RealGM

2020 List
1. LeBron James
2. Michael Jordan
3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
4. Bill Russell
5. Tim Duncan
6. Wilt Chamberlain
7. Magic Johnson
8. Shaquille O'Neal
9. Hakeem Olajuwon
10. Larry Bird
11. Kevin Garnett
12. Kobe Bryant
13. Jerry West
14. Oscar Robertson
15. Dirk Nowitzki
16. Karl Malone
17. David Robinson
18. Julius Erving
19. George Mikan
20. Moses Malone
21. Charles Barkley
22. Kevin Durant
23. Chris Paul
24. Stephen Curry
25. Bob Pettit
26. John Stockton
27. Steve Nash
28. Dwyane Wade
29. Patrick Ewing
30. ???


Moving forward, I want to make sure everyone knows EXACTLY what to expect in a future contentious vote; so below is a flow-chart (which is consistent with precedent that has already occurred in this project):

1) ranked vote system (RVS) like we've been doing with three ordered picks. If a majority or **default victory is NOT obtained by a single player with this method.....

2) ....we go to Condorcet method [of the "finalist" players] among the original counted voters [which is a very natural "continuation" of a RVS, btw, given the entire point of the RVS is to better ensure everyone gets a counted vote] to determine a winner. BUT we will wait no longer than 24 hours after the original deadline to hear from everyone (and there's no mystery to figuring if you're one of the people I need to hear from: it's easy enough for any of you to tell without my asking each of you [if two or more of the three "finalists" were not on your original vote post, I don't know what your position is on them]).

IF the Condorcet method yields a tie OR I do not hear from every original voter wrt his player hierarchy within 24 hours of the original deadline and the tabulated Condorcet results still indicate undecided (i.e. that it could go either way if all votes were in).....

3) .....we will go to a "sudden death" runoff, wherein the first finalist to receive [at least] TWO new votes [which can come from one of the original Condorcet hold-outs] AND be in the lead by Condorcet method (including BOTH original voters and runoff voters) will be awarded the spot.

**All default victories will be "validity checked" via the Condorcet method. As long as the default victor does NOT lose to one of the other finalists via Condorcet, the default victory will be upheld, and he will be awarded the spot.
IF, otoh, he loses to one [or more] competitors via Condorcet method, we will enter a "sudden death" runoff that follows the same rules as indicated in #3 above.

So, I got to vote for one more. Happy for that.

trex_8063 wrote:...

I'm not sure if you'd like to count my selections when I won't be active on here. Will leave it here though, if you decide to.

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I don't have a pre-set rankings to follow. I learn about my list as I go. This time, I'll go a bit further than usual.

30. Elgin Baylor
This may seem too old school. And I'd already concede that Baylor was not the highest impact player. But he still had pretty good impact and his on court production was great. I think it's quite forgotten that Baylor had a 41/18/4 series against the Celtics in '62. Bill Russell had to play arguably the best game 7 in the game history to deny Baylor and the Lakers. It's kind of unfair to Baylor, thinking that West gets so much love for '69 Finals but Baylor doesn't for '62 Finals.
Had he not gotten injured in '65, I think he'd be higher on this list.

31. Rick Barry
Ewing and Baylor were already on my list. This is the spot I'll be thinking while moving forward.
I had Rick Barry, Walt Frazier and John Havlicek for this spot. I initially had Frazier for this spot but his prime lasted shorter than both and I don't see a particular gap on performance level to make up for it. Havlicek was a more complete player than Barry but Barry's abilities mattered slightly more. So, I'll have Barry, Havlicek, Frazier order.

32. John Havlicek
Already explained in Rick Barry's section.

33. Walt Frazier
Already explained in Rick Barry's section. Though, I'll add this about Frazier's defensive quality;


34. James Harden
With better postseason resilience, intangibles, off-ball play and defense he could be way higher.
I expect some to argue as this way too low for him but I just don't see him over the players I voted higher. Simple as that. Their peaks, primes, prime durations, longevities were already on the same level. So those negatives have a serious impact against them.

35. Jason Kidd
Next group of players to consider for me are; Kidd, Drexler, Miller, Pippen, Payton, Gilmore, Gervin, Zeke.
I'll start thinking with Pippen. I think he's usually overrated and overranked. Not saying this because he has that many rings. He had decent scoring volume and he did everything else good or better. The thing though, he was in such setup that he got to show his versatility more than enough. And it's overstated about him. Jordan was lucky to have Pippen for a decade? Yeah, so was Pippen. 1994 Bulls get brought up in these conversations but it should be noted that the Bulls board made some good moves to strengthen the roster. I'm yet to indulge his position against those players but I just don't see the point of putting Pippen over Gervin for example, because prime Gervin was in a rather Dwyane Wade or Kevin Garnett situation and Pippen got to play with one of the 4 goat candidates.
I guess I'll go with Kidd for this spot because Kidd's peak seasons were still great. Many seem to look at the fact that the East was weak but overlook the fact that the Nets weren't great to begin with. There's always a ratio between the help a player gets and the competition his team faces. Kidd did great.
One thing about Kidd and his impact, in 2004 Kidd was playing with one good leg and Martin wasn't fully healthy and they took the Pistons to a game 7. They gave the Pistons the hell despite being so broken. Surely, Martin and Jefferson improved massively in the mean time. But if Kidd's success was only related to a weak conference, they wouldn't do that well against probably the best (non Russell led) defensive team ever with those issues.
Kidd's the one checks my boxes the most properly. Peak, average prime level, prime duration, longevity and intangibles (as basketball related).

