Hello everyone! As this is my first top 100 I'll do my best to make a decent mark as a debutant. Saving my sophmore slump for 2026
That said, while I think I know who I'm voting for here, I am going to take my time to be thorough with my reasoning before I submit a final vote. That said, I am open to being convinced so for those who seek to move me...
Criteria/Methodology for player evaluationFor now, player-assessments are strictly era-relative. Am considering a shift to "impact averaged over time" or modernist-era-translation as factors, but for now it's really just how much you increase a random team's chances of winning it all. I'm not exclusively looking year to year necessarily(other teams may take a season or post-season to adjust), but outside of tie-breaks, "better league" will not be considered. Surrounding years also matter to me, and for a rough rant explaining the steps, you can look here(I think I've fine-tuned that in ways but still):
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=103144819#p103144819Other ConsiderationsBasing these guesses on historical and contemporary results, I'm working on a few assumptions:
-> Protecting the Rim is the most consistent source of value across different situations and contexts:
OhayoKD wrote:Dutchball97 wrote:Perhaps at a higher theoretical treshold the gap between playmaker stacking and wing-scorer stacking becomes evident, but that treshold hasn't been reached and "paint-protectors" currently look like the least "situation-dependent" archetype. At an individual level, Duncan and Russell are probably the quintessential metronomes if we go by team success and if we go by individual impact, Russell and Kareem stand-out in terms of a lack of fluctuation. From rookie year to 1980 Kareem's "impact" stays pretty consistent with small postseason samples being where most of the fluctuation happens. Russell is still winning with seemingly average help right as he's about to retire.
-> Offensive players who are highly efficient-creators(think passer-rating instead of box-creation or ast:tov%) are the most resilient in playoff-settings
-> Players who function as on-court coaches(telling teammates where to go, prompting coaching decisions at key spots) on one or both-ends are extremely resilient to changes in situation and provide value higher than their physical production might indicate
-> Players who cannot require more specific conditions to reach their situational ceilings and therefore are curved down
Blackmill wrote:OhayoKD wrote:it's not just about what you create. It's also about the quality of what you're creating AND how much you're leaving on the table with suboptimal decisions. Players on this tier have better discernable offensive "lift" than players the tier below, and often this is blamed entirely or pre-dominantly on "this is just because of who their teammates are", but I actually think the real source of this offensive advantage is the "quality" of what they're creating(and some of the backseat coaching stuff has an off-court effect that can't be tracked via impact stuff):
Don't have access to the numbers(paywall) rn but passer-rating also sees this. Curry and Jordan graded out as comparable or right behind creators in a pure volume metric like playval(based on ben's bpm which is using assist totals I think) or Box-OC, to guys like say Lebron, Magic, and Nash, but they had teammates telling players where to go(draymond/pippen respectively), and don't make the best possible reads as often(I think ben said it was something like 60% vs 80% of the high quality passes in his peaks video and we have the "good passes" number above).
Incidentally they don't seem to have the same level of offensive lift in the absence of a specific structure where those decisions are delegated to someone else:
By comparison, the best pre-triangle Jordan stretch(with Jordan arguably at his peak) sees a 52(Ben) or 53-win(E-balla) team over a 30-game sample going at +4.4 offensively(you can reach a +4.6 if you swap minuite distributions for the 5th and 7th mpg guys for 20 games and ignore the team didn't actually improve), Curry wasn't close to leading all-time offenses(and had worse metrics than both westbrook and durant) with Draymond on the bench.
-> All else being equal, being able to impact without the ball offers an advantage of being reliant on having the ball(KD vs Westbrook):
However, Nash’s situational value clearly changed from Dallas to Phoenix, as multiple APM methodologies demonstrate marginal impact in Dallas and seismic correlations in Phoenix. Improved health and the freedom-of-movement rule change were both factors, but I view these competing measurements as a classic case of fit. Similar to LeBron and Wade, Nash’s style of play created some diminishing returns. Unlike LeBron or Wade, Nash’s unheralded background and diminutive stature masked his poor fit in Dallas. Nash was more of a situational floor-raiser who could wash out in certain lineups next to ball-dominant scorers; he wasn’t as versatile as someone like LeBron, so pairing him with other centerpieces didn’t automatically supercharge such teams.
