RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #39

[trex_8063]

1. Michael Jordan
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Lebron James
4. Bill Russell
5. Tim Duncan
6. Wilt Chamberlain
7. Magic Johnson
8. Shaquille O'Neal
9. Hakeem Olajuwon
10. Larry Bird
11. Kobe Bryant
12. Kevin Garnett
13. Oscar Robertson
14. Karl Malone
15. Jerry West
16. Julius Erving
17. Dirk Nowitzki
18. David Robinson
19. Charles Barkley
20. Moses Malone
21. John Stockton
22. Dwyane Wade
23. Chris Paul
24. Bob Pettit
25. George Mikan
26. Steve Nash
27. Patrick Ewing
28. Kevin Durant
29. Stephen Curry
30. Scottie Pippen
31. John Havlicek
32. Elgin Baylor
33. Clyde Drexler
34. Rick Barry
35. Gary Payton
36. Artis Gilmore
37. Jason Kidd
38. Walt Frazier
39. ????

Go!

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[trex_8063]

Transferring this quote to the new thread, as it pertains to somebody who's still on the table....

Cousy in 1957 was almost exactly at league average for ts% (.452 v. .449) and prior to Russell's entry into the league, he was the best guard in the league. OF course in 57, he also set the pattern for the next few years shooting only a ts% of .409 in the playoffs and that was reasonably close to the playoff efficiency he showed for the rest of his career as the league playoff efficiency rapidly and significantly increased. That includes his foul shooting of course.

Cousy prior to 1957 had some terrific (though short) playoff runs; it's only the championship years that he shot so poorly. If you make a case that Cousy from 52-56 was a truly great player for his league, I agree with you. After that, the league moved on and he started to slip though he remained a good playmaker plus he had the playoff failures.

Cousy's efficiency increased dramatically in the Post-season, and he shot a very high TS. Ignoring that, and saying he was league average, is wrong.
...

Check the numbers, I used B-R.com. If you have other numbers than the ones I posted above let's see them. Cousy pre57 had good to great playoff efficiency relative to league as I said. Cousy from 57 on (Russell years) was well below average trending to awful in the post-season (and average trending to bad in the regular season).

I'm just going to present the data in its entirety so anyone interested can judge for themselves and not have to rely on hearsay or potential misinterpretation of semantics (things like "very", "terrific", "awful" etc are widely open to interpretation).....

Regular Season
'51: -1.26% rTS
'52: +0.65% rTS
'53: +0.06% rTS
'54: +2.12% rTS
'55: +2.47% rTS
'56: +0.29% rTS
'57: +0.28% rTS
'58: -3.40% rTS
'59: -0.38% rTS
'60: -2.47% rTS
'61: -3.36% rTS
'62: -3.61% rTS
'63: -4.44% rTS
Career avg (his career TS% relative to the mean of league avg's in years he played): -1.00% rTS
Avg of Prime ('52-'60): -0.03% rTS

Playoffs (sample size)
'51: -13.16% rTS (2 games)
'52: +11.28% rTS (3 games)
'53: +5.78% rTS (6 games)
'54: -1.96% rTS (6 games)
'55: +1.93% rTS (7 games)
'56: +13.16% rTS (3 games)
'57: -4.06% rTS (10 games)
'58: -1.69% rTS (11 games)
'59: -4.97% rTS (11 games)
'60: -11.36% rTS (13 games)
'61: -1.98% rTS (10 games)
'62: -7.06% rTS (14 games)
'63: -8.52% rTS (13 games)
Career playoff avg: -2.97% rTS
Avg of Prime ('52-'60): -1.80% rTS
EDIT:
Career playoff avg NOT weighted towards number of games played (i.e. add up the above 13 figures, divide by 13): -1.74% rTS
Avg of Prime NOT weighted by games played: +0.90% rTS

[penbeast0]

Bob Cousy's early to mid 50s years were certainly elite (in a weak league) but I actually have Paul Arizin's 50s run as stronger than Cousy's and Cousy's post-Russell years were characterized by a lot of truly awful playoff inefficiency. Westbrook is interesting too. Short and spectacular, but I can't support someone whose primary argument is his ridiculous point/assist totals when his efficiency and turnovers are so poor; at least not yet. Harden is an efficient scorer but his defense is worse than George Gervin's and his turnovers are equally high. If I am going for a short prime player, it's going to be Sidney Moncrief who was an extremely efficient 20 point/game scorer for the 4-5 years his body held up while also being probably the greatest perimeter man defender in the history of the NBA.

However, there are a lot of wings with long, high scoring careers. The aforementioned Arizin, George Gervin (the most likely to take over a game), Alex English, Reggie Miller, Ray Allen, and Paul Pierce are the ones I look at first, before the inefficiency and poor leadership of an Allen Iverson or Pete Maravich.

Defensive forwards Bobby Jones and Shawn Marion (maybe James Worthy and Larry Nance as well) could also get traction but to me, the best big remaining is probably Kevin McHale. I have questions about his ability to deal with consistent double teams as he played his career next to Larry Bird but I think he showed enough when Bird was injured to trust this. He is also less than stellar as a rebounder and post passer but gives you excellent offense and defense in the post with the ability to also defend well out onto the floor.

Vote: Kevin McHale
Alternate: George Gervin

[Narigo]

Vote: Paul Pierce
Second Vote: Pau Gasol

Edit later

[pandrade83]

Transferring this quote to the new thread, as it pertains to somebody who's still on the table....

Cousy's efficiency increased dramatically in the Post-season, and he shot a very high TS. Ignoring that, and saying he was league average, is wrong.
...

Check the numbers, I used B-R.com. If you have other numbers than the ones I posted above let's see them. Cousy pre57 had good to great playoff efficiency relative to league as I said. Cousy from 57 on (Russell years) was well below average trending to awful in the post-season (and average trending to bad in the regular season).

I'm just going to present the data in its entirety so anyone interested can judge for themselves and not have to rely on hearsay or potential misinterpretation of semantics (things like "very", "terrific", "awful" etc are widely open to interpretation).....