36. George Gervin
I'm more of a peak/prime guy. I'd take 5-7 seasons with higher chance of winning than 9-10 season with lower chance of winning. I think we're too used to talk about goat stuff and too used to see goats being goats and the constant hype and narrative around winning. If I'm a fan of an NBA team, I'd take 1 NBA title + 2 conference finals exits + 2 first round exits + 5 missed playoffs over 1 conference finals + 7 second round exits + 2 first round exits. No debate.
This is not particularly about Gervin, I explained my preferences.
And with that, I'll have Gervin and Drexler over Reggie Miller. Between Gervin and Drexler, Drexler was more versatile but the quality of Gervin led offenses always just felt better to me. And neither were Frazier on defense, Gervin takes it over Drexler for me.

37. Clyde Drexler
Almost all of it is explained in Gervin's section. One minor addition, I talked about Pippen being overrated but that shouldn't mean that I'm underrating his quality. Kidd and Gervin were the only two those felt clear enough to put them ahead clearly.

38. Reggie Miller
Miller got this spot over Pippen, Payton, Zeke and Gilmore because his prime duration was significantly longer and those 4 didn't make up for it with their quality. I doubt if they made some TBH. Miller's off-ball play had such significance. O'Neal had massive off-ball presence / gravity because you just can't leave him 1v1. Miller OTOH, worked his ass off without the ball. He didn't have big assist numbers but despite being a 3 apg shooting guard, he created more than 5 apg shooting guards.

39. Isiah Thomas
TBH, not entirely sure about this pick. But my remaining candidates other than Gilmore for this spot have some sort of too much winning bias to be addressed. Thomas was declining when the Pistons started to be the Bad Boys, Payton's reputation is mostly coming from his 1996 season and I already talked about Pippen.
Thomas' on court production was getting lower while the team was getting better. I'm not saying there's a direct correlation. It's just that, it can be interpreted something like Garnett scoring 18.8 ppg in 2008 for the Boston team. Lower than his usual prime average and already on the decline. But it still mattered.
So, unless this thought of mine changes so drastically, I think I'm going to keep Thomas over the other names.

40. Scottie Pippen
By #39, Pippen will be on the list. It's just that where he happened to be on my list. Now, it's too hard to deny him for Gilmore or Payton.

41. Artis Gilmore
Well, I'm tired right now. I guess this could be my longest post on the RealGM message board now.
I'll keep it short. Had Payton managed to keep his defensive level while he improved on offense, he'd be on this spot. Heck, he'd probably in the top 35. But he didn't. It's reminder of that there's only so much a player can have. It goes to show his limitations. And Gilmore's prime level and prime duration are the deciders for me.

#1 Walt Frazier's case is based on his great playoff performances, particularly in the finals. Like Hakeem or Jordan, he stepped up his game on the biggest stage.

#2 Elgin Baylor. I know there have been a lot of questions about Baylor taking more shots than the more efficient Jerry West but at his peak he was a force with his scoring, his rebounding, decent passer, good guy. His teams had a lot of team success but couldn't get past Bill Russell -- something which could be said for pretty much everyone else from his era. I just think he's the most talented long career guy remaining. Havlicek was his peer but Baylor was a better scorer, much better rebounder, and did it against teams that gamed more for him; Havlicek is the better defender but in this case I don't think it's enough.

#3 James Harden == Behind them, I probably should vote Harden as the most individually dominant player. The other individual do it all scorer and playmaker was Rick Barry but if I ignore leadership issues, I'd go Harden over Barry anyway and Rick was at least as big a pain to be around.

My 4th pick is Scottie Pippen.

1. Walt Frazier
2. Elgin Baylor
3. James Harden

1. John Havlicek
-11x all nba 1st or 2nd team(4 1st)
-7x all nba defense(5 1st) and played 6 years before those were created
-7x top 10 in mvp voting
-8x champ and 1 fmvp(strong case in 69 as well averaging 28.1/11.0/4.4 on 52% ts but losing it to West)
-led 3 title teams in playoff scoring, assists and win shares(68, 69 and 74) which is something few other players have done
-great all around skills(led Celtics in scoring 7x, apg 7x, win shares 6x)
-great chemistry/leadership/hustle guy

2. Walt Frazier
-I want to start this off by saying that I also strongly considered Ewing, Barry, Pippen and Harden for this spot. What I really like about Walt is that he is one of the things I most prize in any bb player which is someone who can do multiple things well and has no real weakness. Imo those are the players easiest to build title teams around. With Walt you get a floor leader, highly efficient scorer, very good passer/rebounder and goat level defender at his position. You also get a guy with very good size/athleticism and who could lift his game in the playoffs when necessary to win titles which he did(twice). The only thing he lacks is a lenghty prime(only 7-8 years) which I had to take into account and which kept me from voting for him until now.
-I also want to mention that those Knicks teams are considered to be quite talented and deep teams but that Frazier was leading them in ppg, apg and win shares in both rs and ps most every year from 1970-1975. During the 1973 title run he had 3.0 win shares followed by Monroe with 1.9 and Phil Jackson with 1.1 while leading them to wins over a 68 win Celtics team in the ecf and 60 win Laker team in the finals.
-6x all nba(4x 1st team)
-7x all defensive 1st team
-career ts add of 1109 with 4 straight years over 170 from 70-73 and 6 years over 100
-led offenses that were generally top 8 by ORtg peaking at top 3 twice
-from 69-75 playoffs averaged 21.2/7.2rpg/6.4apg on 56.4% ts including the 36/7/19 on 78%ts game 7 in the 1970 finals(imo deserved the fmvp)

