RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - General Thread
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2023 1:34 am
This will serve as the Official Thread, and home base, for the 2023 Top 100 Project.
I'll be asking everyone interested to respond saying so in this thread, but first...
PLEASE READ ALL OF THIS POST TO BE FAMILIAR WITH THE PROCESS AND GUIDELINES
Project History
This is the latest iteration of a project that first took place in 2003, which means it's been going on for 20 years.
It being tied to a message board, this has meant that the participant base has varied along the way, and I don't actually believe I know any of the posters who participated in the 2003 project.
We've been running this every 3rd year for a number of iterations now. There's no rule here, but if you do it too often, not enough changes, and that makes it hard to keep the momentum going through 100 votes - which at around 3 days per thread means it lasts as long as a pregnancy.
A number of folks have been carrying the torch in the years since 2003, with trex and penbeast carrying the bulk of the weight for the rest of us. I'm stepping back in the project/show runner role this time, but it is my hope that someone else will take the lead again the next time around.
Project Purpose
While we create a Ranked List as a part of this project, and that List then becomes an entity we can analyze, it is important to understand that the List itself is not the primary purpose of the project.
The project's purpose is to encourage deep thought among those who participate and read by forcing participants to consider players in depth thread-by-thread, and having them make arguments and debate along the way.
And the hope in doing this is to build a community and that community's institutional knowledge.
Were you to take a bunch of very informed people and just ask them to send in their Top 100 lists to be tallied up for a group list, you might get as good or better of a list, but you wouldn't get the community, and you wouldn't get the same type of personal growth.
Links to prior lists:
Spreadsheet with Results back to 2006 - and some of 2003
RealGM Top 100 List 2008
RealGM Top 100 List 2011
Poster Pre-Lists from before 2014 project
RealGM Top 100 List 2014
Poster Pre-Lists from before 2017 project
RealGM Top 100 List 2017
RealGM Top 100 List 2020
2023 List
1. LeBron James
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Michael Jordan
4. Bill Russell
5. Tim Duncan
6. Hakeem Olajuwon
7. Wilt Chamberlain
8. Shaquille O'Neal
9. Kevin Garnett
10. Magic Johnson
11. Steph Curry
12. Larry Bird
13. Kobe Bryant
14. Jerry West
15. Oscar Robertson
16. George Mikan
17. David Robinson
18. Dirk Nowitzki
19. Karl Malone
20. Chris Paul
21. Julius Erving
22. Kevin Durant
23. Moses Malone
24. Steve Nash
25. Giannis Antetokounmpo
26. Nikola Jokic
27. Dwyane Wade
28. Charles Barkley
29. James Harden
30. Patrick Ewing
31. Bob Pettit
32. Scottie Pippen
33. John Stockton
34. Kawhi Leonard
35. Walt Frazier
36. Reggie Miller
37. John Havlicek
38. Jason Kidd
39. Manu Ginobili
40. Rick Barry
41. Artis Gilmore
42. Anthony Davis
43. Dolph Schayes
44. Elgin Baylor
45. Clyde Drexler
46. Russell Westbrook
47. Paul Pierce
48. Kevin McHale
49. Dwight Howard
50. Bob Lanier
51. Draymond Green
52. Jimmy Butler
53. Gary Payton
54. Ray Allen
55. Joel Embiid
56. Paul Arizin
57. Dave Cowens
58. Isiah Thomas
59. George Gervin
60. Alonzo Mourning
61. Nate Thurmond
62. Pau Gasol
63. Willis Reed
64. Dikembe Mutombo
65. Robert Parish
66. Chauncey Billups
67. Elvin Hayes
68. Ben Wallace
69. Tracy McGrady
70. Vince Carter
71. Wes Unseld
72. Paul George
73. Bobby Jones
74. Rasheed Wallace
75. Damian Lillard
76. Kyle Lowry
77. Rudy Gobert
78. Dennis Rodman
79. Bob Cousy
80. Allen Iverson
81. Adrian Dantley
82. Sam Jones
83. Larry Nance
84. Sidney Moncrief
85. Kevin Johnson
86. Tony Parker
87. Shawn Marion
88. Jack Sikma
89. Al Horford
90. Bill Sharman
91. Bill Walton
92. Horace Grant
93. Billy Cunningham
94. Jayson Tatum
95. Gus Williams
96. Dominique Wilkins
97. Bob McAdoo
98. Luka Doncic
99. Bob Davies
100. James Worthy
Becoming a Voter
To become a voter before the project, just express your interest posting in this thread.
