Updating my top 50

[scrabbarista]

Ignoring Mikan, here are some I believe I have in the top fifty. (I have a list, but not on me.)

Kawhi Leonard, Anthony Davis, Russell Westbrook, Paul Gasol, Elvin Hayes.

I think those are the only five. Maybe a sixth. However, I'd still say your list is extremely different than mine based on the ordering.

Here are the ones that (I think) aren't in my fifty: Thurmond, Lanier, Miller, Thomas, and Mutombo. McHale maybe 50th? 51st? Not sure where I have Gervin, too... Thomas is the only of those five who I might have top fifty - can't remember.

The obvious differentiator between my list and yours is championships won.

[ZeppelinPage]

I'm a fan of your Thurmond placement and I also have him in the same area.

[70sFan]

Thank you all of you for your contribution. I wanted to make my list a bit less subjective (especially considering active guys), so I decided to make a rough estimation of career title odds in Ben Taylor's mold. To do that, I didn't estimate the CORP for each season of each player (that would takes me ages!), but I decided to do a quick estimation by creating the same tiers Ben did in his top 40 project:

GOAT-level - 33%
All-time - 27%
MVP level - 20%
Weak MVP level - 15%
All-nba level - 10%
All-star level - 7%
Sub all-star - 4%
Role player - 2%

Keep in mind that this rough estimation treats all MVP-level seasons as the same, which isn't really the case in reality, so the results can be different from how I'd really order them. Anyway, here are the results of my estimation (I included all players that were mentioned in this thread that I didn't have in my first top 50, the numbers are in % points):

Spoiler:

Player Title odds
1 LeBron James 327,0
2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 303,9
3 Bill Russell 266,5
4 Michael Jordan 247,2
5 Tim Duncan 242,9
6 Hakeem Olajuwon 239,1
7 Wilt Chamberlain 228,8
8 Shaquille O'Neal 228,3
9 Kevin Garnett 212,4
10 Magic Johnson 182,8
11 Kobe Bryant 181,5
12 Oscar Robertson 178,5
13 Karl Malone 171,7
14 Stephen Curry 170,8
15 Dirk Nowitzki 170,4
16 Julius Erving 170,0
17 Larry Bird 168,2
18 Jerry West 168,2
19 Chris Paul 165,2
20 David Robinson 164,4
21 Kevin Durant 161,4
22 Moses Malone 152,8
23 Charles Barkley 146,8
24 Steve Nash 140,3
25 Dwyane Wade 137,3
26 James Harden 130,9
27 John Stockton 125,3
28 Patrick Ewing 124,0
29 Artis Gilmore 120,6
30 John Havlicek 119,7
31 Reggie Miller 118,0
32 Giannis Antetokumpo 116,3
33 George Mikan 115,5
34 Jason Kidd 112,4
35 Nikola Jokic 110,7
36 Scottie Pippen 109,9
37 Rick Barry 109,0
38 Anthony Davis 105,2
39 Bob Pettit 103,9
40 Paul Pierce 103,9
41 George Gervin 101,7
42 Ray Allen 100,4
43 Dolph Schayes 99,1
44 Nate Thurmond 97,4
45 Walt Frazier 95,7
46 Dikembe Mutombo 95,7
47 Elgin Baylor 95,7
48 Bob Lanier 94,8
49 Russell Westbrook 92,7
50 Dwight Howard 91,8
51 Pau Gasol 91,4
52 Clyde Drexler 89,7
53 Jimmy Butler 89,3
54 Kawhi Leonard 88,0
55 Kevin McHale 85,8
56 Paul Arizin 84,5
57 Elvin Hayes 83,7
58 Robert Parish 83,3
59 Alonzo Mourning 77,3
60 Isiah Thomas 76,8
61 Manu Ginobili 73,0
62 Draymond Green 72,5
63 Chauncey Billups 70,4
64 Rudy Gobert 70,0
65 Dave Cowens 66,5
66 Luka Doncic 49,4

Some notes for those who don't want to read the whole list:

- my top 8 is the same, with the only difference is that Hakeem surpassed Wilt for the 6th spot,
- Garnett surpassed Magic for the 9th spot, probably well deserved,
- Larry Bird went down to 17th spot (tie with West), below Kobe, Malone, Curry, Nowtizki and Julius,
- Chris Paul went up to 19th spot,
- Durant went down to 21st spot,
- Bob Pettit went from 25th spot to a staggering 39th spot, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes,
- Harden went up to 26th spot,
- Havlicek made top 30 at the 30th spot,
- Reggie went up 10 spots from 41st to 31st,
- Mikan is available now at 33rd spot (without counting pre-1950 seasons),
- Pippen went down to 36th spot,
- Davis appeared at 38th spot (probably deserved that, I was too harsh on his availability and now him at 38th vs Giannis at 32nd makes sense),
- Paul Pierce appeared at 40th spot (I forgot about him),
- despite criticism, Gervin actually went up a few spots to 41st,
- Ray Allen appeared at 42nd spot (forgot about him),
- Schayes went down from 39th to 43rd,
- Frazier went from 38th to 45th, similarly to Baylor who got from 39th to 47th,
- Lanier went a bit down from 41st to 48th (due to durability problems mostly),
- Howard finished top 50,
- Drexler (52nd), McHale (55th) and Thomas (60th) actually missed top 50,
- Kawhi and Butler didn't make top 50,
- Luka isn't close to the top 60 players for now.

If you think that I am still missing someone, please let me know and I will include him.

I think I'd have to add some longevity curve for oldschool guys, as they are generally underrated by this approach due to having significantly shorter career (that's why I expect Schayes, Pettit, Mikan, Thurmond and Frazier to finish higher). Do you have any idea how to do that?

[DraymondGold]

Thank you all of you for your contribution. I wanted to make my list a bit less subjective (especially considering active guys), so I decided to make a rough estimation of career title odds in Ben Taylor's mold. To do that, I didn't estimate the CORP for each season of each player (that would takes me ages!), but I decided to do a quick estimation by creating the same tiers Ben did in his top 40 project:

GOAT-level - 33%
All-time - 27%
MVP level - 20%
Weak MVP level - 15%
All-nba level - 10%
All-star level - 7%
Sub all-star - 4%
Role player - 2%

Keep in mind that this rough estimation treats all MVP-level seasons as the same, which isn't really the case in reality, so the results can be different from how I'd really order them. Anyway, here are the results of my estimation (I included all players that were mentioned in this thread that I didn't have in my first top 50, the numbers are in % points):

Spoiler:

Player Title odds
1 LeBron James 327,0
2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 303,9
3 Bill Russell 266,5
4 Michael Jordan 247,2
5 Tim Duncan 242,9
6 Hakeem Olajuwon 239,1
7 Wilt Chamberlain 228,8
8 Shaquille O'Neal 228,3
9 Kevin Garnett 223,6
10 Magic Johnson 182,8
11 Kobe Bryant 181,5
12 Oscar Robertson 178,5
13 Karl Malone 171,7
14 Stephen Curry 170,8
15 Dirk Nowitzki 170,4
16 Julius Erving 170,0
17 Larry Bird 168,2
18 Jerry West 168,2
19 Chris Paul 165,2
20 David Robinson 164,4
21 Kevin Durant 161,4
22 Moses Malone 152,8
23 Charles Barkley 146,8
24 Steve Nash 140,3
25 Dwyane Wade 137,3
26 James Harden 130,9
27 John Stockton 125,3
28 Patrick Ewing 124,0
29 Artis Gilmore 120,6
30 John Havlicek 119,7
31 Reggie Miller 118,0
32 Giannis Antetokumpo 116,3
33 George Mikan 115,5
34 Jason Kidd 112,4
35 Nikola Jokic 110,7
36 Scottie Pippen 109,9
37 Rick Barry 109,0
38 Anthony Davis 105,2
39 Bob Pettit 103,9
40 Paul Pierce 103,9
41 George Gervin 101,7
42 Ray Allen 100,4
43 Dolph Schayes 99,1
44 Nate Thurmond 97,4
45 Walt Frazier 95,7
46 Dikembe Mutombo 95,7
47 Elgin Baylor 95,7
48 Bob Lanier 94,8
49 Russell Westbrook 92,7
50 Dwight Howard 91,8
51 Pau Gasol 91,4
52 Clyde Drexler 89,7
53 Jimmy Butler 89,3
54 Kawhi Leonard 88,0
55 Kevin McHale 85,8
56 Paul Arizin 84,5
57 Elvin Hayes 83,7
58 Robert Parish 83,3
59 Alonzo Mourning 77,3
60 Isiah Thomas 76,8
61 Manu Ginobili 73,0
62 Draymond Green 72,5
63 Chauncey Billups 70,4
64 Rudy Gobert 70,0
65 Dave Cowens 66,5
66 Luka Doncic 49,4

