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1) Michael Jordan 1990-91
2) LeBron James 2012-13
3) Wilt Chamberlain 1966-67
4) Shaquille O'Neal 1999-00
5) Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 1976-77
6) Tim Duncan 2002-03
7) Larry Bird 1985-86
8) Bill Russell 1963-64
9) Hakeem Olajuwon 1993-94
10) Magic Johnson 1986-87
11) Kevin Garnett 2003-04
12) Julius Erving 1975-76
13) Bill Walton 1976-77

Please include at least 1 sentence of reasoning for each of your 3 picks. A simple list of names will not be counted.
Deadline has been shortened to 48 hours. Please submit your votes by 11 am August 13 Eastern Time

THE VOTING SYSTEM:

Everyone gives their 1st-ballot choice, 2nd-ballot choice, and 3rd-ballot choice. I'll award 4.5 pts for a 1st ballot, 3 for a 2nd ballot, and 2 for a 3rd. Highest point-total wins the round (24-hour run-off will then only be done in the unlikely event of a tie).
Players don't get credit for all the votes they receive in a round, we just count the votes (and the points) for the designated year.

So, you can use your 3 choices to vote for more than 1 season of the same player (if you think that the best 3 seasons among the players left belong all to the same player, nothing is stopping you from using all you 3 choices on that player), but you can't continue voting for other seasons of that player once he wins and gets his spot. The final list will be 1 season per player.

Thank you for your participation!

N.1 STEPHEN CURRY 2016
Goat offensive regular season, GS was a 50 W team. Despite the injuries and bad finals, he was the best player on the court in the WCF VS OKC.

N.2 STEPHEN CURRY 2017
His best postseason. He was the leader in every advanced statistic of the best team ever, another all time level offensive CLINIC. 9.1 OBPM in postseason.

N.3 JERRY WEST 1969
West is one of the best 3 or 4 finals performer of all time, in '69 he showed up why: legendary performance vs Boston. He was the best offensive player by far from 65 to 69, I choose his best postseason.

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1. 1964 Oscar Robertson
Greatest guard season pre-Magic. Dominant passing and offensive impact with famously excellent scoring relative to league average.

2. 1963 Oscar Robertson
Basically the same as subsequent year, without the clear translation to team success. Nearly upset Celtics in the playoffs (but not a knock on 1964 when he played a better version). Previously resisted doubling up, but Oscar is the last guy in this tier, and I want to give him that final push.

Third vote open for now. Annoyed that best two-way player is a playoff underperformer. Struggle to separate guards. Dirk, Barry, and Barkley also play like guards. Moses in weird space; Gilmore maybe weirder. Too early for Durant and Pettit. McAdoo is interesting, but I am nervous of the previously mentioned 1970s bias.

EDIT: 3. 2006 Dwyane Wade
I tried to talk myself of it, but I think he just has the best case left. Kobe is the easiest eye-test comparison, but whatever numbers you use, and whatever year, through the playoffs 2006 Wade was better. It feels weird to have his third year as his peak, but in terms of playoffs it really was. Chris Paul is interesting by the numbers, but only ever doing it through the second round gives Wade the edge in my eyes. McAdoo per possession really was not better than Wade, and his best year also only featured a short playoff run. And as others have said, no notable defensive acumen there. I want to vote for Robinson soon because of his two-way impact, but I cannot get over the playoff dips, especially in comparison to a playoff elevator like Wade. Moses’s case bothers me because he was low-key a bit of a playoff under-performer until 1983; wonder what change of circumstance could have affected that... Artis Gilmore is a guy I have been eyeing (not that anyone else has mentioned him), but that whole 1975-77 voting inflation is making me second-guess myself. Also, I have been struggling to adequately assess his defensive impact (it seems to have been significant enough, but to what extent I do not know). That basically just leaves Jerry West, where the era comparison becomes very tricky. I leave it to a modern tiebreaker without feeling great about doing so. If not for the missed games in 1968, maybe I would have gone the other way because of late-career West’s heightened passing impact.

