Make the case for longevity for determining GOAT

[SNPA]

Here is the case against it:

In 5 on 5 play, how can one be GOAT if on their best day, at the absolute peak of their powers, they weren’t the greatest.

Put another way…

Can you be GOAT if someone else was once better?

How can the GOAT exist if at the apex of his abilities, his capacity to win, someone else was greater?

How?

I argue it makes no sense.

And if this makes no sense, then longevity as a deterministic criteria for GOAT makes no sense.

Career value is important. It matters in an all time draft. It matters for records. It’s a legitimate argument in many contexts. But…GOAT?

It isn’t best the longest of all time (BLOAT). It isn’t maximum cumulative stats of all time (MCSOAT).

Longevity, assuming a few years of evidence, shouldn’t be a determining factor for GOAT. However, this isn’t an argument in favor of an outlier game or streak or season. There has to be a body of work large enough to judge adequately, to place in context, to eliminate the possibility of a fluke. But longevity in this sense is just a qualification, a pre-requisite…it isn’t deterministic. The grade for the GOAT should be the greatest. It’s literally in the title.

Who, amongst those that have proven respectable to judge, was the best on their best day compared to all other players? That player is the GOAT. Ten years of solid/fringe all star play on the backside doesn’t change the equation IMO. You can’t get to be the GOAT through any other means except being the greatest player, on your best day.

[70sFan]

Nobody puts a player at the GOAT place based strictly on longevity. All of the GOAT candidates were the best players in the world at some point.

[SNPA]

Nobody puts a player at the GOAT place based strictly on longevity. All of the GOAT candidates were the best players in the world at some point.

Deterministic. Not strictly.

The edges of the crest don’t eclipse the crest, no matter how broad. That’s the case against longevity as a deterministic factor.

[70sFan]

Nobody puts a player at the GOAT place based strictly on longevity. All of the GOAT candidates were the best players in the world at some point.

Deterministic. Not strictly.

The edges of the crest don’t eclipse the crest, no matter how broad. That’s the case against longevity as a deterministic factor.

Who do you see being ranked as the GOAT that didn't earn it by playing at the highest level possible?

[MyUniBroDavis]

Here is the case against it:

In 5 on 5 play, how can one be GOAT if on their best day, at the absolute peak of their powers, they weren’t the greatest.

Put another way…

Can you be GOAT if someone else was once better?

How can the GOAT exist if at the apex of his abilities, his capacity to win, someone else was greater?

How?

I argue it makes no sense.

And if this makes no sense, then longevity as a deterministic criteria for GOAT makes no sense.

Career value is important. It matters in an all time draft. It matters for records. It’s a legitimate argument in many contexts. But…GOAT?

It isn’t best the longest of all time (BLOAT). It isn’t maximum cumulative stats of all time (MCSOAT).

Longevity, assuming a few years of evidence, shouldn’t be a determining factor for GOAT. However, this isn’t an argument in favor of an outlier game or streak or season. There has to be a body of work large enough to judge adequately, to place in context, to eliminate the possibility of a fluke. But longevity in this sense is just a qualification, a pre-requisite…it isn’t deterministic. The grade for the GOAT should be the greatest. It’s literally in the title.

Who, amongst those that have proven respectable to judge, was the best on their best day compared to all other players? That player is the GOAT. Ten years of solid/fringe all star play on the backside doesn’t change the equation IMO. You can’t get to be the GOAT through any other means except being the greatest player, on your best day.

A lot of people do it by cumulative career value and stuff like that

I probably like peaks more to an extent, but also like if someone’s a 9.9 for 20 years that’s probably better than someone being a 10.0 for 1 year and then forgot how to play basketball afterwards

[Jaivl]

"Refute this strawman".

[Dutchball97]

"Those that have proven respectable to judge" is a bit of a paradox in this case. You're talking about who was the best on their absolute best day but the only people who qualify are those with sufficient longevity? The highest play-off gamescore was recorded by Damian Lillard in game 5 against the Nuggets in 2021 at 55.9. His 55/6/10/1/3 statline on 71/71/90% shooting with just 1 TOV and no PF also earned him a 31.1 BPM, 96.8 TS% and 192 ORTG. However, from context it looks like you wouldn't consider Dame here so how much longevity is enough? One series? A play-off run? A full season? 5 seasons? 10 seasons? And then aren't you determining the GOAT based partly on longevity after all, which you're trying to argue against?