Some notes for those who don't want to read the whole list:

- my top 8 is the same, with the only difference is that Hakeem surpassed Wilt for the 6th spot,
- Garnett surpassed Magic for the 9th spot, probably well deserved,
- Larry Bird went down to 17th spot (tie with West), below Kobe, Malone, Curry, Nowtizki and Julius,
- Chris Paul went up to 19th spot,
- Durant went down to 21st spot,
- Bob Pettit went from 25th spot to a staggering 39th spot, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes,
- Harden went up to 26th spot,
- Havlicek made top 30 at the 30th spot,
- Reggie went up 10 spots from 41st to 31st,
- Mikan is available now at 33rd spot (without counting pre-1950 seasons),
- Pippen went down to 36th spot,
- Davis appeared at 38th spot (probably deserved that, I was too harsh on his availability and now him at 38th vs Giannis at 32nd makes sense),
- Paul Pierce appeared at 40th spot (I forgot about him),
- despite criticism, Gervin actually went up a few spots to 41st,
- Ray Allen appeared at 42nd spot (forgot about him),
- Schayes went down from 39th to 43rd,
- Frazier went from 38th to 45th, similarly to Baylor who got from 39th to 47th,
- Lanier went a bit down from 41st to 48th (due to durability problems mostly),
- Howard finished top 50,
- Drexler (52nd), McHale (55th) and Thomas (60th) actually missed top 50,
- Kawhi and Butler didn't make top 50,
- Luka isn't close to the top 60 players for now.

If you think that I am still missing someone, please let me know and I will include him.

I think I'd have to add some longevity curve for oldschool guys, as they are generally underrated by this approach due to having significantly shorter career (that's why I expect Schayes, Pettit, Mikan, Thurmond and Frazier to finish higher). Do you have any idea how to do that?

Great stuff 70sFan! I appreciate the thoroughness to do this analysis for so many players, ad it's interesting to see how different criteria produce different lists.

A few ideas on how to add a longevity curve for old school guys, just off the top of my head:
Method 1:
Step 1. look at some measure average career length in some given year/span over time. a) This might be average career length of a player (e.g. in a given year like 1965, or in a given span like 1960-1969), and compare it to today. b) Alternatively, if you want to be more specific, you might look at average career length of players who are above a certain threshold (e.g. players who have played at least 8 or 10 years ). Method A might be simpler, method B might be more accurate for these players.

Step 2. Award earlier players 'bonus' years for how many approximate additional years they might've played in today's league (or using whatever reference year you'd like). But how valuable should you make the bonus year? a) For simplicity, your 'bonus years' for the older players might be just equal to the value of their average season -- this would assume players' prime length and post/pre-prime length are increasing equally. b) You might add an average 'pre/post-prime' year or the value of their first/last season -- this would assume you think prime length is staying the same, and it's just the late-career stage that's getting longer.

Since you mention Thinking Basketball's model, he has some data on player aging here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/2017/08/01/are-older-players-getting-better-aging-throughout-nba-history/.

Method 2: If you want to get more detailed, you might improve Step 1 by looking at e.g. which players went to college and for how long then compared to now, what year the player retired then compared to now, etc., to get a more accurate sense of how many more years a player would have today. Then follow Step 2, adding career value, accordingly. This would provide a more accurate/customizable longevity curve for old school guys... but this might be more trouble than it's worth.

[dygaction]

Thank you all of you for your contribution. I wanted to make my list a bit less subjective (especially considering active guys), so I decided to make a rough estimation of career title odds in Ben Taylor's mold. To do that, I didn't estimate the CORP for each season of each player (that would takes me ages!), but I decided to do a quick estimation by creating the same tiers Ben did in his top 40 project:

GOAT-level - 33%
All-time - 27%
MVP level - 20%
Weak MVP level - 15%
All-nba level - 10%
All-star level - 7%
Sub all-star - 4%
Role player - 2%

Keep in mind that this rough estimation treats all MVP-level seasons as the same, which isn't really the case in reality, so the results can be different from how I'd really order them. Anyway, here are the results of my estimation (I included all players that were mentioned in this thread that I didn't have in my first top 50, the numbers are in % points):

Spoiler:

Player Title odds
1 LeBron James 327,0
2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 303,9
3 Bill Russell 266,5
4 Michael Jordan 247,2
5 Tim Duncan 242,9
6 Hakeem Olajuwon 239,1
7 Wilt Chamberlain 228,8
8 Shaquille O'Neal 228,3
9 Kevin Garnett 223,6
10 Magic Johnson 182,8
11 Kobe Bryant 181,5
12 Oscar Robertson 178,5
13 Karl Malone 171,7
14 Stephen Curry 170,8
15 Dirk Nowitzki 170,4
16 Julius Erving 170,0
17 Larry Bird 168,2
18 Jerry West 168,2
19 Chris Paul 165,2
20 David Robinson 164,4
21 Kevin Durant 161,4
22 Moses Malone 152,8
23 Charles Barkley 146,8
24 Steve Nash 140,3
25 Dwyane Wade 137,3
26 James Harden 130,9
27 John Stockton 125,3
28 Patrick Ewing 124,0
29 Artis Gilmore 120,6
30 John Havlicek 119,7
31 Reggie Miller 118,0
32 Giannis Antetokumpo 116,3
33 George Mikan 115,5
34 Jason Kidd 112,4
35 Nikola Jokic 110,7
36 Scottie Pippen 109,9
37 Rick Barry 109,0
38 Anthony Davis 105,2
39 Bob Pettit 103,9
40 Paul Pierce 103,9
41 George Gervin 101,7
42 Ray Allen 100,4
43 Dolph Schayes 99,1
44 Nate Thurmond 97,4
45 Walt Frazier 95,7
46 Dikembe Mutombo 95,7
47 Elgin Baylor 95,7
48 Bob Lanier 94,8
49 Russell Westbrook 92,7
50 Dwight Howard 91,8
51 Pau Gasol 91,4
52 Clyde Drexler 89,7
53 Jimmy Butler 89,3
54 Kawhi Leonard 88,0
55 Kevin McHale 85,8
56 Paul Arizin 84,5
57 Elvin Hayes 83,7
58 Robert Parish 83,3
59 Alonzo Mourning 77,3
60 Isiah Thomas 76,8
61 Manu Ginobili 73,0
62 Draymond Green 72,5
63 Chauncey Billups 70,4
64 Rudy Gobert 70,0
65 Dave Cowens 66,5
66 Luka Doncic 49,4

Some notes for those who don't want to read the whole list:

- my top 8 is the same, with the only difference is that Hakeem surpassed Wilt for the 6th spot,
- Garnett surpassed Magic for the 9th spot, probably well deserved,
- Larry Bird went down to 17th spot (tie with West), below Kobe, Malone, Curry, Nowtizki and Julius,
- Chris Paul went up to 19th spot,
- Durant went down to 21st spot,
- Bob Pettit went from 25th spot to a staggering 39th spot, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes,
- Harden went up to 26th spot,
- Havlicek made top 30 at the 30th spot,
- Reggie went up 10 spots from 41st to 31st,
- Mikan is available now at 33rd spot (without counting pre-1950 seasons),
- Pippen went down to 36th spot,
- Davis appeared at 38th spot (probably deserved that, I was too harsh on his availability and now him at 38th vs Giannis at 32nd makes sense),
- Paul Pierce appeared at 40th spot (I forgot about him),
- despite criticism, Gervin actually went up a few spots to 41st,
- Ray Allen appeared at 42nd spot (forgot about him),
- Schayes went down from 39th to 43rd,
- Frazier went from 38th to 45th, similarly to Baylor who got from 39th to 47th,
- Lanier went a bit down from 41st to 48th (due to durability problems mostly),
- Howard finished top 50,
- Drexler (52nd), McHale (55th) and Thomas (60th) actually missed top 50,
- Kawhi and Butler didn't make top 50,
- Luka isn't close to the top 60 players for now.

If you think that I am still missing someone, please let me know and I will include him.

I think I'd have to add some longevity curve for oldschool guys, as they are generally underrated by this approach due to having significantly shorter career (that's why I expect Schayes, Pettit, Mikan, Thurmond and Frazier to finish higher). Do you have any idea how to do that?

There got to be an "MVP" between "all time" and "MVP level" to remove some of the bias. Do you want to share the ranking for KG, K Malone, and Kobe? I mean you maybe find a way to put KG in front of one of them...

[70sFan]

Thank you all of you for your contribution. I wanted to make my list a bit less subjective (especially considering active guys), so I decided to make a rough estimation of career title odds in Ben Taylor's mold. To do that, I didn't estimate the CORP for each season of each player (that would takes me ages!), but I decided to do a quick estimation by creating the same tiers Ben did in his top 40 project:

GOAT-level - 33%
All-time - 27%
MVP level - 20%
Weak MVP level - 15%
All-nba level - 10%
All-star level - 7%
Sub all-star - 4%
Role player - 2%

Keep in mind that this rough estimation treats all MVP-level seasons as the same, which isn't really the case in reality, so the results can be different from how I'd really order them. Anyway, here are the results of my estimation (I included all players that were mentioned in this thread that I didn't have in my first top 50, the numbers are in % points):

Spoiler:

Player Title odds
1 LeBron James 327,0
2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 303,9
3 Bill Russell 266,5
4 Michael Jordan 247,2
5 Tim Duncan 242,9
6 Hakeem Olajuwon 239,1
7 Wilt Chamberlain 228,8
8 Shaquille O'Neal 228,3
9 Kevin Garnett 223,6
10 Magic Johnson 182,8
11 Kobe Bryant 181,5
12 Oscar Robertson 178,5
13 Karl Malone 171,7
14 Stephen Curry 170,8
15 Dirk Nowitzki 170,4
16 Julius Erving 170,0
17 Larry Bird 168,2
18 Jerry West 168,2
19 Chris Paul 165,2
20 David Robinson 164,4
21 Kevin Durant 161,4
22 Moses Malone 152,8
23 Charles Barkley 146,8
24 Steve Nash 140,3
25 Dwyane Wade 137,3
26 James Harden 130,9
27 John Stockton 125,3
28 Patrick Ewing 124,0
29 Artis Gilmore 120,6
30 John Havlicek 119,7
31 Reggie Miller 118,0
32 Giannis Antetokumpo 116,3
33 George Mikan 115,5
34 Jason Kidd 112,4
35 Nikola Jokic 110,7
36 Scottie Pippen 109,9
37 Rick Barry 109,0
38 Anthony Davis 105,2
39 Bob Pettit 103,9
40 Paul Pierce 103,9
41 George Gervin 101,7
42 Ray Allen 100,4
43 Dolph Schayes 99,1
44 Nate Thurmond 97,4
45 Walt Frazier 95,7
46 Dikembe Mutombo 95,7
47 Elgin Baylor 95,7
48 Bob Lanier 94,8
49 Russell Westbrook 92,7
50 Dwight Howard 91,8
51 Pau Gasol 91,4
52 Clyde Drexler 89,7
53 Jimmy Butler 89,3
54 Kawhi Leonard 88,0
55 Kevin McHale 85,8
56 Paul Arizin 84,5
57 Elvin Hayes 83,7
58 Robert Parish 83,3
59 Alonzo Mourning 77,3
60 Isiah Thomas 76,8
61 Manu Ginobili 73,0
62 Draymond Green 72,5
63 Chauncey Billups 70,4
64 Rudy Gobert 70,0
65 Dave Cowens 66,5
66 Luka Doncic 49,4

Some notes for those who don't want to read the whole list:

- my top 8 is the same, with the only difference is that Hakeem surpassed Wilt for the 6th spot,
- Garnett surpassed Magic for the 9th spot, probably well deserved,
- Larry Bird went down to 17th spot (tie with West), below Kobe, Malone, Curry, Nowtizki and Julius,
- Chris Paul went up to 19th spot,
- Durant went down to 21st spot,
- Bob Pettit went from 25th spot to a staggering 39th spot, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes,
- Harden went up to 26th spot,
- Havlicek made top 30 at the 30th spot,
- Reggie went up 10 spots from 41st to 31st,
- Mikan is available now at 33rd spot (without counting pre-1950 seasons),
- Pippen went down to 36th spot,
- Davis appeared at 38th spot (probably deserved that, I was too harsh on his availability and now him at 38th vs Giannis at 32nd makes sense),
- Paul Pierce appeared at 40th spot (I forgot about him),
- despite criticism, Gervin actually went up a few spots to 41st,
- Ray Allen appeared at 42nd spot (forgot about him),
- Schayes went down from 39th to 43rd,
- Frazier went from 38th to 45th, similarly to Baylor who got from 39th to 47th,
- Lanier went a bit down from 41st to 48th (due to durability problems mostly),
- Howard finished top 50,
- Drexler (52nd), McHale (55th) and Thomas (60th) actually missed top 50,
- Kawhi and Butler didn't make top 50,
- Luka isn't close to the top 60 players for now.

If you think that I am still missing someone, please let me know and I will include him.

I think I'd have to add some longevity curve for oldschool guys, as they are generally underrated by this approach due to having significantly shorter career (that's why I expect Schayes, Pettit, Mikan, Thurmond and Frazier to finish higher). Do you have any idea how to do that?

Great stuff 70sFan! I appreciate the thoroughness to do this analysis for so many players, ad it's interesting to see how different criteria produce different lists.

A few ideas on how to add a longevity curve for old school guys, just off the top of my head:
Method 1:
Step 1. look at some measure average career length in some given year/span over time. a) This might be average career length of a player (e.g. in a given year like 1965, or in a given span like 1960-1969), and compare it to today. b) Alternatively, if you want to be more specific, you might look at average career length of players who are above a certain threshold (e.g. players who have played at least 8 or 10 years ). Method A might be simpler, method B might be more accurate for these players.

Step 2. Award earlier players 'bonus' years for how many approximate additional years they might've played in today's league (or using whatever reference year you'd like). But how valuable should you make the bonus year? a) For simplicity, your 'bonus years' for the older players might be just equal to the value of their average season -- this would assume players' prime length and post/pre-prime length are increasing equally. b) You might add an average 'pre/post-prime' year or the value of their first/last season -- this would assume you think prime length is staying the same, and it's just the late-career stage that's getting longer.

Since you mention Thinking Basketball's model, he has some data on player aging here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/2017/08/01/are-older-players-getting-better-aging-throughout-nba-history/.

