Top 10 players 96-97 through 21-22?

[Matt15]

1.Lebron
2.Duncan
3.Shaq
4.Kobe
5.Curry
6.KG
7.Dirk
8.Durant
9.Paul
10.Nash

[70sFan]

Okay so I tilt in general towards career as default and career value, corp-ish idea stuff as what's most important.

That said some people might just be talking peaks.
With a seemingly arbitrary window the question pushes people towards peak-y angles because then it's simple "best year that happened in this window" whilst career gets messy, do we fully count everyone who had any career in the window (Parish?)? Do we only count the part of the career that's in the window? Do we only consider guys entirely within the window. Without that explained peak may feel simpler for some.

I'm also going to say ...
okay Kobe's 12th year by say BPM that's 2013:
23 PER, .174 WS/48, 4.8 BPM, +2.8 on-off, circa 1.3 RAPM
but that doesn't include 2010 and people will include that but off plus minus we get a different set but still 2013 as 12th ... I don't know which year people would choose but it doesn't seem wild. Feel free to state where you're at in terms of what that last "at least" season is and which others you think are also plausible.

Granting that boxscores still probably tilt more friendly to bigs than wings (though mainly friendly to limited bigs: Hickson, Faried, D Jordan) .. I don't know the best modern RAPM source and different verisions may not be comparable so exclude that ...

Jokic beats each of those numbers every year of his career apart from his rookie year (when he's much better on-off, and ahead on WS/48 but behind on the other two).

Jokic didn't always get big minutes hurting his IRL as it happened value, depending on what we mean by the question.

So don't know about the technicalities of season levels. Maybe you mean actually got the accolades, though reading later posts I don't think so. Maybe there's a minutes tilt where you can justify it. But to my eye Jokic was relevant from the day he stepped into the league and whether or not one can make a technical case for the wording used, the implication that the other years aren't relevant ... rankles. Doing so in a context which is functionally putting them in the same category as "eating $78,953,805", clear negative by all measures, final 3 years of Bryant probably makes that worse.

Maybe you figure the gap big enough that the precise count and impreciseness of an arbitrary threshold for counting seasons didn't matter ... still, I think it would have been simple to say that Jokic doesn't have the longevity to rank "X" (or above "X") without what seems an overly dismissive take.

Well, if someone thinks that 2017 Jokic playing 27 mpg on a mediocre team with the 2nd worst defense in the league (which Jokic was a key part of) was better than 2010 Kobe (or pick any other prime season) because Jokic posted higher PER, WS/48 and BPM, then I respectfully disagree. There are levels to that, some people might argue that Jokic already had the capabilities to play on all-nba level, but he didn't do that.

I guess we can all agree to disagree, it seems that all-nba represents higher level for me.

Kobe and KG should not go together with "at least 12 All-NBA level seasons" as Kobe actually had 15 (11x 1st team) and KG had 9 (4x 1st team).

That's why I said "all-nba level seasons" not "all-nba selections". Kobe was all-nba level player in 2000-04, 2006-13 (13 seasons), KG was all-nba level player in 12 seasons (1999-08, 2011-12).

KG's case in top 10 is mostly based on advanced stats...

If KG has "at least" 12, Jokic should have 7 All-NBA level seasons.

Not really, you have been on this board long enough to know that.

The fact that you don't go with historical accolades/valuation does not make you right. You removed Kobe 2 all-nba and add KG extra 3. You punish Jokic for playing 27min on a mediocre team when he was a 2nd round pick on 2nd year, but would not hesitate counting three (actually two) by your measure when KG was a big part of a mediocre team not making playoffs (05-07). The other two extra seasons you added (11-12), KG playing 31 mpg was able to make the playoffs only because there were three other comparable teammates, which Jokic has not had the luxury to have. To be fair, KG got 1 and 2 team all-D, well deserved. Pierce, Allen, and Rondo were comfortably better on O. As a comparison, Rasheed had multiple better seasons but he did not make any all-nba in his entire career.

Unfortunately for you, we know that Celtics weren't really that amazing without Garnett...

