RealGM Top 100 List -- 2011

[JordansBulls]

The only blip on the list so far to me is Karl being that high. IMO.

And KG for that matter.

[Laimbeer]

The only blip on the list so far to me is Karl being that high. IMO.

And KG for that matter.

Agreed.

To me, the older players are finishing low. That's probably not a surprise and no doubt a lot of posters feel it should be that way. Oscar could have finished higher while West, Baylor, and Hondo are taking a fall... yet to see where they land. The top ten looks pretty solid but the second ten could be flawed.

[Dezmondballins3]

The only blip on the list so far to me is Karl being that high. IMO.

And KG for that matter.

Yeah i thought at-least Oscar, Jerry, and Moses would go ahead of him I would put D rob ahead of him too but he is underrated on this board so not surprised that he isn't above KG.

[andrewww]

@Laimbeer

Also agree that the older players are finishing a bit too low, not saying KG doesnt deserve his ranking at 13 but was he really a more impactful player than moses in the mid-80s, or even west/robertson/baylor in the 60s when they were unanimous decisions as the best non-bigs. KG was never successful as a go to guy, but he's great at everything else including defense and rebounding. should that supercede a proven championship level go-to guy like moses? it's a good debate, but here's where a lot of people contradict themselves.

russell makes it over everyone but MJ in large part because of his defensive impact resulting in 11 rings, but at the same time what doesnt get seen in box scores or stats is the level of respect an offensive player commands from the opposing defense. for example, KG's efficiency and all around game is great for stats, but does he really impact the game more than moses who was an all time great offensive rebounder and proven scorer that defenses had to matchup with? just something to consider.

after oscar at 14, west at 15, and moses at 16 most likely, how will the next group look like? some worthy candidates would include barkley, dirk, admiral, baylor, pettit, lebron, wade, nash, hondo, barry, hayes, pippen imo.

[Dezmondballins3]

KG does deserve his spot but that's not to say others don't deserve that spot too.

[Dezmondballins3]

If Lebron had to retire today because of heart failure a disease or something like that. where would he rank all time? Would it be top 25 where some have him now?

[ElGee]

I wanted to join Mufasa in the list-posting exercise.

There's a bit of fluidity in my list as this project has unfolded. My list is sort of an amalgamation of 1-year peak (ie "how well did that dude play basketball at a given point"), career value ("how much value did he provide over his career") and the draft idea (versatility, team building, health and character concerns etc.).

Here's the list, with groups clustered together that I consider close:
1. Michael Jordan
2. Bill Russell

3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
4. Magic Johnson

5. Larry Bird

6. Hakeem Olajuwon
7. Shaquille O'Neal

8. Tim Duncan
9. Wilt Chamberlain
10. Karl Malone

11. Kevin Garnett
12. Julius Erving
13. Kobe Bryant
14. LeBron James
15. Oscar Robertson

16. Jerry West
17. Charles Barkley
18. Dirk Nowitzki

19. Moses Malone
20. David Robinson

21. Dwyane Wade
22. Bob Pettit
23. Steve Nash
24. Scottie Pippen

25. Elgin Baylor
26. Patrick Ewing
27. Rick Barry
28. Gary Payton
29. Clyde Drexler

30. Walt Frazier
31. Isiah Thomas
32. George Gervin
33. John Havlicek
34. Tracy McGrady
35. Paul Pierce
36. Reggie Miller
37. John Stockton
38. Dwight Howard
39. Chris Paul

40. Elvin Hayes
41. Alonzo Mourning
42. Artis Gilmore
43. Dominique Willkins
44. Kevin McHale
45. Jason Kidd
46. Kevin Johnson
47. Bill Walton
48. Bob Lanier
49. Ray Allen

50. Marques Johnson
51. Sam Jones
52. Bob McAdoo
53. Sidney Moncrief
54. Paul Arizin
55. Willis Reed
56. Penny Hardaway
57. Manu Ginobili
58. Bernard King
59. Grant Hill
60. Nate Thurmond
61. Allen Iverson
62. David Thompson
63. Chris Webber
64. Pau Gasol
65. Dave Cowens
66. Hal Greer
67. Robert Parish
68. Mark Price

[Laimbeer]

