RealGM NBA Top 100 list -- #1

[ThaRegul8r]

I do think Wilt and Kareem would be an interesting discussion

Agreed.

[DavidSterned]

I don't think you can make an argument based on winning that doesn't favor Russell; so you end up back to, "Jordan was the greatest scorer in NBA history so I vote for him." I think there's more to basketball than that.

Sure you can.

One obvious argument is that Russell did most of his winning in an era with only 8 teams and with no free agency. Most of these teams were doomed to repeat the same mistakes year in and year out since roster movement was still at a minimum and there was far less competition to begin with.

Adding to that argument is that Russell arrived on a team that already had Cousy, Sharman, and Macauley. Three of the top offensive players in the NBA at the time. They were a winning team before Russell that lacked defensive prowess. He was the perfect missing piece to that group. So Russell won 27 out of 29 playoff series in his career, but he did it with consistently great supporting casts throughout. He played alongside the best PG for a number of years in Cousy, the best SG in Sam Jones, and at the end of his career with the best SF in John Havlicek.

Jordan's supporting casts from '84 to '89 were generally mediocre to downright poor. It wasn't until Phil stepped in as coach and Pippen/Grant came into their own that the Bulls began to take on a winning identity. That is par for the course in the modern NBA, as it's been proven countless times that you can't win on your own.

Furthermore, Jordan's winning track record is just as impressive as Russell's. 6 Finals, and 6 championships (100% track record there) in 8 years in a 27-29 team league feels at least roughly equivalent to 11 championships in 13 years in an 8-12 team league. And Jordan could very well have won had 8 or even 9 championships if he hadn't retired in '93 and again in '99.

[B_Creamy]

I'll place my vote for Bill Russell although I am sympathetic to cross-era comparison arguments made in Jordan's favor.

Russell's career is a 13 year stretch of consistent elite play, while Jordan definitely has some down years (86,95,02,03). As far as overall longevity I'd give Russell the edge and aside from that there's much I can add that hasn't been already stated earlier in the thread.

I originally was leaning Jordan but some posts in the thread softened my cross era bias.

[sp6r=underrated]

There a few points in this post that have always interested me. My response has nothing to do with my perceived view of Russell against Jordan.

Furthermore, Jordan's winning track record is just as impressive as Russell's. 6 Finals, and 6 championships (100% track record there)

Why is it better to not make the finals than make the finals and lose? I've never really understood the logic here.

And Jordan could very well have won had 8 or even 9 championships if he hadn't retired in '93 and again in '99.

Why should Jordan get bonus credit for his retirements? He choose to walk away in 93 and could have continued his career outside Chicago. It isn't an argument in favor of him that he choose to go home instead.

[penbeast0]

Jordan clearly has a majority here and it's been 2 days since the thread was posted with no runoff needed. So, I declare Michael Jordan the RealGM NBA GOAT once again, and will open the thread for #2. We can continue with this great discussion there.

Thanks to everyone who is making this a great summer project.

[HeartBreakKid]

I would have voted for Bill Russell

edit:

Posted a big TL;dr in the second thread, but to summarize why I voted for Bill (for the history books )


1) I 100% believe the rebounding gap Bill gets makes up a lot of the hyper efficient scoring Jordan brings. I'm also sure that Bill's ability to disrupt defenses (horizontal) would probably make it up all together, as the amount of points the team would lose would likely be a greater margin than what ever impact Jordan's scoring has (ie mediocre scoring+ Horizontal defense+GOAT rebounding should be greater than Jordan's scoring ability, his greatest asset).

Then they are both great passers, give Jordan the benefit here since he is a guard, but then you have to take into account Bill's GOAT ability to anchor the paint, which is worth infinitely more than any of Jordan's remaining attributes (there's a reason why centers are taken over guards, protecting the paint has a lot to do with it).

Now we can take into account Jordan's defensive ability, in which case he is great - for his position. Jordan is one of the best defensive guards, but he's still down in a long list of GOAT defenders (of course Russell is nowhere to be seen in GOAT offensive players). However, the gap between Jordan's defensive ability, and say the 10th greatest defender is astronomical, for he would be compared to someone like a Dikembe Mutumbo or an Alonzo Mourning of sorts, in other words - centers.

