What is your criteria for choosing the greatest careers?

[penbeast0]

To give some pre-thinking and prime the pump for the top 100 project, you can list your criteria here.

I tend to weigh the following heavily:
(1) In era dominance -- I do weight my ratings for era with more recent eras being generally stronger. The exception is the age of expansion, I think the 70s in the NBA, and even more in the ABA were weaker competition for the greats than the 60s and even into the 80s with the NBA gaining strength again to make it more competitive by the end of the 80s than the 60s. I realize this is an unpopular stance as it favors Wilt, Russell, West, and Oscar and disfavors Kareem, Magic, Bird, and Moses but that's how it seemed to me (and I'm a lifelong Bullets/Wizards fan so the only time in NBA history my team was ever relevant was the 70s).

(2) Roughly 8 year prime window -- I have great respect for Kareem, LeBron and other players who maintained a level of great play for a long long time and of course I do give this some weight. But generally, I don't penalize a lot someone who played 8 great years v. someone who maintained their greatness for 12 years. I do start penalizing heavily for players who didn't make it past 4-5 years of greatness (like Sidney Moncrief) and you will not see Bill Walton appear in my top 100 players despite his great all-time peak. Health, unfortunately, matters.

(3) Defense and efficiency -- I am not a fan of high volume, low efficiency scorers who didn't play defense so you won't see me voting for Iverson, Maravich, etc. either. I recognize that defense is much harder to quantify and I have at least as much trouble as anyone doing so but it's half the game.

(4) Team results -- one way to look at the impact an individual offensive or defensive player is to look at team offensive and defensive results as well as box scores. This of course needs context; teammates and coaching matter. But when you see the massive defensive impact of an Oscar Robertson or look at how the great distributors like Oscar, Magic, Nash, and Stockton lifted their teams above their talent levels offensively, that matters more to me in many cases than their individual scoring and man defense.

[SHAQ32]

Just depends on the comparison I guess.

[One_and_Done]

I'm only interested in 1 thing; how impactful they were at producing wins in basketball.

The biggest complexity there is era adjustment. While I wouldn't exactly describe myself as a time machine person, for me the biggest thing is how good was the league you performed in, and if it was bad to what degree did you transcend it. Russell and Wilt played in a garbage league IMO, but they clearly transcended that league with their domination of it. I'd also say I skew to the modern era. If you couldn't cut it in today's league, I'm probably not going to rate you very highly, because the basketball being played in the modern game craps all over other eras. I'd basically say the modern game's genesis was 2005 with the rule changes, but didn't hit it's stride until 2011. Like with most sports that you can measure performance, the league has generally gotten stronger over time. The 70s were much stronger than the 60s, the 80s were stronger than the 70s, etc.

I don't care about "balance of skills" unless it affects impact. I don't care how "hard you had to work" to develop your game, because it's like the irrelevant backstory of an NPC. It doesn't affect winning on the floor. If you're a toxic personality it's fine, unless it impacted winning on the floor. So Karl Malone is all good, wheres Kobe and Elvin Hayes are in trouble. I definitely don't care about arbitrary points of reference, like who was more famous or who "led" an iconic franchise.

I don't like single use numbers, which are just one data point, and I don't like reference to how good a guys team was based on "names". Lastly, I don't like hypothetical careers. I rate guys on what they actually did. If KG had learned to shoot 3s for example, he'd be even better, but since he didn't it doesn't matter. In a similar vein, if a guy played 70K more playoff minutes than someone else, they get credit for actually doing it. We can't just grant that a yearly 1st round exit player would have been able to play this many minutes, and do all the things that player did. On paper, Paul George should be a better player than Jimmy Butler. He is taller, longer, more athletic, a better shooter, etc. But for whatever reason, Butler outperforms him. That is the way things unfolded. Speculating about a universe where Paul George plays better is nice, but it never happened so I don't count it.

[penbeast0]

If you mean that the 70s had more advanced coaching, techniques, and equipment (mainly shoes) that hadn't been there in the 60s, fine. If you mean the 70s had stronger average teams, deeper and with more outstanding players per franchise, I think you are pretty clearly wrong.

The 70s were actually a lot weaker in terms of team stars, depth, unit cohesion, etc. than the 60s, even ignoring the ABA. The population was expanding but not at anywhere close to the way the size of the league was expanding, doubling the number of times by 1976 (again, even ignoring the drain of some talent to the ABA). The only real top line stars who stood out the way Wilt, Russell, Oscar, and West stood out in the 60s were Kareem and in the ABA Erving. Plus the threat of jumping leagues and contract poaching meant there was more playing for stats and less playing for the team. Oh, and cocaine took its toll too. The 70s were my era but the idea that the competition was much stronger then than in the 60s is unrealistic.