Regular Season
'51: -1.26% rTS
'52: +0.65% rTS
'53: +0.06% rTS
'54: +2.12% rTS
'55: +2.47% rTS
'56: +0.29% rTS
'57: +0.28% rTS
'58: -3.40% rTS
'59: -0.38% rTS
'60: -2.47% rTS
'61: -3.36% rTS
'62: -3.61% rTS
'63: -4.44% rTS
Career avg (his career TS% relative to the mean of league avg's in years he played): -1.00% rTS
Avg of Prime ('52-'60): -0.03% rTS

Playoffs (sample size)
'51: -13.16% rTS (2 games)
'52: +11.28% rTS (3 games)
'53: +5.78% rTS (6 games)
'54: -1.96% rTS (6 games)
'55: +1.93% rTS (7 games)
'56: +13.16% rTS (3 games)
'57: -4.06% rTS (10 games)
'58: -1.69% rTS (11 games)
'59: -4.97% rTS (11 games)
'60: -11.36% rTS (13 games)
'61: -1.98% rTS (10 games)
'62: -7.06% rTS (14 games)
'63: -8.52% rTS (13 games)
Career playoff avg: -2.97% rTS
Avg of Prime ('52-'60): -1.80% rTS
EDIT:
Career playoff avg NOT weighted towards number of games played (i.e. add up the above 13 figures, divide by 13): -1.74% rTS
Avg of Prime NOT weighted by games played: +0.90% rTS

If you're going to vote for Cousy, I strongly encourage giving Dolph Schayes a look. In my mind, he's the best player on the board from that era.

-Schayes knocked out Cousy 3 of the 4 times they met in the playoffs pre-Russell and nearly knocked out a Russell anchored team in '59.
-Schayes was the best player on a championship team.
-Immediately on entering the league, he's the anchor of a 51-13 team in 1950. Syracuse is 1st in Defensive efficiency in '54 & '55 and Top 3 in '52, '56, '58 '59, 60.
-Schayes gets to 10 WS + 8 times vs. 0 for Cousy and gets to .2+WS/48 7 X vs. 0 for Cousy.

Schayes is an efficient scorer - check out his TS%'s relative to league average.

Year
1950 +7
1951 +4
1952 +3
1953 +5
1954 +5.6
1955 +3.5
1956 +3.9
1957 +5.3
1958 +5.9
1959 +3.1
1960 +3.3
1961 +1.3
1962 -1.8
1963 -2.2

Given the substantial edge in Win Shares, team success when each was the best player on a team, Schayes ability to produce into the late 50's and Schayes' impact as a 2 way player, I think the case for Schayes as being in ahead of Cousy is fairly clear. IMO, he should be our next player in from the 50's.

[penbeast0]

...
Given the substantial edge in Win Shares, team success when each was the best player on a team, Schayes ability to produce into the late 50's and Schayes' impact as a 2 way player, I think the case for Schayes as being in ahead of Cousy is fairly clear. IMO, he should be our next player in from the 50's.

Nice job, how about Arizin who was also an efficient scorer, appears to have a massive impact (look what happened to the Warriors when he went into the military) and led his team to a title in the 50s? How does he stack up to Schayes?

[euroleague]

Transferring this quote to the new thread, as it pertains to somebody who's still on the table....

Cousy's efficiency increased dramatically in the Post-season, and he shot a very high TS. Ignoring that, and saying he was league average, is wrong.
...

Playoffs (sample size)
'51: -13.16% rTS (2 games)
'52: +11.28% rTS (3 games)
'53: +5.78% rTS (6 games)
'54: -1.96% rTS (6 games)
'55: +1.93% rTS (7 games)
'56: +13.16% rTS (3 games)
'57: -4.06% rTS (10 games)
'58: -1.69% rTS (11 games)
'59: -4.97% rTS (11 games)

What do you think caused the huge drop from 56 to 57, looking at these numbers? He never had a bad year before Russell - and most of the scoring offense in those years he was the first option. Clearly, Cousy and Russell didn't mesh well at all on the offensive end. Russell was a very bad match for Cousy's offensive skills, even though having a defensive big clearly helps every strong PG who is weak on defense.

I suggest you weigh Cousy's pre-Russell years for an accurate measure of his scoring as a first-option scorer in his prime. Russell demanded the ball in his early years, and Cousy was arguably no longer the first option (certainly no longer clear-cut). So it isn't fair to measure his scoring as his primary contribution in the Russell era. His focus changed to playmaking, and we should consider his assists more post-Russell.

Cousy effected the game in other ways, continuing to lead the league in apg with Russell on the court. While his scoring effectiveness took a dive with Russell on the court (make of that what you will) it's clear he is capable of being a franchise leading scorer/playmaker.

The reason Schayes and Arizin had greater success was largely because of their much more talented teams, that they got to lead as first options. The Celtics depth pre Sam Jones/Russell/Tom Heinsohn/KC Jones isn't comparable to more talented teams in the league. Cousy elevated his team and made everyone look good, but before he joined they were terrible.

Bob Cousy had GOAT level impact as a rookie joining the league.

The list of players who joined the league ever and caused an immediate 15 win increase their rookie year is very short, although there were some who came close that I'll mention from the 50s/60s.

50s/60s:

Rick Barry - 18 games
Bob Cousy - 17 games (some people say this was Macauley. Macauley as a rookie impacted his team to lose 3 more games despite no other major roster changes...)
Wilt Chamberlain - +17 games

HM:
Elgin Baylor - 14 games
Oscar Robertson - 14 games
Paul Arizin - 14 games


Famous GOAT Impacts:

Larry Bird - 32 games
Kareem - 29 games (expansion team, also added Bob Dandridge)
Carmelo Anthony - 26 games (also added andre miller)
Shaq - 20 games (young team)
Hakeem - 19 games
Isiah Thomas - 18 games
Lebron James - 18 games


David Robinson* - 35 games (expansion team, had an expansion draft this year which also helped them immensely which might overrate his impact. added Terry Cummings, Sean Elliot, Maurice Cheeks, and Rod Strickland - their whole starting lineup was replaced. his impact was big, but not 35 games obviously)

[pandrade83]

Let's discuss my 1st two picks right off the bat:
1st choice: Wes Unseld
Honorable Mention: George Gervin

So what's up with Mr. Unseld and why am I taking him? The numbers bear out that he's a very high impact guy who had an impact on team success.

Let's tackle the data piece first.

He hits VORP 5 twice - that doesn't seem that impressive - except when you realize, that doesn't cover a huge part of his career ('69-'73). His Win Shares in the two VORP 5+ years were 10.6 & 9.5; he has 4 other years of 10+ WS where we don't have VORP data. It's likely that he hit VORP 5+ 6 times - which is a lot for guys that are left. For comparison, that's how many times Gasol & Howard have hit that figure COMBINED.

