Top 10 best basketball players ever

[PooledSilver]

Curious what people would say here

Best =/= greatest of course to be clear, we’re not talking relative to their peers we’re just saying in general

[edgymnerch]

My personal one is:

1) LeBron
2) Kareem
3) Jordan
4) Russell
5) Duncan
6) Shaq
7) Hakeem
8) Wilt
9) Magic
10) Steph

[PooledSilver]

My personal one is:

1) LeBron
2) Kareem
3) Jordan
4) Russell
5) Duncan
6) Shaq
7) Hakeem
8) Wilt
9) Magic
10) Steph

How is this different from your best list

[Dutchball97]

My personal one is:

1) LeBron
2) Kareem
3) Jordan
4) Russell
5) Duncan
6) Shaq
7) Hakeem
8) Wilt
9) Magic
10) Steph

This reads more like greatest than best

Most people generally are going to have pretty similar lists of top 10 "greatest" and top 10 "best" players. Greatest leans more into career and best leans more into peak but there is still a lot of overlap there.

But since you're saying not relative to peers you want something different?

[DCasey91]

No particular order:

Jordan
James
Russell
Kareem
Duncan
Wilt
Shaq
Bird
Magic
Hakeem

Curry on the cusp

I do think Jokic at maximum can be above all of them except the top 3-4

[PooledSilver]

My personal one is:

1) LeBron
2) Kareem
3) Jordan
4) Russell
5) Duncan
6) Shaq
7) Hakeem
8) Wilt
9) Magic
10) Steph

This reads more like greatest than best

Most people generally are going to have pretty similar lists of top 10 "greatest" and top 10 "best" players. Greatest leans more into career and best leans more into peak but there is still a lot of overlap there.

But since you're saying not relative to peers you want something different?

I meant

Greatest = best amongst your peers

Best = better at basketball

Demar isn’t a greater basketball player than, let’s say Sam Jones, but he’s obviously better at basketball

[Dutchball97]

This reads more like greatest than best

Most people generally are going to have pretty similar lists of top 10 "greatest" and top 10 "best" players. Greatest leans more into career and best leans more into peak but there is still a lot of overlap there.

But since you're saying not relative to peers you want something different?

I meant

Greatest = best amongst your peers

Best = better at basketball

Demar isn’t a greater basketball player than, let’s say Sam Jones, but he’s obviously better at basketball

Different eras require different skills so while current players are better at certain things they're also worse at other skills that became less prominent over time. The best at basketball are the guys that stood out the most among their peers and not just the guys with the best handles or smoothest jumper.

[OhayoKD]

This reads more like greatest than best

Most people generally are going to have pretty similar lists of top 10 "greatest" and top 10 "best" players. Greatest leans more into career and best leans more into peak but there is still a lot of overlap there.

But since you're saying not relative to peers you want something different?

I meant

Greatest = best amongst your peers

Best = better at basketball

Demar isn’t a greater basketball player than, let’s say Sam Jones, but he’s obviously better at basketball

better is often just "relative to peers" in realgm. IIt's not like either have a specific definition. Just edit your op to say "in a vacuum, not era-relative"

[Statlanta]

Russell
Jordan
Abdul-Jabbar
Duncan
James
Chamberlain
Olajuwon
Bryant
O'Neal
Johnson

[penbeast0]

This reads more like greatest than best

Most people generally are going to have pretty similar lists of top 10 "greatest" and top 10 "best" players. Greatest leans more into career and best leans more into peak but there is still a lot of overlap there.

But since you're saying not relative to peers you want something different?

I meant

Greatest = best amongst your peers

Best = better at basketball

Demar isn’t a greater basketball player than, let’s say Sam Jones, but he’s obviously better at basketball

Not obvious to me. IF you mean he takes more advantage of rules, refereeing, and training techniques that weren't available in the 1960s, sure. IF you mean a better understanding, consistency of effort, and skill set relative to the rules and world of their time, Sam Jones was probably the better player.

If what you want to ask is who would be the top 10 players in the world if everyone came to today's game with a time machine then yeah, you would get a list that's greatly loaded with the 10 best players of the last 10 years with maybe a couple of the greatest of their time sneaking onto the list like Jordan.

[Johnny Tomala]

MJ
Kareem
Russell
LeBron
Wilt
Magic
Bird
Hakeem
Duncan
Shaq

[eminence]

I demand they all be time machined to a pre-goaltend league as James Naismith intended.

Give me Tacko Fall.

[AEnigma]

Better versus greatest I think matters more down the list than at the top, or the further back you go. So I will mark a few names based on how confident I am they would translate forward as well as in their time, using the current best player in the league as a measuring stick.

