-5 on 433. FG% and retired. They also lost star Sam Jones the next season, and JoJo White and Sanders missed a combined 50 games. The team only dropped 14 wins down to 34 wins. In 1971 rookie David Cowens came in and had the Celtics back to 44 wins, and the year after that they won 56 (followed by a 68 win season and the title in 73). Russell was the most important Celtic, but the team was great before he got there, and recovered pretty much fine after he left.

Contrast the impact of Russell’s last year to Kareem’s rookie year the following season. Kareem took a 27 win expansion Bucks team and made them a 56 win contender, while putting up obviously better stats- 29-15-4 on 518 FG%. The team the Bucks lost to in the playoffs was a Knicks team who had improved since the previous season thanks to Frazier’s emergence. Then after his rookie year Kareem got even better. They won the title in his 2nd year, with everyone widely agreeing Kareem was the best player (he was in his rookie year too). The Bucks team in 1971 was posting a historic SRS of 11.91 and won 66 games. In his 3rd season Kareem was even better, and was putting up 35-17-5 on a FG% of 574. Absurd stuff. A lot of people try to credit a past his prime Oscar for the Bucks success, but that’s silly. The Bucks were 30-10 in the games Oscar missed over his 4 years there, a 60 win pace, and the Bucks had already won 56 games in Kareem’s rookie year.

People try to use Wilt as a conduit between Russell’s time and Kareem’s, and it certainly reinforces that Wilt would have been good in any era, but it doesn’t help Russell much in a comparison to Kareem (who was having a bigger impact than Wilt). Wilt didn’t win many titles in Russell or Wilt’s time for the same reason, he just didn’t care that much. Wilt was happy as long as everyone was willing to call him “the best individual player”, he got his stats, and he got his money. Here’s a guy who openly called the NBA a “bush league”, didn’t care who he played for as long as he got the most money, who feuded with coaches, and was often booed by his own teams fans. Some of the stuff Wilt pulled is surreal. If he’d tried it today, he’d have been the most hated player in the NBA. For instance, when playing for Philly Wilt informed the team he wouldn’t live in Philly… because he wanted to party it up on NY, where he would often stay up all night and sleep with some of the 20K women he enjoyed in his lifetime. So Wilt commuted into Philly each day they had a game or practise, then commuted back. The team had to move practises to the evenings and afternoons to accommodate Wilt’s schedule. Wilt would run up to scorers and tell them “you counted that right? That was a rebound”. He wasn’t dumb, he knew big records and gaudy padded numbers would get him bigger contracts. Once Wilt was in a contract dispute with ownership, and watched the games from the stands with a faux injury. One game Wilt was annoyed at the team’s play, and bored, so he jumped off the stands and had the coach sub him in to play the 2nd half. Ridiculous. He finally started to get it and focus on D and rebounding and team ball later in his career, but as soon as that team dominated to win a title in 67 he started to talk his way out of town, and was gone by 69.

I hold some stuff against Kareem too of course. I can understand he wanted to leave Milwaukee, and resented the lack of free agency in the NBA, but to ask after you lose a 7 game finals series isn’t really a commitment to winning. He also seemed unfocused the next year, and between that and his injury (and to a lesser extent due to Oscar leaving) the team struggled until Kareem finally got his way and was traded. He didn’t impact the Lakers as much as he could have in the early years, and it felt like a lot of the reason might have been because he was focused so much on off the court stuff (like trying to get into the movie business, hanging around with Bruce Lee, and learning Karate). But when you look at his overall career and longevity I have no problem putting him #2 all-time over Duncan, Shaq and Magic in that order.

[ThaRegul8r]

Since I have stated that I think Russell is the #1 GOAT, he clearly is my vote here.

However, I have far less certaintly about who I think is his greatest competition. In terms of individual brilliance, it would be Wilt, then Shaq, then Kareem from what I've seen of them. In terms of longevity, it would be Kareem, then Moses, then Garnett (or possibly Karl Malone in that trio somewhere). However, my problem with Wilt and Kareem particularly, and several of the other great scorers, is this . . . I think they chose to maximize their own abilities, possibly at the expense of maximizing the team ability. ( I have hopes to learn from ThaRegul8r's Kareem thread on this very issue.)

Hmm... I've been working on my notes since the institution of the project, as I wish to be thorough, and I'm an admitted perfectionist as well. I lost my complete file on Kareem and thus have had to reconstitute it by filling in around a earlier skeleton I had saved, though it isn't the same as adding things at the time. I lot of things I have to hand-type (I've found that many of other articles I have now have broken links, which necessitates me doing so in order to prevent it from being lost forever should it be taken down), which is time intensive and also tedious at times. Fortunately I have some time off at the moment, though since there are only two days per thread, should I just post in the thread and edit in what I add later rather than waiting to post the whole thing? And if I need to rush if people wish to use it for the project, is there a cut off point that is acceptable for this project's purposes? Because 20 years is a long period to cover.

