RealGM

I’m bored so here’s my top 50 players ever. Please tell me what you would change and how you like the list I’m bored and want People to talk to me

1. LeBron James
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Michael Jordan

4. Shaquille O’Neal
5. Tim Duncan
6. Kobe Bryant
7. Hakeem Olajuwon

8. Wilt Chamberlain
9. Bill Russell

10. Kevin Garnett
11. Larry Bird
12. Magic Johnson

13. Karl Malone
14. Steph curry
15. Oscar Robertson
16. Chris Paul
17. Dirk Nowitzki
18. Jerry West
19. Kevin Durant
20. David Robinson

21. Dwyane Wade
22. Steve Nash
23. Julius Erving
24. Charles Barkley
25. James Harden

26. John Stockton
27. Patrick Ewing
28. Moses Malone
29. Scottie Pippen
30. Reggie Miller

31. Jason Kidd
32. Rick Barry
33. John Havlicek
34. Giannis Antetokoumnpo
35. Kawhi Leonard

36. Anthony Davis
37. Russell Westbrook
38. Walt Frazier
39. Dwight Howard
40. Elgin Baylor
41. Kevin McHale
42. Paul Pierce

43. Ray Allen
44. Allen Iverson
45. Gary Payton
46. Clyde Drexler
47. George Gervin
48. Isiah Thomas
49. Alonzo Mourning
50. Tracy McGrady

So what's the case for shaq over duncan? Duncan grades out as the better regular season/postseason peak in everything that isn't box-aggregates, obviously has better intangibles, and has an advantage in terms of longevity while winning more rings and accolades.

Been going pretty back and forth with Duncan and Shaq but i think Shaq has a pretty clear advantage peak wise and I’m starting to become lower on Duncan’s Longevity. I lean towards longevity so I typically but Duncan over Shaq but decided to give the edge to Shaq today

ceoofkobefans wrote:I’m bored so here’s my top 50 players ever. Please tell me what you would change and how you like the list I’m bored and want People to talk to me

I think it is a fair enough list. Interesting blend of your own fandom with what seems to be a more “Thinking Basketball” approach for longer careers and a more peak/prime weighted approach for active players or other “short-lived” careers.

ceoofkobefans wrote:Been going pretty back and forth with Duncan and Shaq but i think Shaq has a pretty clear advantage peak wise and I’m starting to become lower on Duncan’s Longevity. I lean towards longevity so I typically but Duncan over Shaq but decided to give the edge to Shaq today

Could you elaborate on this?

Impact stuff unanimously favors duncan for the regular season and post-season as far as I know. Even things that should skew towards offense like ben's bpm have duncan grading out ahead. What's your reasoning for shaq having a significant advantage here. Is it a "portability" thing?

Also not a stat, but duncan having one of the handful of 1-star rings feels notable to me.

OhayoKD wrote:Impact stuff unanimously favors duncan for the regular season and post-season as far as I know. Even things that should skew towards offense like ben's bpm have duncan grading out ahead. What's your reasoning for shaq having a significant advantage here. Is it a "portability" thing?

Hmm?

Ben's BPM has Duncan topping out at 6.5, while Shaq had a season of 7.3.Has him topping out at 4.6 OBPM and Duncan at 3.7, obviously making up the difference on O.

He did say "peak," not "prime to prime."

I'll allow CEOofKobeFans to be a bit higher on Kobe than I feel he should go

I'd like to see Russell higher, but if you go heavily peak/skillset evaluation I think that's understandable.

Looks pretty decent overall. Missing a few of the very early guys, but I understand not wanting to rank guys we've rarely seen - Mikan, Pettit, and Schayes stand out to me (maybe Cousy, Arizin, or Jones depending on what you value).

Maybe look into some more Gilmore, especially his ABA days?

tsherkin wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:Impact stuff unanimously favors duncan for the regular season and post-season as far as I know. Even things that should skew towards offense like ben's bpm have duncan grading out ahead. What's your reasoning for shaq having a significant advantage here. Is it a "portability" thing?

Hmm?

Ben's BPM has Duncan topping out at 6.5, while Shaq had a season of 7.3.Has him topping out at 4.6 OBPM and Duncan at 3.7, obviously making up the difference on O.

He did say "peak," not "prime to prime."

I thought i remembered a video where duncan's 3 year BPM was #1 though...maybe that's a playoff specific thing? Or I'm an idiot and that was AUPM.