1. 2011 Dirk - I rank him over some other players because of having a truly special playoff level. His spacing impact is significant and he was playing at MVP level in the regular season
2. 2017 Curry - Curry is one of the best offensive players of all time due to the spacing and this is his best playoffs
3. 2016 Curry - His regular season is GOAT level, drop in playoffs but still very high impact and his team wouldn't have come close to G7 of finals without him as I believe pre Durant Warriors supporting cast is overrated

1)Oscar Robertson -1964

I think everyone needs to acknowledge just how incredible this season was. Once Russell/Wilt started winning MVPs the only other person to get during that time was Oscar this year(edit: Double checked, Unseld had 1969 as well). He led the 2nd best offense and only fell to the ‘64 Celtics which may be one of their most stacked teams ever. The Celtics were an absolutely ridiculous -10.3 rel defense that year. So his drop off in efficiency / his team’s drop off is understandable.[/quote]

2) 1975 Bob McAdoo(thanks to whoever it was in the last topic that mentioned Macdoo. Made me take a closer look$
Won league MVP over Cowens by a significant margin(.567 MVP shares) Led his team to the 4th best offense (+5.1 rel)and average defense (-0.1).

Led the league in PPG,MPG, and was 5th in TS% despite having a 4ppg gap over the second highest volume scorer. He has a sizeable gap in OWS (12.7 second is Tiny Archibald at 9). His total WS are +5 over the second highest KAREEM(17.8 vs 12.9). Kareem missed 17 games that year but Mcadoo still had him beat in WS per 48(.242 vs .252)

BPM and vorp still rank him favorably overall(although lower than Kareem) at 4.7 and 6 (top 5).

For me he also had one of the greatest playoff series ever against one of the best defenses ever.

He went up against the Bullet frontcourt duo of Unseld and Hayes. As a team they had a -6.4 rel team D. They had the best SRS in the league and Mcadoo’s Braves forced it to 7.

McAdoo played 46.7 mpg and averaged 37 ppg. He saw a moderate drop in fg and TS% but he averaged an amazing 37% of his team’s offense as his scoring increased while the team’s overall average decreased by 5.

3)Oscar Robertson- 1963

Virtually the same as 63. Better offense, worse defense/overall team. Performed well against the Celtics league leading defense in the playoffs.

McAdoo is amazing on offense but doesn't care about defense and overall bad intangibles. His demeanour sounds similar to Tmac (apathetic eyes, coasting on supreme talent) Add in early 70s being weaker and I'm not going to rank him over someone with the leadership of Dirk, Curry, etc

Ballot #1 - 64 Oscar
Ballot #2 - 16 Curry
Ballot #3 - 66 West

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Ballot #1 - 64 Oscar

Oscar's 64 season was very impressive on a number of levels:

RS: 31.4 PPG, 9.9 RPG, 11 APG, 48.3% FG, 85.3% FT (league leading on 11.9 FTAs per game), 57.6% TS (+9.1% vs. league avg), .278 WS/48

PS: 29.3 PPG, 8.9 RPG, 8.4 APG, 45.5% FG, 85.8% FT (12.7 FTAs per game), 56.8% TS, .245 WS/48

The royals ranked 2nd in SRS that season, losing in the playoffs to the #1 ranked SRS and eventual champion celtics. While his raw averages can certainly be attributed to the fast paced play during that era, his overall efficiency and ability to get to the line at will is pretty staggering.

Oscar's playoff #s do drop slightly across the board, but there's nothing there to suggest that he struggled. His best teammate Jerry Lucas had a serious drop off in scoring and efficiency come playoff time (17.7 PPG on 57.8% TS in RS vs. 12.2 PPG on 43.8% TS in PS). That very well could've been the difference in the series.

63-64 was his 4th season, so the below footage should be able to capture his style of play at the time:



[Yeah... I could do without the music]

What stands out to me is his precision when he makes his moves as well as his strength when he gets inside. Reminds me of west, too, although he wasn't quite as powerful.

Oscar would win also win MVP that season in dominating fashion. Via NY Times:

Oscar Robertson, the Cincin­nati Royals' talented back‐court man, yesterday was voted the President's Trophy, the Na­tional Basketball Association's most valuable player award, by the biggest margin on record.