Method 2: If you want to get more detailed, you might improve Step 1 by looking at e.g. which players went to college and for how long then compared to now, what year the player retired then compared to now, etc., to get a more accurate sense of how many more years a player would have today. Then follow Step 2, adding career value, accordingly. This would provide a more accurate/customizable longevity curve for old school guys... but this might be more trouble than it's worth.

Thank you, I think that making average career length for every season might be too time consuming for me, but thanks for the link to Ben's article - it may help me a lot actually for a rough estimate (considering that his line regression for percentage of old players is quite consistent across ages). I may also ask Ben how he does it.

[70sFan]

Thank you all of you for your contribution. I wanted to make my list a bit less subjective (especially considering active guys), so I decided to make a rough estimation of career title odds in Ben Taylor's mold. To do that, I didn't estimate the CORP for each season of each player (that would takes me ages!), but I decided to do a quick estimation by creating the same tiers Ben did in his top 40 project:

GOAT-level - 33%
All-time - 27%
MVP level - 20%
Weak MVP level - 15%
All-nba level - 10%
All-star level - 7%
Sub all-star - 4%
Role player - 2%

Keep in mind that this rough estimation treats all MVP-level seasons as the same, which isn't really the case in reality, so the results can be different from how I'd really order them. Anyway, here are the results of my estimation (I included all players that were mentioned in this thread that I didn't have in my first top 50, the numbers are in % points):

Spoiler:

Player Title odds
1 LeBron James 327,0
2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 303,9
3 Bill Russell 266,5
4 Michael Jordan 247,2
5 Tim Duncan 242,9
6 Hakeem Olajuwon 239,1
7 Wilt Chamberlain 228,8
8 Shaquille O'Neal 228,3
9 Kevin Garnett 223,6
10 Magic Johnson 182,8
11 Kobe Bryant 181,5
12 Oscar Robertson 178,5
13 Karl Malone 171,7
14 Stephen Curry 170,8
15 Dirk Nowitzki 170,4
16 Julius Erving 170,0
17 Larry Bird 168,2
18 Jerry West 168,2
19 Chris Paul 165,2
20 David Robinson 164,4
21 Kevin Durant 161,4
22 Moses Malone 152,8
23 Charles Barkley 146,8
24 Steve Nash 140,3
25 Dwyane Wade 137,3
26 James Harden 130,9
27 John Stockton 125,3
28 Patrick Ewing 124,0
29 Artis Gilmore 120,6
30 John Havlicek 119,7
31 Reggie Miller 118,0
32 Giannis Antetokumpo 116,3
33 George Mikan 115,5
34 Jason Kidd 112,4
35 Nikola Jokic 110,7
36 Scottie Pippen 109,9
37 Rick Barry 109,0
38 Anthony Davis 105,2
39 Bob Pettit 103,9
40 Paul Pierce 103,9
41 George Gervin 101,7
42 Ray Allen 100,4
43 Dolph Schayes 99,1
44 Nate Thurmond 97,4
45 Walt Frazier 95,7
46 Dikembe Mutombo 95,7
47 Elgin Baylor 95,7
48 Bob Lanier 94,8
49 Russell Westbrook 92,7
50 Dwight Howard 91,8
51 Pau Gasol 91,4
52 Clyde Drexler 89,7
53 Jimmy Butler 89,3
54 Kawhi Leonard 88,0
55 Kevin McHale 85,8
56 Paul Arizin 84,5
57 Elvin Hayes 83,7
58 Robert Parish 83,3
59 Alonzo Mourning 77,3
60 Isiah Thomas 76,8
61 Manu Ginobili 73,0
62 Draymond Green 72,5
63 Chauncey Billups 70,4
64 Rudy Gobert 70,0
65 Dave Cowens 66,5
66 Luka Doncic 49,4

Some notes for those who don't want to read the whole list:

- my top 8 is the same, with the only difference is that Hakeem surpassed Wilt for the 6th spot,
- Garnett surpassed Magic for the 9th spot, probably well deserved,
- Larry Bird went down to 17th spot (tie with West), below Kobe, Malone, Curry, Nowtizki and Julius,
- Chris Paul went up to 19th spot,
- Durant went down to 21st spot,
- Bob Pettit went from 25th spot to a staggering 39th spot, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes,
- Harden went up to 26th spot,
- Havlicek made top 30 at the 30th spot,
- Reggie went up 10 spots from 41st to 31st,
- Mikan is available now at 33rd spot (without counting pre-1950 seasons),
- Pippen went down to 36th spot,
- Davis appeared at 38th spot (probably deserved that, I was too harsh on his availability and now him at 38th vs Giannis at 32nd makes sense),
- Paul Pierce appeared at 40th spot (I forgot about him),
- despite criticism, Gervin actually went up a few spots to 41st,
- Ray Allen appeared at 42nd spot (forgot about him),
- Schayes went down from 39th to 43rd,
- Frazier went from 38th to 45th, similarly to Baylor who got from 39th to 47th,
- Lanier went a bit down from 41st to 48th (due to durability problems mostly),
- Howard finished top 50,
- Drexler (52nd), McHale (55th) and Thomas (60th) actually missed top 50,
- Kawhi and Butler didn't make top 50,
- Luka isn't close to the top 60 players for now.

If you think that I am still missing someone, please let me know and I will include him.

I think I'd have to add some longevity curve for oldschool guys, as they are generally underrated by this approach due to having significantly shorter career (that's why I expect Schayes, Pettit, Mikan, Thurmond and Frazier to finish higher). Do you have any idea how to do that?

There got to be an "MVP" between "all time" and "MVP level" to remove some of the bias. Do you want to share the ranking for KG, K Malone, and Kobe? I mean you maybe find a way to put KG in front of one of them...

Yeah, if the results don't agree with your opinion - scream loudly for bias... Sorry, but some actual MVP awards weren't really on "MVP-level" of value and some years had multiple MVP-level players, I don't see any reason to evaluate 2001 Iverson higher than 2001 Shaq just because he won an MVP, even though he was much worse player.

Sure, I can post my evaluation for KG, Malone and Kobe:

Kevin Garnett:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 2 (2003, 2004)
MVP: 5 (2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008)
Weak MVP: 1 (2007)
All-nba: 5 (1999, 2000, 2009, 2011, 2012)
All-star: 4 (1997, 1998, 2010, 2013)
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 2 (1996, 2014)

Kobe Bryant:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 5 (2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009)
Weak MVP: 2 (2007, 2010)
All-nba: 7 (2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2011, 2012, 2013)
All-star: 1 (1999)
Sub all-star: 1 (1998)
Role player: 1 (1997)

Karl Malone:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 0
Weak MVP: 8 (1990, 1992, 1994-1999)
All-nba: 5 (1988, 1989, 1991, 1993, 2000)
All-star: 4 (1987, 2001-2003)
Sub all-star: 1 (2004)
Role player: 0

[DraymondGold]

Great stuff 70sFan! I appreciate the thoroughness to do this analysis for so many players, ad it's interesting to see how different criteria produce different lists.

A few ideas on how to add a longevity curve for old school guys, just off the top of my head:
Method 1:
Step 1. look at some measure average career length in some given year/span over time. a) This might be average career length of a player (e.g. in a given year like 1965, or in a given span like 1960-1969), and compare it to today. b) Alternatively, if you want to be more specific, you might look at average career length of players who are above a certain threshold (e.g. players who have played at least 8 or 10 years ). Method A might be simpler, method B might be more accurate for these players.

Step 2. Award earlier players 'bonus' years for how many approximate additional years they might've played in today's league (or using whatever reference year you'd like). But how valuable should you make the bonus year? a) For simplicity, your 'bonus years' for the older players might be just equal to the value of their average season -- this would assume players' prime length and post/pre-prime length are increasing equally. b) You might add an average 'pre/post-prime' year or the value of their first/last season -- this would assume you think prime length is staying the same, and it's just the late-career stage that's getting longer.

