My brand new top 50 ranking after 2021 Finals results. What do you think?

[rtiff68]

Can I see the formula?

I can try to tweak it a bit but the 25 categories are weighted in different ways and the formula would be a lot unpack right now. My formula was focused on giving balanced value to rings, peak play, and longevity and I feel this formula did a pretty good job. Which players seem too high or too low?

First of all, thanks for putting in the work to throw something like this together. Whether people like the output or not, everyone should appreciate the legwork that goes into something like this.

My biggest criticism of this particular formula/model is the fact that you are claiming to balance “rings,” “peak play,” and “longevity”— a process where you are presumably assigning objective numbers to very subjective things— and you aren’t sharing the sausage recipe.

How exactly are you defining and assigning valuations to “rings,” “peak performance,” and “longevity?”

Without sharing at least bits and pieces of your methodology, this “formula” and the subsequent list it generated seem pretty arbitrary.

[Godymas]

This formula was obviously custom tweaked so that LeBron could end up #1 over Jordan

As evidenced by the fact that rings get weighed the same as other stats when Giannis just now proved that in order to win a ring you need the heart of a champion to give an outlier career performance. Rings need more weight because most rings are won based off performances that transcend the sport.

Also Kareem and LeBron/MJ gap makes 0 sense

Kareem literally has the most longevity of all of them, won more MVPs, won as many rings as Jordan, only 2 FMVP, but he has defensive accolades but no DPOY (neither does LeBron)

I just have no idea how LeBron ends up so high off of this formula unless it's because Kareem's best early years are missing a ton of key stats

[ken6199]

Some posters are so not worthy of my time I ain't gonna spend more time replying to them.

I certainly don't agree with OP by putting Curry on 30th, yes it's really too low, though I am also not with some Curry homer fans who think he is top 10-15 range. Like OP said he put lot of factors into his formula. Maybe he put a big weight on all defense selections (which explains why Paul is so high), or MVP shares (Harden ranking 12th all time helps), or career totals (Curry, considering the number of games he missed). Maybe he put a lighter weight on rings (does he even differentiate KD's ring vs Dirk's? Fisher vs Curry?)

There are many questions to be answered before we see his actual formula, but looking at some positions you don't like, or even worse, OP put your favorite players at undesirable positions, that doesn't give you the reason to call it BS. Or otherwise, I guarantee you there is not a single ranking in the world that's not BS to someone out there.

[Jazz Dog]

Stockton is underrated here. Paul should never be above Stockton in any conversation.

[rtiff68]

Some posters are so not worthy of my time I ain't gonna spend more time replying to them.

I certainly don't agree with OP by putting Curry on 30th, yes it's really too low, though I am also not with some Curry homer fans who think he is top 10-15 range. Like OP said he put lot of factors into his formula. Maybe he put a big weight on all defense selections (which explains why Paul is so high), or MVP shares (Harden ranking 12th all time helps), or career totals (Curry, considering the number of games he missed). Maybe he put a lighter weight on rings (does he even differentiate KD's ring vs Dirk's? Fisher vs Curry?)

There are many questions to be answered before we see his actual formula, but looking at some positions you don't like, or even worse, OP put your favorite players at undesirable positions, that doesn't give you the reason to call it BS. Or otherwise, I guarantee you there is not a single ranking in the world that's not BS to someone out there.

At first glance (so, without seeing behind the curtain of the great Oz), it would appear this formula puts a very large emphasis on voted upon awards. That would explain Paul, Harden, KD, Malone, Curry, etc. and their relative positions on the list.

For me personally, I rank the three following factors in this order (I recently made a thread about this) when making lists like this:

1) Peak
2) Longevity
3) Accolades

So, I have “Accolades” last amongst those 3 in order of importance, and the accolades that I consider least important?

Voted upon awards.

That doesn’t mean I’m anymore objectively correct than anyone else of course, that’s just my preference.

[WarriorGM]

In other fields and sports being a champion isn't enough to be called the best; there is one of those every year. It is the record holders who are the best; those don't come along as often. That's why 30th for Curry is risible when in a team sport he can claim to be part of the team with the record regular season and the one with the best playoffs record besides putting up a season that was statistically one of the best ever.

[ken6199]

Some posters are so not worthy of my time I ain't gonna spend more time replying to them.

I certainly don't agree with OP by putting Curry on 30th, yes it's really too low, though I am also not with some Curry homer fans who think he is top 10-15 range. Like OP said he put lot of factors into his formula. Maybe he put a big weight on all defense selections (which explains why Paul is so high), or MVP shares (Harden ranking 12th all time helps), or career totals (Curry, considering the number of games he missed). Maybe he put a lighter weight on rings (does he even differentiate KD's ring vs Dirk's? Fisher vs Curry?)

There are many questions to be answered before we see his actual formula, but looking at some positions you don't like, or even worse, OP put your favorite players at undesirable positions, that doesn't give you the reason to call it BS. Or otherwise, I guarantee you there is not a single ranking in the world that's not BS to someone out there.

