Re: RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #27

[dhsilv2]

Vote 1 - Patrick Ewing

Vote 2 - Scottie Pippen

I’m just going to address some of the themes (for the lack of a better word) that revolved around ewing during his career.

He came up in one of the best eras for centers the game has ever seen. There are the obvious all time greats such as hakeem, robinson, and towards the later part of his career shaq. Then you had his georgetown counterparts in mutombo and mourning as well as guys like parish, divac, willis, smits, sabonis, daugherty, etc. On top of competing with these guys for accolades like all NBA and all defensive team, he had the tall task of being the focal point on offense going up against them on a regular basis.

And that leads me to the story of ewing’s career: He never had a consistent all star caliber 2nd option in his prime. The knicks were essentially forced to run the offense through him as he was their only option. Starks was a talented player who would go to war for you, but for every few games he went off, you’d end up with a shot happy poor shooting night. Many times, the knicks would end up winning these games in spite of that due to ewing’s stellar play.

Was Ewing a hyper efficient elite offensive player? Not quite, but he would turn into a great offensive force with impressive athleticism for a guy his size. As his athleticism waned, he developed more of an outside game, and while his efficiency would decrease, you could still go to him late in games if you needed a bucket. You can also attribute his decrease in efficiency in the playoffs to defenses locking in even more on him due to the lack of other options.

I’m sorry, but the notion that he actually brought his teammates down offensively to the point where they would’ve had a significantly greater impact without him is irrational. If ewing was ever fortunate enough to play with another great player, he would’ve taken advantage of it just fine. When he finally got the opportunity to play for a championship in 94, he just so happened to face his ultimate match in hakeem. By no means am I guaranteeing a championship if he faced the likes of barkley, stockton and malone, or david robinson, but the outcome may have been different.

Ewing and the knicks played jordan’s bulls as well as anyone back then, but just couldn’t get over the hump. While teams from other eras certainly prevented players from winning championships, jordan had a major effect on those guys from the 90s. Those knicks teams were built on defense, and while there’s no question ewing had great defensive players around him, he was the anchor nonetheless. NY’s defensive RTG ranks from 92-99:

92 - 2nd
93 - 1st
94 - 1st
95 - 1st
96 - 4th
97 - 2nd
98 - 4th
99 - 4th

Top 5 defense for 8 straight seasons and best in the league for 3 straight? That’s damn impressive any way you slice it. 92 was riley’s first year as head coach, and he found a way to manage all these strong personalities (mason, oakley, mcdaniel, starks, harper, etc.) and help them channel that towards performance on the court.

Where I struggle with the last part of your argument is that I still think Oakley was the heart of that defense. Sure Ewing was the better player, but I honestly think Oakley was an Isiah Thomas like personality for that team. I wasn't a knicks fan and it was the dark days of cable tv, so am I wrong? Was ewing really a locker room hero? To me it was Oakley's heart and soul that made that defense, and Ewing was just the "talent" if you will.

I don't buy that era was a super era for centers either. A super era for centers with long careers perhaps, but centers dominated the game from the 50's on till about now. Ewing being this high moves him past guys like Reed, Cowens, McAdoo, Walton, and Unseld who were all MVP level centers. Cowens, Reed, and Unseld all played together, and all won MVP's but I'm supposed to move Ewing over all of them?

The MVP's from 65-79

Russell, Wilt, Unseld, Reed, Kareem, Cowens, McAdoo, Walton, and Moses. That was THE center era, so the argument that centers were better in the 90's seems false. The question is if you think the 90's as a whole were the best decade by a mile. I've asked this over the Ewing fans, but I don't think I've gotten a direct answer. If you think the 90's were just by far the best era, then that's a reasonable case for Ewing. All be it, I think your second pick Pippen had a far better career, the rest of your argument for Ewing at last seems reasonable for him over Pippen.

