RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - General Thread

[Doctor MJ]

Alright so we're a month into the project, and 1/10th of the way through. In general I'm happy with how it's going. There is energy, and while I've had to PM a number of people, I haven't had to boot anyone. I'm hoping that going forward the standards will be clear enough that I don't have to PM folks.

I think now is a time for us to discuss if we want to make any changes. As stated before, this isn't a democracy - I'll choose how the project proceeds - but I'd like for participants to be happy.

The main thing I see people discussing right now is the idea that things would be better if we went to 2-vote Nomination system that parallels the 2-vote Induction system. If I can be confident that this is a thing that people in general either want or wouldn't mind, I'll implement that, as it really is just me doing what I'm already doing for the Induction vote and the concept makes sense to me.

I do think people need to understand though: This isn't going to prevent the experience of championing a guy for a long time before he gets traction, nor later in the project championing a guy and seeing him never get traction. Nothing will prevent that experience, and while in theory adding more and more depth to our vote lists would help that, you get diminishing returns, more complication, and further separation between the "center of mass" of a player's discussion compared to when he gets voted in, which decreases future read value for the project.

As such, I'm unlikely to add further depth to the voting beyond simply adopting the Induction process for the Nomination process.

Please let me know if you have thoughts you'd like to communicate,
Sincerely,
Doc

[One_and_Done]

2 person nomination sounds good to me.

[eminence]

Either way you'd prefer to do it is fine by me Doc.

[OhayoKD]

the option to 2-way nominate seems like a clean improvement

[lessthanjake]

Adding an alternate nomination seems like a good thing to me.

[rk2023]

2 person nom seems interesting, don't see a problem with it per-se.

[SpreeS]

REALGM TOP100

2011/2014/2017/2020/2023

Lebron 18/7/3/1/1
KAJ 3/2/2/3/2
Jordan 1/1/1/2/3
Russell 2/3/4/4/4
Duncan 8/5/5/5/5
Hakeem 9/9/9/9/6
Wilt 5/4/6/6/7
O'Neal 7/6/8/8/8
Garnett 13/11/12/11/9
Magic 4/8/7/7/10

Bird 6/10/10/10/?
Kobe 10/13/11/12/?
Curry -/-/29/24/?
Oscar 14/12/13/14/?
West 15/15/15/13/?
Erving 11/14/16/18/?
Malone 12/17/14/16/?
Dirk 17/16/17/15/?
Robinson 21/18/18/17/?
Moses 16/19/20/20/?
Barkley 20/20/19/21/?
Paul 50/31/23/23/?
Miller 42/40/42/39/?

I see here clearly two groups. One group slowly improves their positions year by year. Other group - most praised, basketball icons falls down. I think that glorifying stories about how Bird/Magic saved the NBA or Wilt/Jordan are basketball gods no longer work for people. Twenty years ago, no one could believe that basketball players like Olajuwon or Garnett would be more highly regarded than Magic.

Garnett 13/11/12/11/9
Hakeem 9/9/9/9/6
Miller 42/40/42/39/? (Even with new comers Durant/Curry/Paul/Harden reached better spot than in 2011 and I expect new highs for Miller with Jokic/Giannis/Davis/Kawhi over him)
Robinson 21/18/18/17/? (I see already a traction for him in 2023 voiting)
Dirk 17/16/17/15/?
West 15/15/15/13/?

Jordan 1/1/1/2/3
Magic 4/8/7/7/10
Bird 6/10/10/10/? (looks like Bird will be around 13/14th place)
Wilt 5/4/6/6/7
Erving 11/14/16/18/? (Could be around 20th)

[iggymcfrack]

Honestly, 2 person nomination seems pretty unnecessary to me. If anything, we kind of don’t want to determine nominations by second place vote since only people who are very strong with their supporters are likely going to get traction in the main vote soon anyway. I certainly don’t have a problem with it though. If it lets people who are afraid to take a candidate who’s not getting traction put their preferred candidate forward, that’s fine with me. Ultimately, I feel like it’s something that will feel less and less necessary as time goes by though.