I'm not sure if Jordan's defensive ability actually makes a dent when we are comparing the GOAT offensive player (Jordan) and the GOAT defensive player (Russell). Though looking at team metrics, Russell's GOAT impact is undoubtedly higher than Jordan's GOAT offensive impact.

Kinda just a cute visualization for those who like to compare attributes when determining what player is better. The real reason why Russell is better than Jordan is pretty simple, just look at all of his teams DRTG. Even when he is not playing with great defenders, the Celtics are still on top.

Didn't feel like posting my other post as this thread will probably be locked soon.

[Owly]

How the award worked is acknowledged/discussed in the posts. Please post in context. But Wilt acquired his assists on a per game basis. He either relied on injuries or did a poor job of paced himself to get to the required assist total which at the start of the year, he would have estimated as being around 868, 861, 847, 901 (on average 869.25 requiring 10.60060976 apg if he could count on playing all 82 games) based on the past 4 years. He won with 702. Wilt shouldn't have won the assists title.

Estimation isn't required. The league leaders would be posted periodically in the papers. One would only need to look at the leaders to see where one stood and one would know what one needed to do from there.

And, as I said, had Oscar played a mere eight more games, Wilt wouldn't have won. But Oscar didn't, so Wilt did. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. "Them's the breaks."

Don't understand what your point is. If as the quotes suggest he planned it in advance. He must have felt 10+apg was obtainable because that's what in all probability was required. This is what makes his targeting it seem implausible.

FWIW, the quotes are interesting. Cunningham's I'm aware of and it's after the fact. By itself it was plausibly just accepting Wilt's own suggestions at face value. And furthermore it's in the middle of a section about '67 and refers to "under Hannum" not '68. This discussion is about a change from '67 to '68. It's weak evidence for a change in style between the seasons.

Hannum coached both seasons, unless I'm mistaken. Cunningham, on the other hand, was with Philadelphia both prior to and after Hannum's tenure there.[/quote]
Yes. And the contention here was initially that

he did not replicate his peak play [generally here assumed as '67] a second time, and we all know why.

My response to Notanoob was that if he targeted the assists record he did a poor job of it and didn't modify his sytle substantially. The only thing I can guess you're implying is that Cunningham is reffering to both seasons, but that would not explain a percieved dip in effectiveness in the second campaign.

So my assumed "[not] than searching for evidence to see whether it's true" is not reading one Fran Blinebury article on NBA.com. That one is more persuasive (or rather they are more persuasive in concert) because it jives with what was already suggested, and is more detailed. It alters my perception, but only at the margins (It seems makes it more likely that Wilt was attempting to do so however poorly), that said it again features no year. I'll stand by

he did a terrible job of gunning for that record in way that made him likely to secure it.

Unless he knew Guy Rodgers would get his minutes axed in half and Robertson would get injured he did a terrible job of "padding-stats" and ensuring he claimed the total assists crown. Or he just didn't do it and wanted to frame his year as a truimph and so made up the assists title goa

It's never stating he didn't but it does suggest that the impact of his doing so, if doing so is marginal because his game really didn't change over the years in question. The assists weren't going up much from the previous year, so it's hard to conclude that Wilt's apparent change altered his team's effectiveness which is the fundamental point.

Your assumptions of bad faith of other participants are at least bordering on rude.

For the record, I'm not trying to "alter anyone's perception." That's impossible, and isn't—and never has been—my goal in the first place. You, of course, are free to think what you want.

Re: assumptions of bad faith of other participants and my "rudeness," you missed this:

[quote="ThaRegul8r}]I'm not even saying it's deliberate, because studies have shown that's just what human beings do.[/quote]

As well as the quote preceding it on cognition. Human behavior specifically falls within my area of knowledge. Human beings are subject to cognitive biases. That is a well-documented fact. It takes both an awareness of this and a concerned effort to avoid falling into them. I made no personal attacks toward you, and I said "and others have done it too," to indicate I was talking about a general problem and not singling you out in particular, precisely because some people perceive things as a personal attack, a perception in part supported by the fact that personal attacks are actually quite common on the internet due to its anonymous nature.