True but you seem to be focusing on overrepresentation of 90s players, when I feel it's the lack of 70s players that's really alarming. I don't know what to do with it because their cases don't seem that strong, but it's hard to believe it represents only 2 of the top 30 players in history

If one era is over represented then by default another is under rated. I chose to take the possitive view that people value the late 80's and early to mid 90's so highly. I think that was a top era myself, but we've MORE than made that point in our ranks so far. At this point with Ewing and I suspect Pippen likely to make the top 30, we're starting to get extreme.

We're also imo being extremely biased towards longer careers to the point peak play is ignored, other than we randomly threw in Wade. The problem with ewing is that his allstar appearances and all nba's aren't meaningfully better than people we're leaving out either. So even longevity is something I struggle with here, unless again it's a nod to the greatness of the era (and not big men, but the era as a whole).

[dhsilv2]

Where I struggle with the last part of your argument is that I still think Oakley was the heart of that defense. Sure Ewing was the better player, but I honestly think Oakley was an Isiah Thomas like personality for that team. I wasn't a knicks fan and it was the dark days of cable tv, so am I wrong? Was ewing really a locker room hero? To me it was Oakley's heart and soul that made that defense, and Ewing was just the "talent" if you will.

I don't buy that era was a super era for centers either. A super era for centers with long careers perhaps, but centers dominated the game from the 50's on till about now. Ewing being this high moves him past guys like Reed, Cowens, McAdoo, Walton, and Unseld who were all MVP level centers. Cowens, Reed, and Unseld all played together, and all won MVP's but I'm supposed to move Ewing over all of them?

The MVP's from 65-79

Russell, Wilt, Unseld, Reed, Kareem, Cowens, McAdoo, Walton, and Moses. That was THE center era, so the argument that centers were better in the 90's seems false. The question is if you think the 90's as a whole were the best decade by a mile. I've asked this over the Ewing fans, but I don't think I've gotten a direct answer. If you think the 90's were just by far the best era, then that's a reasonable case for Ewing. All be it, I think your second pick Pippen had a far better career, the rest of your argument for Ewing at last seems reasonable for him over Pippen.

True but you seem to be focusing on overrepresentation of 90s players, when I feel it's the lack of 70s players that's really alarming. I don't know what to do with it because their cases don't seem that strong, but it's hard to believe it represents only 2 of the top 30 players in history

I feel like Rick Barry has grown criminally underrated over time.

That said the gap between him and other players in his same position range is nowhere near big enough to get really excited about.


P.S. BTW, as to the earlier post in that sequence...Bill Russell entered the league in 1956. Walton and Moses entered the league in 1974. It's a real stretch to call all the players over that range part of the same generation, so yeah, maybe if you collected every great center from the first 30 years of the league they would be able to equal the 90s group. But the 90s group was pretty cohesive generation-wise, entering the league between 1984 (Hakeem) and 1992 (Zo/Shaq), and there's no other generation where so many all time centers were all in their primes facing off with each other every night.

I simply listed all players to win the MVP for a ~15 years. There was no attempt to call it an era or anything else. It was just to show that essentially for a decade and a half the only players to win the MVP were centers. The only real edge I'd give the 90's is that the centers had longer and healthier careers. We had a lot of great centers get injured in the 70's and thus we didn't get so many peaking at once.

[dhsilv2]

FYI I say this all under the context that you seemed to dismiss Howard being over Ewing as if it were unthinkable. I'm not sure who I'd pick ultimately right now, but Howard over Ewing seems perfectly reasonable.

I do to some degree. I consider Dwight Howard to largely be a paper tiger compared to the great centers. A pretty boy with beach muscles but not the all around talent or grit of the true legend level centers. A modern invention worshipped by people who don't remember what the real centers used to look like. He had very little offensive ability. His TS% is a blatant distortion. A joke based on rolling to the hoop, alley oops, and offensive follows. You can't even compare him to guys like Ewing or Hakeem. You couldn't build an offense around him -- you put him in the middle of the offense. And he never had to play anybody the other way. He was a great help defender, but he would have been squished like a bug on Shaq's backside. There were few nightly wars for him. Maybe a handful against Yao when he was young, and Cousins when he was old. Otherwise he never had to face a massively productive center and got to just sit back there playing goalie while ignoring the Joakim Noahs and Timofey Mozgovs of the world being trotted out as centers during his prime.