3. Rick Barry
-this is a very close one for me between Rick, Pippen, Harden and Baylor. I went with Barry mainly because at the end of the day he led a team to a title, has very good rs accolades(though close with Harden and Baylor) and imo was consistently the best in the playoffs out of this group. He also played in a tougher era for wings but was still very effective as a scorer and playmaker.
-11x all league(9x 1st team)
-6x top 5 in mvp voting
-led league in scoring in 67 with 35.6ppg on +195 ts add
-overall very efficient volume scorer with career ts+ of 104(2% above league average) and 6 straight years with ts add over 120
-led aba/nba in playoff ppg 3x
-from 73-77 led the Warriors in ppg and apg while those teams ranked 11th, 2nd, 2nd, 2nd and 4th in ORtg showing how well he could run an offense
-epic 75 playoff run in which he won ring/fmvp

Should be able to be back for this one, probably would've joined the majority for Wade/Ewing. Harden to me stands out as the remaining peak guy with passable longevity, then a lot of guys I see as lower peak with superior longevity, unsure how to weigh that.

I think it's the right time to consider Artis Gilmore - he's good mention for both longevity and peak guys.

He played 1329 games in his career and only his last season was meaningless - even as an 37 years old man he posted healthy 17/9/2 in 34 mpg, along with 17 PER, 66 TS% and .143 WS/48. He made also an all-star team.

Before Gilmore, Kentucky led by Dampier and Issel were 44-40 team with good offense and poor defense. Rookie Gilmore was drafted and 1972 Colonels became 68-16 team with -4.4 defense (giant +7 leap). He posted 24/18/3/5 on 62 TS% as a rookie and won the MVP award.

They lost in playoffs against Rick Barry led NY Nets team in 6 games, but Gilmore played fantastic. He posted 22/18/4 on 61 TS% and shut down Billy Paultz to 13 ppg on 45 TS%, but Issel shot 41% from the field (48 TS%) and they lost in a close series. Gilmore posted 24/18 on 80 TS% in deciding game by the way.

I don't have any rookie Gilmore game, but you can see him here battling with Chamberlain:



As for peak, he led dominant Colonels team (58 wins, -6.4 defense) to the title in 1975 while posting 24/18/3 on 60 TS% in playoffs. It was one of the best individual seasons in NBA history:



Then his team lost Issel and he put up 24/15/2 on 65 TS% in playoffs, including narrow 7 games loss against much better Nuggets team.




If you don't value ABA highly, then keep in mind that Gilmore wasn't bad in NBA at all. In his first season, he had to adjust to the NBA: in the first 16 games Bulls went 2-14 and Gilmore averaged only 17/13 on 52 TS%. After this very rough start, Bulls went 42-24 (52 wins pace, which would be 2nd in the league) in remaining games. This includes the second part of the season when Bulls went 27-14 (54 wins pace, the best in the league) when Gilmore averaged 21/14/3 on 60 TS% in only 37 mpg. He was MVP candidate in that season, but he wasn't recognised as such because of his and Bulls poor start. Then he went h2h against peak Bill Walton and played on even terms despite having significantly weaker supporting cast:



In next two years, Gilmore averaged 23/13/3/2 on 61 TS% but his team got worse and worse. The last time he was the leader of strong team was in 1981 when similar situation to 1977 happened - Bulls had slow start with 10-19 record. They finished the season with 35-18 record (54 wins pace) and beating very solid Knicks team in playoffs. Then they got swept in playoffs by future champions, but I don't think you can have it against Gilmore. Gilmore averaged 18/10/2 on 70 TS% in this season and 18/11/2 on 64 TS% in playoffs.



The last highlight of Gilmore's postseason play was his WCF series against Kareem in 1983 when he held his own against Jabbar with 20/14/2/3 on 62 TS% series. Spurs lost a close series in 6 games, but Gilmore got better and better, outplaying Jabbar in last two games:



Gilmore is legitimate candidate at this point, as I don't think he's clearly worse player than Ewing and his longevity is even better.

What do you think about Gilmore? Do you think he wasn't good enough at his peak? If so, why?

eminence wrote:Should be able to be back for this one, probably would've joined the majority for Wade/Ewing. Harden to me stands out as the remaining peak guy with passable longevity, then a lot of guys I see as lower peak with superior longevity, unsure how to weigh that.

Is peak Harden really better than peak Barry though? I'm not so sure about that. I mean statistically it looks that way but I mean Barry carried a team to a title in a way I'm not so sure that Harden can.

1st vote: Scottie Pippen
With Pettit, Mikan, and Curry already off the table, I'm pretty set on Pip as my #1 pick here.

Was he a great scorer? No, he wasn't......but he was a good one.
Was he a great rebounding SF? No, he wasn't......but he was a [really] good one.
Was he a great playmaking SF? Here I'd hedge toward yes. Not Lebron-level, or Bird-level either; but REALLY damn good in this regard. A stronger feature than his scoring or rebounding, imo.
Was he a great defensive SF? Duh.