The voting is by N.B.A. play­ers, with the restriction that they cannot vote for members of their own teams. Robertson received 60 of a possible 85 first‐place votes. In the point scoring on a 5, 3, 1 basis, Robertson received a total of 362 points, a record.

Wilt Chamberlain of San Francisco, who won the trophy as a rookie in 1960, placed see­ond in the voting with 19 first­place votes and 215 points. Bill Russell of Boston, the winner for the last three years, was third with 11 firsts and 167 points.

64 slightly edges out 63 to me overall due to a better individual regular season and team performance.

Ballot #2 - 16 Curry

Arguably the greatest offensive regular season ever, or at least in the modern era, say since 1980? Even purely as a volume scorer he tops the list: http://bkref.com/tiny/9jxSr The finals "collapse" doesn't kill the season for me. It literally came down to the last minute to decide the championship. This wasn't a 4-1 trouncing or something ala pistons lakers in 04. I have to take a closer look at 2017 because it's certainly close, but that 2016 season was a sight to see. Appointment television every night and curry was the center of it. It was special.

Ballot #3 - 66 West

Going with West here sort of in the same vein as magic / bird putting him close to oscar. West was a master volume scorer on great efficiency (especially for his era), not to mention an excellent playmaker, falling somewhere between a PG and SG throughout his career.

RS: 31.3 PPG, 7.1 RPG, 6.1 APG, 47.3% FG, 86% FT (12.4 FTAs per game), 57.3% TS (+8.6% vs. league avg), .256 WS/48

PS: 34.2 PPG, 6.3 RPG, 5.6 APG, 51.8% TS, 87.2% FT, 58.1% TS, .237 WS/48

He had the poor luck of coming up during the russell celtics era, losing to them several times in the finals. He would lead the lakers to the finals in 66, again losing in game 7 by 2 to the celtics in heart breaking fashion. This would come after putting up 33.9 PPG, 6.4 RPG and 5.1 APG on 51.5% from the field and 87.1% from the line in the series.

Purely as a fan, I think Oscar and West would really thrive in today's game, and it would be a pleasure to watch.

1966 Finals Highlights

Dr Positivity wrote:McAdoo is amazing on offense but doesn't care about defense and overall bad intangibles. His demeanour sounds similar to Tmac (apathetic eyes, coasting on supreme talent) Add in early 70s being weaker and I'm not going to rank him over someone with the leadership of Dirk, Curry, etc

I don't think "apathetic eyes" is a personality trait...

In b4 “Project isn’t real because Steph Curry hasn’t been selected yet!”

1st ballot - '95 David Robinson
The near-reality as I see is that David Robinson was asked [by the Spurs] to be Bill Russell on defense and simultaneously be Shaquille O'Neal on offense.......and he kinda takes some flack for not being up to the task [primarily in the playoffs]. But realistically, if he'd been consistently capable of maintaining his rs standard of offensive performance and efficiency during the playoffs, we'd have been discussing him in the top 3 positions of this project. So I don't think it's off base to give him some consideration now around #12. This version of Robinson anchored a -2.9 rDRTG (5th/27) with a principle cast [in descending order of minutes played] of Avery Johnson (scrappy and energetic, but seriously undersized even for a PG; mediocre defender overall), Sean Elliott (mediocre defender), Vinny Del Negro (probably slightly weak defensively, iirc), Chuck Person (a pinch past prime, never a good defender anyway), Dennis Rodman (erratic defensively [awful in the Houston series, fwiw], and missed 33 games), and JR Reid, Terry Cummings, post-prime Doc Rivers (Rivers probably the only one of those three I'd say was passable good defensively [edit: +/- maybe Cummings]).
This version of Robinson simultaneously anchored a +3.4 rORTG (5th/27) with the aforementioned cast; they won 62 games (+5.90 SRS) overall. Made it to the WCF where Dennis Rodman had a total [and very public] meltdown, and the Spurs lost the series to Houston (with Hakeem in God-mode) in six games (outscored by a grand total of 10 pts in the entire series). Typically stated as Hakeem owning DRob and making him a helpless play-thing, though it's rarely acknowledged that Hakeem [because of how their offense and roster was structured] largely enjoyed single coverage (by Robinson), while Robinson was largely guarded by Olajuwon + 1-2 friends.
It's rarely acknowledged that DRob's cast [which had shot 37.5% from beyond the arc in the rs] somewhat crapped the bed shooting just 31.9% in this series (and did I mention they were only outscored by 10 points total in the entire series?); and again Rodman's meltdown and poor play is rarely given light of day in the construction of the usual narrative.
jsia, I think he deserves a look around now.


