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 -- Please vote and nominate

Newest addition:

Dolph Schayes

Hall of Fame 1973
6x All-NBA 1st Team
6x All-NBA 2nd Team
NBA Champion 1955
12x All-Star

Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo

1x All-NBA 2nd Team
2x All-NBA 3rd Team
4x Defensive Player of the Year
4x All-Defense 1st Team
3x All-Defense 2nd Team
8x All-Star

Vince Carter

1x All-NBA 2nd team
1x All-NBA 3rd team
8x All-Star
Rookie of Year

Nate Thurmond

Hall of Fame 1985
2x All-Def 1st Team
3x All-Def 2nd Team

Penny Hardaway

2x 1st team All-NBA
1x 3rd team All-NBA
4x All-Star

Robert Parish

Hall of Fame 2003
1x 2nd team All-NBA
1x 3rd team All-NBA
4x NBA Champion (once as deep bench with Bulls)
9x All-Star

Dennis Rodman

2x All-NBA 3rd Team
5x NBA Champion
2x Defensive Player of the Year
7x All-Defense 1st Team
1x All-Defense 2nd Team
2x All-Star


Grant Hill

1x 1st Team All-NBA
3x 2nd Team All-NBA
7x All-Star
Rookie of the Year

On the wings we have Grant, Penny, and Vince . . . of them, Grant Hill the most well rounded and the most dominant although his peak was short. Right now I rank them:
1 GHill
2 VCarter
3 AHardaway

For the bigs, Parish has the consistency, Schayes the accolades, Rodman the rings, and Thurmond the best defense; I'm not a fan but I really think the Worm has the best chance of helping a team win it all though all 4 are valuable
1 Rodman
2 Parish
3 Thurmond
4 Mutombo
5 Schayes

I loved Grant Hill and disliked Dennis Rodman and I agree that a team with Rodman as its star isn't going anywhere BUT . . . Rodman as a supercomplementary piece was a part of 5 championships and obnoxious as he was, that isn't an accident. VOTE: Dennis Rodman

Point Guards -- I like Billups's consistency and efficiency, not up for any of the others
Chauncey Billups
Nate Archibald
Tim Hardaway
Mark Price
Dennis Johnson ? Mookie Blaylock?

Shooting Guards -- Not really feeling any of the top guys yet but here's who I'm thinking about
David Thompson
Joe Dumars
Bill Sharman ?
Chris Mullin
Hal Greer

Shooting Forward -- a top of great candidate left, in no particular order
Adrian Dantley
Billy Cunningham
James Worthy
Shawn Marion
Connie Hawkins

Power Forward -- I really can't see Shawn Kemp with all the outstanding forwards left, he was immature, foul prone, had a low basketball IQ and really wasn't that dominant. Heck, I'd think long and hard about bangers like Paul Silas or Buck Williams before Kemp. Schayes had all sorts of awards but like Cousy, I just don't see the numbers standing up although he was the greatest free throw shooting big ever -- better than Dirk or Bird even. Elton Brand was injured several times and was more a big numbers on weak teams guy but I'd consider him -- but I'd still rather have a consistent two way presence like Bobby Jones, Larry Nance, or Shawn Marion:

Bobby Jones
Jerry Lucas
Larry Nance
Amare Stoudamire
Terry Cummings

Centers: starting to run a little short here
Dikembe Mutombo
Mel Daniels
----------?
Walt Bellamy
Neil Johnston
Yao Ming

NOMINATE BOBBY JONES
-- arguably the most consistent and versatile defender outside of the dominant centers ever . . . 10 1st team All-Defense in his first 10 years is unmatched by anyone, ever and an efficient and heady offensive player with great intangibles.

From lists:

Vote:
Grant Hill -- ronnymac2

Nominate:
James Worthy -- Fencer
Billy Cunningham -- ronnymac2

Nominate: Billy Cunningham

As I've been saying, everyone not familiar with Cunningham, needs to do some research.

Vote: Grant Hill- its time

Cunningham is to Rick Barry as Hill is to Bernard King . . . Cunningham and Barry even share the short but impressive ABA stint with the big injury.

