1-1950 george mikan (1951)
As i have said before i dont think there is a right answer to the mikan question of how to evaluate a player who dominated nba early stages when talent pool, game advancement, rules and segregation made it such a different league
But i feel like if we are gonna include him in the project he deserves a placing that more closely indicates how much he dominated the league when he played, otherwise i would prefer to keep pre shot clock seasons out of the project
2-2007 steve nash (2006)
I pick 2007 over 2006 because oh his rather absurd spurs serie but i think either year is a great pick, 2006 has the most impressive regular season leading the suns to a great offense even without amare
I have talked about nash before in this post to explain why i think he may be a (very marginally) better offensive player than curry
Going more in depth. I think criticisms on nash ball dominance or "heliocentrism" are way overstated
Botg because he dominated the ball a lot less than people imagine (people seem to imagine he must have "ball hogged" as much as a luka currently) and because suns offense was way more dinamic than people (and me before rewstching nash suns games) remember it like
If you watch nash suns they are sort of like a reverse motion system.
Instead of having a "static" guy on ball while everyone else cuts/screens the way a team like the warriors do. Nash pushes the pace and makes quick decisions to drive/shot/pass....and he often cancels mid action to improvise somethingh else as everyone else reacts to the advabtage he created
Think running into a leaning jump forward jumper (like a floater but in a 2-handed jumpshot motion) and either hitting it smoothly or throwing a perfect dime on the jump to a cutter who just saw nash do start his jumper and started cutting just in case he gets a pass
Or driving past a big, stopping to freeze the defend, put the big in jail with his back and doing a hand off 2 meters off the rim to a running stoudamire who quicly realized the chance for a hand off dunk
He was not -quite- curry/reggie off ball movement wise but even though he was a on-ball player he was almost always running until he gave up the ball
you rarely saw him walk up the ball slowly or run a slow set. He would always be applying constant pressure in some way and making consistently great quick reads for passing and scoring off the chaos he created
The motion thingh i mention is because diaw,richardson, grant hill, barbosa, marion amd even (and perhaps surprisingly, mainly) stoudamire would "read and react" to nash quickly and cut/spot timely and accurstely to nash moves and then do quick decisions to shoot/pass or drive after receiving his passes
The whole thingh is just so smooth and contradicts the idea that on-ball quarterbacks turn role players into nothingh but lob or 3-point finishers. The suns are a constant moving machine around nash on-ball play in a similar way warriors best offense is a constant movement machine around curry off ball threath
Where a chris paul is like peyton manning running perfectly executed sets, nash is more like a lamar jackson or patrick mahomes. He can run, pass, run pass and you never know which is coming as he is always moving.
That is the best way to describe nash, he is always moving, he just does it more on ball than curry and more than your usual ball handler
You dont create the arguably goat offense relative to era with "just" a 6 foot guard playing pick and roll as everyonr else spots up. Nash is not big enough to just do a lebron through teams and get to the paint to score nonstop. He is a bit too small for that. Instead he achieves this by creating openings consistently that all of his twammates or himself later in the play can exploit to score
Where lebron and curry always "start with white" so to speak. Aka curry and lebron sort of compromise the defense before the play even starts cause their shooting or driving threat is so big that teams react preventively to take that option away. They always play chess with 1 move advantage as far as compromising the defense goes
Nash instead doesnt cause either effect (maybe if he shot mpre 3's today?) As teams didnt guard his 3 as tightly as curry's and he obviously is not lebron going to the paint.
Instead he maximizes his skillset to the max exploiting every small advantage by pushing the pace, using his handles and size to sneak in the paint and put the defense in an awkward position to stop his passing and because he is a more gifted passer/decision maker than curry and even bron. He makes it work. He does thinghs then reacts mid move to the defense reaction and finds somethingh ovet and over.
His motor/agressiveness may be low key as valuable as his mind, handles or jumper. And all these 4 thinghs combine for a perfect package that wouldnt work nearly as well if only one of the 4 thinghs was lesser
I think both are incresible offensive players who created absurd results when they got a coach (D'Antoni and kerr) who had a revolutionary approach based on their skillset.