2nd ballot - '16 Stephen Curry
Arguably the GOAT offensive rs. Though his style of play is heavily reliant on the existence of a 3pt line, that's still awfully damn impressive. Playoff slump is noted, though as should be apparent from discussions pertaining to other players, I am decidedly NOT a playoff > rs person in my evaluations. And at any rate we're still talking about a guy that averaged >25 ppg on decent efficiency in the playoffs.


3rd ballot - '64 Oscar Robertson
Short on time, but suffice to say this is one of the greatest offensive peaks all-time, and that I suspect Oscar was arguably also an underrated defensive player.

1. 63 Oscar - Top 2 offensive player ever, dominated the regular season with a bad team and dominated against the Celtics in the playoffs.
2. 64 Oscar - Basically the same as 63. Slightly better regular season, league MVP, but unlike in 63 he didn't dominate Boston, he just played well.

3. 83 Moses - The short version is that Moses was the best player in the league, on an historically great team, with great +/- estimates, and a gamebreaking ability on the offensive boards (averaged 6.5 offensive rebounds a game from 79 to 83). The gap between him and Curry who has that same argument (replace rebounding with 3 point shooting) is that outside of that one amazing ability Moses was still well above average at everything else. His jumper, defense (in 83 at least), and post game was already solid. His one weakness was his weak passing ability but it didn't hinder his chance to lead great or mediocre teams so I don't know how much it concerns me.

trex_8063 wrote:1st ballot - '95 David Robinson
The near-reality as I see is that David Robinson was asked [by the Spurs] to be Bill Russell on defense and simultaneously be Shaquille O'Neal on offense.......and he kinda takes some flack for not being up to the task [primarily in the playoffs]. But realistically, if he'd been consistently capable of maintaining his rs standard of offensive performance and efficiency during the playoffs, we'd have been discussing him in the top 3 positions of this project. So I don't think it's off base to give him some consideration now around #12. This version of Robinson anchored a -2.9 rDRTG (5th/27) with a principle cast [in descending order of minutes played] of Avery Johnson (scrappy and energetic, but seriously undersized even for a PG; mediocre defender overall), Sean Elliott (mediocre defender), Vinny Del Negro (probably slightly weak defensively, iirc), Chuck Person (a pinch past prime, never a good defender anyway), Dennis Rodman (erratic defensively [awful in the Houston series, fwiw], and missed 33 games), and JR Reid, Terry Cummings, post-prime Doc Rivers (Rivers probably the only one of those three I'd say was passable good defensively [edit: +/- maybe Cummings]).
This version of Robinson simultaneously anchored a +3.4 rORTG (5th/27) with the aforementioned cast; they won 62 games (+5.90 SRS) overall. Made it to the WCF where Dennis Rodman had a total [and very public] meltdown, and the Spurs lost the series to Houston (with Hakeem in God-mode) in six games (outscored by a grand total of 10 pts in the entire series). Typically stated as Hakeem owning DRob and making him a helpless play-thing, though it's rarely acknowledged that Hakeem [because of how their offense and roster was structured] largely enjoyed single coverage (by Robinson), while Robinson was largely guarded by Olajuwon + 1-2 friends.
It's rarely acknowledged that DRob's cast [which had shot 37.5% from beyond the arc in the rs] somewhat crapped the bed shooting just 31.9% in this series (and did I mention they were only outscored by 10 points total in the entire series?); and again Rodman's meltdown and poor play is rarely given light of day in the construction of the usual narrative.
jsia, I think he deserves a look around now.


2nd ballot - '16 Stephen Curry
Arguably the GOAT offensive rs. Though his style of play is heavily reliant on the existence of a 3pt line, that's still awfully damn impressive. Playoff slump is noted, though as should be apparent from discussions pertaining to other players, I am decidedly NOT a playoff > rs person in my evaluations. And at any rate we're still talking about a guy that averaged >25 ppg on decent efficiency in the playoffs.