I wanted to chime in here, quoting both.
I think Winsome Gerbil marginally overstates things (wrt to Ewing essentially pulling double-duty in guarding all-time great centers AND being responsible for help D/protecting the rim), or at least implies that's the case more often than it really was. There were a lot of all-time great centers in his time; but there were also a lot of teams trotting out the likes of post-injury Bill Cartwright, Michael Cage, Frank Brickowski, Danny Schayes, or similar too.

That said, I do feel Winsome Gerbil has a point, because he certainly had to face an offensive threat at the center more frequently: Hakeem, Robinson, Shaq, Daugherty, Mourning, Smits, even aging Parish was a better scorer than many of the centers Howard was facing, such as even peak Joakim Noah. Note that Hakeem and Robinson were the only ones not in the Eastern Conference with Ewing during Ewing's prime, too.

Who were the major scoring centers (or PF/C's) of Howard's prime? Yao Ming (early in Dwight's prime), Cousins (only at the tail-end of Dwight's prime), Amare Stoudemire, Tim Duncan, Pau Gasol. Note that ALL of them were almost exclusively in the opposite conference from Dwight during portions of their primes that overlap.
So he certainly would have had more opportunity to just give token attention to his own man, and otherwise "play goalie" as WG indicated.

However, there are more outside shots in Howard's era, which one could argue would marginalize a big's defensive impact somewhat. So I'm not sure how to figure that in as a counter-measure. otoh, smart coaches like SVG orchestrate their defense cleverly, essentially overplay outside shots, knowing that Dwight's got their back if they then get beat off the dribble, so.......

Who led the better defenses? Ewing anchored THREE #1 defenses to Howard's ONE (iirc). Ewing anchored TWO defenses that were significantly better than the best defense Howard anchored. In opp eFG% and DREB%, the '09 thru '11 Magic ranked: 1st and 2nd, 1st and 1st, and 4th and 1st, respectively.
Those two great Knicks defenses that Ewing anchored were 1st and 1st both years.
otoh, Ewing had more help on the defensive end; so all other things being equal, he SHOULD have a better team result, right?


So idk where that leaves us on the defensive comparison. Both were fantastic defensive anchors. By eye-test, I kinda like peak Ewing marginally better (pnr defense, keeping blocks in play being the primary reasons). The one separating factor I will note is that Dwight has maybe 6-8 seasons as a good/great defensive anchor, whereas Ewing shows every indication of being a solid defensive presence for a MINIMUM of 10 years (and perhaps more like 12-14).
Longevity again is the primary distinguishing factor between these two.

Offensively, I think Winsome Gerbil underrates Dwight's offensive potential, simply because he doesn't have great iso scoring skills. He's an all-time great level finisher, though, all-time great level at putting foul-pressure on the opposing defenses, too. And in an era predicated on lots of pnr's, being an elite roll-man has its value too.
Not saying this makes him better (or necessarily even equal) to Ewing on offense. But I don't agree that you can't build around him (seeing as that's exactly what Orlando did). I would agree it somewhat limits as far as WHAT TYPE of effective offensive line-up you can build around him, but that's about as far as I'd go.
He's not a great offensive player, but he was pretty good in his prime.

Great post and very reasonable.

I would however point out a few things. The first is the difference in their rebounding. I think we all agree it's a bit harder to get rebounds in a 3 point shooting world. Meanwhile if we look at their rebounding stats, Howard isn't just better here, it isn't remotely close. Howard has 12 seasons with a higher total rebound percentage than Ewing's best season. Now I don't have data on Ewing, but we all are aware of Howard's ability to simply prevent people from even attempting to shoot against him. I don't get the impression that was the case with Ewing though.

Career vs career I think Ewing has a very valid case, but at their best I just don't see the case for Ewing.

