RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #6 (Hakeem Olajuwon)

[One_and_Done]

Pretty sure Curry got more than 7 nominee votes, but whatever he's in.

[SHAQ32]

Wowzers!

[Doctor MJ]

would it be a bad idea to count all the secondaries for either player as a secondary tie-breaker?

(also Dr positivity switched his secondary to hakeem)

If what you mean is canceling out someone’s #1 vote with their #2, then I see that as very problematic.

If you mean anything else, please clarify. I believe I’m counting all others.


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That is what I meant. and yes it's not ideal. But in lieu of a run-off thread(or sudden death?) I think it would be preferable to "whoever was voted higher 3 years ago".

Maybe "first vote after the deadline" wins would be best or whatever

Ah, well to be clear I'd never use 3 years ago as a tiebreaker for final placement on the list. What I'd probably do is something like this:

1. 24 hour runoff thread where those who didn't vote for either of the candidates are specifically contacted to add their vote.
2. Consider a sudden death if it's still tied after that and there were more project participants who hadn't voted.
3. Open runoff poll where all RealGM users can vote.

I'm open to some suggestion in terms of the later stages of the tiebreaker.

I'm against using someone's #2 vote to cancel out their #1 because this is something that devalues the opinion of someone who is just voting their heart over those who are more actively partisan. I don't mind at all if people change their #2 vote for partisan reasons - it's part of the purpose of the #2 vote, but I don't want someone to accidentally make their vote not count simply because they were totally focused on just ranking ballers as they saw them.

[OhayoKD]

If what you mean is canceling out someone’s #1 vote with their #2, then I see that as very problematic.

If you mean anything else, please clarify. I believe I’m counting all others.


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That is what I meant. and yes it's not ideal. But in lieu of a run-off thread(or sudden death?) I think it would be preferable to "whoever was voted higher 3 years ago".

Maybe "first vote after the deadline" wins would be best or whatever

Ah, well to be clear I'd never use 3 years ago as a tiebreaker for final placement on the list. What I'd probably do is something like this:

1. 24 hour runoff thread where those who didn't vote for either of the candidates are specifically contacted to add their vote.
2. Consider a sudden death if it's still tied after that and there were more project participants who hadn't voted.
3. Open runoff poll where all RealGM users can vote.

I'm open to some suggestion in terms of the later stages of the tiebreaker.

I'm against using someone's #2 vote to cancel out their #1 because this is something that devalues the opinion of someone who is just voting their heart over those who are more actively partisan. I don't mind at all if people change their #2 vote for partisan reasons - it's part of the purpose of the #2 vote, but I don't want someone to accidentally make their vote not count simply because they were totally focused on just ranking ballers as they saw them.

fair enough. I was assuming that "who ranked higher in the last top 100" was the tie-breaking method since it was what we were doing for the nomination. All three would be preferable I think though maybe people who didn't vote one of the two run-off candidates should be treated as "people who didn't vote"

[Doctor MJ]

I'm just really shaking my head at this outcome. I cannot see the argument for Hakeem this high. I strongly believe all of Wilt, Shaq, and Magic should be higher.

Also, we shouldn't read too much into his moving up three spots because it's a very different voting pool. I went back and looked at the vote tally to put Hakeem at #9 over KG in 2020, and here's what it looked like:

Hakeem Olauwon - 7 (90sAllDecade, freethedevil, Hornet Mania, Joao Saraiva, mailmp, O_6, trex_8063)
Kevin Garnett - 6 (Doctor MJ, drza, Dr Positivity, eminence, Jordan Syndrome, limbo)
Larry Bird - 6 (Baski, Clyde Frazier, DQuinn1575, Dutchball97, Hal14, Odinn21)
George Mikan - 1 (penbeast0)
Oscar Robertson - 1 (ZeppelinPage)

and the vote to put Wilt at #6 last time:

Wilt Chamberlain - 10 (ardee, DQuinn1575, Dr Positivity, Dutchball97, Joao Saraiva, Odinn21, penbeast0, SHAQ32, ZeppelinPage, mailmp)
Kevin Garnett - 4 (Doctor MJ, Blackmill, eminence, limbo)
Magic Johnson - 2 (2klegend, Ambrose)
Shaquille O’Neal - 1 (freethedevil)
Hakeem Olauwon - 1 (90sAllDecade)
Larry Bird - 1 (Hal14)

There were close to twenty people I think that voted this time round, and only six of them voted when Hakeem was up last time and five when Wilt was up.

