RealGM

Criteria: Take into account both peak and career play, era dominance, impact on the game of basketball, and how well their style of play and skills would transcend onto different eras. To be more exact, how great they were at playing the game of basketball.

Voting Will End In 2 Days at 10PM EST (note the new time as school is restarting)

Please vote and nominate

Newest addition:

Isiah Thomas

2x NBA Champion (1989, 1990)
NBA Finals MVP (1990)
3× All-NBA 1st Team
2x All-NBA 2nd Team
12× All-Star
2x All-Star MVP (1984, 1986)
Hall of Fame (2000)


Steve Nash

* 2xMVP (2005, 2006)
* 3x 1st All-NBA
* 2x 2nd All-NBA
* 2x 3rd All-NBA
* 7x All-Star

John Havlicek

* 8x NBA Champion
* Finals MVP (1974)
* 4x All-NBA First Team Selection
* 7x All-NBA Second Team Selection
* 5x NBA All-Defensive 1st Team Selection
* 3x NBA All-Defensive 2nd Team Selection
* 13x AllStar
* Basketball HOF Player (1984)

Patrick Ewing

* 1x All-NBA First Team Selection
* 6x All-NBA Second Team Selection
* 2x NBA All-Defensive 2nd Team Selection
* 11x All-STar
* Rookie of the Year (1986)
* Basketball HOF Player (2008)

Elgin Baylor

* 10× All-NBA First Team Selection
* 11× All-Star
* NBA All-Star Game MVP (1959)
* Rookie of the Year (1959)
* Voted to the Hall of Fame in 1977
* NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team


Rick Barry

* NBA Champion (1975)
* NBA Finals MVP (1975)
* 5× All-NBA First Team Selection
* 1× All-NBA Second Team Selection
* 4× All-ABA 1st Team Selection
* Rookie of the Year (1966)
* NBA All-Star Game MVP (1967)
* 12× All-Star (8 NBA, 4 ABA)
* Voted to the HOF in 1987

Walt Frazier

* NBA Champion (1970, 1973)
* 4× All-NBA First Team Selection
* 2× All-NBA Second Team Selection
* 7x 1st Team All-Defense
* NBA All-Star Game MVP (1975)
* 7× All-Star
* Voted to the HOF in 1987

Dwyane Wade

NBA Champion (2006)
7x NBA All-Star
2x All-NBA First Team
3 All-NBA Second Team
1x All-NBA Third Team
3x All-NBA Defensive Second Team
2010 All-Star Game MVP
2006 NBA Finals MVP

David Robinson

2× NBA Champion (1999,2003)
NBA MVP (1995)
4x All-NBA 1st Team
2x All-NBA 2nd Team
4x All-NBA 3rd Team
4x All-NBA 1st Team
NBA DPOY (1992)
4x NBA All-Defense 1st Team
4x NBA All-Defense 2nd Team
NBA ROY (1990)
10x All-Star

Charles Barkley

# NBA MVP (1991)
# 5x 1st Team All-NBA
# 5x 2nd Team All-NBA
# 1x 3rd Team All-NBA
# 11 times All-Star
# All-Star MVP 1991
# Hall of Fame 2006

From a list, FJS

VOTE: Charles Barkley

NOMINATE: John Stockton

And now the battle opens for the final slot in the top 20:

Serious Candidates:

David Robinson
Pro -- Greatest defensive impact, dominant offense too, class act
Con -- Offense slipped in playoffs, didn't win ring until teaming with Tim Duncan
Compare -- Better defense and offense both than Ewing, shares playoff slippage issue

Charles Barkley
Pro -- Superefficient scorer, great rebounder, colorful as all hell
Con -- Didn't work on defense, party animal and divisive in the locker room, no rings
Compare -- Basically a more efficient fat head version of Elgin Baylor

Elgin Baylor
Pro -- Super scorer and rebounder, led team to NBA finals multiple times as primary shooter
Con -- Not that efficient, no rings
Compare -- Baylor to my mind is clearly better than Barry who is no more efficient and doesn't have the great rebounding or resume outside of his one title; Havlicek is tougher call but again, if the knock on Baylor is efficiency, he is as efficient as Hondo with a lot more scoring and rebounding although Havlicek has defense, rings, and picked up his game in the 70s.