[One_and_Done]

That is your opinion. Mine is different. In most measurable sports, where we have have hard data like athletics, the general progression in results does not skip the 60s.

[eminence]

I'll copy what I had in the other thread:

I liked the criteria thread that was made last time around, so here goes for me, stream of thought on criteria.

1. I focus on cumulative career value, with the primary unit of measurement being the season. Games in a season, possessions in a game, games/minutes played by a top player have all changed significantly over the years. But it's always one season (well, minus those split league years where there were kinda two seasons at once). A season in the 1950's having the same baseline value for me as one in the 2020's (even seasons right next to one another may not be identical, but I'm not starting from a point of 'seasons in the 50's are worth 60% as much as ones in the 10s').

2. To determine seasonal value I have what I would call a 'Corp-adjacent' technique. The thought of value assigned per season is similar, but not strictly about determining # of championships, as I believe that requires league analysis (league structure, playoff structure, etc) beyond evaluating the talent/value of the players. Informally I'd assign rough value tiers along these lines:
-Replacement Level Player (no actual career value assigned to these seasons/players)
-Bench Player
-Starter
-All-Star
-All-NBA
-MVP
-ATG

-All the above are relative to the other players playing at the time or near to (comparing seasons a few apart is fair game).
-Tiers are more about degrees of separation from the pack than ordinal ranking from the top, eg there were a few years in between Mikan and Russell where no MVP or higher level players graced the game, despite there always being a literal 'Most Valuable Player'.
-I do not assign negative value seasons to any player ('16 Kobe comes to mind).

3. I do offer a slight upwards curve on longevity to players who retired prior to or near ABA creation (significant healthcare gains, more lucrative careers, etc).

4. Mikan/Russell uniquely get a bit of a 'no more ghosts to chase' bonus. I go back and forth on giving Magic a boost due to the unique circumstances of his first retirement. At a minimum I use it as a very strong tiebreaker.

5. I generally feel modern APM style stats do a pretty good job of capturing the value I talked about in #2, but they are certainly not perfect. WOWY type measures prior to that have some lesser use, but are of limited availability. If even WOWY type things are unavailable minutes or games played and team quality isn't worthless (lots of minutes on a good team, you're probably at least alright). Box-score stats are about showing the shape of a players impact or to point towards likely increases/decreases in impact.

Another criteria that I somewhat apply (hard to quantify) - As players become more accomplished more of the weight for the value of a season moves onto the playoffs. Do I really care that much about Russells '68 RS when he was chasing his 10th title? (Russell the most extreme example, but it's true to some extent for all who've carried the crown for a bit).

[ceiling raiser]

(1) Player's ability to have a positive impact on his team's ability to win. +/- and WOWY families of stats are most important here, as is availability.

(2) Playoff resiliency in terms of +/-, ORtg, DRtg. Series outcome based on matchup as well (value losses as favorite, wins as underdog highly).

(3) Ability to play in today's league. I don't believe that 2015-2023 isn't just another 9/69 years, the league is progressing in one direction.

(4) Grade seasons, assign championship probability, and sum up. Heavily weight GOAT, ATG, MVP, Weak MVP seasons, not as big on All-Star/All-NBA longevity.

(5) Rank by championship shares.

[Colbinii]

Just depends on the comparison I guess.

So you can just change criteria based on the players?

[rk2023]

Agree with penbeast, eminence, and ceiling raiser for the most part. Don’t think there’s anything I would add that hasn’t been hit on.

[Dutchball97]

I'd agree for the most part about era-relativity being one of the most crucial factors for how I evaluate players in an all-time sense. Because of that I don't give portability arguments across eras any weight. How good Oscar Robertson would've been in the 2010s just doesn't really seem important to his greatness in the slightest to me. It is always hard to judge just how much each era is "worth". Like I won't just give LeBron a 20% mark up over Kareem because of LeBron's era being generally tougher. Instead I try to look at what is in front of them at the time and how well they took on that challenge. For example I find Magic's 87 MVP over Bird and Jordan much more impressive than McAdoo's 75 MVP over the likes of Cowens, Hayes and Barry with Kareem missing both time and the play-offs. Similarly the value of an All-NBA selection depends heavily on the other contenders. A lack of competition isn't always that big of an issue because you can only beat who is put in front of you but in those cases I do want to see a clear seperation from the pack. For title runs this is the case most of all. Not winning a title or not even reaching deep into the play-offs doesn't have to be an issue as long as the player in question has a subpar supporting cast and/or is up against much more stacked teams.

