RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #1 (LeBron James)

[70sFan]

I don't think judging basketball as a form of art is justifiable in this project, as it is clearly against the spirit of this list.

r u gonna vote?

No, I don't have enough time to contribute as a voter. I will be active and I will share valuable information when I can.

[OhayoKD]

I don't love the idea of "floor-raisers" and "ceiling-raisers" (or of "portability" really) in general. There's probably a little bit of truth to it but I think it's easy to over-emphasize it.

With regard to Lebron and Jordan specifically - the thing with Lebron as floor-raiser is that I do think that Lebron's whole floor-generalship thing does allow him to get more production from somewhat marginal teammates than they would otherwise be able to achieve. He is able to put them in positions to succeed and paper over weaknesses.

That's clearly not a bad thing. It's true that teams that are reliant on Lebron being a floor general to operate are going to have problems when stuff starts getting taken away by playoff defenses, but those problems really aren't created by Lebron as far as I can see.

With Jordan, the only thing I can think really gives Jordan a noticeable edge as a "ceiling raiser" is the scoring. To a great extent, what we mean when we talk about "ceiling" is the resiliency of the team's offensive attack - can they continue to score points efficiently in the face of playoff defenses? So if you buy that Jordan is the #1 playoff scorer and that he has a unique combination of playoff scoring volume and resiliency, it makes sense that he's capable of raising a team's ceiling with that skillset. I don't think it necessarily has any broader bearing on teambuilding or portability around Jordan. But it is a pretty valuable skillset to have.

That doesn't really seem to stop Lebron's offenses from elevating more in the playoffs:

Lebron peak offenses
2013 +7.2 (PS)
2014 +10.6 (PS)
2015 +5.5 (PS)
2016 +12.5 (PS)
2017 +13.7 (PS)
Average +9.9 (PS)


jordan peak offenses
1991 +11.7 (PS)
1992 +6.5 (PS)
1993 +9.8 (PS)
1996 +8.6 (PS)
1997 +6.5(PS)
average +8.6(PS)

Fwiw, I believe by ty/70's analysis Kareem put up the best scoring vs elite defenses though I forgot the exact thresholds. I think both have a decent case for "best scorer ever" just going off peak/prime.

I don't think judging basketball as a form of art is justifiable in this project, as it is clearly against the spirit of this list.

r u gonna vote?

No, I don't have enough time to contribute as a voter. I will be active and I will share valuable information when I can.

Guess I'll be the honorary 70's fan for this project(or at least for a thread or two)

Though honestly I think just copy and pasting what what you've written before would be more than enough to justify your votes...

[Tim Lehrbach]

r u gonna vote?

No, I don't have enough time to contribute as a voter. I will be active and I will share valuable information when I can.

Guess I'll be the honorary 70's fan for this project(or at least for a thread or two)

Though honestly I think just copy and pasting what what you've written before would be more than enough to justify your votes...

FWIW, I also strongly urge your participation as a voter, 70sFan. Your previous efforts are more than sufficient to be mined for your voting reasoning. If you're going to follow along and participate in discussions anyway, I feel certain your contributions are going to exceed mine as it is.

[eminence]

By box-score you mean it's looking at the quarter to quarter scores?

that seems...fine? Obviously crude, and I'm not really going to let it affect my evaluations too much, but dealing with a virtual absence of data, that seems like a reasonable approach. Might give it teensy bit of weight as I do with the partial RAPM stuff.

In the discussion about the stat JE mentions it has a bias towards players who play less on great teams(bench units then do well in garbage time after blowouts). That shouldn't matter for Jordan and Hakeem who played similarly high-minuites but it might undersell Magic who played less.

JE doesn't make any distinction between the decade sample and the single-year stuff, but I am also confused how Drob isn't #1. Hakeem falls off hard after 1995(a mid-career retirement might have helped), Magic is kicked and then comes back as a shell of himself in 96. But I don't understand how Drob is #1 almost every year and then ends up at 2. I assume I'm missing something?