He gets to BPM 5+ 3 times - but again, that doesn't cover all of his career. If we assume he got there the other 4 times he hit 10 + Win Shares (probably a safe assumption), that gets him there 7 times.

That's as many as Cowens (if we give him credit for '72 & '73) & Reed COMBINED (if we assume he got there in '69-'71).

And he did this without scoring a ton of points either. While his scoring average is fairly low, he impacts the game through strong passing for his position (8 years @ 4+ assists), outstanding rebounding, and being the center for strong defenses (Top 5 3 X pre-Hayes arrival with Top 3 finishes twice, outstanding metrics every time with Hayes).

In the playoffs, he maintains his strong performance - averaging 10/15/4/with 1.8 TOs (on fairly limited data) which is right on par with his career averages.

Unseld's teams win. In his first year, Baltimore improves by 21 games without any other material changes to the roster. He only misses the playoffs once ('81 - his final year). The most infamous defeat one of his teams suffer isn't really on him (the '75 Finals). He does his thing - 12-17-4 on 54% TS. That's who he was.

The only reason he's not higher is because we just don't have data on the era he played in. That shouldn't stop us from recognizing the impact he had on the game and on winning year in year out.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sometimes WS, BPM, VORP & RAPM get it wrong. George Gervin is one of those cases. There's a lot of value in having the leading scorer who does so at the efficiency that Gervin achieved. Let's focus in on his scoring title years:

'78 - 27.2 ppg @ +7.9% TS relative to league average; 14.0% TOV - looks high but still 2% below league average
'79 - 29.6 ppg @ +6.1% TS relative to league average; 12.5% TOV
'80 - 33.1 ppg @ +5.4% TS relative to league average; 10.3% TOV
'82 - 32.3 ppg @ +2.3% TS relative to league average; 8.5% TOV

Offensively he's a clear boon to your team.

It translates to winning too - this isn't empty stats by any stretch of the imagination.. The Spurs win their division in 3 of those 4 years and he's anchoring offenses that are top 3 or higher every year from '75-'84 with the lone exception of '81 when they were 4th. The Spurs win 50 games or more in their final 2 ABA years and 5 Division Titles upon entering the league.

His numbers translate well to the post-season averaging 29-7-3, 1 stl & 1 block on 56% TS from '75-'83 and for the intangible guys, it's noteworthy that he's not really being moved around either unlike an Adrian Dantley,

So, with all that, why is he below Unseld? His defensive issues come to play for sure - while I don't think this is a James Harden situation, the defensive metrics we have outside of blocks/steals don't paint him in a positive light. Additionally, his impact outside of scoring is a little bit light. A typical year from him aside from the monster scoring is something like 5 reb, 3 ast. On the rare off-night offensively, he's not doing much for you, so he's a little bit of a one trick pony in terms of the ways he impacts the game. It's still immensely valuable and he does it for a long time - but there's a reason the VORP/BPM #'s I wrote above are so glowing for Unseld & not for Gervin. I think the #'s are wrong - but I give Unseld a slight edge because he has more than one way he's impacting the game.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is briefly touching on my next wave of guys. Collectively, this batch will take me into the 60's.

Long primes + strong (and sometimes under-rated) sustained peaks - my top tier

Wes Unseld/George Gervin - both covered above.





Very high peaks but longevity and/or playoff issues prevent them from being in the top tier - not listed in order
Bob McAdoo - best peak left aside from Walton - and even then it's close. The problem is just not enough good years.

Russell Westbrook - surprisingly adored even by VORP, BPM & RAPM. VORP 12 this past year, Top 10 finish in RAPM 3 years, has led league in BPM twice which isn't a stat designed for him per se. I'm in the boat that his play style was probably the best way for the '16-'17 OKC Team to win and I love the way he played in '16 when he dropped 24-10-8 on a team that had 73 win GSW on the ropes . In spite of all the flack he gets for efficiency, he still generated 55% TS each of the past two years. My top pick from this group.

James Harden - I understand why advanced stats love him, but I'm not a fan of his playing style because it's so dependent on the refs bailing him out and he might be the worst defender I'm going to list. That game 6 dump he laid against the Spurs really sticks out in my mind.

Tracy McGrady - if he had managed to win 1 playoff series he'd get my vote here but I just struggle to put a guy who never got out of the 1st round in the Top 40.




just a touch below the top tier for various reasons and I don't love their peaks enough to put them in the above group - not ranked in order

Dolph Schayes *edit* - gets the 50's penalty; his accomplishments put him in the top tier - but I'd rather have the guys with the high peaks ahead of him.

Paul Arizin - my next 50's player after Schayes.

Pau Gasol - he was the best player on the '10 Lakers, I feel like he's one of the more underrated players out there. In addition to being the best player on a title team, he hits VORP 5+ 3 times and BPM 5+ 4 times.

KJ/Chris Webber - if not for injuries what might have been

Howard - he has the years, but outside of his peak, they aren't really remarkable in any way shape or form, and while I'm not a big intangibles guy, his are bad enough that it moves you down the list for sure.

Wilkins - his one trick (scoring) isn't done quite as efficiently as Gervin relative to league average and he appears to be a weaker offensive anchor as well.

Kevin McHale - If he had one more year like the '87 season that would've been great, also question what your ceiling is if he's your best player based on '89 & how much Boston's performance dips in '91 when Bird misses time.

Bob Lanier - fantastic numbers but it appears to have limited impact on winning games; need to dig in more, but he was a VORP leader and WS maxes out higher than the guys in the below groups (excluding Billups).

Willis Reed - has a couple really great years - but not nearly enough. People in the last thread didn't realize that those Knicks teams that won titles were definitely Frazier's. Reed was 1b in '70 - but remember who delivered the knock out punch in game 7.

Longevity Giants & Champions- not listed in order

Robert Parish
Reggie Miller
Ray Allen
Paul Pierce
Elvin Hayes
Isiah Thomas
Chauncey Billups
Dave Cowens

[pandrade83]

...
Given the substantial edge in Win Shares, team success when each was the best player on a team, Schayes ability to produce into the late 50's and Schayes' impact as a 2 way player, I think the case for Schayes as being in ahead of Cousy is fairly clear. IMO, he should be our next player in from the 50's.

Nice job, how about Arizin who was also an efficient scorer, appears to have a massive impact (look what happened to the Warriors when he went into the military) and led his team to a title in the 50s? How does he stack up to Schayes?

I have Schayes > Arizin > Cousy > Johnston as my next guys in from the 50's; with Johnston potentially/probably being my last 50's guy in.