Dwyane Wade
Pro -- Do it all player with great scoring, carried Miami to a title and had a nice run last year in the loss
Con -- Injury prone, only 5 complete seasons in his 8 year career.
Compare -- Not really enough peak seasons to compete with Frazier for 5th best guard in NBA history in my opinion though he is closing fast.

Walt Frazier
Pro -- Do it all player with super efficient scoring, GOAT PG defense, and good playmaking who led the Knicks to their only 2 titles with dominant finals (1A/1B with Reed in title one but clearly team leader in title two)
Con -- Only about a 10 year career as a top player.
Compare -- To my mind, clearly sets himself apart from Nash because of defense and finals play, and from Isiah with his scoring efficiency and defense.


I will give my vote to David Robinson tentatively, though I could see Barkley or Frazier here. He was just too good a two way player; even if he couldn't carry Sean Elliot, Vern Maxwell, and company in the playoffs when everyone keyed on him until he got Duncan. And remember, in 1999, he was pretty much 1A/1B with Duncan in that title run plus still played top defense all the way to his retirement.

As for the nomination, at center I still favor Artis Gilmore. Artis was a dominant player in the ABA, 1A/1B with Julius Erving as best player, and still an outstanding one once he came to the NBA particularly in terms of scoring efficiency -- counting only his NBA years he is the all time most efficient scorer in league history on decent volume and with good defense and rebounding as well. (2nd most efficient with a stretch of great defense and a Finals MVP when you include the ABA).

Dwight Howard hasn't done enough yet to pass him, Zo had health issues and was always a step behind the best like Shaq/Robinson/Duncan/etc. Willis Reed and Wes Unseld weren't as individually dominant and broke down faster too, while Neil Johnston and Mel Daniels played against inferior competition during their primes and were more limited besides. At PF, McHale didn't rebound as well and doesn't beat out Artis for efficiency, McHale's main argument. Hayes does rebound that well but was inefficient and a jerk.

Scottie Pippen is the greatest wing forward left, Clyde Drexler is the greatest wing guard. I used to say great PGs affect the game more than great wings but the modern era has changed that. Drexler has a clear statistical edge, particularly as the primary scorers on a lot of very good Portland teams and even a top second banana year to win a ring in Houston. Pippen has the defensive reputation and 6 rings as a second banana . . . and didn't fall off much if any when Jordan quit for 2 years and Pippen had to be the main man. When you run the numbers it is amazing how similar they look except for scoring (including foul draw) which is clearly favoring Drexler. The numbers don't show man defense which was Pippen's edge. I used 15 years for each which is all of Drexler's career but leaves out Scottie's last two.

Clyde Drexler 1086g 24.6min .472fg% -- 0.8 2.4 .318x3pt% -- 4.3 5.5 .788ft% -- 6.1reb 5.6ast 2.0st 0.7bl 2.7to 3.0pf 20.4ppg
Scottie Pippen* 1091g 35.5min .475fg% -- 0.8 2.6 .329x3pt% -- 2.7 3.9 .700ft% -- 6.6reb 5.3ast 2.0st 0.8bl 2.8to 2.9pf 16.6pts

Finally, there is the PG battle between the very efficient and GOAT playmaker John Stockton, and the primary option tough guy Gary Payton. Without going into the Stockton issue (he has fanatic fans who will do this), I will say that Payton and Isiah look very similar statistically -- plus he was considered arguably the greatest defensive PG of all time who just disrupted opponents. Even Magic once said that Payton was the only guy he ever played where Magic had to turn around and back the ball down against him. On Isiah's side, he was more explosive, especially in the playoffs where he shone. However, unless someone can show me that Payton's DEFENSE didn't translate into the playoffs, I rate him above Isiah Thomas. Stockton/Payton is very tough because I love efficiency and tough defense and Stockton gives you both. But Payton did about as much with Seattle where his best big was the talented moron Shawn Kemp as Stockton did with Karl Malone. Neither had a top center, Payton had better wings pretty consistently but star power is what wins in the end and Malone provided more to Utah whereas Payton was the star in Seattle.

