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Was thinking about this. I don't have a hard ranking, but I am probably significantly higher on Nash than most. I don't think there have been 15 players better than him. Probably have been 10 guys better.

Anybody else have a player like that? I'm sure some are very interesting.

Well, I can pinpoint that exactly cause I did the comparison a while ago, lol. My tentative top 75 list (2021) vs the RealGM top 100 list (2020):



So I guess it's Worthy, Wilkins, T-Mac, Carter, McHale, Kevin Johnston and Terry Porter for the ones with big differences. Plus Garnett I guess.

i think i would be higher on peak westbrook than most here

fairly lower on klay than most

i am guessing those two are where i differ from the consensus the most

Defensive stars like Mutombo or Thurmond.

I have kobe at 7-ish prolly so that’s prolly a big jump

I'd say Oscar but the responses to my thread comparing Oscar and Bird indicate that the opinion of Oscar might be higher than I anticipated? I guess I'll be curious to see where he ranks in the next Top 100

I don't think I'm that much higher on anyone except compared to some people whose criteria varies greatly from what I base these lists on. Which I think generally means guys from the 50's and 60's. I'm high on most of the stars from that era compared to most people though not on guys whose primes were very short. Johnston to me is a guy I would have in my top 75 but who I don't think made the most recent top 100 and what aggravated me about that is he checked a lot of boxes that people were using to promote other players who didn't accomplish near as much as he did imo. Greer to some degree is another one. He checks so many boxes that I think he should have gone higher. DeBusschere is another though part of that is intangibles. Those 3 come to mind.

Jaivl wrote:Well, I can pinpoint that exactly cause I did the comparison a while ago, lol. My tentative top 75 list (2021) vs the RealGM top 100 list (2020).

This is actually probably the best way to handle this. My list doesn't go as deep, but top 15:

1. Michael Jordan +1
2. Bill Russell + 2
3. LeBron James -2
4. Tim Duncan +1
5. Kareem-Abdul Jabbar -2
6. Kevin Garnett +5
7. Hakeem Olajuwon +2
8. Magic Johnson -1
9. Shaquille O'Neal -1
10. Stephen Curry +14
11. Oscar Robertson +3
12. Steve Nash +15
13. David Robinson +4
14. Larry Bird -4
15. Dirk Nowitzki 0

Notes/Internal Monologue:

• Chris Paul and John Stockton might belong here too actually. Both guys had monster +/- scores for a long time. Not as high as Nash's/Robinson's highs, but they sustained for longer.

• I also worry I am biased against Kobe and Wilt, and they should be top 15 locks. Hope this isn't sacrilege.

• It's possible that Kareem, Hakeem, and Shaq should be lower if +/- is my primary metric. Then again, I believe in WOWYR less strongly than I did in the past.

• From a +/- POV, is there any reason Jordan and Russell should be 1 and 2? Maybe my assumptions are incorrect from the top down.

• If I am okay putting guys with shorter careers/primes this high, should Giannis/Jokic qualify?

• Moses Malone - how to treat him? I think he was up and down based on the Pollack numbers.

• Bob Cousy is also intriguing.

70sFan wrote:Defensive stars like Mutombo or Thurmond.

Consistent and outstanding defensive players 1-4 who were also efficient scorers and decent passers or off ball players like Larry Nance, Bobby Jones, Shawn Marion, Joe Caldwell, Sidney Moncrief, Walt Frazier, etc.

John Havichek. I think he was misused in Auerbach offensive system. As soon as Russell left, he was used differently and started to hit his peak

Bob Lanier
Karl Malone

Pau Gasol, Rasheed Wallace, Scottie Pippen.

This is a little bit harder than the lower than list but I'll throw out

Stockton - I think there is a possibility that Stockton is the greatest passer ever in the same way that Curry is the best shooter ever and Russell is the best shotblocker ever. When added to great efficiency, defense and absurd health and longevity it is quite a complete package. His weaknesses are two of the most overrated things historically in scoring points and rings.

Pettit - He comes into the league 2 years before Russell, 5 years before Wilt and 6 years before Oscar/West, sometimes it gets treated like he's from a more distant era than he is. His last handful of All NBA teams it's like Oscar, West, Baylor, Russell/Wilt and him. The league had stepped up and he kept pace. I think he should be downgraded compared to a player like Malone/Dirk sure, but then again you could say the same for the other 60s stars.