"Bad faith" is used to mean duplicity. Nothing actually contained in my post said nor implicated anything about "bad faith." Past history suggests this was possibly said because of a dislike of me elicited from my post. If so, you aren't the first, and likely won't be the last. However, I take exception to things being falsely attributed to me, particularly when used to paint me in an unflattering manner. I'm very clear in what I say.

Nevertheless, as I don't wish to derail discussion, though, I'm not going to continue this.[/quote]

We're getting to semantics on bad faith. Probably the wrong phrase. But saying someone is "[not] than searching for evidence to see whether it's true" without really knowing if it's the case is rude. Saying it's only human afterwards doesn't make it less so. Telling them that they "missed" what you wrote is further condescension.

[MisterWestside]

This is the reason I view the definition of the greatest as special or the best actual players all time. If you go by impact in thier own era, championships, resume/accolades, winshares or PER it's a flawed analysis imo.

I think Russell is better than Mikan, even though Mikan innovated first and I think modern players like Jordan or Hakeem are better than Russell imo.

Interesting read. Rule changes and other things limited Mikan's impact. If this forum existed at that time before the rule changes, and posters guessed about what Mikan's impact with the rule changes would be based on his previous impact, they'd have him as the GOAT. Whoops.

Ah, but let it be told that Russell would still have the same impact in a completely disparate era from his. Let's cite (flawed) impact numbers in his day, let's apply S-curves (based on its own set of assumptions) and the like, but then go ahead and overlook the fact that Russell still never played one minute in the era that we're transporting him to.

This is not to say that he wouldn't be a defensive wizard - or a warlock - in the 90s, playing alongside the likes of Jordan. It's to say that figuring out the rankings based on IMPACT! is naive, it requires context, and other methods of thinking should take precedent. We can still have Russell compete in an otherwise manner on the all-time list.

[Dipper 13]

So for one to consider Jordan the GOAT over Kareem, he'd need to consider Jordan a clearly superior player at his peak.

There may be a sample bias in this footage (126 games), which shows Jordan's 3 year peak (1990-92) as excellent in terms of impact.


viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1286698



Team Performance

Spoiler:

Plus/Minus

Plus/Minus Total: +1767

Plus/Minus Per 100: +18.3



On/Off

On Court ORtg: 123.9

Off Court ORtg: 88.3

Net ORtg: +35.6



On Court DRtg: 105.5

Off Court DRtg: 114.8

Net DRtg: -9.3



On/Off Net Rating: +44.8

[JordansBulls]

There were a few more votes that others were contemplating making but were not made, but these were the actual ones that actually said so and so player.

Michael Jordan: 22 (Basketballefan, JordansBulls, SactoKingsFan, GC Pantalones, Baller2014, Dr Positivity, PCProductions, therealbig3, Quotatious, kayess, batmana, trex_8063, Jaivl, DannyNoonan1221, Owly, Mutnt, DHodgkins, An Unbiased Fan, O_6, rich316, DQuinn1575, Moonbeam)

Bill Russell: 11 (penbeast0, Texas Chuck, Warspite, Dr Spaceman, ardee, fpliii, Doctor MJ, drza, magicmerl, MacGill, B_Creamy)

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: 4 (Greatness, ronnymac2, Narigo, TrueLAfan)

[DavidSterned]

My vote is for Jordan.

I feel that he accomplished enough in his career to win this comfortably. Kareem is my #2, also by a comfortable margin.

It's maybe not the runaway that it could be because Kareem has a similar impact but for more years. At the end of the day it'll always be frustrating to me that Jordan denied us of no fewer than two but probably even three GOAT level seasons (93-94, 94-95, 98-99), then probably a couple more all star years. Surely if we are to assume his health holds up, then those added years would make him the most decorated NBA player ever over Kareem.

But Jordan clearly (IMO) combined pure skill with sheer willpower better than anyone else in NBA history, and possibly even sports history. On the court there was virtually nothing that he couldn't do at his peak, no glaring weaknesses, and no fear that he would dog it mentally or under-perform on the big stage. Stiatistically he is the greatest playoff performer of all time, even upping his game on an almost annual basis from 1988 until 1998. He was probably harder on himself than anyone else was, and drove himself to dizzying levels. That kind of mentality just isn't something you can teach. Finally, he dominated the game in a fashion that could easily be replicated across different eras, which I believe is a legitimate critique that can be made against older guys that isn't shared by Jordan.