-> Players who disproportionately rely on being elite man-defenders to boost defenses are less likely to reach their situational ceilings than players who are not
-> Players who have limitations as ball-handlers are less likely to reach their situational ceilings than players who are not(There are levels to this, a Kareem or Jordan is dramatically less reliant on lower-ball-handling load to maximize their scoring value compared to players like Bird or Durant)
-> Credit is warranted when a player succeeds in-spite of roster-turnover or fo-drama, as it is harder to perform well in such situations
-> Failure is more forgivable in such circumstances(If the Suns go ballistic with an off-season to figure things out I'll retroactively raise Durant's 2023 a bit)
Off-court "impact on winning" matters, but I am going to be going off direct accounts and tangible actions/examples as opposed to media-narratives(am going to get into this with certain "coach-killer" claims at some point). Steph may be considered the leader of the Warriors, but as Dray is the one who is telling teammates what to do when he's on the sideline(you could hear this on mic'd up in game 2), is called the emotional leader by teammates, and is coaching up young-talent, he gets the lion's share of off-court credit. Not too relevant to a single-season ranking, but I'm planning to copy and paste this preamble(mostly) for the top 100 so humor me.
Off-court "gming" good and bad, taking pay-cuts, ensuring teammates sign contracts, side-line(or on-court) coaching(and the actual results), all come into play. I am not going to assume "the best player" is the "leader" even though people(teammates included) tend to assume that, but I will account for what specifically players in the organization say a player did or didn't do.
What is "Likely" to happen or how replicable something is(across different situations) is also relevant(not as much in a descriptive POY ranking). This is an important thing to consider with injuries(not so much with POY voting but still).
Competition quality matters but in terms of winning championships, the top-end is more relevant than the bottom-end. Beating the better "best" opponent matters more than beating a better "2nd best" opponent. Can be applied to looking at how strong a "year" is or how strong the path to a championship is. Regular season srs is also less relevant than something like say "San's psrs" in comparisons featuring teams from the last 10 years.
lessthanjake wrote:1. Michael Jordan
2. LeBron James
I don’t really think you can go wrong with either of these two, but I’ve got a slight preference for Jordan.
A couple notes:
The combination of regular season and postseason dominance that we saw from Jordan’s Bulls is unprecedented.
It is unprecedented
post-merger but I think we need to be careful about just using raw srs here. While those gaudy win-totals were better than any other dynasty, that is separate from them being more "dominant". It was after all,
not the Bulls who won 11 championships in 13 years, and it was also
not the Bulls who won 8-straight. As far as championships go, a 50-win team in the 60's or the post-merger 70's is better(or more likely to win), than a 50-win team in the 90's or the 2000's. Ceiling-raising indicates to me you are specifically focused on championships. With that in mind, when we look at standard deviations as opposed to raw-srs totals...
F4P wrote:just using regular season SRS and playing out the playoffs, i have russell with 7.0 expected titles and jordan with 2.9.
...we see the Celtics were far more dominant than the Bulls. And if that wasn't enough, they were also better
playoff risers winning 4 more rings than expected as opposed to the Bulls only winning 3.1 more rings.
Keep in mind, unlike with Lebron, there's really no evidence for Jordan being a comparable or better "floor-raiser". Russell has won with less help than Jordan has ever won with(1969), has won with two completely different cores, and has kept the Celtics at a best in the league-level(peaking from 60-64 as a bigger outlier than any of Jordan's bulls). If you are going to opt for ceiling raising(justified with more impressive team success), isn't Bill a better choice?
I also think you're missing some context with your "help" evaluations...