Also will note, it may well be excluding Jordan's most valuable regular seasons(88-90) and we do have full-rapm stuff that is higher on 97/98 MJ.

OTOH, it is hardly the only thing that calls into question Jordan's success being the product of him being the "best" player of that period which I think is a presequite for GOAT candidacy.

Not just the quarter to quarter thing, it has a significant BPM style stat component for the individual years, and is the 'pure' version for the whole decade sample. From JE:

"Alright. Year-by-year ratings for the 90s are online now at
http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/1991.html etc.

The ratings were built using my BoxScore ratings and ratings from season N-1 as prior.
The BoxScore rating doesn't like Jordan too much. The RAPM part helps a bit with this, but never so much to push him into the top spot.
The #1s for each year are extremely boring, it's Robinson, Robinson, Robinson, Robinson, Robinson, Shaq, Robinson, Robinson .. you get the idea

There's no doubt that, in some cases, the ratings can be far from reality. Take them with a grain of salt

I'll post 10year pure fake RAPM ratings later"

[OhayoKD]

By box-score you mean it's looking at the quarter to quarter scores?

that seems...fine? Obviously crude, and I'm not really going to let it affect my evaluations too much, but dealing with a virtual absence of data, that seems like a reasonable approach. Might give it teensy bit of weight as I do with the partial RAPM stuff.

In the discussion about the stat JE mentions it has a bias towards players who play less on great teams(bench units then do well in garbage time after blowouts). That shouldn't matter for Jordan and Hakeem who played similarly high-minuites but it might undersell Magic who played less.

JE doesn't make any distinction between the decade sample and the single-year stuff, but I am also confused how Drob isn't #1. Hakeem falls off hard after 1995(a mid-career retirement might have helped), Magic is kicked and then comes back as a shell of himself in 96. But I don't understand how Drob is #1 almost every year and then ends up at 2. I assume I'm missing something?

Also will note, it may well be excluding Jordan's most valuable regular seasons(88-90) and we do have full-rapm stuff that is higher on 97/98 MJ.

OTOH, it is hardly the only thing that calls into question Jordan's success being the product of him being the "best" player of that period which I think is a presequite for GOAT candidacy.

Not just the quarter to quarter thing, it has a significant BPM style stat component for the individual years, and is the 'pure' version for the whole decade sample. From JE:

"Alright. Year-by-year ratings for the 90s are online now at
http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/1991.html etc.

The ratings were built using my BoxScore ratings and ratings from season N-1 as prior.
The BoxScore rating doesn't like Jordan too much. The RAPM part helps a bit with this, but never so much to push him into the top spot.
The #1s for each year are extremely boring, it's Robinson, Robinson, Robinson, Robinson, Robinson, Shaq, Robinson, Robinson .. you get the idea

There's no doubt that, in some cases, the ratings can be far from reality. Take them with a grain of salt

I'll post 10year pure fake RAPM ratings later"

How is Jordan so low if it's built from the box-score? Is he just using completely different weightings from what other people use?

Also what "pure" metric is he referencing here. Does he have data from before 97?

[eminence]

How is Jordan so low if it's built from the box-score? Is he just using completely different weightings from what other people use?

Not sure, I don't think JE ever revealed his box-score metric in detail like some others have. I'm not surprised it loves Robinson, but it's really hard to say overall without knowing his weightings, and even how he weighted it with his quarter by quarter thing (which is pretty neat, though not nearly as precise as I'd like for real seriously valuing).

Edit: by 'pure' he means the quarter by quarter minutes/scoring margin thing he did to build a fake 'rapm'. MJ does dominate that metric, with Magic/Bird in much smaller sample the only players over 80% of his result. Only Shaq/Robinson/Pippen at 70%+.

[Tim Lehrbach]

As should be apparent from the post about my criterion for voting, I am a skeptic of projects which measure and rank competitors according to an amorphous standard like “greatness.” For that matter, I resist the urge to view sports through the lens of comparing competitors at all. But here I am, desiring to make an impact on this project for the reasons stated within the aforementioned post, and so here we go!

