RealGM

Using peak to mean at least a 3-4 year sample since usually guys improve at this over time but it needs to at least coincide with their prime. This is mainly about everything to do with leadership, developing chemistry with teammates(on and off court), bbiq to some degree and also penalizing for shortcomings that relate to this. This doesn't mean I think these 4 are the best at this either, its just the 4 I wanted to compare.

If it’s the board’s general idea of peak
Duncan
LeBron
Bird
MJ

Under your definition of peak
Duncan
Bird
LeBron
MJ

Statlanta wrote:If it’s the board’s general idea of peak
Duncan
LeBron
Bird
MJ

Under your definition of peak
Duncan
Bird
LeBron
MJ

Interesting because I wasn't sure that Duncan would get any votes.

Cavsfansince84 wrote:

Statlanta wrote:If it’s the board’s general idea of peak
Duncan
LeBron
Bird
MJ

Under your definition of peak
Duncan
Bird
LeBron
MJ

Interesting because I wasn't sure that Duncan would get any votes.

Why? Duncan intangibles destroy lol

MyUniBroDavis wrote:
Why? Duncan intangibles destroy lol

Well obviously I think highly enough of them to put him in this poll. I just wasn't sure how many people would actually vote for him.

Duncan was a true definition of lead by example.

Mj and Lebron getting 0 votes is funny but probably fair. Goat level talent+goat level intangibles probably hasn’t happened and may not in our lifetime.

MyUniBroDavis wrote:

Cavsfansince84 wrote:

Statlanta wrote:If it’s the board’s general idea of peak
Duncan
LeBron
Bird
MJ

Under your definition of peak
Duncan
Bird
LeBron
MJ

Interesting because I wasn't sure that Duncan would get any votes.

Why? Duncan intangibles destroy lol

bird ruined his own team's chances by getting in a bar fight
mj alienated his owner for trying to get a lottery pick
legm trading for westbrook was probably not idea though he also got the lakers ad so :shrug:

Duncan isn't really facing good comp here

I tend to agree that Duncan's the best here. His cultural leadership / coachability / franchise-cornerstone-ness is GOAT-level. That's if you're talking about off-the-court intangibles. To me, to make an argument for the other guys, you'd have to invoke on-court intangibles (e.g. BBIQ).

Speaking of off-the-court intangibles, I have a question for people. There's a pattern in free agency where "Everyone wants to play for LeBron." The lakers (and the nets) snatched up the vast majority of available free agent veterans in 2021, and it's a pattern that's existed for a while.

Q - How much credit should we give LeBron for being fairly attractive to free agents? Does this give him a a boost (because in theory it can help his team) in a way that wouldn't be captured by most on-court data?
Similarly, if we're giving credit to LeBron for attracting good free agents, should we dock LeBron for attracting bad free agents? It's hard to see the Lakers' decision to sell-the-farm (goodbye Caruso!) for Russel Westbrook and co as a success in 2022. Should we dock LeBron for this kind of off-court leadership/intangibles?

i think the cavs in the 2015 finals played about as hard as any team i've ever seen and i think it was literally because they didn't want to let lebron down. hell, i remember mozgov actually saying that in an interview after either game 2 or 3 and thinking it lined up with what i was seeing. i think almost independent of the organization, coach, opponent, he almost willed a championship out of effort from his teammates, up to and including dellavedova going to the hospital after one game. i don't know if that's the intangibles we're talking about (and isn't really 3-4 years), but i don't know if i've ever felt a team was playing for one of their teammates legacies like that. like they somehow owed it to him to not just quit after the injuries.


to me it's the same thing as jordan basically making the bulls cool with all of rodman's antics. basically his combo of fear/respect just said you guys are going to put up with his schtick whether you want to or not, because i said so.


duncan's intangibles seem to be that he showed up with a great team and genius coach/drill sergeant popovich and wasn't a demarcus cousins-level asshat and let pop do his thing to keep everyone in line and on target for 20 straight years while he just played basketball.

Duncan has GOAT argument here, not sure how to judge Bird vs him but he could be high as well. Jordan is definitely last, leaving Lebron at 3rd who does some weird things like subtweet KLove and his relationship with Kyrie self destructed, he has better leadership than 99% of players just not sure it's on the level of Duncan and Bird.

f4p wrote:i think the cavs in the 2015 finals played about as hard as any team i've ever seen and i think it was literally because they didn't want to let lebron down. hell, i remember mozgov actually saying that in an interview after either game 2 or 3 and thinking it lined up with what i was seeing. i think almost independent of the organization, coach, opponent, he almost willed a championship out of effort from his teammates, up to and including dellavedova going to the hospital after one game. i don't know if that's the intangibles we're talking about (and isn't really 3-4 years), but i don't know if i've ever felt a team was playing for one of their teammates legacies like that. like they somehow owed it to him to not just quit after the injuries.


to me it's the same thing as jordan basically making the bulls cool with all of rodman's antics. basically his combo of fear/respect just said you guys are going to put up with his schtick whether you want to or not, because i said so.


duncan's intangibles seem to be that he showed up with a great team and genius coach/drill sergeant popovich and wasn't a demarcus cousins-level asshat and let pop do his thing to keep everyone in line and on target for 20 straight years while he just played basketball.

