What does it mean to be a generational talent? Who are the generational talents in recent NBA history?

[Throwawaytheone]

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[rk2023]

Not to claim they’re better players per-say, but I think Jokic and Nash have more of an applicable “generational talent” label than Duncan.

[70sFan]

Not to claim they’re better players per-say, but I think Jokic and Nash have more of an applicable “generational talent” label than Duncan.

Why do you think so?

[Throwawaytheone]

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[penbeast0]

What is a generational talent? Is talent different than actual results? Are we just talking incredible physical freak attributes?

To go back to the 60s, Wilt Chamberlain is obviously a generational talent. He's the greatest physical outlier from his era in NBA history. Is Russell? Russell is obviously a great athlete but he's a more limited one whose impact is mainly on the defensive end and a lot of whose value is his GOAT candidate BBIQ. Do we include IQ, work ethic, health? Assuming we are just looking at physical outliers head and shoulders above their peers, does that mean Shawn Kemp is a generational talent? If we include factors like BBIQ but not health, is Arvidas Sabonis a generational talent?

I think it has to be looked at as a combination of incredible ability and incredible results. I don't think Kemp, Vince Carter, or players of that ilk qualify whereas I think Russell does. Does Magic? IF so, why not Oscar who was more head and shoulders above his peers (except West) than Magic was above his (except Bird)? If all four of those, how about Erving who looked generational in the ABA, but "merely" great in the NBA. Jordan sure, but how about Karl Malone or Barkley who were putting up ridiculous numbers but never won titles? How about Robinson, Hakeem, Ewing?

I think it's easier to get a definition with the per 2000 players then to look at the OP question and figure out where to draw the line for the 2000s and 2010s. People aren't as invested in their favorite players and can be a bit more rational for 20th century stars. Once you get a feel for you definition then: LeBron, but how about Kobe, Duncan, Curry? If them, then how about Iverson, Durant, Giannis, Jokic?

[migya]

Not to claim they’re better players per-say, but I think Jokic and Nash have more of an applicable “generational talent” label than Duncan.

To define Nash as a generational talent, let alone state that he is somehow better or more of a talent than Duncan, makes no sense at all. Duncan was more effective and great alltime compared to all players, not Nash.

[OhayoKD]

If Durant is a generational talent then there are like 10 generational talents in the league currently

[ronnymac2]

To me, a generational talent has a lot to do with how "can't miss" you are as a prospect, likely due to some obvious physical gifts. Then, once you get in the league, everyone is proven correct right away, and you end up having a stellar career and basically meet those "can't miss" expectations.

In that case, starting in 1970 (for totally arbitrary reasons)...I can think of Alcindor, O'Neal, and James. We'll see about the kid in San Antonio.

So yeah...I think that makes sense. Very little overlap in any of these players' primes. That sort of adds to the whole "generational" aspect.

[OhayoKD]

Does Magic? IF so, why not Oscar who was more head and shoulders above his peers (except West) than Magic was above his (except Bird)??

Was he? Also are we not considering Russell and Wilt his peers?

[penbeast0]

Sorry, I was unclear. By peers, I mean every guard in the history of the NBA up to that point including his contemporaries and continuing to stay that way for most of his career.

[rk2023]

Not to claim they’re better players per-say, but I think Jokic and Nash have more of an applicable “generational talent” label than Duncan.

Are you suggesting that generational talents shouldn't be defined by how good they were only, but how different they were from the field? Nash leading the revolutionary 7SOL offense and Jokic being a unique blend of scoring, creating and off ball play as a center engine. That's my interpretation, is it accurate?

Spot on.

For 70sfan,
This precisely is what I was alluding to, if it makes sense

[Statlanta]

Usually a generational prospect who has early NBA success. As dominant as Jokic has been he's not a generational talent. There's a reason he got drafted during a Taco Bell commercial.

I think Doncic straddles the line, I would say Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar, James and O'Neal are the clear ones.

[Special_Puppy]

I'd say that Curry+Harden+Jokic are the three generational talents in the past 10 years. If you are THE best player in the world for any period of time I'd say that you are a generational talent

[Cavsfansince84]

I think there's two ways to use this term(before a guy is drafted and 6-7 years after if he emerges like Jokic or Curry did) but either way its sort of an empty hype word at this point imo or probably always was. It's like the term superstar except meant to have an even more special meaning. For me though its pretty empty. Guys who are truly generational don't need the label to appreciate what they are. It's just obvious to that degree.