As for eras who knows. Iso play in general has gone away for the most part. I struggle to hold the style of play in one era or another against anyone. At the same time, I don't buy that big men just stopped existing. I believe firmly it is just harder today to be an impact big man which only adds to the gap I see between the two's peaks.

[Lou Fan]

Thru post #79 (27 votes---don't think we're going to get more----requiring 14 for solid majority):

Patrick Ewing - 11 (2klegend, Bad Gatorade, Clyde Frazier, Dr Positivity, Doctor MJ, drza, Hornet Mania, LABird,
micahclay, trex_8063, Winsome Gerbil)
Kevin Durant - 6 (scabbarista, penbeast0, pandrade83, dhsilv2, CodeBreaker, andrewww)
Stephen Curry - 3 (janmagn, oldschooled, twolves97)
Elgin Baylor -2 (Outside, Pablo Novi)
Scottie Pippen - 1 (RCM88x)
Clyde Drexler - 1 (JordansBulls)
Artis Gilmore - 1 (Narigo)
Isiah Thomas -1 (JoeMalburg)
Bob Cousy - 1 (euroleague)

No majority, so all of the bottom five are eliminated. Two become ghost votes (were for Havlicek and Kidd). Otherwise one vote transfers to Durant, two to Ewing:

Ewing - 13
Durant - 7
Curry - 3
Baylor - 2

Baylor is next eliminated, but both become ghost votes (one for Havlicek, one for Cousy). Curry is next eliminated, but all three turn to ghost votes (secondary votes were for Pippen, Havlicek, and Baylor).
So we're left with Ewing (13) and Durant (7). Ewing is the default winner.

Will have the next thread up shortly.

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What happened to the Curry voters from last time .

[Dr Positivity]

Where I struggle with the last part of your argument is that I still think Oakley was the heart of that defense. Sure Ewing was the better player, but I honestly think Oakley was an Isiah Thomas like personality for that team. I wasn't a knicks fan and it was the dark days of cable tv, so am I wrong? Was ewing really a locker room hero? To me it was Oakley's heart and soul that made that defense, and Ewing was just the "talent" if you will.

I don't buy that era was a super era for centers either. A super era for centers with long careers perhaps, but centers dominated the game from the 50's on till about now. Ewing being this high moves him past guys like Reed, Cowens, McAdoo, Walton, and Unseld who were all MVP level centers. Cowens, Reed, and Unseld all played together, and all won MVP's but I'm supposed to move Ewing over all of them?

The MVP's from 65-79

Russell, Wilt, Unseld, Reed, Kareem, Cowens, McAdoo, Walton, and Moses. That was THE center era, so the argument that centers were better in the 90's seems false. The question is if you think the 90's as a whole were the best decade by a mile. I've asked this over the Ewing fans, but I don't think I've gotten a direct answer. If you think the 90's were just by far the best era, then that's a reasonable case for Ewing. All be it, I think your second pick Pippen had a far better career, the rest of your argument for Ewing at last seems reasonable for him over Pippen.

True but you seem to be focusing on overrepresentation of 90s players, when I feel it's the lack of 70s players that's really alarming. I don't know what to do with it because their cases don't seem that strong, but it's hard to believe it represents only 2 of the top 30 players in history

1) I think way too many teams between the NBA/ABA dilutes accomplishments in some people's minds. In '74 for instance you have 17 NBA Teams + another 10 ABA Teams & a lot of people accept the ABA as comparable to the NBA at that point. Post merger, we wouldn't see that until 1990 - and by that time not only had the league's popularity soared but some of the best players were starting to be born off foreign soil too.

2) Drugs derailed some guys who had the potential to be getting voted in around this slot.

3) This era had more bad luck with injuries limiting some potentially great players than the next one. Archibald & Walton certainly are a couple that come to mind but primes ended suddenly and quickly too - Frazier & Cowens come to mind.

4) '84-'93 can be easily seen as one of the golden eras for the league - at least from a narrative standpoint; and I think we're in the middle of one now.

Ultimately not all eras are created equal and that's OK. I definitely take league strength into account when making my votes.