[DavidSterned]

Why is it better to not make the finals than make the finals and lose? I've never really understood the logic here.

It isn't, necessarily, but context matters. The context of Jordan's feat is that for an eight year window when he was in his prime and not rusty ('95), he won the title every year in convincing, MVP fashion. Each time he won, he was unquestionably the league's best player. He beat a variety of different opponents that included a sizable number of HOF players. He never folded on the big stage, something no other great can really say.

Why should Jordan get bonus credit for his retirements? He choose to walk away in 93 and could have continued his career outside Chicago. It isn't an argument in favor of him that he choose to go home instead.

No, but it shouldn't be a condemnation of his abilities either. There's a good chance that he would have remained the best player in the game for at least two extra seasons had he chosen to play. We saw what happened when he was the best player in the game, so you do the math....

[sp6r=underrated]

Why is it better to not make the finals than make the finals and lose? I've never really understood the logic here.

It isn't, necessarily, but context matters. The context of Jordan's feat is that for an eight year window when he was in his prime and not rusty ('95), he won the title every year in convincing, MVP fashion. Each time he won, he was unquestionably the league's best player. He beat a variety of different opponents that included a sizable number of HOF players. He never folded on the big stage, something no other great can really say.

Why should Jordan get bonus credit for his retirements? He choose to walk away in 93 and could have continued his career outside Chicago. It isn't an argument in favor of him that he choose to go home instead.

No, but it shouldn't be a condemnation of his abilities either. There's a good chance that he would have remained the best player in the game for at least two extra seasons had he chosen to play. We saw what happened when he was the best player in the game, so you do the math....

With due respect he didn't win a title every year in an eight year period. His absence in 1994 was his choice. The fact he was rusty in 1995 was his choice.

There isn't any context in which we should look at the period of 94-95 and give Jordan any more credit than what happened. I'd also note there is no guarantee he would have been as good in 98 if he logged in extra season and a half of minutes.

I have no problem with people voting him GOAT but the urge to pretend he led his team to 6 straight no possibly 8 straight titles is wrong. Him leaving the NBA from 94-95 wasn't a circumstance similar to Magic Johnson/Barry Bonds great players who were blackballed from their sport.

He was just a dude who didn't want to play basketball.

[DavidSterned]

He was just a dude who didn't want to play basketball.

Eh, it was a unique situation. His gambling addiction at the time and his father's murder were extenuating circumstances that certainly influenced his decision. Bottom line is that he was perfectly healthy physically and clearly still had the ability to dominate the league. No, it doesn't "count favorably" towards him, but you'd be lying to yourself if you didn't think it was worth noting in the grand scheme of his career.

[HeartBreakKid]

Posted a big TL;dr in the second thread, but to summarize why I voted for Bill (for the history books )


1) I 100% believe the rebounding gap Bill gets makes up a lot of the hyper efficient scoring Jordan brings. I'm also sure that Bill's ability to disrupt defenses (horizontal) would probably make it up all together, as the amount of points the team would lose would likely be a greater margin than what ever impact Jordan's scoring has (ie mediocre scoring+ Horizontal defense+GOAT rebounding should be greater than Jordan's scoring ability, his greatest asset).

Then they are both great passers, give Jordan the benefit here since he is a guard, but then you have to take into account Bill's GOAT ability to anchor the paint, which is worth infinitely more than any of Jordan's remaining attributes (there's a reason why centers are taken over guards, protecting the paint has a lot to do with it).

Now we can take into account Jordan's defensive ability, in which case he is great - for his position. Jordan is one of the best defensive guards, but he's still down in a long list of GOAT defenders (of course Russell is nowhere to be seen in GOAT offensive players). However, the gap between Jordan's defensive ability, and say the 10th greatest defender is astronomical, for he would be compared to someone like a Dikembe Mutumbo or an Alonzo Mourning of sorts, in other words - centers.

