Moderators: Clyde Frazier, Doctor MJ, trex_8063, penbeast0, PaulieWal
One_and_Done wrote: Like with most sports that you can measure performance, the league has generally gotten stronger over time. The 70s were much stronger than the 60s, the 80s were stronger than the 70s, etc.
penbeast0 wrote:If you mean that the 70s had more advanced coaching, techniques, and equipment (mainly shoes) that hadn't been there in the 60s, fine. If you mean the 70s had stronger average teams, deeper and with more outstanding players per franchise, I think you are pretty clearly wrong.
The 70s were actually a lot weaker in terms of team stars, depth, unit cohesion, etc. than the 60s, even ignoring the ABA. The population was expanding but not at anywhere close to the way the size of the league was expanding, doubling the number of times by 1976 (again, even ignoring the drain of some talent to the ABA). The only real top line stars who stood out the way Wilt, Russell, Oscar, and West stood out in the 60s were Kareem and in the ABA Erving. Plus the threat of jumping leagues and contract poaching meant there was more playing for stats and less playing for the team. Oh, and cocaine took its toll too. The 70s were my era but the idea that the competition was much stronger then than in the 60s is unrealistic.
penbeast0 wrote:It does; I take weaker eras results with more of a grain of salt. I still feel that dominance matters; I think I advocated for Mel Daniels for the last top 100, but in terms of actual voting in previous top 100s, it mainly means that I rank equivalent play in the 60s higher than that of the 70s and roughly equal to that of the 80s.
Tim Lehrbach wrote:My criterion for this project, part two:
Sport, like other durable elements of culture, is a meaning-making and meaning-signaling activity. When we participate, spectate, or reflect upon sport, we tell stories about ourselves and each other as individuals, as groups, and humans generally. Sport, it has been argued elsewhere, is ultimately about these meaningful narratives. It would not be such a durable feature of cultures if it did not provide meaning: it is less practical than noncompetitive exercise, it is far more demanding than nonathletic games and other pastimes that are not sports, and it is less accessible than art and especially popular culture. The practice, performance, observation, and affiliation of sport incites emotional investment and inspiration that would be inexplicable without the private and shared stories that attend its performance and the personal and societal circumstances which both contribute to its context and are themselves informed by the sports contained within them.
Where am I going with this? Well, we’re here to tell stories about basketball players. We’re here, more specifically, to compare the quality of stories told about basketball players. Personally, I don’t find The Greatest of All Time to be a particularly compelling comparison. Ranking competitors, especially according to moving targets of measurable achievement, is but one, historically situated kind of narrative among many. This elevation of sport as measure of human excellence has pluses and minuses, but while we take the pluses for granted, we rarely look at the drawbacks.
Yet, for better or worse, The Greatest of All Time means a lot to us, or at least to the forces shaping the dominant culture around our appreciation for elite sport. I don't believe I can wish away the impulse to assemble and revere an ultimate ranking of competitors. So, for the first time, I'm going to try to lend my (probably very lonely) perspective. Based on previous projects, I expect others to deliver impressive data, analysis, anecdotes, and video evidence. I have very little to offer on those fronts that has not already been uncovered and discussed. What I’d like to do instead is draw attention to the quality of the narratives that different players’ careers have generated. I believe this should be an important part of whether and how we appreciate them.
This point of view – emphasizing narrative – is not popular among close observers of the game, as unfortunately it conjures ideas about, for example, cultural influence, “killer instinct”/clutchness, or being “the man.” Some of these are weak narratives, others outright detrimental to sport, but I find it interesting they are dismissed as something imaginary or, more often, reduced to something quantifiable because of the tacit acceptance that our evaluations of players must aspire to be scientific. Very often, as in the “killer instinct” chatter, there is a question regarding which we do have data implicit in the claim being made, so sometimes it is absolutely appropriate to counter such narratives with numbers. At other times, though, the narrative has a life of its own that should be reckoned with irrespective of its conduciveness to statistical analysis.
