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I started this thread this morning on the General Board and it was met with disdain, hostility, derision, and total apathy.

So, trying it again here, on a much more informed and savvy/astute polity .

Who is the greatest player of all time, and, why?

I honestly don't even have a go to answer anymore for this question and haven't in a few years. Any of the 1-4 guys listed are perfectly acceptable answers to me. To where I just have them as 1a-1d.

Personally, I go with LeBron, but absolutely see the case for Russell as well. KAJ/Duncan with less convincing cases, don't really appreciate the cases for others.

The more I look into the history of basketball, the more I'm convinced that Bill Russell was a singularity who was more valuable defensively than any other player has been on one side of the ball. I use Jokic and Embiid as a modern comparison, as a one-way center who was able to completely dominate on that side of the ball to the point where they were more valuable than their two way contemporary (Embiid and Wilt). Russell won MVPs because he was the best player in the league, as voted on by his peers (instead of the media) over Oscar Robertson, Jerry West, and Wilt Chamberlain; Obviously, his lack of an offensive game was mitigated on the court in other places (Bill Russell generated many fastbreak opportunities through his defense and rebounding in an era where halfcourt offense was woefully inefficient, could shut down anybody on defense (even guards like Oscar and West had trouble against Russell, and this ability to lock down whoever generated the opposing team's offense, regardless of position, was incredibly valuable), and had an incredibly high basketball IQ).He made Royce O'Neal (Tom Sanders) and Alex Caruso (K.C. Jones) into hall of famers, as they won rings and siphoned off his defensive reputation. The '62 through '65 Celtics were 4 of the top five defenses in NBA history. Over that span, Russell averaged 44.325 minutes. The second highest Celtic in minutes over those years averaged 33.2 minutes. I just have a hard time attributing those defensive results to anyone else. He might be the greatest rebounder ever, at least on a per-possesion basis (He beats out Wilt per minute in a similar era, and I have concerns with Rodman leaking defensive value to chase rebounds). He had fantastic physical gifts, claiming he could, "kick the net and jump up and touch the top of the backboard’’, while being a fantastic sprinter for a bigman. And his era was tailor made to maximize his impact, with the focus on paint protection maximizing his defensive impact and his era's inneficent shooting mitigating his offensive limitations by making him closer to the pack's efficiency (and often times among the leaders in his early years).

ty 4191 wrote:I started this thread this morning on the General Board and it was met with disdain, hostility, derision, and total apathy.

So, trying it again here, on a much more informed and savvy/astute polity .

Who is the greatest player of all time, and, why?

Since we are in the middle of a project that spent multiple pages and much discussion answering this, I suggest you go read the #1 thread in the top 100 project. Feel free to comment there and bring it back up if you wish; the point is discussion and that works even if the vote is over.

There are several guys at the top of their own era's that dominated the game. COmparing across era's is hard but I feel most confident in saying that LeBron is the greatest player ever.

LeBron is able to do everything on a court and has gone beyond the usual expectation of a player where he's at times competing against the opposing coach as much as the players. He's been the main driving force between 3 separate championships on 3 separate teams. THe seperate championship teams and finals MVPs make him the one I confidently put at the top of the list.

Does Haliburton actually have equity here? He’s **** insane! And he’s so young.

Yeah I voted other here for Haliburton.

Jordan or Russell are both great choices for #1 and in the top tier for me. The two best winners and ceiling raisers in league history. Russell won more but his value is also more situational with regards to era.

Lebron and Kareem are on the outside looking in with weaker GOAT cases and everyone else is a really long shot.

LeBron and Russell is my T-2 and has been since Fall / since taking more of an approach valuing longevity and quality of play at an MVP+ level & less to surrounding years

Jordan for sure. Best peak, best prime. Concensus GOAT everywhere outside of PC Board (voting results very telling and very predictable ).

Gregoire wrote:Jordan for sure. Best peak, best prime. Concensus GOAT everywhere outside of PC Board (voting results very telling and very predictable ).

He's not the consensus goat everywhere.

I’m unsure how a 12/26 poll vote is telling and predictable by any means

Don’t have one and I think people who obsess over a singular GOAT are wasting their time. Even if we could perfectly compare positional impacts (we can’t) the era differences alone make things incredibly difficult.

Overall, Jordan, James, Russell, and Abdul-Jabbar have distinguished themselves in their eras.

