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Simple question. Who will finish with the best career when it's all said and done?

How can we know? For now, the first three are far away from the next 3 in terms of career value and that's the only thing we can really tell.

Jokic is about to get his third MVP which coincidentally hasn't been done since Bird. Luka at 23 is looking like a juicy bet as well but I need to see more of him.

I think unless Jokic gets struck by lightning he is surpassing Bird and Bryant.


I'm very high on Oscar Robertson though. For now I'll say Oscar has the best career of the projected 6. If Jokic plays at a similar level to his RS during this PS though I would heavily consider going with Jokic.

70sFan wrote:How can we know? For now, the first three are far away from the next 3 in terms of career value and that's the only thing we can really tell.

If you could choose one to be the most likely which one you pick? It doesn’t have to be a settled question right now. Imagine someone's giving you a crystal ball tomorrow. What answer do you think it's most likely to spit out?

I voted by Jokic by accident. Why don't people allow posters to switch their answers on polls

iggymcfrack wrote:

70sFan wrote:How can we know? For now, the first three are far away from the next 3 in terms of career value and that's the only thing we can really tell.

If you could choose one to be the most likely which one you pick? It doesn’t have to be a settled question right now. Imagine someone's giving you a crystal ball tomorrow. What answer do you think it's most likely to spit out?

Then I have Oscar, Kobe and Bird all in the same tier. I really don't like projecting, but Jokic and Giannis have very impressive career trajectories. To beat this tier, they'd have to become a clear top 10 players ever for me though and I'm not expecting them to do that. Luka is even less likely to do so for now.

HeartBreakKid wrote:I voted by Jokic by accident. Why don't people allow posters to switch their answers on polls

Probably because the other way is the default

70sFan wrote:

iggymcfrack wrote:

70sFan wrote:How can we know? For now, the first three are far away from the next 3 in terms of career value and that's the only thing we can really tell.

If you could choose one to be the most likely which one you pick? It doesn’t have to be a settled question right now. Imagine someone's giving you a crystal ball tomorrow. What answer do you think it's most likely to spit out?

Then I have Oscar, Kobe and Bird all in the same tier. I really don't like projecting, but Jokic and Giannis have very impressive career trajectories. To beat this tier, they'd have to become a clear top 10 players ever for me though and I'm not expecting them to do that. Luka is even less likely to do so for now.

assuming you don't have curry or durant in the top 10 (and assuming i'm not forgetting someone), then you don't have anyone whose career started after lebron making the top 10? that would be over a quarter of league history without a top 10 guy starting their career.

f4p wrote:

70sFan wrote:

iggymcfrack wrote:
If you could choose one to be the most likely which one you pick? It doesn’t have to be a settled question right now. Imagine someone's giving you a crystal ball tomorrow. What answer do you think it's most likely to spit out?

Then I have Oscar, Kobe and Bird all in the same tier. I really don't like projecting, but Jokic and Giannis have very impressive career trajectories. To beat this tier, they'd have to become a clear top 10 players ever for me though and I'm not expecting them to do that. Luka is even less likely to do so for now.

assuming you don't have curry or durant in the top 10 (and assuming i'm not forgetting someone), then you don't have anyone whose career started after lebron making the top 10? that would be over a quarter of league history without a top 10 guy starting their career.

The closest is Curry, but yeah I don't have any player younger than James in my top 10. Why is it so strange? Giannis and Jokic are still in the heart of their careers, they need a lot more longevity to compete. KD isn't a top 10 material. Curry is, but the competition is stacked and he still has some time.

For each 10 years I have such number of players in my top 30 that started during the period:

1948-57: 2
1958-67: 3
1968-77: 4
1978-87: 7
1988-97: 5
1998-07: 6
2008-17: 3
2018-23: 0

Given that Giannis and Jokic will likely end up inside top 30, I don't think 2008-17 period is poorly represented.

If and when Jokic wins a title, we can start to see all the criticisms evaporate. If he wins more than one title, he’s most likely headed for the top 10 on a lot of lists. I’m not that convinced Giannis gets there, but we’ll see.

