RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - General Thread

[Doctor MJ]

This will serve as the Official Thread, and home base, for the 2023 Top 100 Project.

I'll be asking everyone interested to respond saying so in this thread, but first...

PLEASE READ ALL OF THIS POST TO BE FAMILIAR WITH THE PROCESS AND GUIDELINES

Project History

This is the latest iteration of a project that first took place in 2003, which means it's been going on for 20 years.

It being tied to a message board, this has meant that the participant base has varied along the way, and I don't actually believe I know any of the posters who participated in the 2003 project.

We've been running this every 3rd year for a number of iterations now. There's no rule here, but if you do it too often, not enough changes, and that makes it hard to keep the momentum going through 100 votes - which at around 3 days per thread means it lasts as long as a pregnancy.

A number of folks have been carrying the torch in the years since 2003, with trex and penbeast carrying the bulk of the weight for the rest of us. I'm stepping back in the project/show runner role this time, but it is my hope that someone else will take the lead again the next time around.

Project Purpose

While we create a Ranked List as a part of this project, and that List then becomes an entity we can analyze, it is important to understand that the List itself is not the primary purpose of the project.

The project's purpose is to encourage deep thought among those who participate and read by forcing participants to consider players in depth thread-by-thread, and having them make arguments and debate along the way.

And the hope in doing this is to build a community and that community's institutional knowledge.

Were you to take a bunch of very informed people and just ask them to send in their Top 100 lists to be tallied up for a group list, you might get as good or better of a list, but you wouldn't get the community, and you wouldn't get the same type of personal growth.

Links to prior lists:
Spreadsheet with Results back to 2006 - and some of 2003
RealGM Top 100 List 2008
RealGM Top 100 List 2011
Poster Pre-Lists from before 2014 project
RealGM Top 100 List 2014
Poster Pre-Lists from before 2017 project
RealGM Top 100 List 2017
RealGM Top 100 List 2020

2023 List
1. LeBron James
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Michael Jordan
4. Bill Russell
5. Tim Duncan
6. Hakeem Olajuwon
7. Wilt Chamberlain
8. Shaquille O'Neal
9. Kevin Garnett
10. Magic Johnson
11. Steph Curry
12. Larry Bird
13. Kobe Bryant
14. Jerry West
15. Oscar Robertson
16. George Mikan
17. David Robinson
18. Dirk Nowitzki
19. Karl Malone
20. Chris Paul
21. Julius Erving
22. Kevin Durant
23. Moses Malone
24. Steve Nash
25. Giannis Antetokounmpo
26. Nikola Jokic
27. Dwyane Wade
28. Charles Barkley
29. James Harden
30. Patrick Ewing
31. Bob Pettit
32. Scottie Pippen
33. John Stockton
34. Kawhi Leonard
35. Walt Frazier
36. Reggie Miller
37. John Havlicek
38. Jason Kidd
39. Manu Ginobili
40. Rick Barry
41. Artis Gilmore
42. Anthony Davis
43. Dolph Schayes
44. Elgin Baylor
45. Clyde Drexler
46. Russell Westbrook
47. Paul Pierce
48. Kevin McHale
49. Dwight Howard
50. Bob Lanier
51. Draymond Green
52. Jimmy Butler
53. Gary Payton
54. Ray Allen
55. Joel Embiid
56. Paul Arizin
57. Dave Cowens
58. Isiah Thomas
59. George Gervin
60. Alonzo Mourning
61. Nate Thurmond
62. Pau Gasol
63. Willis Reed
64. Dikembe Mutombo
65. Robert Parish
66. Chauncey Billups
67. Elvin Hayes
68. Ben Wallace
69. Tracy McGrady
70. Vince Carter
71. Wes Unseld
72. Paul George
73. Bobby Jones
74. Rasheed Wallace
75. Damian Lillard
76. Kyle Lowry
77. Rudy Gobert
78. Dennis Rodman
79. Bob Cousy
80. Allen Iverson
81. Adrian Dantley
82. Sam Jones
83. Larry Nance
84. Sidney Moncrief
85. Kevin Johnson
86. Tony Parker
87. Shawn Marion
88. Jack Sikma
89. Al Horford
90. Bill Sharman
91. Bill Walton
92. Horace Grant
93. Billy Cunningham
94. Jayson Tatum
95. Gus Williams
96. Dominique Wilkins


Becoming a Voter

To become a voter before the project, just express your interest posting in this thread.

Once the project begins, you may also post your interest in this thread, but please also participate in the voting threads as a non-voter to show that you're head is into it.