And I simply don’t see this as being caused by the Bulls being more talented. Indeed, I don’t actually see those Bulls as being more talented than many of LeBron’s teams. It’s clear that they were a good team without Jordan—since they did well during his first retirement (though the 55 wins in 1994 obscures that the SRS wasn’t nearly as good).
Yeah, uh
no. Their SRS was "nor nearly as good" because Pippen and Grant missed games. When both were in the lineup they posted a regular season srs of
4.7, aka, a
55-win pace:
Pippen’s non-Jordan seasons were particularly impressive because of the overall heights of the team. In ’94, the Bulls played at a 55-win pace when healthy (4.7 SRS).
In the playoffs they played like a
+8 team, boosting their srs from +4.7 to
+5 for the season. Aka, a
58-win pace. Then without Grant(who would see the Magic jump from first-round outs to finalists), the Bulls won at a
52-win pace:
In 1995, with key cog Horace Grant lost to Orlando (and Ron Harper aboard), a healthy Bulls team still played at a 52-win pace (3.8 SRS) with an rORtg of +1.1 before Michael Jordan returned.
The names might not impress you, but they made a decent offense without Jordan
and Grant, and a good one when they were just down Jordan. Pair that with an excellent defense, and you get one of the few teams in nba history that was capable of contending for a championship without their best player. For comparison, let's look at how Cleveland(second stint) and Miami fared without Lebron:
From 12-14 Miami posted a net-rating of -3.5 in games without Lebron(7.5 with). In the title-winning years Miami were a +8.4 team with Lebron and a -2.5 team without. That actually looks like a 30ish win team rather than a 40ish won but presumably missed time and opponent quality shift the lebron-less heat towards neutrality with SRS.
Switching from WOWY, to lineup-ratings, the Heat were +11.04 with Lebron/Wade lineups, +2.7 with with Wade, no Lebron lineups, 10.87 with Lebron/Bosh lineups, -1.19 with Bosh, no Lebron lineups, +10.28 with the big-three, and -4.48 with the big-three minus Lebron. The heat were also +2.77 in lineups with Lebron and without Wade or bosh. Overall, Lebron lineups scored at +9.62 while Lebron-less lineups scored at +0.75
In the title-winning years, the Heat were -3.25 with just Wade and Bosh and +12 with all three, +5.88 with Lebron and no wade or bosh, and +0.48 without any of the big three. Overall, for 12 and 13, Lebron lineups scored at 11.96 while Lebron-less lineups were -0.36.
Let's start with 2015. To set the table, the lebron-less cavs with kyrie and love are a bad defense and average offense if you go by net-rating(-1.73 overall, 30ish wins). This is also true in 2016(-1.7), 2017(-2.81) which adds up to -1.99 for all 3-seasons. Without any of the 3, the cavs are -14.62.
With Lebron and no kyrie or love, the Cavs are +6.79. With all 3 they're +10.76(PBPstats). with both and without both Lebron looks historically valuable.
But maybe this is just a matter of wonky lineups/rotations? Well, we can then look at WOWY, only including games where the Cavaliers knew they'd be playing without Lebron. In 2015 they were 3-10 without Lebron. Extending our sample the Cavs out to 2017 and the Cavs were 4-23. In games without Lebron and with Kyrie and Love, the cavs were 4-11, a 21-win pace.
With Lebron, the 2015 Cavs went 50-19(59-win). Without they went 3-10 going at a 19-win pace. With all three of Love, Kyrie, and Lebron, the Cavs were 42-5(73-win) improving from 4-11 with just kyrie and love 21-win(note that's a 3-year sample, not just 2015).
If we take the higher-scores, Lebron-Miami were a 40ish win team without Lebron. The Cavs were 30ish wins. They may look similar just looking at a couple of names at the top(though frankly, kyrie was probably closer to grant as an isolated talent than he was to Pippen), but that does not mean the help was comparable...