I don't know how specifically 03 compares with 00 in that stuff though id I had to guess, based on the big 3 year advantage, and 60 wins+elevation in creation and scoring in the postseason, i would expect 03 to look better? Shaq's defense also apparently collapsed in the 2000 postseason unlike duncan's and i'm skeptical duncan isn't starting from a higher place in the rs.

OhayoKD wrote:So what's the case for shaq over duncan? Duncan grades out as the better regular season/postseason peak in everything that isn't box-aggregates, obviously has better intangibles, and has an advantage in terms of longevity while winning more rings and accolades.

Whatever 5-year RAPM Ben uses here, has Shaq ahead of Duncan, as well as some of the WOWY regressions (look at the chart).

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/03/29/backpicks-goat-5-shaquille-oneal/

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/03/22/backpicks-goat-7-tim-duncan/

He also does peak higher in RS Backpicks BPM (though perhaps more offensively slanted than some might like) and AuPM/G (uses Backpicks BPM in the calculation)

Those would be some of the numbers.

Hmmm I'm missing Mikan/Pettit and Kobe is expectedly high, but it seems pretty reasonable.

LukaTheGOAT wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:So what's the case for shaq over duncan? Duncan grades out as the better regular season/postseason peak in everything that isn't box-aggregates, obviously has better intangibles, and has an advantage in terms of longevity while winning more rings and accolades.

Whatever 5-year RAPM Ben uses here, has Shaq ahead of Duncan, as well as some of the WOWY regressions (look at the chart).

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/03/29/backpicks-goat-5-shaquille-oneal/

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/03/22/backpicks-goat-7-tim-duncan/

He also does peak higher in RS Backpicks BPM (though perhaps more offensively slanted than some might like) and AuPM/G (uses Backpicks BPM in the calculation)

Those would be some of the numbers.

Huh. Guess it's not clear-cut then. Though I'm kind of confused because he has duncan's aupm alot higher here:
https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/06/10/aupm-2-0-the-top-playoff-performers-of-the-databall-era/

All the 5 year rapm i've seen has favored duncan, for example:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/q50ucn/5_year_rapm_peaks_1997_to_2021_regular_season/
Also owly and squared circle's had duncan higher irrc.

RS goes lebron, duncan/kg, shaq from what i've seen posted on realgm.

Also what wowy sample is ben using, did duncan miss significant time?

Duncan’s post-prime WOWY is somewhat uninspiring — although I suppose you could say Shaq is not faring any better on that front.

Prime WOWY, 1997-2008, the Spurs were something like 22-20 (.524 win percentage, 43-win pace) without Duncan and 593-235 (.716 win percentage, 59-win pace) with Duncan. Good results, but not overwhelming (without any more committed SRS analysis). I could manipulate that a bit by shorting the prime years, but I think that is a reasonably honest reflection of his value over the period, because even looking more narrowly at something like 2002-07 does not really change much.

Prime Shaq though to my eyes does not definitively seem to top that. Perhaps if you specifically hone in on 1999-2004? 25-32 (.439 win percentage, 36-win pace) without, and 293-110 (.727 win percentage, 60-win pace) with. But his teams regularly posted strong winning records without him pre-1999, so not sure to what degree that select Lakers period should be used as a representative WOWY sample of their primes. Still, to whatever extent there is an idea of “peak” WOWY, that would indeed go to Shaq over Duncan.

It misses a few older players (Mikan, Pettit, Schayes, Gilmore), but other than that it's solid.

I'd have Russell comfortably higher, I also think Julius Erving is a little bit underrated here. Moses below Ewing is controversial and I wouldn't have Westbrook nearly as high. I'd also have Mutombo considerably higher than Mourning on my all-time list.

All of these differences are mostly caused by slightly different criteria. You just have to add Artis Gilmore to your list and everything will be fine

ceoofkobefans wrote:I’m bored so here’s my top 50 players ever. Please tell me what you would change and how you like the list I’m bored and want People to talk to me

1. LeBron James
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Michael Jordan

4. Shaquille O’Neal
5. Tim Duncan
6. Kobe Bryant
7. Hakeem Olajuwon

8. Wilt Chamberlain
9. Bill Russell

10. Kevin Garnett
11. Larry Bird
12. Magic Johnson

13. Karl Malone
14. Steph curry
15. Oscar Robertson
16. Chris Paul
17. Dirk Nowitzki
18. Jerry West
19. Kevin Durant
20. David Robinson