At this point, I think there are two possible choices: Bill Russell or LeBron James. James surpassed Kareem for career value and Russell has the best, most successful career.

My evaluation is focused on longevity, which is why James is at the top of my list. HM to Jordan and Kareem of course.

EmpireFalls wrote:Don’t have one and I think people who obsess over a singular GOAT are wasting their time. Even if we could perfectly compare positional impacts (we can’t) the era differences alone make things incredibly difficult. Overall, Jordan, James, Russell, and Abdul-Jabbar have distinguished themselves in their eras.

Well said. I'm pretty confident in saying that if there will be a player with clear cut GOAT status (let's assume Wemby dominates the game in a way we've never seen before), people will be fine with having LeBron and Jordan on the same tier, as variable of necessity of having one single GOAT won't be valid anymore (with someone else being better than both of them in this scenario). It's totally understandable (to have someone as the greatest, even if that's totally subjective), but simultaneously it's still only a social construct, not some consensual knowledge as @Gregoire suggests.

Big 4 is pretty much exchangeable within itself with every 1-4 ranking defendable.

Gregoire wrote:Jordan for sure. Best peak, best prime. Concensus GOAT everywhere outside of PC Board (voting results very telling and very predictable ).

Regardless of your provocative tone, what you are trying to do is to objectify your subjective feelings, even though there is no objective formula to say that Jordan (also LeBron and anyone) was better than Bill Russell. If we agree on that, whether there's really a consensus or not is completely irrelevant. This is only subjective interpretation of selected facts, there's nothing more to that.

Furthermore, I don't want to dwell too much on postmodernism or critical theory or stuff like that, but using 'consensus' as an argument in the discussion about subjective interpretations of facts is nothing more than eristics aimed at maintaining the majority view in accordance with its beliefs as the universally valid one.

And I don't even disagree with your main point - as I said, it's defendable to have Jordan as the GOAT.

Considering Wilt has 72 records and probably has 100 more if blocks and steals plus defensive and offensive rebounds were tracked like.

Career blocks both regular season and playoffs.

Career per.

Single season Per.

The most double triple doubles as he had one game in 1962 of 20 points 20 rebounds and 20 blocks.



The most triple doubles

The most 40 and 50 point triple doubles.

The most playoff triple doubles.

The most 30 20 10 playoff games.
The most 40 20 10 games with blocks tracked.

Wilt Chamberlain records 10 blocks in a win over the San Francisco Warriors during the 1969 NBA playoffs.

• 7 PTS
• 27 REB
• 10 BLK
Apr 5, 1969)


Wilt Chamberlain put up 53 points, 21 rebounds, and 15 blocks in a win over the Detroit Pistons.

(Oct 24, 1965)

Wilt Chamberlain records a near quadruple-double with 34 points, 27 rebounds, 7 assists, and 11 blocks in a win over the Detroit Pistons.

(Mar 12, 1969)

Rookie Wilt Chamberlain put up 36 points, 34 rebounds, and 9 blocks in a Halloween night win over the Detroit Pistons.

“Forced to deal with two and often three opponents, the 7-1 homegrown All-America, stood out before the largest crowd in Warrior history.”

(Nov 1, 1959)

The answer is clearly Wilt.

As he is the quadruple king

Triple double king

The shot blocking king

And the rebounding king

And lead the nba in field goal percentage the most.

Plus he is the only other player to lead the playoffs and regular season In four of the major categories

The only reason why Wilt is not considered the goat by the majority is because we are missing out on a ton of data about him.

Wilt out scored, out rebounded and out shot Bill in every series they played.

Wilt held Bill to less than 40% shooting 5 out of 8 series.

Wilt averaged 28 rebounds a game vs Bill, has 3 30 rpg series and numerous rebounding playoff records vs the Celtics.

Wilt had a quadruple double vs the Celtics. 22/32/10/10.

Wilt outplayed Bill in elimination games as well.

I used TS% instead of FT% to keep it close.

Elimination Games(EG) and Game 7's

EG's (pts/rba/ast/ts%)

Wilt: 29.8/28.2/2.3/54.4
Russell: 11.0/24.6/4.8/45.5


Finals EG's

Wilt: 24.0/27.0/2.5/50.59
Russell: 7.5/20.0/4.0/41.48

Game 7's

Wilt: 21.0/28.8/3.3/60.87
Russell: 13.0/24.5/5.0/49.77

Finals Game 7

Wilt: 18/27/3/65.60
Russell: 6/21/6/34.25

Furthermore.