All in all, a second superstar in a league where the other contenders had one, excellent tertiary pieces, excellent depth, a system which turned a 50-win team into a 65-win one overnight, and perfect-fit is stacked. And if there's any doubt we can just look what they were capable of without the player they were built around. Because Lebron wasn't getting help on the team that drafted him, finding comparable talent at the top of the roster required gutting depth and sacrificing fit. Then when those stars got injured(wade was getting his knee operated in playoff games by 2012), the teams became limited
Whatever you feel about the "names", those casts were not comparable. Yet, if we account for things like health and competition, that gap in team-performance mostly goes away by the postseason...
They only had one 60-win season together. Their SRS averaged 5.92 in those years. And they won two titles in four years, with multiple game 7’s in those two title-winning years.
Yeah, uh, that game 7 in 2012 came after losses where Lebron's co-stars weren't playing.
With the big-three starting, Miami posted a MOV of
13.5, going 8-1 despite bosh and wade entering and leaving the lineup and Dwayne literally getting his knees operated in the middle of playoff games. Moreover they
crushed an OKC side that, per San's PSRS(which gives 3/4 weight to playoff performance), looks better than
any team Jordan has beat at
any round of the playoffs. For that matter,
all 8 of Lebron's first final opponents from 2011 to 2018 score higher than
any team Jordan's Bulls vanquished including
3 teams, he's beaten with significantly worse support such as the 13 Spurs who look as good or better, using psrs or regular season srs, than the
90 Pistons, a team peak Jordan lost to despite
having very good help.
Going by PSRS, here is the most daunting opponent Jordan defeated:
Round 1: Los Angeles Clippers (-2.7), won 3-0, by +12.7 points per game (+10.0 SRS eq)
Round 2: Los Angeles Lakers (+5.4), won 4-1, by +3.6 points per game (+9.0 SRS eq)
Round 3: Houston Rockets (+6.6), won 4-2, by +2.3 points per game (+8.9 SRS eq)
Round 4: Chicago Bulls (+11.9), lost 2-4, outscored by 0.6 points per game (+11.3 SRS eq)
Overall: +9.81
(
note that playing the Bulls boosted Utah's PSRS)
Here are the three teams Miami faced before the gang was well and truly washed:
Playoff Offensive Rating: +7.34 (27th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -4.32 (62nd)
Playoff SRS: +11.45 (39th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +3.59 (29th)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +3.32 (18th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -1.74 (56th)
Round 1: Portland Trail Blazers (+1.9), won 4-2, by +5.1 points a game (+7.0 SRS eq)
Round 2: Los Angeles Lakers (+7.9), won 4-0, by +14.0 points a game (+21.9 SRS eq)
Round 3: Oklahoma City Thunder (+5.6), won 4-1, by +4.0 points a game (+9.6 SRS eq)
Round 4: Miami Heat (+8.1), won 4-2, by +2.4 points a game (+10.5 SRS eq)
(
2011 Mavs)
Playoff Offensive Rating: +7.73 (19th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -3.19 (73rd)
Playoff SRS: +10.62 (49th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +2.84 (42nd)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +2.48 (44th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -2.03 (50th)
Round 1: Dallas Mavericks (+1.8), won 4-0, by +5.5 points per game (+7.3 SRS eq)
Round 2: Los Angeles Lakers (+2.3), won 4-1, by +9.4 points per game (+11.7 SRS eq)
Round 3: San Antonio Spurs (+11.0), won 4-2, by +4.5 points per game (+15.5 SRS eq)
Round 4: Miami Heat (+10.3), lost 1-4, outscored by 4 points per game (+6.3 SRS eq))
[(b]2012 Thunder, note that playing Miami suppressed their PSRS[/b])
Playoff Offensive Rating: +4.58 (60th), Playoff Defensive Rating: -7.25 (26th)
Playoff SRS: +13.07 (25th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +4.11 (21st)
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +2.45 (45th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -1.78 (55th)
Round 1: Los Angeles Lakers (+1.5), won 4-0, by +18.7 points per game (+20.2 SRS eq)
Round 2: Golden State Warriors (+4.1), won 4-2, by +3.8 points per game (+7.9 SRS eq)
Round 3: Memphis Grizzlies (+8.3), won 4-0, by +11.0 points per game (+19.3 SRS eq)
Round 4: Miami Heat (+9.2), lost 3-4, by +0.7 points per game (+9.9 SRS eq)
(
2013 Spurs, and again Lebron brings their average down)
In 2014 they ran into an even better opponent with Lebron having very weak support. In 2015 the Cavs(similar to the pre-jordan Bulls without Lebron), posted a better regular season
and postseason rating than 88, 89, or 90 Chicago(+10 PSRS) despite Lebron having an off-year and his co-stars largely missing the playoffs. They went
42-5 with all three in the lineup.