[SK21209]

1. LeBron
2. Kobe
3. Duncan
4. Curry
5. Shaq
6. KD
7. Dirk
8. KG
9. Giannis
10. Jokic


Those last two spots were really hard for me but I ultimately went with Giannis and Jokic, with their 4 total MVPs, over guys like CP3, Wade, Harden and Nash. Nash of course also has the two MVPs but just never felt as dominant to me as these other guys.

[dygaction]

Well, if someone thinks that 2017 Jokic playing 27 mpg on a mediocre team with the 2nd worst defense in the league (which Jokic was a key part of) was better than 2010 Kobe (or pick any other prime season) because Jokic posted higher PER, WS/48 and BPM, then I respectfully disagree. There are levels to that, some people might argue that Jokic already had the capabilities to play on all-nba level, but he didn't do that.

I guess we can all agree to disagree, it seems that all-nba represents higher level for me.

That's why I said "all-nba level seasons" not "all-nba selections". Kobe was all-nba level player in 2000-04, 2006-13 (13 seasons), KG was all-nba level player in 12 seasons (1999-08, 2011-12).


Not really, you have been on this board long enough to know that.

The fact that you don't go with historical accolades/valuation does not make you right. You removed Kobe 2 all-nba and add KG extra 3. You punish Jokic for playing 27min on a mediocre team when he was a 2nd round pick on 2nd year, but would not hesitate counting three (actually two) by your measure when KG was a big part of a mediocre team not making playoffs (05-07). The other two extra seasons you added (11-12), KG playing 31 mpg was able to make the playoffs only because there were three other comparable teammates, which Jokic has not had the luxury to have. To be fair, KG got 1 and 2 team all-D, well deserved. Pierce, Allen, and Rondo were comfortably better on O. As a comparison, Rasheed had multiple better seasons but he did not make any all-nba in his entire career.

Unfortunately for you, we know that Celtics weren't really that amazing without Garnett...

That's all you got? We also know that TWolves weren't really that amazing without Cassell...

[70sFan]

The fact that you don't go with historical accolades/valuation does not make you right. You removed Kobe 2 all-nba and add KG extra 3. You punish Jokic for playing 27min on a mediocre team when he was a 2nd round pick on 2nd year, but would not hesitate counting three (actually two) by your measure when KG was a big part of a mediocre team not making playoffs (05-07). The other two extra seasons you added (11-12), KG playing 31 mpg was able to make the playoffs only because there were three other comparable teammates, which Jokic has not had the luxury to have. To be fair, KG got 1 and 2 team all-D, well deserved. Pierce, Allen, and Rondo were comfortably better on O. As a comparison, Rasheed had multiple better seasons but he did not make any all-nba in his entire career.

Unfortunately for you, we know that Celtics weren't really that amazing without Garnett...

That's all you got? We also know that TWolves weren't really that amazing without Cassell...

Discussions with you about Garnett are pointless, so as always feel free to disagree.

[SeattleJazzFan]

Lebron
Giannis
Steph
Shaq
Durant
Duncan
Jokic
Luka
Wade
Kobe

[dygaction]

Lebron
Giannis
Steph
Shaq
Durant
Duncan
Jokic
Luka
Wade
Kobe

You are very high on current players whose career not all pan out yet. I put in Jokic but not Luka as a Mavs/Luka fan

[Doctor MJ]

In the first 26 years of the so-called 'databall' era, who are your top 10?

So, I'll tell ya, I'm not really looking to pin myself down right now. I expect that we'll do another Top 100 coming up, and I'd like to keep my mind as open as possible.

But I will say I redid my own personal POY shares recently, and I'll share with you the highest guys on that list. Afterward I'll say a few comments, but the overarching thing is this:

I do not consider something like POY shares to be nuanced enough to be the criteria for my career GOAT evaluation. I like it first and foremost because it just makes me think through the NBA year-by-year, and thereby hits the highs for all the players along the way.

Without further ado, after '21-22, here's the Top 10 with this (simplistic) approach:

1. LeBron James
2. Steph Curry
3. Tim Duncan
4. Kevin Durant
5. Dirk Nowitzki
6. Kobe Bryant
7. Shaquille O'Neal
8. Kevin Garnett
9. Dwyane Wade
10. Giannis Antetokounmpo

Some comments:

- The POY Shares approach ignores any season which are below Top 5 levels, which means it underrates longevity. So for example, I definitely would not have Curry ahead of Duncan yet.