I begin not with my vote for #1 on the RealGM Top 100, but with my general impression of the man who has dominated the conversation about the GOAT since rising to the top of the NBA world: Michael Jordan.

TrueLAfan's post from the 2020 project nicely introduces my case against Jordan and fits here because his first two retirements have already been brought up:

More and more, I understand why Jordan took the break. His will and singular focus was unparalleled, but ultimately destructive. Jordan played angry and was permanently vengeful and, in a way, afraid of losing his standing; you just can’t have that much anger and revenge and fear inside you all the time. So part of what made him great made him do what LeBron and Kareem never did—take off.

Let’s keep going with this. Michael Jordan is the very embodiment of the point of view that reveres those who not merely beat their opponent but assert their individual dominance, and he epitomizes the obsessive commitment to being the greatest. Jordan’s extreme competitiveness, along with his skills, athleticism, and circumstances, yielded individual and team success. To be sure, I count these as positives – Michael Jordan amazed all of us with his spectacular play, and he was a major factor in the superlative achievement of his teams. On something like the criteria I take most to hold about what the GOAT should mean, I absolutely understand his case to be the greatest basketball player we’ve ever seen.

And maybe that’s what The Greatest of All Time means! If it is, however, I would argue that it’s an unworthy narrative and does harm to the role elite sport plays in our culture. I do not believe that a nearly-sociopathic commitment to being better than others is what we should admire in an athlete. I do not believe that the product of such a mentality should be celebrated above others who achieved similar success on the court but without the mystique of being the indomitable figurehead of individual greatness. What I cannot and will not take away from Jordan is just how thoroughly he mastered the game. I rank him as an equal with only Bill Russell and LeBron James on that front.

So why am I inclined to vote for Bill Russell instead of Jordan or James? I will elaborate in my vote, but for now, I’ll offer the following for consideration. Next to Jordan, Russell has done more to shape the GOAT debate than any other player. I find this to be true for two reasons:

First, he set the bar for winning. No, it is not expected that a GOAT contender win 11-in-13, as Russell did, but it is mandatory that you win a grip of championships to enter the conversation. We took from Russell the lesson that individual greatness should translate to team success for it to be legitimized. This, frankly, does not compel me in favor of Russell. While I absolutely credit him with his unparalleled success as a team leader, I take seriously the possibility that one could do everything Russell did while nevertheless not having his opportunity at team success. (For example, I do not believe that Bill Russell vastly exceeded Tim Duncan as a “winner” despite the latter’s fewer and more sporadic championships, which I attribute to the length of Duncan’s career and the degree of difficulty to winning multiple playoffs rounds in more recent decades.)

Second, Russell stopped Wilt Chamberlain from running away with the GOAT title, possibly for good. Reams have been written of this rivalry already, and I will not feign to give any kind of qualified account. What I will note are two major takeaways from their battles. (1) Russell had the humility, the team-first approach, and the smarts to do what nobody else could consistently: beat Wilt Chamberlain. Russell understood, long before the databall era, the profound difference you could have on a game by being marginally disruptive to a player’s rhythm and efficiency. Of course, Wilt got his, but the box score didn’t tell the story: Wilt’s production came at a higher cost than he and his teams were accustomed to. Was that cost the difference between the two teams? I would be curious to know how Wilt’s efficiency and productivity declines against Russell map on to the margins by which the Celtics beat Wilt’s teams. I am sure this has been covered at RealGM before. (2) Had Russell and the Celtics not stood in Chamberlain’s way, we’d be talking about a guy who is the most statistically dominant, physically impressive, and winningest player in history, probably each of these in runaway fashion. Russell famously opined that Wilt could sooner fill his shoes than Russell could fill Wilt’s. But whatever the cause, Wilt was cast to be the all-around dominant superstar, while Russell was cast to be the consummate winner. When they met, it was Russell’s role that reigned supreme.