[Doctor MJ]

What does it mean to be a generational talent? And who are the recent ones? I often hear people throwing it around but there's no consistency to it in NBA discourse, so I wanted to hear what yall think, and listing recent examples since 2000ish.


When it comes to defining a generational talent, ideally you want the best talent of a 10 year period at minimum (arbitrary I know), but if we follow that, you end up with like 5 in the history of the league and some clear exclusions. What I've settled on is a player with outstanding talent that dominated a 5 year period to a historical degree, but it isn't that strict of a definition, more going off intuition if I'm honest.

So I like thinking about similar stuff.

First a distinction: 'talent' is sometimes used to mean "what might have been", but I'm with you that I'm more interested in just talking about the guys who did the thing rather than those who didn't.

Second while we generally mean "overall talent", I think it's perfectly valid to talk about specific talent - best shooter, best passer, best defender, etc - this way too.

So I've done two basketball projects where I look in 10 year windows. The first is my Player of the Decade (POD) analysis. I have columns for POD, Offensive POD, Defensive POD, and Coach of the Decade (COD). The choosing based on just tallying award shares of my own most recent personal retro POY project beginning from '45-46.

Note that the premise here is that every 10 year period is a decade, so we don't need to just stick with "Best of the '90s", we can ask who was the top from, say, '97-98 to '06-07.

If you go to the tab Mens POD Reign Lengths, I have it sorted chronologically by birth, so you can see how many guys are ever taking each title belt.

Just doing the overall POYs I've got:

1924- Mikan
1934 - Russell
1947 - Kareem
1956 - Bird
1959 - Magic
1963 - Jordan
1972 - Shaq
1976 - Duncan
1984 - LeBron
1988 - Curry

I've also done a project going into the deeper past and used contemporary observers to take a stab at who in every 10 year birth period was the "greatest talent", and so here are the guys that make that list, with a bit more context for the pre-NBA guys.

1883 - Ed Wachter (Troy, Troy NJ)
1890 - Cumberland Posey (Loendi Big 5, Pittsburgh PA)
1896 - Nat Holman (Original Celtics, New York NY)
1898 - Dutch Dehnert (Original Celtics, New York NY)
1907 - Tarzan Cooper (Harlem Renaissance, New York NY)
1916 - Hank Luisetti (Stanford U, Stanford CA)
1924 - George Mikan
1934 - Bill Russell
1936 - Wilt Chamberlain
1938 - Jerry West
1947 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
1956 - Larry Bird
1959 - Magic Johnson
1963 - Michael Jordan
1972 - Shaquille O'Neal
1976 - Kevin Garnett
1984 - LeBron James

Meta-observations:

- The first project had 10 guys, born over a span of 65 years. One qualifier every 6.5 years.
- The second project had 17 guys, born over a span of 102 years. One qualifier every 6.0 years.

- In the first one, neither Wilt Chamberlain nor Jerry West were able to emerge from the shadow of Russell because his dominance extends beyond a decade. But purely by decades of birth year, eventually Russell exits stage left.

- I do have Duncan for 1976 in the first one but Garnett for 1976 in the second. In a nutshell, the lesser talent was drafted into a better springboard for competitive achievement.

- Curry is on the first but isn't on the second. Why? Because Curry hasn't clinched the latter yet. LeBron was born in 1984 and dominates until 1984 isn't in the decade any more. That brings us to 1985-1994, which includes Giannis Antetokounmpo. Curry's in pole position, but time will tell.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Usually a generational prospect who has early NBA success. As dominant as Jokic has been he's not a generational talent. There's a reason he got drafted during a Taco Bell commercial.

I think Doncic straddles the line, I would say Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar, James and O'Neal are the clear ones.

Could Jokic have been such a unique/generational talent, that the masses didn't understand what they are watching. Because some people definitely called him being special.

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Also, Jokic actually was incredible as a rookie in terms of pure plus-minus stuff. He looked like a generational talent, who just didn't get the proper minutes or focus on his team because he was a 2nd rounder. Hard to believe he could have done much better given the context of his situation.

By the old ESPN RPM (probably the best one), as a rookie, Jokic had per-possession superstar impact.

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[Cavsfansince84]

What does it mean to be a generational talent? And who are the recent ones? I often hear people throwing it around but there's no consistency to it in NBA discourse, so I wanted to hear what yall think, and listing recent examples since 2000ish.


When it comes to defining a generational talent, ideally you want the best talent of a 10 year period at minimum (arbitrary I know), but if we follow that, you end up with like 5 in the history of the league and some clear exclusions. What I've settled on is a player with outstanding talent that dominated a 5 year period to a historical degree, but it isn't that strict of a definition, more going off intuition if I'm honest.