This isn't the board changing its mind as it is just different people voting. I don't think It tells us much.

So, I'd say that different people voting is part of the board changing its mind. Not that the board is entirely defined by who is voting in these projects, but in general I don't think the direction of change is random.

One thing I think is bound to cause frustration is the inevitability of legends from the past getting pushed down as younger people get involved. Doesn't mean younger people are correct in their assessment, but they see it as they see it, and I'm interested to know how they diverge from older generations.

[One_and_Done]

Doc could we please get a recount in future, with corrections to the vote when errors are found after the fact?

[Doctor MJ]

Doc could we please get a recount in future, with corrections to the vote when errors are found after the fact?

I'm all for people checking my count, and I'm including voter's names so that people can see if I'm missing someone specifically.

I must admit that I'm not super-motivated to correct my tally post when they don't affect the winner, but I can try if others think it's important. Key thing would be that I'd want to know what specifically the error is - as in whose vote was misreported or unreported.

[One_and_Done]

Well for one I have Curry with 9 votes, not 7 (me, Pen, Jake, Dr P, Dray, Iggy, you, Peelman & LA bird). That sort of difference could easily result in a wrong nomination/vote. Kobe also has at least 5 (you listed them, but called it 4). Not hating, but I suggest any close vote gets a very careful recount as I have noticed this in earlier threads too.

[Doctor MJ]

Well for one I have Curry with 9 votes, not 7 (me, Pen, Jake, Dr P, Dray, Iggy, you, Peelman & LA bird). That sort of difference could easily result in a wrong nomination/vote. Kobe also has at least 5 (you listed them, but called it 4). Not hating, but I suggest any close vote gets a very careful recount as I have noticed this in earlier threads too.

Fixed and thank you.

As I say, in a close vote if we find a problem, we'll go back and fix it even if that means re-starting the new thread.

[One_and_Done]

Pretty sure Duncan had more votes than you gave him also in thread #5.

[Franco]

Damn. Hakeem jumped HIGH from the last project.

[SpreeS]

Hakeem at 6th. It would be the most surprising thing to happen in this project for me (at the moment of course).

I’d still go with Jordan’s slide. Not just that he fell below Kareem, but that it wasn’t close.

But now that Wilt’s fallen a slot, it raises the question of whether he’ll fall further, and that might end up an even bigger deal.


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Ben Taylor made a big impact on players careers evaluation to this forum. I dont know this sistem is good or not, but it is probably the only one constructive, logically based and continuity sistem. Look at Ben's TOP40

Ben's TOP40 (2022)

LeBron James

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Michael Jordan

Bill Russell

Hakeem Olajuwon

Shaquille O'Neal

Tim Duncan

Wilt Chamberlain

Kevin Garnett

Larry Bird

Magic Johnson

Kobe Bryant

Karl Malone

Oscar Robertson

Dirk Nowitzki

Steph Curry

Chris Paul

Jerry West

David Robinson

Julius Erving

Kevin Durant

Charles Barkley

Steve Nash

John Stockton

Moses Malone

Dwyane Wade

Scottie Pippen

Rick Barry

Reggie Miller

James Harden

Bob Pettit

John Havlicek

Jason Kidd

Artis Gilmore

Patrick Ewing

Paul Pierce

Walt Frazier

Elgin Baylor

Isiah Thomas

Clyde Drexler

And i like a lot of Ben products and his evaluation system, bc it corresponds to my basis of analysis, but....I have this 6th sense, which doesn't give me peace of mind. Jordan vs Lebron is like Shumacher vs Hamilton. Lewis is my guy for a lot of years and Shumi was the last on the grid for who I supported. Hami has all numbers to compete with Shumi for the best all time F1 driver, but...I know Shumi was just better and all these possible stats and numbers cant show you everything. It is way more in our life than numbers and you start to understand it with age. Jordan was never my guy, but for me he must be number 1.