I'm not big on Cousy at all and my actual post indicates whenever he does get in, he will have zero support from me.

To be brief since I'm about to call it a night the two reasons I have Schayes over Cousy are:

1) The military years. This is totally unfair. I completely get it. But the reality is that it takes away two years that in all likelihood would've been very high impact years that could've potentially put Arizin over the top.

2) Based on what we can infer about defense, Schayes has a substantial positive defensive impact whereas Arizin's appears to be immaterial at best. His teams are typically ranked fairly low from a defensive impact & I would rather go with the two way player.

Arizin over Johnston because what happens when Arizin serves in the military raises a lot of questions about Johnston's overall impact. 12-57 followed up by 29-43? I can't penalize Cousy for not winning enough during that era and then put Johnston in ahead of Cousy - I don't care how many Win Shares he has - that just reeks of empty stats.

[mikejames23]

Vote: Kevin McHale
Alternate: George Gervin

What's your opinion on Pau Gasol vs McHale? They seem relatively close in overall ability.

[euroleague]

@trex_8063 I saw your ranking system last thread, and would like to comment on it a little.

It seems you value RS production and volume stats with standard/above-standard efficiency very high. It seems like you may still weigh winning very highly in the RS, as WS/48 is something that measures your team's winning at a very high rate in the RS, compared to PER which is more objective. Furthermore, PER is a stat that has obvious flaws (which I guess is why you stopped using it) and I don't know your exact computations so it's hard to find the exact place where, but it seems your ranking system doesn't reflect the values in certain versions.

Version 2.0 (peak version):
Problems: Karl Malone, then Kobe, then Hakeem. It seems like a bad order. I'm a huge fan of Karl Malone, and rank him far higher than most people I talk to outside of RealGM... but it's hard to put all of these players peaks above Hakeem.

The top 5 positions: They all seem in the wrong order. LBJ obviously puts up good numbers with a huge USG% that inflates his PER on winning teams in the RS, but I still can't imagine any system that produces these rankings. Just because every assist/point goes through you, doesn't mean you actually produce increased value to your team compared to a system based on another player - despite PER/number based stats valuing these type of heavy USG players (Westbrook, Harden, LBJ, etc.)

Other ranking confusions: John Stockton in the top 25 ever for peaks.. Robert Parish near the top 40 in a 'top peaks' version. Just can't escape the feeling that longevity is heavily valued.

About 2/5 of the players are from after 2000. Despite 17 years being only around 1/4 of the age of the league. It suggests a huge preference towards modern players exists inside of your system. About 3/5 would be from after 1990.


My vote copy-pasta:
Pick: Cousy
Alt: Isiah Thomas
HM: Kevin McHale

Pick: Cousy - Cousey's passing influenced the way the game was played hugely, and he did so in an unconventional way that didn't gain any unfair advantage a la goaltending. He won an MVP as his prime was ending, and his offensive style lives on far past his retirement and beyond his success leading the Celtics pre-Russell (questionable how Russell's passing would've developed without Cousey).

When Cousy joined the league, the Celtics were a 20 win team, and he immediately brought them to 40 his rookie year. He changed a bottom dwelling team to an immediate contender, and went on to contend with an elite offense in the eastern conference before Russell ever joined. He won MVP, and led the league in assists many times on his way to 10 all-nba first teams.

Alt: isiah Thomas: In 1988 he led the league in VORP for the post-season. In this post-season, MJ was playing on a team with no back-up, Magic was in his prime, Bird was beasting still. And Isiah Thomas led the league in VORP on a "deep" team that had other guards who were legit. The Pistons wouldn't be close to the team they were without Isiah, and even with him on the bench they immediately suffered more than the Lakers without Magic.

In 1988 he also led the league in DWS for the PS.

From 1987-1990, Isiah Thomas was never lower than 3rd in Post-Season VORP. His team is often called "the deepest of the 80s", in terms of talent across the board, but Isiah's impact was consistently on the tier of MJ/Bird/Magic (these 4 dominated the VORP rankings).

Isiah Thomas was also 3rd in playoff box-score plus-minus in 87 and 88, and 2nd in 90.

As a floor general, his impact went far beyond volume statistics. When IT wasn't in the game, the Pistons were suffering. He was capable of scoring if needed, evidenced by the 55 point outing that should've sealed a Pistons championship in 88 (except for a bad call from a ref in the last seconds) WHILE he was injured.

IT had his teammates back, and would throw himself under the fire to keep them alright. Isiah embraced the "bad boy" role even though he himself was obviously far from a bad boy image, with his clean smile and baby face, and his impact was equal to GOAT level players in the late 80s.


HM2: McHale is possibly the greatest m2m PF defender in NBA history, and one of the greatest individual scorers in the post in NBA history. His playstyle is similar to Hakeem for most of Hakeem's career in terms of scoring and man2man defense, except McHale may be the superior post scorer and the superior man 2 man defender. He was, however, even worse at passing (basically a black hole on offense) and not a rim protector so these two aspects give Hakeem the edge on both ends in the end. But, McHale's scoring is getting very underrated.

McHale averaged 26ppg on 65% TS in 1987. He had a 24 PER, 10rpg and 2.2 bpg. His ws/48 was .232 and he played more minutes than Larry Bird, resulting in 14.8 WS.

To compare with MJ that year, MJ had a league leading 16.9 WS and a 29.8 PER.

Larry Bird led the league in PER in 85 and 86 with 26.5 and 25.8.

McHale was 5th in the league in PER, behind only MJ/Bird/Barkley/maybe Magic didn't look. He was 4th in WS and WS/48. He was top 10 in VORP/BPM, but didn't have the same impact coming off the court as he would have if he was the team captain (obviously) because Bird was the leader of the team, so these numbers are lessened.

His PER/WS/WS/48 were all ahead of Hakeem, Moses, Drexler, Dominique Wilkins, and many other stars in their heyday.

[trex_8063]

Transferring this quote to the new thread, as it pertains to somebody who's still on the table....

Cousy's efficiency increased dramatically in the Post-season, and he shot a very high TS. Ignoring that, and saying he was league average, is wrong.
...