Lucas - Lucas is 1st team All NBA 3 times in good 60s seasons (65, 66, 68) and is really impressive offensively for his era. Furthermore, I have Lucas first season for the Knicks as one of the most underrated. This was not McAdoo on the Lakers style, he is a 38mpg starter in his prime and has an argument for second best player on finals team, it's plausible that was actually his best season.

Davis - while unfortunately his prime may be short if he doesn't turn it around, I think some of the years he did have is enormously good, like playing at a top 20 all time caliber level. Enough to on its own give him a good ranking even with shorter longevity. I'll be interested to see where he ranks on the next ATL.

Lillard - While never true MVP level I like his 8 year run before this season of high quality offensive play, low maintenance, and arguably the 2nd best shooter of all time which is a major asset on offense. I don't buy the Blazers ever had contending level rosters.

Dr Positivity wrote:Stockton - I think there is a possibility that Stockton is the greatest passer ever in the same way that Curry is the best shooter ever

That doesn't feel right at all. Not having watched him, not analyzing him after the fact. That's a whole thread on his own, but like, volume isn't ability and there are lots of things to suggest that this evaluation isn't true.

Pettit - He comes into the league 2 years before Russell, 5 years before Wilt and 6 years before Oscar/West, sometimes it gets treated like he's from a more distant era than he is. His last handful of All NBA teams it's like Oscar, West, Baylor, Russell/Wilt and him. The league had stepped up and he kept pace. I think he should be downgraded compared to a player like Malone/Dirk sure, but then again you could say the same for the other 60s stars.

Pettit is an interesting case. A player a little ahead of his time. But yeah, he never had the opportunity to really show and prove himself in a more developed league. Still, his relative efficiency remained very strong over his decade of play. That's fairly telling. But he was very good at drawing fouls even into his early thirties back then, when that was quite old for the sport (it's still not young now, hehe). I think he suffers for lack of accolades, lack of titles, lack of a lot. Good player, but the upper echelon of the NBA is crowded after decades and decades of players achieving, so some people eventually slide and he's one of them. He does have MVPs, but none of them in the 60s, both in the 50s. He does have a title, though Russell missed two games and only played 20 minutes in the close-out. You can only play the games you can play, of course, so maybe that means less than some think. Either way, he was a prototype for future athletic PFs, and that's something, for sure.

Lucas - Lucas is 1st team All NBA 3 times in good 60s seasons (65, 66, 68) and is really impressive offensively for his era. Furthermore, I have Lucas first season for the Knicks as one of the most underrated. This was not McAdoo on the Lakers style, he is a 38mpg starter in his prime and has an argument for second best player on finals team.

Passing big, for sure, impressive in that regard. Pretty efficient scorer relative to his era. Actually pretty efficient in general until you get to pretty much the current age. Was a 54.4% TS guy with 5 seasons at 55%+ and he led the league twice, topping out at 59.0%.

Hard for him to really gain a lot of purchase in ATG rankings at the upper levels because he didn't have huge longevity, MVPs, and because he was only a 28 mpg player on the lone title team for which he played. Very good, but lacks the resume to really stand up next to a lot of other guys. And of course as a big, he's got to compete with some of the best players in league history to gain any traction, and he just didn't have it against that caliber of player.

Lillard - While never true MVP level I like his 8 year run before this season of high quality offensive play, low maintenance, and arguably the 2nd best shooter of all time. I don't buy the Blazers ever had contending level rosters.

The ultimate high-variance guy, like he wished he was Steph but just couldn't quite do it. Still pretty good overall. Nice peak from 18-21, though. Got it together in the playoffs in 2020 and 2021, too, which was nice. Limited value based on what he did and did not accomplish and his play relative to his peers. I think he's got maybe one season you can argue him top 5 in the league, which limits how high he can ever be looked at in an all-time context.

tsherkin wrote:

Dr Positivity wrote:Stockton - I think there is a possibility that Stockton is the greatest passer ever in the same way that Curry is the best shooter ever

That doesn't feel right at all. Not having watched him, not analyzing him after the fact. That's a whole thread on his own, but like, volume isn't ability and there are lots of things to suggest that this evaluation isn't true.

....

It's hard not to see at least a possibility of it. Stockton is the greatest volume assist generator of all time, which isn't a perfect correllary for playmaking but is as good a one as we have. He has one of the highest assist/to rate ever (not the highest) so his assists aren't from just ball dominance and forcing them. He carried teams to top 6 efficiency offenses every year once he got a second good option other than Karl Malone in Jeff Hornacek despite weak offensive starters at C (Felton Spencer/Greg Ostertag/Adam Keefe/Olden Polynice) and SF (David Benoit/Byron Russell).

