BoatsNZones wrote:JN61 wrote:BoatsNZones wrote:You could of course argue him lower, but he's definitely not way too high. He's played nearly a decade now (as an iron man) with 2 MVPs, a DPOY and a ship/Finals MVP. Only Jordan, Hakeem and Russell have that combination of accolades (Russell not technically as they did not exist, but he had them). And he has more All NBA 1st Teams (D and regular) + potentially more accolades coming in two months.
You would have to really lean on longevity over prime to have him outside of the top 20 after this season.
Giannis is certainly far too high. He has played just barely over 600 games. Most players on top 50 list have played almost double the games. What I don't get is people prematurely rank players based on their potential on these lists. Just rank him properly now and accordingly increase his ranking yearly as he goes on as one should do. That said he has certainly put himself in top 40 category by now.
Nearly half of your top 10 list has less than 1K games played (we will ignore Wizards Jordan), and you have Kawhi in consideration for the top 25 despite nearly a seasons worth of games less than Giannis.
A player set to earn 4 All NBA 1st Teams, 4 All NBA All D 1st Teams, 2 MVP's and a Finals MVP in a 4 year span has done enough in his career already to surpass the longevity arguments for those outside the top 20. At this point it's just a question of how far up the top 20 list he will rise as long as he's battling for MVP's and titles.
Yes I have Leonard there and Giannis probably around 30-33, ahead of more recent guys like Harden, Nash, Kidd, Westbrook and so on. However as you wrote earlier Giannis has a chance to do another major leap this year as he did last year (I had him outside of top 50 before last season), and easily push himself into top 30.
My issue with many peoples rankings is they prematurely push recent players on very high spots and then they for years stay on those same spots because they didn't deserve the ranking in the first place. I much rather prefer system where we are conservative and then increase player ranking year after year when they rank quality seasons under their belt and constantly rise on the all time rankings. I think longeativity on lesser championship success is highly underrated on these boards and it's really a shame in my opinion. If player year in and year out gives it all and has long career even without winning we should recognize his greatness to the game over players who won 1-2 times and played significantly less games.
Giannis himself is on the path of easily making to top 20 all time if he continues this level of play till his 30 year birthday and then starts to slowly regress. But I refuse to rank 1 time champion who has played such low games into top 20 all time as of now. Otherwise we need to rank guys like Bill Walton in top 25 as well.
Edit. This is reason why I (and many others) have still Curry outside of top 20. He has simply not played enough in my opinion and has never been the true alpha on the championship team. But to me every year Curry easily takes 2-3 spots on rankings and slowly climbs regardless of him not winning anything.