Longevity is an important factor for me as well but I wouldn't describe my method as 'career-value'. I see Duncan's late career years as relevant and valuable but they're very unlikely to have much impact outside of comparisons where the other player has a very similar prime. I do this because I don't want to disproportionately reward players for just playing on longer than someone with a shorter career who was straight up better. There are obviously exceptions with guys like Walton, Rose, Groza and others who were among the elite of the NBA for just 1-2 seasons before dropping off for one reason or another as they simply didn't do enough over their careers. For active players and guys with shorter careers (5-8 high level years) there is obviously going to be some nuance and gray areas when comparing them to guys with like 15 high level years but in general the rule remains that it's next to impossible to pass someone on my list with a couple extra late/post-prime years if you didn't already have a solid argument prime for prime.

Stats are a guiding hand for me. Not even the most dedicated of us have seen enough film to accurately rank every player without ever referring to any kind of statistical model. Whether box-score, +- or whatever else, I think it brings value to use as many as you can find (or at least use the best ones available per era). However, I don't think they should be used to compile some aggregate ranking or (especially with older eras with limited stats) try to find out some hidden "true impact" that people missed at the time. I think they're best used as a test to see whether the way we view certain players holds up under statistical scrutiny. If someone is over- or underperforming in different types of stats year after year that should give an indication that this certain player might be under-or overrated but I'm wary of making such statements if they only stand out positively or negatively in one single stat or a bunch of similarly calculated stats instead of over a broader spectrum.

How players managed expectations has to be my main thread through my rankings though. While a disappointing season isn't the end of the world, the amount of seasons with '"relative under-or overperformance" does matter to me and especially when nearing the top spots. I need to be aware not to make this some sort of inverse career value approach where instead of counting contributing seasons, I'm just tallying how many seasons a player performed below my personal expectations for someone in their position. Overall this is reflected in my being a bit more bullish on guys like Russell and Jordan than Kareem and LeBron but that doesn't necessarily mean I'll end up putting the first two ahead of the other two on my list. While I am set in my ways that I think LeBron and Kareem had some soft spots in the middle of their primes, I will look at just how much and how often they underperformed by their own GOAT-level standards and whether that will be enough to offset the longevity advantage they hold over Russell and Jordan.

I'm not going to be swayed much, if at all, on my tiers of players but I'm going to be as open as possible as to the rankings within these tiers with as few preconceptions as possible. So my top 4 being Russell, Kareem, Jordan and LeBron is set in stone but the order could go just about any way still. I'm going for this approach so I have a general idea where I want players to land on the list but can still be open to arguments to shift players a spot or two here and there. In the end this project to me is more about having a good time and learning more about basketball history than it is to produce a list as close to objectively correct as possible.

[One_and_Done]

I don't understand people who won't do era adjustment. It's like watching one guy lift 350 pounds, and another lift 100, and then claiming they are equally strong because they were 'both #1 in their day'. If you're a Tolkien fan it'd be equivalent to asserting Sauron was stronger than Morgoth, because Sauron was the most powerful villain for 2 ages, and Morgoth was only most powerful for 1 age. In reality Sauron was big bad for watered down ages, while Melkor was a higher order of being.

[penbeast0]

Era adjustment is fine though we can certainly argue about weights. Grading players from previous eras based on how well they would play in today's league is not. That's like downgrading Curry because there was no 3 point line for the first 30+ years of the NBA.

[Dutchball97]

I don't understand people who won't do era adjustment. It's like watching one guy lift 350 pounds, and another lift 100, and then claiming they are equally strong because they were 'both #1 in their day'. If you're a Tolkien fan it'd be equivalent to asserting Sauron was stronger than Morgoth, because Sauron was the most powerful villain for 2 ages, and Morgoth was only most powerful for 1 age. In reality Sauron was big bad for watered down ages, while Melkor was a higher order of being.

I think it's abundantly clear everyone who has responded so far in this thread employs some form of era adjustment. What is happening here is that you have a problem with the majority of people dealing with era adjustments in a completely different way than you do. If you're already getting upset people here aren't agreeing with you that the 60s was a garbage era then you're in for a long project.

[70sFan]

I don't understand people who won't do era adjustment. It's like watching one guy lift 350 pounds, and another lift 100, and then claiming they are equally strong because they were 'both #1 in their day'.

The main problem with this analogy is that one guy objectively lifted more than the other and we can measure the real difference between them. It's not the case in basketball, we don't have the tools to measure the difference between the best player in 1963 vs 1993 vs 2023. You assume that players in the 1960s sucked and you get your conclusions off this assumption, but you never provided any solid evidences why it doesn't apply for other eras.