Then in 2016 they beat the 73-win Golden State Warriors who
also posted a higher PSRS than the Jazz despite their unanimous MVP Steph
missing a large chunk of the playoffs.
The Bulls advantage in "dominance" mostly comes down to better health and better movs vs weaker opposition. Against the best of the best(the most relevant matches for championship acquisition), Lebron's teams do just as well despite often being disadvantaged in terms of talent, fit, and health:
Then when those stars got injured(wade was getting his knee operated by 2012), the teams became limited(2012-2014 heat were 40-win without James and 58-win with James and without Wade) Nonetheless, Lebron capitalized by securing two championships against teams arguably better than all of Jordan's conquests(2013 spurs were playing like the 89/90 pistons at full-strength, 2012 thunder were young but already been impressive in the 2010, 2011, regular seasons and postseasons and then performed better than the 97 jazz(highest psrs for a jordan victory) before getting smoked by the heat). In 2014 wade and bosh fell completely off(while pippen and grant/or rodman remained at a similar level in the playoffs from 90 to 98), so again, in order to have comparable talent at the top, Lebron would need to leave and then play with a top-heavy roster with worse top-end talent(kyrie/love). The cavs without lebron were a 30ish win(20ish if you used wowy but eh) team with an average offense and a below average defense. With Lebron they beat another team better than anyone Jordan beat(2016 warriors), play like a 65+ win team in the 16 and 17 postseasons(losing to a 73-win team +durant). With kyrie and love barely factoring in, the cavs sweep the 60-win hawks and take the 67-win warriors to 6 playing better basketball with lebron in an off-year than the 88-90 Bulls managed with Jordan at his peak.
All considered we have 3-eras for Lebron's prime:
-> is in a worse situation than Jordan with the team he's drafted too, is more successful
-> has a worse version of what jordan has once phil enters, faces four finals opponents better or arguably better than anyone jordan's beat(finals or before), chokes vs one(in what wouldn't even be a top 10 season for his career), dominates one(2012 thunder), beats another(2013 spurs) and then is back to the situation he was in his first era when he loses handily to the 4th
-> pretty clearly has less help in cleveland, beats a 73-win team when he has healthy costars, leads a better team than anyone peak jordan led pre-jackson when his co-stars are out(in an off-year!), loses to a 73-win team+kd b2b
The biggest knock here is that in one of his worst seasons, on the back of one of his worst performances, Miami would lose narrowly to...
a team better than anyone Jordan didn't lose to. Everywhere else he's either winning as much or more with as much or winning as much with significantly less.
Incidentally, Lebron
dominates Jordan statistically when it comes to "impact on winning"...