@Laimbeer

Also agree that the older players are finishing a bit too low, not saying KG doesnt deserve his ranking at 13 but was he really a more impactful player than moses in the mid-80s, or even west/robertson/baylor in the 60s when they were unanimous decisions as the best non-bigs. KG was never successful as a go to guy, but he's great at everything else including defense and rebounding. should that supercede a proven championship level go-to guy like moses? it's a good debate, but here's where a lot of people contradict themselves.

russell makes it over everyone but MJ in large part because of his defensive impact resulting in 11 rings, but at the same time what doesnt get seen in box scores or stats is the level of respect an offensive player commands from the opposing defense. for example, KG's efficiency and all around game is great for stats, but does he really impact the game more than moses who was an all time great offensive rebounder and proven scorer that defenses had to matchup with? just something to consider.

after oscar at 14, west at 15, and moses at 16 most likely, how will the next group look like? some worthy candidates would include barkley, dirk, admiral, baylor, pettit, lebron, wade, nash, hondo, barry, hayes, pippen imo.

If you're saying Moses impacted games more than KG, I agree 100%.

LeBron may crack that West - Moses tier.

Barkley high teens low 20s, dirk high teens, admiral high teens, baylor mid twenties, pettit high teens low twenties, lebron mid teens, wade high teens low twenties, nash mid to high twenties, hondo mid twenties, barry low to mid twenties, hayes high thirties, pippen mid twenties.

[Dezmondballins3]

Where is George Gervin in all this discussion.

[mysticbb]

Where is George Gervin in all this discussion and Julius Erving too.

Erving is ranked #11 already. And Gervin isn't nominated. Why should he be in a discussion?

[Dezmondballins3]

JW cool out

[drza]

Seems like the people that get the most angry about KG being placed high, are the ones that are most likely to disregard research and go into "well I think" or "the wolves weren't that bad, just because" type of arguments, and crap all over the impressive amount of research and number crunching guys like ElGee, drza, Doctor MJ, and MysticBB do.

shrug. KG at 13 just seems wrong to me especially when the only argument of merit is based on APM - the same stat that said KG was not in the top 10 in APM during his 3 lost years, led Pierce in APM on the C's by 0.8, lost out to Allen the next two years, and this past season Allen went from +9 to -4 with no visible change in role or production.

bonus cherrypicked APM factoid: in '06, KG finished 2nd in APM to Marco Jaric, and had a lower APM than Kobe (or brian cardinal for that matter).

I think people still aren't quite on-board with exactly what APM is and where it's coming from. To many, I think APM is just another acronym advanced stat like PER or Win Shares, and that it's thought of as just another alternative to them. But really, APM is coming from an entirely different direction. +/- stats as a family, in fact, are an entirely different way to gauge basketball value than the box scores. As such, saying "only argument is APM" isn't really conveying an accurate message, and with the follow-up examples you give it's clear that you're not entirely grasping why KG being the APM king for his generation is such a powerful argument. Here seems like as good a place as any to attempt a non-numbers/theory based explanation for why APM stats are so vital to our basketball discussions.

For a long time there has been a sentiment in basketball evaluations that the box scores weren't enough to completely understand the game. I mean, think about it. Many people felt that Russell was better than Wilt as an individual player, and there's absolutely no way to really justify that based on what the box scores tell us. The tendency, then, became to look at team results and use that as justifications...but again, that's not fully satisfying, because you can't just divorce a player entirely from their team when judging team results. Well, let me rephrase, some do, but the logic gets more stretched and tortured the closer you look at it because you have to make some pretty big leaps/ignores in order for the team-results-reflects-individual-value reasoning to work. Then, another tendency is to attribute any player value not reflected in the box scores to "intangibles"...this player wins more because he "wanted it" more, or he's "more clutch", or a "winner", or a better leader, or some other thing that falls into a slush category of things that characterize good play but that the boxes aren't equipped to measure.