All fair points. The loss of Walton and longevity of some others like Reed, Frazier, Cowens hurts the 70s generation for sure, and there are other players like Thompson, Hawkins who had the talent to be iconic but what happened happened.

For the record here is the top 50 in average of WS rank + MVP share rank (includes ABA), which happens to align very neatly with our rankings so far.

Spoiler:

1 Kareem-Abdul Jabbar 2
2 Michael Jordan 2.5
3 Lebron James 4.5
4 Karl Malone 5.5
5 Wilt Chamberlain 6.5
6 Tim Duncan 7.5
7 Shaquille O'Neal 9.5
8 Bill Russell 12.5
8 Julius Erving 12.5
10 Kevin Garnett 13
11 Magic Johnson 14
11 Kobe Bryant 14
11 David Robinson 14
14 Moses Malone 14.5
15 Larry Bird 15.5
15 Oscar Robertson 15.5
17 Dirk Nowitzki 17.5
18 Charles Barkley 18.5
19 Hakeem Olajuwon 19.5
20 Jerry West 22.5
21 Bob Pettit 25.5
22 Chris Paul 26
23 Artis Gilmore 28
24 Steve Nash 30
25 Kevin Durant 31
26 Rick Barry 32
27 Patrick Ewing 37
28 Jason Kidd 38
29 Gary Payton 39
30 Dwight Howard 40.5
31 Dan Issel 42.5
32 Clyde Drexler 43
33 Scottie Pippen 48
34 Dominique Wilkins 49.5
35 George Gervin 51
36 Dwyane Wade 51.5
37 Elgin Baylor 52.5
38 John Stockton 53.5
39 Elvin Hayes 55
40 Robert Parish 58
41 Allen Iverson 58.5
42 Wes Unseld 59
43 Bob Lanier 59.5
44 Zelmo Beaty 61.5
45 Chauncey Billups 62.5
45 John Havlicek 62.5
47 James Harden 65.5
48 Alonzo Mourning 66.5
49 Paul Arizin 68
50 Tracy McGrady 68

Inherits one of the problems with MVP shares which is that you have to get top 3 votes to really make a dent, whereas longtime top 10 players like Stockton and Miller don't get as credited for it. Nevertheless it suggests Gilmore and Barry deserve a closer look.

[trex_8063]

Which brought more to the table...Ewing's defensive anchoring or Curry's offensive anchoring? Curry's impact won the Warriors their 1st title since Rick Barry. Then tell me what would be Pat's case over Curry? Longevity alone? You must value longevity VERY HIGH on your formulas/criteria if you think Pat has a case over Curry.

Not really. One must simply value longevity at all to put them in a similar position, imo. If you value longevity "VERY HIGH" is where it becomes difficult to see Curry's case. If you value longevity almost not at all, that's the only circumstance in which I can see being perplexed by people voting Ewing > Curry.

Look at it this way (an over-simplified method of thinking about total career value).....

Suppose we assign a score of 1-10 for each season played ABOVE the level of a league average player (how high, 1-10, based upon how much above league average it was: +1 is barely above league average. +10 is like a pantheon-level season). Seasons of league avg or worse are not given a score.

And let us, just as an example, give Curry credit for +10 for each of '15, '16, and '17, a +9 for '14, +7 for '13, +3 for '11 and '12, +1 for his rookie year. That gives him a career score of 53. fwiw, I think I've been extraordinarily generous, giving him a +10 for THREE seasons, a +9 for '14, a +3 for '12 despite the fact that he missed most of the season, etc.

For Ewing, let's give him a +8 for '90, +7 for '94, +6 for '89, '91, '92, '93, and +5 for each of '88 and '95-'97. That pretty much covers his prime. We'll give a +2 for '99, +1 for '86-'87, '98, and '00. Nothing for '01 and '02. His total would come to 65.


Now this isn't my system, and I didn't think too hard on the numbers I awarded here [though I attempted to be kinda generous to Curry in the comparison]......I merely wanted a super-simple illustration of how a principle of considering TOTAL career value can easily have Ewing coming out ahead by a clear [but not huge] margin.