21. Dwyane Wade
22. Steve Nash
23. Julius Erving
24. Charles Barkley
25. James Harden

26. John Stockton
27. Patrick Ewing
28. Moses Malone
29. Scottie Pippen
30. Reggie Miller

31. Jason Kidd
32. Rick Barry
33. John Havlicek
34. Giannis Antetokoumnpo
35. Kawhi Leonard

36. Anthony Davis
37. Russell Westbrook
38. Walt Frazier
39. Dwight Howard
40. Elgin Baylor
41. Kevin McHale
42. Paul Pierce

43. Ray Allen
44. Allen Iverson
45. Gary Payton
46. Clyde Drexler
47. George Gervin
48. Isiah Thomas
49. Alonzo Mourning
50. Tracy McGrady

Didn’t expect us to have kobe at roughly the same place lol

Yeah not a bad list at all. We're all going to have a couple players we'd like to see a bit higher or lower but not a lot of completely unreasonable things. Like I've got a different order for the top 3 but still all in the same tier so it's really nitpicking at that point. Kobe and Hakeem pretty high up while I have them fringe top 10 is also easily explained by you rating older players like Russell and Wilt lower as well as penalizing short careers like Magic and Bird more than I do. Those older players in general could use a bit more representation (especially Pettit who most have in the 20-30 range or Mikan who is included less often but always high up when he is).

If I had to pick one placing I disagree the most with it'd be Moses at 28. A 3x MVP who is 15th All-Time in WS should be a top 20 lock imo.

I think if you're going to bother posting something like a top 50 you need to post your top 3 criteria so we get a better idea of where you're coming from with all of this. It makes for better debate.

OhayoKD wrote:

LukaTheGOAT wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:So what's the case for shaq over duncan? Duncan grades out as the better regular season/postseason peak in everything that isn't box-aggregates, obviously has better intangibles, and has an advantage in terms of longevity while winning more rings and accolades.

Whatever 5-year RAPM Ben uses here, has Shaq ahead of Duncan, as well as some of the WOWY regressions (look at the chart).

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/03/29/backpicks-goat-5-shaquille-oneal/

https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/03/22/backpicks-goat-7-tim-duncan/

He also does peak higher in RS Backpicks BPM (though perhaps more offensively slanted than some might like) and AuPM/G (uses Backpicks BPM in the calculation)

Those would be some of the numbers.

Huh. Guess it's not clear-cut then. Though I'm kind of confused because he has duncan's aupm alot higher here:
https://thinkingbasketball.net/2018/06/10/aupm-2-0-the-top-playoff-performers-of-the-databall-era/

All the 5 year rapm i've seen has favored duncan, for example:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nbadiscussion/comments/q50ucn/5_year_rapm_peaks_1997_to_2021_regular_season/
Also owly and squared circle's had duncan higher irrc.

RS goes lebron, duncan/kg, shaq from what i've seen posted on realgm.

Also what wowy sample is ben using, did duncan miss significant time?

AuPM has changed a bit since that post and I was referring to Shaq having a higher RS peak in the stat. Duncan bests him in the PS.

Also what are you referring to with Owly and Squared Circle rating them higher? Could you share whatever info this is?

ceoofkobefans wrote:6. Kobe Bryant

16. Chris Paul

These two come off quite a bit high for my liking, especially Kobe. I just can't see Kobe that high as the impact stuff and even his box scores don't paint him this high at all.

I think like 9-15 is pretty much the range for him.

Chris Paul is always an interesting case, he looks really good both by box scores and by impact measures, but unlike most others he comes up really short in playoff success or notable playoff moments period. His longest runs are his WCF with the Rockets, where Harden was the better player, and his finals appearance with the Suns, where he was the best player but played on the deepest team in the league easily and still lost a winnable series. I don't think he has a case over Dirk, who peaked higher(imo), has better longevity & durability, and more playoff success, while also looking comparably good in impact measures.

Thanks for the list though, it's good to have discussion over these things.

OhayoKD wrote: I thought i remembered a video where duncan's 3 year BPM was #1 though...maybe that's a playoff specific thing? Or I'm an idiot and that was AUPM.

Oh, if that's what you meant, that's a little different. I looked directly at peak year, not 3-year run.

Duncan certainly makes for himself a compelling argument in a broader sense; he was an astonishing player and much-underappreciated because he wasn't an offensive monster (not that he was bad) and because he was so low-key.

Moses Malone and Dr. J are probably the real contentious points with the list. Otherwise it seems reasonable.