Your unpopular takes? (PC Board Edition)

[ceiling raiser]

Thought this could be a fun thread here. I’ve seen one or two of these over the years on RealGM, but I don’t believe any on this particular subforum.

A few of mine to kick this off:

• I don’t believe we should grade players in-era. The game is clearly evolving (for better or for worse) toward a particular steady state, and it makes more sense to grade players who can thrive in that setting on a curve.

• Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan should be side-by-side on the GOAT list. Similar longevity. Approximately the same offense, and any superior defense (Magic is underrated on this end) by Jordan is offset by Magic peaking higher offensively.

• Playoff impact metrics should be taken with a grain of salt. Given platooning, different goals (winning 4/7 rather than maximizing health/seeding)), and unrepresentative opposition, I prefer a qualitative playoff analysis *informed by* regular season impact metrics.

Positions aren’t necessarily out of touch with the NBA fandom in general, but I think they’re minority opinions here.

What are some of your own unpopular takes?

[coastalmarker99]

LeBron would have been even better then he was had he played his career in past eras.


Wilt would have been even better in the modern era than he was during the 1960s and 1970.

Russell is not a top ten player of all time had he started his career in later eras due to rule changes befitting offence over defence


Kareem legacy is slightly inflated due to Magic saving him.


Half of the nba should be removed as teams like the wizards and hornets serve no purpose.


With 15 teams instead of 30 the NBA would be a lot more interesting to watch as only the best of the best could make it into the NBA.


Giannis style of play is incredibly boring to watch as he basically travels and commits offensive fouls every single time.


2017 gsw sweeps or wins in five vs the 1996 bulls even under 90s rules as the shorter three point line would make the warriors offence even more broken.

[Gregoire]

Consensus everywhere but unpopular on PC board:

Jordan was better player, have better peak, prime and career than LeBron.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Maybe an unpopular question:

It is often stated that advanced numbers vastly underrate Kobe. My question, is, if this is the case, why does Michael Jordan generally look so good in advanced numbers (no one really argues that they underrate him). It is generally suggested that Kobe's game is a near carbon-copy of MJ's.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Unpopular opinions:

There is a significant difference between the top 5 peaks ever and the top 10 peaks ever. There is a significant difference between top 10 peaks ever and top 15 peaks ever. Similar thinking can often be applied to careers. I don't think players are often as close together as they are said to be in these ranges.

Nikola Jokic/Luka Doncic are the best scorers in the world. Depending on the style and volume/efficiency you want, leads you to picking one over the other. The playoffs over the last 3 PS proves this.

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

I fail to worship LeBron and put LeBron above Jordan. LeBron Stans hate that.

[70sFan]

Consensus everywhere but unpopular on PC board:

Jordan was better player, have better peak, prime and career than LeBron.

It's not unpopular at all.

[70sFan]

Dikembe Mutombo was a legit all-nba level player at his peak and reached top 10 in his best years.

Nate Thurmond was the best player on his team in 1967.

Brook Lopez turned himself into a great defensive player and he's not a product of Giannis/Bud system.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Dikembe Mutombo was a legit all-nba level player at his peak and reached top 10 in his best years.

Nate Thurmond was the best player on his team in 1967.

Brook Lopez turned himself into a great defensive player and he's not a product of Giannis/Bud system.

Is this from the Giannis bucks thread?

[70sFan]

Dikembe Mutombo was a legit all-nba level player at his peak and reached top 10 in his best years.

Nate Thurmond was the best player on his team in 1967.

Brook Lopez turned himself into a great defensive player and he's not a product of Giannis/Bud system.

Is this from the Giannis bucks thread?

More like a cruisade I fight since like 2021... It's tough to be a Brook fan, all these "Bucks fans" will go at you immediatly because they assume you want to make Giannis look less impressive.

[Dutchball97]

The regular season is a qualifying round and by definition can't be more important to player evaluations than the post-season. Even for Durant last year or Butler the year before where they lost in 4 with incredibly disappointing individual performances that's enough for me to practically throw away their entire season. It doesn't make them bad players as both have adjacent years where they were arguably the best player in the post-season so it's fair to look at this as too small a sample size but it just doesn't work like that for me. Rotations become smaller, defenses are locked in and the playbook is fully opened in the play-offs, you can't just look at regular season performance and project that 1:1 to the post-season or else Oscar, Robinson, KG and Curry are suddenly GOAT candidates.

I have Bird over Magic all-time as I see the 89-91 stretch for Magic as him catching up to the lead Bird had accumulated before that instead of the differentiator that puts Magic ahead as is the case for the majority.

A healthy Kawhi is better than the likes of KD, Curry and Harden and with that the best player of his generation or 2nd best depending on if you group LeBron in with them or not.

[OhayoKD]

Consensus everywhere but unpopular on PC board:

Jordan was better player, have better peak, prime and career than LeBron.

It's not unpopular at all.

Didn't jordan easily win the peak vote? If things have shifted, that would be due to new evidence/argumentation as opposed to the PC-board being inherently anti-mj

[No-more-rings]

Jokic is headed for a clear better career than Giannis.