Add all those things up, and this becomes somewhat the ultimate utility knife, and someone who is pretty portable on excellent teams, too. He's got the rep of the GOAT #2 for how he meshed with Jordan to form a dynasty.
He didn't mesh half-bad [at least in terms of play-style] with a contender/near-contender Rockets team, despite being arguably past his prime.
Then he meshed well as a MAJOR contributor with a contender-level Blazer team [despite being more definitively past his prime].

The end result has left him 13th all-time in playoff WS (NBA and ABA) and 8th in playoff VORP [since 1973]; he's 45th and 24th, respectively, in the rs in those metrics.
In his late prime and early post-prime, his league rank in RAPM was 6th in '97, 21st in '98, tied for 30th in '99, still solid [+2.5] in '00.
His rs pseudo-APM rank in '94-'96 were 18th, 5th, and 4th in the league.

And overall 15 seasons of actual "value added" for his career.


2nd vote: Elgin Baylor
Have been tossing around a lot of names [the circa-30 region of my ATL is VERY much a floating order.....I could see going a lot of different ways]. But I've decided I'm going with Baylor.
I think he's often dinged [around here] for being clearly a tier below his teammate Jerry West.......but West went in 17 places ago, so I don't think it's unreasonable at all to give Elgin some serious consideration here.

Ironically, I feel like his '62 campaign in particular exemplifies how good he was. This was the year he was mostly away from the team in service for the Army Reserves: so he didn't get to work-out or practice with the teams, only got to play a limited games. Fun story as to how big a deal Baylor was to fans: apparently the box-office would get calls ahead of Laker games asking if Baylor was playing that night......and games he dressed for averaged ~3,000 more fans [iirc] than the ones he missed.

Despite the unusual circumstances, Baylor averaged an absurd 38.3/18.6/4.6 per game.
Yes, pace was crazy. But still, even in pace adjusted per 100 possessions this came to an estimated 33.6 pts (@ +1.34% rTS), 16.3 reb, 4.1 ast, while playing a ridiculous 44.4 mpg.
And it's hard to ascribe little impact to this: the Lakers were 17-15 (which would be on pace for 43-44 wins in an 82-game season) without him, but 37-11 (on pace for just over 63 wins in an 82-game season) with him. Adding 20 wins to an already decent team is no small achievement.

This is also the year Baylor averaged 40.6 ppg (@ +3.1% rTS), 17.9 rpg, and 3.7 apg in the NBA Finals against Russell and the Celtics, taking them to 7 games (and losing game 7 by just 3 pts). This was the series in which [in game 5] Baylor scored an efficient 61 pts, while also grabbing 22 rebound [no one else not named Bill Russell was in within even 10 rebounds of him] in a 5-pt Laker victory.

And overall he's just got a lot of years in which he was really filling that stat-sheet, respectable WOWYR for this stage of the project, too. Led the Lakers to an unlikely finals appearance in his rookie year with really no noteworthy supporting cast, a number of accolades, and steady high-praise from contemporaries.
It's robust enough of a resume I've decided to go with him here.


3rd vote: Jason Kidd
Let me be the first to break the ice on another longevity giant. I could be swayed off of him. As I said above there are a number of names I'm tossing around, and this region of my list is very fluid. Although I'd like to see Pippen get this spot, I'd be more or less content with any one of Harden, Havlicek, or Gilmore, too.

I'm not quite ready for Reggie Miller yet, despite him being one of my all-time favorite players (I wore #31 for my highschool team, after Reggie Miller). If it comes to a runoff between Harden and anyone, I'll side with Harden EXCEPT against Havlicek......there I'm [for now] going with John by a hair.

trex_8063 wrote:

3rd vote: Jason Kidd
Let me be the first to break the ice on another longevity giant. I could be swayed off of him. As I said above there are a number of names I'm tossing around, and this region of my list is very fluid. Although I'd like to see Pippen get this spot, I'd be more or less content with any one of Harden, Havlicek, or Gilmore, too.

I'm not quite ready for Reggie Miller yet, despite him being one of my all-time favorite players (I wore #31 for my highschool team, after Reggie Miller). If it comes to a runoff between Harden and anyone, I'll side with Harden EXCEPT against Havlicek......there I'm [for now] going with John by a hair.

Personally what I don't like about Kidd is the ORtg he was leading his teams to most years. I'm going to go ahead and list all the ORtg's of his teams going back to 96 and its not like those teams were that lacking in offensive talent imo.

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Worth noting that in the last 4 years he was only averaging 6-8 fgapg and Dallas was #2 the year before he got there. He's also a career -800 ts add player scoring wise. Of course he sort of balances that out with his defense but it just concerns me when a pg can't consistently lead good offenses.

Hey, so, I don't want to spend a lot of time making negative arguments toward guys right now and so am largely looking to not take this any further but:

I see people are starting to push Baylor, and I feel I'd be remiss not to voice that I think this is still too high for Baylor.

I think the thing that crystalizes why I feel the need to stay stuff here is seeing people say stuff like "Well yeah he's worse than West, but West got in X spots ago."

I would like to clarify that the issue with Baylor isn't that he's a lot weaker than West, but that if you look at some of the data, it's hard to tell Baylor apart from a bunch of other contemporaries.

The stat I've been bringing to people's attention lately, because it's new, is TS Add.

Baylor's peak TS Add came in '60-61. Here's the TS Add Leaderboard for '60-61.