[dhsilv2]

1) I think way too many teams between the NBA/ABA dilutes accomplishments in some people's minds. In '74 for instance you have 17 NBA Teams + another 10 ABA Teams & a lot of people accept the ABA as comparable to the NBA at that point. Post merger, we wouldn't see that until 1990 - and by that time not only had the league's popularity soared but some of the best players were starting to be born off foreign soil too.

2) Drugs derailed some guys who had the potential to be getting voted in around this slot.

3) This era had more bad luck with injuries limiting some potentially great players than the next one. Archibald & Walton certainly are a couple that come to mind but primes ended suddenly and quickly too - Frazier & Cowens come to mind.

4) '84-'93 can be easily seen as one of the golden eras for the league - at least from a narrative standpoint; and I think we're in the middle of one now.

Ultimately not all eras are created equal and that's OK. I definitely take league strength into account when making my votes.

All fair points. The loss of Walton and longevity of some others like Reed, Frazier, Cowens hurts the 70s generation for sure, and there are other players like Thompson, Hawkins who had the talent to be iconic but what happened happened.

For the record here is the top 50 in average of WS rank + MVP share rank (includes ABA), which happens to align very neatly with our rankings so far.

Spoiler:

1 Kareem-Abdul Jabbar 2
2 Michael Jordan 2.5
3 Lebron James 4.5
4 Karl Malone 5.5
5 Wilt Chamberlain 6.5
6 Tim Duncan 7.5
7 Shaquille O'Neal 9.5
8 Bill Russell 12.5
8 Julius Erving 12.5
10 Kevin Garnett 13
11 Magic Johnson 14
11 Kobe Bryant 14
11 David Robinson 14
14 Moses Malone 14.5
15 Larry Bird 15.5
15 Oscar Robertson 15.5
17 Dirk Nowitzki 17.5
18 Charles Barkley 18.5
19 Hakeem Olajuwon 19.5
20 Jerry West 22.5
21 Bob Pettit 25.5
22 Chris Paul 26
23 Artis Gilmore 28
24 Steve Nash 30
25 Kevin Durant 31
26 Rick Barry 32
27 Patrick Ewing 37
28 Jason Kidd 38
29 Gary Payton 39
30 Dwight Howard 40.5
31 Dan Issel 42.5
32 Clyde Drexler 43
33 Scottie Pippen 48
34 Dominique Wilkins 49.5
35 George Gervin 51
36 Dwyane Wade 51.5
37 Elgin Baylor 52.5
38 John Stockton 53.5
39 Elvin Hayes 55
40 Robert Parish 58
41 Allen Iverson 58.5
42 Wes Unseld 59
43 Bob Lanier 59.5
44 Zelmo Beaty 61.5
45 Chauncey Billups 62.5
45 John Havlicek 62.5
47 James Harden 65.5
48 Alonzo Mourning 66.5
49 Paul Arizin 68
50 Tracy McGrady 68

Inherits one of the problems with MVP shares which is that you have to get top 3 votes to really make a dent, whereas longtime top 10 players like Stockton and Miller don't get as credited for it. Nevertheless it suggests Gilmore and Barry deserve a closer look.

How did you weight the two? I'm rather shocked at Ewing being so high. 40th in winshare and he doesn't have much going on the MVP side especially to jump 13 spots.

Barry absolutely needs to be talked about. I sadly don't know enough about gilmore to talk on him. He's a guy I've never seen play and have just glanced over his stats a few times, but always gets ranked highly.

[dhsilv2]

Which brought more to the table...Ewing's defensive anchoring or Curry's offensive anchoring? Curry's impact won the Warriors their 1st title since Rick Barry. Then tell me what would be Pat's case over Curry? Longevity alone? You must value longevity VERY HIGH on your formulas/criteria if you think Pat has a case over Curry.