Vote: Dennis Rodman
Nominate: Chris Webber

Vote Vince Carter

Leaning Carter over Hill for now as dirty as it makes me feel. Just can't say I'm enough sure of the gap between Hill's best 4 years vs Carter's best 5 to make up for Carter then having a number of other all-star caliber seasons

Nominate Cunningham

Will step off the Melo nomination if nobody else is pushing him and will support the Cunningham nomination. High peak and results, good attitude, reasonable longevity

Rodman won 8 championships?

vote: Rodman
nominate: Bobby Jones

penbeast0 wrote:From lists:

Vote:
Grant Hill -- ronnymac2

Nominate:
James Worthy -- Fencer
Billy Cunningham -- ronnymac2

Thank you for listing my votes and nominees, PenBeast.


I'm changing the Hill vote to a vote for Vince Carter. Hill/Penny/VC is incredibly close, and Deke/Worm/Thurmond complicates things even more.

I'm keeping my Cunningham nomination.

DavidStern wrote:vote: Rodman
nominate: Bobby Jones

Why Bobby Jones?

Hill's kind of fallen off for me, because he simply doesn't have much playoff value. He didn't seem to be the type of guy who could pick up the scoring load when needed. Penny, on the other hand, actually did show that ability, and his longevity isn't that bad compared to Hill (4 prime seasons vs 6)...Carter is kind of the best of both worlds...he did peak the lowest in my book, but he had the ability to carry an offense in the playoffs, he has the best longevity, and to be honest, his peak was pretty close to theirs imo.

Vote: Carter

I don't know who to nominate yet, but the arguments for Cunningham have been most convincing so far.

BTW, Ben Wallace should be getting mentioned soon imo.

Firstly, apologies for missing round 63. Long story, but my weekend was a bit of a mess.

VOTE: Dennis Rodman.

Can't say he's the guy you build around, but if you had one or two of the top 63 on your team he's one of the first players you look at to compliment them, and the success he achieved was undeniable (though I'm not sure where his extra 3 rings came from - did he steal them?). I'm just not convinced by the other guys on this list; some have limited careers due to injury (Penny/Hill), others were similarly limited but equally impactful (Mutombo), and others I think are more style over substance (VC).

NOMINATE James Worthy

I've given enough reasons for his inclusion so far. He was clutch, had 10 great, consistent seasons as a complimentary piece (and sometimes lead scorer) on a multiple championship winning team. And he showed up for the big games and was super clutch.

If we are seriously considering Penny (and I'm not -- 2/3 the already abbreviated career of Grant Hill and a second option as well -- and not as key a second option in my mind as Rodman or Bobby Jones), how about Connie Hawkins?

Banned from college and the NBA for the best athletic years of his career (age 19-27), he became a street legend for his dunking and athleticism. Given short chances to play in weaker leagues, he was the ABL MVP at age 19 (over the likes of Bill Bridges and George Yardley among others -- a weak league maybe equivalent to the Euro leagues today), then the first ABA MVP (and running away with the 2nd year MVP as well when he suffered a bad knee injury). Coming back from the knee injury, he changed his game from a post player to a jump shooting wing and went to Phoenix where he became 1st team All-NBA only to suffer additional knee injuries and fade into oblivion (2.5 top seasons if we don't count ABL which I don't -- v. Penny's 4 -- but as a primary scorer and MVP level player).

He was not only a great scorer and the next great dunker after Elgin Baylor, his signature dunk was the Iron Cross. His teammates on those ABA teams talk about his passing, particularly his outlet passing (he could grip the basketball in one hand and fake a baseball throw, like a quarterback) and his leadership -- the chapter on him in Terry Pluto's "Loose Balls" is full of comments about his team play that make him sound like Bill Walton but with more scoring (he wasn't but he was a high IQ player apparently).

I'm not going to put him in before the great two way defenders like Bobby Jones, Larry Nance, even Shawn Marion but for those who think Penny's 4 years as Shaq's sidekick is enough, he's someone to consider.

Penny time

Vote: Penny Hardaway
Nominate: Shawn Kemp

ronnymac2 wrote:

DavidStern wrote:vote: Rodman
nominate: Bobby Jones

Why Bobby Jones?

Why not?
We are at the point of the list, where great role players like Rodman or Gasol are voted in, so so good overall player (and one of the best wing defenders of all time) like Jones probably also should be somewhere around #70.

Vote: not decided

Nomination: James Worthy.

I'm been nominating him for a while. I think his selection in 1996 as top 50 was well deserved. He was clucth, able to score 20 ppg without being 1st option (or 2nd) and finals MVP. In another team he should be higher, because Magic and KAJ shadowed his star.