[penbeast0]

As Jordan's media presence has faded, my support for him has waned a bit. The titles and the stats are still a powerful argument but I do believe the league has gotten stronger since his day and LeBron can more than match the stats, if not the rings. And, the stories of how he treats teammates continue to resonate negatively for me. He was lucky to have Phil Jackson as a coach because Phil is the GOAT ego manager (and at least arguably, GOAT overall) in the history of the NBA.

[SpreeS]

As Jordan's media presence has faded, my support for him has waned a bit. The titles and the stats are still a powerful argument but I do believe the league has gotten stronger since his day and LeBron can more than match the stats, if not the rings. And, the stories of how he treats teammates continue to resonate negatively for me. He was lucky to have Phil Jackson as a coach because Phil is the GOAT ego manager (and at least arguably, GOAT overall) in the history of the NBA.

All of them Lebron, Jordan, Kobe and others had/has huge ego. To manage own ego needs help from outside and you acept that or dont. You can have 10 goat ego managers around you but if you dont acept them, they won't help you. Lebron had perfect place in MIA with Spo and Riley, but his ego was way too big. He chose disfuntional organisation again to be unquestioned group leader, over the best combo of GM and HC in NBA. Calling yourself a king and being part of a team in a broad sense are not very compatible things.

[Joao Saraiva]

As a big fan of Hakeem I'm glad he got early in the top 10, I think he's the guy that is left out unfairly a lot of times. Still I feel #6 is a bit high, even tough I believe he might have the best peak of all time. I just feel 93-95 is a step ahead of everything he ever did.

[Doctor MJ]

Hakeem at 6th. It would be the most surprising thing to happen in this project for me (at the moment of course).

I’d still go with Jordan’s slide. Not just that he fell below Kareem, but that it wasn’t close.

But now that Wilt’s fallen a slot, it raises the question of whether he’ll fall further, and that might end up an even bigger deal.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ben Taylor made a big impact on players careers evaluation to this forum. I dont know this sistem is good or not, but it is probably the only one constructive, logically based and continuity sistem. Look at Ben's TOP40

Ben's TOP40 (2022)

LeBron James

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Michael Jordan

Bill Russell

Hakeem Olajuwon

Shaquille O'Neal

Tim Duncan

Wilt Chamberlain

Kevin Garnett

Larry Bird

Magic Johnson

Kobe Bryant

Karl Malone

Oscar Robertson

Dirk Nowitzki

Steph Curry

Chris Paul

Jerry West

David Robinson

Julius Erving

Kevin Durant

Charles Barkley

Steve Nash

John Stockton

Moses Malone

Dwyane Wade

Scottie Pippen

Rick Barry

Reggie Miller

James Harden

Bob Pettit

John Havlicek

Jason Kidd

Artis Gilmore

Patrick Ewing

Paul Pierce

Walt Frazier

Elgin Baylor

Isiah Thomas

Clyde Drexler

And i like a lot of Ben products and his evaluation system, bc it corresponds to my basis of analysis, but....I have this 6th sense, which doesn't give me peace of mind. Jordan vs Lebron is like Shumacher vs Hamilton. Lewis is my guy for a lot of years and Shumi was the last on the grid for who I supported. Hami has all numbers to compete with Shumi for the best all time F1 driver, but...I know Shumi was just better and all these possible stats and numbers cant show you everything. It is way more in our life than numbers and you start to understand it with age. Jordan was never my guy, but for me he must be number 1.