All things being equal I think that both Luka and Nikola will need a ring to get past Giannis who not only had an atg level playoff while getting it but has a dpoy and much higher rep on that side than they do. The question is can Giannis get onto the top 10 with only one ring when everyone else in it has at least two. Giannis, Luka and Joker may all end up in the same tier with Oscar and Kobe the way I see it unless Giannis has just a tremendous 12 year stretch by the time he is done despite the 1 ring. I feel like without 2 rings a guy would need that to crack the top 10 along with consistent good to great play in the playoffs.

70sFan wrote:

f4p wrote:

70sFan wrote:Then I have Oscar, Kobe and Bird all in the same tier. I really don't like projecting, but Jokic and Giannis have very impressive career trajectories. To beat this tier, they'd have to become a clear top 10 players ever for me though and I'm not expecting them to do that. Luka is even less likely to do so for now.

assuming you don't have curry or durant in the top 10 (and assuming i'm not forgetting someone), then you don't have anyone whose career started after lebron making the top 10? that would be over a quarter of league history without a top 10 guy starting their career.

The closest is Curry, but yeah I don't have any player younger than James in my top 10. Why is it so strange? Giannis and Jokic are still in the heart of their careers, they need a lot more longevity to compete. KD isn't a top 10 material. Curry is, but the competition is stacked and he still has some time.

For each 10 years I have such number of players in my top 30 that started during the period:

1948-57: 2
1958-67: 3
1968-77: 4
1978-87: 7
1988-97: 5
1998-07: 6
2008-17: 3
2018-23: 0

Given that Giannis and Jokic will likely end up inside top 30, I don't think 2008-17 period is poorly represented.

i guess it's not that jokic/giannis aren't in the top 10, but that you said you don't see them getting there. and what probably stands out more is that that isn't an atypical view. it might even be my view. only the biggest steph fanboys have him in the top 10, no one has durant in the top 10, and so if jokic/giannis/luka aren't going to make it (i have it as an uphill climb for all of them though i think luka will be there), then it brings up the point of whether we are being too tough on the new guys? even on a relative basis, with no expansion since the bobcats, we're probably at the deepest league ever. and on an absolute basis, with population growth and international growth, we're certainly at the largest talent pool ever. so 20 out of 75 years, which represents more than 20/75 of the all-time talent pool on an absolute basis, not having someone even cracking into the top 10 means we're likely being harsher on the new guys than the older guys or we're not realizing how much harder it is to stand out against this deeper talent pool and we need to slightly ratchet down the expected dominance to be in the top 10. not sure if that's true or not, just food for thought.

f4p wrote:

70sFan wrote:

f4p wrote:
assuming you don't have curry or durant in the top 10 (and assuming i'm not forgetting someone), then you don't have anyone whose career started after lebron making the top 10? that would be over a quarter of league history without a top 10 guy starting their career.

The closest is Curry, but yeah I don't have any player younger than James in my top 10. Why is it so strange? Giannis and Jokic are still in the heart of their careers, they need a lot more longevity to compete. KD isn't a top 10 material. Curry is, but the competition is stacked and he still has some time.

For each 10 years I have such number of players in my top 30 that started during the period:

1948-57: 2
1958-67: 3
1968-77: 4
1978-87: 7
1988-97: 5
1998-07: 6
2008-17: 3
2018-23: 0

Given that Giannis and Jokic will likely end up inside top 30, I don't think 2008-17 period is poorly represented.

i guess it's not that jokic/giannis aren't in the top 10, but that you said you don't see them getting there. and what probably stands out more is that that isn't an atypical view. it might even be my view. only the biggest steph fanboys have him in the top 10, no one has durant in the top 10, and so if jokic/giannis/luka aren't going to make it (i have it as an uphill climb for all of them though i think luka will be there), then it brings up the point of whether we are being too tough on the new guys? even on a relative basis, with no expansion since the bobcats, we're probably at the deepest league ever. and on an absolute basis, with population growth and international growth, we're certainly at the largest talent pool ever. so 20 out of 75 years, which represents more than 20/75 of the all-time talent pool on an absolute basis, not having someone even cracking into the top 10 means we're likely being harsher on the new guys than the older guys or we're not realizing how much harder it is to stand out against this deeper talent pool and we need to slightly ratchet down the expected dominance to be in the top 10. not sure if that's true or not, just food for thought.

