Top 25 peaks for 25 years periods - voting panel thread

[70sFan]

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Hello everyone!

Sorry for not attaching every active poster on PC Board, but I couldn't find the easily manageable list quickly.

I decided that to avoid some intense and heated arguments, we can start a modified version of the greatest peak project. This is a brief summary of the idea:

1. Eras selection

We had a long discussion about the choice of the given eras. There were many really good ideas - selecting by 10 years stretches, using birthdays as criteria, creating separated "eras" based on style of play and the state of the league etc. There were concerns with the length of the project and stacking up too many players in various eras. I also hoped that this new project will focus more on slightly lesser known players and top 10 per decade format wouldn't give us that.

I decided to split the NBA history to 3 eras:

1950/51 - 1974/75
1975/76 - 1999/00
2000/01 - 2024/25

This leaves us without the first official NBA season - 1949/50 season, but we can simply add it to the first "era" for simplicity.

2. The format

Thinking Basketball podcast by Ben Taylor recently publishes top 25 peaks for the last 25 years. I really enjoyed the first 3 episodes because they gave an opportunity to talk about guys that are rarely in such conversations - Kidd, Tatum, Butler, Rose, Green etc. I attempted to create a very quick top 25 list for the other 2 eras and it was very fun, especially for the last spots.

I decided to go with top 25 for 25 years format. We'll vote from the top down to the 25th place. Unfortunately, that would give us 75 threads, so I decided to add another change - we should vote for 2 places in the same thread, giving each poster 3 votes (in order). For example, if you believe that the top 3 peaks of the first era are:

1. 1955/60 Larry Costello
2. 1974/75 Elvin Hayes
3. 1968/69 Bill Bridges

Then you share your top 3 list (with explaination of course) and each place gets 3, 2 and 1 point. After collecting all votes, we get the top 2 players within one thread. The last thread will have the voting for the last 3 places instead. That would cut the number of threads in half - to only 36.

Of course we could adjust the format if you feel the need.

3. Questions

1. What to do with the ABA? Should we include ABA seasons to the 2nd era, or maybe we should add another voting for ABA-only peaks (it would then lead to top 9 in 9 ABA years)?

2. Do you have any better solutions for voting format?

3. I thought about the date joined limit for participation - in this case, I'd simply allow anyone who joined the RealGM a month before the first thread from the last unfinished peaks project. I am willing to change my mind on that matter though.

4. Feel free to ask and object any choices I have made so far.

4. Voting panel

I want to create a consistent voting panel for this project, so please let me know below if you are interested.

[Djoker]

Question...

Could we vote in the same players for two different eras? For instance, Kareem makes the first era peaks (1971) and then second era peaks (1977) or would we arbitrarily put such players in one era only and they aren't eligible to be voted into another era?

Definitely interested to participate.

[70sFan]

Question...

Could we vote in the same players for two different eras? For instance, Kareem makes the first era peaks (1971) and then second era peaks (1977) or would we arbitrarily put such players in one era only and they aren't eligible to be voted into another era?

Definitely interested to participate.

Yes, you can choose any year of amy player within the selected era. Kareem is available for both eras. So is Shaq etc.

I am glad you'll contribute!

[iggymcfrack]

I missed the last peaks project which seemed to fizzle out a bit so I’d be very interested in joining this one. Should be fun to have a slightly different concept and I’m also interested to see how our modern peaks list compares to the final list from Thinking Basketball which should finish up about the same time as the offseason at their current pace.

[Cavsfansince84]

Only thing I'd do is if you are going to get two selections from each thread then go to 5 nominees per list.

[DraymondGold]

Interested!

A few thoughts:

3.1. Open to including the ABA, but don't feel strongly about it. I find the cross-comparison between ABA and NBA to be interesting, and not too stale unlike some of the other peak debates. I haven't done an exact list of best peaks from 76-00 so am not sure who would be added from the ABA-only peak and who would drop off the back end to the honorable mentions.

3.2. If we're going to vote-in two players at once (open to the idea), I might suggest raising the cap for number of players someone can rank. Say, minimum 3 rankings but no maximum number or maximum 5 or something like that. Or minimum 4/5 rankings and no maximum or something like that. Particularly as we go down the list and uncertainty widens, there'll be more candidates to elect in each thread. If 2 players are being elected and people only vote for 3 players, then we run a risk that votes are decided just because someone didn't have the space to specify their 4th vs 5th preferences.

Alternatively, we could go with a more complex or robust voting scheme. Squared referenced a Kemeny-Young rank order voting scheme ( https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2470670&start=220). I'm no experts and haven't had the chance to read through alternatives thoroughly, but worth considering.

3.3. Open to join month limitation, as this avoids some of the concerns people had about sock puppet accounts merely accumulating posts until they're over the minimum post threshold. Though I haven't checked when the 10 sock puppet accounts were added.

3.4. Just to clarify, in your example vote:
"1. 1955/60 Larry Costello
2. 1975/76 Alvan Adams
3. 1968/69 Bill Bridges"
... wouldn't 1976 Alvan Adams be in the second era and not in the first era? If the first era spans the 1951–1975 seasons (where the season here corresponds to the calendar year when the playoffs occurred)... then wouldn't 1975–76 be in the second era?

3.4 Era edge cases
Agreed with Djoker it would be good to clarify the treatment of era edge-cases. No solution is perfect, so clarity is probably the most important. Kareem (74 vs 77) and Shaq (00 vs 01) seem like the highest profile edge cases. Open to having them in both eras, or open to forcing them into one era or another as long as it's clear which one they're in. If we're putting them in one era, one option would be to look at the standard choice for their peak (e.g. peak year used in the previous legitimate peaks project) and put them in that era, then say which era-edge-case players will be in each era at the OP of the appropriate thread.
Edit: I see you've already clarified the edge case policy before I finished typing this post. Sounds good!