Once the project begins, you may also post your interest in this thread, but please also participate in the voting threads as a non-voter to show that you're head is into it.
In all cases, you must be approved by the runner (in this case, me) before you become a voter. In general we're cautious about allowing people to join from new accounts, and we don't want an influx of voters on a particular thread because a particular team board rallies the troops
Additionally, when you are a voter, we expect you to abide certain rules.
Voter Standards
* Post as much as you want in any thread, but only have one Voting post, and please make clear at the top of your post that this is your Voting post and make that post easy for me to read as I tally.
* Feel free to change your mind on your vote before the deadline, but EDIT the existing Voting post so I don't count both your old and new post.
* You must give reasoning for all your votes.
* You may re-post your previous reasoning if your previous selection remains eligible.
* As a voter you are expected to participate consistently. We don't want people to just show up every once in a while and vote. We expect you to keep at it from thread to threat to thread, etc.
* However it is a long project and it is unrealistic to expect all voters to be here for all votes. We just want you to try to stay involved for this extended run as best you can.
* Be nice; be respectful. Projects like this can get really heated, and when they do, people tend to leave. Do your best to be civil. If you fail to do this, you may get PMed or even removed from the project even if you're not doing anything worth official Warnings/Suspensions/etc.
* Stay within Voting Criteria Guidelines .
Voting Criteria Guidelines
The RealGM Top 100 is focused on:
1. Career, rather than Peak or Prime. How you weigh Longevity is up to you, but consider the entire Career.
2. Competitive achievement rather cultural innovation/influence.
3. Performance in the NBA and merged leagues (ABA, BAA, NBL). International play and other leagues are not a part of this.
Additionally, the 2023 Project will focus on the play between the years '45-46 and '22-23.
Don't worry overly much about '45-46 if that seems out of the blue. It begins the post-World War 2 era, which is historically significant, but the most relevant part of this is that both of George Mikan's NBL years (which led to 2 titles) are included in his Career/Longevity.
The '22-23 threshold will become relevant once the '23-24 NBA season begins. The expectation is that is that while you cannot help but have your understanding of an active player continue to evolve as the next season progresses, we're not looking to incorporate any achievements that take place after the 2023 Finals as part of this project.
Voting Structure: Nomination; Induction
This is a major shift from the most recent projects, so even regulars, pay specific attention here.
1. This project will follow a 2-step process. A player must become a Nominee before he can become an Inductee.
2. The Induction vote - the vote that actually places a player on our list - will be between the list of previously Nominated players.
3. The Nomination vote will be between all players who are not already Inductees or Nominees.
4. The initial Nominee list will be the Top 6 players from the 2020 list.
5. The expectation is that voters will be voting for for both an Inductee and a Nominee in each thread, though it will be acceptable to only do one of the two.
6. In the case of a tie in an Induction vote, a runoff thread will be created, and project progress will be paused until the runoff is complete.
7. In the case of a tie in a Nomination vote, we will not pause project progress, though a runoff is possible if the Induction vote already demands it. Otherwise, ties will lead to more than one player getting added to the list of Nominees in that thread, followed by skipping the addition of more Nominees until the number of Nominees until only 6 Nominees remain.
8. I reserve the right change this process part way through the project, but if I do this, it will come after further discussion with the group.
Motivation:
The previous Top 100 ended up relying on the extremely time-consuming Ranking/Condorcet method. I admire this a great deal, but I won't be doing this (and I'll note trex advised me against trying to repeat his sophisticated approach in the name of saving my sanity).
This Nomination-Induction 2-step process is what we used when I first became involved in the Top 100. It may seem like pointless complication, but having gone through this project, and other similar projects, with many variations, I think it really helps foster conversation - and thus participation - as we get deep into the list.
* It allows someone who just wants to focus their attention on a handful of guys and choosing between them to do so.