I don't think there's any doubt that Ben's had influence on this board, but I would point out that if we're crediting him for elevating Hakeem, we've got to ask ourselves why if he's the reason Olajuwon's moved above Wilt, why didn't Olajuwon also move above Duncan?

Further, while Duncan didn't move up any slots this time, his candidacy in general has continued to get stronger over time on this board to the point you've got a number of people talking about him as a threat to not just Russell but Jordan & Kareem.

It will be interesting to see how much the rest of his list lines up with the rest of the upcoming list.

Re: Numbers can't show you everything. I'll put it this way: The numbers we have will not ever show us everything, but this does not mean we should settle for "just knowing" without any further exploration of the basis of how we know what we think we know. False knowledge is, imho, possibly the most dangerous thing in our society now.

Re: F1. Senna will always be my guy.

[OhayoKD]

Alright well there's a bit of a change-up here so let's recap what the original standard here was:

-> number of times #1
-> gap over #2

Will also note for posterity that when I say things like "stable" and "accurate", I am basing this on tests regarding predictivity and predictivity as rosters change. The ability to make those predictions reflects large-scale accuracy. That doesn't mean they are free of caveats and biases in specific comparisons(will get into this now), or that less "accurate" data has no utility(will get to that later), but the ability to predict well comes from the ability to describe well.

Here is an example(done by the creators of LEBRON):
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Es7_ireXUAMvnUC?format=png&name=small

Fwiw, the metric at the top of the that graph(and one that consistently tests at or near the top more than the others) is darko which to my knowledge is
A. either only using RS data or is using full-season data with no playoff filtering
B. Has a predictive component (the line)and a descriptive one(the dots).
C. It curves descriptive data up and down based on typical aging curves(keep that in mind). Crucially it only curves future data-points, it does not curve retroactively(30+ years cannot bolster earlier ones, under 30 years can bolster(or cripple) 30+ ones)



Woah! the most accurate metric has...steph=cp3? Duncan>Lebron? Lebron>Curry>Shaq?

This is an example of where understanding how a stat(and who it might be biased against) informs how we interpret it.

-> Lebron's trajectory is far higher than anyone's up until...2011 which, at age 26, is typically around a player's "peak". Lebron looks dissapointing in that peak so everything after is capped. As everything before is typically "pre-prime" it's curved down as it happens.

-> Duncan has a phenomenal start and doesn't falter until he's 30. His arc mantains allowing it to leapfrog Lebron and by extension everyone else.

-> Steph has a slower start than CP3 but is great at the years that should be his peak so is able to quickly ascend to match.

-> The data does not include Shaq''s suprising early years so his trajectory is not as high as it should be(though tbf, im not sure that actually puts him at a disadvantage relative to steph)

Clearly this data has a bias towards players with "clean" trajectory: Be really good early -> don't dissapoint in a season placed in your mid-20's -> dominante darko

Does this make the stat useless? No. But it does mean you should factor in what it's doing when you extrapolate. This approach is probably accurate on a large scale, but it may distort things in specific comparisons. Account for that and you can still get some use here. Lebron was outlier-valuable for players his age through 24 and then not so valuable in what would typically be a peak year by age(Lebron was aged 26 for 2011). Duncan was really valuable early on and stayed that valuable right up till 30. Steph was underwhelming at the start but was really impactful at 25 and 26. Chris Paul had high impact from the getgo.

With that preamble...

You specifically argued Steph has been "the impact king". That doesn't work how you've been interpreting data if he is not winning against a contemporary both in frequency, and in terms of gaps. Jokic, not Steph is the "impact king" of this 10-year period going by box-informed WAR using your approach. Jokic was drafted in 2014.

Jokic *has* been the impact king of the last three years, for sure. But not of the decade as a whole. So I don’t see your point. And I think Jokic is well on his way to ultimately being a player that would need to be getting nominated/chosen at this point in a future project too. If Jokic continues this with a similar trajectory as Steph, then I’d be about as high on Jokic as I am on Step (maybe even higher).