Note that Baylor is 7th on that list well below guys like Jack Twyman and Bailey Howell who will likely get no Top 100 consideration but honestly may well have been more effective at basketball than Baylor. Yes Baylor had talents they did not have, but in terms of putting it altogether efficiently, it's pretty clear that some guys back then had a sense of things, and some did not. Baylor was a did not from all the data I can see.

I'll also note that the Laker offense at that time was 7th out of 8th in the league with Jerry West & Rudy LaRusso on the roster. Those guys were young and all, but this is the same year rookie Oscar Robertson came into the league and instantly made the Cincinnati Royals the best offense around. Yeah Oscar is Oscar, but my point is that this was still a time where you reasonably could expect that an outlier talent could drop into the league and just be a tier ahead of those who came before, and Baylor showed no ability to do anything like this.

I'll leave it at that. I fully expect Baylor to be voted in soon and I'm not looking to push back the tide, but just do remember that the issue with Baylor isn't that he suffers in comparison with Russell/Wilt/Oscar/West, the issue is that while Baylor's volume stats make him look like the 5th outlier, there's a bunch of other stuff that makes him look like he's in a tier with other guys who you likely won't be considering in the Top 100. Try not to brush this aside lightly just because his reputation puts him above them.

Cavsfansince84 wrote:

trex_8063 wrote:

3rd vote: Jason Kidd
Let me be the first to break the ice on another longevity giant. I could be swayed off of him. As I said above there are a number of names I'm tossing around, and this region of my list is very fluid. Although I'd like to see Pippen get this spot, I'd be more or less content with any one of Harden, Havlicek, or Gilmore, too.

I'm not quite ready for Reggie Miller yet, despite him being one of my all-time favorite players (I wore #31 for my highschool team, after Reggie Miller). If it comes to a runoff between Harden and anyone, I'll side with Harden EXCEPT against Havlicek......there I'm [for now] going with John by a hair.

Personally what I don't like about Kidd is the ORtg he was leading his teams to most years. I'm going to go ahead and list all the ORtg's of his teams going back to 96 and its not like those teams were that lacking in offensive talent imo.

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Worth noting that in the last 4 years he was only averaging 6-8 fgapg. He's also a career -800 ts add player scoring wise. Of course he sort of balances that out with his defense but it just concerns me when a pg can't consistently lead good offenses.

Kidd's teams lacked offensive talent, big time.

Clifford Robinson, Gugliotta and post injury and still injured Penny Hardaway were his biggest helps in Phoenix.
Then Kerry Kittles, Kenyon Martin and Richard Jefferson in the first half of the NJN span.
Then Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson. This was the biggest help prime Kidd got.
Old, out of prime Kidd joined Nowitzki and those ratings got instantly better.

https://public.tableau.com/profile/dsmok1#!/vizhome/BPMvs_RAPM/BoxPlusMinusvs_14YearRAPM
Here. 2000-13 RAPM.
If you look at PGs with 70k+ possessions, Kidd's O-RAPM was 7th among PGs with +2.5.
If you move to 100k+ possessions to see the players who were always there, Kidd is 4th.
And while that time frame has Kidd's all seasons as out of prime - old player, it doesn't have 2 good seasons of his prime.

Despite his efficiency issues, Kidd still was a pretty positive impact on offense and he didn't get good teams in his prime to show it with team ORtg numbers.

Odinn21 wrote:Kidd's teams lacked offensive talent, big time.

Clifford Robinson, Gugliotta and post injury and still injured Penny Hardaway were his biggest helps in Phoenix.
Then Kerry Kittles, Kenyon Martin and Richard Jefferson in the first half of the NJN span.
Then Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson. This was the biggest help prime Kidd got.
Old, out of prime Kidd joined Nowitzki and those ratings got instantly better.

https://public.tableau.com/profile/dsmok1#!/vizhome/BPMvs_RAPM/BoxPlusMinusvs_14YearRAPM
Here. 2000-13 RAPM.
If you look at PGs with 70k+ possessions, Kidd's O-RAPM was 7th among PGs with +2.5.
If you move to 100k+ possessions to see the players who were always there, Kidd is 4th.
And while that time frame has Kidd's all seasons as out of prime - old player, it doesn't have 2 good seasons of his prime.

Despite his efficiency issues, Kidd still was a pretty positive impact on offense and he didn't get good teams in his prime to show it with team ORtg numbers.

I don't see those guys as all that bad offensively though tbh. That's my point here. Its better than what LeBron was playing with during his first Cleveland stint for sure and those teams were reaching top 4 in ORtg. Now obviously it helps quite a bit to have LeBron instead of Kidd but that's just my view. I wouldn't say that overall I'm that low on Kidd but just to have him in the top 30-33 that is a point of concern for me. Also the Mavs went from 2nd in ORtg the year before Kidd got there to 8th when he plays in 30 games to 5th the following year. So there wasn't really any improvement other than having a proven pg running the offense rather than guys like Terry and Harris.

Cavsfansince84 wrote:

Odinn21 wrote:Kidd's teams lacked offensive talent, big time.