The unsatisfying conclusions that one gets from trying to rank players with just these other three methods (box scores, team results, intangibles) are what led to the rise of the +/- stats, because these stats potentially take the best parts of all 3 other methods and put them into one place. Because +/- stats rely ONLY on how a player's team does when that player plays, it from the start is inherently attempting to quantify a player's contribution to team success. There's no such thing as "empty stats" when it comes to the +/- stats...you can't "stat pad" +/-...there's no selfish "gotta get mine" element to +/- stats...potentially, this is a type of stat that could really get to the heart of what we actually most want in ranking an individual: his impact. And because there aren't just arbitrary skills/results measured and recorded (like the box scores), the +/- stats have the potential to evaluate the ENTIRETY of a player's contributions...including all of the things that previously were considered "intangible"...with these stats, if done right, the intangible could become downright tangible.

Jumping back a bit, I would say that +/- stats are indicative of the larger mindset that looks for all of the ways that a player impacts the game...including what's in the box scores, but not limited to it. And while the +/- stats are only available for the last decade, we can use that mindset to, at least in a rough sense, attempt to evaluate individual impacts as far back as we have viable information. I keep seeing people (usually those that weren't in the RPoY or current Top 100 project) that aren't satisfied with a particular result in the rankings that will make an assumption about WHY that ranking came about...that really isn't reflective at all of what actually happened in the project. To whit:

Bill Russell. Many of the complaints that I see about Russell ranking so high relate to the assumption that he got his ranking purely on the back of his 11 rings. When in reality, and I can only speak for me and my vote, that isn't the case at all. I knew Russell had 11 rings before I did the RPoY project last year, and at that time I wasn't fully convinced he was actually a better player than Wilt. But what sold me was further analysis of how those Celtics played, how the reason that they won could very quantitatively be traced to their defensive dominance, and that said defensive dominance could very quantitatively be traced to Russell. Now, this wasn't exactly a +/- measure because that level of detail wasn't available, but it WAS an application of the same line of logic. That a player was making an obvious contribution, impact to winning team play that the box scores weren't equipped to measure. I didn't vote Russell for #1 because he had 11 rings...I voted Russell for #1 because he was by-far the most impactful player of his generation in a quantifiable way...that had absolutely nothing to do with the box scores.

Bill Walton. Another similar situation, but on a smaller time scale, was Walton vs Kareem in the late 70s. And again, by looking at how the Trail Blazers played with and without Walton (a bit more information was available for the 70s than the 60s, plus Walton missed so many games that +/- estimates were more possible) we could see that Walton was having a much, MUCH bigger (yet still quantifiable) impact on the Blazers winning than what the box score stats were equipped to capture.

Oscar Robertson. Same thing. By pinning down Robertson's role as the offensive engine for the Royals, and that the Royal's offense was dominant even when the team wasn't, I was convinced of Oscar's continued high impact even in the face of his team not experiencing as much success as some of his contemporaries.

Magic Johnson. He played in the 80s with closer to modern stats but still no +/- stats, yet examinations of just how potent the Lakers' offense was and just how much of it could be tied to Magic's play are what convinced me that he should get my vote for #3 all-time even over Kareem or Wilt with their more impressive box score stats.

I could continue, but I think you get the point. This way of thinking, of trying to evaluate players based on their direct contribution to winning basketball...essentially, on their impact, is pervasive even beyond +/-. In fact, all +/- stats are, really, are the most polished and powerful way that we currently have to try to quantify those types of evaluations. And, importantly, the method keeps evolving and getting better.

The last is important because it plays into another misconception that I see, that there's such a thing as "the APM". There is no one "APM" calculation that is correct. Instead, every statistician that makes an APM calculation does the analysis in his own way, which is why the values may change depending on whose you look at. Ilardi's APM is different than Wayne Winston's APM which is different than the basketballvalue APM which is different from Engelmann's RAPM. Which is completely natural, and the same thing that occurs with evaluating box score stats. Many people look at the box scores and make their own rough estimations of what is good, but each person's way is different. Then, you have those that like to look at newer information such as TS% or rebounding rate, but again, every person's composite evaluation will be different. Then you've got your Holinger (PER) Kubatko (Win Shares) or Pelton (WARP) types that attempt to create composite box score stats in a consistent way, but all of their calculations are different as well. This is the exact same thing as what happens with the +/- stats, but because +/- is relatively new and has the unfortunate issue that all of the advanced +/- calculations call themselves by the same name of "Adjusted Plus Minus" I think it confuses people unnecessarily.