[rk2023]

REALGM TOP100

2011/2014/2017/2020/2023

Lebron 18/7/3/1/1
KAJ 3/2/2/3/2
Jordan 1/1/1/2/3
Russell 2/3/4/4/4
Duncan 8/5/5/5/5
Hakeem 9/9/9/9/6
Wilt 5/4/6/6/7
O'Neal 7/6/8/8/8
Garnett 13/11/12/11/9
Magic 4/8/7/7/10

Bird 6/10/10/10/?
Kobe 10/13/11/12/?
Curry -/-/29/24/?
Oscar 14/12/13/14/?
West 15/15/15/13/?
Erving 11/14/16/18/?
Malone 12/17/14/16/?
Dirk 17/16/17/15/?
Robinson 21/18/18/17/?
Moses 16/19/20/20/?
Barkley 20/20/19/21/?
Paul 50/31/23/23/?
Miller 42/40/42/39/?

I see here clearly two groups. One group slowly improves their positions year by year. Other group - most praised, basketball icons falls down. I think that glorifying stories about how Bird/Magic saved the NBA or Wilt/Jordan are basketball gods no longer work for people. Twenty years ago, no one could believe that basketball players like Olajuwon or Garnett would be more highly regarded than Magic.

Garnett 13/11/12/11/9
Hakeem 9/9/9/9/6
Miller 42/40/42/39/? (Even with new comers Durant/Curry/Paul/Harden reached better spot than in 2011 and I expect new highs for Miller with Jokic/Giannis/Davis/Kawhi over him)
Robinson 21/18/18/17/? (I see already a traction for him in 2023 voiting)
Dirk 17/16/17/15/?
West 15/15/15/13/?

Jordan 1/1/1/2/3
Magic 4/8/7/7/10
Bird 6/10/10/10/? (looks like Bird will be around 13/14th place)
Wilt 5/4/6/6/7
Erving 11/14/16/18/? (Could be around 20th)

Am certainly higher on Miller (probably more or less the same, little bit higher on West/Dirk) as consensus voting. I basically think access to new information (including PC Board archives from very prominent back in the day posters) along with a new voting pool could be the major drivers of different sorts of results.

[AEnigma]

I have no strong opinions on having multiple nomination ballots yet, and if anything, I prefer to stick with one for now. Convince people to side with you or bide your time. I expect I will be one of the first to want to nominate Nash. I do not know whether I will be the first outright, but I will be telegraphing that I want to vote for him so others can see who has support. And in scenarios where I do not care about the likely competition for nominations, I may vote for him anyway.

[Colbinii]

Interesting there seems to be 3 tiers so far.

LeBron, Kareem, Jordan, Russell, Duncan
Hakeem, Wilt, Shaq, KG, Magic
Curry

I expect this tier with Curry to be quite large, bringing us close to #20.

[One_and_Done]

Interesting there seems to be 3 tiers so far.

LeBron, Kareem, Jordan, Russell, Duncan
Hakeem, Wilt, Shaq, KG, Magic
Curry

I expect this tier with Curry to be quite large, bringing us close to #20.

How can those be the tiers? Curry was right there with Magic vote wise. Lebron should be his own tier given the voting.

[Colbinii]

Interesting there seems to be 3 tiers so far.

LeBron, Kareem, Jordan, Russell, Duncan
Hakeem, Wilt, Shaq, KG, Magic
Curry

I expect this tier with Curry to be quite large, bringing us close to #20.

How can those be the tiers? Curry was right there with Magic vote wise. Lebron should be his own tier given the voting.

LeBron could be in his own tier, sure.

I disagree. Magic/KG were tied in Round #9, while in Round #8 KG was also tied with Shaq, Magic had 5 votes while Curry had just 1 vote.

Then, in round #10, Magic had 15 votes to Curry's 7 votes [More than double].

Not sure I can see Curry in the same tier as KG/Magic given how the votes were split.

[OhayoKD]

Interesting there seems to be 3 tiers so far.