I’m not sure who will end up with more rings, that could likely be Giannis still but we’re seeing what could arguably be the offensive goat before our eyes. Giannis is like, a great defensive player and a good but obviously overrated offensive player. When Jokic wins a ring, and I believe it’s when not if because I think he’s too good to not get at least one, the talk about his “terrible defense” won’t really be valid anymore for a lot of people.

Also if nothing else, I just feel more confident in Jokic’s durability up to this point which may sound strange. And idk I just think a lot of people give Giannis bonuse points for his freakish athleticism and find him more entertaining to watch, he’s a freak from Greece right? Jokic, meanwhile is an amazing passer but also sort of a slow white dude and not the most athletic guy ever. I feel like most would rather watch Giannis, regardless of if he’s actually better or not.

[OhayoKD]

Maybe an unpopular question:

It is often stated that advanced numbers vastly underrate Kobe. My question, is, if this is the case, why does Michael Jordan generally look so good in advanced numbers (no one really argues that they underrate him). It is generally suggested that Kobe's game is a near carbon-copy of MJ's.

1. If we're talking box-stuff, Kobe wasn't actually a high steal/block accumulator. Even a guy like Steph got more steals over his prime. So he's not necessarily getting that same defensive inflation(if you use defensive impact as a reference)

2. If we're talking winning-based ****, Kobe generally played more minutes than the guys he's compared to, both in the rs and the playoffs. Especially when we're talking something like AUPM, Kobe's basically maintaining his score over way more games than a dirk or a wade or a KG(deep runs go brr). Like, I've seen people here cite 2008 KG's "per-minuite impact" to argue he should have won MVP, but Kobe played more alot more minutes total.

3. Kobe was forced to iso alot more than other players for schematic purposes. Considering Kobe's like 90th percentile in basically every type of offensive action(synergy), it's not crazy to think he was capable of goat-tier offensive impact but was just deployed sub-optimally(for individual "impact", not winning). Unibro actually made a solid case for the triangle(without illegal d) hurting his impact substantially.

4. Longetvity is not accounted for with rate-metrics. Kobe's longevity was exceptional among even greats.

5. Kobe's defense probably elevated in the postseason. And something like AUPM may not account for that too well with it being a box-impact hybrid.

[Colbinii]

I fail to worship LeBron and put LeBron above Jordan. LeBron Stans hate that.

You don't need to worship LeBron to have LeBron > Jordan.

Worshiping LeBron isn't popular.

[rk2023]

"Why does everything on the RealGM PC Board turn into LeBron vs Jordan under every thread".. a few comments in this thread may show one reason why.

Anyway.. opinions I have that *may* be unpopular:

Jerry West is a top 4 scorer historically, looking at prime/peak and overall PS translation with an era-relative approach.

Nikola Jokic at the current moment is having the best Offensive RS of all time.

This definitely is common more or less outside of the PC Board, but I also think that Kobe Bryant is a top 10 player- career wise (would be my 9th or 10th).

[rk2023]

Unpopular opinions:

There is a significant difference between the top 5 peaks ever and the top 10 peaks ever. There is a significant difference between top 10 peaks ever and top 15 peaks ever. Similar thinking can often be applied to careers. I don't think players are often as close together as they are said to be in these ranges.

Nikola Jokic/Luka Doncic are the best scorers in the world. Depending on the style and volume/efficiency you want, leads you to picking one over the other. The playoffs over the last 3 PS proves this.

On the former, whom are some players in the lower end of each grouping (eg. 4-5th, 9-10th, 14-15th) you find this opinion consistent with?

[homecourtloss]

I fail to worship LeBron and put LeBron above Jordan. LeBron Stans hate that.

You don't need to worship LeBron to have LeBron > Jordan.

Worshiping LeBron isn't popular.

One sub-forum on one site on the entire Internet possibly slightly favoring someone over God Jordan = worshipping LeBron.

[70sFan]

Jerry West is a top 4 scorer historically, looking at prime/peak and overall PS translation with an era-relative approach.

That's a great one!

[Colbinii]

Unpopular opinions:

There is a significant difference between the top 5 peaks ever and the top 10 peaks ever. There is a significant difference between top 10 peaks ever and top 15 peaks ever. Similar thinking can often be applied to careers. I don't think players are often as close together as they are said to be in these ranges.

Nikola Jokic/Luka Doncic are the best scorers in the world. Depending on the style and volume/efficiency you want, leads you to picking one over the other. The playoffs over the last 3 PS proves this.

On the former, whom are some players in the lower end of each grouping (eg. 4-5th, 9-10th, 14-15th) you find this opinion consistent with?

One way to look at this [through the opinion of RealGM] is to look at voting in project(s).

Here is a quick outline based on how the votes were distributed in the previous Top 100 Project.

Tier 1: LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Tier 2: Bill Russell, Tim Duncan, Wilt Chamberlain
Tier 3: Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon, Larry Bird, Kevin Garnett
Tier 4: Kobe Bryant, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Dirk Nowitzki
Tier 5: Karl Malone, David Robinson, Julius Erving, George Mikan, Moses Malone, Charles Barkley, Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Steph Curry, Bob Pettit, John Stockton, Steve Nash, Dwyane Wade
Tier 6: #29 - X