In all cases, you must be approved by the runner (in this case, me) before you become a voter. In general we're cautious about allowing people to join from new accounts, and we don't want an influx of voters on a particular thread because a particular team board rallies the troops

Additionally, when you are a voter, we expect you to abide certain rules.

Voter Standards

* Post as much as you want in any thread, but only have one Voting post, and please make clear at the top of your post that this is your Voting post and make that post easy for me to read as I tally.
* Feel free to change your mind on your vote before the deadline, but EDIT the existing Voting post so I don't count both your old and new post.
* You must give reasoning for all your votes.
* You may re-post your previous reasoning if your previous selection remains eligible.

* As a voter you are expected to participate consistently. We don't want people to just show up every once in a while and vote. We expect you to keep at it from thread to threat to thread, etc.
* However it is a long project and it is unrealistic to expect all voters to be here for all votes. We just want you to try to stay involved for this extended run as best you can.

* Be nice; be respectful. Projects like this can get really heated, and when they do, people tend to leave. Do your best to be civil. If you fail to do this, you may get PMed or even removed from the project even if you're not doing anything worth official Warnings/Suspensions/etc.

* Stay within Voting Criteria Guidelines .

Voting Criteria Guidelines

The RealGM Top 100 is focused on:

1. Career, rather than Peak or Prime. How you weigh Longevity is up to you, but consider the entire Career.
2. Competitive achievement rather cultural innovation/influence.
3. Performance in the NBA and merged leagues (ABA, BAA, NBL). International play and other leagues are not a part of this.

Additionally, the 2023 Project will focus on the play between the years '45-46 and '22-23.

Don't worry overly much about '45-46 if that seems out of the blue. It begins the post-World War 2 era, which is historically significant, but the most relevant part of this is that both of George Mikan's NBL years (which led to 2 titles) are included in his Career/Longevity.

The '22-23 threshold will become relevant once the '23-24 NBA season begins. The expectation is that is that while you cannot help but have your understanding of an active player continue to evolve as the next season progresses, we're not looking to incorporate any achievements that take place after the 2023 Finals as part of this project.

Voting Structure: Nomination; Induction

This is a major shift from the most recent projects, so even regulars, pay specific attention here.

1. This project will follow a 2-step process. A player must become a Nominee before he can become an Inductee.
2. The Induction vote - the vote that actually places a player on our list - will be between the list of previously Nominated players.
3. The Nomination vote will be between all players who are not already Inductees or Nominees.
4. The initial Nominee list will be the Top 6 players from the 2020 list.
5. The expectation is that voters will be voting for for both an Inductee and a Nominee in each thread, though it will be acceptable to only do one of the two.
6. In the case of a tie in an Induction vote, a runoff thread will be created, and project progress will be paused until the runoff is complete.
7. In the case of a tie in a Nomination vote, we will not pause project progress, though a runoff is possible if the Induction vote already demands it. Otherwise, ties will lead to more than one player getting added to the list of Nominees in that thread, followed by skipping the addition of more Nominees until the number of Nominees until only 6 Nominees remain.
8. I reserve the right change this process part way through the project, but if I do this, it will come after further discussion with the group.

Motivation:

The previous Top 100 ended up relying on the extremely time-consuming Ranking/Condorcet method. I admire this a great deal, but I won't be doing this (and I'll note trex advised me against trying to repeat his sophisticated approach in the name of saving my sanity).

This Nomination-Induction 2-step process is what we used when I first became involved in the Top 100. It may seem like pointless complication, but having gone through this project, and other similar projects, with many variations, I think it really helps foster conversation - and thus participation - as we get deep into the list.

* It allows someone who just wants to focus their attention on a handful of guys and choosing between them to do so.
* It prevents the voting from getting too spread thin, which helps us reduce the amount of tiebreaking concerns we have.
* It makes it harder for a guy to get onto the list within minimal discussion. A guy can still get Nominated without many people saying their piece about him, but once he is Nominated he's going to get the pros and cons bandied about.

In case you're wondering about why 6 nominees. 2 reasons:

* That's what was done in the past.
* Doing so will allow Wilt Chamberlain into the initial Nominee pool, and since he remains among the most championed GOAT candidates across the discussion in the basketball world, I'd rather give voters the option to vote Wilt at #1.

And for the curious, the Top 6 from 2020, who will be our initial list of Nominees, are (in alphabetical order): Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell.

