Post#50 » by DraymondGold » Tue Jan 31, 2023 4:12 am
I'm not sure there's anything remotely possible that would actually make a GOAT candidate undisputed in any setting. There are people on this board who think Jordan has no realistic prime GOAT argument, there's people who think LeBron will never pass Jordan because of the context of his rings, there's people who think Kareem or Russell or Wilt will never be GOAT because of their era or their competition. I tend to agree with penbeast0 that it would take something like LeBron having Russell's playoff win percentage for it to be complete consensus.
To me, a more interesting question is: What are the most major changes someone could make to give a GOAT candidate a major leg up from their current status, while still being remotely feasible. I see two types of changes:
1) changes to a player's Game. This is an improvement in how they play.
2) Changes to a player's career. Maybe this is a change to how long they play, to their injury history, or to their historical context.
What seem like the most feasible (but substantial) improvements to the Game and Career of each of the GOAT candidates?
Russell
Improvements to his Game: Offense, obviously. I don’t need him to be a primary volume scorer or anything like that — that seems excessive and against the platonic ideal of Russell — but I’d love him to have a clearer role on a high-level offense. 1) One option is for him to embrace the Draymond role more openly: improve as a playmaker to really enter that upper tier of big men playmakers. 2) The other option is to have him improve his touch and efficiency: perhaps improve at the free throw line and in the midrange, or perhaps focus his off-ball shot selection on tap-ins / putbacks / alley oops. He also might play more of a proto-Giannis on offense if he could improve his handle. With this improved touch, the goal would be to bump his scoring efficiency to clearly over league average, more than to bump his volume to ~25/30 ppg. This would help him with more offensively-minded people and in time-machine arguments.
Improvements to his Career: honestly it’s hard to think of a career that could have gone any better. You could complain about the early-career injury that lost them the finals but that plays into his perception more: he gets injured once and they don’t win. You could argue about not losing to the 67 76ers, but that loss also plays into his perception more: it shows he had competition capable of winning, and makes his 68-69 revival that much more emotionally impactful.
Perhaps you could add some longevity after 69, but his era-adjusted longevity is great. And like Jordan, Russell’s reputation is boosted by retiring directly after his team was on top, particularly considering how far the Celtics fell in 1970. Having Russell play a few more years might add to his career value, but it might weaken the strong signal we have based on having ~prime-level Russell retiring. Additionally, it might hurt Russell’s aura if he lost more championships when healthy.
I think the best career change that could have helped Russell’s GOAT case is for Russell to have a worse supporting cast in some years (e.g. some teammate playoff injuries and still win?) or to win over a team with more all-stars. Perhaps if the 1969 Lakers had played at a higher level, a victory in 69 might have helped with this? The ‘Russell’s teammates were stacked’ argument loses some credence with Russell’s great WOWY numbers, but it’s still a concern for some people. For Russell, I think the game improvements are much more important than Career improvements.
Kareem
Improvements to his Game: 1) improve defensively, likely through a better motor as he got older, or 2) improve as a passer. I’d prioritize 1. Kareem’s clearly one of the best offensive bigs ever. While he’s a better defender than Shaq/Jokic (the other all-time offensive bigs), he’s also a level below the other all time defensive bigs (Russell, Wilt, Walton, Hakeem, Robinson, Duncan/Garnett). His peak would have a strong GOAT argument if he could shrink that defensive gap and join even the bottom of that group of defenders. I suspect much of this improvement could come with a greater motor, which would also help him maintain better defensive value into his plater prime. However, he might also need a boost in either mobility or defensive processing/awareness. If you instead went with 1) a passing improvement, the goal would be for him to pass Shaq offensively in public consensus and truly enter the upper echelon of GOAT offensive players. The threshold is somewhere between his current ability and Walton’s, but I’m not exactly sure where.
Improvements to his Career: 1) Competition: have ABA-NBA merger far earlier, both to give him more space with a 3 point line, to make his rim gravity more valuable, and to enable him to dominate against better stars. Better performances against better competition (eg Erving) might also boost his popularity. 2) Playoffs: it would help not miss playoffs in 75-76 (/not get injured) and play them at peak 74/77 levels. This would effectively double his peak-level playoff sample.
