RealGM

Top 100 discussions are always a great read for me but I'd like to get to a more direct question with a slightly more holistic, more straight-forward way of ranking players... Who would you rather have?

I think this is a ranking that gives a boost to a lot of current players - for example, even though I think Tony Parker definitely has a top 100 NBA career, I'm taking Anthony Edwards over him every time.

How I will do it...

I will keep rolling 5 players from the most recent top 100 list.

If at any point members want to start nominating players (say we're in the top 15 and you'd already rather have Jokic than any of the available options) then you can start throwing in nominations.

Each round of voting will last two days.

I have a history of starting these voting rankings and not completing them, but hope I can get it done this time.

Again, the criteria is who would you rather have on your team.

This is also left intentionally a bit open-ended, but the main criteria is who would you pick on your team plain and simple.


For #1, I'm taking LeBron.

I'd pick Magic. Best balance of personality and basketball excellence. All the players on the list above were too prickly or lacking in personality. Magic was fun on court and off.

#1 Russell (assuming I'm my home team, Washington). LeBron will get impatient and leave the way he did in Cleveland; Jordan has that impatience factor too (as shown by his baseball career). Even Kareem pushed his way out of Milwaukee. Russell may be the best on court anyway, especially relative to era (though admittedly not from a marketing standpoint), and I think I'd get more value to the franchise.

penbeast0 wrote:#1 Russell (assuming I'm my home team, Washington). LeBron will get impatient and leave the way he did in Cleveland; Jordan has that impatience factor too (as shown by his baseball career). Even Kareem pushed his way out of Milwaukee. Russell may be the best on court anyway, especially relative to era (though admittedly not from a marketing standpoint), and I think I'd get more value to the franchise.

Cleveland was comically inept and Jordan more then anything got burnt out. Russell was drafted into a franchise that was far ahead of its time and had maybe the goat basketball coach/front office person that he also had a very close friendship with. If you put him in another situation/city, especially in an era with more teams and player movement, I'm not sure how willing he would be to stay put. Going by your criteria, I think Duncan is by far the most logical choice.

capfan33 wrote:

penbeast0 wrote:#1 Russell (assuming I'm my home team, Washington). LeBron will get impatient and leave the way he did in Cleveland; Jordan has that impatience factor too (as shown by his baseball career). Even Kareem pushed his way out of Milwaukee. Russell may be the best on court anyway, especially relative to era (though admittedly not from a marketing standpoint), and I think I'd get more value to the franchise.

Cleveland was comically inept and Jordan more then anything got burnt out. Russell was drafted into a franchise that was far ahead of its time and had maybe the goat basketball coach/front office person that he also had a very close friendship with. If you put him in another situation/city, especially in an era with more teams and player movement, I'm not sure how willing he would be to stay put. Going by your criteria, I think Duncan is by far the most logical choice.

Duncan is another excellent choice but I don't think he had close to the in-era impact that Bill Russell had. I have 3 serious contenders for GOAT, Russell/LeBron/Jordan with Kareem and maybe Mikan as outside possibilities. Within that group, I wanted to highlight some less traditional points rather than looking purely at impact numbers as the OP is looking for more casual reasoning.

If I worried more about jersey sales and filling seats in hostile arenas, I would emphasize Jordan's incredible marketing reach (in addition to his playing ability). I don't worry about filling home seats with Russell (or Jordan or LeBron) because I believe that with decent front offices, they will create contenders and that winning sells out home stadiums more than anything else.

capfan33 wrote:

penbeast0 wrote:#1 Russell (assuming I'm my home team, Washington). LeBron will get impatient and leave the way he did in Cleveland; Jordan has that impatience factor too (as shown by his baseball career). Even Kareem pushed his way out of Milwaukee. Russell may be the best on court anyway, especially relative to era (though admittedly not from a marketing standpoint), and I think I'd get more value to the franchise.