[Owly]

Make the case for longevity for determining GOAT

I will say as others have that nobody I'm aware of argues for longevity "determining" the GOAT, they may argue for something like career value (above a threshold) or CORP or something. So I'd argue the framing is a touch off. Then too, fwiw I don't think people really do"best the longest of all time (BLOAT) ... maximum cumulative stats of all time (MCSOAT)." (not that I'm sure what BLoaT would be, does this mean best player longest? who was good the longest?) as a proxy for "GOAT" debates.

That said I don't think this should be a big debate. It's simply a matter of being clear. If you want to debate a specific thing, be clear on acceptable criteria whether it's peak or career and what you mean by that. If you want a loose argument that's fine to so long as people are honest and clear in what they value. With clear terms, it's more likely to be productive and people can be clear in whether it's something they want to engage in.

Otoh, the meta-argument about which set of criteria best fits "GoAT" or whatever ... doesn't seem that interesting to me so long as people are clear what they mean. Fwiw, (touching on "It’s literally in the title") I believe great has many shades of meaning and so the other words matter in a title and beyond. Personally I find "peaks" least ambiguous for a discussion of ... well, what I would call peaks. But it doesn't matter so long as people are clear.

Fwiw

was the best on their best day compared to all other players

This does seem to if not contradict then sit uneasily alongside earlier statement that it's not about a single games, streaks or even seasons. Maybe it's just (loose?) use of a figure of speech? But on the face of it this criteria would seem to require whatever minimum longevity bar you/whomever requires to show a "body of work" qualifying you among "those that have proven respectable to judge" and then reward high variance. Is this what you mean? It may seem nit-picky but as I say this gets back to clarity being the key thing.

[frica]

I really liked longevity to rank boxers.

But in the case of basketball, the best players also tended to be the best for the longest.
A pure peak vs pure career value list wouldn't look that much different until you start going outside the top 75 or so.

[homecourtloss]

Nobody puts a player at the GOAT place based strictly on longevity. All of the GOAT candidates were the best players in the world at some point.

Deterministic. Not strictly.

The edges of the crest don’t eclipse the crest, no matter how broad. That’s the case against longevity as a deterministic factor.

Who do you see being ranked as the GOAT that didn't earn it by playing at the highest level possible?

Here is the case against it:

In 5 on 5 play, how can one be GOAT if on their best day, at the absolute peak of their powers, they weren’t the greatest.

Put another way…

Can you be GOAT if someone else was once better?

How can the GOAT exist if at the apex of his abilities, his capacity to win, someone else was greater?

How?

I argue it makes no sense.

And if this makes no sense, then longevity as a deterministic criteria for GOAT makes no sense.

Career value is important. It matters in an all time draft. It matters for records. It’s a legitimate argument in many contexts. But…GOAT?

It isn’t best the longest of all time (BLOAT). It isn’t maximum cumulative stats of all time (MCSOAT).

Longevity, assuming a few years of evidence, shouldn’t be a determining factor for GOAT. However, this isn’t an argument in favor of an outlier game or streak or season. There has to be a body of work large enough to judge adequately, to place in context, to eliminate the possibility of a fluke. But longevity in this sense is just a qualification, a pre-requisite…it isn’t deterministic. The grade for the GOAT should be the greatest. It’s literally in the title.

Who, amongst those that have proven respectable to judge, was the best on their best day compared to all other players? That player is the GOAT. Ten years of solid/fringe all star play on the backside doesn’t change the equation IMO. You can’t get to be the GOAT through any other means except being the greatest player, on your best day.

I don’t think I have seen anyone make the case for someone as G.O.A.T. based solely on longevity. When people talk about longevity here, they mean a player who has been able to continually have winning impact and championship odds increase of a team through multiple different NBA environments, rules, rosters, coaching, etc. Being able to do so in and of itself is a testament to the players game resiliency in the face of changing environments and/or the players ability to adjust to any environment/era. Being able to do so it’s a testament to player’s greatness.