-> scorches an inflated peak signal repeatedly if we use real-world samples, blooking like a larger outlier in terms of RAPM,
-> Looks much better in most of his down years than Mj does in 97/98 going by on/off
-> has 7 and 10 years score better than Jordan on his 2nd and 5th best regular season teams going by on+on/off
-> dominates in playoff on/off(we have data for Jordan's prime there)
-> looks like a bigger outlier in rapm(prime data for jordan there too) even on career-wide samples where he has a massive advantage in possessions played(whic typically leads to averages dropping)
-> advantaged in most frames using AUPM(jordan is advantaged if you just go with 3-year consecutive) despite it being partially derived from BPM
-> has a massive advantage in data-ball over several players who compare well to jordan with other approaches(Duncan, Shaq, KG, ect) over basically any-time frame
There's very little to suggest the two are similarly valuable, and frankly, beyond putting disproportionate emphasis on the names at the top of a roster, there's not much of an argument for Lebron having more or as much help when he beat not one, not two, but
three opponents better than anyone Jordan's beat. Even "if" Jordan was more portable(and there's really not much suggesting he is), I'm not sure how much it matters when Lebron can win championships being better opponents with weaker help.
I also allude to this above, but Jordan being more portable at all is pretty dubious considering
-> Lebron has repeatedly been more or as valuable as Jordan in situations which ceiling raising theory would predict he'd be less valuable in(2006, 2015, 2020, 2023, ect)
-> Lebron has a massive advantage as a paint-protector, a skill which historically is the least vulnerable to "situation" in terms of general-winning or individual influence
-> Lebron is an excellent off-ball player if you look at things more holistically than "how well does Lebron do shooting off curls"
-> Lebron is one of very few players who can effectively operate as an on-court coach on both sides of the floor, a skill that does not require one to physically take away anything from one's teammates
-> Lebron, not Jordan has replicated his value/success in a variety of situations
-> Jordan, not Lebron is unproven without optimal fit and roster construction
All considered, if this is the framing...
Ultimately, the NBA is about winning titles,
Taking the guy who needs help to win and needs less help to win against
better competition seems kind of obvious to me.
And off course there's
also Bill Russell who won 6 rings with one core, 5 rings with a completely different core, has only lost when not healthy, and still found a way to get to the mountain top when his cast was at its weakest and his competition was at its strongest.
Even if you're going to go with "proof of concept" for Jordan over Lebron here, I don't really see how one justifies Jordan over Bill without some sort of cross-era weighting.
ShaqAttac wrote:Eni cookin, but ill try and do my best. I aint ever write this muuch but imma try to format proper like ppl tell me too.
I know we aint votin on em all, but imma list the 6 players who i think should get noms first
1 Russ, will say more down under
2 Mikan, will say more down under
3 Bron, Nukes every1 but russ n cap in "Impact", crazy longetvity, plays in way better league, apm goes craaazy
4 Cap, Crazzy longetvity, also better in "impact" for his peak than every1 but bron n russ from what im seein, was awesome before he even entereed nba
5. Timmy D, always on a good team, all-time carry job in 03, all-time leadeer who took paycuts to help antonio win, n honestly, was prob the best player of the 2000's, I thought shaq was 1 but i cant argue with da facts.
6. Dream, I know its crazy soundin, but I think he got a good arg here from what im seein. same rs impaact, n went nova in the pos. Eni n KD make really goood points so ill let em d up. basically tho his "impact' In rs is comp and he gets way better in the yoffs. He also carried meh help to b2b chips while MJ literallly only won with an uberduper superteam. Unless im missin sumthn MJ would be the only nom whose never won without a deathsquad.
This won't count to the ballot, but I do think it would be interesting to also see some unofficial nominee lists.
Honestly, your list is pretty similar to mine but I'd probably take off Mikan(nba-longetvity is pretty limited) and then have Jordan or Wilt at 6. Duncan, Hakeem, Jordan, and Wilt rankings are all subject to change/persuasion if anyone wants to give it a shot.
If anyone's interested I make a case of sorts for Hakeem here...
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107218620#p107218620(Regular season parity with Magic/Jordan)
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107291730#p107291730(Playoff-advantage, methodological discourse, ect)
I also made a case of sorts for Duncan here:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2261950&start=80
I don't see much of a pathway towards a GOAT-vote, but I think they have great arguments for 4 with Duncan being advantaged in longetvity/strong data-ball indicators and Hakeem being advantaged in length of prime and career-wide playoff elevation