[ceiling raiser]

This might be relevant, I typed up a bunch of quotes from Kareem's autobiography "Giant Steps" a few months ago:

www.insidehoops.com/forum/showthread.php?t=324389

in case anybody wants to give them a read, or use them in their analyses.

[ThaRegul8r]

This might be relevant, I typed up a bunch of quotes from Kareem's autobiography "Giant Steps" a few months ago:

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showth ... p?t=324389

in case anybody wants to give them a read, or use them in their analyses.

I'd actually meant to go out to the library today to peruse a copy of Giant Steps for quotes to include in my Kareem file, but it's rather hot right now, so I've just been working on my notes.

[ceiling raiser]

This might be relevant, I typed up a bunch of quotes from Kareem's autobiography "Giant Steps" a few months ago:

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showth ... p?t=324389

in case anybody wants to give them a read, or use them in their analyses.

I'd actually meant to go out to the library today to peruse a copy of Giant Steps for quotes to include in my Kareem file, but it's rather hot right now, so I've just been working on my notes.

I tried grabbing everything useful, but there's some other good stuff (I didn't post any quotes from his HS or UCLA days). Great read all around (though as you'd mentioned in the past, especially with some of the Wilt stuff, he's not exactly objective).

My one complaint is he really didn't touch on Moses or Nate much, both of whom were very big matchups for him. I'll actually post in your Kareem requests thread about both guys (though I think he's on record saying Nate guarded him the best).

[colts18]

I'm going to pick Kareem here. I will do a comparison of Kareem in relation to Bill Russell.

Bill Russell played 13 seasons in the NBA. Here is how Kareem did in his first 13 seasons (through 1982):

28-14-4, .590 TS%, 27 PER, 215 WS (more WS than MJ has in whole career )
6x MVP, 9x PER leader, 9x WS and WS/48 leader, 8x 1st team All-NBA (3x 2nd team), 10x All-NBA defensive team

Playoffs:
29-15-4, .567 TS%, 26 PER, .232 WS/48
7x led in PER, 5x led in WS/48

Through 13 seasons, Kareem had 1011 games played to Russell's 963.

But Kareem's career was not over yet. Let's look at Kareem's next 5 years.
21-7-3, .611 TS%, 22 PER, 117 O rating, 49 WS, .184 WS/48
3x in the top 5 MVP, 4x in top 10 of PER, 4 All-NBA teams

Compare those numbers to Pau Gasol's first 5 years as a Laker

.589 TS%, 22 PER, 56 WS, .205 WS/48, 3x All-NBA

Kareem was putting up comparable numbers during his late prime that Pau Gasol was putting up as the best 2nd option in the NBA.

Kareem stepped it up in the playoffs too. Here is how he compares in that span to Gasol during the playoffs.

Kareem: 23-7-3, .597 TS%, 117 O rating, 23 PER, .185 WS/48
Gasol: 17-10-3, .573 TS%, 119 O rating, 21 PER, .176 WS/48

Kareem was outplaying Gasol in this span despite the fact this was Kareem's age 35-39 season.

Kareem played 2 more seasons where he was relatively productive for a team that made the finals in both seasons.

None of the GOAT candidates have that kind of longevity.

Conclusion:
-Kareem's first 13 years are GOAT worthy comparable to MJ and Russell
-Kareem plays 5 more years at the level of peak Pau Gasol then another 2 years as a decent role player

Here are some of Kareem's accomplishments:
6x MVP (NBA record)
Finals MVP 14 years apart (Russell didn't even play 14 years)
Played on the team with the highest SRS in NBA history (Played on the #4 team too)
Played on the team with the 2nd highest playoff SRS in NBA history
Played on the team with the highest Offensive rating in NBA history
Played on the team with the highest playoff Offensive rating in NBA history
6 NBA titles (4 of them as the man)
Has the most career MP in NBA history (17k more than Russell)
2nd in playoff MP (Duncan passed him during the finals)
#1 in career win shares
#3 in career playoff win shares.

[90sAllDecade]

My vote is Hakeem Olajuwon for #2.

He has a consensus greater defensive impact over everyone Jordan, Magic, LeBron, and Bird included besides Russell and has a much better offensive game than Russell; with less team support and greater competition imo than those listed .

He has comparable offense in the playoffs to KAJ and Shaq with much better defensive impact. He has a case for greatest peak of all time over Duncan, KAJ, Bird, Magic, LeBron etc.