Time/Duration Expectations

* I'm expecting at this moment to open up the #1 thread on July 1st.
* The initial threads will be live for 3 days. It will not be exactly 72 hours, but will not be less than 72 hours.
* I will be looking to increase the speed to a thread every 2 days if and when this seems appropriate. So long as we're getting bang for our buck on that 3rd day, I won't change it.
* Every voting thread will have the ending deadline in the title while that thread is live.

Voter List:
1. AEnigma
2. Ambrose
3. ceilng raiser
4. ceoofkobefans
5. Clyde Frazier
6. Colbinii
7. cupcakesnake
8. Doctor MJ
9. Dooley
10. DQuinn1575
11. Dr Positivity
12. Dutchball97
13. eminence
14. f4p
15. falcolombardi
16. Fundamentals21
17. homecourtloss
18. iggymcfrack
19. LA Bird
20. lessthanjake
21. Lou Fan
22. Moonbeam
23. Narigo
24. OhayoKD
25. One_and_Done
26. penbeast0
27. rk2023
28. ShaqAttac
29. Taj FTW
30. Tim Lehrbach
31. trelos6
32. trex_8063
33. ZeppelinPage

Last Note

Feel free to ask questions or make suggestions in posts after this OP. I do not intend to open everything in the structure up to a democratic vote - that way lies madness - but I will listen to the thoughts of others and give them my consideration.

Cheers,
Doc

[Colbinii]

Thank you for hosting this. These projects [and this one in particular] is the ultimate basketball project. It is referenced among the best in the basketball world for all-time player assessment and discussions [Including Dunc'd On Podcast & Thinking Basketball].

[AEnigma]

Interested in participating.

I suspect the runoff rule will needed to be changed but it should suffice early on.

How many names will be on voting ballots? I see 2020 had three and 2017 had two.

[LA Bird]

Interesting that we are going back to the nomination system. My initial thoughts was that adding only one nominee to the pool each round would make the list too similar to the previous one but then I figured if a player did not have enough support to beat out the other nominees, they wouldn't have enough support to be voted in anyway even if they were in the voting pool. The only exception is if somebody who was out of the top 6 last project had a legitimate GOAT case but that seems increasingly unlikely.

I do think it is feasible to have some kind of ranked choice voting with the small voting pool though. The issue with the last project was that people ended up ranking 20+ players towards the end of the project because everyone was voting for different players and there was no upper limit. With only 6 or maybe 7 players each round, the rankings shouldn't be too much of a problem.

[rk2023]

Count me in. I appreciate the initiative in leading the project.

[Colbinii]

Interesting that we are going back to the nomination system. My initial thoughts was that adding only one nominee to the pool each round would make the list too similar to the previous one but then I figured if a player did not have enough support to beat out the other nominees, they wouldn't have enough support to be voted in anyway even if they were in the voting pool. The only exception is if somebody who was out of the top 6 last project had a legitimate GOAT case but that seems increasingly unlikely.

I do think it is feasible to have some kind of ranked choice voting with the small voting pool though. The issue with the last project was that people ended up ranking 20+ players towards the end of the project because everyone was voting for different players and there was no upper limit. With only 6 or maybe 7 players each round, the rankings shouldn't be too much of a problem.

One thing we could do is every 20 picks, add 1 spot to the nomination pool.

1-20 = 6 nominees
21-40 = 7 nominees
41-60 = 8 nominees
61-80 = 9 nominees
81-100 = 10 nominees

[LA Bird]

Interesting that we are going back to the nomination system. My initial thoughts was that adding only one nominee to the pool each round would make the list too similar to the previous one but then I figured if a player did not have enough support to beat out the other nominees, they wouldn't have enough support to be voted in anyway even if they were in the voting pool. The only exception is if somebody who was out of the top 6 last project had a legitimate GOAT case but that seems increasingly unlikely.

I do think it is feasible to have some kind of ranked choice voting with the small voting pool though. The issue with the last project was that people ended up ranking 20+ players towards the end of the project because everyone was voting for different players and there was no upper limit. With only 6 or maybe 7 players each round, the rankings shouldn't be too much of a problem.

One thing we could do is every 20 picks, add 1 spot to the nomination pool.

1-20 = 6 nominees
21-40 = 7 nominees
41-60 = 8 nominees
61-80 = 9 nominees
81-100 = 10 nominees

Considering the rationale for the smaller voting pool,

Spoiler:

* It allows someone who just wants to focus their attention on a handful of guys and choosing between them to do so.
* It prevents the voting from getting too spread thin, which helps us reduce the amount of tiebreaking concerns we have.