I am not at all suggesting that statistics are the wrong lens through which to view questions that do have a numerical answer. The correct approach to unsupported claims about a player’s impact is to find the best metrics we have to measure the question being asked or implied. Rather, I would ask that we let the narratives which emerge about players, or which they write themselves with intention, stand and be considered even when they cannot be quantified. To some extent, we’re all used to this when we discuss a player’s leadership qualities, his coachability, and his influence on contemporaries and successors. However intangible they may be, these aspects are still related to a player’s impact on winning basketball games. I’d like to suggest that we should be looking even more broadly at narratives than this. We should be asking about what stories a player’s career tells about him, how these stories contribute to the culture of the sport, and what, ultimately, we learn about ourselves and the activity of basketball itself by this culture.
Doctor MJ posted the following in the Voting Criteria Guidelines:Doctor MJ wrote:The RealGM Top 100 is focused on:
[…]
2. Competitive achievement rather [than] cultural innovation/influence.
To be clear, I am not trying to evaluate how players influenced popular culture or advanced the sport of basketball in the public imagination. Rather, my interest is in how players’ competitive achievements reflect upon the players’ athletic and character merits, on ourselves as observers, and on the nature of the sport itself. This is what I mean by “the culture of the sport.” How does a player epitomize what it means to be a basketball player, or what it should mean to be one? How does a player influence the very idea of The Greatest of All-Time? I revisit these questions below as I get more specific about my evaluation criteria.
Even at this juncture, I expect pushback, and if this were a full-on treatise I would lay out and respond to anticipated criticisms and limitations to my approach. But this needs to be fun and easy if I’m to remain engaged and make any difference here. So, on to my approach…
As I said, we are here to tell stories about basketball players. The Greatest of All-Time is not a single measurable trait, nor a product of a formula. Each case for the ultimate player or players in any sport is a narrative which leans upon evidence to make an argument on the merits. Each case is also, however, an appeal for support on the basis of what we value in athletic achievement. One question for which I do not have the definitive answer, and for which there may not be a single right answer, is whether the very idea of the GOAT favors certain kinds of arguments and appeals over others. That is to say, if we want to talk about the GOAT at all, do we commit ourselves to a certain lens through which we view the sport? Even in the absence of clarity on these questions, I argue both that we typically do make such commitments and, on the other hand, that we are not bound to do so.
What are the commitments we make when we go about deciding who to crown the GOAT? Here are some that I find to be consistent foundations:
1. Sport is about the results of the games because competition is about determining the best.
2. Results (wins and losses) can be reduced to the discrete events which produce them. In the study of basketball, increasingly, these events are possessions.
3. We can properly diagnose the causes of those events.
4. We can attribute those causes to players’ actions.
5. We can measure and ranked these attributions, and therefore the players themselves, for their value – their importance to the results of the game.
6. Such measuring and ranking are inherently valuable exercises and are, in fact, the natural consequences of participating in or observing sporting competition.
7. The more scientific our measures and rankings are, the better the job we do at celebrating the best and therefore at fulfilling the purpose of sport.
My participation in any GOAT-talk is, as much as anything else, an attempt to examine the work that these unstated premises are doing to shape the discussion around greatness in sports. While each one may seem uncontroversial at first glance, I have argued and will continue to argue that several are insufficiently supported by history, sociology, and data science. In combination, I believe they yield a view of team competition – here, of course, NBA basketball – which unevenly assigns worth to the competitors by assuming that winning is the most important element of the sport, by misapplying the tools we have for recording and analyzing what causes wins, and by marginalizing other considerations which cannot be so easily captured and related to statistical indicators of wins. The consequence of all this, in my view, is a project (GOAT-talk generally; I’m not singling out this effort) that is inherently underdetermined and possibly altogether myopic with respect to our appreciation of the sport and its participants.
And yet, for all this, the lure of the GOAT project is irresistible to so many that it cannot be hastily dismissed. We must ask why it holds such appeal, whether the activity needs rehabilitating, and what corrections and additional perspectives would enhance it. To these questions, I also have no answer, but that’s where the RealGM Top 100 comes in. I want to find out – and to help the effort to find out – whether a community of actively-engaged, informed, and creative basketball observers has room to reshape the debate, and what effects such reshaping may have on both the results of the project and how observers respond to them.