Among Gilmore, Pippen, and Payton, I would take Gilmore. Until recent rule changes, there were few players with the impact of a great 2-way center. I could see voting for one of the other two players and will switch my vote if it is tied between one of them and a player I rank lower but for now:

Nomination -- Artis Gilmore

Vote: David Robinson
Nominate: Scottie Pippen

I'm still wavering on the nomination, Drexler/Pippen is an interesting debate, and Gilmore has a solid case as well.

Vote: Robinson
Nominate: Pippen

Robinson vs Barkley:

This is an interesting match-up, between two players whom the box score stats love. Last thread I voted for Barkley because he had a chance to win, but honestly I think that Robinson may have been slightly better. Robinson's (relative) playoff struggles knocked him off of the Duncan level, but he was still an outstanding player and wasn't THAT bad in the playoffs. As someone (David Stern?) pointed out, his biggest playoff fails were against Hakeem and Karl Malone, two players already on our list. At this stage of the game, that's forgivable.

I was planning on doing a normalized scoring comparison between the two, but since they were in the same generation maybe that level of detail isn't necessary. But for both Barkley and Robinson, I think you can break their careers into "early, do-everything" period and "late, slowing down, teaming up with other stars" period. To me, I put Robinson's first 7 years (pre-knee injury) and Barkley's first 9 years into phase 1, and this is what basketball-reference has for their stats:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 01&y2=1993

Summarizing (using PER and Win Shares, though if you follow the link it has all of their box score stats), Robinson had a slightly larger PER (27.8 vs 25.3) and Win Shares (.26 WS/48 vs .226) in the regular season, and in the postseason they were roughly even (PER 24 vs 23.9; WS/48 = .189 vs .195). And while some question has been raised about Robinson's defensive impact in the postseason, there's no doubt that it was still clearly much larger than Barkley's defensive impact. As such, if the boxes say they're similar (essentially on offense) but defensively Robinson was much better...I think that'd be advantage Robinson.

Phase 2: After his big knee injury, Robinson returned next to young Tim Duncan and gradually moved from co-lead (1998) to very strong support (1999 - 2001) to more injured co-defensive anchor (2002 - 2003). Meanwhile, Barkley after that Finals run had a few years missing around 15 games per year in Phoenix before heading to Houston and trying to super-team with Hakeem and Drex/Pippen for a few more hopeful shots at the title. And again, in this phase I think Robinson was more impactful, and this time because Robinson's game was greatly transferable to more of a defensive co-anchor status whereas Barkley, with his more completely offensive-based game, was just generally less effective as his explosiveness left and he had to try to fit in with other talented offensive players.

Early and late, I think Robinson was just that bit better than Barkley.

Still Robinson, still Gilmore.

Vote: Barkley
Nominate: Pippen

vote: Robinson
nomination: Pippen

I'm going to ramble on a few thoughts because this project keeps throwing curve balls at me.

-Why are we back using these checklist- comparisons with players? (Better defense, better offense, better shooter, etc.) The holistic approach is what counts here. Not to mention, is that simply a comparisons of peaks? If it is, what about all the other years they played?

-Why would someone take Isiah over Pippen? Peak or career? (If you've already made an argument, I must have missed it -- no offense intended.) I actually had no idea that vote was coming last thread or I would have broken it down...I didn't even really consider Isiah...