Look at Kareem. He has a GOATish peak but also has a game that regardless of era or rules was so effective that he provided championship odds increasing impact into his late 30s. I go back to the little variance in his scoring from game to game. You knew how he was going to score but you couldn’t do anything about it, which engendered GOATish longevity.

Look at James. James’s longevity’s catalyst is his ability to adjust his game in so many ways and roster constructions in vastly different playing style eras, which is impressive, and a testament to his ability to impact the game in so many different ways, whether that is though quarterbacking defenses, providing rim pressure, scoring inside, shooting, playmaking in a defensive era with two bags, playmaking in a five out offense, playmaking and scoring with great efficiency in vastly different leagues, i.e., late 2000s versus pace and space of the 2020s, etc.

Kareem’s longevity is engendered by the fact that there is no answer to him regardless of playing era, and LeBron’s by the fact that he will adjust his game to provide winning impact regardless of rusted, era, rules (including playing with two bigs in pace and space era.

These players have GOAT type peaks, GOAT type primes, and also GOAT type longevity.

[falcolombardi]

The "case for longevity" is that given enough longevity advantage a slightly lower impact player can get more title odds (the ben taylor approach)

Bill walton has one od the best peaks ever. But there are a lot of clearly lesser players a team would rather have for their 10 year prime vs one season of bill walton

At the top where the level of different players in their prime is really close (shaq,lebrok, jordan, etc) a longevity advantage is very significant

[CharityStripe34]

Longevity isn't the sole factor for determining the greatest players/careers. Not sure who was making that case.

[Colbinii]

Nobody puts a player at the GOAT place based strictly on longevity. All of the GOAT candidates were the best players in the world at some point.

Deterministic. Not strictly.

The edges of the crest don’t eclipse the crest, no matter how broad. That’s the case against longevity as a deterministic factor.

This isn't necessarily true.

The area under the crest [I am picturing a bell-curve for a players career with the X-axis being the year 1, 2, 3, 4, ect and the Y-axis being the value added in each season (or it could be title odds added or a simple + rating)] would then tell us the total value and this number could be converted into a title odds formula.

Where things get interesting [as if calculus wasn't interesting enough] is how do we scale a player to title odds. That is, is a +5 player 25% better than a +4 player and how different would those title odds be? Would a +5 player be 25% more likely to win than a +4 player [Meaning if a +4 player had a 10% chance at a title, would a +5 player be a 12.5% title odds?] or would it scale exponentially?

[Doctor MJ]

So, I think it goes without saying that if we're talking about Career GOAT, that longevity helps.

To me there are a couple things that limit the impact of what we typically think of as "longevity".

1. The NBA world thinks in terms of championships. As such, career work that helps teams be good but not great matters less than it would in a domain like, say, business, where in the end you're trying to make profit - which is somewhat analysis to winning more than you lose (42-40). This leads to a super-linear scaling of play where a single +2X season is worth more than two +X seasons.

2. In the end, the people who make real basketball decisions are attached to NBA franchises over finite durations, which means they are going to be focused not just on peaking higher, but peaking with an arc that can be most effectively built around in that duration. Year 8, 10, 12, etc, is meaningful for a tiebreak, but in general you're talking about windows closer to 5 years in duration, and even if the player in question is still great 10+ years from now, it likely won't be with your team. I tend to boil it down like this:

Who would you draft first?

It's not a perfect question because a GM might be overly inclined to pick a guy who can become a star at a young age, and I don't think it's reasonable to favor an age 22-27 peak over a 27-32 peak simply because the guy is younger in a GOAT conversation, but the question of who you could expect to build around for 5+ years for maximum success is to me a reasonable starting point for an endeavor like modern NBA basketball.

[Doctor MJ]

I really liked longevity to rank boxers.

But in the case of basketball, the best players also tended to be the best for the longest.
A pure peak vs pure career value list wouldn't look that much different until you start going outside the top 75 or so.