At first glance (so, without seeing behind the curtain of the great Oz), it would appear this formula puts a very large emphasis on voted upon awards. That would explain Paul, Harden, KD, Malone, Curry, etc. and their relative positions on the list.

For me personally, I rank the three following factors in this order (I recently made a thread about this) when making lists like this:

1) Peak
2) Longevity
3) Accolades

So, I have “Accolades” last amongst those 3 in order of importance, and the accolades that I consider least important?

Voted upon awards.

That doesn’t mean I’m anymore objectively correct than anyone else of course, that’s just my preference.

It depends on how you formula those voted upon awards. For Paul, 7 time 1st team all defense is no joke because it was a big part of his prime and it rightfully gives him an edge over Curry who is never known as a defender and also benefit from playing with Klay and Draymond during his prime. On the other hand, the problem of using all defense teams is it's also unfair for someone like PJ Tucker who narrowly missed the cut many times, compared to that 450th ranked defender in the league every year. Arbitrary cutoffs.

I am also not a big believer on Rings. On one hand someone like Giannis should be totally rewarded with this 50pt performance in a closeout game, but on the other hand you know this ring literally depends on Kevin Durant's shoe size. It literally does. Should we punish Giannis and call him a choker if KD wore half size smaller shoes? Hell no, but you know that's what's going to happen on this board by looking at people's reaction on his 50pt performance like 1 game, 1 single game moves him up to the all time 10-15 range. Don't get too high, don't get too low. Don't react on immediate things. Giannis had a successful post season whether he gets beaten by KD's shoe, or he wings a ring. If he lost in the ECF, I would be the first one to come out and attack those choker talks as u know trolls would be photoshopping his free throws pictures with Ben Simmons'.

These are the intangibles that really need to be a solid, unbiased part of all these ranking formulas. It's one hell of a difficult task though it probably needs some very advanced deep learning algorithms which can parse game videos over a player's entire career and make judgements after days of training. That's why I never take these ranking projects on this site seriously, even less the stupid arguments and fights in those threads.

[WarriorGM]

It depends on how you formula those voted upon awards. For Paul, 7 time 1st team all defense is no joke because it was a big part of his prime and it rightfully gives him an edge over Curry who is never known as a defender and also benefit from playing with Klay and Draymond during his prime. On the other hand, the problem of using all defense teams is it's also unfair for someone like PJ Tucker who narrowly missed the cut many times, compared to that 450th ranked defender in the league every year. Arbitrary cutoffs.

Please! All-defense is one of those awards that comes close to being a participation trophy. Just look at how this year's DPOY was turned into the primary weakness on his team and how a recent prior DPOY when left to be the best player on the team on paper led them to the bottom of the league standings. Maybe Paul's all-team defense indicates he has an edge on Curry in terms of defense. Maybe. But it says zilch about any edge in comparing them as players as a whole. It's one of those things that seems to make sense but really doesn't. It's arbitrary the same way rebounds and assists are included in the boxscore.

[dirkforpres]

Lebron ain’t it

[Statlanta]

Kawhi, Giannis and KD way too high

[dhsilv2]

Walton is much more where my head starts to hurt here. All this other chirping with active players is a bit over the top, but for Walton to be there, the focus on PEAK has to be extremely narrow and short and the focus on awards/titles is likely out of balance. KG similarly stresses this even more so as he was a truly DOMINATE player and it doesn't seem reflected here. While you may not take my view of him as a top 10 player, outside the top 20 is just too far off. Then we see Ewing who again lacks these awards but shouldn't be moved THAT far down due to it. There should be much more stress on longevity and how good a player was vs the binary focus on MVPs. Perhaps moving to MVP share vs MVPs all together would help great. Similarly, I'd recommend moving away from finals MVP and title's having much weight.

[ice9]

This is actually a really good ranking, considering the limitations of a formula. Comparing this to the RGM top 100 project (sliding Giannis back to 38 to get it more apples to apples), 16/50 players came within 1 ranking of the RGM100 rank, 30/50 within 5 spots, 40/50 within 10 with an avg abs difference of 3.5. The top 8 were a match for match less Duncan and Russell flipping.

Walton (+51), Cousy (+42), Giannis (+36), Iverson (+22), Hayes (+19), AD (+18), and Kawhi (+17) gained the most. Ewing (-17), Frazier (-12), and Garnett (-11) were the biggest losers. Makes sense since NY players and Garnett get overrated around here

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[DonaldSanders]

Cool idea but to me peak matters the most and this list doesn't take that into account enough. It seems to reward high achievement over a long period but not dominant peaks which is where I really sort my rankings.

[dhsilv2]

Cool idea but to me peak matters the most and this list doesn't take that into account enough. It seems to reward high achievement over a long period but not dominant peaks which is where I really sort my rankings.

Hard to have walton top 50 if you're not grossly skewing to peaks. What players don't seem to show peak bias?

