1. 1976-77 Bill WaltonI think Walton was a brilliant defender with a better intuitive understanding of the game than David Robinson as the next main big, and a close to ideal team hub on offence, similarly to an extent well beyond David Robinson (even though yes David Robinson has a fair bit more to offer as a scorer). Relative to his era, Walton is of course a clearer standout, but that is true for most old players. And I do value proving your ability to bring a team to a title. Hypotheticals are nice, but I know Bill Walton could win a title with the 1977 Trail Blazers, I think there are substantial indicators he would have repeated in 1978, and there is nothing in David Robinson’s history that makes me similarly confident he could do the same (although to be clear, I would give him good odds).
And for the people who care about deferring to prior projects, maybe worth pointing out Walton was on average the next guy picked here.
2. 2007-08 Kobe BryantKobe I think is an interesting profile. In terms of raw value to his team, he never really hit the same heights as Dwyane Wade. But I think Wade is a lot more innately limiting in building a championship team; deserves his due for the 2006 playoff run, certainly, but I personally am not just gunning for the best individual playoff runs. Although I do make note of them. Kobe seems to fit a little more naturally with other passers and non-spacers and can anchor strong title teams and playoff offences, so giving him the advantage.
3. 2016-17 Kawhi LeonardMaybe the greatest postseason scorer shy of Jordan and Lebron. Even out of his prime defensive years is still usually a tough man defender. 2017 does lack consistent playmaking, but I am not sure if I feel strongly enough about 2019 or 2021 to go with those years this early instead. The 2019 series against Philadelphia is one of the greatest individual scoring series I have ever seen, but he declined as the postseason went along, and his regular season was pretty low value comparatively. So we settle on the year when Kawhi pre-Zaza injury looked like potentially the best player in the postseason while having a decent MVP regular season campaign. Unibro makes a strong Davis case; I could be swayed on that, but I am more wary of chasing hot streaks, and 2018 was not so incredible that I have total faith in Davis’s ability to approach that level again. 2020 was indeed an incredible postseason though, no doubt there, but is the combination of 2018 + 2020 better than Kawhi’s 2017 + 2019? I mean, like I said, I could be convinced. Gut reaction though is to mark it a bit lower, and bigger samples than that continue to advantage Kawhi.
For potential tiebreaker purposes: Oscar Robertson > Jerry West > David RobinsonI do not have complaints with Oscar Robertson and Jerry West as foundational pieces to building a championship roster the way I do with David Robinson. At least, not in principle; they were game’s best drivers of offence before Magic (and maybe Bird) came along, by pretty comfortable margins. And there is no real way to state with absolutely earned confidence that they could not be incredible drivers of offence in later eras. I have no real issue with either being admitted here, and in fact historically Oscar has been the guy to go in this top fifteen range (variably relative to Walton and Erving; I considered adding Erving to this tiebreaker too, but my thoughts on him are messier, and he did not have the voting support of these three). With all that said, though… I do not really think either of them were better players in the absolute than guards like Dwyane Wade or wings like Kawhi. I mean, Wade would be an awful fit with Elgin Baylor, so point to West there, but my thought is typically that if a team runs into that type of situation, they should just trade one for a haul. It is not as if holding onto stars who can fit always works out — fair argument that the Lakers probably should have looked to trade Baylor as soon as Wilt came in, at least from a cold perspective of team building.
Anyway, I think Oscar was capable of being a similar impact postseason player to West but by virtue of sharing a conference with Russell (and sometimes Wilt) and playing on a worse team, he never had the opportunity to develop a large sample by routinely running through the weaker conference every year. Fun fact I recall: both pre-Kareem Oscar and pre-Wilt West have exactly
one series win against a positive SRS opponent.
Because when it comes down to it, even though they were high, high above the other guards of their era, and even though WOWY indicates they might have been more purely important to their teams than Wilt ever was (in the regular season at least), neither were particularly close to Wilt or Russell as players in their era. But we see even their older versions do fairly well as Russell left and the league started to shift somewhat more toward the perimetre, so I do think either could have led Rick Barry or Julius Erving -esque title teams. If we just grant them some deference later on, possibly in more modern eras too (although again, for me, probably not to the same extent as Wade or Kawhi).
David Robinson to me compares more to Nate Thurmond if we track him backward. Better offensive player, but Thurmond is one of the guys I am fine putting above him defensively. And although I see an argument that peak Nate Thurmond maybe had more absolute value in that specific era than Oscar or West had… it is a tenuous argument because injuries kept Thurmond out of the playoffs during some of his peak years and because his offensive limitations meant he never did anything without Rick Barry (or 1964 Wilt lol) when he
was healthy, even if I think he was more valuable than Barry in 1967 and possibly/probably? 1973. Not saying that to disrespect Robinson: he would become more valuable than Thurmond pretty quickly, if Thurmond was ever better, and he almost certainly could have won titles in place of like Reed, Gilmore, or Cowens, for example. I do not see a major disparity here, but again, problem with Robinson has always been that he has basically no history of real postseason elevation, nothing like 1963 Boston series Robertson or (pick a few random Finals years) West. And to bring it back to Walton, nothing like that Finals either.