I think you make some reasonable points here. Everything you said can be factored into intangibles imo. I don't see it as clearly Duncan here and I think good arguments can probably be made for all 4.

Cavsfansince84 wrote:Using peak to mean at least a 3-4 year sample since usually guys improve at this over time but it needs to at least coincide with their prime. This is mainly about everything to do with leadership, developing chemistry with teammates(on and off court), bbiq to some degree and also penalizing for shortcomings that relate to this. This doesn't mean I think these 4 are the best at this either, its just the 4 I wanted to compare.

I said LeBron, and specifically I'd say it was in his first Cavs run. Of the group I'd say he has the most capacity for strongest leadership, but once he started focusing on playing GM, and seeing his role players as disposable trade assets, it was never the same.

Jordan was probably the one with the most consistent, strong positive impact on this front during his prime, but it was a brutal, fragile approach to leadership that just became toxic when his game slipped.

Duncan is the one whose leadership/intangible remained positive the whole time and kept growing the entire time, but fundamentally this is a quiet man who became a leader when people started looking to follow his example, not someone who you could expect to quickly take control as a leader and push, push, push those around him the way a transformative leader would.

And I'd tend to see Bird as somewhere in between Jordan & Duncan. Less bold & toxic than Jordan, less quiet & passive than Duncan. Could argue that he had the best per-season leadership impact over the course of his career of anyone on this list, but LeBron has the peak, Jordan the prime, and Duncan the total career advantage.

Doctor MJ wrote:
I said LeBron, and specifically I'd say it was in his first Cavs run. Of the group I'd say he has the most capacity for strongest leadership, but once he started focusing on playing GM, and seeing his role players as disposable trade assets, it was never the same.

Jordan was probably the one with the most consistent, strong positive impact on this front during his prime, but it was a brutal, fragile approach to leadership that just became toxic when his game slipped.

Duncan is the one whose leadership/intangible remained positive the whole time and kept growing the entire time, but fundamentally this is a quiet man who became a leader when people started looking to follow his example, not someone who you could expect to quickly take control as a leader and push, push, push those around him the way a transformative leader would.

And I'd tend to see Bird as somewhere in between Jordan & Duncan. Less bold & toxic than Jordan, less quiet & passive than Duncan. Could argue that he had the best per-season leadership impact over the course of his career of anyone on this list, but LeBron has the peak, Jordan the prime, and Duncan the total career advantage.

Personally I haven't decided who to vote for yet but as a Cavs fan I sort of think he peaked in his 15-18 years. His first Cavs run is probably underrated in this regard but I think he had growth he still needed to do and the 2010 playoffs are an example of this. Even 2018 with the 'get rid of everybody' demand ultimately worked out for the best and I think how quickly that team was able to gel and buy into their roles is a good example of overall leadership. We've never seen anything like that before in terms of a team roster getting totally revamped halfway in and then that team making a finals.

Bird
MJ
Lebron
Duncan

Leadership and intangibles is so vague that every ranking is both right and wrong because there’s no set of criteria to actually quantify anything.

This is just an exercise of who peoples favorite player is in order

jasonxxx102 wrote:Leadership and intangibles is so vague that every ranking is both right and wrong because there’s no set of criteria to actually quantify anything.

This is just an exercise of who peoples favorite player is in order

Agreed. Duncan was so good at leading... he lead Team USA to its only non-gold finish since the Olympics went pro, lol. Where was the leadership and intangibles then? How come he gets a pass for what should be a huge blemish?

The guy also did not score more than 20 PPG after his foot issues started in 2004-05 and became a floor-raiser rather than a ceiling-raiser after that. Yet RealGM tries to paint him as a Top 5 player and with the 6th highest peak, lol. It's quite baffling because whenever the Lakers played the Spurs from 2002 onward, Kobe was always the best player on the court. Even in that 2002-03 WCSF, which is Duncan's best season, Kobe outplayed Duncan in 5 of the 6 games of that series.

So my guess is that these guys are basing their takes more on retrospective statistical evaluation rather than from actually watching all of the games back then. Duncan was a great player but not this mythical Top 5 All-Time, so they need to throw in stuff like this "leadership and intangibles" thing to make the take seem more plausible than it actually is.

IMO some credit that should be going to Pop is going to Duncan in this poll.

jasonxxx102 wrote:Leadership and intangibles is so vague that every ranking is both right and wrong because there’s no set of criteria to actually quantify anything.

This is just an exercise of who peoples favorite player is in order

The criteria is however you define it and apply those things to these players. I don't think its all about bias or favorite. It is possible to be objective while trying to decide which player had the best intangibles. Is it a clear thing? no but that's why its called intangibles.

Too vague to answer imo. Because team culture can also play apart in this which some players can’t necessarily influence