To these ends, I make the following admissions about my involvement:
1. I seek to advance a view of sport that is less bound to the contingencies of the measure-and-rank regime, that situates NBA athletes within a longer arc of sporting history, and that reckons with the meaningfulness (beyond purported impact on winning games) of players’ accomplishments to themselves and to the fans.
2. If my contributions are to matter at all, they will need serious help. I’m pleading from the jump that my framework be treated with seriousness by those who are better-educated about the sport than I am and who possess sharper rhetorical and statistical tools than I do. The truth is that I do not know what shape the GOAT debate takes if my own premises are followed to their conclusions. Further, I do not know who, if anybody, deserves to be called the #1, #2, #37, or honorably mentioned GOAT.
3. Because I begin from a place of such uncertainty in my personal approach, I will necessarily be offering more questions than answers in my posts. I will vote, and my votes like any others will be supported by arguments and appeals. However, you may find my methods unconventional and unconvincing as I try them out. This is, again, where I am asking for help. If there is any uptake to my questions or interest in exploring the beliefs and biases I bring to the project, it is highly probable that you will be able to make better cases on their bases than I can. Please do not hesitate to do so, especially if the exercise contradicts my arguments for or against specific players, which is the heart of the project.
And finally, with the caveat that all the preceding is what my participation in this project is really about, I reiterate the criterion I shared earlier in this thread:
1. How and to what level does the player exemplify the highest athletic and character achievements available to a basketball player? What story does each player tell us about ourselves as humans capable of greatness? In what respect does the player illustrate the very purpose (to competitors and spectators alike) for having the game of basketball?
These questions constitute a criterion about the quality of the narrative that emerges when a player’s accomplishments are experienced, examined, and felt by the basketball community. To arrive at a consistent set of answers to these questions, I will further ask regarding each player:
1. What are the qualities of the narratives surrounding this player’s career? Are they positive or negative? What flaws are to be found in the narratives themselves, and do they need to be revised?
2. What impact has the player had on the GOAT debate itself?
3. Is this impact positive or negative for appreciation of the sport?
The format of my responses will be brief characterizations of the player’s esteem, my commentary, and areas for further inquiry. The content of my responses will be a picture of each player’s unique kind of greatness. To be sure, a big part of this picture is how well each athlete mastered the sport. And contributions towards winning basketball games is the most direct way any of these competitors demonstrate their greatness. To an extent, therefore, my responses will lean on the work of others. Beyond this, however, I hope to provide different lenses through which we can all look at the achievements, good and bad, of players throughout NBA history.
To be clear, I am not trying to evaluate how players influenced popular culture or advanced the sport of basketball in the public imagination. Rather, my interest is in how players’ competitive achievements reflect upon the players’ athletic and character merits, on ourselves as observers, and on the nature of the sport itself. This is what I mean by “the culture of the sport.” How does a player epitomize what it means to be a basketball player, or what it should mean to be one? How does a player influence the very idea of The Greatest of All-Time?
...
. How and to what level does the player exemplify the highest athletic and character achievements available to a basketball player? What story does each player tell us about ourselves as humans capable of greatness? In what respect does the player illustrate the very purpose (to competitors and spectators alike) for having the game of basketball?
...
1. What are the qualities of the narratives surrounding this player’s career? Are they positive or negative? What flaws are to be found in the narratives themselves, and do they need to be revised?
2. What impact has the player had on the GOAT debate itself?
3. Is this impact positive or negative for appreciation of the sport
...
To be sure, a big part of this picture is how well each athlete mastered the sport. And contributions towards winning basketball games is the most direct way any of these competitors demonstrate their greatness. To an extent, therefore, my responses will lean on the work of others. Beyond this, however, I hope to provide different lenses through which we can all look at the achievements, good and bad, of players throughout NBA history.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
One_and_Done wrote:To be clear, I am not trying to evaluate how players influenced popular culture or advanced the sport of basketball in the public imagination. Rather, my interest is in how players’ competitive achievements reflect upon the players’ athletic and character merits, on ourselves as observers, and on the nature of the sport itself. This is what I mean by “the culture of the sport.” How does a player epitomize what it means to be a basketball player, or what it should mean to be one? How does a player influence the very idea of The Greatest of All-Time?
