Pablo Novi wrote:SUGGESTED MIKAN COMPROMISE: GOAT #25
I have a suggestion re. our collective GOAT ranking of George Mikan:
Why not have him be GOAT #25 ?
I don't think 25 is unreasonable, though it's slightly higher than I presently have him on my ATL. It depends a lot, again, on how you rate that era, and also on how much you value longevity (I sorta value it a lot). Mikan's longevity, it should be stated, is not bad at all for the time period (especially if we consider those NBL seasons). However, it's not exceptional either.
Pablo Novi wrote:About Cousy vs such as: Stockton, Nash, Paul, Frazier (or Kidd, Payton, Isiah, Curry.
I was never a huge fan of Cousy's (mostly because his great years happened before I started watching). Still, assuming our main criteria is how a player played AGAINST HIS COMPETITION IN HIS ERA; Cousy was ALL-NBA 1st-Team 10 years - twice as many as Kidd; 2.5 times as many as: CP3, Walt Frazier & Sharman; and at least 3+ times as many as the rest of these other otherwise quite-worthy PGs). That's a tremendous amount more position-wise domination.
Also, we have not as yet included any players who played mostly in the 1950s - that strikes me as a bit unbalanced.
N.B. I treat Jerry West as a SG rather than as a PG. Gail Goodrich, who played with Jerry about half of Jerry's career, said that Gail was the PG and Jerry the SG. Also, Jerry, particularly early on, was not a great assists man (less than 5 apg for his first 5 years, still less than 7 during his next 4 years); but what a shooter!
GOAT PGs:
by Pablo's "GREAT YEARS" "POINTS" Rankings:
#. "PTS"; Name; 1st-Teams; 2nd-Tms (ALL-NBA)
. 1. 49.8 Magic ..... 9 (1st-Tm) - 1 (2nd-Tm)
. 2. 49.0 Big "O" .... 9 - 2
. 3. 40.0 Cousy ... 10 - 2 N.B. Despite Cousy's TEN 1st-Tms, he only has 40 "Pts"; because I've discounted heavily his era.
. 4. 37.8 Stockton .. 2 - 6
. 5. 35.0 Kidd ....... 5 - 1
. 6. 33.8 Paul ....... 4 -3
. 7. 29.8 Payton .... 2 - 5
. 8. 29.3 Nash ...... 3 - 2
. 9. 28.5 A.I. ........ 3 - 3
10. 24.5 Isiah ....... 3 - 2
11. 23.3 Westbrook 2 - 4
12. 22.5 Frazier ... 4 - 2
13. 19.0 Tiny ...... 3 - 2
14. 19.0 Sharman . 4 - 3
15. 17.5 Curry ..... 2 - 2
fwiw, I disagree with how you've chosen to arrange your all-time hierarchy (with roughly the same number of players from each position represented within your list).
I mean it's no mystery that being tall is an advantageous feature for the sport of basketball and that, historically, this has been a "big man's game". Thus, I can't justify a strategy of trying to level the playing field to have equal numbers of PGs, SGs, SFs, PFs, and Cs within my top [insert whatever multiple of 5]. To me, that's just a small step from basing your my list order on who I think are
inch-for-inch the best ball-players (and by that standard or philosophy, maybe someone like Muggsy Bogues would be in the top 20 or even top 10).
Within the confines of comparing a player only to his same-position peers, I do agree awards/honors/accolades have their place in analysis (wrt to seeing how someone related to his same-position contemporaries). otoh, I don't believe they should simply be taken at face-value, and/or serve as a substitute for more granular player analysis.
Where Cousy is concerned, there are other considerations that should be looked at. For one (as with Mikan), strength of era during which he had his best years is a factor. And where all his awards/honors are concerned, strength of competition among the guard positions at the time is a major factor. Cousy did appear to be THE most dominant guard of the 1950's; however, one could again point to strength of era and relative lack of integration, etc, as well as suggest a lack of
true superstar level guards (wrt competition for those award). I don't feel we can brush this concern off by arbitrarily declaring game circumstances did not allow for REALLY dominant guards.
I mean we see within Cousy's own career (even within the tail-end of his prime) that game circumstances DID allow for truly transcendent level of dominance from a guard--->we saw this in '61 and '62 with the emergence of Oscar Robertson and Jerry West. They dominated the game to a degree that Cousy NEVER had, even in the 1950's. I can't think of a game circumstance that fully accounts for this. My conclusion for why this occurred was simply: West and Robertson were much better players.
As such, I'm not ready to consider Cousy at this stage of the project.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
