Extreme Peak vs Extreme Longevity

[Bloodbather]

Player A) Averages 50 PPG, 13 RPG, 12 APG, 3 BPG, 3 SPG for a season and wins the title as a rookie. Thinks he has completed basketball and gets bored with it, but still has to play to make money, and averages around 16 PPG, 5 RPG, 4 APG, 1 BPG, 1 SPG and half-asses things on defense for seven more seasons to collect a paycheck and retires.

Player B) Averages around 20 PPG, 5 RPG, 5, APG, 1 BPG, 1 SPG on decent efficiency for 30 seasons. Decent defender, also. Still puts up around 15-4-4 on decent efficiency in his late 40s. Plays 70+ games every season during that run. Has won 6 titles in total, being no more than a third option in any of them.

Who ranks higher on an all-time list?

[California Gold]

If the peak and drop off is that much and it's only 1 season then it seems more like an outlier and then it's really hard to compare that to 20 seasons of the same.

[dhsilv2]

In that case B and by a country mile. But this is too wild a comp. If you had a 5 year run where you were about as good as one can get vs 15 years as an allstar and 5 years as a quality starter. Then that's a debate where I might lean towards the 5 year run.

[Bloodbather]

In that case B and a country mile. But this is too wild a comp. If you had a 5 year run where you were about as good as one can get vs 15 years as an allstar and 5 years as a quality starter. Then that's a debate where I might lean towards the 5 year run.

Intentionally made it that way, hence the extreme in the title. Wanted to test the arguments by taking them to extremes.

[jojo4341]

Answering the question directly (all time list), B wins. But if this were a streetball game or series for the fate of the universe, I'm picking A no question!

[7seventynine9]

Player A. Player B would basically be Klay Thompson. History will remember him but he's not really a legacy guy.

Player A will have the best season in NBA history, sealing it with a title. No one would ever forget it. It will be brought up all the time. With those numbers, it's possible he lead the league in points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals. And he did it as a rookie. That would make him a legacy guy. That one year would probably be enough to put him in the HOF. It's so ridiculously good. It just dwarfs every other season in history.

[tsherkin]

Feels like B to me. More value for longer. Scintillating peak from A, but then doesn't come anywhere near it ever again... versus 20/5/5 for unprecedented length and 6 titles? This is pretty exaggerated, so it seems an easy decision to me.

[jojo4341]

Player A. Player B would basically be Klay Thompson. History will remember him but he's not really a legacy guy.

Player A will have the best season in NBA history, sealing it with a title. No one would ever forget it. It will be brought up all the time. With those numbers, it's possible he lead the league in points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals. And he did it as a rookie. That would make him a legacy guy. That one year would probably be enough to put him in the HOF. It's so ridiculously good. It just dwarfs every other season in history.

In a way, it's similar to proclaiming Kawhi Leonard as the greatest Raptor.

[ropjhk]

Player A essentially has the best season of all time while player B has the longest career.

It's like comparing Bill Walton vs. Kevin WIllis. Willis had a long successful career, but Walton gets mentioned alongside the greatest Cs of all time. Walton stands out and is considered to be a far greater player than Willis with a more impactful legacy.

[ropjhk]

Player A. Player B would basically be Klay Thompson. History will remember him but he's not really a legacy guy.

Player A will have the best season in NBA history, sealing it with a title. No one would ever forget it. It will be brought up all the time. With those numbers, it's possible he lead the league in points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals. And he did it as a rookie. That would make him a legacy guy. That one year would probably be enough to put him in the HOF. It's so ridiculously good. It just dwarfs every other season in history.

In a way, it's similar to proclaiming Kawhi Leonard as the greatest Raptor.

It's like Kawhi vs. Derozan. DD is the Raptors career leader in games played, points scored, and became a perennial all star. Kawhi has the greatest season in Raptors history. I think most Raptor fans would put Kawhi ahead of Demar on their Raptors GOAT list.

[dhsilv2]

Player A. Player B would basically be Klay Thompson. History will remember him but he's not really a legacy guy.

Player A will have the best season in NBA history, sealing it with a title. No one would ever forget it. It will be brought up all the time. With those numbers, it's possible he lead the league in points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals. And he did it as a rookie. That would make him a legacy guy. That one year would probably be enough to put him in the HOF. It's so ridiculously good. It just dwarfs every other season in history.

Player B would be closer to a hybrid of Vince Carter and Scottie Pippen without Pippen's defense or top end scoring Vince. But he'd play their two careers almost combined.

A would be a better version of Walton who's very much been somewhat forgotten.

[PushDaRock]

Who made more money? That's the answer.