Not really. One must simply value longevity at all to put them in a similar position, imo. If you value longevity "VERY HIGH" is where it becomes difficult to see Curry's case. If you value longevity almost not at all, that's the only circumstance in which I can see being perplexed by people voting Ewing > Curry.

Look at it this way (an over-simplified method of thinking about total career value).....

Suppose we assign a score of 1-10 for each season played ABOVE the level of a league average player (how high, 1-10, based upon how much above league average it was: +1 is barely above league average. +10 is like a pantheon-level season). Seasons of league avg or worse are not given a score.

And let us, just as an example, give Curry credit for +10 for each of '15, '16, and '17, a +9 for '14, +7 for '13, +3 for '11 and '12, +1 for his rookie year. That gives him a career score of 53. fwiw, I think I've been extraordinarily generous, giving him a +10 for THREE seasons, a +9 for '14, a +3 for '12 despite the fact that he missed most of the season, etc.

For Ewing, let's give him a +8 for '90, +7 for '94, +6 for '89, '91, '92, '93, and +5 for each of '88 and '95-'97. That pretty much covers his prime. We'll give a +2 for '99, +1 for '86-'87, '98, and '00. Nothing for '01 and '02. His total would come to 65.


Now this isn't my system, and I didn't think too hard on the numbers I awarded here [though I attempted to be kinda generous to Curry in the comparison]......I merely wanted a super-simple illustration of how a principle of considering TOTAL career value can easily have Ewing coming out ahead by a clear [but not huge] margin.

You could just cite their VORP and WS if you wanted a simple metric to make this point. Just saying

Though if you count playoffs, it could get more complex given curry has a higher VORP and WS career in the playoffs already.

[Dr Positivity]

1) I think way too many teams between the NBA/ABA dilutes accomplishments in some people's minds. In '74 for instance you have 17 NBA Teams + another 10 ABA Teams & a lot of people accept the ABA as comparable to the NBA at that point. Post merger, we wouldn't see that until 1990 - and by that time not only had the league's popularity soared but some of the best players were starting to be born off foreign soil too.

2) Drugs derailed some guys who had the potential to be getting voted in around this slot.

3) This era had more bad luck with injuries limiting some potentially great players than the next one. Archibald & Walton certainly are a couple that come to mind but primes ended suddenly and quickly too - Frazier & Cowens come to mind.

4) '84-'93 can be easily seen as one of the golden eras for the league - at least from a narrative standpoint; and I think we're in the middle of one now.

Ultimately not all eras are created equal and that's OK. I definitely take league strength into account when making my votes.

All fair points. The loss of Walton and longevity of some others like Reed, Frazier, Cowens hurts the 70s generation for sure, and there are other players like Thompson, Hawkins who had the talent to be iconic but what happened happened.

For the record here is the top 50 in average of WS rank + MVP share rank (includes ABA), which happens to align very neatly with our rankings so far.

Spoiler:

1 Kareem-Abdul Jabbar 2
2 Michael Jordan 2.5
3 Lebron James 4.5
4 Karl Malone 5.5
5 Wilt Chamberlain 6.5
6 Tim Duncan 7.5
7 Shaquille O'Neal 9.5
8 Bill Russell 12.5
8 Julius Erving 12.5
10 Kevin Garnett 13
11 Magic Johnson 14
11 Kobe Bryant 14
11 David Robinson 14
14 Moses Malone 14.5
15 Larry Bird 15.5
15 Oscar Robertson 15.5
17 Dirk Nowitzki 17.5
18 Charles Barkley 18.5
19 Hakeem Olajuwon 19.5
20 Jerry West 22.5
21 Bob Pettit 25.5
22 Chris Paul 26
23 Artis Gilmore 28
24 Steve Nash 30
25 Kevin Durant 31
26 Rick Barry 32
27 Patrick Ewing 37
28 Jason Kidd 38
29 Gary Payton 39
30 Dwight Howard 40.5
31 Dan Issel 42.5
32 Clyde Drexler 43
33 Scottie Pippen 48
34 Dominique Wilkins 49.5
35 George Gervin 51
36 Dwyane Wade 51.5
37 Elgin Baylor 52.5
38 John Stockton 53.5
39 Elvin Hayes 55
40 Robert Parish 58
41 Allen Iverson 58.5
42 Wes Unseld 59
43 Bob Lanier 59.5
44 Zelmo Beaty 61.5
45 Chauncey Billups 62.5
45 John Havlicek 62.5
47 James Harden 65.5
48 Alonzo Mourning 66.5
49 Paul Arizin 68
50 Tracy McGrady 68