Curry has led 3 times and the biggest gap was 3.2. Jokic outdoes that all 3-times he leads. In fact he doubles that gap over the last two years. So...by your first standard, Jokic is the impact king. Moreover, Harden has also led 3-times outdoing steph's biggest margin twice while year 3 is bigger than steph's other two. Thus Harden has a stronger claim. Curry is 3rd in the impact wars when we use gaps/times led.


If we switch to "h2h numbers of years ahead of the other guy", then sure, Steph beats Jokic basically by default and scores higher than harden 6-3. Though I don't really think this marks the dominant force you've been promising. And even that is partially box...

It is the impact component of RAPTOR and when it repeats what most impact analysis does, I'm not sure you should be using non-impact stuff for a case that Steph was the "impact king". Regardless of approach though, Jokic takes that mantle from steph pretty clearly. And if we focus on impact, Lebron is still beating him right through what would be his wizard years.

As with all box-composite stuff, they use a box component because they think it makes the impact estimate more accurate. And in this case that’s almost certainly correct, given how bizarre some of the output from the on-off component is (i.e. Nic Claxton 4th in the NBA last season, etc.).

Because accuracy writ large does not suddenly make bias a non-factor. This is part of why it is track actual impact. Winning does not have a bias. Variance can swing things, but it is not necessarily going to move towards a specific direction.

Priors generate a skew. We are not comparing a league to another league, we are comparing specific players. No one is asking you to interpret this as proof that nic claxton as the 4th best player. But these guys are not "nic claxton". We are not comparing 400 players, we are comparing two or three or four who show replication and are obviously very valuable. Just like how curving down outliers can be accurate overall but limiting for situational outliers(2009 lebron, 2004 kg, 2016 cutty, ect), box-application can put the claxton's in their place while also inflating players who are well suited to the priors(which have been discussed).

JE skewing things towards size my actually be more accurate for the league, that does not make it accurate for a comparison between Jordan and Deke.

When taking the bias away sees Steph fall from "a king if you squint" to not being king at all, it's notable.

It's also notable that doing this raises Lebron(and only box for LEBRON lowers him). Even when dealing with box-estimates from older players(steals/blocks -> equally good on defense!), on/off takes him from having three years in the top 20(2nd and 11th) to 4 of the 10 best on/off scores ever(09, 10, 16, 17), 3 of the best 5(09, 16, 17), and the 2 of the best 3(2016 draymond scores the highest stopping him from claiming the #2). IMO, it's a another indicator of an "impact king": looking better when artifical bias is taken out.

And thene get to this super wierd framing:

If Jokic continues like this, then perhaps he’ll have his own substantially-long period where he looks the best overall—I hope he does, since I quite like Jokic.

You were insisting Steph was an "impact king" over a decade whose value was so good it outweighed other dudes longetvity/consistency. Now we've gone from Curry "impact king of the last 10 years" to "curry looked the best in a few years by a smaller margin than other players but he's hung around a bunch in the top 5 or top 10". Is he Lebron or is he Karl Malone? If you are going to be hyping his "peak/prime", you cannot just default to "Well he finishes top 5(or top 10) more than other guys so"

It's dropped because we only have not-behind-a-paywall access to 2023 data where Steph edges ahead of Lebron but is well off #1

Fortunately for us, I’ve broken through the paywall, and I can tell you that Steph Curry is ahead of LeBron James in EPM in every single year from 2013-2014 onwards (except of course 2019-2020). And in their non-rate-stat version of it (i.e. the “EW” stat), Steph is ahead of LeBron every season except 2017-2018. So I think we can chalk that down as Curry having a huge advantage in a stat that you’ve specifically said you like.