3rd ballot - '64 Oscar Robertson
Short on time, but suffice to say this is one of the greatest offensive peaks all-time, and that I suspect Oscar was arguably also an underrated defensive player.

Ditto (both picks and order).

Peak D Rob getting underrated but whatever...

Dr Positivity wrote:McAdoo is amazing on offense but doesn't care about defense and overall bad intangibles. His demeanour sounds similar to Tmac (apathetic eyes, coasting on supreme talent) Add in early 70s being weaker and I'm not going to rank him over someone with the leadership of Dirk, Curry, etc

I dont think he was “coasting” when looking at the extreme amount of production he was putting up in ‘75. Plus when McAdoo was playing around 3500 minutes they were an average defense.

When he got hurt and played only 700-800 minutes the defense dropped to bottom tier. He’a certainly not elite on that end but he’s not a liability.

I put him over players like Dirk/Steph due to it being a complete season including playing an insane amount of minutes and a fantastic performance against an ATG defense

1. 1964 Oscar Robertson - by far the most complete offensive player remaining; elite floor general in what we now think of as the Chris Paul mold, but also had the size for a Dirk-esque scoring game.

2. 1966 Jerry West - would be my first vote if his scoring and playmaking had peaked at the same time; 1966 is probably the best combo year, plus a ridiculously dominant playoff run (one of many). Great defensive player too, used his length to hawk the ball and bother/block opponents' shots.

3. 1963 Oscar Robertson - same reasoning, second-best year; West's second-place vote between two Oscar years should tell you how close I think they are

So, 3 of the best 14 seasons of all time come from '60s. Is not strange for you? Golden era...

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HHera187 wrote:So, 3 of the best 14 seasons of all time come from '60s. Is not strange for you? Golden era...

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Well the 3 best tennis players of all time (easily) are playing right now so it happens

Dr Positivity wrote:1. 2011 Dirk - I rank him over some other players because of having a truly special playoff level. His spacing impact is significant and he was playing at MVP level in the regular season
2. 2017 Curry - Curry is one of the best offensive players of all time due to the spacing and this is his best playoffs
3. 2016 Curry - His regular season is GOAT level, drop in playoffs but still very high impact and his team wouldn't have come close to G7 of finals without him as I believe pre Durant Warriors supporting cast is overrated

Haven't you said for the longest time that Curry's peak is overrated because of his inability to bring it in the Playoffs and that Kobe/Wade are on his level or better?

HHera187 wrote:So, 3 of the best 14 seasons of all time come from '60s. Is not strange for you? Golden era...

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Arguably 5 of the top 10 players of all time were active in the mid to late 80s (MJ, Magic, Bird, Kareem, Hakeem). This isn't too crazy.

Already explained my Kobe vote ad nauseum.

1. '08 Kobe
2. '06 Kobe
3. '09 Kobe: This is tough, was gonna go '09 Wade here but I thought about the '09 season and basically who I trusted more to get it done when necessary: Kobe in '09 was an all time leadership/intangibles year. The Lakers were ultra-focused for every big game (snapped the Celtics' 19 and 12 game win streaks and the Cavs' 23 game home win streak), blew out every opponent in key Playoff games, and that is all on Kobe. He was also basically just as good as he was in the Playoffs as in the '08 Playoffs, 27 PER is no joke.

ardee wrote:

Dr Positivity wrote:1. 2011 Dirk - I rank him over some other players because of having a truly special playoff level. His spacing impact is significant and he was playing at MVP level in the regular season
2. 2017 Curry - Curry is one of the best offensive players of all time due to the spacing and this is his best playoffs
3. 2016 Curry - His regular season is GOAT level, drop in playoffs but still very high impact and his team wouldn't have come close to G7 of finals without him as I believe pre Durant Warriors supporting cast is overrated

Haven't you said for the longest time that Curry's peak is overrated because of his inability to bring it in the Playoffs and that Kobe/Wade are on his level or better?

Don't think that was me. Maybe ronnymac