Playoffs (sample size)
'51: -13.16% rTS (2 games)
'52: +11.28% rTS (3 games)
'53: +5.78% rTS (6 games)
'54: -1.96% rTS (6 games)
'55: +1.93% rTS (7 games)
'56: +13.16% rTS (3 games)
'57: -4.06% rTS (10 games)
'58: -1.69% rTS (11 games)
'59: -4.97% rTS (11 games)

What do you think caused the huge drop from 56 to 57? He never had a bad year before Russell - and most of the scoring offense in those years he was the first option. Clearly, Cousy and Russell didn't mesh well at all on the offensive end. Russell was a very bad match for Cousy's offensive skills, even though having a defensive big clearly helps every strong PG who is weak on defense.

I don't think it's so much "bad match" as it is the team focus and philosophy shifted dramatically upon Russell's arrival. Red switched gears to play in a manner that [he felt] would take the best advantage of his strongest talent: Russell. That involved a ridiculous uptick in pace, often at the expense of scoring efficiency. I've expounded on this in the past in other places, even did correlation studies between rPace and rORTG (and found a fairly relevant correlation between increasing pace and decreasing ORtg, especially during years in which the league avg pace was >115).
Cousy's wasn't the only shooting efficiency to apparently be affected.

I suggest you weigh Cousy's pre-Russell years for an accurate measure of his scoring as a first-option scorer in his prime.

There was a whole lot else changing between the pre-Russell and post-Russell years, though. The game itself was evolving toward something which more closely resembles modern basketball (relative to pre-shotclock ball, for example). And the league was RAPIDLY becoming more competitive (as result of fairly rapid integration, rapidly expanding popularity and player pool, and shrinking league).
It would be wholly disingenuous to ignore these factors when evaluating his career pre/post 1956.

Russell demanded the ball in his early years, and Cousy was arguably no longer the first option (certainly no longer clear-cut).

This isn't exactly true. I mean Russell did want the ball somewhat during much of the front half of his career until Red convinced him it really wasn't necessary. But never to the degree that he was the first option. Cousy was still very clearly the first option in '57, leading the team in FGA/g, FTA/g, and thus TSA/g (Russell was 4th in TSA/g). In '58 Cousy was 2nd in TSA/g, Sharman was 1st by a slim margin; Russell was 3rd. In '59, Cousy was again 1st just barely ahead of Sharman (Russell was 4th).

So it isn't fair to measure his scoring as his primary contribution in the Russell era.

I never said it was.
There had simply been a lot of subjective [and semantically ambiguous] descriptors thrown out wrt his shooting efficiency. So I simply presented the numbers for evaluation, nothing more (and I don't think there was even the faintest bias or implication in the language I chose to present it).

Cousy effected the game in other ways, continuing to lead the league in apg........Cousy elevated his team and made everyone look good.......

I agree, and digging into the specifics of this would be the better tack in making his case, imo. If I have time, I may do so myself somewhere in the next couple threads.

Bob Cousy had GOAT level impact as a rookie joining the league.

The list of players who joined the league ever and caused an immediate 15 win increase their rookie year is very short, although there were some who came close that I'll mention from the 50s/60s.

50s/60s:

Rick Barry - 18 games
Bob Cousy - 17 games (some people say this was Macauley. Macauley as a rookie impacted his team to lose 3 more games despite no other major roster changes...)

idk, seems a bit dodgy to imply Macauley had NOTHING to do with that 17-game jump. And pointing out Macauley's rookie "impact" as the evidence overlooks a few things (some fact, some speculation).....
*Going from Macauley's rookie year to his 2nd year marks when the BAA absorbed the NBL (becoming the NBA): 6 competitive NBL teams joined the BAA, plus one expansion team; meanwhile two of the weakest teams from the '49 BAA folded. In essence, the league immediately got a little tougher in '50 (for this roster which was, as you said, no different other than obtaining rookie Macauley).
**I'd also note that despite the record their SRS was actually better in '50.
***And further, Macauley may have improved from his rookie performance (players often do get better their 2nd pro year).

I'm might just be playing devil's advocate here, but at any rate I like a degree of completeness and transparency on info being presented.


And it also should not be overlooked that '51 was the Red Auerbach's first season as head coach. While he doesn't necessarily look too sophisticated compared to many modern coaches, there's no question he was the most brilliant coach of his era. That too may have had something to do with the 17-game jump.

Wilt Chamberlain - +17 games

HM:
Elgin Baylor - 14 games
Oscar Robertson - 14 games
Paul Arizin - 14 games
Jerry Lucas - 13 games


Famous GOAT Impacts:

Larry Bird - 32 games
Kareem - 29 games (expansion team, also added Bob Dandridge)
Carmelo Anthony - 26 games (also added andre miller)
Shaq - 20 games (young team)
Hakeem - 19 games
Isiah Thomas - 18 games
Lebron James - 18 games


David Robinson* - 35 games (expansion team, had an expansion draft this year which also helped them immensely which might overrate his impact. added Terry Cummings, Sean Elliot, Maurice Cheeks, and Rod Strickland - their whole starting lineup was replaced. his impact was big, but not 35 games obviously)

You're saying Robinson shouldn't get credit because a near-complete overhaul of the starting line-up took place upon his arrival. But the same thing very nearly happened upon Cousy's arrival in Boston----Sonny Hertzberg was the only guy who started for them in both '50 and '51----and Cousy still gets full credit (despite presence of a not only All-Star, but All-NBA 1st Team teammate, plus the GOAT [at that time] coach)?
Why the double standard?

[Lou Fan]

Let's discuss my 1st two picks right off the bat:
1st choice: Wes Unseld
Honorable Mention: George Gervin
Tracy McGrady - if he had managed to win 1 playoff series he'd get my vote here but I just struggle to put a guy who never got out of the 1st round in the Top 40.

He should get your vote. How the **** was he supposed to jack **** with that joke of a roster in Orlando. Literally no help. Worst cast a superstar has had probably ever. Houston he had Yao and he took two series to game 7 but they were the worse team both times. T-Mac never was favored in a playoff series and he still went pretty close to winning a few of them. I consider him a good playoff performer.

[trex_8063]

@trex_8063 I saw your ranking system last thread, and would like to comment on it a little.

It seems you value RS production and volume stats with standard/above-standard efficiency very high. It seems like you may still weigh winning very highly in the RS, as WS/48 is something that measures your team's winning at a very high rate in the RS, compared to PER which is more objective. Furthermore, PER is a stat that has obvious flaws (which I guess is why you stopped using it) and I don't know your exact computations so it's hard to find the exact place where, but it seems your ranking system doesn't reflect the values in certain versions.

Version 2.0 (peak version):
Problems: Karl Malone, then Kobe, then Hakeem. It seems like a bad order. I'm a huge fan of Karl Malone, and rank him far higher than most people I talk to outside of RealGM... but it's hard to put all of these players peaks above Hakeem.