My argument for Russell as #1 on the RealGM Top 100 boils down to three major threads: (1) he not only overcame through perseverance but obliterated, through wisdom and fortitude every bit as much as his natural and earned athletic abilities, every obstacle in his path to forging precisely the career and the identity he chose for himself; (2) he modeled what it is to be a leader and a teammate more than any other player in history, right up to being a championship-winning player-coach; and (3) he distinguished himself as the epitome of a winner by vanquishing, over and over again, the most fearsome force the game had ever seen.

Russell shapes the GOAT debate by showing us that individual dominance can be trumped, that culture is king, and that humility and intelligence separate the greatest from the best. It is hard to imagine a career more worthy of celebration or more fit to influence the way we view greatness than that of Bill Russell.

As I promised I would, I will hold off on voting until tonight (if my eligibility survives evaluation of my criterion post, that is! ). I invite any criticism or questions, and I will be continue reading everybody’s remarks throughout the day. I have not addressed the 2020 #1, LeBron James, yet. If I have time I will submit some questions or an evaluation of James here. I do not expect that he will earn my vote, but he is one of three other contenders for my top spot, along with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Tim Duncan.

[Lou Fan]

I see 4 candidates that stand out over the rest for this spot: LeBron, MJ, Kareem, and Russell. I can respect cases made for a few others but by my evaluations these guys stand out as the most valuable in the history of the game. I won't hide the ball here, in my eyes, no matter how you look at it Russell is the best choice of the lot. At his best Russell was the best and he was able to exert his enormous impact in a way that fits on nearly any team and enhances his teammates. I understand that people will have reservations anointing someone who's impact mostly came on one side of the floor above the two way titans of the game especially since the one side is the defensive side. But it shouldn't matter where your value comes from it matters that it exists and from his first to last year in the league Russell's dominance is clear.

As a rookie Russ turned the Celtics from a .72 to 4.78 SRS squad elevating them to NBA champions in his first try. The Celtics defense went from below average to elite making an 8 point improvement despite the roster staying essentially the same outside of the addition of Russell. Then at the end of his career Russell led the Celtics to a title as a player coach with a 5.35 SRS squad. The next year the Celtics fell to a -1.59 SRS squad and their defense fell off by 10 points with mostly the same roster minus Jones. Additionally, it's likely that Russell would've had additional years of top end value at the start and end of his career if the financial incentives of today were around in his time. Not to mention all the other ways training and health advancements lengthen the careers of more modern greats. Russell was pumping out monster impact at either end of his career and obviously during his best years it was likely significantly stronger. From 1961-1965 the Celtics ran off 5 consecutive historically dominant defensive seasons. In 1961 they were 8.2 points better than league average, 62 8.7, 63 9.1, 64 11.5!!!, 65 9.9. Just look at those numbers. It's absolutely staggering. 4 of those teams are top 10 relative defenses in NBA history.

Russell's freak athleticism and size allowed him to be a pantheon level defender both vertically and horizontally. He covered wide swaths of the court stifling threats left and right while also protecting the rim at an all time clip. His defensive versatility is incredibly valuable as it allows coaching staffs tons of flexibility on what type of schemes to run that will best suit your other players. Russ was like a makeup artist. He covers up all the blemishes. His defensive skillset (the vast majority of his impact) is therefore highly portable as it's hard to imagine a team scenario where his defense loses much value. Even next to another elite rim protector he could play the more KG role and be dominant that way. That's the thing about Russell our minds don't quite understand his defensive value because there is no other real comparison. He's KG if he protected the rim like Duncan or Duncan if he moved like KG. These are both imo Mount Rushmore defenders and he has the best of both of them. I might even be understating his mobility as he was a world class high jumper and according to teammates an incredibly fast sprinter.

Importantly Russ also knew his role and played it at a high level on the offensive side of the ball. In all likelihood, had he wanted to or had the team needed it, Russ could've developed into a relatively strong scorer. He averaged over 20 ppg on over 50% shooting as a college player. Had that been his focus in the NBA he could've developed this scoring ability. However, he knew that taking a more limited role and empowering his teammates offensively was what was best for winning and he didn't have an ego that necessitated being the man offensively. Russ was all about winning and he did it like no player ever had or ever will.