* It prevents the voting from getting too spread thin, which helps us reduce the amount of tiebreaking concerns we have.
* It makes it harder for a guy to get onto the list within minimal discussion. A guy can still get Nominated without many people saying their piece about him, but once he is Nominated he's going to get the pros and cons bandied about.
In case you're wondering about why 6 nominees. 2 reasons:
* That's what was done in the past.
* Doing so will allow Wilt Chamberlain into the initial Nominee pool, and since he remains among the most championed GOAT candidates across the discussion in the basketball world, I'd rather give voters the option to vote Wilt at #1.
And for the curious, the Top 6 from 2020, who will be our initial list of Nominees, are (in alphabetical order): Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell.
Time/Duration Expectations
* I'm expecting at this moment to open up the #1 thread on July 1st.
* The initial threads will be live for 3 days. It will not be exactly 72 hours, but will not be less than 72 hours.
* I will be looking to increase the speed to a thread every 2 days if and when this seems appropriate. So long as we're getting bang for our buck on that 3rd day, I won't change it.
* Every voting thread will have the ending deadline in the title while that thread is live.
Voter List:
1. AEnigma
2. Ambrose
3. ceilng raiser
4. ceoofkobefans
5. Clyde Frazier
6. Colbinii
7. cupcakesnake
8. Doctor MJ
9. Dooley
10. DQuinn1575
11. Dr Positivity
12. Dutchball97
13. eminence
14. f4p
15. falcolombardi
16. Fundamentals21
17. homecourtloss
18. iggymcfrack
19. LA Bird
20. lessthanjake
21. Lou Fan
22. Moonbeam
23. Narigo
24. OhayoKD
25. One_and_Done
26. penbeast0
27. rk2023
28. ShaqAttac
29. Taj FTW
30. Tim Lehrbach
31. trelos6
32. trex_8063
33. ZeppelinPage
Last Note
Feel free to ask questions or make suggestions in posts after this OP. I do not intend to open everything in the structure up to a democratic vote - that way lies madness - but I will listen to the thoughts of others and give them my consideration.
Cheers,
Doc
I'll be asking everyone interested to respond saying so in this thread, but first...
PLEASE READ ALL OF THIS POST TO BE FAMILIAR WITH THE PROCESS AND GUIDELINES
Project History
This is the latest iteration of a project that first took place in 2003, which means it's been going on for 20 years.
It being tied to a message board, this has meant that the participant base has varied along the way, and I don't actually believe I know any of the posters who participated in the 2003 project.
We've been running this every 3rd year for a number of iterations now. There's no rule here, but if you do it too often, not enough changes, and that makes it hard to keep the momentum going through 100 votes - which at around 3 days per thread means it lasts as long as a pregnancy.
A number of folks have been carrying the torch in the years since 2003, with trex and penbeast carrying the bulk of the weight for the rest of us. I'm stepping back in the project/show runner role this time, but it is my hope that someone else will take the lead again the next time around.
Project Purpose
While we create a Ranked List as a part of this project, and that List then becomes an entity we can analyze, it is important to understand that the List itself is not the primary purpose of the project.
The project's purpose is to encourage deep thought among those who participate and read by forcing participants to consider players in depth thread-by-thread, and having them make arguments and debate along the way.
And the hope in doing this is to build a community and that community's institutional knowledge.
Were you to take a bunch of very informed people and just ask them to send in their Top 100 lists to be tallied up for a group list, you might get as good or better of a list, but you wouldn't get the community, and you wouldn't get the same type of personal growth.
