Top 25 players of all time based on MVP shares

[clyde21]

Would this be a good or bad list?

[Lost92Bricks]

No Nowitzki in the top 20
No Olajuwon in the top 10
No Wade in the top 25

Maybe it would be better if it was a top 25 list based off of regular season performance only.

[RCM88x]

No Nowitzki in the top 20
No Olajuwon in the top 10
No Wade in the top 25

Maybe it would be better if it was a top 25 list based off of regular season performance only.

I agree, with a heavy emphasis on team success and box scores.

[Ron Swanson]

Weird, I was told that MVP voters are clueless and it's never a good measurement of individual greatness. That list actually seems pretty solid to me, but as people have said, it doesn't really take into account the postseason, and that's a big factor in the all-time rankings. Only issues I have is no Dirk in the top-25 and that Malone isn't a top-8 player ever. Not so bold statement is that I don't have Hakeem in the top-10, and people shouldn't treat that as blasphemous.

[Rapcity_11]

Really underrates players than have all-star seasons that fall outside the top 5. Guys like Dirk and Wade.

[Rapcity_11]

Weird, I was told that MVP voters are clueless and it's never a good measurement of individual greatness. That list actually seems pretty solid to me, but as people have said, it doesn't really take into account the postseason, and that's a big factor in the all-time rankings. Only issues I have is no Dirk in the top-25 and that Malone isn't a top-8 player ever. Not so bold statement is that I don't have Hakeem in the top-10, and people shouldn't treat that as blasphemous.

I don’t think anybody thinks MVP voters haven’t generally been voting for something close to the top 5 or so players each year. It’s votes like Iverson in 01 and Rose in 11 that people (rightfully) go nuts about.

[BdeRegt]

I actually think it is a pretty good list. I often feel like people overrate postseason so this is probably more in line with my thinking. Malone is a little high for me but he often gets underrated. I don't have a problem with Hakeem outside top 10. He is put too high to me. Dirk and Wade could be argued at end of list but not crazy to have them outside top 25.

Mostly, I think this list judges players based on their day without revisionist history where stuff important now is held against guys from previous era.

[penbeast0]

MVP votes don't include postseason at all. For one that does, I will post another poster's analysis of the Retro MVP project:

I took the concept of "weighted MVP" from Bill Simmons (although I wouldn't take much else from his analysis), and I decided to put it to test with this. MVP votes that were unanimous received 10 points, 90-99.9% received 7, 80-89.9% received 5, 70-79.9% received 3, and 60-69.9% received 1. The results were as follows.

Michael Jordan – 73
Bill Russell – 56
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 54
Lebron James – 44
Larry Bird – 32
Tim Duncan – 26
Shaquille O’Neal/Wilt Chamberlain – 25
Moses Malone – 17
Hakeem Olajuwon – 14
Bob Pettit – 12
Kevin Garnett - 11
Schayes/Arizin/Erving/West/Magic/Dirk/Steph – 7
Dwyane Wade/Rick Barry – 5

At a glance, this looks like a pretty solid all-time great list (barring a few players who hid in the shadows of the best of the best). I think Jordan getting so many votes during the 80's over Magic skewed Jordan's numbers too highly, and severely negatively affected Magic's, but it seems like a solid list nonetheless.

[wojoaderge]

No Nowitzki in the top 20
No Olajuwon in the top 10
No Wade in the top 25

Just like mine

[Fundamentals21]

That's a good RS list I think. Karl Malone and David Robinson go down in playoffs, Duncan obviously goes up, Wade goes up bigtime through 06, Hakeem most impressed me with his repeat runs, Dirk became t-20 lock after 2011 run, etc.

[Jack Dempsey]

I've never made a top 25 list but I'm not sure Wade would be on it.

As for the OP, the list looks pretty good to me. Swap Malone and Kobe with Wilt and Olajuwon and you'd have my top 10 list (not in that order though). I'm surprised to see Daniels that high.

[rebirthoftheM]

I have some quibbles over the order, though it's generally acceptable, but i disagree with MVPs being a serious criteria in these rankings. Dont really agree with the voting system at all.

[dhsilv2]

Delete

[dhsilv2]

No Nowitzki in the top 20
No Olajuwon in the top 10
No Wade in the top 25

Maybe it would be better if it was a top 25 list based off of regular season performance only.

I'm ok with all 3 of those. I wouldn't put Hakeem top 10. I think Dirk top 20 is ok, but he's not a lock at all. And wade isn't top 25 imo, not sure he's higher than 30th. If those are your biggest complaints, this is one hell of a metric!

[dhsilv2]

I have some quibbles over the order, though it's generally acceptable, but i disagree with MVPs being a serious criteria in these rankings. Dont really agree with the voting system at all.

What's wrong with the system (other than it has changed constantly over time so it's not apples to apples)?

I think the share avoids the issues with some bad votes, it isn't like nash was 100% voted in for example.

[dhsilv2]

Would this be a good or bad list?

You either need to use the NBA only list or adjust the league for the ABA NBA votes, you're double counting years. But yeah the MVP share method works pretty darn well all things considered.

Case and point Dirk is 26 and would move up by moving Daniels off. If aba is half, I think Dr J stays.