LeBron, Kareem, Jordan, Russell, Duncan
Hakeem, Wilt, Shaq, KG, Magic
Curry

I expect this tier with Curry to be quite large, bringing us close to #20.

How can those be the tiers? Curry was right there with Magic vote wise. Lebron should be his own tier given the voting.

LeBron could be in his own tier, sure.

I disagree. Magic/KG were tied in Round #9, while in Round #8 KG was also tied with Shaq, Magic had 5 votes while Curry had just 1 vote.

Then, in round #10, Magic had 15 votes to Curry's 7 votes [More than double].

Not sure I can see Curry in the same tier as KG/Magic given how the votes were split.

from voting I'd probably tier it as

Tier 1
Lebron
(gap)
Kareem
(gap)

Tier 2
Jordan
(gap)
Russell
Duncan

Tier 3
Hakeem
Wilt

Tier 4
Shaq
KG
Magic
Steph

Tier 5
Kobe? Bird?

Will note that opinions seem to have moved on certain players post-vote, and participation/turn out proved decisive in certain contests. For example, KG ended up winning reasonably comfortably, but low early turnout forced things into a tie-breaker(and if 1 less vote had come through magic would have come with an unrepresentative win). On the other hand, that turnout was there for KG vs Shaq, and Shaq ended up decisively winning what otherwise might have been a close contest

Another suprise was Duncan emerging as a viable top 3 candidate in his own right. Jordan seems to be trending downward but it may not be russell who is in best position to capitalize. Especially when era-relativity losing some of it's lustre on the forums.

[One_and_Done]

I was the only one to vote for Duncan top 3. He certainly got a real look at #4 though. All votes were either Russell or Duncan, and I think the larger voter pool from the KG vote might have sided with Duncan over Russell. Unfortunately only 19 votes were cast for the #4 position, compared to 30 at the #9 vote.

[OhayoKD]

I was the only one to vote for Duncan top 3. He certainly got a real look at #4 though. All votes were either Russell or Duncan, and I think the larger voter pool from the KG vote might have sided with Duncan over Russell. Unfortunately only 19 votes were cast for the #4 position, compared to 30 at the #9 vote.

i think duncan got the most alternates that thread. You might recall Kareem literally picked up 0 votes in the 1st place thread.

Other bit is several people who had voted someone else first admitted afterward they were split.

Hakeem vs Wilt was probably the genuinely closest match if you account for turnout and the one with the most variance of opinion. You had voters with Hakeem as high as 3-5 and then other voters musing if he was even top 10.

Kobe vs Bird may rival it there.

[One_and_Done]

Bird seems to have the numbers. I honestly think next thread will be closer.

[tsherkin]

Kobe vs Bird may rival it there.

Kobe vs. Bird is an interesting one. There is nostalgia associated with each. There is more data with Kobe. There is skepticism over Bird for various reasons, as his standing has slipped in more recent years. He had evident impact and dominance in his own time, coupled to worth in the eyes of peers and other evaluators during his hey-day, and has some really interesting numbers. But, like Kobe, he has weaknesses which are worth discussing. And of course Bird lacks longevity compared to many of his ATG peers. And time, it does march on without regard for our feelings on the matter. The longer the league goes, the more of the heroes of old we will see slipping from their loftiest perches.

And that debate in particular will be an interesting one for how it treats accolades. And the way we evaluate role during title runs and such. It's interesting to look at postseason performance, too, given how bad Kobe looked in most of his Finals performances and some of Bird's very large fade jobs in the playoffs.

[Doctor MJ]

Unfortunately only 19 votes were cast for the #4 position, compared to 30 at the #9 vote.

Your point isn't wrong, but as project runner, it makes me happy. In a project like this we're mostly dealing with slowing attrition. If we can actually grow the voter base for a while, it gives me optimism for a strong rest of the project.

[Doctor MJ]

Hey y'all,

Still taking thoughts about adding a 2nd vote to the Nomination. Haven't heard from a lot of people and some of those responding have been Nays. If others who have spoken up would like us to add this, please speak up soon.

Thanks,
Doc