- Lebron: was the best player in the world four years ago, the top scorer in the league two years ago, and is still roughly top ten. Zero uncertainty and continues to be an easy and obvious #1.

- Kareem: looking at Wemby a bit, easy to picture him as an elite scorer and defender. Mild uncertainty here though because unclear how that profile matches against Jokic and/or regular season Embiid.

- Wilt: moderate uncertainty because of the variability of his career, but I still believe in the defence of players like Russell and Thurmond back then (their offence is what would likely cap their value today with singular defensive impact more neutered), and the transition from 1964 to 1967 suggests he could fulfill a Sabonis-esque offensive role while being one of the better defenders in the league.

- Hakeem: low uncertainty; only real potential criticism is overall efficiency being capped a couple of tiers below Jokic, but the defence translates spectacularly well, and he can be a functional offensive hub in much the same way Embiid has been

- Duncan: moderate uncertainty by virtue of negative comparisons with Hakeem without the dynamism that keeps Hakeem relevant, but he was still somewhat recently a fringe top ten player even well outside his prime

- Garnett: only mild uncertainty, for reasons that have been discussed to death here; has a lower scoring ceiling than every name here but is better than a player like Draymond across the board, and Draymond has consistently shown superstar impact in the postseason even recently

- Shaq: moderate uncertainty; Jokic is better offensively by more than enough to make up for Shaq’s defensive advantages, while every other big I mentioned at least has some grey area in whether their defence could elevate them above. However, that does not necessarily exclude him from being a top ten talent.

- Jordan: moderate uncertainty; still probably the best wing in the game, but degree of separation from players like Shai and Kawhi is unclear, and without a comfortable degree of separation cannot be reasonably argued above Jokic

- Kobe: same as above because of a more modern scoring arsenal and better technical passing, but lacks Jordan’s outlier athleticism as a slasher and defender, and his argument over Kawhi is completely dependent on him maximising his superior playmaking

- Magic: moderate uncertainty because of defensive questions and lack of clarity on the extent to which he could maintain his status as an outlier playmaker; not better than Jokic, but would be extremely efficient and would be in conversation with Haliburton and Luka as the league’s best creator

- Steph: led a title team two years ago

Add Jokic to make this a top twelve. If forced to cut down the list, I would probably start with Kobe, but I am willing to entertain arguments that Kobe might be more of an outlier today than I am crediting. Among the rest of the moderate uncertainty players, unsure who would be the second cut.

Other potential inclusions are Luka, who is on the right trajectory but needs a larger playoff sample and continued improvement on defence (true neutral would be great); if this were just top ten on offence, he is an automatic inclusion, and might press for top five.

On that note, Nash is an interesting name to consider. I believe in him as the second best shooter in league history and potentially its best playmaker, both of which can skew in his favour today in a way they did not in 2005-07 when Duncan was his superior. Haliburton is his modern heir, and I think right now Nash remains a comfortable tier ahead (will see how Haliburton’s game continues to develop). Limited by his size though, and for versatility reasons trails behind Steph as an overall asset.

Healthy Kawhi can contend. We will see how possible that still is, but in theory, he is up there with any wing scorer and defender.

Giannis has a lot of frustrating flaws but by virtue of playing in the modern league translates more apparently than most of the moderate uncertainty names I listed.

Sixteen names there, and I feel confident that the top ten “best” should come from that list. Maybe I am overlooking someone, but if I am it is probably a perimetre player, and to add more perimetre players I would need to be a lot lower on bigs historically when if anything I think the 2021-24 consensus top three shows how basketball will always tend to be a big man’s game at the highest level.

[70sFan]

The greatest players ever are also the best, it's not that complicated.

[AEnigma]

The greatest players ever are also the best, it's not that complicated.

Not what those words mean, no. Many people like to pretend they are substitutes for one another, but the meanings are distinct.

[70sFan]

The greatest players ever are also the best, it's not that complicated.

Not what those words mean, no. Many people like to pretend they are substitutes for one another, but the meanings are distinct.

Unless someone describes greatness in terms of accolades etc. I don't see the distinction. The best players are the ones who dominated the field the most and these are also the greatest ones.

Unless someone decides that the best players are only the ones who play in the most modern era, but I don't think anyone does that.

[Dutchball97]

The greatest players ever are also the best, it's not that complicated.

Not what those words mean, no. Many people like to pretend they are substitutes for one another, but the meanings are distinct.

If we look at it like that then best would pretty much just be what we're already ranking on this board and greatest would be about things like legacy, cultural impact and popularity. Looking at the top 10 in the current top 100 project I'd say the only changes would be Duncan (5), Hakeem (6) and KG (9) getting replaced by numbers 11-13; Curry, Bird and Kobe so not that drastic of a difference. The only crazy one I could imagine would be Kareem getting booted for Iverson but that's a long shot imo.