Clifford Robinson, Gugliotta and post injury and still injured Penny Hardaway were his biggest helps in Phoenix.
Then Kerry Kittles, Kenyon Martin and Richard Jefferson in the first half of the NJN span.
Then Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson. This was the biggest help prime Kidd got.
Old, out of prime Kidd joined Nowitzki and those ratings got instantly better.

https://public.tableau.com/profile/dsmok1#!/vizhome/BPMvs_RAPM/BoxPlusMinusvs_14YearRAPM
Here. 2000-13 RAPM.
If you look at PGs with 70k+ possessions, Kidd's O-RAPM was 7th among PGs with +2.5.
If you move to 100k+ possessions to see the players who were always there, Kidd is 4th.
And while that time frame has Kidd's all seasons as out of prime - old player, it doesn't have 2 good seasons of his prime.

Despite his efficiency issues, Kidd still was a pretty positive impact on offense and he didn't get good teams in his prime to show it with team ORtg numbers.

I don't see those guys as all that bad offensively though tbh. That's my point here. Its better than what LeBron was playing with during his first Cleveland stint for sure and those teams were reaching top 4 in ORtg. Now obviously it helps quite a bit to have LeBron instead of Kidd but that's just my view. I wouldn't say that overall I'm that low on Kidd but just to have him in the top 30-33 that is a point of concern for me. Also the Mavs went from 2nd in ORtg the year before Kidd got there to 8th when he plays in 30 games to 5th the following year. So there wasn't really any improvement other than having a proven pg running the offense rather than guys like Terry and Harris.

If your expectation from someone to be as effective / impactful as the #1 for #30+ spot, then it's mostly on you TBH.

Also, you're talking about Kidd's trade to Dallas as if it happened at the beginning of the season.
The Mavs before Kidd trade; 109.1 ORtg, 105.0 DRtg, +4.1 NRtg
The Mavs with Kidd; 110.2 ORtg, 104.2 DRtg, +6.0 NRtg
The team improved considerably on both ends with him.

Also #2;
Tom Gugliotta and Clifford Robinson were pretty negative impact players on offense. Especially Gugliotta.
Kenyon Martin was average at best. Richard Jefferson became good but for the majority their time together, he was almost negative impact.

Prime Kidd had pretty god awful offensive pieces to play with. There's no way Gugliotta and Robinson were good offensive players...

Hello all, placing my Vote for #30

1. James Harden
2. Scottie Pippen
3. Kawhi Leonard

1. No one else left has Harden's offensive firepower. Think about this, Harden dropped 36 ppg in the modern era! He also accumulated three scoring titles, an MVP, and an assist title. Very few have won both an assist and scoring title in their NBA career. Not to mention he is an 8x all-star, but the thing holding him back the most is lack of Finals appearances and rings. He only has 1 Finals appearance, although I feel if CP3 didn't get hurt in 2018 playoffs then Harden most likely wins his first title and possibly the FMVP. I can't count LeBron out completely in 2018 but if Chris Paul doesn't get hurt in 2018 then Harden likely wins his 1st ring (finally). Harden also has 6x all NBA 1st teams (more than some guys voted before him such as: Barkley, Erving, Dirk, KG, Moses, Robinson, Russell, Curry, Nash, Wade, and Ewing [and Pippen if people are voting him in]). So half the guys listed ahead of him.


2. Talk about a true swiss army knife of basketball talent. The ultimate #2 option for a vast number of reasons. Capable of 20 ppg during an era where most #2 options did not score 20 with consistency. Pippen also is a really good rebounder, and his team's offensive playmaker (assist leader for 3 title runs), the team's defensive anchor, and ultimate glue guy. He only had 2 seasons on his own as the #1 option but already his RS peak was 3rd in MVP voting (1994) so that matches Wade's best MVP run, and bests anything that Ewing, Miller ever did in only 1 year as the #1 option onf his team. And don't forge taht Pippen also has the 6 rings and he was an integral part of those rings. Additionally, Pippen's 8x all Defensive 1st teams is the second most all time and his 10 overall selections is 5th most in NBA HISTORY. Pip also has 3x 1st team all NBA selections, which is more 1st team all NBAs than: Wade, Stockton, Nash, Payton (2) and more than Miller and Ewing (0).

Lastly, his ability to take a 57 win team after losing the greatest player in the world for lowly Pete Myers and only dropping off by 2 wins to 55 in 1994 was beyond incredible. The Bulls lost their leader and best player but still kept on moving under Pippen leadership. I feel Pippen could have won a championship that year if he had someone good (but did not need Jordan) to win it. With a lesser talent than MJ he would have won, even with someone like Reggie or Mitch Richmond could have been enough for Pippen to win that year. Pippen also won over 30 playoff series which is good for 5th all time (if I'm not mistaken). Big time winner, big time longevity, and he really did it all. Pass, Shoot, Defend, Playmake, Lead.

3. Kawhi would be a lot higher if he didn't "load manage" and had more longevity. Only time will tell if this changes but I doubt it. He has done some extraordinary things such as winning back-to-back DPOY awards and 2x FMVP. If I recall correctly only Kawhi and Hakeem have ever achieved such a feat (B2B DPOY winner and winner of 2x FMVP). His 2019 run was also very impressive: 31/9/4 on splits of 49/38/88 (very close to entire 50-40-90 run on over 30 ppg en route to a FMVP. Who here left to rank has done anything close to a Finals run on 31/9/4 with near 50-40-90 splits?

If you value greatness on both ends of the ball then it would be hard to put many guys left ahead of Kawhi. He is elite on both ends, but again, his lack of longevity is hurting his resume along with him needing at least one regular season MVP or Scoring Title. Nearly all of the greats have them but him but I guess if we're voting in Ewing than peak doesn't matter that much so Kawhi should definitely be voted in.