-Artis Gilmore, I continue to be amazed by his supporters. I was looking forward to learning about Artis in the RPOY project, and came away fairly underwhelmed. It's not simply the team DRTg's that we don't expect from as an "anchor," or how blah much of his NBA career was. It's that in learning about the ABA, size was an issue, and so was talent before 74-76. When a rookie Artis wins MVP and then seems to have less regard as the league fills in around him, that's not really a good sign. I really don't get the love for him. As others have suggested, it's debatable he wasn't the best big on his team...

-Why do we keep obsessing over David Robinson's box numbers? I've poured over it in detail, but citing his box numbers in comparisons is really irrelevant at this depth of analysis to me. I mean, look: http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... 01&y2=1991

We know there is way more to the game than the box. We know a lot about it, and these players (Barkley v Robinson, for eg). Unless you think Robinson is near Jordan, I think we just don't need to really ever go there again.

-Apparently, most people have Fatal on ignore. I mean, what else could explain how such clear, informative and awesome posts about Barkley could have little response, and then so few people voting for Barkley?

At his peak, this was a guy held in good esteem next to prime MJ and Magic. 92 Dream Team he was, in many regards, the standout/breakout player (it sure as hell wasn't David Robinson, and I'm including the legendary reports of the pickup games when I discuss the Dream Team). Barkley was an offensive genius -- a true savant -- and IMO clearly better than Dirk in that area. Yet Nowitzki was voted in many slots ago, and people are reluctant to vote Barkley because...? People obsess over playoff performances...and Barkley, by all accounts, is a magnificent PS performer.

I don't get it.

PS @Regulator - awesome post on appealing to the masses. This is a project based on discussion and analysis of basketball players. We really should never be citing another rankings list during it or discussing what people thought about stuff we know a lot about.

vote: Charles Barkley
nominate: Scottie Pippen

Why is Pippen better than Drexler? What exactly did Scottie do that Clyde didn't? Why is he the superior basketball player?

TMACFORMVP wrote:Vote: David Robinson
Nominate: Scottie Pippen

Did you vote in previous thread?

DavidStern wrote:Did you vote in previous thread?

No, I wanted to go back to edit one of my posts with a vote (or post a new one), but voting had already closed. Wouldn't have affected anything in the end however. That's why I got mine in early this time, though I'm still going back and forth on the nomination..

ElGee wrote:I
-Why do we keep obsessing over David Robinson's box numbers?

Nobody is obsessing over DRob's box score. I would rather say people are obsessing over Barkley's box score, because everyone are talking about his PPG and super efficiency, but what was his impact on the game?

And Robinson's impact was clearly huge outside of box score. For example in 1992 he improved Spurs defense by 7.6 drtg or he was top defensive player in the league at the end of his career (according to RAPM).

This is a pretty clear vote for me as it's the last of a player in one my tiers. Barkley deserves the vote over Robinson for bringing it in the playoffs while Drob very much did not. And he has longevity on Drob too

I do think DRob was the better regular season player, but the playoffs matter more, pretty clearly.

Vote Barkley

Nominate Pippen

Dr Mufasa wrote:This is a pretty clear vote for me as it's the last of a player in one my tiers. Barkley deserves the vote over Robinson for bringing it in the playoffs while Drob very much did not. And he has longevity on Drob too

I do think DRob was the better regular season player, but the playoffs matter more, pretty clearly.

Overall, over course of their careers they played at very similar level in the playoffs.

ronnymac2 wrote:Why is Pippen better than Drexler? What exactly did Scottie do that Clyde didn't? Why is he the superior basketball player?

Comparable playmaker, better rebounder, better defender. Clyde has a clear edge as a scorer, but not by that much, really. I think offensively, Pippen is just a little bit behind him, while his defense more than makes up for it.

Vote: Charles Barkley. David Robinson is a close second.

Nominate: Scottie Pippen. I can't think of anyone else right now. John Stockton would probably be next on my list.