...
. How and to what level does the player exemplify the highest athletic and character achievements available to a basketball player? What story does each player tell us about ourselves as humans capable of greatness? In what respect does the player illustrate the very purpose (to competitors and spectators alike) for having the game of basketball?
...
1. What are the qualities of the narratives surrounding this player’s career? Are they positive or negative? What flaws are to be found in the narratives themselves, and do they need to be revised?
2. What impact has the player had on the GOAT debate itself?
3. Is this impact positive or negative for appreciation of the sport
...
To be sure, a big part of this picture is how well each athlete mastered the sport. And contributions towards winning basketball games is the most direct way any of these competitors demonstrate their greatness. To an extent, therefore, my responses will lean on the work of others. Beyond this, however, I hope to provide different lenses through which we can all look at the achievements, good and bad, of players throughout NBA history.
Some of the above appears to indicate he will rank players on things othrr than 'competetive achievement'. The last text quoted explicitly confirms that he will use other criteria than contributions towards winning games. He also talks about the value they brought to narratives, and appreciation of the sport, and the degree to which they represented certain ideals. How does 'what their story tells us about ourselves' involve weighing actual competetive achievement?
One_and_Done wrote:To be clear, I am not trying to evaluate how players influenced popular culture or advanced the sport of basketball in the public imagination. Rather, my interest is in how players’ competitive achievements reflect upon the players’ athletic and character merits, on ourselves as observers, and on the nature of the sport itself. This is what I mean by “the culture of the sport.” How does a player epitomize what it means to be a basketball player, or what it should mean to be one? How does a player influence the very idea of The Greatest of All-Time?
...
. How and to what level does the player exemplify the highest athletic and character achievements available to a basketball player? What story does each player tell us about ourselves as humans capable of greatness? In what respect does the player illustrate the very purpose (to competitors and spectators alike) for having the game of basketball?
...
1. What are the qualities of the narratives surrounding this player’s career? Are they positive or negative? What flaws are to be found in the narratives themselves, and do they need to be revised?
2. What impact has the player had on the GOAT debate itself?
3. Is this impact positive or negative for appreciation of the sport
...
To be sure, a big part of this picture is how well each athlete mastered the sport. And contributions towards winning basketball games is the most direct way any of these competitors demonstrate their greatness. To an extent, therefore, my responses will lean on the work of others. Beyond this, however, I hope to provide different lenses through which we can all look at the achievements, good and bad, of players throughout NBA history.
Some of the above appears to indicate he will rank players on things othrr than 'competetive achievement'. The last text quoted explicitly confirms that he will use other criteria than contributions towards winning games. He also talks about the value they brought to narratives, and appreciation of the sport, and the degree to which they represented certain ideals. How does 'what their story tells us about ourselves' involve weighing actual competetive achievement?
Tim Lehrbach wrote:2. What impact has the player had on the GOAT debate itself?
Tim Lehrbach wrote:3. Is this impact positive or negative for appreciation of the sport
One_and_Done wrote:To be clear, I am not trying to evaluate how players influenced popular culture or advanced the sport of basketball in the public imagination. Rather, my interest is in how players’ competitive achievements reflect upon the players’ athletic and character merits, on ourselves as observers, and on the nature of the sport itself. This is what I mean by “the culture of the sport.” How does a player epitomize what it means to be a basketball player, or what it should mean to be one? How does a player influence the very idea of The Greatest of All-Time?
...
. How and to what level does the player exemplify the highest athletic and character achievements available to a basketball player? What story does each player tell us about ourselves as humans capable of greatness? In what respect does the player illustrate the very purpose (to competitors and spectators alike) for having the game of basketball?
...
1. What are the qualities of the narratives surrounding this player’s career? Are they positive or negative? What flaws are to be found in the narratives themselves, and do they need to be revised?