I don't think we will be increasing the number of nominees in later rounds. The only way to decrease "stickiness" from previous lists would then be to introduce a relegation vote in addition to the nomination vote - if there is 2 nomination and 1 relegation each round, new players can jump into the discussion quicker without affecting the pool size.

[ShaqAttac]

Can i vote in this one?

[ZeppelinPage]

I'll participate.

Running this project is no doubt an enormous undertaking, so thanks for doing this.

[Jaivl]

Thanks for hosting, this project is what defines the identity of the board, and it seems like a huge investment of time.

Won't participate as I don't have the energy/motivation to commit (and past projects have left a sour taste at times), but I'll probably punt here or there, if that's okay.

[Dutchball97]

With the nomination method I'm more confident I'll be able to participate consistently throughout the project. Looking forward to it.

[-Luke-]

Don't feel quite well-versed enough to participate, but I will follow this with a lot of interest. Thanks for starting this Doctor MJ!

[Colbinii]

Don't feel quite well-versed enough to participate, but I will follow this with a lot of interest. Thanks for starting this Doctor MJ!

At the very least, you can participate in the discussion.

[Ambrose]

I'll participate

[eminence]

I'll give it a go, though I'll be honest I've struggled to stay engaged in such long projects before.

System seems fine enough, though I could see some sort of nomination process for the first ballot being arguable. I expect top 6 will work fine.

[Doctor MJ]

Interested in participating.

I suspect the runoff rule will needed to be changed but it should suffice early on.

How many names will be on voting ballots? I see 2020 had three and 2017 had two.

I appreciate you recognizing that what I've laid out doesn't have to be perfect to get us started, and we can discuss how to optimize the process later if we need to.

Re: names on ballot. My intent is just 1 for the Induction and 1 for the Nomination.

The lack of a list is something it's reasonable to be concerned about. There were reasons why trex kept developing more sophisticated voting systems, and those systems had real advantages.

I went into the reasons for my choice in the original post. If you'd like to discuss it further here, we certainly can. Certainly any specific concerns you or others have should be encouraged to be put forth. I'll start with one:

Using a vanilla scheme like this gives people the option to vote strategically. They can opt to Vote for Player B to keep Player C from winning even though they prefer Player A above all.

This is a distinct con of the system I'm intending to use, but the context we're doing this matters here.

I'm someone who has long been a proponent of a more sophisticated voting scheme in politics because I see strategic voting concerns crippling our public discourse. Because the winner in politics gains actual power, the result of the voting IS the goal.

But the purpose of this project is first and foremost to foster growth in basketball knowledge and community, and so strategic voting is a more minor concern. The reality is that if in strategically voting for Player B, it encourages you to learn/share more about Player B than you otherwise would have if you'd continued to just champion Player A, that's a value add in my book.

I will say that the potential to pile on tearing apart Player C IS a major concern. That can concentrate and accelerate negativity depending on the behavior of the participants, and if it ends up going in that direction unchecked, it will really kill the enthusiasm we use as fuel to get us through this marathon.

Were negativity starts to ensue, that's where moderators come. Please do Report any clear cut behavior violations as you normally would. But there's another channel here:

As may not be clear to folks, while I have "Moderator" as a title, I stopped being an active whip-cracker a good while ago. I retain the title because of the projects I'm involved with, and in these projects you could say I'm still a whip-cracker, but with a difference: I'm specifically going to be trying to steer us toward a positive vibe, so that people want to keep participating.

As you know, I'm not exactly perfect with keeping a positive attitude at all time. This isn't about a "be more like me" attitude, so much as I'm just going to really try my best to keep it light and positive here, both in my own attitude and the group's, because in my experience, we need it.

As I say all of that:

If we need to add sophistication to the voting structure because an acute enough problem arises, we can.

[OhayoKD]

Not trying to pressure you into changing anything, but...

think it really helps foster conversation - and thus participation - as we get deep into the list.

Just scanning the opening threads for the 3 nominee/vote projects...
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=831786url
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1123396
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1330968
Was a better conversation really fostered here? I'm barely seeing any engagement with other people's points, reasoning, evidence, or claims. Just from a practical perspective, making nomination a thing takes away focus from the voting discussion itself. We actually see this in the 2011 voting where a fight about isiah and stockton being nominated basically took up all the discussion with little to nothing being talked about the actual voting.

Looking at the motivation...