Compare to SSOL Suns or Showtime Lakers where they generally had 4-5 solid offensive players on the floor and stronger reserves as well. Stockton holds up in pretty much any statistical analysis against pretty much anyone in league history. I can see arguments for Magic, Nash, or Paul as the greatest playmaker in league history but they aren't slam dunks. There are also arguments for Stockton.

penbeast0 wrote:

tsherkin wrote:

Dr Positivity wrote:Stockton - I think there is a possibility that Stockton is the greatest passer ever in the same way that Curry is the best shooter ever

That doesn't feel right at all. Not having watched him, not analyzing him after the fact. That's a whole thread on his own, but like, volume isn't ability and there are lots of things to suggest that this evaluation isn't true.

....

It's hard not to see at least a possibility of it. Stockton is the greatest volume assist generator of all time, which isn't a perfect correllary for playmaking but is as good a one as we have. He has one of the highest assist/to rate ever (not the highest) so his assists aren't from just ball dominance and forcing them. He carried teams to top 6 efficiency offenses every year once he got a second good option other than Karl Malone in Jeff Hornacek despite weak offensive starters at C (Felton Spencer/Greg Ostertag/Adam Keefe/Olden Polynice) and SF (David Benoit/Byron Russell).

Compare to SSOL Suns or Showtime Lakers where they generally had 4-5 solid offensive players on the floor and stronger reserves as well. Stockton holds up in pretty much any statistical analysis against pretty much anyone in league history. I can see arguments for Magic, Nash, or Paul as the greatest playmaker in league history but they aren't slam dunks. There are also arguments for Stockton.

stockton is a bit like chris paul passing wise, give and take a few assists and a few turnovers

and almost nobody takes chris paul seriously in comparisions to nash and magic (not sure if correctly tbh, i think people have strong bias against "conservative" passers, and a positive bias for agressive passers like nasgmh and magic)

falcolombardi wrote:
stockton is a bit like chris paul passing wise, give and take a few assists and a few turnovers

There is a LARGE difference in their efficacy as passers with respect to turnovers. Also, Stockton never took 12.0 FGA/g in his career. Paul averages 13.5 on his career 13.9 with the Clippers and 14.0 with the Hornets/Pelicans. There is an order of difference in shooting volume, dribble attack and so forth, so his turnover rate relative to Stockton's cannot be dismissed as "a few turnovers."

and almost nobody takes chris paul seriously in comparisions to nash and magic (not sure if correctly tbh, i think people have strong bias against "conservative" passers, and a positive bias for agressive passers like nasgmh and magic)

I think that has more to do with him not running ATG offenses than anything else, to be fair, but he also never really had running mates like those guys did, even in terms of like the way the 2010 Suns were set up.

penbeast0 wrote:It's hard not to see at least a possibility of it. Stockton is the greatest volume assist generator of all time, which isn't a perfect correllary for playmaking but is as good a one as we have.

"Shoots less to pass more" smells more like Rondo than like Magic. Obviously, that's a wild oversimplification and Stockton was much better than that. And even ElGee's Box Creation reflects that Stockton was a very good playmaker, just overstated value from volume. When you sacrifice shots and play at a higher tempo, volume stats bear out. No one sane is mistaking Rondo for one of the greatest playmakers of all time with his APG or his couple of APG titles, you know what I mean?

He has one of the highest assist/to rate ever (not the highest) so his assists aren't from just ball dominance and forcing them. He carried teams to top 6 efficiency offenses every year once he got a second good option other than Karl Malone in Jeff Hornacek despite weak offensive starters at C (Felton Spencer/Greg Ostertag/Adam Keefe/Olden Polynice) and SF (David Benoit/Byron Russell).

And yet a lot of his assists were hanging tight until half-court action unearthed a pass. He was a VERY good pocket passer, good int transition, like certainly Stockton belongs on a list of top-end playmakers. But too often, people see the volume and don't consider context. He definitely wasn't the most visionary passer we've seen. He's solidly one of the top 3-5 PnR passers we've seen, though, which is a major accomplishment.