Odinn21 wrote:Kidd's teams lacked offensive talent, big time.

Clifford Robinson, Gugliotta and post injury and still injured Penny Hardaway were his biggest helps in Phoenix.
Then Kerry Kittles, Kenyon Martin and Richard Jefferson in the first half of the NJN span.
Then Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson. This was the biggest help prime Kidd got.
Old, out of prime Kidd joined Nowitzki and those ratings got instantly better.

....

Just checking my memory but I pulled up the stats from Jason Kidd's last year in Phoenix and, sure enough, look, it's Shawn Marion. Previous year Marion was a rookie and really promising but not yet terrific. He had a healthy Antonio McDyess in 98, a healthy Kevin Johnson in 97, as well as Rex Chapman who everyone but me used to like for several years as well as the aforementioned Gugs, Uncle Cliffie and rehabbed Penny. So, he did have some good but not great offensive players around him in Phoenix, if not for long.

Cavsfansince84 wrote:

trex_8063 wrote:

3rd vote: Jason Kidd
Let me be the first to break the ice on another longevity giant. I could be swayed off of him. As I said above there are a number of names I'm tossing around, and this region of my list is very fluid. Although I'd like to see Pippen get this spot, I'd be more or less content with any one of Harden, Havlicek, or Gilmore, too.

I'm not quite ready for Reggie Miller yet, despite him being one of my all-time favorite players (I wore #31 for my highschool team, after Reggie Miller). If it comes to a runoff between Harden and anyone, I'll side with Harden EXCEPT against Havlicek......there I'm [for now] going with John by a hair.

Personally what I don't like about Kidd is the ORtg he was leading his teams to most years. I'm going to go ahead and list all the ORtg's of his teams going back to 96 and its not like those teams were that lacking in offensive talent imo.

19
12
4
16
22
17
18
25
26
25
16
25
5
10
8
22

Worth noting that in the last 4 years he was only averaging 6-8 fgapg. He's also a career -800 ts add player scoring wise. Of course he sort of balances that out with his defense but it just concerns me when a pg can't consistently lead good offenses.

Yeah, Kidd's a tricky one to rank (and I won't say with any certainty that I'm getting it right here). The meh offenses and poor shooting efficiency are not lost on me.
But otoh he's #2 all-time in assists, and in my memory a lot of them are solidly creation assists. To some degree, I think he shot a lot to "sell intent", which aided in creating for others.
I think he might just be [rivalling Magic] the best transition passer of all time (I'll submit the following video for evidence):



And he was voted as the all-time greatest defensive PG in a project we did here a couple years ago.

His RAPM was consistently very good, particularly from '99 and onward. Below is his league-rank in RAPM (PI where available; note the four consecutive seasons in the top 6 in the league, and another top 9):
'99: 24th
'00: 26th
'01 (NPI): tied for 128th [outlier year]
'02: 5th
'03: 5th
'04: tied for 4th
'05: 6th
'06: tied for 17th
'07: tied for 17th
'08: tied for 25th
'09: 9th
'10: tied for 20th

As RAPM is a rate metric, note he was [*basically] >36 mpg ALL of those [12] years, too [*only 35.6 in '09], as high as 41.2 mpg in '99.
Was solid in his final three seasons, too. His best 10-years RAPM is notably above the best 10 years or Chris Bosh, and just barely below that of Kobe Bryant.

Interesting to note that he had really solid ORAPM's for much of this span (was actually 4th in the league in '02, tied for 3rd in '03, tied for 10th in '04, tied for 8th in '05, 10th in '06).

So idk....
Like I said, I'm not 100% set on him being one of my picks; but I definitely think he's a guy who needs to be in the conversation at this point.

penbeast0 wrote:

Odinn21 wrote:Kidd's teams lacked offensive talent, big time.

Clifford Robinson, Gugliotta and post injury and still injured Penny Hardaway were his biggest helps in Phoenix.
Then Kerry Kittles, Kenyon Martin and Richard Jefferson in the first half of the NJN span.
Then Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson. This was the biggest help prime Kidd got.
Old, out of prime Kidd joined Nowitzki and those ratings got instantly better.

....

Just checking my memory but I pulled up the stats from Jason Kidd's last year in Phoenix and, sure enough, look, it's Shawn Marion. Previous year Marion was a rookie and really promising but not yet terrific. He had a healthy Antonio McDyess in 98, a healthy Kevin Johnson in 97, as well as Rex Chapman who everyone but me used to like for several years as well as the aforementioned Gugs, Uncle Cliffie and rehabbed Penny. So, he did have some good but not great offensive players around him in Phoenix, if not for long.

'96 in Dal; 18 games of Mashburn, Jim Jackson, George McCloud
'97 in Pho; Kidd was traded mid season. Half season of KJ
'98 in Pho; McDyess, Robinson, Chapman
'99 in Pho; Gugliotta, Robinson, Chapman
'00 in Pho; rehabbed 22 missed games Penny, Robinson, Gugliotta, Rodgers
'01 in Pho; sophomore Marion, Robinson
'02 in NJ; sophomore Martin, Kittles, Van Horn
'03 in NJ; Martin, sophomore Jefferson, Kittles
'04 in NJ; Martin, Jefferson, Kittles
'05 in NJ; Carter, Jefferson
'06 in NJ; Carter, Jefferson
'07 in NJ; Carter, Jefferson, Kristic

Vince Carter was the only player with constant positive offensive impact that Kidd had as a teammate. Gugliotta, Robinson and Chapman were awful. Especially Gugliotta. I suggest you to take a look at their impact numbers. I'd rather have Antoine Walker jacking 20+ shots per game than Gugliotta jacking 15+ shots per game...
He got only 1 season of good Marion. Then young Martin and Jefferson were slight negative impacts and Kittles was just average.
Even when he increased his production, the only time Richard Jefferson was a positive impact on offense as Kidd's teammate was 2007.
It's just Carter.