So I like thinking about similar stuff.

First a distinction: 'talent' is sometimes used to mean "what might have been", but I'm with you that I'm more interested in just talking about the guys who did the thing rather than those who didn't.

Second while we generally mean "overall talent", I think it's perfectly valid to talk about specific talent - best shooter, best passer, best defender, etc - this way too.

So I've done two basketball projects where I look in 10 year windows. The first is my Player of the Decade (POD) analysis. I have columns for POD, Offensive POD, Defensive POD, and Coach of the Decade (COD). The choosing based on just tallying award shares of my own most recent personal retro POY project beginning from '45-46.

Note that the premise here is that every 10 year period is a decade, so we don't need to just stick with "Best of the '90s", we can ask who was the top from, say, '97-98 to '06-07.

If you go to the tab Mens POD Reign Lengths, I have it sorted chronologically by birth, so you can see how many guys are ever taking each title belt.

Just doing the overall POYs I've got:

1924- Mikan
1934 - Russell
1947 - Kareem
1956 - Bird
1959 - Magic
1963 - Jordan
1972 - Shaq
1976 - Duncan
1984 - LeBron
1988 - Curry

I've also done a project going into the deeper past and used contemporary observers to take a stab at who in every 10 year birth period was the "greatest talent", and so here are the guys that make that list, with a bit more context for the pre-NBA guys.

1883 - Ed Wachter (Troy, Troy NJ)
1890 - Cumberland Posey (Loendi Big 5, Pittsburgh PA)
1896 - Nat Holman (Original Celtics, New York NY)
1898 - Dutch Dehnert (Original Celtics, New York NY)
1907 - Tarzan Cooper (Harlem Renaissance, New York NY)
1916 - Hank Luisetti (Stanford U, Stanford CA)
1924 - George Mikan
1934 - Bill Russell
1936 - Wilt Chamberlain
1938 - Jerry West
1947 - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
1956 - Larry Bird
1959 - Magic Johnson
1963 - Michael Jordan
1972 - Shaquille O'Neal
1976 - Kevin Garnett
1984 - LeBron James

Meta-observations:

- The first project had 10 guys, born over a span of 65 years. One qualifier every 6.5 years.
- The second project had 17 guys, born over a span of 102 years. One qualifier every 6.0 years.

- In the first one, neither Wilt Chamberlain nor Jerry West were able to emerge from the shadow of Russell because his dominance extends beyond a decade. But purely by decades of birth year, eventually Russell exits stage left.

- I do have Duncan for 1976 in the first one but Garnett for 1976 in the second. In a nutshell, the lesser talent was drafted into a better springboard for competitive achievement.

- Curry is on the first but isn't on the second. Why? Because Curry hasn't clinched the latter yet. LeBron was born in 1984 and dominates until 1984 isn't in the decade any more. That brings us to 1985-1994, which includes Giannis Antetokounmpo. Curry's in pole position, but time will tell.

If the question is just generational talent(however we define that) is it wrong to leave off guys such as Kurland, Baylor(imagine him in slightly better shoes and without all the injuries) as well as Walton? Because I think talent and nba career/impact aren't necessarily the same thing.

[Colbinii]

Usually a generational prospect who has early NBA success. As dominant as Jokic has been he's not a generational talent. There's a reason he got drafted during a Taco Bell commercial.

I think Doncic straddles the line, I would say Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar, James and O'Neal are the clear ones.

Lol what? Jokic was phenomenal as a rookie.

[henshao]

A generational talent, to me, is someone with God-given abilities only seen once in a blue moon. Due to his inhuman success at restrictor-plate races (where drafting other cars is critical), some drivers started to say Dale Earnhardt "could see the air." It doesn't even have to have been a successful career to have been a generational talent. Bo Jackson, Wilt Chamblerlain, Patrick Mahomes, Lebron James, are all generational talents who can or could do things that don't seem possible no matter how much time you had to work at it.

[penbeast0]

A generational talent, to me, is someone with God-given abilities only seen once in a blue moon. Due to his inhuman success at restrictor-plate races (where drafting other cars is critical), some drivers started to say Dale Earnhardt "could see the air." It doesn't even have to have been a successful career to have been a generational talent. Bo Jackson, Wilt Chamblerlain, Patrick Mahomes, Lebron James, are all generational talents who can or could do things that don't seem possible no matter how much time you had to work at it.

So, Connie Hawkins?

(Truth be told, G league players do things at times that don't seem possible no matter how much time I had to work at it, but I'm assuming that "you" wasn't that personal.)