Since you mention Thinking Basketball's model, he has some data on player aging here: https://thinkingbasketball.net/2017/08/01/are-older-players-getting-better-aging-throughout-nba-history/.

Method 2: If you want to get more detailed, you might improve Step 1 by looking at e.g. which players went to college and for how long then compared to now, what year the player retired then compared to now, etc., to get a more accurate sense of how many more years a player would have today. Then follow Step 2, adding career value, accordingly. This would provide a more accurate/customizable longevity curve for old school guys... but this might be more trouble than it's worth.

Thank you, I think that making average career length for every season might be too time consuming for me, but thanks for the link to Ben's article - it may help me a lot actually for a rough estimate (considering that his line regression for percentage of old players is quite consistent across ages). I may also ask Ben how he does it.

If you're looking for a super simple easy just as a baseline, the simplest version of my suggested methodology would be something like this:

Average career length in 1960s: 3.89 years.
Average career length in 1970s: 4.51 years.
Average career length in 1980s: 4.66 years.
Average career length in 1990s: 5.49 years.
Average career length in 2000s: 6.66 years.
Average career length in 2010s: ? years.
[source: https://weaksideawareness.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/average-nba-career-length-for-players-details/]

So to find the approximate 'era-corrected' career value for a player 1960s (as if they were playing in the 2010s), you'd multiply the total player title odds from 1960s players by a factor of 1.71x (i.e. by 6.66 years/3.89 years). You'd multiply 1970s players by 1.48, you'd multiply 1980s players by 1.43, and you'd multiply 1990s players by 1.21.

I suspect this would overcorrect -- it might boost 1960s players too much. It may be the role players who are driving more of the increase in average career length (star players are playing longer, but perhaps not *that* much longer). And this assumes prime and post/pre-prime years are increasing in equal proportions (i.e. Step 2, part A from above), which might also be wrong.

But it's at least fairly simple to implement, and might give you a ballpark idea of how much older guys improve with this 'era corrected' longevity curve.

[dygaction]

Thank you all of you for your contribution. I wanted to make my list a bit less subjective (especially considering active guys), so I decided to make a rough estimation of career title odds in Ben Taylor's mold. To do that, I didn't estimate the CORP for each season of each player (that would takes me ages!), but I decided to do a quick estimation by creating the same tiers Ben did in his top 40 project:

GOAT-level - 33%
All-time - 27%
MVP level - 20%
Weak MVP level - 15%
All-nba level - 10%
All-star level - 7%
Sub all-star - 4%
Role player - 2%

Keep in mind that this rough estimation treats all MVP-level seasons as the same, which isn't really the case in reality, so the results can be different from how I'd really order them. Anyway, here are the results of my estimation (I included all players that were mentioned in this thread that I didn't have in my first top 50, the numbers are in % points):

Spoiler:

Player Title odds
1 LeBron James 327,0
2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 303,9
3 Bill Russell 266,5
4 Michael Jordan 247,2
5 Tim Duncan 242,9
6 Hakeem Olajuwon 239,1
7 Wilt Chamberlain 228,8
8 Shaquille O'Neal 228,3
9 Kevin Garnett 223,6
10 Magic Johnson 182,8
11 Kobe Bryant 181,5
12 Oscar Robertson 178,5
13 Karl Malone 171,7
14 Stephen Curry 170,8
15 Dirk Nowitzki 170,4
16 Julius Erving 170,0
17 Larry Bird 168,2
18 Jerry West 168,2
19 Chris Paul 165,2
20 David Robinson 164,4
21 Kevin Durant 161,4
22 Moses Malone 152,8
23 Charles Barkley 146,8
24 Steve Nash 140,3
25 Dwyane Wade 137,3
26 James Harden 130,9
27 John Stockton 125,3
28 Patrick Ewing 124,0
29 Artis Gilmore 120,6
30 John Havlicek 119,7
31 Reggie Miller 118,0
32 Giannis Antetokumpo 116,3
33 George Mikan 115,5
34 Jason Kidd 112,4
35 Nikola Jokic 110,7
36 Scottie Pippen 109,9
37 Rick Barry 109,0
38 Anthony Davis 105,2
39 Bob Pettit 103,9
40 Paul Pierce 103,9
41 George Gervin 101,7
42 Ray Allen 100,4
43 Dolph Schayes 99,1
44 Nate Thurmond 97,4
45 Walt Frazier 95,7
46 Dikembe Mutombo 95,7
47 Elgin Baylor 95,7
48 Bob Lanier 94,8
49 Russell Westbrook 92,7
50 Dwight Howard 91,8
51 Pau Gasol 91,4
52 Clyde Drexler 89,7
53 Jimmy Butler 89,3
54 Kawhi Leonard 88,0
55 Kevin McHale 85,8
56 Paul Arizin 84,5
57 Elvin Hayes 83,7
58 Robert Parish 83,3
59 Alonzo Mourning 77,3
60 Isiah Thomas 76,8
61 Manu Ginobili 73,0
62 Draymond Green 72,5
63 Chauncey Billups 70,4
64 Rudy Gobert 70,0
65 Dave Cowens 66,5
66 Luka Doncic 49,4

Some notes for those who don't want to read the whole list:

- my top 8 is the same, with the only difference is that Hakeem surpassed Wilt for the 6th spot,
- Garnett surpassed Magic for the 9th spot, probably well deserved,
- Larry Bird went down to 17th spot (tie with West), below Kobe, Malone, Curry, Nowtizki and Julius,
- Chris Paul went up to 19th spot,
- Durant went down to 21st spot,
- Bob Pettit went from 25th spot to a staggering 39th spot, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes,
- Harden went up to 26th spot,
- Havlicek made top 30 at the 30th spot,
- Reggie went up 10 spots from 41st to 31st,
- Mikan is available now at 33rd spot (without counting pre-1950 seasons),
- Pippen went down to 36th spot,
- Davis appeared at 38th spot (probably deserved that, I was too harsh on his availability and now him at 38th vs Giannis at 32nd makes sense),
- Paul Pierce appeared at 40th spot (I forgot about him),
- despite criticism, Gervin actually went up a few spots to 41st,
- Ray Allen appeared at 42nd spot (forgot about him),
- Schayes went down from 39th to 43rd,
- Frazier went from 38th to 45th, similarly to Baylor who got from 39th to 47th,
- Lanier went a bit down from 41st to 48th (due to durability problems mostly),
- Howard finished top 50,
- Drexler (52nd), McHale (55th) and Thomas (60th) actually missed top 50,
- Kawhi and Butler didn't make top 50,
- Luka isn't close to the top 60 players for now.

If you think that I am still missing someone, please let me know and I will include him.

I think I'd have to add some longevity curve for oldschool guys, as they are generally underrated by this approach due to having significantly shorter career (that's why I expect Schayes, Pettit, Mikan, Thurmond and Frazier to finish higher). Do you have any idea how to do that?

There got to be an "MVP" between "all time" and "MVP level" to remove some of the bias. Do you want to share the ranking for KG, K Malone, and Kobe? I mean you maybe find a way to put KG in front of one of them...

Yeah, if the results don't agree with your opinion - scream loudly for bias... Sorry, but some actual MVP awards weren't really on "MVP-level" of value and some years had multiple MVP-level players, I don't see any reason to evaluate 2001 Iverson higher than 2001 Shaq just because he won an MVP, even though he was much worse player.