Great. Lebron exposed. Is Steph actually the impact king here though, or is this like RAPTOR where his main claim to fame is beating out 30+ James and he hasn't really dominated the rest. (Also would appreciate if you could post the epm expected win lists since I can't access them myself. Bonus if you include chart showing the deviations besides)

Um, we can't? These types of metrics have multi-year filters iirc, and the creators do not seem to have any issue with comparing different years to each other which may suggest they were actually designed for that to be viable. As is, Lebron has 4 scores higher than any of Steph's and 3 of the top 4. And while this probably changes if there was a way to isolate out the box-stuff, even KD looks better with 3 higher scores. Interestingly enough box-LEBRON actually likes steph better(his years move up) than actual LEBRON does though Lebron, Giannis, and Jokic still top him.

No, we can’t. They have multi-year filters because websites get more traffic if you allow that, because people find it interesting, not because they’re somehow magically “designed for that to be viable.” The nature of this is that each time interval is calculated separately, so they’re inherently different.

Yeah uh...some of this is explicitly created for the primary purpose of cross-period comparison:

While high-end sustained impact is certainly commendable, I wanted to use the same data to look into shorter stretches of time. Peak versus longevity is a common point of debate in historic basketball discussion. A guy like LeBron James has an all-time great peak along with incredible longevity, but what a player like Shaquille O’Neal? His longevity wasn’t bad by any means, but his peak was certainly even more impressive. A full analysis should look for the best peaks in our timeframe from 1997 to 2021.

Thus, I split the data into five year spans between the 1996-97 season and the 2020-21 season and I calculated the RAPM for each of these spans

They don't just allow it, they and other analysts actively use it that way...
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-best-nba-players-of-the-last-6-seasons/

This period offers the best, most refined version of RAPTOR, and the one that, because it uses more data, varies most from other popular advanced metrics such as Real Plus-Minus, Box Plus/Minus and Win Shares. So who are the best players of the past six seasons? According to RAPTOR wins above replacement (WAR), Stephen Curry of the Golden State Warriors has been the most valuable, checking in with 120.0 WAR between the regular season and the playoffs, followed by Houston’s James Harden (107.9) and LeBron James of the Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers and Los Angeles Lakers (93.2).

James is, arguably, the king of overall plus-minus stats. 2018 is the 25th season of league-wide plus-minus data, which covers nearly 40 percent of the shot-clock era and touches 12 of the top-20 players on this list. None have achieved LeBron’s heights: He holds four of the top-five scaled APM seasons on record, and six of the top eight. Since 2007, 10 of his 11 years land in the 99th percentile.12 However, his seasons in Miami were a (relative) low point

Regardless of approach(yes that includes "gaps"), cross-season comparisons are not perfect, but that doesn't really mean it's not a functional as an indicator. The scales do not need to be exactly the same. If a player keeps hitting the highest [i]historical highs over and over and over again, it's a decent indicator they're at the top in terms of value. Frankly between dismissing darko because predictivity is not an indication of descriptive capacity(what do you think allows metrics to be predictive?), dropping "the gaps" and "frequency led" when it put two players ahead of Steph, and saying a standard use of these stats is actually invalid because scales aren't exactly the same...

https://images-ext-2.discordapp.net/external/YxBe3kj_4f6S68sRS3P-g8xrVAlTemowogP4HWraDOY/https/media.tenor.com/a1dae-l86HoAAAPo/spongebob-crazy.mp4

There are issues with all approaches when you are using artifically scaled data. That applies to the box-aggregates too.

This is part of why you should look at real-world data. The scale is the same for everyone, even if interpretation is tricker and involves more uncertainty. Yet you keep dismissing that as "limited" while somehow RAPTOR and RAPM are not. Speaking of...

Yeah shockingly, not at all the same. Warriors are as good in dray no steph minutes as they are in steph no dray minutes and notably, they've played the same amount of minutes without the other. As a kindness I'll leave out the playoff minutes but as one might expect, Draymond and Lebron look better. Steph and Andy look worse

Try a larger sample size. In the last decade, in regular season + playoffs, the Warriors have a +6.83 net rating with Steph on the floor and Draymond off, and a +0.80 net rating with Draymond on the floor and Steph off. So, no, the Warriors are definitely not “as good in dray no steph minutes as they are in steph no dray minutes.”