That thought leads into my last reason for picking Russell at the top. Russell is the ultimate leader and culture developer in NBA history and he did it during the most difficult time to do so during the period of integration of black players where racism was still very prevalent in NBA circles. Culture and leadership especially of the caliber Russell was providing is an absolutely massive value driver and this is a big separator for Russell amongst the other top candidates.

Vote: Bill Russell

My second choice will be for Michael Jordan. I prefer his more peak/prime oriented value over the longer sustained (in my eyes) lower value provided by Kareem and LBJ. I also like Mike to sustain his value in more team compositions especially on high level teams and looking from a GM's perspective he's the one I would want of these 3 as the cornerstone of my franchise as a leader/culture builder though I do think he has some serious flaws in that regard. This is the part of the project that interests me the least and is also the vote that people are the most toxic about. I know people disagree with me here. That's fine. Explain why if you must but know my vote here will not change. Looking forward to some great discussions in the future

Second Vote: Michael Jordan

[AEnigma]

I believe the only lead [Jordan] ever lost was 1-0.

He was up 2-1 on the Pistons in 1989, which I am sure will make you rethink your ballot entirely.

As you know, I do not agree with your approach — the box metric stuff feels particularly flimsy, and the current discussion of Engelmann’s fake RAPM is a nice reflection of how easily we can manipulate box scores (personally I think Engelmann seems to have done a better job at capturing likely impact) — but it was a good post for that approach. I hate when people try to bend what should be arguments for other players into arguments for the guy they want, like saying 6 > 11 because 27-2 = 27-2 or that actually the secret impact king is Jordan even though every rawer impact measure tends to favour contemporaries like Magic and Robinson in the regular season. I can say Lebron “disappointing” more than Jordan did is a consequence of Lebron setting higher standards — Lebron being incomprehensibly excellent in 2009 and 2010 created fake title expectations for that roster out of nothing — but I cannot say those disappointments never happened.

It has been lost to history a bit, but in the 2014 offseason, Lebron repeatedly stressed time. It might take time to win a title. The team needed time to grow and develop. They might not make the Finals their first year. They might not even make the conference finals their first year, and if they did, it would be a major success. He will need to build and develop a winning culture before they can talk about titles.

Regardless of whether those were his honest beliefs (they could be), tough not to read that as an evolution of his attitude in the 2010 offseason. Because individually, yes, the 2011 Finals is a blemish which for a lot of people will never possibly fade, and there is no way to argue he secretly played at an elite level. It was by a substantial margin the worst and most negatively consequential performance of his entire career, even if I think you can argue the raw numbers look worse than the value of the performance itself. Yet I doubt Lebron would be as pilloried if the 2010 offseason message had been something like, “Yeah this trio can go on to do great things, but it will take time for us to learn how to play with each other, and right now our depth is really thin so our team needs to stay healthy, and there are a lot of great teams in the west so even if we make the Finals it will be a tough contest, and I still have exploitable flaws in my game which I need to address before this team can win.”

The optics of disappointment are correlative to the optics of expectation, and Jordan never created a sense of expectation beyond what he could achieve. Not my standard, but I can recognise how the standard is used by others.

[DQuinn1575]

Official vote - LeBron James
no current 2nd place - considering a few others, and don't want to state somebody today and 2 days later vote for someone else #2.

I'm going to vote this as which player's career would contribute most to championships; I'm considering everybody vs the talent they played - I plan on adjusting the talent level for expansion, population, racial basis, but am not adjusting for any evolution or how their abilities would fit in a different era. Oscar Robertson never shot a 3 pointer, so I won't guess how well he would do today. Kyrie Irving dribbles the ball in ways Cousy wasn't allowed to; I am only comparing them to their era, not directly to each other. I'm working on adjusting for the fact that Cousy played in a nearly all-white league, that the league grew from 8-30 teams, and that foreign players are now on roster sptos.