Yeah, I've often felt these formulas have a bit too much rs winner's bias (which is part of what accounts for Mailman's placement so high). otoh, Garnett never ranks lower than 16th (and is as high as 13th in two of them)......

I also don't think I have playoffs weighted heavily enough in some of these (again, this may partially account for Mailman's location).
But another factor is that I largely used statistical means; this rates some players fairly, others are overrated by it, others underrated.
Greater scrutiny of context, impact, player attributes, etc is often required to iron out what are at times obvious flaws.

The top 5 positions: They all seem in the wrong order. LBJ obviously puts up good numbers with a huge USG% that inflates his PER on winning teams in the RS, but I still can't imagine any system that produces these rankings. Just because every assist/point goes through you, doesn't mean you actually produce increased value to your team compared to a system based on another player - despite PER/number based stats valuing these type of heavy USG players (Westbrook, Harden, LBJ, etc.)

Like I said, these formula results do not exactly reflect my all-time rankings. It's merely another tool.

Other ranking confusions: John Stockton in the top 25 ever for peaks.. Robert Parish near the top 40 in a 'top peaks' version. Just can't escape the feeling that longevity is heavily valued.

I think you may have misread something (or I mis-wrote something): I didn't present any "peaks" list, or a "top peaks" version. I do not think John Stockton is a top 25 peak (perhaps not even top 45). I don't think Robert Parish is a top 40 peak either (probably not even a top 50-60).
ALL versions presented place heavy (or at least "moderate to heavy") value on longevity, because meaningful longevity is something I emphasize in my criteria; I believe it's very important when evaluating total career value. So I tend to rank guys like Stockton and Parish (also Kidd, Karl Malone, among others) higher than most people do.

About 2/5 of the players come from after 2000....

This was discussed in a prior thread. Note that ~35% of all professional players we've seen have come after 2000 (35.2% of all the NBA rosters that have existed since 1949 have come in the 00's and 10's). And while the 80's and 90's are debatable (as being just as competitive), earlier eras really probably aren't (very tenuous argument, anyway).

So from that standpoint, is it really so outrageous if 40% of the players on any list DID come from the last 17-20 years?

[euroleague]

Wilt Chamberlain - +17 games

HM:
Elgin Baylor - 14 games
Oscar Robertson - 14 games
Paul Arizin - 14 games
Jerry Lucas - 13 games


Famous GOAT Impacts:

Larry Bird - 32 games
Kareem - 29 games (expansion team, also added Bob Dandridge)
Carmelo Anthony - 26 games (also added andre miller)
Shaq - 20 games (young team)
Hakeem - 19 games
Isiah Thomas - 18 games
Lebron James - 18 games


David Robinson* - 35 games (expansion team, had an expansion draft this year which also helped them immensely which might overrate his impact. added Terry Cummings, Sean Elliot, Maurice Cheeks, and Rod Strickland - their whole starting lineup was replaced. his impact was big, but not 35 games obviously)

You're saying Robinson shouldn't get credit because a near-complete overhaul of the starting line-up took place upon his arrival. But the same thing very nearly happened upon Cousy's arrival in Boston----Sonny Hertzberg was the only guy who started for them in both '50 and '51----and Cousy still gets full credit (despite presence of a not only All-Star, but All-NBA 1st Team teammate, plus the GOAT [at that time] coach)?
Why the double standard?

David Robinson's team added many elite players that weren't there the year before, not just Macauley. It wasn't just drafts and asset changes that every team had available - the only team that had increases in quality of this size were the expansion teams. The Celtics didn't have any special ability to gain assets that no other team had, although several role-players were changed (quite obvious they were relatively low-impact). However, the Spurs got many far better players than they lost through a method not available to other teams in the league...

I discussed Ed Macauley pre-Cousy already. His impact was very low, based on his previous team. Yes, players improve slightly from year 1 to year 2, but not by the margin that Macauley did without an elite PG. His impact wouldn't be significantly larger than the +3 games he had, and he was voted all-NBA because of his stats with Cousy playmaking. He never made all-nba again after that season, after players got to see Cousy more.

In terms of coaching, Red Auerbach didn't like Cousy initially. He didn't see that Cousy could fit in this system. Cousy made an impact on Auerbach's game plan, and not vice-versa. Auerbach's previous team had a losing record, and after he left they didn't lose substantially more games. Nothing like the increase that happened in wins with the Celtics.

Do you know the explanation for why the Celtics weren't winning playoff games in the 50s, as explained by Cousy? "Everyone is getting tired. We can't get the ball." Nobody could rebound, because the fast-pace wore everybody down. They needed an elite rebounder to keep getting them the ball, and they could win games. Russell was that player.

The obvious double standard the Spurs had vs other teams should lead to a different standard being used to measure their impact. I also didn't include Nate Thurmond in 64 (17 games) and other rookies who joined in years where they weren't the star players of their team, because of obvious lack of clear relation between team improvement.

[euroleague]

Other ranking confusions: John Stockton in the top 25 ever for peaks.. Robert Parish near the top 40 in a 'top peaks' version. Just can't escape the feeling that longevity is heavily valued.

I think you may have misread something (or I mis-wrote something): I didn't present any "peaks" list, or a "top peaks" version. I do not think John Stockton is a top 25 peak (perhaps not even top 45). I don't think Robert Parish is a top 40 peak either (probably not even a top 50-60).
ALL versions presented place heavy (or at least "moderate to heavy") value on longevity, because meaningful longevity is something I emphasize in my criteria; I believe it's very important when evaluating total career value. So I tend to rank guys like Stockton and Parish (also Kidd, Karl Malone, among others) higher than most people do.

About 2/5 of the players come from after 2000....

This was discussed in a prior thread. Note that ~35% of all professional players we've seen have come after 2000 (35.2% of all the NBA rosters that have existed since 1949 have come in the 00's and 10's). And while the 80's and 90's are debatable (as being just as competitive), earlier eras really probably aren't (very tenuous argument, anyway).

So from that standpoint, is it really so outrageous if 40% of the players on any list DID come from the last 17-20 years?

That is because of league expansion, which increased the number of players who are 'professional'. It didn't increase the number of 'great' players, it just made better players easier to spot because the average was lowered.

If there were only 10 teams in todays league, you can imagine the change we would have on how we evaluate players. Nobody would have a PER like those 90s/00s players (PER is based off of league averages per minute), and everybody would have their overall stats and advanced stats decreased. the opposite of that happened in the expansion, for 90s players.