[rk2023]

I don't understand people who won't do era adjustment. It's like watching one guy lift 350 pounds, and another lift 100, and then claiming they are equally strong because they were 'both #1 in their day'. If you're a Tolkien fan it'd be equivalent to asserting Sauron was stronger than Morgoth, because Sauron was the most powerful villain for 2 ages, and Morgoth was only most powerful for 1 age. In reality Sauron was big bad for watered down ages, while Melkor was a higher order of being.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

[wojoaderge]

1. Prime
2. Peak
3. Rings/winning
4. Were you the first option?
5. Longevity of prime

[penbeast0]

I don't understand people who won't do era adjustment. It's like watching one guy lift 350 pounds, and another lift 100, and then claiming they are equally strong because they were 'both #1 in their day'. If you're a Tolkien fan it'd be equivalent to asserting Sauron was stronger than Morgoth, because Sauron was the most powerful villain for 2 ages, and Morgoth was only most powerful for 1 age. In reality Sauron was big bad for watered down ages, while Melkor was a higher order of being.

Let's assume we are talking 100 meters. If a guy in the 1960s consistently ran a 9.7, he'd be the best in the world for a decade. Today, he'd be competitive but Bolt has run a 9.6. The guy in the 60s dominated his competition, the guy today won a few races but is objectively a tiny bit faster. Who was the greater sprinter?

To me it's the guy who did it in old fashioned shoes and equipment, with 60s level training and technique, and was the best in the world by a significant amount for an extended time. If a guy today dominates to the same degree, I would favor today's guy because there are more people training and competing world wide from more countries so the pool of potential talent is greater.

I'm sure there's a LOTR equivalent analogy there too, but I'm not up to making it.

[Texas Chuck]

yeah is the 40th best sprinter today "greater" than Jessie Owens? No, not in any kind of realistic sense. Ignoring all the modern advantages and just saying better makes no sense to me at all.

I think anyone who truly feels that way should probably have no interest in a project that spans the entire history of the NBA. I would just make my own list of the top X current players instead of attempting to dictate to others they must value only what I do.

[Lou Fan]

My approach is roughly the same as OPs I place a much greater emphasis on peak/prime than longevity but it seems like I may skew a little more towards the CORP approach than he does because I do view 12 years of greatness to be significant when compared to 8.

Reason I'm posting is I think there's an important criteria that's not been mentioned. It seems like a lot of you are limiting your analysis to simply what a player does physically on the court but of course winning and impact goes far beyond that. A person's character, role on the team, ability to establish a culture, and leadership style make a huge difference in winning. In the NBA, decisions are never made in a vacuum so why should an all-time list be approached that way? It's not simply which guy would perform the best in a variety of random 5 man lineups its which person would I want as a member (or in this case cornerstone) of my franchise.

I'll start with a non basketball example to try to make this idea as uncontroversial as possible. Terrell Owens from an on the field perspective is probably the second greatest wide receiver in NFL history and almost every franchise he played for wishes he was never there. He was a cancer and caused countless issues in the locker room which undoubtedly hurt his teams performances on the field. Compare that to a guy like Larry Fitzgerald who was always a class act and a leader. Countless teammates credit his leadership, his example, his mentoring as the reason for their development and the Arizona locker room has now completely fallen apart after his retirement. Fitz is not a better receiver but he's close and there's no doubt about who any GM in the league wants on their team. And that matters. It's a reflection of their ability to win just as catching footballs is.

Alright now basketball. Do you think that the fact that Rockets players were forced to choose between being a Harden or Howard guy helped or hurt those Rockets teams? If in 20 years we asked Morey whether he thought who Howard and Harden and Paul were as people hurt their ability to win a championship what do you think he would say? I think the answer is pretty clear there. On the other end if we ask anyone who was ever a part of the Spurs or Warriors dynasty whether they thought the culture and Curry and Duncan's leadership was a huge reason for their success what do you think they'd say? Do you see a huge tangible difference between who Wiggins is as a player now and who he was in Minnesota? Do you think that change is just because of Wiggins himself? It's not; this stuff really matters. Even with this years Nuggets do you really think you get guys like Jamal Murray and MPJ talking about unselfish team first ball and really buying into that without Jokic's leadership? This stuff matters. Cultures are enormous in the NBA and in every team sport and ignoring that in your evaluation is leaving at a huge part of what it takes to win.

I know that this is something that's very hard to evaluate and that some people would use this criteria to bludgeon players they don't like and build up ones they do but that doesn't mean we should throw it out entirely. Even simple visible things like KG calling out coverages for the defense is a big driver of impact that he's not physically doing. In my opinion if we don't consider these things we're just doing it wrong.

[Doctor MJ]

As I've said, I don't have just one criteria that I look at, but for the Top 100, I try to pick a clear criteria.

What I'm using for the 2023 project - intended to be simple and able to applied pretty consistently across comparisons:

1. Achievement relative to contemporaries
2. Contemporary competition degree of difficulty