I'm working on a couple of measures to better quantify some of the variables, but virtually any measure I use quantifiably is going to come up with LeBron James.

The quantity of great seasons, at a top 5 level in the league, far surpass anyone else. Jordan, Russell or Jabbar may (and I think probably do) have a group of 6-8 seasons better but that's for a peak or prime discussion and not here.

LeBron seasons 12-18 are so much ahead of any other contender that any calculation of Championship value over the whole career will come up with him as an answer.

1 down, 99 to go

[-Luke-]

Maybe I'm offbase here, but you appear to be using criteria that the rules specifically disallow, like him being 'a global icon', 'a living god', 'a star', with a 'fairy tale ending' and legacy, etc. There weren't many rules imposed on us, but one clear one was that this had to be purely how good they were at basketball.

I viewed that part more as good storytelling rather than the argument for MJ over LeBron. With the actual arguments later in the post. But I get why you are seeing it that way because the MJ part started with "global icon" etc.

Anyway, great discussion so far. That's why this project is the best on the internet.

[eminence]

Things I've touched on in this thread already - why LeBron is my #1, why Russell/KAJ/Duncan are in contention for my #2, why MJ is not a #2 contender for me.

Things I'll touch on in this post - primary reasons why Russell/KAJ/Duncan aren't my #1, why Wilt/Hakeem/Mikan aren't guys I'm considering yet.

LeBron:
-Only real hole in his resume is a lack of a top tier team result

Russell:
-The early career impact signals underwhelm and point towards his 13 years not all being equally dominant, despite equality of results
-He could've had more years, I'm willing to give him tiebreaker longevity, but not willing to give it to him over the guys who've actually done it

KAJ:
-There's a mid career lull I'm uncomfortable with, some are impressed with his move to LA, I am not

Duncan:
-I don't feel his peak was quite as extended as LeBron, with '11 or so onwards being too much of a clear step down in a way later career LeBron hasn't been

Wilt:
-I see a disconnect between his offensive production and his offensive impact

Hakeem:
-He's a playoff riser, but I also see him a bit of a RS underwhelmer
-Longevity a tad below some of the other top bigs we're talking about here

Mikan:
-Longevity lacking even for era, injury issues limiting how much bonus longevity I can give him

[ty 4191]

Hello Everyone,
I was invited by a veteran member here to participate in this. Unfortunately, I don't have the (several) hours at the moment to type out something so cogent, incisive, and comprehensive as the several posts I've read thus far. (Outstanding work, all, by the way)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My vote goes to Wilt Chamberlain. I know this is an (extremely) unpopular position in 2023, especially here, but I'd be willing to discuss it further-or much further- with anyone open-minded, certainly.

Just a few sources/things I've read (or seen) in their entirety. Very strongly recommended reading/viewing:

1. https://www.amazon.com/Wilt-Larger-Than-Robert-Cherry-ebook/dp/B009N3585M/ref=sr_1_1?crid=31CK2MHQD4EVK&keywords=wilt+larger+than+life&qid=1688397079&sprefix=wilt+larger+than+life%2Caps%2C112&sr=8-1

2. https://www.amazon.com/Rivalry-Russell-Chamberlain-Golden-Basketball/dp/0812970306/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=wilt+russell+the+rivalry+book&qid=1688397133&sr=8-1

3. https://www.amazon.com/Wilt-1962-Night-Points-Dawn-ebook/dp/B003FCVDR4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2GIK3WVJV4HM0&keywords=wilt+1962+book&qid=1688397271&sprefix=wilt+1962+book%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-1

4. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFfDF7oCw7sVL7PzEg57E4g

Specific Videos of Note, at the WCA:

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

And, for everyone who discounts the 1960'a and early 1970's as being "inferior or significantly inferior" to all subsequent eras:

Watch on YouTube

PS: Who here has read all of these books, and also, watched all of these videos? Just asking because I'm (very) curious.