2. What impact has the player had on the GOAT debate itself?
3. Is this impact positive or negative for appreciation of the sport
...
To be sure, a big part of this picture is how well each athlete mastered the sport. And contributions towards winning basketball games is the most direct way any of these competitors demonstrate their greatness. To an extent, therefore, my responses will lean on the work of others. Beyond this, however, I hope to provide different lenses through which we can all look at the achievements, good and bad, of players throughout NBA history.
Some of the above appears to indicate he will rank players on things othrr than 'competetive achievement'. The last text quoted explicitly confirms that he will use other criteria than contributions towards winning games. He also talks about the value they brought to narratives, and appreciation of the sport, and the degree to which they represented certain ideals. How does 'what their story tells us about ourselves' involve weighing actual competetive achievement?
Doctor MJ wrote:Spoiler:
I'll acknowledge that depending on how Tim takes all this it could end up with something that doesn't feel like it's about competitive achievement, but there is also the matter that the concept of quantified achievement is something that the is shaped by the culture as well as the other way around.
I think the most glaring thing here is the distinction between the regular season and the post-season. When it was recently announced that there would be an award for best regular season team we had all sorts of internet people mocking the award and using terms like "participation trophy". I'd say in general these are folks who don't understand how culture has bent their sense of achievement, compared with how things once were in basketball, and how they still are in sports like soccer.
I've been open about my perspective of season-based achievement (in a nutshell, start with the RS, allow PS achievement to elevate) with an acknowledgement that others will come at it a different way. I've actually been talking with Ben Taylor about this for many years as this is a place where we have a philosophical divergence. Ben's perspective has led him to try to detach himself from the specifics of one particular season so that his sense of the goodness of a player isn't skewed by narrative, and I respect this a great deal in part because I recognize how problematic the small sample of the playoffs is and how much "goodness noise" it kicks up.
In the end, because the players and teams themselves are focused on the chip, so do I. I'll lament the small sample this chains me too, but that's what the culture of NBA basketball has come to hold as "the goal", and so bend to that.
So when I read Tim's criteria, what I see is something that might just be the same sort of thing that I recognize is what I do - and frankly what I think we all do.
Now as I say this, looking at points 2 & 3 that you've bolded, let me try to clarify:Tim Lehrbach wrote:2. What impact has the player had on the GOAT debate itself?
If what's meant here is simply recognizing the effect of the player on how the GOAT debate is frame, I think that's good.
If what's meant here is that a player gets an explicit boost in a GOAT list simply because his name has appeared a lot in the GOAT debate, that does seem like a problem to me.Tim Lehrbach wrote:3. Is this impact positive or negative for appreciation of the sport
This does seem like the most concerning statement as One_and_Done zooms in on it. If what we're talking about is a player's popularization effect of the game as a whole, to me that seems like something for a broader Hall-worthiness list.
What are the commitments we make when we go about deciding who to crown the GOAT? Here are some that I find to be consistent foundations:
1. Sport is about the results of the games because competition is about determining the best.
2. Results (wins and losses) can be reduced to the discrete events which produce them. In the study of basketball, increasingly, these events are possessions.
3. We can properly diagnose the causes of those events.
4. We can attribute those causes to players’ actions.
5. We can measure and ranked these attributions, and therefore the players themselves, for their value – their importance to the results of the game.
6. Such measuring and ranking are inherently valuable exercises and are, in fact, the natural consequences of participating in or observing sporting competition.
7. The more scientific our measures and rankings are, the better the job we do at celebrating the best and therefore at fulfilling the purpose of sport.
Doctor MJ wrote:The RealGM Top 100 is focused on:
[…]
2. Competitive achievement rather [than] cultural innovation/influence.
Tim Lehrbach wrote:Oh, one thing I'll admit is that dropping that "criteria" post on day three of the project was poor form. It would have been much better to have this out before the project began. Unfortunately, I wanted to participate but could not get much written up prior to this kicking off. I suppose I could save this all for 2026?
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
One_and_Done wrote:So Tim I assume you will not be factoring in off court things that aren't directly relevant to winning?