RealGM Top 100 List -- 2011

[Chris435]

Well of course not, that's Manigault, no?

Appreciate your open attitude though. fwiw, while Russell is my GOAT for career, I'd probably rank him behind Jordan, Shaq, and Wilt for peak.

You've mentioned a Top 100 Peaks project as something you wanted to do at some point... is that gonna happen in the near future?

[Doctor MJ]

You've mentioned a Top 100 Peaks project as something you wanted to do at some point... is that gonna happen in the near future?

Uncertain. For now we're just getting through this Top 100 project. Typically we do a major project starting every summer as the season winds down. With the lockout, that may change...or it may not.

[ronnymac2]

I'm not going to be on the forums this week, so I'll post a list.

Vote:

Bernard King
Marques Johnson
Manu Ginobili
Grant Hill
Penny Hardaway


Nominate:

Vince Carter
Billy Cunningham
Chauncey Billups
Adrian Dantley
Deron Williams


Johnson or King should get in next. I'm perfectly fine with Marques getting in before Bernard.

Ginobili over Hill for longevity and because while Ginobili isn't a volume producer/creator in the playoffs, Hill isn't either. Penny over Gasol and Parish, because at his peak, he's a legit number 1 option imo. He's an offensive anchor- an awesome one.

For the noms, I obviously think more of VC than most, but for ****'s sakes, Vince is closer to Iverson and McGrady and Allen and Pierce than the players he's in the company of now. This is getting ridiculous.

Admittedly, I forgot about Billy Cunningham, too. Kangaroo kid was the sixth man on a GOAT team in 1967. Then he was all-nba first team for three straight years at the forward slot. The other forwards those years? Baylor, Havlicek, Hawkins. He was a good playoff performer, too. Great all-around player.

I honestly might take peak Chauncey over peak Stockton. I'm not even **** kidding.

Dantley is getting underrated. 1984, 1987, and 1988 are great years for him.

I voted Deron Williams as a top-5 player in the NBA during the RPOY project. Dude has a nice prime and is a legit playoff performer.

[WillC]

RealGM: Where Marques Johnson is regarded as a 'greater' player than George Mikan, Dolph Schayes, Tiny Archibald, Earl Monroe, James Worthy, Nate Thurmond and Pete Maravich.

Fun times!

[Doctor MJ]

RealGM: Where Marques Johnson is regarded as a 'greater' player than George Mikan, Dolph Schayes, Tiny Archibald, Earl Monroe, James Worthy, Nate Thurmond and Pete Maravich.

Fun times!

ftr, the decision was made to exclude Mikan from this project because of how hard he is to rate. I have zero doubt though that he'd have been voted in well before Marques.

Also wanted to note that the inclusion of Maravich on that list is simply amusing.

[WillC]

To be honest, I could have chosen any name from a list of about 50 players who should be ahead of Marques Johnson. Maravich just happens to be one of the more famous names, deservedly so or not.

[WillC]

By the way, I'm loving the logic for not including Mikan. "He's hard to rate". Yeah, so let's not bother. Let's leave off one of the most dominant players of all-time.

Good one.

[Doctor MJ]

By the way, I'm loving the logic for not including Mikan. "He's hard to rate". Yeah, so let's not bother. Let's leave off one of the most dominant players of all-time.

Good one.

Well personally, I was against the decision, but freaking A dude, running a project like this is a heck of a lot of work and dedication, and it's impossible for everything to go perfectly. I'm not saying you should come in here and pat people on the back, but coming in here just to mock the group is just a jerk move that probably indicates you've never actually tried to do something on a large scale which involved directing lots of people.

[Doctor MJ]

To be honest, I could have chosen any name from a list of about 50 players who should be ahead of Marques Johnson. Maravich just happens to be one of the more famous names, deservedly so or not.

Well, if we're known as the place where people first started publicly saying that Marques had a better NBA career than Maravich, well, that's a good place to be imho.

[WillC]

I'm a teacher, so I direct a lot of people on a daily basis.

And I've done similar rankings before: http://basketballjournalist.blogspot.co ... story.html

So I know how difficult it is.

Leaving out Mikan is crazy. I'd love to read a full explanation for his omission. Surely it's not as simple as "he's too difficult to rank"? That seems laughable.

As for the RealGM rankings, I respect them (and actually hoped to use them as part of my compilation rankings posted above), but how can they be taken seriously when Marques Johnson gets ranked above the likes of Thurmond, Worthy, etc?

[Dr Positivity]

We decided to make it the post shot clock rankings (assist to Mikan's difficulty to rank as part of what led to that decision though )

[WillC]

We decided to make it the post shot clock rankings (assist to Mikan's difficulty to rank as part of what led to that decision though )

Seems a real shame to leave out players like Mikan, Schayes, Fulks, Arizin, Johnston, Davies, Feerick, etc.

But I guess it allows you to use advanced statistics.... for what they're worth.

[Dr Positivity]

Schayes, Arizin and Johnson have post shot clock years so they're eligible (and Arizin is voted in already)

[WillC]

Good to see Arizin in your top 65.

So how does Marques Johnson get voted in ahead of Dolph Schayes? No matter how you spin it, Schayes had the better career: better stats (standard and advanced), more team success, more individual awards and accolades.

Elliot Kalb (who I appreciate is a complete nob) ranks Schayes as the 23rd best player of all-time. Bill Simmons ranks him 52nd (which is the lowest I've ever seen him ranked).

Meanwhile, I've never seen Marques Johnson ranked in the top 100. Maybe people are seeing something that I'm not.

[Doctor MJ]

I'm a teacher, so I direct a lot of people on a daily basis.