* It allows someone who just wants to focus their attention on a handful of guys and choosing between them to do so.
* It prevents the voting from getting too spread thin, which helps us reduce the amount of tiebreaking concerns we have.
* It makes it harder for a guy to get onto the list within minimal discussion. A guy can still get Nominated without many people saying their piece about him, but once he is Nominated he's going to get the pros and cons bandied about.

This seems to operate on the assumption that it's currently too easy to disrupt the status quo but only 3 people have ever been voted #1 for the top 100 and only 1 person has ever been voted #1 for the peaks iirc. If a guy who wasn't previously considered is able to break past incumbents, wouldn't that imply he had a strong case? Basketball discourse tends to have a strong bias towards convention in my experience. If someone is able to earn a place in spite of that there's probably a good reason. It's not hard to see there being a situation where more than 1 player who have a strong case against the nominated field. Especially with a project that happens every 3-years. Is it really wise to be telling voters they can't vote for people who aren't already popular candidates? Isn't that basically codifying group think?

Even if a candidate stands no chance of winning, the discussion for that candidate compared to players who are already nominated(as opposed to restricting the conversation towards other non-nominees) could offer some perspective/insight.

I wasn't planning to vote for a non-nominee, but if someone felt strongly about someone not in the top 6 like Hakeem, West, or Mikan, I don't think they should be forced to vote for one of the first 6. If nothing else, it'll probably make for a more interesting discussion than us going over the same points that have been repeated ad-nauseum. If someone wanted to make the case for oscar vs lebron or a method of comparing how Mikan was percieved to how Kareem was percieved I'd want to hear it.

That said...

Interested in participating.

I suspect the runoff rule will needed to be changed but it should suffice early on.

How many names will be on voting ballots? I see 2020 had three and 2017 had two.

Reservations with this process and all, I'd like to vote.

I would also strongly suggest we go with three. As far as fostering discussion goes, having people pick 3 instead of 1 or 2 guarantees more players are considered in some way or the other. And it would be nice not to have the political voting that would pretty predictably occur if people were forced to pick only 1.

[Doctor MJ]

Interesting that we are going back to the nomination system. My initial thoughts was that adding only one nominee to the pool each round would make the list too similar to the previous one but then I figured if a player did not have enough support to beat out the other nominees, they wouldn't have enough support to be voted in anyway even if they were in the voting pool. The only exception is if somebody who was out of the top 6 last project had a legitimate GOAT case but that seems increasingly unlikely.

I think it will be interesting to see how folks take to it now. To be honest, while it wasn't something I would have come up with back in the day, and I was fine getting rid of it, I've come to appreciate the advantages of it since we've gone away from it. And with recent projects developing greater complexity that made this new Top 100 almost not run, I think it's time to try it again.

I do think it is feasible to have some kind of ranked choice voting with the small voting pool though. The issue with the last project was that people ended up ranking 20+ players towards the end of the project because everyone was voting for different players and there was no upper limit. With only 6 or maybe 7 players each round, the rankings shouldn't be too much of a problem.

I think that would be possible to do. It's something we can discuss as the project goes on. A couple concerns I want people to keep in mind though:

1. Adding any complexity to the voting structure adds time cost to the runner of the project at the very least, and so we must ask why we are demanding this of the runner. It's one thing if the runner himself has a sophisticated voting scheme he wants to try, but some - including myself 17 years after leading my first project on these boards - don't have enthusiasm for it, and it makes them less likely to want to run stuff.

2. Just as a participant, these complex voting schemes have gotten in my way. Something comes up in real life, you come back in some threads later and now you feel like you have to quickly decide in what order to rank a dozen guys or you're doing it wrong. It's not an issue for you if you just already have a list you're looking to represent, but for whatever reason, it's something I know I've struggled with.

So what this means is that for all involved, I want to remove barriers to entry so that they can better commit to what's actually being asked of them over this basketball pregnancy, which is already an awful lot.

[Doctor MJ]

Can i vote in this one?

Yup, you're in. Hope you enjoy it!

[Lou Fan]

Thanks for running this and I'd like to participate but like a few others I don't think I'll be able to participate every time.

A concern about the new system I have is that people may get stuck voting for the same person every time with no hope of that person getting in and no hope of influencing the outcome of the list which could cause people to lose interest. This happened for me last time because I'm higher on McGrady than most but at least in that project you had second and 3rd votes that mattered. Under this system I'd be voting for McGrady for like 20 threads copy and pasting and having no impact on the discourse. Hard to imagine that being worthwhile for me or the other people who read my same post 20 times.

I definitely appreciate the simplicity you're going for but I thought I'd bring this thought up and you can take it or leave it.