I'm not sure if Jordan's defensive ability actually makes a dent when we are comparing the GOAT offensive player (Jordan) and the GOAT defensive player (Russell). Though looking at team metrics, Russell's GOAT impact is undoubtedly higher than Jordan's GOAT offensive impact.

Kinda just a cute visualization for those who like to compare attributes when determining what player is better. The real reason why Russell is better than Jordan is pretty simple, just look at all of his teams DRTG. Even when he is not playing with great defenders, the Celtics are still on top.

Didn't feel like posting my other post as this thread will probably be locked soon.

[An Unbiased Fan]

1) I 100% believe the rebounding gap Bill gets makes up a lot of the hyper efficient scoring Jordan brings. I'm also sure that Bill's ability to disrupt defenses (horizontal) would probably make it up all together, as the amount of points the team would lose would likely be a greater margin than what ever impact Jordan's scoring has (ie mediocre scoring+ Horizontal defense+GOAT rebounding should be greater than Jordan's scoring ability, his greatest asset).

Where do you rank Dennis Rodman?

[HeartBreakKid]

1) I 100% believe the rebounding gap Bill gets makes up a lot of the hyper efficient scoring Jordan brings. I'm also sure that Bill's ability to disrupt defenses (horizontal) would probably make it up all together, as the amount of points the team would lose would likely be a greater margin than what ever impact Jordan's scoring has (ie mediocre scoring+ Horizontal defense+GOAT rebounding should be greater than Jordan's scoring ability, his greatest asset).

Where do you rank Dennis Rodman?

Somewhere between here and the moon. He's quite a bit higher than some isolation scorers to say the least.

[ElGee]

ElGee made this post a while ago: viewtopic.php?f=344&t=1048645&start=0

I think that's where Bill Russell's argument comes from. Especially from 61-65, but as pointed out by ElGee, Russell basically played GOAT defense his entire career, so his longevity is pretty insane.

If we average the 61-65 stretch, Russell's Celtics were a -9.5 defense over 5 years. Incredible.

Now, Tim Duncan is a guy that routinely gets compared to Russell's Celtics, and he's really the one defensive anchor who enjoyed great defensive teammates and a great defensive coach his entire career, just like Russell. So let's look at his team's DRating throughout his career:

98: -5.6
99: -7.2
00: -5.5
01: -5.0
02: -4.8
03: -3.9
04: -8.8
05: -7.3
06: -6.6
07: -6.6
08: -5.7
09: -4.0
10: -3.1
11: -1.7
12: -1.4
13: -4.3
14: -4.3

Well then, let's average out Duncan's best 5-year stretch: 04-08. Over that time period, the Spurs were a -7.0 defense over 5 years. Fantastic, but still significantly behind Russell's Celtics (-9.5). But again, it's no secret that the Spurs play in a much better offensive era. It's very possible that Russell's Celtics would have dropped to a -7.0 defense during their heyday as well.

I think you're thinking on this is off -- improved offensive era is accounted for in the raw number. Introducing the 3-point shot should create more range in the numbers (top offensive/defensive teams), not less.

PS The 04 Pistons played 45 games with Rasheed Wallace. They had a -10.9 DRtg in those games. I see no reason why a team in the 3-point era can't be ~10 pts better than league average.

I understand that the raw number takes into account the era's league average, but I don't think it would be as easy for a defense to deviate from league average if offensive strategy had improved, especially if the 3pt shot was present.

As for why I can't see a team in the 3pt era have a -10 defense the way Russell's Celtics did...IDK if it can't be done...but it's never ACTUALLY been done, so it's hard for me to just assume that Russell would anchor one year after year when it's clearly been impossible for ANYONE else to do so in the last 35 years. As you said, the 04 Pistons did it for 45 games...not for a whole season. They had pretty much the same core of players for the full 2005 season, and they managed a -4.9 defense over the whole season.

The top 5 defenses since the introduction of the 3pt line (and I'm ignoring 99 and 12, since those were not full seasons):

-8.8 (04 Spurs)
-8.6 (08 Celtics)
-8.3 (93 Knicks)
-8.1 (94 Knicks)
-7.5 (04 Pistons)

There hasn't been a defense that's even hit -9 in the last 35 years, let alone -10. And even if we assume that Russell was just that much better than Garnett or Duncan or Ewing or Wallace (the guys that anchored these defenses) to the point that he could take a defense that they made -8 and make it -10, even in the modern era...now the discussion becomes his offense. Is he within 2 points of Duncan or Garnett on offense? I really don't think so. Russell wasn't that impressive offensively even by the standards of his own era.