Sure, I can post my evaluation for KG, Malone and Kobe:

Kevin Garnett:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 2 (2003, 2004)
MVP: 5 (2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008)
Weak MVP: 1 (2007)
All-nba: 5 (1999, 2000, 2009, 2011, 2012)
All-star: 4 (1997, 1998, 2010, 2013)
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 2 (1996, 2014)

Kobe Bryant:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 5 (2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009)
Weak MVP: 2 (2007, 2010)
All-nba: 7 (2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2011, 2012, 2013)
All-star: 1 (1999)
Sub all-star: 1 (1998)
Role player: 1 (1997)

Karl Malone:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 0
Weak MVP: 8 (1990, 1992, 1994-1999)
All-nba: 5 (1988, 1989, 1991, 1993, 2000)
All-star: 4 (1987, 2001-2003)
Sub all-star: 1 (2004)
Role player: 0

Lol, no wonder.
Find a constructive way to disagree. Coming in hot with assumption/accusation of bias, and then baiting one-liners like this will not be tolerated. Warned. trex

[70sFan]

There got to be an "MVP" between "all time" and "MVP level" to remove some of the bias. Do you want to share the ranking for KG, K Malone, and Kobe? I mean you maybe find a way to put KG in front of one of them...

Yeah, if the results don't agree with your opinion - scream loudly for bias... Sorry, but some actual MVP awards weren't really on "MVP-level" of value and some years had multiple MVP-level players, I don't see any reason to evaluate 2001 Iverson higher than 2001 Shaq just because he won an MVP, even though he was much worse player.

Sure, I can post my evaluation for KG, Malone and Kobe:

Kevin Garnett:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 2 (2003, 2004)
MVP: 5 (2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008)
Weak MVP: 1 (2007)
All-nba: 5 (1999, 2000, 2009, 2011, 2012)
All-star: 4 (1997, 1998, 2010, 2013)
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 2 (1996, 2014)

Kobe Bryant:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 5 (2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009)
Weak MVP: 2 (2007, 2010)
All-nba: 7 (2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2011, 2012, 2013)
All-star: 1 (1999)
Sub all-star: 1 (1998)
Role player: 1 (1997)

Karl Malone:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 0
Weak MVP: 8 (1990, 1992, 1994-1999)
All-nba: 5 (1988, 1989, 1991, 1993, 2000)
All-star: 4 (1987, 2001-2003)
Sub all-star: 1 (2004)
Role player: 0

Lol, no wonder.

I am open for constructive criticism.

[PistolPeteJR]

Good stuff.

KG is always going to be a big enigma to those who don't want to deep dive. Give it another 5-10 years (it's already taken shape though to be honest), and I think the disrespect for him will grow. Deep divers will point to his defensive ATGness as the key to him, and the opposition will probably compare him to Russell in the sense that it'll become a "rings" anti-argument; in their minds, 1 vs 11, ergo, nowhere near top-10/15.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying KG and Russell cancel each other out on that end or as players; I just mean that non-basic boxscore impact and a non-aesthetically pleasing game will always echo silence in the ears of casual fans. As a result, instead of being seen as a top-15 ATG, KG will drop further down over time not because of the greater pool of players that will surpass him (even though that's a variable to consider as well, separate thing though), but because of the lack of understanding.

[penbeast0]

Good stuff.

KG is always going to be a big enigma to those who don't want to deep dive. Give it another 5-10 years (it's already taken shape though to be honest), and I think the disrespect for him will grow. Deep divers will point to his defensive ATGness as the key to him, and the opposition will probably compare him to Russell in the sense that it'll become a "rings" anti-argument; in their minds, 1 vs 11, ergo, nowhere near top-10/15.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying KG and Russell cancel each other out on that end or as players; I just mean that non-basic boxscore impact and a non-aesthetically pleasing game will always echo silence in the ears of casual fans. As a result, instead of being seen as a top-15 ATG, KG will drop further down over time not because of the greater pool of players that will surpass him (even though that's a variable to consider as well, separate thing though), but because of the lack of understanding.

KG's move UP the top 100 ATG list coincided with greater availability and acceptance of the +/- family of impact stats. As better statistical data of this type becomes more available and accepted as valuable by the general public, it should help him also. The reason he moved from 11-20 range here on this board to the 6-15 range he is generally found in now is because of a few dedicated stat heads who believed in the impact numbers and convinced those of us less comfortable with those measures to some degree.

[ceiling raiser]

Good stuff. How long did this take you to put together? I really want to do a CORP-based top 50 (top 100 is just not happening for me), but it seems time-prohibitive.

[trex_8063]

Spoiler:

Thank you all of you for your contribution. I wanted to make my list a bit less subjective (especially considering active guys), so I decided to make a rough estimation of career title odds in Ben Taylor's mold. To do that, I didn't estimate the CORP for each season of each player (that would takes me ages!), but I decided to do a quick estimation by creating the same tiers Ben did in his top 40 project:

GOAT-level - 33%
All-time - 27%
MVP level - 20%
Weak MVP level - 15%
All-nba level - 10%
All-star level - 7%
Sub all-star - 4%
Role player - 2%

Keep in mind that this rough estimation treats all MVP-level seasons as the same, which isn't really the case in reality, so the results can be different from how I'd really order them. Anyway, here are the results of my estimation (I included all players that were mentioned in this thread that I didn't have in my first top 50, the numbers are in % points):

[spoiler]Player Title odds
1 LeBron James 327,0
2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 303,9
3 Bill Russell 266,5
4 Michael Jordan 247,2
5 Tim Duncan 242,9
6 Hakeem Olajuwon 239,1
7 Wilt Chamberlain 228,8
8 Shaquille O'Neal 228,3
9 Kevin Garnett 212,4
10 Magic Johnson 182,8
11 Kobe Bryant 181,5
12 Oscar Robertson 178,5
13 Karl Malone 171,7
14 Stephen Curry 170,8
15 Dirk Nowitzki 170,4
16 Julius Erving 170,0
17 Larry Bird 168,2
18 Jerry West 168,2
19 Chris Paul 165,2
20 David Robinson 164,4
21 Kevin Durant 161,4
22 Moses Malone 152,8
23 Charles Barkley 146,8
24 Steve Nash 140,3
25 Dwyane Wade 137,3
26 James Harden 130,9
27 John Stockton 125,3
28 Patrick Ewing 124,0
29 Artis Gilmore 120,6
30 John Havlicek 119,7
31 Reggie Miller 118,0
32 Giannis Antetokumpo 116,3
33 George Mikan 115,5
34 Jason Kidd 112,4
35 Nikola Jokic 110,7
36 Scottie Pippen 109,9
37 Rick Barry 109,0
38 Anthony Davis 105,2
39 Bob Pettit 103,9
40 Paul Pierce 103,9
41 George Gervin 101,7
42 Ray Allen 100,4
43 Dolph Schayes 99,1
44 Nate Thurmond 97,4
45 Walt Frazier 95,7
46 Dikembe Mutombo 95,7
47 Elgin Baylor 95,7
48 Bob Lanier 94,8
49 Russell Westbrook 92,7
50 Dwight Howard 91,8
51 Pau Gasol 91,4
52 Clyde Drexler 89,7
53 Jimmy Butler 89,3
54 Kawhi Leonard 88,0
55 Kevin McHale 85,8
56 Paul Arizin 84,5
57 Elvin Hayes 83,7
58 Robert Parish 83,3
59 Alonzo Mourning 77,3
60 Isiah Thomas 76,8
61 Manu Ginobili 73,0
62 Draymond Green 72,5
63 Chauncey Billups 70,4
64 Rudy Gobert 70,0
65 Dave Cowens 66,5
66 Luka Doncic 49,4

Some notes for those who don't want to read the whole list:

- my top 8 is the same, with the only difference is that Hakeem surpassed Wilt for the 6th spot,
- Garnett surpassed Magic for the 9th spot, probably well deserved,
- Larry Bird went down to 17th spot (tie with West), below Kobe, Malone, Curry, Nowtizki and Julius,
- Chris Paul went up to 19th spot,
- Durant went down to 21st spot,
- Bob Pettit went from 25th spot to a staggering 39th spot, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes,
- Harden went up to 26th spot,
- Havlicek made top 30 at the 30th spot,
- Reggie went up 10 spots from 41st to 31st,
- Mikan is available now at 33rd spot (without counting pre-1950 seasons),
- Pippen went down to 36th spot,
- Davis appeared at 38th spot (probably deserved that, I was too harsh on his availability and now him at 38th vs Giannis at 32nd makes sense),
- Paul Pierce appeared at 40th spot (I forgot about him),
- despite criticism, Gervin actually went up a few spots to 41st,
- Ray Allen appeared at 42nd spot (forgot about him),
- Schayes went down from 39th to 43rd,
- Frazier went from 38th to 45th, similarly to Baylor who got from 39th to 47th,
- Lanier went a bit down from 41st to 48th (due to durability problems mostly),
- Howard finished top 50,
- Drexler (52nd), McHale (55th) and Thomas (60th) actually missed top 50,
- Kawhi and Butler didn't make top 50,
- Luka isn't close to the top 60 players for now.[/spoiler]

If you think that I am still missing someone, please let me know and I will include him.

I think I'd have to add some longevity curve for oldschool guys, as they are generally underrated by this approach due to having significantly shorter career (that's why I expect Schayes, Pettit, Mikan, Thurmond and Frazier to finish higher). Do you have any idea how to do that?

Be curious to see where Gary Payton ranks the most; he feels like a possible [probable??] top 50 (top 60-65 lock), but I'm not seeing his name. Though also curious about Wes Unseld, Allen Iverson, and Bob Cousy. Also curious about Willis Reed, given his lacking longevity.

I get the feeling you're even higher on Rudy Gobert than I am (and he was my favourite player for a few years there in Utah).

[Cavsfansince84]

KG's move UP the top 100 ATG list coincided with greater availability and acceptance of the +/- family of impact stats. As better statistical data of this type becomes more available and accepted as valuable by the general public, it should help him also. The reason he moved from 11-20 range here on this board to the 6-15 range he is generally found in now is because of a few dedicated stat heads who believed in the impact numbers and convinced those of us less comfortable with those measures to some degree.

Good post but I'm not convinced that we're actually closer to a 'correct' view of him historically speaking and I also think that the ring stuff about him is almost irrelevant unless he's getting compared to top 10 guys because look at the other guys in that 11-20 range. Dr. J, Dirk, DRob, West, Oscar, Barkley, CP3, Malone(both), Nash, etc. All 1 or 0 rings as a lead guy. It's really more I think about all the 1st rd/non playoff years he accumulated and to some degree his intangibles imo. Was he miscast as a #1 scorer? yes. Is that and his front office's incompetence enough to excuse all those results? I honestly don't know.

[dygaction]

Yeah, if the results don't agree with your opinion - scream loudly for bias... Sorry, but some actual MVP awards weren't really on "MVP-level" of value and some years had multiple MVP-level players, I don't see any reason to evaluate 2001 Iverson higher than 2001 Shaq just because he won an MVP, even though he was much worse player.

Sure, I can post my evaluation for KG, Malone and Kobe:

Kevin Garnett:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 2 (2003, 2004)
MVP: 5 (2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2008)
Weak MVP: 1 (2007)
All-nba: 5 (1999, 2000, 2009, 2011, 2012)
All-star: 4 (1997, 1998, 2010, 2013)
Sub all-star: 0
Role player: 2 (1996, 2014)

Kobe Bryant:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 5 (2001, 2003, 2006, 2008, 2009)
Weak MVP: 2 (2007, 2010)
All-nba: 7 (2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2011, 2012, 2013)
All-star: 1 (1999)
Sub all-star: 1 (1998)
Role player: 1 (1997)

Karl Malone:

GOAT-level: 0
All-time: 0
MVP: 0
Weak MVP: 8 (1990, 1992, 1994-1999)
All-nba: 5 (1988, 1989, 1991, 1993, 2000)
All-star: 4 (1987, 2001-2003)
Sub all-star: 1 (2004)
Role player: 0

Lol, no wonder.

I am open for constructive criticism.

No it is not even criticism. It is like I folded in Texas holdem and saw your hands.

[dygaction]

Good stuff.

KG is always going to be a big enigma to those who don't want to deep dive. Give it another 5-10 years (it's already taken shape though to be honest), and I think the disrespect for him will grow. Deep divers will point to his defensive ATGness as the key to him, and the opposition will probably compare him to Russell in the sense that it'll become a "rings" anti-argument; in their minds, 1 vs 11, ergo, nowhere near top-10/15.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying KG and Russell cancel each other out on that end or as players; I just mean that non-basic boxscore impact and a non-aesthetically pleasing game will always echo silence in the ears of casual fans. As a result, instead of being seen as a top-15 ATG, KG will drop further down over time not because of the greater pool of players that will surpass him (even though that's a variable to consider as well, separate thing though), but because of the lack of understanding.

Not lack of understanding, but how the world operates. He just did not win enough, personal accolades or team success. Its unfortunate but sports are very cruel. Many kids can number the presidents from G. Washington all the way to Biden. How many people know the top 3 presidential candidates that narrowly lost their campaigns? You can say KG underachieved in his career which was not his fault but also should not hypothetically pump up his value. Nobody gave Bird/Magic the benefit of doubt of not getting hurt or ill.

[iggymcfrack]

Thank you all of you for your contribution. I wanted to make my list a bit less subjective (especially considering active guys), so I decided to make a rough estimation of career title odds in Ben Taylor's mold. To do that, I didn't estimate the CORP for each season of each player (that would takes me ages!), but I decided to do a quick estimation by creating the same tiers Ben did in his top 40 project:

GOAT-level - 33%
All-time - 27%
MVP level - 20%
Weak MVP level - 15%
All-nba level - 10%
All-star level - 7%
Sub all-star - 4%
Role player - 2%

Keep in mind that this rough estimation treats all MVP-level seasons as the same, which isn't really the case in reality, so the results can be different from how I'd really order them. Anyway, here are the results of my estimation (I included all players that were mentioned in this thread that I didn't have in my first top 50, the numbers are in % points):

Spoiler:

Player Title odds
1 LeBron James 327,0
2 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 303,9
3 Bill Russell 266,5
4 Michael Jordan 247,2
5 Tim Duncan 242,9
6 Hakeem Olajuwon 239,1
7 Wilt Chamberlain 228,8
8 Shaquille O'Neal 228,3
9 Kevin Garnett 212,4
10 Magic Johnson 182,8
11 Kobe Bryant 181,5
12 Oscar Robertson 178,5
13 Karl Malone 171,7
14 Stephen Curry 170,8
15 Dirk Nowitzki 170,4
16 Julius Erving 170,0
17 Larry Bird 168,2
18 Jerry West 168,2
19 Chris Paul 165,2
20 David Robinson 164,4
21 Kevin Durant 161,4
22 Moses Malone 152,8
23 Charles Barkley 146,8
24 Steve Nash 140,3
25 Dwyane Wade 137,3
26 James Harden 130,9
27 John Stockton 125,3
28 Patrick Ewing 124,0
29 Artis Gilmore 120,6
30 John Havlicek 119,7
31 Reggie Miller 118,0
32 Giannis Antetokumpo 116,3
33 George Mikan 115,5
34 Jason Kidd 112,4
35 Nikola Jokic 110,7
36 Scottie Pippen 109,9
37 Rick Barry 109,0
38 Anthony Davis 105,2
39 Bob Pettit 103,9
40 Paul Pierce 103,9
41 George Gervin 101,7
42 Ray Allen 100,4
43 Dolph Schayes 99,1
44 Nate Thurmond 97,4
45 Walt Frazier 95,7
46 Dikembe Mutombo 95,7
47 Elgin Baylor 95,7
48 Bob Lanier 94,8
49 Russell Westbrook 92,7
50 Dwight Howard 91,8
51 Pau Gasol 91,4
52 Clyde Drexler 89,7
53 Jimmy Butler 89,3
54 Kawhi Leonard 88,0
55 Kevin McHale 85,8
56 Paul Arizin 84,5
57 Elvin Hayes 83,7
58 Robert Parish 83,3
59 Alonzo Mourning 77,3
60 Isiah Thomas 76,8
61 Manu Ginobili 73,0
62 Draymond Green 72,5
63 Chauncey Billups 70,4
64 Rudy Gobert 70,0
65 Dave Cowens 66,5
66 Luka Doncic 49,4