- In my GOAT criteria, off-court damage matters, and that's something that hurts guys like Shaq & KD.

- I was surprised at the ordering of Dirk, Kobe & Shaq. I'd have expected the opposite. I still think Shaq had the best prime run of the bunch.

- I'd imagine those who know my stance on Duncan vs Garnett would be surprised I have Garnett so low. I'd imagine they and pretty much everyone else will snort when I say that this doesn't really surprise me, and I think it likely I'll still vote Garnett ahead of Duncan. Simply put, if I find Player A more impressive than Player B in general, and I can't give a clear cut longevity edge to Player B, it doesn't feel right to rank Player B ahead of Player A. That of course raises the question of why I was putting Duncan ahead of Garnett in my POY ballots if I thought Garnett was more impressive, and there I'd say that how impressive a player is, is a holistic thing based on the entirety of what I've see from him over his career, but I don't believe that using holistic assessment as the primary basis for who demonstrates the greatest achievement in a particular year.

- People who know me are probably surprised Steve Nash isn't on that list. He happens to be 11th, so he's not far away, and given just longevity, he'd at least push past Giannis. Though I'll say, I think I need to seriously consider whether or not Chris Paul should go ahead of him.

- The player with the most Top 5 appearances for me that I haven't mentioned yet is James Harden. The fact he doesn't have more Shares than he does speaks to a top tier of guys in his generation beating him out, and so I want to make sure I don't underrate Harden simply because he got outshined by some. At the same time, I've gone from Harden defender to someone just has to acknowledge that some of the criticisms of him on and off the court were right, and they will hurt him to some degree.

[70sFan]

In the first 26 years of the so-called 'databall' era, who are your top 10?

So, I'll tell ya, I'm not really looking to pin myself down right now. I expect that we'll do another Top 100 coming up, and I'd like to keep my mind as open as possible.

But I will say I redid my own personal POY shares recently, and I'll share with you the highest guys on that list. Afterward I'll say a few comments, but the overarching thing is this:

I do not consider something like POY shares to be nuanced enough to be the criteria for my career GOAT evaluation. I like it first and foremost because it just makes me think through the NBA year-by-year, and thereby hits the highs for all the players along the way.

Without further ado, after '21-22, here's the Top 10 with this (simplistic) approach:

1. LeBron James
2. Steph Curry
3. Tim Duncan
4. Kevin Durant
5. Dirk Nowitzki
6. Kobe Bryant
7. Shaquille O'Neal
8. Kevin Garnett
9. Dwyane Wade
10. Giannis Antetokounmpo

Some comments:

- The POY Shares approach ignores any season which are below Top 5 levels, which means it underrates longevity. So for example, I definitely would not have Curry ahead of Duncan yet.

- In my GOAT criteria, off-court damage matters, and that's something that hurts guys like Shaq & KD.

- I was surprised at the ordering of Dirk, Kobe & Shaq. I'd have expected the opposite. I still think Shaq had the best prime run of the bunch.

- I'd imagine those who know my stance on Duncan vs Garnett would be surprised I have Garnett so low. I'd imagine they and pretty much everyone else will snort when I say that this doesn't really surprise me, and I think it likely I'll still vote Garnett ahead of Duncan. Simply put, if I find Player A more impressive than Player B in general, and I can't give a clear cut longevity edge to Player B, it doesn't feel right to rank Player B ahead of Player A. That of course raises the question of why I was putting Duncan ahead of Garnett in my POY ballots if I thought Garnett was more impressive, and there I'd say that how impressive a player is, is a holistic thing based on the entirety of what I've see from him over his career, but I don't believe that using holistic assessment as the primary basis for who demonstrates the greatest achievement in a particular year.

- People who know me are probably surprised Steve Nash isn't on that list. He happens to be 11th, so he's not far away, and given just longevity, he'd at least push past Giannis. Though I'll say, I think I need to seriously consider whether or not Chris Paul should go ahead of him.