[Doctor MJ]

I'm in!

[70sFan]

3.1. Open to including the ABA, but don't feel strongly about it. I find the cross-comparison between ABA and NBA to be interesting, and not too stale unlike some of the other peak debates. I haven't done an exact list of best peaks from 76-00 so am not sure who would be added from the ABA-only peak and who would drop off the back end to the honorable mentions.

I have thought about doing the separate list for the ABA, but I am not sure if that would gain enough attention. Doing it separately would also give us additional chance to rate NBA peaks of ABA greats - I think rating NBA seasons of Julius on the list and picking the best one would be really interesting for example.

I don't have a strong preference though, let's see more opinions.

3.2. If we're going to vote-in two players at once (open to the idea), I might suggest raising the cap for number of players someone can rank. Say, minimum 3 rankings but no maximum number or maximum 5 or something like that. Or minimum 4/5 rankings and no maximum or something like that. Particularly as we go down the list and uncertainty widens, there'll be more candidates to elect in each thread. If 2 players are being elected and people only vote for 3 players, then we run a risk that votes are decided just because someone didn't have the space to specify their 4th vs 5th preferences.

Good idea, Cavsfansince84 also gave that suggestion. I can change the minimum to 5 votes.

Alternatively, we could go with a more complex or robust voting scheme. Squared referenced a Kemeny-Young rank order voting scheme ( https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2470670&start=220). I'm no experts and haven't had the chance to read through alternatives thoroughly, but worth considering.

I have to read it, thanks a lot.

3.4. Just to clarify, in your example vote:
"1. 1955/60 Larry Costello
2. 1975/76 Alvan Adams
3. 1968/69 Bill Bridges"
... wouldn't 1976 Alvan Adams be in the second era and not in the first era? If the first era spans the 1951–1975 seasons (where the season here corresponds to the calendar year when the playoffs occurred)... then wouldn't 1975–76 be in the second era?

Of course it should, I am just stupid Changed the example to make it work.

[penbeast0]

Not sure why you would put ABA peaks in the second era when the entire league except for the last season when the league was failing is in the first era. If the last two years of the ABA are in the second era it gets a little more split since 75 was probably the ABA's greatest year. But basically just include it in the equivalent year NBA.

Or just extend the first era from 49-50 to 75-56.

[70sFan]

Not sure why you would put ABA peaks in the second era when the entire league except for the last season when the league was failing is in the first era. Just include it in the equivalent year NBA like the post merger ABA players.

Would you prefer including the ABA for a given era, or create a separate ABA list?

[penbeast0]

A separate ABA list would be a fun project but the NBA includes ABA stats so you should, hopefully, get a more lively debate with Connie Hawkins going up against the NBA guys that excluded him in 68 and Julius, Artis, and Bobby Jones against a weaker Kareem year in 75.

[PistolPeteJR]

Is Ben's series behind a paywall? I don't see it on YouTube? Assuming access is to his Patreon backers only?

[70sFan]

Is Ben's series behind a paywall? I don't see it on YouTube? Assuming access is to his Patreon backers only?

It's free on podcast platforms. I listen them on Spotify.

[PistolPeteJR]

Is Ben's series behind a paywall? I don't see it on YouTube? Assuming access is to his Patreon backers only?

It's free on podcast platforms. I listen them on Spotify.

Ah thought they were videos like when he did his Greatest Peaks series 4 years ago.

[ZeppelinPage]

Thanks for doing this, 70sFan. Nice to see you running the project. I am up to participate.

[One_and_Done]

I'm happy to participate when I have time.

[tsherkin]

I would love to try and participate

[LA Bird]

In. Are we starting from the oldest or newest era first?

Re: ABA
Think it should go in the first era with the NBA seasons. And agree with penbeast about stretching it to include 1976 - having a single ABA year in the second era kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. Granted it breaks the 25 theme, pre / post merger / 21st century is still a pretty nice grouping.

Re: Vote format
Like 2 players a round to speed things up. However, I would strongly advise against a point tally system with five nominees. Five people voting A>B can be offset by a single B stan leaving A off their vote. Some form of H2H comparison (like Kemeny) would safeguard against this manipulation.

[ReggiesKnicks]

Ben Taylor is currently doing a Top 25 from 2000-Present, and it has been an earful (in a good way).

I agree about the ABA criteria/timeline. It isn't as smooth, but it doesn't change the title to simply include 1976 in the 1951-1976.

In fact, why not simply start in 1952?

1952-1976
1977-2001
2002-2026

Complete 1952-1976 before the season. Expand 1977-2001 to run through the NBA Season. Run 2002-2026 next summer.

[Djoker]

[spoiler]
3. Questions

1. What to do with the ABA? Should we include ABA seasons to the 2nd era, or maybe we should add another voting for ABA-only peaks (it would then lead to top 9 in 9 ABA years)?

2. Do you have any better solutions for voting format?

3. I thought about the date joined limit for participation - in this case, I'd simply allow anyone who joined the RealGM a month before the first thread from the last unfinished peaks project. I am willing to change my mind on that matter though.

4. Feel free to ask and object any choices I have made so far.

I realize I didn't answer the questions.

1. I like the idea of a top 9 in 9 ABA seasons. It's tough to compare a league that isn't the same. But I don't have too strong an opinion on this.

2. Just use the same format as the last peaks projects. Don't see a need to change it.

3. As I've said before, I would say to only allow people who have 500 posts and been a part of RealGM for at least 2 years to vote. Newer posters can still post in the threads and then can be included in future projects. This might sound restrictive but so far everyone who posted in this thread is eligible to participate.