Right. Because Dray was offering the same season-long impact in 2013/2014(not a starter) and 2018-2023(2020 especially) as he was from 15-17 when the Warriors were actually really good in the RS. TBF, if we extend to 2017 the split goes to 11/7 in steph's favor for rs only...and 9/8 when we do the full season, but this is not the hill to die on. When the Warriors are really good, rs or playoffs, Draymond is really good. When Draymond is not good the Warriors are not really good. Steph's impact and team-success became historically remarkable when Draymond become the starter.


This is a reason why it's good to actually look at what you're extending. Westbrook falling off in 2018 does not mean he was holding Durant back in 14 and 16


You've brought up that the Warriors have been bad without Steph since 13-14(when Draymond was not a starter). Well, they've been .500 without Draymond. Filter out 2020 where the warrior lineups were worse with Steph for the 5 games he bothered to play, they had lost pieces like iggy, durant and klay, and draymond was restricted to less than 30 minutes(hm wonder why), and the Warriors improve to .500 without Steph(a few games below) and a 47-win pace without Draymond. They're something like 69-wins with(a couple games better actually) with dray and 58 wins with Steph. I don't know about you, but that looks pretty similar to me.

Over this time Steph has played a little under 900 games while Draymond has played roughly 750. I used up my statmuses so I cannot say anything about net-rating beyond Draymond looks impactful(a bit below .500 without, near +5.-something with) though I don't know how to filter out 2020 there so I imagine it will favor steph to an extent.

Nonetheless Draymond very clearly is not an equivalent of Andy. He was maybe the league's best defensive anchor, an all-time floor general who organizes his team on both ends, a capable primary ball-handler, and a top-tier passer. That sort of combination has been seen a couple of times with russell, kg(celtics), and walton and it looked supervaluable then just as draymond looks now. Steph is not generating the same degree of individual influence or team-success without Draymond. Indeed when Draymond has been out of the lineup he has outright failed to. And rather conveniently, while we're counting 30+ years for Lebron, Steph's "prime" starts when Draymond emerges, becoming a significant part of the rotation in the 13-14 regular season and emerging as a starter vs the Clippers where he played heavy minutes in 3 of the last 4 games.

Then when Steph is suddenly a plus-minus contender, Draymond has blossomed into a star. Filter out Draymond’s minutes, 2013-15 Curry drops from +6.4 on, +18.4 on/off to -1.8 on, +10.2 on/off. Steph the Ceiling-Raiser only exists with Draymond, and honestly one has to question whose raising the floor and whose raising the ceiling when you excuse Steph's lower offensive ratings with "it's a team that's skewed to defense". Kind of like when Pippen turns +6 to +9 but he's supposedly just the floor?

If you're so keen to attribute value to "situation", then I think you should consider looking harder at Steph's situation.

That said, the standard here is "impact king", not "looks good". Steph doesn't rank 1st once and is also offering less value than his teammates in 2016 and 2018 because of missed time. Moreover, AUPM is a combination of on/off and a box-aggregate, the former being something Steph is likely getting inflated by way of colinearity...

If, in low sample size sets of data, you’re ranking 2nd place a bunch of times and the 1st place person is always someone different, then yeah, I’d say that qualifies as “impact king.” You’re not going to find someone whose placements in playoff AuPM/g over the last decade look better than Steph’s (the Thinking Basketball website is down, at least for me, so I can’t give specific examples).[/quote]
I'll take your word for it.

[OhayoKD]

As Jordan's media presence has faded, my support for him has waned a bit. The titles and the stats are still a powerful argument but I do believe the league has gotten stronger since his day and LeBron can more than match the stats, if not the rings. And, the stories of how he treats teammates continue to resonate negatively for me. He was lucky to have Phil Jackson as a coach because Phil is the GOAT ego manager (and at least arguably, GOAT overall) in the history of the NBA.