- The player with the most Top 5 appearances for me that I haven't mentioned yet is James Harden. The fact he doesn't have more Shares than he does speaks to a top tier of guys in his generation beating him out, and so I want to make sure I don't underrate Harden simply because he got outshined by some. At the same time, I've gone from Harden defender to someone just has to acknowledge that some of the criticisms of him on and off the court were right, and they will hurt him to some degree.

That's a cool post with a nice inside of your thoughts. I wonder, have you ever considered doing POY lists that goes further than top 5? Like, top 10 for example? I know it would require a lot of work, but I think that could give us even better list, because top 10 seasons still matters, right?

Another question is how low do you think you can go on a top X list to consider one season relevant to the whole picture of GOAT debate? I guess top 15 seasons are still relevant. How about top 20? Top 30? It's such an interesting topic to me.

[Doctor MJ]

In the first 26 years of the so-called 'databall' era, who are your top 10?

So, I'll tell ya, I'm not really looking to pin myself down right now. I expect that we'll do another Top 100 coming up, and I'd like to keep my mind as open as possible.

But I will say I redid my own personal POY shares recently, and I'll share with you the highest guys on that list. Afterward I'll say a few comments, but the overarching thing is this:

I do not consider something like POY shares to be nuanced enough to be the criteria for my career GOAT evaluation. I like it first and foremost because it just makes me think through the NBA year-by-year, and thereby hits the highs for all the players along the way.

Without further ado, after '21-22, here's the Top 10 with this (simplistic) approach:

1. LeBron James
2. Steph Curry
3. Tim Duncan
4. Kevin Durant
5. Dirk Nowitzki
6. Kobe Bryant
7. Shaquille O'Neal
8. Kevin Garnett
9. Dwyane Wade
10. Giannis Antetokounmpo

Some comments:

- The POY Shares approach ignores any season which are below Top 5 levels, which means it underrates longevity. So for example, I definitely would not have Curry ahead of Duncan yet.

- In my GOAT criteria, off-court damage matters, and that's something that hurts guys like Shaq & KD.

- I was surprised at the ordering of Dirk, Kobe & Shaq. I'd have expected the opposite. I still think Shaq had the best prime run of the bunch.

- I'd imagine those who know my stance on Duncan vs Garnett would be surprised I have Garnett so low. I'd imagine they and pretty much everyone else will snort when I say that this doesn't really surprise me, and I think it likely I'll still vote Garnett ahead of Duncan. Simply put, if I find Player A more impressive than Player B in general, and I can't give a clear cut longevity edge to Player B, it doesn't feel right to rank Player B ahead of Player A. That of course raises the question of why I was putting Duncan ahead of Garnett in my POY ballots if I thought Garnett was more impressive, and there I'd say that how impressive a player is, is a holistic thing based on the entirety of what I've see from him over his career, but I don't believe that using holistic assessment as the primary basis for who demonstrates the greatest achievement in a particular year.

- People who know me are probably surprised Steve Nash isn't on that list. He happens to be 11th, so he's not far away, and given just longevity, he'd at least push past Giannis. Though I'll say, I think I need to seriously consider whether or not Chris Paul should go ahead of him.

- The player with the most Top 5 appearances for me that I haven't mentioned yet is James Harden. The fact he doesn't have more Shares than he does speaks to a top tier of guys in his generation beating him out, and so I want to make sure I don't underrate Harden simply because he got outshined by some. At the same time, I've gone from Harden defender to someone just has to acknowledge that some of the criticisms of him on and off the court were right, and they will hurt him to some degree.

That's a cool post with a nice inside of your thoughts. I wonder, have you ever considered doing POY lists that goes further than top 5? Like, top 10 for example? I know it would require a lot of work, but I think that could give us even better list, because top 10 seasons still matters, right?

Another question is how low do you think you can go on a top X list to consider one season relevant to the whole picture of GOAT debate? I guess top 15 seasons are still relevant. How about top 20? Top 30? It's such an interesting topic to me.

There would be some value in doing this, but I don’t think I will. A few reasons:

- Doing Top 5 let’s me parallel the MVP.

- The Second 5 would be much harder to do than the Top 5, particularly in the deep past. (My list goes back to ‘43-44.)