I think individual sports which aren't based on measurement tend to have GOAT-discussions that are more longevity oriented. Modern tennis and golf is obsessed with Grand Slam titles for example.

[Texas Chuck]

"Refute this strawman".

Pretty much this. And disappointingly reductive rather than a legitimate attempt at a conversation.

And everyone should be allowed to determine what GOAT means to them. For the OP, its strictly a skill question and over the shortest amount of time he deems necessary to "prove" the level. For me, its total career value. Whose career was worth the most to his teams. I'm not saying my approach is better than his, but its the approach that makes the most sense to me. I'm not looking for something esoteric, but rather how real teams benefited.

But I also understand others find the OP's approach more correct. Cool. As long as both parties are clear that their criteria is different, meaningful discussion can still be had. But I can't just ignore that players like Kareem and Duncan gave their teams immense real value for years even after their arbitrarily defined peak or prime seasons were over. Their teams won titles because of their play in seasons the OP wants to not matter at all. I just can't get there. But I accept that others are looking at something else to define greatness.

[capfan33]

I value what I guess you could call "functional longevity" which like most of what we do is subjective, but for me I'm looking for at least all-star level years and preferably all-NBA. Basically, any all-NBA caliber year moves the needle for me, 86 Kareem is a nice year to bolster his case, 87 doesn't really mean much to me.

It's tricky balancing the caliber of years with the number of years, but I think a player's best 8-12 years are probably what matters to me the most. Guys like Kareem and Lebron who have multiple all-NBA+ years on top of that get a bonus but they're exceptions, not the rule.

[SNPA]

"Refute this strawman".

Pretty much this. And disappointingly reductive rather than a legitimate attempt at a conversation.

And everyone should be allowed to determine what GOAT means to them. For the OP, its strictly a skill question and over the shortest amount of time he deems necessary to "prove" the level. For me, its total career value. Whose career was worth the most to his teams. I'm not saying my approach is better than his, but its the approach that makes the most sense to me. I'm not looking for something esoteric, but rather how real teams benefited.

But I also understand others find the OP's approach more correct. Cool. As long as both parties are clear that their criteria is different, meaningful discussion can still be had. But I can't just ignore that players like Kareem and Duncan gave their teams immense real value for years even after their arbitrarily defined peak or prime seasons were over. Their teams won titles because of their play in seasons the OP wants to not matter at all. I just can't get there. But I accept that others are looking at something else to define greatness.

My view is simple, how can someone be GOAT if another player was at one time better? That strikes me as sound logic, you can call it reductive if you like.

It’s obviously all definitional but what longevity -as typically used- describes as a deterministic factor IMO is greatest career of all time…GCOAT.

I view longevity, in the sense that a player has to show their play was not a fluke outlier, as a qualification to be admitted into the GOAT judging pool. Longevity as a qualification not deterministic factor.

[SNPA]

Longevity isn't the sole factor for determining the greatest players/careers. Not sure who was making that case.

Not sole or strictly…deterministic. You’re right no one makes that case, but the case is made that longevity puts player A over player B in a GOAT conversation.

[SNPA]

"Those that have proven respectable to judge" is a bit of a paradox in this case. You're talking about who was the best on their absolute best day but the only people who qualify are those with sufficient longevity? The highest play-off gamescore was recorded by Damian Lillard in game 5 against the Nuggets in 2021 at 55.9. His 55/6/10/1/3 statline on 71/71/90% shooting with just 1 TOV and no PF also earned him a 31.1 BPM, 96.8 TS% and 192 ORTG. However, from context it looks like you wouldn't consider Dame here so how much longevity is enough? One series? A play-off run? A full season? 5 seasons? 10 seasons? And then aren't you determining the GOAT based partly on longevity after all, which you're trying to argue against?

Dame has played long enough we know he isn’t a fluke. The point of longevity in my assessment of GOAT is as a gatekeeper, but once inside the gate it’s all about highest peak possible. Who was the best player on their best day…that guy is the GOAT IMO.

I’ve referred to this in the past as pinnacle, it’s a step beyond peak…the peak of the peak of you will.