But of the two it is nash who has the overall better offensive results relative to era and resiliency in my opinion. I suspect because he is faster at adapting to the defense and finding the best way to change the team approach than curry
I think he is a negative in defense due to his small size and frame making him a permanently (negative) mismatch on any player he guards but he ammeliorates this with good effort and rotations
3- 2011 dirk nowitsky (2006)
think the comparisions with durant are interesting and i made a previous post explaining why i prefer dirk
think in a vacuum durant is the most "skilled" player who can do more thinghs than dirk, offensively and defensively, and in general his boxscore reflects that, even the most efficient jumpshooter too (and that is hard to beat dirk at)
But dirk to me just made better use of his slightly less complete gifts to the point his impact may have been greater. A good example is their dribble
Both are flawed dribblers butdurant can do more with his than dirk. But he dribbles a bit more than he should which becomes a issue in the playoffs in most of his non warriors years (and even within the warriors it came up a bit against the rockets)
Dirk in comparision knows exactly what he can do witgout increasing the risk of a turnover too much so he chooses more decisively when to isolate, when to drive if a straight line path opens amd when to just give back the ball and keep the play moving
here i think his post up is more resilient in the playoffs snd more likely to lead to playmaking that durant perimeter or post gsme are, likely a product of better post footwork and strenght (but dursnt got really good with footwork in brooklyn)
Defensively dursnt should be better but i think his defense effort is a tad inconsistent, but i think he may have peaked higher here with his mobility helping as a rim protector
I think is arguably between both, dont disagree with the idea durant is a superior player in a vacuum, but basketball doesnt always work out as it does in vacuums
And leadership intangibles may be a nice tie breaker bonus for durant if it comes to it
Dirk is one of the greatest scoring threats comvos ever eith huge impact as a scorer and as a spacer. He is like a reggie miller with the added benefit of being still a guy you can run on-ball more through his isos (reggie could be a bit easier to contain because of his weakrr on ball threat) AND provide extra off ball value relative to position as a big
His turnover economy, unselfish passing and off ball value as a big are so good on top of his own scoring game that he is one of the few non ball handlers/ non really great passer (he is fine as a passer imo, but not exactly larry bird) with all time level offensive impact. Up there or above the likes of shaq and reggie
Defense was fine although unremarkable, less of a defense weak link than nash although i think nash was better on offense overall
4- 2019 james harden (2018, 2020) one of the best one man army offense players in league history. Notable playoffs drop but he drop down from very high regular season highs. At his best was able to be both an all time level "floor raiser" and combine well results wise with another ballhandlers and offensive co star in more shared roles
I think he is a ok enough defender in that he is not the best off ball defender but holds his own 1vs1 and has surprising ability on "mismatches" in the post against bigger players which has tactical usefulness
My biggest worry i suppose is that unlike other helios (nash, lebron to a lesser degree paul) his team offensive results just seem to fall a notch below and he seems to take a bigger hit in the playoffs. Still his durability in his iron man years puts him over paul for me
5- 2017 kevin durant (2014,2016)
I have touched on it in the dirk write up. I think he had a incredibly wide but not totally deep skillset. Which sometimes makes players fall too much in love with good but not great parts of their games
Like kobe fell too in love at times with his tough shotmaking in lieu of passing back to the next man. Durant fell too in love with his great for a 7 footer dribble (when it was still very susceptible to panic under pressure and still was too high of a dribble) and tried to handle the ball too much as a guard or had such a great iso game that he just settle for it a tad too much at times
2017 was such a ideal situation in all aspects for him including taking a smaller amd more well selected amount of iso or heavy dribblin ballhandling possesion. It was as perfect of a situation as it could be possible, yes but he still gets credit for being such a incredible player under that perfect situation
I think he may be a bit ahead of dirk as a defensive player but dirk is the more reliablw first option by a small degree
6- 2020 anthony davis (2018)
Just one of the most valuable and "portable" seasons ever. Absolutely elite defense, great iso scoring, spacing and elite off-ball skills.
Only reason to not be as high on him is like with paul, he is so fragile he may get injured at really any moment AND is not as reliable being the guy you run your offense through.
Honestly other than durability i dont think his peak is worse than robinson but that may be controversial
His playoffs run was just the stuff of legends so that propels him above paul who om average i have as the better player
7- 2015 chris paul (2014,2008)
One of the best impact profiles ever, plus-minus and offensive team results on the tier of steph curry. But lack of durability is too much of a weakness
Along with health and "ring bias"i think his rep also suffers a bit from a less "sexy" profile than other ballhandlers. Magic and nash had the agressive drives passing and tempo pushing. Turnover reduction and running sets or taking the midrange jumper the defense concedes and hitting 50% at it doesnt have the same sexyness
I think like with moses and his offensive rebounding paul suffers a bit from stylistic doubts
For the record there is less of a "playoff drop" evidence than other plus-minus giants like the already picked robinson. And if we go the route of "better second option" chris paul has thrived in that role in his mid 30's too (2018 rockets, 2021 suns)
8- 1990 patrick ewing (i am starting to sell myself higher on him)
Excellent defender and rim protector, good post defender and solid effort outside the paint and co testing towards the perimeter. In film watching he seems less well positioned than duncan and less mobile than hskeem which is somethinfh we already knew
There is a surprising amount of possesions against bird celtics in the playoffs where he is right st the rim but doesnt position himself well
the one thst sticks to mind is when bird is posting up a knicks wing so ewing comes to help but is "blocked" by said teammate. Ewing just stays there, raises his hands pointlessly and is essentially a pointless prop in bird mismatch post up when if he had reacted a bit more quickly he had enough time to move into a better contesting/block angle
On the offensive end he has a nice post fade. Doesnt use his strenght and footwork as often as i would like and kind of settles for his (very solid) comfort fade too often rather than exploiting other options like duncan would do (i am comparing him to duncan to illustrate the differences with other rim protecting isolationist)
Passing wise he was surprisingly accurate throwing dimes to cutters from the post that wouldnt be out of place in a jokic game. But otherwise he had tons of tunnel vision moments where he tried to isolate even when 2 or 3 players were swarming him
Sometimes he would go so quickly to his pre decided post move (usually a spin fade to the baseline) the double team didnt come in time to do anythingh which was amusing
I would have loved to see him used in the high post more, when he didnt go into post possesions havung already decided he WAS gonna shot he could be very accurate threading the needle to cutters and obviously had a nice jumpshot he could threaten defense with from there to provide spacing to his teammates
9-1983 moses malone
I am gonna do a deep dive on moses when i have time, he is a player i steuggle to rank
10- bob pettit/barkley/malone/reggie come to mind around here
Temptative rankings since i am a bit busy today, will put the reasonings when i get the chance
And yeah i am aware my list is very modern heavy leaning. Part of it is that i am lower than most on players like barkley. Part of it is that i am more famoliarized with 20th century players which is admittedly a weakness of mine when doing a list like this
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