I see what you're saying. And of course, it's always hard to be on the opposite side of a debate like this because I don't actually want to sit here crapping on Stockton. I have a healthy dose of respect for his utility as a playmaker, and mostly kvetch and moan about his inefficacy as a major scoring threat as his most significant limitation as an ATG running mate for Malone, you know? It behooves one to look at how other players have fared in Sloan's system, though, and we can see that they generated assists well enough because it was very much a system which generated easy passes with off-ball action for the point guy to hit with simple, linear passes most of the time, plus a healthy dose of PnR/P. That's a little different than some of what we saw from other guys, who had a very generic "this is our general outline, have at 'er" type stuff like with Showtime. And there weren't brilliant offenses architected in New Orleans, just some basic "here you go, spam PnR" kind of stuff, and Paul was doing that with like David West and some spare parts a lot of the time. No disrespect to West, but he wasn't exactly Malone and that offensive structure wasn't exactly Sloan caliber.

So again, with the baseline acknowledgement that Stockton was still one of the best we've seen as a playmaker for sure, I don't personally subscribe to the idea that he's there in the GOAT playmaker conversation too strongly because of some of his limitations and the way in which he generated so many of his assists.

tsherkin wrote:That doesn't feel right at all. Not having watched him, not analyzing him after the fact. That's a whole thread on his own, but like, volume isn't ability and there are lots of things to suggest that this evaluation isn't true.

This seems to be the most accepted view, and I'm not necessarily saying it's wrong, but just throwing it out there... Are we positive it's correct? A duck could be a goose in this case (Stockton has better assist rate than players like Magic and Nash, but is actually worse because his passes are weaker difficulty) or... a duck could actually be a duck.

If Stockton and Curry comp is too far, would we say Miller's shooting ability is a better comparison for Stockton's passing level? Since Miller is considered one of the best shooters after Curry, this seems reasonable. However, the stats would suggest this is not a close comparison. Stockton is WAY dominant in assist category than Miller is in 3s. Stockton is crushing the league in ast and ast%, and most years it's not even close, especially after Magic retires he is ripping off years where he's a full 10% higher than anyone else in ast% and usually 2-3 higher in assists per game. He leads the league in ast % 14 straight years. Reggie on the other hand, actually separates himself surprisingly little from the pack as the best 3pt shooter of his era. He leads the league in 3pt makes twice, and never in 3p%. A lot of players like Price, Ellis, Scott, Rice, Majerle, Hawkins, etc. are having similar seasons in volume and %. There is nothing really wrong with that, but he's just not a freak in his category like Stockton's assists, Rodman's rebounding and Curry's 3s. It's downgrading Stockton quite a lot to treat him as mortal as a passer based on the assumption that his passes are not as hard as players like Nash, Magic and Paul. On that note I'm not sure it's possible to put up 14 assists per game seasons playing like a rich man's Calderon which is how people treat it sometimes, and when it comes to the idea that Malone helped his stats, other players high on the passing list also played with some great offensive players (Kareem/Worthy, Amare, etc.), and the Jazz supporting cast on offense outside of Malone is pretty lame.

A player like Bobby Jones. Absolute elite defender--in terms of pure technique he is the best I ever saw--yet efficient on the offensive end from any position he played and a smart, effective passer.

SkyHookFTW wrote:A player like Bobby Jones. Absolute elite defender--in terms of pure technique he is the best I ever saw--yet efficient on the offensive end from any position he played and a smart, effective passer.

I wonder how he would do on those mid-1960s 76er teams

Jerry West, Chris Paul, Reggie Miller, and Steph definitely.




Big emphasis on Reggie Miller here.

I mean I guess you could say 93-95 was his peak, and the man put up all-time scoring numbers in the PS.

Post-Season Scoring (93-95):
29.3 Inflation Adjusted pts/75 (+10.1 rTS)
8.1 FTA/75

In this 3-year stretch, Miller faced off against historic defenses such as the Atlanta Hawks and the New York Knicks in over half of his playoff series. A special mention needs to be given to the 1993 Knicks (-8.3 rDRTG, 4th best ever) and the 1994 Knicks (-8.1 rDRTG, 5th best ever).

And this was a guy with some serious longevity.

34-year-old Reggie Miller was the best offensive player on a Finals-bound Pacers team.

In the playoffs (per 75)
• 23.9 Points
• 2.4 Rebounds
• 2.7 Assists
• 6.7 3PAs (+4.4 r3P%)
• 59.6 TS% (+8.9 rTS%)
• Against a tough slate of defenses too. The defenses were -2.4 points better than average.


Also, imagine CP3 ranks lower to others may be due to never winning a chip. But I don't buy him never being clutch.