I see. I happen to be a teacher as well, maybe you could give me some pointers? So as a teacher, when you see people at your school working on something and you see something you disagree with, do you jump in and tell them how amused you are at their incompetence? Hadn't heard of that technique before.

Look, it's a message board. I understand we're always on our model behavior here. Sometimes I'm a bit of a jerk too. But c'mon, what kind of a response do you expect when you jump in like this?

[WillC]

I'm a teacher, so I direct a lot of people on a daily basis.

I see. I happen to be a teacher as well, maybe you could give me some pointers? So as a teacher, when you see people at your school working on something and you see something you disagree with, do you jump in and tell them how amused you are at their incompetence? Hadn't heard of that technique before.

Haha, no, I don't, which is why I jump at the chance to do so when online

Look, it's a message board. I understand we're always on our model behavior here. Sometimes I'm a bit of a jerk too. But c'mon, what kind of a response do you expect when you jump in like this?

Ok, I retract all my previous statements.

I'd still like to hear a valid reason for why Marques Johnson has been voted in ahead of the likes of Nate Thurmond and James Worthy. Perhaps someone could provide me with a link to the discussion?

[Doctor MJ]

Good to see Arizin in your top 65.

So how does Marques Johnson get voted in ahead of Dolph Schayes? No matter how you spin it, Schayes had the better career: better stats (standard and advanced), more team success, more individual awards and accolades.

Elliot Kalb (who I appreciate is a complete nob) ranks Schayes as the 23rd best player of all-time. Bill Simmons ranks him 52nd (which is the lowest I've ever seen him ranked).

Meanwhile, I've never seen Marques Johnson ranked in the top 100. Maybe people are seeing something that I'm not.

I'll just speak for myself:

Schayes was a 6'7" skinny "big man" who specialized in set shooting even as it became clear that jump shooting was clearly going to be the way of the future. I have serious doubts about how he'd be able to adapt to play in more modern times, and that is something I factor in here.

By contrast Arizin, was a 6'4" swingman who was an excellent shooter, got to the line like nobody's business, and was renowned for his defense. He is in other words, entirely within the specs of was a star shooting guard could still look like today. And so, despite the fact he clearly had a less accomplished career than Schayes, I rank him ahead of Schayes on this list.

And to be perfectly honest, were I to do it again, I might rank Arizin a good deal higher. It's something I'll reflect on when we're done with this project. The thing that's so rough with him is how his career got disrupted by his time in the military.

With Marques, I rate him below Arizin, but my skepticism about Schayes pushes him down a good deal. fwiw, I have a similar but not as extreme skepticism toward Cousy. After, Mikan, Arizin is clearly the early 50s player I'm most impressed with.

[Doctor MJ]

Look, it's a message board. I understand we're always on our model behavior here. Sometimes I'm a bit of a jerk too. But c'mon, what kind of a response do you expect when you jump in like this?

Ok, I retract all my previous statements.

I'd still like to hear a valid reason for why Marques Johnson has been voted in ahead of the likes of Nate Thurmond and James Worthy. Perhaps someone could provide me with a link to the discussion?

Cool.

I don't have time to find links right now, but if they aren't on the first page of this project, they will be eventually.

My take:

Thurmond - Well I think first and foremost it's important to context Thurmond and see that this wasn't a guy who was typically an MVP candidate. He was one when Barry first became his teammate, and then was again right before he got traded away from GS...and of course they won the title the next year.

I think he's a solid player, and an excellent defender, but I don't believe he's a night-and-day difference maker in most situations. I wouldn't object to anyone favoring him over Marques though, I don't feel strongly about the difference between them.

Worthy - I think the key here is what you think Worthy COULD have done, and how much you credit him accordingly. He gets treated as if he was a superstar, but it's actually pretty hard to justify that. This was a sidekick on the latter half of a dynasty with meh longevity.

Marques is someone whose prime is actually really quite impressive. When we did our RPOY project I was surprised when I ended up voting in my Top 5 in 2 years, and he's in my Top 10 at least one more year. That makes him actually significantly more prominent than Thurmond or Worthy.

Thing is: There's really not much doubt that if Marques had stayed at his peak longer he'd loom much larger in the basketball landscape, so in the end this is a peak vs longevity issue, and there's really no answer to the "right" way to consider peak vs longevity.

[penbeast0]

It wasn't just Mikan. We were trying to have a greatest NBA players rating . . . early Mikan and the BAA and NBL stars, the college players who didn't turn pro like Bob Kurland, the barnstormers, the Globetrotters, international players, women's league players (even if they dominate their competition), ABL players, playground heros like Earl the Goat Manigault -- there has been a lot of basketball where it is much harder to make comparisoms; by limiting it to shot clock era we established a reasonably uniform standard of comparisom though of course it's still hard to compare across eras.

I've been a big Marques Johnson proponent on this board for years, ranking his peak years in MIL up with Nique's in ATL (better efficiency, reb, defense -- lesser scoring, and of course lesser longevity) but he is one of the players I think got an early advocate in ElGee who pushed him out there into discussion way ahead of where he would normally come in. ElGee is one of the more knowledgable advanced stat guys on the board and usually has researched his positions better than I have so I hesitate to say it's not reasonable although I didn't support it. But that's what makes it interesting and makes it the RealGM ranking -- I know I pushed Sidney Moncrief and Bobby Jones ahead of most people's rankings too because I value defense a lot more than most fans.

[bastillon]

great list guys, I regret not participating... though you got one thing wrong, there should be much more time for discussion on top10-20 players... couple of days is just not getting it done. I'd also allow voting AFTER the initial discussion. what's the point of debating when most voters are already done ?

still... fantastic list.