Jordan
Game: I’d love to see him firmly claim the GOAT offensive player. Here, I see two areas of improvement: 1) While he’s an underrated all-time playmaker, much of this comes from his scoring threat and activity off ball. I also argue he’s an underrated passer, but it would be nice to see a slight passing bump (either in ability or more likely in willingness ), particularly at the start and end of his career. If Jordan was less selfish and a more willing playmaker, that would dramatically increase the offensive value of his early/late-career seasons. 2) While Jordan is the GOAT scorer, he could gain an even stronger edge here if he didn’t show such disdain for 3 point shooting. Improved distance shooting would give him an even greater scoring edge, greater resilience and scalability, while also convincing people who value the time-machine argument.
Career: Longevity. His biggest career black mark is the fact that he retired not once, not twice, but three times. The lost 86 season isn’t the worst (it was early career, it wasn’t a playoff injury, and his playoff performance was incredible), but it isn’t doing him any favors. I think the missed 94 season and half-95 season are a greater loss. If you also stop his retirement in 98, that would give him 4 additional seasons (and 2 half-seasons in 86/95) without changing his starting or ending age, giving him a total of 19 seasons. That’s a huge longevity boost, particularly if his playmaking improvements (see above) make those late career seasons more valuable.
Ironically though, even if this might improve his GOAT case among the analytical crowd on this board, it might decrease his GOAT case in popular culture. Much of the mythos and gravitas of Jordan comes from his career’s incredible narrative: initial struggles and growth, breakthrough, 3 peat, retirement, “I’m back”, 3 peat. It conveys a certain sense of inevitability and invincibility of prime playoff Jordan. If you give him seasons in 94 and 95 or 99 when he’s clearly playing but doesn’t win, that might decrease Jordan’s unique place in popular media.
LeBron
Improvements to his Game: 1) off-ball skills (shooting) or 2) old-age motor. 1) I’d love to see him improve in skills that become more useful next to other ball-dominant players earlier in his career. His improvement as a shooter is quite impressive, but I’d love for him to improve his shooting more (i.e. be less streaky) from more spots on the floor (right side 3 point line and the free throw line) earlier in his career (preferably by the 2011 playoffs). That would improve his versatility, scalability, and resilience throughout his career, but particularly during his athletic prime. It would certainly give him better counters against the 2011 Mavs and the 2013/14 Spurs zone defense. 2) Less coasting, mainly by having an improved old-age motor. During his lakers and 2nd cavs stint, there’s a concern that he can’t combine consistent defensive effort with his old-age offensive mastery at the same time, especially in the regular season. A motor improvement would help with this.
Improvements to his Career: showing more versatility and scalability would in turn give his teams more resilience. While his poor 2011 postseason performance (for his standards) obviously does not prevent him from being a strong GOAT candidate, removing his career’s greatest black mark would obviously be an improvement. A three-peat would also help convince the ring counters and the perception of the Heat’s dominance. In 2009, if he had led his team over the Magic and had a strong individual showing against Kobe, that would also help assuage his early-career versatility/scalability/resilience concerns (in addition to selfishly giving us a more exciting finals).
For the more staunch ring counters, he might benefit from getting that 5th/6th ring in 09 and 11 to tie Jordan. A 7th ring would put him past, presumably in either 2014, 2015, 2017, or 2018. Either of the latter two would be the obvious GOAT upset. Still, I wonder how much a ring in any of those three years would merely decrease the perceived resilience of the Warriors (dropping Curry, Durant, etc. in the all-time rankings) rather than bumping up LeBron. For me personally, the ring-counting isn’t necessary, but it would address the ring-counting complaints of the more anti-LeBron/pro-Jordan/Kareem/Russell fans.
HM: Duncan. Duncan's career and game without the injuries would be interesting... would he sustain his near-peak level athleticism and defense longer? Could Duncan improve more (and earlier) in his shooting or passing, to enter the next tier of offensive players?
HM: Wilt. Wilt's game if he found a better way to combine his best scoring, playmaking, and defense would be interesting. How different would his reputation be look if he still put up the stats in 60 – 64ish, but then shifted to his 67 mindset from 64-73?