Prime Kidd got so bad offensive helps throughout that time line. Having a good offensive cast was like an outlier for him. It's just odd for me that the offensive help Kidd got gets glorified like this.

Odinn21 wrote:If your expectation from someone to be as effective / impactful as the #1 for #30+ spot, then it's mostly on you TBH.

Also, you're talking about Kidd's trade to Dallas as if it happened at the beginning of the season.
The Mavs before Kidd trade; 109.1 ORtg, 105.0 DRtg, +4.1 NRtg
The Mavs with Kidd; 110.2 ORtg, 104.2 DRtg, +6.0 NRtg
The team improved considerably on both ends with him.

Also #2;
Tom Gugliotta and Clifford Robinson were pretty negative impact players on offense. Especially Gugliotta.
Kenyon Martin was average at best. Richard Jefferson became good but for the majority their time together, he was almost negative impact.

Prime Kidd had pretty god awful offensive pieces to play with. There's no way Gugliotta and Robinson were good offensive players...

You left out Carter though who was one of the best wing scorers of the entire 00's and Jefferson was putting up 20+ppg on above average ts%. I wouldn't call those improvements as considerable either(in reference to the O/DRtg). I mean I don't care where people rank Kidd I just think for purposes of debating it that its kind of a misrepresentation.

Cavsfansince84 wrote:

Odinn21 wrote:If your expectation from someone to be as effective / impactful as the #1 for #30+ spot, then it's mostly on you TBH.

Also, you're talking about Kidd's trade to Dallas as if it happened at the beginning of the season.
The Mavs before Kidd trade; 109.1 ORtg, 105.0 DRtg, +4.1 NRtg
The Mavs with Kidd; 110.2 ORtg, 104.2 DRtg, +6.0 NRtg
The team improved considerably on both ends with him.

Also #2;
Tom Gugliotta and Clifford Robinson were pretty negative impact players on offense. Especially Gugliotta.
Kenyon Martin was average at best. Richard Jefferson became good but for the majority their time together, he was almost negative impact.

Prime Kidd had pretty god awful offensive pieces to play with. There's no way Gugliotta and Robinson were good offensive players...

You left out Carter though who was one of the best wing scorers of the entire 00's and Jefferson was putting up 20+ppg on above average ts%. I wouldn't call those improvements as considerable either(in reference to the O/DRtg). I mean I don't care where people rank Kidd I just think for purposes of debating it that its kind of a misrepresentation.

I didn't leave out Carter...
"Then Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson. This was the biggest help prime Kidd got."

I also addressed that in my response to penbeast0.

---

The reason why Kidd's teams didn't have good ORtg numbers; the most of the time the help Kidd got was not per possession efficient.
It sure is worth mentioning that Kidd's efficiency hurt his per possession efficiency. And it had an impact on team ORtg numbers. But Carter is the only 3+ OBPM player (also the only player who had positive impact on offense) Kidd got to play next to. It's no secret that Kidd wasn't Nash or Paul on offense, but holding not having per possession efficient and positive impact rosters on offense against Kidd doesn't make sense to me.

---

Edit #2;
The way you argued sounded like you have a bias BTW, I must say. You overlooked the fact that Kidd was traded mid season (played 29 games for Dallas), made a direct comparison between 2006-07 and 2007-08 versions. I posted about that. You did not adress any of my points in your response, and said I left out Carter even though I clearly mentioned him in my first post about this topic.

Misrepresentation? I think you misrepresented Kidd's situation a lot more than I did.

Odinn21 wrote:I didn't leave out Carter...
"Then Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson. This was the biggest help prime Kidd got."

I also addressed that in my response to penbeast0.

---

The reason why Kidd's teams didn't have good ORtg numbers; the most of the time the help Kidd got was not per possession efficient.
It sure is worth mentioning that Kidd's efficiency hurt his per possession efficiency. And it had an impact on team ORtg numbers. But Carter is the only 3+ OBPM player (also the only player who had positive impact on offense) Kidd got to play next to. It's no secret that Kidd wasn't Nash or Paul on offense, but holding not having per possession efficient and positive impact rosters on offense against Kidd doesn't make sense to me.

---

Edit #2;
The way you argued sounded like you have a bias BTW, I must say. You overlooked the fact that Kidd was traded mid season (played 29 games for Dallas), made a direct comparison between 2006-07 and 2007-08 versions. I posted about that. You did not adress any of my points in your response, and said I left out Carter even though I clearly mentioned him in my first post about this topic.

Misrepresentation? I think you misrepresented Kidd's situation a lot more than I did.

I didn't see the mention of Carter. I mentioned that Dallas was #2 in ORtg the year before Kidd was traded there and that the differences in ORtg and DRtg you referenced were not considerable imo. That's not a bias, I am just debating what I think are somewhat pertinent details when trying to figure out how to properly rank Kidd among other guys who are also atg's. I am bringing up things which I think should be addressed.