Which brings us back to the actual post that I'm rebutting. Pancake, the examples that you're using aren't really that strong in supporting the point you're trying to make, because we have so much +/- info for these last few years that show that those examples you name are likely flukes. For example, you say that APM says that KG wasn't top-10 in his "lost" years (presumably 2005 - 2007, when the Wolves didn't make the playoffs). However, Engellman's RAPM (which is currently the "state of the art" for single-season APM calculations) have Garnett as 1st in 2005 edging out Duncan ( http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ranking05), 2nd in 2006 just behind Duncan ( http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ranking06 ), and tied for 4th in 2007 behind Ginobili, Duncan and LeBron ( http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ranking07 ). Likewise, Ilardi's multi-year 2004 - 2009 APM measure (the current state-of-the-art in APM studies overall, better than any single-season APM calculation including Engellman's RAPM) has Garnett as by-far the highest ranked player in the NBA over those 6 years which include all 3 of his "lost" years.

And the same is true of the Celtics years, where both RAPM (single season) or multi-year APM calculations from 2008 - current (i.e. Garnett's Celtics years) both show that he was clearly and distinctly the largest impact player on those Celtics during these years.

And the reason that RAPM or multi-year APM studies are better than older, more standard single-season APM measurements is because these methods were developed specifically to combat weaknesses in the previous APM calculation. It evolves. Pure +/- was cool, but it was entirely too reliant on the caliber of your team. Net on-court/off-court +/- was better and it addressed the team caliber issue, but it was too reliant on things like substitution pattern, back-up quality, level of competition and blowout concerns...which is what gave rise to the original APM calculations, which attempted to address some of these issues. Then, APM calculations had their own weaknesses...the need for a large sample size, potential collinearity, year-to-year variance. And these issues are what RAPM attempts to address on a single-year basis, or what multi-year APM addresses over longer periods of time. Which is why they're currently the best APM methods to use. But the science keeps getting better all of the time.

Conclusion

So, completing this book-like post that I'm sure many already DR;TL skipped, the summary points are:

1) Analyzing an individual's impact on team results is its own evaluation method, of which APM is only a part.

2) "APM" is a bit of a misnomer, as there are actually many different ways to calculate APM and these methods are continuously getting better

3) Thus, finding counter-examples from older/not-as-good versions of the stat aren't really any good for use as counter-arguments. They're essentially outdated.

4) And, regarding Kevin Garnett, the fact that he's the APM king for his generation isn't just a single support stat like PER or Win Shares. It's actually a reflection of the fact that, for those that really try to evaluate beyond just what the box scores tell us and pin down how much impact an individual player had, Garnett really may have been the best player of his generation just stuck in terrible circumstances. And as such, even his rank of 13th in this project may still be a bit lower than where he actually should have gone. But as always, the debate continues...

[ElGee]

^^^I would say what's so powerful about Garnett's APM numbers is that the stat becomes *more* accurate with larger sample sizes, that is both ITO of minutes and teammates (and coaches). Garnett's played on 2 totally different teams with totally different roles. He played with 83 unique players and 5 different coaches from 03-11 in Minnesota and . He does well in all situations in +/- impact, even post leg injury. It's really staggering.

The weakness in APM, as I've suggested before (without mathematical rebuttal) is that APM doesn't know it's harder to take a team from 0 to +10 than from -10 to 0. That's just the nature of basketball, variance, blowout patters and people playing the scoreboard with awareness of the pseudo-arbitrary ending of the game after 48 minutes. Maybe a new model attempts to control for that imbalance, but I've never seen it.

[NO-KG-AI]

It's not like it's just APM, doesn't KG have the highest PER season ever at the position(despite it being a volume scorer favoring stat), and some pretty high win share finishes? I think the only guys to ever finish with more winshares are people that have inarguable GOAT level seasons(Mike, Wilt, Shaq, LeBron, Kareem, Mikan)

Really, KG grades out high in stats like PER that don't even catch his best qualities(his defense, his passing ability, and his intangibles), it's not like one stat was found that blew up, KG is a very statistically accomplished player, both raw stat wise, and advanced stat wise.

KG is going to finish pretty high in a lot of all time stats as well.