All of them Lebron, Jordan, Kobe and others had/has huge ego. To manage own ego needs help from outside and you acept that or dont. You can have 10 goat ego managers around you but if you dont acept them, they won't help you. Lebron had perfect place in MIA with Spo and Riley, but his ego was way too big. He chose disfuntional organisation again to be unquestioned group leader, over the best combo of GM and HC in NBA. Calling yourself a king and being part of a team in a broad sense are not very compatible things.

People are not simply the singular actions you fix on. Calling yourself a king is kind of egotistical. Telling the press "put it on me" when you lose is not. Jordan skipping practice is egotistical, reaching out to appease rodman is not.

And no, miami were not as good of a situation for winning as Cleveland was where he bought into the system, got his teammates to buy into the system, overperformed and then won with a better coach against a 73-win team.

Jordan left chicago to find the coach who let him do everything and then blew up a lockeroom because he apparently didn't learn he isn't actually capable of doing everything from his time under Jackson where the Bulls improved by making Jordan do less

[penbeast0]

Note that while I have Jordan's ego as a negative, it doesn't outweigh his on-court performance and I still have him #3 all time.

[SpreeS]

I’d still go with Jordan’s slide. Not just that he fell below Kareem, but that it wasn’t close.

But now that Wilt’s fallen a slot, it raises the question of whether he’ll fall further, and that might end up an even bigger deal.


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Ben Taylor made a big impact on players careers evaluation to this forum. I dont know this sistem is good or not, but it is probably the only one constructive, logically based and continuity sistem. Look at Ben's TOP40

Ben's TOP40 (2022)

LeBron James

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

Michael Jordan

Bill Russell

Hakeem Olajuwon

Shaquille O'Neal

Tim Duncan

Wilt Chamberlain

Kevin Garnett

Larry Bird

Magic Johnson

Kobe Bryant

Karl Malone

Oscar Robertson

Dirk Nowitzki

Steph Curry

Chris Paul

Jerry West

David Robinson

Julius Erving

Kevin Durant

Charles Barkley

Steve Nash

John Stockton

Moses Malone

Dwyane Wade

Scottie Pippen

Rick Barry

Reggie Miller

James Harden

Bob Pettit

John Havlicek

Jason Kidd

Artis Gilmore

Patrick Ewing

Paul Pierce

Walt Frazier

Elgin Baylor

Isiah Thomas

Clyde Drexler

And i like a lot of Ben products and his evaluation system, bc it corresponds to my basis of analysis, but....I have this 6th sense, which doesn't give me peace of mind. Jordan vs Lebron is like Shumacher vs Hamilton. Lewis is my guy for a lot of years and Shumi was the last on the grid for who I supported. Hami has all numbers to compete with Shumi for the best all time F1 driver, but...I know Shumi was just better and all these possible stats and numbers cant show you everything. It is way more in our life than numbers and you start to understand it with age. Jordan was never my guy, but for me he must be number 1.

I don't think there's any doubt that Ben's had influence on this board, but I would point out that if we're crediting him for elevating Hakeem, we've got to ask ourselves why if he's the reason Olajuwon's moved above Wilt, why didn't Olajuwon also move above Duncan?

Further, while Duncan didn't move up any slots this time, his candidacy in general has continued to get stronger over time on this board to the point you've got a number of people talking about him as a threat to not just Russell but Jordan & Kareem.

It will be interesting to see how much the rest of his list lines up with the rest of the upcoming list.

Re: Numbers can't show you everything. I'll put it this way: The numbers we have will not ever show us everything, but this does not mean we should settle for "just knowing" without any further exploration of the basis of how we know what we think we know. False knowledge is, imho, possibly the most dangerous thing in our society now.

Re: F1. Senna will always be my guy.

F… it, I saw this crash live on TV. The saddest day of F1 history.

I agree about “just knowing”, but 6th sense is powerful thing and not everyone it has.