I agree that the raw basketball skill in the league has increased, but the average skill has definitely decreased from the 80s to the 90s due to the huge increase in the size of the league.

40% in the last 20-25 years, I could see. but 60% seems high, and that's the actual number in the last 25 years. If we are going just by player skill and athleticism, we would have to further dock every player pre-Magic/Bird, but that's not a completely fair measure as these players have all studied Magic/Bird's achievements. We can't compare Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps' times and just say "Phelps is better because he has the WR".

My main gripe is that LBJ is #1 in every ranking system. I don't think this reflects players actual impact or peak level. LBJ has better longevity than MJ, but he doesn't compare to KAJ - so I'm not sure why KAJ is so low. It's always interesting to see ranks that are (for the most part) this accurate in terms of scoring, but the inability of other people to explain certain flaws in the scoring system deflates the value of this, imo.

[oldschooled]

Vote: Isiah Thomas
Alt: Kevin McHale

At this point of the project, its really hard to ignore Zeke's impact on those Pistons teams. Chuck Daly (one of most underrated coaches all time) get them to play TEAM ball and Zeke has no problem sharing the spotlight. That's why his box score and advance metrics don't reflect well. Zeke was the offensive catalyst and Worm was the defensive catalyst.

[Lou Fan]

Now that Kidd's off the board that opens up a whole new tier of guys for me to consider here.
Next Tier: Frazier, Gervin, Nique, T-Mac, Dwight, Reggie, Harden, Zo, Isiah, Billups, McHale. I might be forgetting a couple guys but this is generally where my head's at.

Gervin: Iceman gets criminally underrated in most GOAT discussions especially here with a lot of people on this forum underrating volume scoring. He led the league in scoring 4 times on unbelievable efficiency for his time. He could take over games in the blink of an eye he could ring 40 on you. Gervin as a scorer imo tops Kobe as well as many other ATG scorers. I bet most people can't name a single Gervin teammate except maybe Kenon and they were still a tough team in the post-season. In 79' they blew a 3-1 in the ECF and I think they would've had a great chance in the finals against Seattle. He put up 42 in Game 7 and they still lost. Gervin was a great playoff performer but he was often let down by his teammates. However, Gervin had some gaping holes in his game most notably defense and passing. Gervin a bad defender but the degree to which he was a bad defender is overstated. He was clearly a better defender than Harden and anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about. However his passing is usually understated as a problem he averaged more turnovers per game than assists for his career. If he could've been just a solid passer he probably has a ring and we are probably discussing him in the top 20.

Nique: He was a slightly worse 80s version of Gervin who also suffers because of this forums dislike of volume scorers but until Gervin goes Nique can't be considered.

Howard: In 99.9% of cases I couldn't care less about intangibles and Howard falls in that .1%. Dwight is just so incredibly toxic and delusional I can't give him a pass for his ridiculous immaturity and stupidity. That being said Dwight the player gets way too much hate because of Dwight the person. He was a BEAST. Best player in the league defensively throughout his peak and his 4 DPOYs were deserved. He led the league in DWS 4 times as well. His defense at the C position alone makes him incredibly valuable but he was an efficient scorer as well. He consistently averaged around 20 ppg in his prime and he had solid gravity in the paint and in the pick and roll. He's an ATG rebounder on both ends and he led the league in rebounds 5 times. Post-prime/current Dwight also gets an unfairly bad rap as he is still probably a top 50 player in the league and his defense and rebounding are still really valuable. His 14 ppg this year where on his highest fg% of his career. That being said his horrible intangibles aren't his only weakness. He's a terrible passer and he commits at least 1 dumb/unnecessary turnover per game. With the amount of attention he drew in the paint 1.5 assists per game is unacceptable. He also faced pretty weak competition at the center position and in the east.

Reggie: 2nd greatest off ball player of all-time. ATG ceiling raiser and absolutely incredible playoff performer. He was also one of the clutchest players of all time. I understand the concern with his extremely underwhelming box score stats for a top 50 all-time player. However, his way ahead of the competition efficiency makes the low assists and rebounding numbers hurt a little less. He has the GOAT ORTG. However, he only did one thing well, score the basketball and even more specifically shoot the basketball. The defensive attention that followed him around and the awesome efficiency with which he shot the ball is what puts him in this conversation but he was average to poor at everything else so I'm not ready for him. yet....

Harden: Awesome peak and the rightful MVP this year (triple doubles are so overrated ). Great efficiency as a scorer and just a great well rounded player...... offensively . His lack of defense and longevity means its a bit too early for him.

Zo: Great peak in 00 and one of the best defensive centers of all time. Got unlucky playing the golden era of centers for most of his prime. Lack of playoff success is eye opening but the presence of an elite guard could probably have changed that. When he had Tim Hardaway they won 61 games and made the Eastern Conference Finals (barely). He surpasses his stats according to my eye test but mediocre advanced stats mean I might be wrong.

Isiah: Not sure what to think of him. I'll look at him more closely once Frazier is off the board because I'm confident Frazier is better.

Billups: I love him and his style of play and his willingness to spread the wealth directly correlated to the Pistons success. He has awesome impact stats which I think are deserving and the Denver trade bodes well for him in examining his impact. Mr. Big Shot deserves a long hard look at this stage.

McHale: He had the most polished effective post-game that I've ever seen. Super high basketball IQ and obviously an integral part of the Celtics dynasty. He was also one of the best m2m post defenders of all time. He was a super efficient scorer despite his free throws and he doesn't get enough credit as a rebounder. He wasn't great but he was pretty solid. He was very inconsistent facing double teams and I often wonder whether he would've been nearly as effective/successful without Larry legend.