And one more point I'm curious about...I understand we don't have a lot of individual impact numbers for Bill Russell, but a really common counter-argument to "Tim Duncan anchored so many fantastic defenses!" is "Look at his teammates and his coach, he clearly had more help than someone like Kevin Garnett or Hakeem Olajuwon, it's not fair to prop him up over them based on team defensive ratings"...but we feel alright giving Bill Russell all the credit for the Celtics' defensive dominance, despite playing for Red Auerbach, and despite playing with many notable defenders on his team?

I've yet to hear someone give Russell credit for all the defense. The challenge is to ballpark how much of that defense he was responsible for, and it looks like a whole heck of a lot. I would say comfortably that with a decent defensive big, the 60's Celtics would be above average defensively. Satch Sanders alone was an excellent defensive forward, along with KC and even Hondo.

Again, is this not a similar situation to a lot of defensive greats...KG and Duncan have been part of teams that were pretty solid defensively without them, but they were the ones that pushed them into historic territory. Considering the context of their respective eras, I don't really see Russell's Celtics as that much more impressive defensively than some of the teams that Duncan and Garnett have anchored.

Now, I understand that Russell gives you 13 years of basically the same level of play, where he's the greatest defensive player the league has ever seen...but Duncan and Garnett are giving you 10 year primes, a bunch of seasons that aren't quite their prime years but are still valuable, and I believe that those two were just better players during their primes than Russell was. That's why I would take them all-time over Russell at this very moment.

I think you have to be careful not to argue against yourself here.

Argument 1: Russell's teams weren't really great outliers because teams today exhibit the same variance
Argument 2: Russell could not have exhibited the same variance today as he did then

These seem to me to be directly competing viewpoints. If you don't believe Russell's defenses exhibited abnormal variance, then why couldn't he replicate the results today? If you do believe the results were so great that they can't be replicated today, why don't you consider the variance during that team to be greater than what we see today?

Spoiler:

If we removed the top defensive team in league for each season from 1955-2012, and then gave the top team we removed a z-score against the remaining samples variance, we would see something a little different:

62 Bos -4.24 SD's
75 Was -4.01
65 Bos -3.90
93 NYK -3.45
57 Bos -3.31
63 Bos -3.14
08 Bos -3.06
70 NYK -3.04
64 Bos -2.93
89 Uta -2.86

In other words, if you use z-score in a small sample, the outlier (Boston) warps the sample, which in many ways defeats what you are trying to measure here (degree of outlier-ness relative to the group). From that view, 62-65 Boston do really look like something special.

As per the 3-point line issue, again removing the outliers shows us something interesting. If we remove all top defensive teams from 1955-2012, we see the following standard deviations among the league:

Pre-3 point line: 2.46 pts SD
Post-3: 2.89 pts SD

More variance after the introduction of the 3-point line. We see the same trend on offense as well, as expected.

At the same time, I think it is fair to argue that to reach great heights on defense pre-3-pointer required more interior post dominance (i.e. Russell) and to do it post 3-point-line required better team/perimeter defense (Knicks, Celtics, Pistons, etc.). Outlier-ness aside, this explanation supports both Russell's in-era dominance (that would absolutely be freakish as an individual) and a diminished impact as an individual defender in the 3-pt era (really in the 3-pt happy era).

Then again, I've yet to see a compelling, coherent explanation for why you should play "transport era" game...

[Gregoire]

Just read the thread... Great stuff... Very convincing arguments for Russell (Doc MJ) and Kareem (ronny)... While I have MJ as my GOAT for now, the gap became smaller.

[MisterWestside]

No, there is no cohrent explanation for playing the transport game...other than to actually answer the question that is posed. (Whether it is practical to play such a game is valid to ask, but the reason for it is quite clear.) Keeping players in-era does not allow for the direct comparison needed to answer it. You might well rename the project to "Top 100 NBA Players Relative To Their Own Eras" for complete disclosure.