PPS: #2 for me is likely Bill Russell. But, I could easily be swayed to vote for LeBron, MJ, or even Kareem.

Thank you, everyone!!

[lessthanjake]

By box-score you mean it's looking at the quarter to quarter scores?

that seems...fine? Obviously crude, and I'm not really going to let it affect my evaluations too much, but dealing with a virtual absence of data, that seems like a reasonable approach. Might give it teensy bit of weight as I do with the partial RAPM stuff.

In the discussion about the stat JE mentions it has a bias towards players who play less on great teams(bench units then do well in garbage time after blowouts). That shouldn't matter for Jordan and Hakeem who played similarly high-minuites but it might undersell Magic who played less.

JE doesn't make any distinction between the decade sample and the single-year stuff, but I am also confused how Drob isn't #1. Hakeem falls off hard after 1995(a mid-career retirement might have helped), Magic is kicked and then comes back as a shell of himself in 96. But I don't understand how Drob is #1 almost every year and then ends up at 2. I assume I'm missing something?

Also will note, it may well be excluding Jordan's most valuable regular seasons(88-90) and we do have full-rapm stuff that is higher on 97/98 MJ.

OTOH, it is hardly the only thing that calls into question Jordan's success being the product of him being the "best" player of that period which I think is a presequite for GOAT candidacy.

Not just the quarter to quarter thing, it has a significant BPM style stat component for the individual years, and is the 'pure' version for the whole decade sample. From JE:

"Alright. Year-by-year ratings for the 90s are online now at
http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/1991.html etc.

The ratings were built using my BoxScore ratings and ratings from season N-1 as prior.
The BoxScore rating doesn't like Jordan too much. The RAPM part helps a bit with this, but never so much to push him into the top spot.
The #1s for each year are extremely boring, it's Robinson, Robinson, Robinson, Robinson, Robinson, Shaq, Robinson, Robinson .. you get the idea

There's no doubt that, in some cases, the ratings can be far from reality. Take them with a grain of salt

I'll post 10year pure fake RAPM ratings later"

The bolded is super helpful context! It was pretty clear to me that the individual-year data and the entire-decade data are completely different things, since the individual-year measures basically have David Robinson in 1st place in almost every year of the 1990s, while the entire-decade list has him at 5th or 6th. It basically wasn’t mathematically possible for them to be based on the same methodology, but I had no idea what the differences between them were. Sounds like the individual-year data layers on a box-score component, while the entire-decade data does not.

Obviously, on top of this, the impact-measure component of this basically derives fake data from quarter-to-quarter scores and minutes data, so it can’t really be that meaningful either way, but it’s worth noting that it seems that the version of it that is purely just aiming to measure impact has Jordan in 1st in the decade by a significant margin. As I said, I wouldn’t put much value on it anyways, but it’s worth pointing out, since the individual-year data was being used to suggest that Jordan wasn’t ahead of his peers in impact metrics to the same degree LeBron was, and it doesn’t really seem like that’s actually true when we look at this measure’s attempt at simply measuring impact. It seems like it’s a measure we shouldn’t put a ton of weight on, but to the extent we do put weight on it, it suggests Jordan’s impact was similarly ahead of his peers as LeBron’s, and, if anything, more ahead.

[eminence]

I have a tough time with Wilt over Russell/KAJ in particular.

I think it takes viewing his Warrior years as a tier higher than his Sixers/Lakers seasons, and I just don't see the impact in surrounding seasons to buy it (it was good no doubt). I think it was just higher box-score due to role, not due to player quality.

Once he arrived with the Sixers, he had championship quality teams (minus '71 where West missed the playoffs), he was in a better role for him to succeed, and overall the results were good (2 titles in 8 years), top 10 worthy, but not GOAT worthy to me, he simply didn't look a step above the competition at the time (Russell/KAJ namely). And if he's not an individually more impactful player than Russell/KAJ in primes it's hard to argue him over them for careers, KAJ has better longevity, and Russell has the clear team success.