In the 1971 Wcf with stats tracked.

7. Date: Fri 04/09/71
- Chamberlain 22 pts, 20 rebs, 1 as, 8 blocks, 10-19 FG/FGA – 3 blocks against Jabbar L
-Abdul-Jabbar 32 pts, 22 rebs, 1 as, 1 blocks, 14-30 FG/FGA W

8. Date: Sun 04/11/71
- Chamberlain 26 pts, 22 rebs, 0 as, * blocks, 10-21 FG/FGA - Wilt blocked numerious shots L
-Abdul-Jabbar 22 pts, 10 rebs, 4 as, * blocks, 9-19 FG/FGA W

9. Date: Wed 04/14/71
- Chamberlain 24 pts, 24 rebs, 3 as, 3 blocks, 9-19 FG/FGA W
-Abdul-Jabbar 20 pts, 19 rebs, 6 as, 0 blocks, 8-16 FG/FGA L

10.Date: Fri 04/16/71
- Chamberlain 15 pts, 16 rebs, 2 as, * blocks, 7-14 FG/FGA L
-Abdul-Jabbar 31 pts, 20 rebs, 5 as, * blocks, 14-20 FG/FGA W

11.Date: Fri 04/16/71
- Chamberlain 23 pts, 12 rebs, 4 as, 6 blocks, 10-21 FG/FGA – 5 blocks against Jabbar L
-Abdul-Jabbar 20 pts, 15 rebs, 5 as, 3 blocks, 7-23 FG/FGA W


Then the next year Wilt Chamberlain to Close Out The 72 Bucks:

2 GP (2 Wins)
46.5 MPG
16.0 PPG
25.0 RPG
4.0 APG
66.7 FG% (7.5 FGA)
80.0 FT% (7.5 FTA)
74.1 TS%
10 blocks in Game 6 and game 5.

Held Kareem to more FGA than PTS;
32.5 PPG
41.4 FG% (35.0 FGA)
100.0 FT% (3.5 FTA)
44.5 TS% (-5.3 rTS%)






Also It should be noted that if you take Wilt out of the equation there have only been 30 to 40 games of 60+ points in Nba history

as (Wilt had 32 by himself.)


Or only 28 30-30 games (Chamberlain had 103 on his own.)

Or only six 40-30 games (Chamberlain had 55.)

And If you take Wilt and his four highest-scoring seasons out from Nba history then MJ's 37.1 ppg would be the all-time record, and James Harden who plays today would be next at 36.1 ppg along with Rick Barry at 35.6 ppg then Kobe at 35.4 ppg.

BTW, Kareem's 34.8 ppg in '72 (also in the Chamberlain-era), is 10th all-time, and Baylor's 60-61 season of 34.8 ppg is 11th.


Furthermore.

Most 50-point games in a decade:

5 Wilt, 4 Mikan (1947-60)

113 Wilt, 14 Baylor (1961-70)

9 Kareem, 7 Barry (1971-80)

20 Jordan, 6 King, 6 Wilkins (1981-90)

10 Jordan, 3 Shaq, 3 D Rob (1991-2000)

24 Kobe, 9 Iverson, 8 LeBron (2001-10)

23 Harden, 12 Lillard, 10 Curry (2011-22)



strike Chamberlain from the record book, and the numbers are far more normal across all eras.


Here is also a fun fact.



It took everyone combined in NBA history 43 years after Wilt's retirement in 1973 to match the number of 60-point games Wilt had in his career.


Also, Wilt has 15 games over 65 points compared to everybody else in NBA history just having 8.

The General Board poll started in February this year and ran until recently with 764 votes.



Jordan was not the "consensus" GOAT but is by far the most popular choice.

The PC Board does seem to have a lot of Lebron fans judging by how active the Lebron thread always is.

Russell getting only 4% of the votes makes absolutely no sense to me but then again everyone is different.

Djoker wrote:The General Board poll started in February this year and ran until recently with 764 votes.



Jordan was not the "consensus" GOAT but is by far the most popular choice.

The PC Board does seem to have a lot of Lebron fans judging by how active the Lebron thread always is.

Russell getting only 4% of the votes makes absolutely no sense to me but then again everyone is different.

Not only this is indicative, but also how berserk with any methods and manipulations they go with their pro-Lebron and anti-Jordan (as most probable GOAT and player, against who LeBron has very weak argument) agenda...