Links to prior lists:
Spreadsheet with Results back to 2006 - and some of 2003
RealGM Top 100 List 2008
RealGM Top 100 List 2011
Poster Pre-Lists from before 2014 project
RealGM Top 100 List 2014
Poster Pre-Lists from before 2017 project
RealGM Top 100 List 2017
RealGM Top 100 List 2020
2023 List
1. LeBron James
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
3. Michael Jordan
4. Bill Russell
5. Tim Duncan
6. Hakeem Olajuwon
7. Wilt Chamberlain
8. Shaquille O'Neal
9. Kevin Garnett
10. Magic Johnson
11. Steph Curry
12. Larry Bird
13. Kobe Bryant
14. Jerry West
15. Oscar Robertson
16. George Mikan
17. David Robinson
18. Dirk Nowitzki
19. Karl Malone
20. Chris Paul
21. Julius Erving
22. Kevin Durant
23. Moses Malone
24. Steve Nash
25. Giannis Antetokounmpo
26. Nikola Jokic
27. Dwyane Wade
28. Charles Barkley
29. James Harden
30. Patrick Ewing
31. Bob Pettit
32. Scottie Pippen
33. John Stockton
34. Kawhi Leonard
35. Walt Frazier
36. Reggie Miller
37. John Havlicek
38. Jason Kidd
39. Manu Ginobili
40. Rick Barry
41. Artis Gilmore
42. Anthony Davis
43. Dolph Schayes
44. Elgin Baylor
45. Clyde Drexler
46. Russell Westbrook
47. Paul Pierce
48. Kevin McHale
49. Dwight Howard
50. Bob Lanier
51. Draymond Green
52. Jimmy Butler
53. Gary Payton
54. Ray Allen
55. Joel Embiid
56. Paul Arizin
57. Dave Cowens
58. Isiah Thomas
59. George Gervin
60. Alonzo Mourning
61. Nate Thurmond
62. Pau Gasol
63. Willis Reed
64. Dikembe Mutombo
65. Robert Parish
66. Chauncey Billups
67. Elvin Hayes
68. Ben Wallace
69. Tracy McGrady
70. Vince Carter
71. Wes Unseld
72. Paul George
73. Bobby Jones
74. Rasheed Wallace
75. Damian Lillard
76. Kyle Lowry
77. Rudy Gobert
78. Dennis Rodman
79. Bob Cousy
80. Allen Iverson
81. Adrian Dantley
82. Sam Jones
83. Larry Nance
84. Sidney Moncrief
85. Kevin Johnson
86. Tony Parker
87. Shawn Marion
88. Jack Sikma
89. Al Horford
90. Bill Sharman
91. Bill Walton
92. Horace Grant
93. Billy Cunningham
94. Jayson Tatum
95. Gus Williams
96. Dominique Wilkins
97. Bob McAdoo
98. Luka Doncic
99. Bob Davies
100. James Worthy
Becoming a Voter
To become a voter before the project, just express your interest posting in this thread.
Once the project begins, you may also post your interest in this thread, but please also participate in the voting threads as a non-voter to show that you're head is into it.
In all cases, you must be approved by the runner (in this case, me) before you become a voter. In general we're cautious about allowing people to join from new accounts, and we don't want an influx of voters on a particular thread because a particular team board rallies the troops
Additionally, when you are a voter, we expect you to abide certain rules.
Voter Standards
* Post as much as you want in any thread, but only have one Voting post, and please make clear at the top of your post that this is your Voting post and make that post easy for me to read as I tally.
* Feel free to change your mind on your vote before the deadline, but EDIT the existing Voting post so I don't count both your old and new post.
* You must give reasoning for all your votes.
* You may re-post your previous reasoning if your previous selection remains eligible.
* As a voter you are expected to participate consistently. We don't want people to just show up every once in a while and vote. We expect you to keep at it from thread to threat to thread, etc.
* However it is a long project and it is unrealistic to expect all voters to be here for all votes. We just want you to try to stay involved for this extended run as best you can.
* Be nice; be respectful. Projects like this can get really heated, and when they do, people tend to leave. Do your best to be civil. If you fail to do this, you may get PMed or even removed from the project even if you're not doing anything worth official Warnings/Suspensions/etc.
* Stay within Voting Criteria Guidelines .
Voting Criteria Guidelines
The RealGM Top 100 is focused on:
1. Career, rather than Peak or Prime. How you weigh Longevity is up to you, but consider the entire Career.
2. Competitive achievement rather cultural innovation/influence.
3. Performance in the NBA and merged leagues (ABA, BAA, NBL). International play and other leagues are not a part of this.
Additionally, the 2023 Project will focus on the play between the years '45-46 and '22-23.
