So I took a look at the RealGM POY Project year by year just to see how certain players were voted in the past. I saw that
fpliii had a complete list of all the POY Shares through 2015. I wanted to see where things stood after the last 4 full seasons, so I went back and looked at the 2016-2019 RealGM POY shares of LeBron, Durant, Curry, Harden, Paul, Westbrook, Kawhi, Davis, and Giannis as well as double checking Kobe/Duncan/KG/Dirk/Wade to see how much things have changed in 4 years.
Again, shout out to fpliii who I'm just piggybacking off of and I don't want this to be considered "official" because I don't have a master spreadsheet of all the votes, but here's the All-Time list that I came up with after tallying up the 2016-19 POY shares for the previous players that I mentioned above. I broke it down in tiers to make it easier on the eyes.
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1 Bill Russell 10.956
2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 10.221
3 LeBron James 9.913
4 Michael Jordan 9.578
5 Wilt Chamberlain 7.818
6 Magic Johnson 7.114
7 Tim Duncan 6.248
8 Larry Bird 6.147
9 Shaquille O'Neal 5.910
10 Julius Erving 5.046
11 Karl Malone 4.649
12 Bob Pettit 4.466
13 Oscar Robertson 4.413
14 Kobe Bryant 4.380
15 Hakeem Olajuwon 4.380
16 Jerry West 3.795
17 Kevin Garnett 3.571
18 Moses Malone 3.478
19 Stephen Curry 2.957
20 Kevin Durant 2.945
21 Dwyane Wade 2.601
22 Chris Paul 2.557
23 David Robinson 2.431
24 Dirk Nowitzki 2.373
25 Elgin Baylor 2.223
26 Dolph Schayes 2.176
27 Walt Frazier 2.061
28 Charles Barkley 2.029
29 James Harden 1.926
30 George Gervin 1.582
31 Bob McAdoo 1.402
32 Bill Walton 1.373
33 Steve Nash 1.319
34 Kawhi Leonard 1.192
35 Rick Barry 1.187
36 Bob Cousy 1.115
37 Dwight Howard 1.104
38 Neil Johnston 1.095
39 Patrick Ewing 1.087
40 Paul Arizin 1.033
41 Giannis Antetokounmpo 0.860
42 Alonzo Mourning 0.843
43 Gary Payton 0.751
44 Russell Westbrook 0.729
45 Willis Reed 0.684
46 Artis Gilmore 0.681
47 John Havlicek 0.662
48 Dave Cowens 0.645
49 Sidney Moncrief 0.617
50 Tracy McGrady 0.613
51 Anthony Davis 0.612
Active Players3. LeBron is pretty close to being the RealGM POY Project GOAT, he's not going to get it this year but will be set up to pass Russell next year
19. Curry and
20. Durant absolutely neck and neck at around the 20th spot all-time. Can they return from serious injuries in their 30s to make a run at the Top 15?
22. Chris Paul in the Top 25, with a chance at passing D-Wade after this year.
29. Harden pretty comfortably in the Top 30, looking likely to make the Top 25 soon.
34. Kawhi is in the Top 35, looking likely to make the Top 30 soon.
41. Giannis already a Top 45 player after last year, very likely to be Top 40 after this year.
44. Westbrook in the Top 45, but at this rate it seems doubtful that he ever moves up much from this spot
51. Davis is a virtual lock to make the Top 50 after this year, he even has a real chance to be in the Top 45 or even better
- LeBron is something else
- Durant is a little underrated based on the voting imo. I'm not even the biggest fan of him but I do think he deserved more votes in 2017-19 than he received, when he was clearly a Top 3 player in the sport. Curry is also another guy that probably should have more votes too. But I guess that's what happens when you join up and split votes.
- CP3 vs. Wade is one of the most interesting debates, pretty cool how they're neck and neck and will llkely end that way
- Harden is the guy who really took advantage of the Curry/Durant marriage in terms of POY shares, although obviously he would prefer the rings those two stopped him from winning. He still has work to do to catch CP3/Wade.
- Injuries, load management, limited role early in his career... yet Kawhi is still in an impressive spot on this list. What kind of longevity will he have?
- Giannis and Davis are the only active guys already on this list who are expected to get even better in the next couple of years, will be interesting to see where they stand on this list 3 years from now
- Hate him or Love him, Westbrook is a 1st ballot HOFer and I really hope he regains that pre-COVID rim attacking form to make another Top 5 run next year