That's actually an interesting point, worth discussing. Maybe you are right, maybe are too tough for modern players.

I think that Jokic and Giannis have chances to become top 10 players ever, but it's just that getting there is incredibly tough. I guess we need to wait another 5 years to discuss that.

70sFan wrote:That's actually an interesting point, worth discussing. Maybe you are right, maybe are too tough for modern players.

I think that Jokic and Giannis have chances to become top 10 players ever, but it's just that getting there is incredibly tough. I guess we need to wait another 5 years to discuss that.

I think the problem is we start comparing them too soon and I think we will have to take a closer look at how the 20's impacted stats in some ways because I think its worth noting how things like per(which obviously no one takes that seriously) is seeing its all time record broken on almost a yearly basis now. So its probably worth asking if things have changed in the league environment in a way that makes some metrics semi useless in comparing players from different eras now or less reliable than we may like.

Luka (in my evaluation at least)

Kobe's longetivity is a big big era-relative advantage and I'm starting to curve up on his peak. In absolute terms Giannis is comfortably the best player on this list imho, so if he can rack up enough longetvity, I could see that sort of case being made.

Luka has the advantage of a phenomenal start so maybe he's the best of both worlds.

70sFan wrote:

f4p wrote:

70sFan wrote:Then I have Oscar, Kobe and Bird all in the same tier. I really don't like projecting, but Jokic and Giannis have very impressive career trajectories. To beat this tier, they'd have to become a clear top 10 players ever for me though and I'm not expecting them to do that. Luka is even less likely to do so for now.

assuming you don't have curry or durant in the top 10 (and assuming i'm not forgetting someone), then you don't have anyone whose career started after lebron making the top 10? that would be over a quarter of league history without a top 10 guy starting their career.

The closest is Curry, but yeah I don't have any player younger than James in my top 10. Why is it so strange? Giannis and Jokic are still in the heart of their careers, they need a lot more longevity to compete. KD isn't a top 10 material. Curry is, but the competition is stacked and he still has some time.

For each 10 years I have such number of players in my top 30 that started during the period:

1948-57: 2
1958-67: 3
1968-77: 4
1978-87: 7
1988-97: 5
1998-07: 6
2008-17: 3
2018-23: 0

Given that Giannis and Jokic will likely end up inside top 30, I don't think 2008-17 period is poorly represented.

We'd also expect it to become harder to break into the top 30, 10 or whatever, as more players enter the history books and the league gets better and better. If you're using an era-relative frame, I don't think this should be too suprising

OhayoKD wrote:Kobe's longetivity is a big big era-relative advantage and I'm starting to curve up on his peak. In absolute terms Giannis is comfortably the best player on this list imho, so if he can rack up enough longetvity, I could see that sort of case being made.

Luka has the advantage of a phenomenal start so maybe he's the best of both worlds.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Kobe Bryant probably played in the deepest era for wings in NBA's history. Unless you mean the absolute best bigs (PFs really, the centers in Kobe's age were not great or deep) were better than the absolute best wings in which that has nearly always been the case in the NBA.

1. Giannis
2. Bird
3. Kobe
4. Jokic
5. Oscar
6. Doncic

This is obviously pure conjecture. Completely impossible to predict. I'd prefer to see Jokic #1 (among these), and of course he may get there. The only thing I could confidently say is that all three of the current guys surely won't surpass all three of the historical guys (not impossible, but nearly). There are only so many championships to go around...

HeartBreakKid wrote:

OhayoKD wrote:Kobe's longetivity is a big big era-relative advantage and I'm starting to curve up on his peak. In absolute terms Giannis is comfortably the best player on this list imho, so if he can rack up enough longetvity, I could see that sort of case being made.

Luka has the advantage of a phenomenal start so maybe he's the best of both worlds.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Kobe Bryant probably played in the deepest era for wings in NBA's history. Unless you mean the absolute best bigs (PFs really, the centers in Kobe's age were not great or deep) were better than the absolute best wings in which that has nearly always been the case in the NBA.

I meant his longevity is phenomenal though I guess the second "big" may have confused things.