Some notes for those who don't want to read the whole list:

- my top 8 is the same, with the only difference is that Hakeem surpassed Wilt for the 6th spot,
- Garnett surpassed Magic for the 9th spot, probably well deserved,
- Larry Bird went down to 17th spot (tie with West), below Kobe, Malone, Curry, Nowtizki and Julius,
- Chris Paul went up to 19th spot,
- Durant went down to 21st spot,
- Bob Pettit went from 25th spot to a staggering 39th spot, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle of these two extremes,
- Harden went up to 26th spot,
- Havlicek made top 30 at the 30th spot,
- Reggie went up 10 spots from 41st to 31st,
- Mikan is available now at 33rd spot (without counting pre-1950 seasons),
- Pippen went down to 36th spot,
- Davis appeared at 38th spot (probably deserved that, I was too harsh on his availability and now him at 38th vs Giannis at 32nd makes sense),
- Paul Pierce appeared at 40th spot (I forgot about him),
- despite criticism, Gervin actually went up a few spots to 41st,
- Ray Allen appeared at 42nd spot (forgot about him),
- Schayes went down from 39th to 43rd,
- Frazier went from 38th to 45th, similarly to Baylor who got from 39th to 47th,
- Lanier went a bit down from 41st to 48th (due to durability problems mostly),
- Howard finished top 50,
- Drexler (52nd), McHale (55th) and Thomas (60th) actually missed top 50,
- Kawhi and Butler didn't make top 50,
- Luka isn't close to the top 60 players for now.

If you think that I am still missing someone, please let me know and I will include him.

I think I'd have to add some longevity curve for oldschool guys, as they are generally underrated by this approach due to having significantly shorter career (that's why I expect Schayes, Pettit, Mikan, Thurmond and Frazier to finish higher). Do you have any idea how to do that?

I feel like this was largely a very good and much improved list. A lot of the things I disliked most about your list magically fixed themselves with more objective criteria. Isiah out of the top 50, Pettit out of the top 30, CP3 over Durant, Davis appearing, Hakeem over Wilt, KG over Magic, Bird falling out of the top 15. Every single one of those changes are things that I would strongly agree with.

Since Kawhi was maybe your most controversial omission before and he's still out of the top 50, I'd be very curious how you're scoring the seasons where he gets injured in the playoffs. Is he getting no credit? Very little credit? 2017 for instance, I would probably score as at least a weak MVP level season since he was a strong MVP candidate in the regular season and was clearly the best player in the playoffs and maybe even having one of the best playoffs of all-time before a dirty play took him out. I feel like since he hadn't been injury prone up to that point and he carried the team as far as anyone possibly could, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt a little more on that one.

[iggymcfrack]

Good stuff.

KG is always going to be a big enigma to those who don't want to deep dive. Give it another 5-10 years (it's already taken shape though to be honest), and I think the disrespect for him will grow. Deep divers will point to his defensive ATGness as the key to him, and the opposition will probably compare him to Russell in the sense that it'll become a "rings" anti-argument; in their minds, 1 vs 11, ergo, nowhere near top-10/15.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying KG and Russell cancel each other out on that end or as players; I just mean that non-basic boxscore impact and a non-aesthetically pleasing game will always echo silence in the ears of casual fans. As a result, instead of being seen as a top-15 ATG, KG will drop further down over time not because of the greater pool of players that will surpass him (even though that's a variable to consider as well, separate thing though), but because of the lack of understanding.

Not lack of understanding, but how the world operates. He just did not win enough, personal accolades or team success. Its unfortunate but sports are very cruel. Many kids can number the presidents from G. Washington all the way to Biden. How many people know the top 3 presidential candidates that narrowly lost their campaigns? You can say KG underachieved in his career which was not his fault but also should not hypothetically pump up his value. Nobody gave Bird/Magic the benefit of doubt of not getting hurt or ill.

But KG basically was the president. He was the best player in the league in 2008 on a team that won the championship. As for "not winning enough", it's all how you look at it. For his career, he had an on/off of +11.3 in the regular season and +14.5 in the playoffs. That's a lot of winning!!! By being on the floor, he improved his teams more than almost anyone in the history of the league. Sure, you could ignore teammates, ignore the situation, and count rings, but if that's really how people judged things, Robert Horry would be considered one of the best players of the modern era. No one really does that. People decide how much credit to give someone in each case. KG's a champion who consistently elevated his teams more than almost anyone in the history of the game which leaves him as a clear top 10 player in my book.

[PistolPeteJR]

Good stuff.

KG is always going to be a big enigma to those who don't want to deep dive. Give it another 5-10 years (it's already taken shape though to be honest), and I think the disrespect for him will grow. Deep divers will point to his defensive ATGness as the key to him, and the opposition will probably compare him to Russell in the sense that it'll become a "rings" anti-argument; in their minds, 1 vs 11, ergo, nowhere near top-10/15.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying KG and Russell cancel each other out on that end or as players; I just mean that non-basic boxscore impact and a non-aesthetically pleasing game will always echo silence in the ears of casual fans. As a result, instead of being seen as a top-15 ATG, KG will drop further down over time not because of the greater pool of players that will surpass him (even though that's a variable to consider as well, separate thing though), but because of the lack of understanding.

KG's move UP the top 100 ATG list coincided with greater availability and acceptance of the +/- family of impact stats. As better statistical data of this type becomes more available and accepted as valuable by the general public, it should help him also. The reason he moved from 11-20 range here on this board to the 6-15 range he is generally found in now is because of a few dedicated stat heads who believed in the impact numbers and convinced those of us less comfortable with those measures to some degree.

He went up in the minds of non-casuals. I don’t think it to be a farfetched assumption that casuals will always be the majority, and not the minority. Ergo, I think he’ll keep going down.

KG's move UP the top 100 ATG list coincided with greater availability and acceptance of the +/- family of impact stats. As better statistical data of this type becomes more available and accepted as valuable by the general public, it should help him also. The reason he moved from 11-20 range here on this board to the 6-15 range he is generally found in now is because of a few dedicated stat heads who believed in the impact numbers and convinced those of us less comfortable with those measures to some degree.

Good post but I'm not convinced that we're actually closer to a 'correct' view of him historically speaking and I also think that the ring stuff about him is almost irrelevant unless he's getting compared to top 10 guys because look at the other guys in that 11-20 range. Dr. J, Dirk, DRob, West, Oscar, Barkley, CP3, Malone(both), Nash, etc. All 1 or 0 rings as a lead guy. It's really more I think about all the 1st rd/non playoff years he accumulated and to some degree his intangibles imo. Was he miscast as a #1 scorer? yes. Is that and his front office's incompetence enough to excuse all those results? I honestly don't know.

I think as time elapses and more and more guys in the top-10 have more and more rings (realistically, someone would have to be absolutely, mindblowingly out of this world and only having won a ring, let alone zero to break the top-10 at this point), the top-10 will be void of the “ringless” attributing, maybe even only one ring.