Considering bigs have historically dominated the game all time, he is the greatest two way center ever and his skill & ability on offense and defense is the most transferable to any era's rules in NBA history. He can succeed in any era, pre 3pt line, smaller lane, hand checking, shot clock, pace etc. as well as any player, Jordan included all time.

Like Jordan, Olajuwon had no weaknesses in his game and was the most skilled at his position. But unlike Jordan, Hakeem had much less team support, won a championship without a 94' All Star player and faced much greater competition in his peak. He also was a clear #1 offensive and defensive anchor, unlike Jordan who could defer to Scottie to guard other top players on defense.

He is the only top ranked player with the least team support and if you do a team analysis, it shows just how much better he had to be versus the others.

KAJ is my other option here, as I value longevity and peak equally. His incredible ability on offense and good defense at times makes him a strong two way player. But he was not as mentally strong as Olajuwon and faltered in the playoffs at times. He was a good defensive player but not the anchor Hakeem was over his career and had much greater team support including a top 5 player in Magic and an all time PG in Oscar. With historically less competition and inflated pace during his raw stat years. Hakeem is also a better rebounder, stealer, defender and shot blocker.

For these reasons I choose Hakeem as the second greatest player all time.

[ThaRegul8r]

Wilt didn’t win many titles in Russell or Wilt’s time for the same reason, he just didn’t care that much. Wilt was happy as long as everyone was willing to call him “the best individual player”, he got his stats, and he got his money.

Wilt certainly had his problems, some of which I have addressed before, and which I've written about in detail in my notes, but for some things he does get a bad rap for. As I have no agenda to bash nor stan for anyone, I feel I have to defend Wilt in saying that "he just didn't care that much" isn't fair.

Was he flawed? Yes. He went about things the wrong way sometimes, and prioritized the wrong things sometimes which was also detrimental to the team. But to say "he just didn't care" I don't think is fair.

[RayBan-Sematra]

VOTE : Kareem

So... time for #2.
For me this spot should go to the GOAT C who I currently think is either Kareem or Shaq.

Arguments for Shaq
-2nd best playoff performer after Jordan when looking at Prime/Peak
-Arguably the GOAT Finals performer
-Arguably had the GOAT Peak
-His best 2-4 title runs were more impressive then Kareems who won many of his titles after he had already started to decline.

This dude just dominated in the playoffs year after year after year.
Rarely did he let his team down individually even in defeat. He was a dominant force for a good 13-14 years.
His first 4 Finals performances were all works of art and while some give him flack for not winning more he did win 3 Rings as the undisputed man which is better then anyone not named Jordan or Russell.

_________________


Arguments for Kareem
-Better longevity then Shaq
-Amazing single year Peak
-Still had an amazing Playoff Prime (though it was less consistent/inferior when compared to Shaqs).
Yeah... that is pretty much it

In simple terms.
-Shaq had the better Prime/Peak
-Kareem has better longevity.

For now I give Kareem the edge.
For his amazing Prime, Peak and mostly for his unique longevity he is my choice for the #2 spot.

Other candidates & thoughts

Russell - Still unsure how I feel about his potential individual impact/value in more modern eras. Until I come to a more stable view of him I can't rank him ahead of guys I feel much more certain about.

Wilt - My current views lead me to believe he was noticeably inferior to Shaq/Kareem as a scorer and as an overall offensive player.
His edge as a rebounder isn't enough to make up for it.

Magic - Arguably the GOAT offensive force. Very consistent playoff performer. His slight lack of longevity and his more one way impact hold him back for now.

Hakeem - His offensive stats over his playoff prime stack up reasonably well with guys like Shaq & Kareem and he was better defensively then those two. His relative lack of team success could have been caused by poor circumstances (bad casts/coaching). He still won 2 titles as the man which is not bad compared to anyone sans Jordan or Russell.

[ThaRegul8r]

This might be relevant, I typed up a bunch of quotes from Kareem's autobiography "Giant Steps" a few months ago:

http://www.insidehoops.com/forum/showth ... p?t=324389

in case anybody wants to give them a read, or use them in their analyses.

I'd actually meant to go out to the library today to peruse a copy of Giant Steps for quotes to include in my Kareem file, but it's rather hot right now, so I've just been working on my notes.

I tried grabbing everything useful, but there's some other good stuff (I didn't post any quotes from his HS or UCLA days). Great read all around (though as you'd mentioned in the past, especially with some of the Wilt stuff, he's not exactly objective).

My one complaint is he really didn't touch on Moses or Nate much, both of whom were very big matchups for him. I'll actually post in your Kareem requests thread about both guys (though I think he's on record saying Nate guarded him the best).