Last but not least my favorite player of all-time (yes I'm admitting to my slight bias though I try not to be) Tracy McGrady. T-Mac was the ideal point-forward and if for some reason we were cloning shooting guards I'd argue T-Mac would be the best choice. McGrady had it all 6'9" elite athleticism and wingspan. He had absolutely no holes in his game. I'll go through every portion of his game but not overly extensive. First his passing ability was great, truly elite. He knew how to find his teammates at the best time in the best spot and had the type of vision you can only be born with. He could pass out of any double-team and he basically never turned the ball over. His turnover pct was often below 10% which is really incredible. Another reason for his turnover averse play was his ball-handling. Tracy McGrady is the greatest SG ball handler of all time and at 6'9" that's really saying something. He could dribble the ball anywhere he wanted on the court and while sometimes his fancy displays of ball-handling killed ball movement they mostly enabled him to attack and score from wherever he wanted. These two traits made him the best point-forward of his time (pre LBJ of course). He could do literally whatever he wanted as far as scoring the basketball. He could get to the basket and finish with ease, he had a solid post up game with a great fadeaway, he could pull up for 3 off-the dribble, he could spot up and hit shots, he could run off screens, he could any type of step-back, turnaround, hop step mid range jumpers you could think of, he could play in the pick and roll to score or pass, and he could explode out of the triple-threat. He had the most variety in his coring of any player I've ever seen and possibly the most ever. He was really the perfect wing. T-Mac was really beautiful to watch. Watching T-Mac play was like watching Federer play tennis it looks as tho they were born to play the sport and they just glide around the court gracefully dismantling their opponents in a way that seems effortless. This seemingly effortlessness in McGrady's game probably partially contributed to the perception of him being a lazy player. McGrady's work ethic was pretty poor and if he had Kobe or MJ killer in him, provided he was healthy, he'd be top 3 all-time. He was never a great leader and he was a pretty quiet guy but his intangibles other than work ethic weren't a negative. I can't honestly blame him for his lack of effort if your best teammates were Juwan Howard and Mike Miller you'd probably be pretty frustrated and lazy too. Those Orlando supporting casts are so laughably bad that they dwarf LBJ and Kobe's and even Garnett's. No wonder his back couldn't take him carrying all those scrubs for 4 years . His situation was just completely hopeless. Maybe that's why he always settled for deep contested 2s his jumper was awesome but no one can hit contested perimeter shots consistently at a high percentage. He easily could've gotten to the rim more or created more open looks but he really seemed to half-ass games at time because of how **** his teams were. He was literally the only guy on the team who could create any shots for himself or others. That's probably another reason he settled because he was tasked with doing literally everything for his team and he was probably exhausted. Had he played on even a decent team he would have the energy to attack the rim way more. Same goes for defense when he was playing at 100% effort he looked like an All-NBA defender but he was an average defender his whole career because he didn't care to play defense most of the time and he also didn't have energy to play D. McGrady was the only person on his team that defenses had to give any **** about and he still destroyed defenses. At his peak in 03 he had 30 ast % to 8.4 yes 8.4 tov % and had the greatest season of all-time tied with Michael Jordan according to OBPM at 9.8. The Magic still only went 42-40 and he played amazing in the playoffs and they still lost in 7 to the Pistons. It's honestly depressing to think about. If only Tim Duncan signed with the Magic and Grant Hill could stay healthy they would've been the greatest team of all-time and maybe McGrady's back wouldn't have been destroyed by carrying the 600 pound Shawn Kemp and all those other scrubs on his back. His 1 year peak is top 10 and his 7 year prime is awesome but it could've been so much more. He was the third best player in the league in the early 00s behind Shaq and TD and was the best offensive player in a time dominated by defense. This is getting ridiculously long so I'm done but I could go on for even longer if I wanted lol. I'm willing to answer any questions/debate with people about this but I think it's time for McGrady.
1st Vote: T-Mac
2nd: Gervin

[dhsilv2]

I'll be interested to see if Unseld gets some play here. He's definately a guy who if we had RAPM stats, I suspect he'd already be in from the stories and information I have, but i haven't watched him play nearly enough to confirm if that was fair. Throw in winning rookie of the year and mvp on less than 14 points a game is somewhat mind blowing.

But then the guy never made an all nba team again? Certainly an interesting career.

[dhsilv2]

Other ranking confusions: John Stockton in the top 25 ever for peaks.. Robert Parish near the top 40 in a 'top peaks' version. Just can't escape the feeling that longevity is heavily valued.

I think you may have misread something (or I mis-wrote something): I didn't present any "peaks" list, or a "top peaks" version. I do not think John Stockton is a top 25 peak (perhaps not even top 45). I don't think Robert Parish is a top 40 peak either (probably not even a top 50-60).
ALL versions presented place heavy (or at least "moderate to heavy") value on longevity, because meaningful longevity is something I emphasize in my criteria; I believe it's very important when evaluating total career value. So I tend to rank guys like Stockton and Parish (also Kidd, Karl Malone, among others) higher than most people do.

About 2/5 of the players come from after 2000....

This was discussed in a prior thread. Note that ~35% of all professional players we've seen have come after 2000 (35.2% of all the NBA rosters that have existed since 1949 have come in the 00's and 10's). And while the 80's and 90's are debatable (as being just as competitive), earlier eras really probably aren't (very tenuous argument, anyway).

So from that standpoint, is it really so outrageous if 40% of the players on any list DID come from the last 17-20 years?

That is because of league expansion, which increased the number of players who are 'professional'. It didn't increase the number of 'great' players, it just made better players easier to spot because the average was lowered.

If there were only 10 teams in todays league, you can imagine the change we would have on how we evaluate players. Nobody would have a PER like those 90s/00s players (PER is based off of league averages per minute), and everybody would have their overall stats and advanced stats decreased. the opposite of that happened in the expansion, for 90s players.

I agree that the raw basketball skill in the league has increased, but the average skill has definitely decreased from the 80s to the 90s due to the huge increase in the size of the league.

40% in the last 20-25 years, I could see. but 60% seems high, and that's the actual number in the last 25 years. If we are going just by player skill and athleticism, we would have to further dock every player pre-Magic/Bird, but that's not a completely fair measure as these players have all studied Magic/Bird's achievements. We can't compare Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps' times and just say "Phelps is better because he has the WR".

My main gripe is that LBJ is #1 in every ranking system. I don't think this reflects players actual impact or peak level. LBJ has better longevity than MJ, but he doesn't compare to KAJ - so I'm not sure why KAJ is so low. It's always interesting to see ranks that are (for the most part) this accurate in terms of scoring, but the inability of other people to explain certain flaws in the scoring system deflates the value of this, imo.

I don't see why so many people think the league is lower at the "average", if anything as we see star players playing less minutes, it should be a telling sign that the league is deeper. There's a reason that we saw so many players playing 40 and 45 plus minutes a game back in the early years. Players weren't better conditioned for it, they just didn't have replacement level bench players.

Also seems odd that LBJ being ranked best on a statistical metric would upset anyone. By the stats it would seem almost suprising if he weren't top 3 and I'd expect him to rank over MJ. Kareem is the only guy who I could see finishing ahead of him.