The idea used to be that KG's raw stats overstated how good he was, because it wasn't effecting the team, or the Wolves weren't good enough, but APM put that to rest quick, and people are scrambling to justify their opinion instead of admitting they just might be wrong.

[Laimbeer]

Where is George Gervin in all this discussion.

He's like a mid-thirties guy.

[JerkyWay]

ElGee - why do you have Kareem apart from MJ and BR? KAJs resume is almost the same as Jordan's. I know this "he was second option to Magic" argument but he won numerous MVPs before Magic's arrival. Era differences doesn't matter as 90s were similarly bad as 70s, maybe only a little better. Kareem also led worse team than MJ for that period of time. He's right there.

Also, what makes you think Bird is a level below Magic and why is Wilt so low?

[Laimbeer]

I'm looking forward with a strange type of anticipatory dread to Isiah's nomination, as Laimbeer and I have seemingly endless debates on how much Isiah's individual contributions contributed to the Pistons mid-late 80s success.

Ha! Scrolling back through the thread and saw this. You're one of my favorite posters here and of course I'd love to have the debate, but I don't think it's happening given the landscape of the Top 100 list.

My arguement maintaines Isiah is a second tier all-time point, with Cousy and maybe Frazier, behind Oscar and Magic. That lands him low twenties, anyway. There's no traction here for that kind of ranking. He's seen as part of a Stockton-Nash-Kidd-Payton cluster.

It's probably primarily because the site is very stat driven, and a little because he simply isn't very well liked, and I can't say without reason.

[Baller 24]

I'm looking forward with a strange type of anticipatory dread to Isiah's nomination, as Laimbeer and I have seemingly endless debates on how much Isiah's individual contributions contributed to the Pistons mid-late 80s success.

Ha! Scrolling back through the thread and saw this. You're one of my favorite posters here and of course I'd love to have the debate, but I don't think it's happening given the landscape of the Top 100 list.

My arguement maintaines Isiah is a second tier all-time point, with Cousy and maybe Frazier, behind Oscar and Magic. That lands him low twenties, anyway. There's no traction here for that kind of ranking. He's seen as part of a Stockton-Nash-Kidd-Payton cluster.

It's probably primarily because the site is very stat driven, and a little because he simply isn't very well liked, and I can't say without reason.

Personally, I feel Isiah's behind Fraizer, on par with Nash, Kidd, & Payton. Ahead of Stockton. Where I'll have Isiah is tough, but if we're considering all PGs right now, all I know is that Nash is next for me.

[Laimbeer]

@dzra

Bill Russell - I won't let the stat geeks off the hook that easily on Russ/Wilt. From your post, it sounds like you constructed a line of logic to make the statistics support Russell. He had good stats on D, and the Celts relied on their D, etc. It seems you retroactively built the statistics case in a way that would support the conclusion Russell was better.

When taken at face value, virtually any traditional or advanced stat favors Wilt. But Russell is largely considered the better, or at least greater in a winning sense, player. The numbers don't capture it.

Oscar Robertson - The advanced stats show his offensive impact was great. Whoever argued against that? The rap on Oscar was he didn't translate his stats and talent into a more winning tradition, and he really didn't have the personality and mindset to do so. Did he have an Allen Iverson or Michael Jordan type of mindset and influence on his team?

Kevin Garnett - Again, not sure your point proves much. The naysayers said his traditional stats were belied by his lack of team success. So advanced stats echo his excellence in traditional stats. That doesn't change the arguement of the naysayers. The advanced stats aren't a holy grail of ultimate truth.

Stats are a tool. But not all of a player's value can be captured in numbers, no matter how they're crunched.

[DocHoops]

This project will be a complete disaster. They will rank Steve Nash and no one who has ever watched basketball and understood it will take them serious.

Imagine just how fucking (Please Use More Appropriate Word) you'd have to be to put Steve Nash over Isiah Thomas.

These same people are pathetic enough to also think Artis Gilmore belongs among the 30-35 all-time. Forget that he was never all-NBA and never won anything and even in the ABA his teams underachieved, none of that matters he has good stats. Who cares of no one agrees, no lists ever put him that high, or that it took him 25 years to get into the hall after he retired. Clearly everyone else is wrong and the jack-offs here got it right.