[eminence]

.

That is approximately my interpretation as well.

It's weak evidence that MJ is the impact king of the 90s. The Pollack +/- data we have for '94-'96 and the official pbp data we have for '97 onwards is at least not in direct contradiction to this assertion.

[Ambrose]

Vote #1: LeBron James

I could go on and on about LeBron, but because others in this thread have done so far more eloquently than me, I'll keep it relatively brief. My criteria is essentially, with all else equal, who gives you the best chance to win as much as possible. Something I used to grapple with was that I would tell myself "Michael Jordan is better than LeBron James" and it wasn't a hurdle I could overcome mentally for many years. The reason I was able to overcome it is because even if MJ was a hair better, by my criteria, it doesn't matter because the gap is so minuscule. To simplify, if someone is a 10/10 for 11 years and someone is a 9.9 for 18 years then the latter gives you a better chance to win more. Not saying those numbers are perfect, they are only there to illustrate the specific point between these two.

LeBron's ability to floor raise has always been something that's left me in awe, and as many others in the thread have pointed out I think he's actually an underrated ceiling raiser. He's played vastly different roles on title teams and excelled at all of them, and not once would I say he's ever played in conditions as ideal to me as MJ's.

On top of that, Jordan's era was ripe for the taking by that eras best player. The old guard aged or fluked out (back injury while doing yard work???, HIV in the one era that mattered???), the new guard either disappointed or self destructed, the league greatly expanded diluting the talent (making it easier for the best guy/team to win more), and this all occurred with American basketball participation rates declining for years and before the international boom that has changed the game so dramatically today.

So in short, I believe LeBron gives you the best opportunity for the most success over the span of a career, while also being more far reaching and more replicable.

#2 Michael Jordan

The fact that no one has really even bothered trying to pair anyone else up against LeBron seems to imply that we know these guys are probably the top 2.

[penbeast0]

Hello Everyone,
I was invited by a veteran member here to participate in this. Unfortunately, I don't have the (several) hours at the moment to type out something so cogent, incisive, and comprehensive as the several posts I've read thus far. (Outstanding work, all, by the way)!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My vote goes to Wilt Chamberlain. I know this is an (extremely) unpopular position in 2023, especially here, but I'd be willing to discuss it further-or much further- with anyone open-minded, certainly.

...

If I wasn't going to post until you could match the thoroughness, research, and inciteful commentary of some of our great posters, I would never be able to post anything at all. I'm sort of halfway between casual fan, occasional coach, and numbers geek. I have read both the books, though not the ebook, and a lot of others; the ones that keep popping up for me in my memory when having these discussions are two by Terry Pluto, Tall Tales and Loose Balls, where he quotes contemporary sources to tell stories of the early NBA and ABA.

That said, I came onto this site with a clear preference for Wilt as #1 but got talked down over years of argument with our many strong posters to where I have moved him back behind Russell, LeBron, and Jordan (but still ahead of Kareem). I will say that I think he's the most talented and individually impressive player of all time (ahead of LeBron, Shaq, and Jordan); he just didn't translate his talent as well into a winning formula as the less talented guys like Russell or LeBron. Still an incredible player and one who will win most matchups even with greats given anything close to equivalent talent but Russell always seemed to lose the stat battle but win the series. As winning is the purpose of building a team, I just have to respect that.

[eminence]

Unsure if this has been discussed elsewhere, but wanted to comment that these raw % of league type #s probably underestimate the impact of the game going international. The higher tiers of players are more likely to travel to join the NBA (Allstars, MVPs and the like are a near lock to join the NBA at this point) than the end of bench or rotation players that make up the majority of the league (star in Europe or bench in the NBA is a legitimate question for many).

[rk2023]

I'm liking the Russell arguments I'm seeing so far, great work in that regard. Not that I would have him as high as #1, but I think it's quite hard to have a Mt. Rushmore without him - and he certainly is a GOAT candidate for me.