Inherits one of the problems with MVP shares which is that you have to get top 3 votes to really make a dent, whereas longtime top 10 players like Stockton and Miller don't get as credited for it. Nevertheless it suggests Gilmore and Barry deserve a closer look.

How did you weight the two? I'm rather shocked at Ewing being so high. 40th in winshare and he doesn't have much going on the MVP side especially to jump 13 spots.

Barry absolutely needs to be talked about. I sadly don't know enough about gilmore to talk on him. He's a guy I've never seen play and have just glanced over his stats a few times, but always gets ranked highly.

There is no weighting beyond just averaging the rank on WS and MVP share list. Ewing may have average rank of 37 but this is enough to be 27th highest

[dhsilv2]

All fair points. The loss of Walton and longevity of some others like Reed, Frazier, Cowens hurts the 70s generation for sure, and there are other players like Thompson, Hawkins who had the talent to be iconic but what happened happened.

For the record here is the top 50 in average of WS rank + MVP share rank (includes ABA), which happens to align very neatly with our rankings so far.

Spoiler:

1 Kareem-Abdul Jabbar 2
2 Michael Jordan 2.5
3 Lebron James 4.5
4 Karl Malone 5.5
5 Wilt Chamberlain 6.5
6 Tim Duncan 7.5
7 Shaquille O'Neal 9.5
8 Bill Russell 12.5
8 Julius Erving 12.5
10 Kevin Garnett 13
11 Magic Johnson 14
11 Kobe Bryant 14
11 David Robinson 14
14 Moses Malone 14.5
15 Larry Bird 15.5
15 Oscar Robertson 15.5
17 Dirk Nowitzki 17.5
18 Charles Barkley 18.5
19 Hakeem Olajuwon 19.5
20 Jerry West 22.5
21 Bob Pettit 25.5
22 Chris Paul 26
23 Artis Gilmore 28
24 Steve Nash 30
25 Kevin Durant 31
26 Rick Barry 32
27 Patrick Ewing 37
28 Jason Kidd 38
29 Gary Payton 39
30 Dwight Howard 40.5
31 Dan Issel 42.5
32 Clyde Drexler 43
33 Scottie Pippen 48
34 Dominique Wilkins 49.5
35 George Gervin 51
36 Dwyane Wade 51.5
37 Elgin Baylor 52.5
38 John Stockton 53.5
39 Elvin Hayes 55
40 Robert Parish 58
41 Allen Iverson 58.5
42 Wes Unseld 59
43 Bob Lanier 59.5
44 Zelmo Beaty 61.5
45 Chauncey Billups 62.5
45 John Havlicek 62.5
47 James Harden 65.5
48 Alonzo Mourning 66.5
49 Paul Arizin 68
50 Tracy McGrady 68

Inherits one of the problems with MVP shares which is that you have to get top 3 votes to really make a dent, whereas longtime top 10 players like Stockton and Miller don't get as credited for it. Nevertheless it suggests Gilmore and Barry deserve a closer look.

How did you weight the two? I'm rather shocked at Ewing being so high. 40th in winshare and he doesn't have much going on the MVP side especially to jump 13 spots.

Barry absolutely needs to be talked about. I sadly don't know enough about gilmore to talk on him. He's a guy I've never seen play and have just glanced over his stats a few times, but always gets ranked highly.

There is no weighting beyond just averaging the rank on WS and MVP share list. Ewing may have average rank of 37 but this is enough to be 27th highest

Gotcha, so if there's a big gap between 5 and 6 on one of them that gap isn't addressed. Makes sense.