Don't worry overly much about '45-46 if that seems out of the blue. It begins the post-World War 2 era, which is historically significant, but the most relevant part of this is that both of George Mikan's NBL years (which led to 2 titles) are included in his Career/Longevity.
The '22-23 threshold will become relevant once the '23-24 NBA season begins. The expectation is that is that while you cannot help but have your understanding of an active player continue to evolve as the next season progresses, we're not looking to incorporate any achievements that take place after the 2023 Finals as part of this project.
Voting Structure: Nomination; Induction
This is a major shift from the most recent projects, so even regulars, pay specific attention here.
1. This project will follow a 2-step process. A player must become a Nominee before he can become an Inductee.
2. The Induction vote - the vote that actually places a player on our list - will be between the list of previously Nominated players.
3. The Nomination vote will be between all players who are not already Inductees or Nominees.
4. The initial Nominee list will be the Top 6 players from the 2020 list.
5. The expectation is that voters will be voting for for both an Inductee and a Nominee in each thread, though it will be acceptable to only do one of the two.
6. In the case of a tie in an Induction vote, a runoff thread will be created, and project progress will be paused until the runoff is complete.
7. In the case of a tie in a Nomination vote, we will not pause project progress, though a runoff is possible if the Induction vote already demands it. Otherwise, ties will lead to more than one player getting added to the list of Nominees in that thread, followed by skipping the addition of more Nominees until the number of Nominees until only 6 Nominees remain.
8. I reserve the right change this process part way through the project, but if I do this, it will come after further discussion with the group.
Motivation:
The previous Top 100 ended up relying on the extremely time-consuming Ranking/Condorcet method. I admire this a great deal, but I won't be doing this (and I'll note trex advised me against trying to repeat his sophisticated approach in the name of saving my sanity).
This Nomination-Induction 2-step process is what we used when I first became involved in the Top 100. It may seem like pointless complication, but having gone through this project, and other similar projects, with many variations, I think it really helps foster conversation - and thus participation - as we get deep into the list.
* It allows someone who just wants to focus their attention on a handful of guys and choosing between them to do so.
* It prevents the voting from getting too spread thin, which helps us reduce the amount of tiebreaking concerns we have.
* It makes it harder for a guy to get onto the list within minimal discussion. A guy can still get Nominated without many people saying their piece about him, but once he is Nominated he's going to get the pros and cons bandied about.
In case you're wondering about why 6 nominees. 2 reasons:
* That's what was done in the past.
* Doing so will allow Wilt Chamberlain into the initial Nominee pool, and since he remains among the most championed GOAT candidates across the discussion in the basketball world, I'd rather give voters the option to vote Wilt at #1.
And for the curious, the Top 6 from 2020, who will be our initial list of Nominees, are (in alphabetical order): Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Tim Duncan, LeBron James, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell.
Time/Duration Expectations
* I'm expecting at this moment to open up the #1 thread on July 1st.
* The initial threads will be live for 3 days. It will not be exactly 72 hours, but will not be less than 72 hours.
* I will be looking to increase the speed to a thread every 2 days if and when this seems appropriate. So long as we're getting bang for our buck on that 3rd day, I won't change it.
* Every voting thread will have the ending deadline in the title while that thread is live.
Voter List:
1. AEnigma
2. Ambrose
3. ceilng raiser
4. ceoofkobefans
5. Clyde Frazier
6. Colbinii
7. cupcakesnake
8. Doctor MJ
9. Dooley
10. DQuinn1575
11. Dr Positivity
12. Dutchball97
13. eminence
14. f4p
15. falcolombardi
16. Fundamentals21
17. homecourtloss
18. iggymcfrack
19. LA Bird
20. lessthanjake
21. Lou Fan
22. Moonbeam
23. Narigo
24. OhayoKD
25. One_and_Done
26. penbeast0
27. rk2023
28. ShaqAttac
29. Taj FTW
30. Tim Lehrbach
31. trelos6
32. trex_8063
33. ZeppelinPage
Last Note
Feel free to ask questions or make suggestions in posts after this OP. I do not intend to open everything in the structure up to a democratic vote - that way lies madness - but I will listen to the thoughts of others and give them my consideration.
Cheers,
Doc