[AEnigma]

The greatest players ever are also the best, it's not that complicated.

Not what those words mean, no. Many people like to pretend they are substitutes for one another, but the meanings are distinct.

Unless someone describes greatness in terms of accolades etc. I don't see the distinction. The best players are the ones who dominated the field the most and these are also the greatest ones.

Unless someone decides that the best players are only the ones who play in the most modern era, but I don't think anyone does that.

This is at best naïve. A lot of people claim to separate the two, but few principally do. If a player won absolutely no titles, it may still be possible to be commonly perceived as the greatest player ever, but they would need to be much more apparently clear of any other player’s quality of play to maintain the same degree of support as if they had won several.

Lebron is… maybe six opponent or teammate shots away from having one ring. Call it six shots and an ankle injury to get to zero rings. Do you think he would have anywhere near the support for greatest player if that were the case? Sure, some people may ignore it. Maybe you feel you would. But reducing his ring count affects his “greatness” in a way that does not at all affect his quality of play.

Look at public perception of players like Hakeem and Garnett. Outstanding quality of play, but penalised for a relative lack of titles and accolades by virtue of losing most of their primes to bad teams. On the other end, if Bill Russell lost every close series he ever played with no change in his own play, how many people are keeping him in their top four? If Jordan loses to the Pacers or Jazz in 1998, is he treated as immortal? Does Shaq get consistently locked into top three to five peak discussions if the Trail Blazers do not have a fourth quarter meltdown? The public largely puts Kobe in their top five; are they doing that with 2001 and 2009 as his only titles?

Best is about quality, greatness is about perception of legacy. People like to pretend they are functionally identical, I guess in a way to make themselves feel like they are being “objective”, but practice almost always suggests otherwise. And we can see that when people are pressed to back up their stances with film analysis. This question is probably too ambitious for this forum in that sense, but I would be hard pressed to say someone like Mikan is close to someone like Jokic in quality of play to anywhere near the extent that Mikan has a certain “greatness” from what he accomplished.

[PooledSilver]

Let me rephrase this:

Is Bob Cousy one of the greatest nba players ever? Of course

Would bob cousy get destroyed by multiple players in high school today? Of course

It takes an extreme amount of cope to watch black and white film and think the level of basketball skill is the same and it’s just “different”

[PooledSilver]

Not what those words mean, no. Many people like to pretend they are substitutes for one another, but the meanings are distinct.

Unless someone describes greatness in terms of accolades etc. I don't see the distinction. The best players are the ones who dominated the field the most and these are also the greatest ones.

Unless someone decides that the best players are only the ones who play in the most modern era, but I don't think anyone does that.

This is at best naïve. A lot of people claim to separate the two, but few principally do. If a player won absolutely no titles, it may still be possible to be commonly perceived as the greatest player ever, but they would need to be much more apparently clear of any other player’s quality of play to maintain the same degree of support as if they had won several.

Lebron is… maybe six opponent or teammate shots away from having one ring. Call it six shots and an ankle injury to get to zero rings. Do you think he would have anywhere near the support for greatest player if that were the case? Sure, some people may ignore it. Maybe you feel you would. But reducing his ring count affects his “greatness” in a way that does not at all affect his quality of play.

Look at public perception of players like Hakeem and Garnett. Outstanding quality of play, but penalised for a relative lack of titles and accolades by virtue of losing most of their primes to bad teams. On the other end, if Bill Russell lost every close series he ever played with no change in his own play, how many people are keeping him in their top four? If Jordan loses to the Pacers or Jazz in 1998, is he treated as immortal? Does Shaq get consistently locked into top three to five peak discussions if the Trail Blazers do not have a fourth quarter meltdown? The public largely puts Kobe in their top five; are they doing that with 2001 and 2009 as his only titles?

Best is about quality, greatness is about perception of legacy. People like to pretend they are functionally identical, I guess in a way to make themselves feel like they are being “objective”, but practice almost always suggests otherwise. And we can see that when people are pressed to back up their stances with film analysis. This question is probably too ambitious for this forum in that sense, but I would be hard pressed to say someone like Mikan is close to someone Jokic in quality of play to anywhere near the extent that Mikan has a certain “greatness” from what he accomplished.

I didn’t realize that this was controversial, I’ve never seen anyone dispute that basketball players get better over time.

I sympathize with the “it’s the rules” but it doesn’t make sense to say 50s basketball was like actually braindead bad, then it leveled out in the 60s with marginal improvement on skill level for like 60 years. It pops out on film too