[dhsilv2]

Player A essentially has the best season of all time while player B has the longest career.

It's like comparing Bill Walton vs. Kevin WIllis. Willis had a long successful career, but Walton gets mentioned alongside the greatest Cs of all time. Walton stands out and is considered to be a far greater player than Willis with a more impactful legacy.

Except Willis won just 1 title. If we dropped the defense to average. It's 30 years of Pippen on offense with the same 6 titles. Only MJ had a better guy with them.

Look at how Grant and Rodman are still remembered by just being a part of 3 of those title teams.

[dhsilv2]

Player A. Player B would basically be Klay Thompson. History will remember him but he's not really a legacy guy.

Player A will have the best season in NBA history, sealing it with a title. No one would ever forget it. It will be brought up all the time. With those numbers, it's possible he lead the league in points, rebounds, assists, blocks and steals. And he did it as a rookie. That would make him a legacy guy. That one year would probably be enough to put him in the HOF. It's so ridiculously good. It just dwarfs every other season in history.

In a way, it's similar to proclaiming Kawhi Leonard as the greatest Raptor.

It's like Kawhi vs. Derozan. DD is the Raptors career leader in games played, points scored, and became a perennial all star. Kawhi has the greatest season in Raptors history. I think most Raptor fans would put Kawhi ahead of Demar on their Raptors GOAT list.

Maybe but Lowry is the GOAT raptor...

[ropjhk]

Player A essentially has the best season of all time while player B has the longest career.

It's like comparing Bill Walton vs. Kevin WIllis. Willis had a long successful career, but Walton gets mentioned alongside the greatest Cs of all time. Walton stands out and is considered to be a far greater player than Willis with a more impactful legacy.

Except Willis won just 1 title. If we dropped the defense to average. It's 30 years of Pippen on offense with the same 6 titles. Only MJ had a better guy with them.

Look at how Grant and Rodman are still remembered by just being a part of 3 of those title teams.

There is no perfect real world stand in for either Player A or B. Both Walton and Willis fall short of the description laid out by the OP. Still, the comparison is useful to understand why the basketball community will generally rate one player's legacy above anothers.

Would Willis be more highly regarded with more championships (like Robert Horry)? Of course he would. Would he be more regarded than Bill Walton is now? Probably not.

[TheNG]

It's like comparing two athletes in the high jump.

Player A showed up to his first competition, cleared 3 meters — something no human has ever done — smashed the world record by a mile, won Olympic gold, then said, “Cool, I’m done,” and just jogged through the next few seasons, hopping over 1.5 meters to stay eligible for prize money.

Player B, on the other hand, cleared 2 meters consistently for 30 years. He was reliable, solid, and respected — even got a few team medals along the way as the third-best jumper on a relay squad. But he never came close to doing what Player A did, even once.

Longevity is great. But when someone hits a peak so high that it's basically untouchable — even if just once — that kind of greatness is in a different stratosphere.

[Devilanche]

Guys it’s player B . If he come into the league at 20 . He’s going play until he’s 50. I don’t even expect LeBron to match that.

[UglyBugBall]

Peak is about how good you are. Longevity is about how old you are.

[dhsilv2]

Player A essentially has the best season of all time while player B has the longest career.

It's like comparing Bill Walton vs. Kevin WIllis. Willis had a long successful career, but Walton gets mentioned alongside the greatest Cs of all time. Walton stands out and is considered to be a far greater player than Willis with a more impactful legacy.

Except Willis won just 1 title. If we dropped the defense to average. It's 30 years of Pippen on offense with the same 6 titles. Only MJ had a better guy with them.

Look at how Grant and Rodman are still remembered by just being a part of 3 of those title teams.

There is no perfect real world stand in for either Player A or B. Both Walton and Willis fall short of the description laid out by the OP. Still, the comparison is useful to understand why the basketball community will generally rate one player's legacy above anothers.

Would Willis be more highly regarded with more championships (like Robert Horry)? Of course he would. Would he be more regarded than Bill Walton is now? Probably not.

A 20-5-5 player on 6 title teams is much closer to a James Worthy, only with a vastly longer career than a Willis. Meanwhile, there's far closer a case to Walton being GOAT level (because his strength was defense) than Willis being a 20-5-5 guy for 30 years. We're talking a guy getting allstar consideration every year for 30 years and since his team likely goes to 10+ finals, he likely makes 10-15 allstar games.

Best comp for this guy, might be Tony Parker? Only again far more longevity. And yeah I think Tony Parker is as well remembered and often ranked ahead of Walton.

[Myth]

Imagine player A has that season then just retires. Absolute legend.