[rebirthoftheM]

I have some quibbles over the order, though it's generally acceptable, but i disagree with MVPs being a serious criteria in these rankings. Dont really agree with the voting system at all.

What's wrong with the system (other than it has changed constantly over time so it's not apples to apples)?

I think the share avoids the issues with some bad votes, it isn't like nash was 100% voted in for example.

Should clarify. I have an issue with respect to leaning on it too heavily when ranking players of all time.

Excluding RWB being rewarded for averaging a triple double, guys tended to be punished for being on poor teams, even if their play was great and they were keeping their teams afloat. Emphasizing team success as a major factor in "most valuable" is to me majorly misleading.

Then there's the cache issue- see Dirk Nowitzki for instance being ignored from 02-04 despite being a hella player. In 03, after leading his team to 60 wins and playing excellent offense, he finished 7th.

Narrative bias- see Allen Iverson in 01.

These things add up over the years, leading to warped results.

And then there is of course the fact that the voting panel for MVPS are generally voted in by media people who aren't tied to any of the franchises/nba. I'd rather limit the voting power to head coaches and the 30 play-by-play announcers/color commentators for all teams. I might disagree with their analysis, but I don't think many people watch as much game-tape as them. And with respect to coaches, they understand strategy and locker-room factors.

[dhsilv2]

I have some quibbles over the order, though it's generally acceptable, but i disagree with MVPs being a serious criteria in these rankings. Dont really agree with the voting system at all.

What's wrong with the system (other than it has changed constantly over time so it's not apples to apples)?

I think the share avoids the issues with some bad votes, it isn't like nash was 100% voted in for example.

Should clarify. I have an issue with respect to leaning on it too heavily when ranking players of all time.

Excluding RWB being rewarded for averaging a triple double, guys tended to be punished for being on poor teams, even if their play was great and they were keeping their teams afloat. Emphasizing team success as a major factor in "most valuable" is to me majorly misleading.

Then there's the cache issue- see Dirk Nowitzki for instance being ignored from 02-04 despite being a hella player. In 03, after leading his team to 60 wins and playing excellent offense, he finished 7th.

Narrative bias- see Allen Iverson in 01.

These things add up over the years, leading to warped results.

And then there is of course the fact that the voting panel for MVPS are generally voted in by media people who aren't tied to any of the franchises/nba. I'd rather limit the voting power to head coaches and the 30 play-by-play announcers/color commentators for all teams. I might disagree with their analysis, but I don't think many people watch as much game-tape as them. And with respect to coaches, they understand strategy and locker-room factors.

Italics - I agree and disagree here. I think most people value winning, they don't rank purely based on who was a better player. We are after all basing this on results, not hypothetical. I think the winning bias is correct and for most players who have decently long careers, they end up with getting it on both sides (underrated then overrated). Dirk for example did in those 3 years earn 0.064 in MVP award share, sure maybe underrated but he still did get some credit and most players never get any credit. Dirk is like 24th if we drop ABA MVP share, which I don't think is awful for his career. Iverson's 1 MVP was pretty high on the rankings, though I tend to think he went from overrated that year to now underrated. Either way, Iverson really had a special year that year, and as the only real offensive weapon on a team that made the finals, it hardly seems out of line. So I agree that we have errors, but no other simple measure imo does a clearly better job if you value peak play and longevity as a peak level guy.

Non Italics - I hate coach votes. Just don't think they take them seriously to be honest. I also disagree with the media, a LOT of them are NBA obsessed freaks. I for example wouldn't want to take Zach Lowe's pick even if I may disagree with him. He's a truly important nba media figure.

[Bad Gatorade]

If you had to pick a metric that ranked the top 25 players in NBA history without using any further subjectivity, MVP shares will probably deliver some of the "better" results. At the very least, you won't have quite as many guys that manage to loophole certain weaknesses that appear abnormally high (e.g. WS has Reggie Miller at 14th and John Stockton at 5th, VORP has Kidd ahead of Magic and Drexler ahead of Shaq...) and there's a degree as to which MVP voting might capture what doesn't appear in the box score. So, the players in the top 25 (save for the ABA-intensive guys) all had a peak/prime that actually has a case to be in the top 25, 30 or so. There isn't really anybody that's stupidly overrated from NBA play in that top 25.

However, I'd also state that it underrates guys that peaked on lousy teams (Wade) had great, unnoticed seasons (Dirk), were clearly great but played as a "second fiddle" (Stockton), or guys that spent a lot of time just outside of MVP level, but were clearly great players for a long time (Paul Pierce, who shouldn't be top 25, but is much, much better than 143... Stockton again).

If you look further down than the top 25, there are some very questionably high results too. I'm a Rockets fan and all, but Harden has no business being as high as 29th!

I think that MVP shares have very little use when we've got such a breadth of statistical knowledge in the modern era. They have zero weighting on how I view anybody post-2000. I do not care. I've watched the game enough, looked at enough statistics and made an informed judgement to know that the arbitrary voting patterns of the masses won't sway this. And honestly, prior to 2000, they don't carry much weight for me either, outside of, "how was ___ perceived at the time?"

[Rapcity_11]

Guys, Wade is #52 by this metric. It's not like he's right there at #26 or anything.

Stockton is #103. Pippen #56. Rick Barry #61. Drexler #53. Pierce #143.

It's not a good way to rank players.