- I’m already factoring non-Top 5 seasons into my holistic assessment of players and no matter how long I make my list, I will still need to do this.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Narigo]

1. LeBron James
2. Tim Duncan
3. Shaquille O'Neal
4. Kevin Garnett
5. Kobe Bryant
6. Dirk Nowitzki
7. Stephen Curry
8. Chris Paul
9. Kevin Durant
10. James Harden

[Dutchball97]

In the first 26 years of the so-called 'databall' era, who are your top 10?

So, I'll tell ya, I'm not really looking to pin myself down right now. I expect that we'll do another Top 100 coming up, and I'd like to keep my mind as open as possible.

But I will say I redid my own personal POY shares recently, and I'll share with you the highest guys on that list. Afterward I'll say a few comments, but the overarching thing is this:

I do not consider something like POY shares to be nuanced enough to be the criteria for my career GOAT evaluation. I like it first and foremost because it just makes me think through the NBA year-by-year, and thereby hits the highs for all the players along the way.

Without further ado, after '21-22, here's the Top 10 with this (simplistic) approach:

1. LeBron James
2. Steph Curry
3. Tim Duncan
4. Kevin Durant
5. Dirk Nowitzki
6. Kobe Bryant
7. Shaquille O'Neal
8. Kevin Garnett
9. Dwyane Wade
10. Giannis Antetokounmpo

Some comments:

- The POY Shares approach ignores any season which are below Top 5 levels, which means it underrates longevity. So for example, I definitely would not have Curry ahead of Duncan yet.

- In my GOAT criteria, off-court damage matters, and that's something that hurts guys like Shaq & KD.

- I was surprised at the ordering of Dirk, Kobe & Shaq. I'd have expected the opposite. I still think Shaq had the best prime run of the bunch.

- I'd imagine those who know my stance on Duncan vs Garnett would be surprised I have Garnett so low. I'd imagine they and pretty much everyone else will snort when I say that this doesn't really surprise me, and I think it likely I'll still vote Garnett ahead of Duncan. Simply put, if I find Player A more impressive than Player B in general, and I can't give a clear cut longevity edge to Player B, it doesn't feel right to rank Player B ahead of Player A. That of course raises the question of why I was putting Duncan ahead of Garnett in my POY ballots if I thought Garnett was more impressive, and there I'd say that how impressive a player is, is a holistic thing based on the entirety of what I've see from him over his career, but I don't believe that using holistic assessment as the primary basis for who demonstrates the greatest achievement in a particular year.

- People who know me are probably surprised Steve Nash isn't on that list. He happens to be 11th, so he's not far away, and given just longevity, he'd at least push past Giannis. Though I'll say, I think I need to seriously consider whether or not Chris Paul should go ahead of him.

- The player with the most Top 5 appearances for me that I haven't mentioned yet is James Harden. The fact he doesn't have more Shares than he does speaks to a top tier of guys in his generation beating him out, and so I want to make sure I don't underrate Harden simply because he got outshined by some. At the same time, I've gone from Harden defender to someone just has to acknowledge that some of the criticisms of him on and off the court were right, and they will hurt him to some degree.

That's a cool post with a nice inside of your thoughts. I wonder, have you ever considered doing POY lists that goes further than top 5? Like, top 10 for example? I know it would require a lot of work, but I think that could give us even better list, because top 10 seasons still matters, right?

Another question is how low do you think you can go on a top X list to consider one season relevant to the whole picture of GOAT debate? I guess top 15 seasons are still relevant. How about top 20? Top 30? It's such an interesting topic to me.

Really is an interesting topic. For the GOAT debate specifically I think anything beyond top 5 would pretty much be covered in the overall career value/CORP perspective. Although I would like to add "top 1" as I do think it's relevant how many seasons someone was the very best player in the league as well. For my approach for the next top 100 I hope to find a balance between the 3 perspectives, which is already making me doubt whether I'll still have MJ first. He takes the cake for me in terms of the number of years he was the best but for the top 5/POY shares he's still clearly in the GOAT tier but at the bottom of it and for overall career value it's probably similar if not even lower than that (mostly compared to Kareem who has alot of post-prime value).