Cleveland was comically inept and Jordan more then anything got burnt out. Russell was drafted into a franchise that was far ahead of its time and had maybe the goat basketball coach/front office person that he also had a very close friendship with. If you put him in another situation/city, especially in an era with more teams and player movement, I'm not sure how willing he would be to stay put. Going by your criteria, I think Duncan is by far the most logical choice.

Duncan was very willing to leave too, and there are some suggestions he may have even preferred to leave had the Magic been as accommodating as teams are today.

The reality is that few all-time players are going to be content rotting away on bad teams, and even on good teams (like the Spurs) there will be personal draws elsewhere. Garnett showed the Wolves a ton of loyalty… but would he have been as loyal had they not invested in him to a degree that no franchise ever really has?

I am fine marking Kareem and Lebron and Jordan down here for having less certain long-term commitment, but I agree that it is tough to make definitive claims about what any of them would do comparatively to the others when subjected to years of irrelevant teams.

On your team as a fan or as a owner/GM?

AEnigma wrote:

capfan33 wrote:

penbeast0 wrote:#1 Russell (assuming I'm my home team, Washington). LeBron will get impatient and leave the way he did in Cleveland; Jordan has that impatience factor too (as shown by his baseball career). Even Kareem pushed his way out of Milwaukee. Russell may be the best on court anyway, especially relative to era (though admittedly not from a marketing standpoint), and I think I'd get more value to the franchise.

Cleveland was comically inept and Jordan more then anything got burnt out. Russell was drafted into a franchise that was far ahead of its time and had maybe the goat basketball coach/front office person that he also had a very close friendship with. If you put him in another situation/city, especially in an era with more teams and player movement, I'm not sure how willing he would be to stay put. Going by your criteria, I think Duncan is by far the most logical choice.

Duncan was very willing to leave too, and there are some suggestions he may have even preferred to leave had the Magic been as accommodating as teams are today.

The reality is that few all-time players are going to be content rotting away on bad teams, and even on good teams (like the Spurs) there will be personal draws elsewhere. Garnett showed the Wolves a ton of loyalty… but would he have been as loyal had they not invested in him to a degree that no franchise ever really has?

I am fine marking Kareem and Lebron and Jordan down here for having less certain long-term commitment, but I agree that it is tough to make definitive claims about what any of them would do comparatively to the others when subjected to years of irrelevant teams.

I do vaguely remember the almost-Magic super team, good point. And yea, I also think that most ATGs aren't willing to tolerate bad teams around them for long, so I would evaluate based on other factors. And as such, for success, Lebron. More holistically including things like ticket sales and marketing, MJ of course.

On these kinds of Qs where you're gonna win a lot either way, I happily take Russell every time, even if GOAT-wise, for me, he's far removed from LeBron at this point.

That's the kind of human being you want setting the tone of your franchise for 10+ years, in and out of the court.

TheGOATRises007 wrote:On your team as a fan or as a owner/GM?

Intentionally left vague, but when I vote I use more of an GM/Owner perspective.

As an owner, I'd like to get Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan. Great winners...their leadership styles balance each other out...and they cover all the bases from a marketing perspective. Goldmine.

Seems pretty obvious you’d want Jordan. The nature of this question seems like it is going beyond what the player would do on the court (where Jordan is a very strong candidate for #1 anyways) and into squishier things. And considering that Jordan was really the biggest individual draw the league has ever seen, I think you’d clearly want Jordan when you add the marketing aspect of things.

I'll justify my vote as well since other people are...

I think when you have your pick of players it's a can't-lose situation - once you're at this level, even though Shaq may be technically ranked lower, Shaq with a good team is beating Jordan with an average team.

So this becomes more of a business decision, which leaves you with Michael and LeBron.

I like LeBron's leadership and playing style more if he's going to be my main guy. I also like his versatility more in terms of being able to deploy him 1-4.

I'll also expand the voting pool to 10 players for future rounds since people are nominating players further down the list.