[_qubik]

Nice work OP, some names seems a pretty off for me, like Harden and Cp3 in front of Curry, maybe longevity is weighing too much.

But for sure its a nice ranking and I agree with a lot of this, the top 15 is veeeeery good for me.

[WarriorGM]

This is actually a really good ranking, considering the limitations of a formula. Comparing this to the RGM top 100 project (sliding Giannis back to 38 to get it more apples to apples), 16/50 players came within 1 ranking of the RGM100 rank, 30/50 within 5 spots, 40/50 within 10 with an avg abs difference of 3.5. The top 8 were a match for match less Duncan and Russell flipping.

Walton (+51), Cousy (+42), Giannis (+36), Iverson (+22), Hayes (+19), AD (+18), and Kawhi (+17) gained the most. Ewing (-17), Frazier (-12), and Garnett (-11) were the biggest losers. Makes sense since NY players and Garnett get overrated around here

Ah yes, that list. If this one modeled itself after that one no wonder this list is so bad.

[dhsilv2]

This is actually a really good ranking, considering the limitations of a formula. Comparing this to the RGM top 100 project (sliding Giannis back to 38 to get it more apples to apples), 16/50 players came within 1 ranking of the RGM100 rank, 30/50 within 5 spots, 40/50 within 10 with an avg abs difference of 3.5. The top 8 were a match for match less Duncan and Russell flipping.

Walton (+51), Cousy (+42), Giannis (+36), Iverson (+22), Hayes (+19), AD (+18), and Kawhi (+17) gained the most. Ewing (-17), Frazier (-12), and Garnett (-11) were the biggest losers. Makes sense since NY players and Garnett get overrated around here

Ah yes, that list. If this one modeled itself after that one no wonder this list is so bad.

The real gm list is far and away the best list that gets done, not going to call it perfect but compared to any other list, it's worlds better.

[Magic Is Magic]

Hello all, to address some things being talked about

a) The point totals should be looked at going forward from 2021 because in 2020 if the scores are landing at LeBron 220 and MJ 214, I then divided those numbers by 2.5 to find the "perfect" score to be 100.

ex. 

LeBron 220 / 2.5 = 88.0
Jordan 214 / 25 = 85.6


b) I can show the breakdown numbers for each category when I get to my computer at home later tonight because right now I do not have access to those files but in a brief summary recap there were at least 25 categories used that have different weighing factors.


ex.

Ring = 1 point
FMVP = 3 points (4 points total for winning FMVP)


Top 3 MVP = 1.5 points
MVP winner = 2.5 points  (4 points total for winning MVP)


c) I did not include DPOY winners only because it wasn't awarded until 1984 which would be unfair to many players that played in the 60s, 70s, 80s. I wanted to create a system as fair as can be while not forgetting about throwback legends Dolph Schayes, George Mikan, Bob Cousy, Wilt Chamberlain, and Kareem even. I wanted to add PO DWS totals but that wasn't awarded until later as well so again that is unfair to the throwback legends so I was forced to remove them.


c) The formula is intended to be unbiased so if someone is feeling upset about a number you have to think why, this is because you do not like the results but the fact is I used the same criteria for each player which means I removed biasm. This means the results are fair for every single player and so with this line of thinking if you think Curry is too low and we need to give more weight to rings then this will drastically increase Russell's ranking and Kawhis rankings when most probably do not think they should be much higher. And if you think Davis is too high and I should add more value to longevity then this gives a bigger boost up to guys like Malone or Dirk. Everything is where it is for a premium balancing factor and nothing can be "perfect"-- or, can it if you are using the same criteria on each player but you just dont like the results?


d) The formula was intended to be fair and unbiased and you can disagree with the results of course we all can including myself but it is a completely fair system that rates every single player on the exact same criteria while looking at over 25 different value factors. This is the key to starting a project like this because as long as your criteria is 100% the same across the board while incorporating numerous categories to draw from I know I can be happy I did not sway into one direction or the other with biased takes against Player A or B. I think my formula also produces great results in the end and while I do not think there is a top 50 list that everyone agrees with, this is a great unbiased starting point to build onto. Some have LBJ #1 some have Michael but in the end if the top 10 looks good then the rest of the results 11-50 shake out via a completely unbiased based formula.

[HomoSapien]

I appreciate the effort that went into this, but the problem with formulas is that they ignore context and sports is too beautiful to be boiled down just to the numbers.

[DonaldSanders]

Cool idea but to me peak matters the most and this list doesn't take that into account enough. It seems to reward high achievement over a long period but not dominant peaks which is where I really sort my rankings.

Hard to have walton top 50 if you're not grossly skewing to peaks. What players don't seem to show peak bias?

Kobe over Bird jumped off the page to me. Look up Kobe's stats, they are good but he never peaked as high as the players around him on the list.

For me a big sign of a great player is leading the league in vorp, bpm, and a win share stat all in the same season. Kobe has never led the league in one of those categories.