He is, on multiple occasions. Coincidentally, I'm actually editing his postseason matchup against Kareem in '72 right now. Thurmond is sadly underrated, and, in my (informed) opinion from what I know, the greatest man defender at the 5 in NBA history. To give some credit to a poster I think? is part of this project:

And now to the guy who is the clear stand-out based on this kind of analysis. He's the ONE guy I found for whom essentially every other big man's scoring numbers went down when facing him: NATE THURMOND.

Across the board, this was the case with very nearly everyone I ran him against: Wilt, Russell, Unseld, Bellamy, Lanier, Reed, Hayes, McAdoo, Lovellette (for all of 1 season of overlap they had).....their numbers ALL went down when facing Thurmond, and in multiple cases by a pretty substantial amount: like >25% (Wilt’s scoring numbers were actually down ~40% when facing Thurmond--->15.7 ppg vs. Thurmond, whereas his overall avg in those years was 24.6; FTA down to 8.0 from usual avg of 10.0).

The only big man whose ppg did NOT go down when facing Thurmond was Bill Walton; though only 3 years overlap in the twilight of Thurmond's career for a total of only 5 game sample-size in which Walton avg. 16.8 ppg vs. his 16.4 ppg overall in those three years (so....pretty negligible).

Again, not a complete picture, but what's there does give a compelling case for Nate Thurmond to be ranked pretty high.

[Baller2014]

I'm going to save my rebuttal of Hakeem for spot #3 since I assume he's not going to get any traction here. There was a thread on it recently.

[Imon]

My vote is for Kareem.

I'm sorry that I won't go into as much depth as some other posters but these are just my immediate thoughts.
If there were no Jordan I think Kareem would have a strong case for greatest player in NBA history. In fact, I think when Kareem was in his prime and before Jordan came along many people were making this exact argument.

I was going to post Kareem's career accomplishments but I think colts has that covered.

[Greatness]

Vote: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

I voted for him for #1 and didn't see any pro-Russell argument strong enough to sway me. As great as Russell's defense was, I do think his and the Celtic's DRtg's from that era are skewed a little due to some bad offenses. I believe Russell's defense was possibly a little more impactful than Kareem's offense, but Kareem's defense was more more impactful than Russel's offense.

Kareem also peaked higher, was a much better #1 option, significantly better longevity and comparable prime. No point in listing accolades because others have done so better than I can. I don't think it's fair to devalue what Russell did because of his era though because Kareem also benefited from the ABA.

But even with Russell's ridiculous team success in mind, Kareem had a better, longer career when taking into account statical dominance.

[DQuinn1575]

When bill Russell was first an announcer one of his sayings was "it's not how it's how many ".

He was the best player on 11 championship teams.

He didn't choose his opponents, the time he played in, or how many rounds of playoffs.

He simply won almost all the time. And his team would not have had anywhere near that success without him.

The 1963 banner means as much as the 1985 banner or 1972 banner - nba champion.

He won everything. There was no need at all for him to play any longer.

I really debated about taking Russell over Jordan, and may have if the thread would have been longer.



I vote for bill Russell as #2.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[Dr Positivity]

Ok crossing off some names

No Wilt because < Russell: Russell just got the upper hand on him with 68 and 69 as particular sticking points

No Magic or Bird because < Lebron: Lebron's D is too big an advantage and he's not far behind them in longevity

No Duncan or KG because < Hakeem: Hakeem has the most dynamic offense of 3 for me and biggest playoff high. Pretty close between the three but if I have to pick I like Hakeem

No Shaq or Kobe because < Kareem: Healthier, more stable career. TrueLAfan had a HOF post about Kareem v Shaq's career a while ago. Kobe is SG Kareem but I favor Kareem

That leaves Russell, Hakeem, Kareem, Lebron.

Kareem > Russell. I'd be torn on Kareem's first 13 years v Russell's so it'd be hard for me to pick Russ in spite of the longevity. From 83 on (his 14th year) Kareem probably gives at least as much value to the Lakers as Pau Gasol has to them. That still means a lot.

Kareem v Hakeem. The longevity gap is less than for Russell. 98 and 99 Hakeem (14th and 15th seasons) still are all-star caliber, injured for half of 98 but there in the playoffs. In 00 and 01 his MPG falls but the per minute is still close to 98/99 and still at an all-star rate (15pt+, 10 reb 2 blk) Then he sucks in Toronto. I'd say Hakeem's last 5 seasons are close to Kareem's. But the last 5 are Kareem's 16th-20th (85-89) and Hakeem's 14th-18th. So Kareem has 15 elite seasons vs 13 before that point. Which is crucial but if someone really liked Hakeem's game more, possibly not enough to sway that vote.

Lebron - Lebron's longevity is clearly the worst of the 4. But a quality > quantity case could be made if one thinks LBJ has been at a GOAT prime level even above Kareem, Hakeem or Russell. 11 years of Lebron is still a lot of value.

Vote: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar