RealGM Top 100 List #7

[D Nice]

Do you really see Bird's efficacy skyrocketing giving he'd also be exposed, on a nightly basis, to significantly better man-to-man defenders? Some of it is attributable to the general in-game fluidity of the eram but some of it is not. I've long cited Bird's underused 3pt shot in the 80s as a means of his era-portability being a bit understated, and it's not that he didn't face some really good individual defensive players of his own, but when you go back and watch the games by and large the defense you see Larry get is a joke compared to the coverages he'd see now.

Obviously where exactly the balance is nobody knows but I don't think it's fair to theorize about the one without addressing the other.

I think that in many ways, statistically, Dirk has been more effective that Bird was, and I don't have any reason to consider Dirk a superior talent. His shooting was at least roughly as good, his vision was better, his instincts were better, his motor was better. Do you disagree with that assessment?

I agree completely. I do however believe Dirk's size vs. Bird gives him an inherent physical edge Larry doesn't enjoy. Playing Bird at the 3 he has many of the same 1-on-1 advantages Dirk gets against 4s, he's actually got a significantly bigger strength edge, but you're sacrificing the distortion Dirk gives you by playing power forward.

If you see Bird as a power forward, he doesn't have that size advantage Dirk has one-on-one to make all of those crazy shots he does. Larry is another GOAT shot-maker so that point may be somewhat dulled but I do know it's a huge part of what allows Dirk to attain those superior numbers.

Larry at PF perfectly sets him up to show off his GOAT-ish playmaking, but I like Dirk as a scorer better at the 4 for the reasons I've already stated. I think there are a LOT of 4s in this league who would
be a tougher individual matchup for Bird than acknowledged. The trend is moving toward 6'8/6'9 athletes with rebounding ability/adequate post base/some perimeter skill. His inherent physical advantage doesn't really compare to the 7'1 Nowitski.

Larry is one of my 7 or so favorite players and he was a Celtic. I think that's some kind of indicator that I don't want him to not be better vs. dirk in these areas, just there are a lot of areas that aren't cut-and-dry (we've seen similar guys hamper Bird in enough series over his career that it's a legitimate cause for concern).

[rich316]

I don't have the time right now to go digging through past threads, but if somebody would do me the favor of linking me to past breakdowns of RAPM, I would really appreciate it.

Seems like the 4 main guys up for consideration here are Bird, Magic, Lebron, and Hakeem. I feel down on Magic in that group, and up on Hakeem and Lebron. Considering the fact that Bird and Magic had incredible talent that also complemented their games quite well surrounding them for much of their careers, while Lebron and Hakeem generally didn't, it seems that he slightly diminished team success Lebron/Hakeem experienced should count for more than that of Bird/Magic. I've read some good arguments for each of them here, although I would have liked to see more for Bird. I feel he has a legit case for the top peak of any of them, which is really saying something in that group.

I've been thinking a lot about Lebron's portability, and how it might make him potentially more valuable in a "who do you draft" debate than any of the others. He may have been he alpha dog on title teams with less big man talent than any other wing in history. Bosh is a good PnR defender and floor spacer, but he and Birdman's 20 mpg don't measure up to anybody else, even MJ's big men. Horance Grant and Cartright look a lot better than Miami's front line for everything but shooting, and Cartright was no slouch from 15 feet. I'm not sure that anybody else could have done what Lebron did with that cast. Their defense wasn't always as dominant as perceived, but their ability to lock teams down in their title runs when necessary was phenomenal, considering they lacked the key ingredient to almost every great defense, ever - a dominant big man. Lebron was the key ingredient in that defense. I don't think there's any reason to believe that given the bigman talent on any other historic dynasties, Lebron couldn't have done even better than those wings. This is the main reason I'm thinking about Lebron over Bird/Magic. STill considering Hakeem, though. I will vote later today.

Vote: going to go with Lebron James. His incredible skillset provides perhaps the greatest teambuilding flexibility of any wing (any player?) in history.

[D Nice]

The more research I do the more I think Karl Malone deserves some traction. Not this high, but after LeBron-Magic-Bird-Hakeem-Kobe get voted in then certainly.

He essentially put up 25-10 every season for 11 years. That HAS to matter.

His Playoff failures are overblown as well IMO. He had a few poor elimination games but people are talking about voting KG here, the king of bad performances in elimination...

I'll post more in detail when people are actually going to consider him but some of the posts by ElGee in the previous top 100 projects are pretty eye-opening. I think he's right there in the Oscar-West-Dirk-KG category, might even be the best of the lot.

As a GM With Karl I get so much turnover in quality of the field (thanks to his GOAT longevity) I feel like I can squeak out 1, 2 if i'm lucky. I feel like with Barkley/KG/Dirk if I do my job I can expect to win 2, maybe 3. Karl I feel like my ceiling is 2, i may get 1, but i could easily never win.

I have to dock him slightly more than D-Rob for the same flaws because he's an offensive anchor who is a great defender rather than a defensive anchor who is a great offensive player. I've got them along with Moses 18-20 (Moses and Karl on longevity, D-Rob) with a prime comparable to KG/Dirk/Chuck.

A few years ago I pretty much always had Karl and Jerry flip-flopping for 11/12 and Oscar 13th but over time I've soured on him vs. his PF class (Barkley, Dirk, and KG all leap-frogging him). As you said people will delve into his weaknesses more thoroughly later on, but going 47-35 and 51-31 on a team with prime Thurl Bailey, prime John Stockton, and prime Mark Eaton is underachieving your talent considering how healthy those teams were. The numbers look nice but that's not enough team elevation when you're comparing his prime to Barkley, Dirk, KG, or D-Rob IMO.

[DQuinn1575]

James Worthy was the #1 overall pick, did he really turn him into anything?

Without Magic, Worthy could've been another Mark Aguirre, the #1 overall pick from the year before.

Aguirre was a better offensive player than worthy. Magic allowed worthy to be on tv and win finals. Worthy was better defensively, which I don't think was due to magic.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[lorak]

Well, I'm bored, so I decided to look into Erving myself, and ElGee can correct me if I'm wrong in case my numbers aren't right.

Don't really know how to check Erving's in/out data for 1973, since game logs are only available from 1977 onwards.

Doc missed first 4 games of the season and last 8. He also didn't play in a game vs Rockets (26 X), but neither did Virginia as that game was forfeit. Anyway, all that information (and much more) you could find on fpliii's website: http://nbastats.net/

James Worthy was the #1 overall pick, did he really turn him into anything?

Without Magic, Worthy could've been another Mark Aguirre, the #1 overall pick from the year before.

Aguirre was a better offensive player than worthy. Magic allowed worthy to be on tv and win finals.

Worthy was great regardless of Magic. According to ElGee's reasearch here's how he was doing without Magic:

In 1986 Worthy played 10 games without Magic:
w/out Magic: 20.0 ppg 5.7 rpg 4.2 apg 1.2 st 1.7 blk 2.7 TOV 60.5% TS
with Magic: 20.0 ppg 5.1 rpg 2.5 apg 1.1 st 0.9 blk 1.9 TOV 61.4% TS

In 1988 Worthy again played 10 games without Magic:
w/out Magic: 21.3 ppg 4.7 rpg 4.8 apg 1.3 st 0.6 blk 2.2 TOV 59.2% TS
with Magic: 19.5 ppg 5.0 rpg 3.7 apg 0.9 st 0.8 blk 2.1 TOV 56.7% TS

In 1989 5 games without Magic:
w/out Magic: 19.6 ppg 5.2 rpg 4.2 apg 2.4 st 0.8 blk 3.0 TOV 61.1% TS
with Magic: 20.5 ppg 6.1 rpg 3.5 apg 1.3 st 0.7 blk 2.2 TOV 58.0% TS

So Worthy actually looks fantastic without Magic around. Maybe not the raw line of a Grade A superstar, but considering these are all playoff-type teams sans Johnson, it's actually a fairly pretty line. And one that, most importantly, suggests Worthy was plenty capable without Johnson and wasn't merely a strong beneficiary of his presence. All told, from 1986-1989, Worthy played 25 games without Magic:

1986-1989 James Worthy
w/out Magic: 20.4 ppg 5.2 rpg 4.4 apg 1.5 st 1.1 blk 2.6 TOV 60.1% TS
with Magic: 20.0 ppg 5.4 rpg 3.2 apg 1.1 st 0.8 blk 2.1 TOV 58.6% TS

So he's scoring MORE, at a HIGHER efficiency, while presumably taking on a larger role in activity/creation -- noticeably more assists and turnovers -- and this clearly jibes with Worthy's skillset and (perhaps deserved) reputation.

[DQuinn1575]

There was basically no difference between the ABA and NBA in the last 3-4 years when Erving was dominating. Dr J should be coming right up IMO. Just after the top 10. The way he carried the Nets in 1976 was top 10 player like impact.

That is just not true.

1. SRS of 4 transferring teams dropped average of -3.72. Even if you call Doctor J a + 5, you still get -2.47

SRS
ABA76/NBA77

Denver 5.46/4.95 -.51
Nets 2.56/-6.54 -9.10
Spurs 3.83/0.54 -3.29
Pacers 0.30/-1.68 -1.98


Average = -3.72

And this is 1976 -the ABA got better each year.

2. exhibition game myth

The author comes up with an average 4.1 pts differential after adjusting for home court and quality of teams.

http://courtsideanalyst.wordpress.com/2 ... lity-myth/
[quote=""]
What nearly all who point to the ABA-NBA exhibition results as proof of ABA equality fail to mention is the location of the games and the matchups. Since the NBA did not want to “legitimize” the ABA with a lot of games in NBA arenas, an overwhelming majority of the games were played in ABA gyms and were therefore officiated by ABA refs. Thus to have any comparative value whatsoever the scores must first be adjusted to account for homecourt advantage.

[quote]


3.Study done below comparing pt/reb/asst per minute:

1968 .900
1969 .851
1970 .910
1971 .874
1972 .925
1973 .964
1974 .936
1975 .951
1976 .954
http://www.apbr.org/oct2000.html


4. The diffeence at the time was largely attributed to the center position. Using 1973, the first of the years you mentioned as equal you get this as the best centers in the game:

Jabbar
Wilt
Cowens
Unseld
Lanier
Thurmond
Gilmore

Gilmore dominated the ABA. 33 year old Zelmo Beaty was about equal with Mel Daniels, who had been the league's best center until Gilmore arrived.

Wilt retires and Thurmond slows down, but McAdoo moves up in 74 and Beaty and Daniels fade from the ABA.
Billy Paultz and Swen Nater become the next best ABA centers - solid NBA players, like Sam Lacey, Tom Burleson, Jim Chones (who started in NBA).

Moses obviously becomes Moses but in the ABA he was 19 one year, and only played 43 games and a lot of power forward his 2nd. Dan Issel played some undersized center, but was paired with Gilmore in Kentucky most of the time.

[Baller2014]

That is just not true.

Your method of measuring how the ABA teams transitioned is entirely misleading, because a lot of those teams changed rosters in the jump. I mean, come on, you're comparing the Net (without Dr J!) from 76 to 77. How can you think that's a reasonable way to look at it. Let's look at the 2 teams whose rosters changed the least. The first is one I know well, my own Spurs.

In the 3 years prior to the merger the Spurs had a win% of 53.6%, 60.7% and 59.5%. In the first 3 years in the NBA the Spurs had a win% of 53.7%, 63.4% and 58.5%. They actually did better in the NBA. You criticise their SRS in 1977, but that's easily explainable; James Silas, an all-aba 1st teamer in 1976, suffered a catastrophic injury (from which he never fully recovered) and played only 22 games in 1977. He barely played in 78 either. Despite that, the Spurs SRS kicked it back up to ABA levels in 1978, and by 1979 (when Silas returned at a reduced capacity) they recorded a higher SRS than they had ever recorded in their history and tragically lost in the conference finals (if they'd won, they were the likely champs that year). So with a healthy Silas the Spurs wouldn't have just been breaking even with their ABA results leading into the merger, they'd have been significantly outperforming them.

Then look at the Nuggets. Despite losing some players they were still an awesome NBA team. Not quite as good as they'd been in the ABA, that was a combination of a number of factors (and not every team is going to transition as smoothly as the Spurs), but they were still an awesome team. You mention the Nuggets SRS dropping in 1977, and it did drop marginally, but what you don't seem to know is that the Nuggets actually had the 2nd highest SRS in a 22 team NBA in 1977. The team with the best SRS? The one who beat them, and who won the championship that year. Lots of ABA players showed much the same thing. Sure, Dr J's stats went down on arriving to the NBA, but that was a combination of both his injuries and the team he was on. There were three 30 pt scorers and one 20 point scorer. That wasn't going to work, so the coach said they'd all have to take less shots to make it work, and it almost did, the 76ers were consistently ripping it up despite the presence of way too many gunners, on their talent alone.

PS- I think it's Lebron 12, Magic 10, Hakeem 3 atm, not counting Fplii's tiebreaker for Lebron, and not counting anyone from the first few pages who changed their vote (a few said they were still to vote).

[DQuinn1575]

That is just not true.

Then look at the Nuggets. Despite losing some players they were still an awesome NBA team. Not quite as good as they'd been in the ABA, that was a combination of a number of factors (and not every team is going to transition as smoothly as the Spurs), but they were still an awesome team. You mention the Nuggets SRS dropping in 1977, and it did drop marginally, but what you don't seem to know is that the Nuggets actually had the 2nd highest SRS in a 22 team NBA in 1977. The team with the best SRS? The one who beat them, and who won the championship that year. Lots of ABA players showed much the same thing. Sure, Dr J's stats went down on arriving to the NBA, but that was a combination of both his injuries and the team he was on. There were three 30 pt scorers and one 20 point scorer. That wasn't going to work, so the coach said they'd all have to take less shots to make it work, and it almost did, the 76ers were consistently ripping it up despite the presence of way too many gunners, on their talent alone.

The 2 teams did well in the NBA, especially the Spurs. And some players did well. It wasn't like every NBA team was better than every ABA team - the Spurs, Nuggets, and Nets were probably NBA playoff level teams in 1976.But the 76 ABA teams got 1/6 of their games against a -8.62 Squires team. There is a lot of stat padding when you get 14 games against a team that bad.

They were not equal.

[Baller2014]

I'm talking about the overall strength of the leagues. The NBA had bad teams too let's not forget. You talk about padding, yet I just showed you the Spurs were arguably even better in the NBA, and the Nuggets (despite player losses) were still awesome. I don't even know what your argument is anymore... the other 2 teams who transitioned were worse, because they had to lose major players (in the case of Dr J, they were basically forced to move him). It is absurd to expect teams like the Nets, after getting their heart ripped out in the merger, to still perform to pre-NBA levels. All 4 of the NBA transfers were NBA playoff teams, and so too was another ABA team- the Colonels. Sure, one team was bad (the Squires), but I imagine playing playoff calibre teams 5/6 games more than compensates (and btw, since there were more than 6 teams, at least for some of the season, plus St Louis, it was not "1/6 games" against the Squires).

[penbeast0]

The other teams that folded (Utah and San Diego) were mediocre to bad too but didn't count for much. So, there were 7 teams left, which means that you played 6 other teams so . . . 1-6 is accurate. Kentucky was indeed a good playoff team though, better than Indiana or San Antonio in terms of talent though San Antonio was healthier and played better that year.

[DQuinn1575]

. All 4 of the NBA transfers were NBA playoff teams, and so too was another ABA team- the Colonels. Sure, one team was bad (the Squires), but I imagine playing playoff calibre teams 5/6 games more than compensates (and btw, since there were more than 6 teams, at least for some of the season, plus St Louis, it was not "1/6 games" against the Squires).

The Pacers, a 39-45 ABA team in 1976 were not a NBA playoff team.
Kentucky - real good center is Gilmore- but starting Wil Jones, Bird Averitt, and Louie Dampier?? They got 58 games from a young Maurice Lucas . The Bucks were the worst NBA playoff team with a much better roster - Dandridge,Winters,Bridgeman, Dave Meyers, Elmore Smith, Jim Price

There were 307 ABA games - 307 *2 -83 Squire games = 531; 83 /531 = .156 just shy of .167 for 1/6
San Diego and Utah were a combined 5-17 against the main 6 teams, and were franchises that folded - I don't think they were very competitve.

Spirits had talent, didn't play well together - there were NBA team like that too.

The Squires were 16% of the games.

That would be like 3 NBA teams - say the Bulls, Hawks, and Kings.

One thing I look at to see how bad a team was is to look at how many of their top 7 guys started somewhere (2,000 minutes in a season) in following years. Tells you if they were quality starters, or just happened to be the best a lousy team had:

Bulls 2 - Norm Van Lier and Mickey Johnson played starter minutes (2,000+) in future years. Last year of Love and Thurmond, but I give them no credit for that in this method.
Kings 4 - Archibald,Wedman,Robinzine, Lacey
Hawks - 4 Jones, Drew, Hudson, Henderson
Squires 0

[Baller2014]

Given that you could make the NBA playoffs with 36 wins, I'm not sure why we're dismissing the Pacers as a non-playoff team with 39 wins. Ditto the Spirit. You still played 5/6 games against playoff teams in the ABA, 3 of whom were Goliathesque playoff teams. That's a heck of a lot tougher than the average NBA schedule, even if there's 1/6 easy games thrown in, which of course only serves to make me wonder just how much more some of those ABA teams could have won in the NBA.

Your trashing the Colonels makes zero sense. They were a dominant ABA team. If a lesser Spurs team could play even better in the NBA then there's every reason to think the Colonels would have transitioned just as well.

[penbeast0]

The Pacers, a 39-45 ABA team in 1976 were not a NBA playoff team.
Kentucky - real good center is Gilmore- but starting Wil Jones, Bird Averitt, and Louie Dampier?? They got 58 games from a young Maurice Lucas . The Bucks were the worst NBA playoff team with a much better roster - Dandridge,Winters,Bridgeman, Dave Meyers, Elmore Smith, Jim Price...

They traded Caldwell Jones to get Lucas so they had talent at the 4 all year. Wil Jones was a solid pro for a few years; defensive minded player who Kentucky got because Julius Erving had been quoted as saying that Jones was the guy who defended him best (when he was in Memphis). Louis Dampier was a legit all-star talent but (a) he was 31 years old and starting to slow down and (b) he was best known for his 3 point shooting -- possibly the ABA's best. He was also a small guard like Mack Calvin; NBA teams which didn't have the 3 point line looked for big PGs primarily (except Calvin Murphy). These factors kept him from continuing his career at a high level after the merger but he was definitely a good player. Now, Bird Averitt wasn't much either before or after the merger; a college star who didn't work out.

[Clyde Frazier]

BTW, what are people's opinions of Dr. J? From what I remember from the peaks project, he was an absolute monster, with legitimate impact on both sides of the ball...comparable to LeBron according to some. He also looks like he has some pretty legitimate longevity, making the AS team up until his very last year in the league, and was still a 20 ppg scorer until he was 34. I understand if people downgrade him, because they don't rate the ABA that highly, but I've read some posts (I think by Doctor MJ actually) that suggest the difference in competition between the NBA and ABA was pretty negligible, and what Erving was doing in the ABA shouldn't be dismissed at all. His numbers do drop once he crosses over to the NBA, but according to Erving, he was suffering from injuries his first few years, and along with the adjustment that he would have had to make in a new league on a new team, it would make sense when you look at his numbers. After his first couple of seasons in the NBA (77 and 78), in which he's "only" a 21/8/4 player that led his team to the Finals in his first year...he averages 25/7/4 as the first option from 79-82, during which he leads the Sixers to the Finals 2 more times BEFORE Moses even shows up. After that, he plays the role of a great 2nd option to Moses for a few years, as he gradually declines and eventually retires.

Erving was also an extremely durable player, but he did miss 13 games in 1973 (2nd year in the league, leads ABA in scoring), 8 games in 1978 (2nd year in the NBA), 8 games total in 1979 and 1980 (maybe his two best seasons in the NBA), and 19 games total from 83-85 (his last 3 seasons as a 20+ ppg scorer, was a 2nd option to Moses).

Would be really interesting to see the with/without data for Erving in these games. If ElGee has them and could provide them, that would be great. Otherwise, I could look into it myself when I have the time.

Erving has talked about having to take a back seat to guys like collins and mcginnis in his 1st year in philly at the request of the coach. They had plenty of scorers, and scoring 25+ PPG just wasn't part of the game plan. Would his NBA stats still be somewhat lower if that wasn't the case? I'm sure, but maybe not to the extent that we saw in that first season.

Even if we agree that the ABA was a lesser league, I think what he accomplished as far as winning and production is concerned should still be valued highly. He was also the face of an entire league that struggled to keep its head above water for its entire existence. That's a lot of pressure for a guy who could've just been another all star in the more stable NBA.

As you said, he picked up his production a few years later, and even won MVP in 81 at 30 years old. I know we're talking about the all time greats here, but that clearly helps his case that he wasn't just capitalizing on a weak ABA during his early prime.

His longevity is pretty damn impressive, too. In his 16th season, he was still putting up ~17 PPG, 4 RPG, 3 APG, 1 SPG and 1.6 BPG on 53% TS. He retired as a productive player as opposed to fizzling his way out. It wasn't nearly as common back then to play 15+ seasons, either.

[Jim Naismith]

Seems like the 4 main guys up for consideration here are Bird, Magic, Lebron, and Hakeem. I feel down on Magic in that group, and up on Hakeem and Lebron. Considering the fact that Bird and Magic had incredible talent that also complemented their games quite well surrounding them for much of their careers, while Lebron and Hakeem generally didn't, it seems that he slightly diminished team success Lebron/Hakeem experienced should count for more than that of Bird/Magic. I've read some good arguments for each of them here, although I would have liked to see more for Bird. I feel he has a legit case for the top peak of any of them, which is really saying something in that group.

While Hakeem's peak is very good, it was not sustained throughout his career. Hakeem just does not have as many great prime years as the 3 others.

RealGM Player-of-the-Year Shares
1. Bill Russell................10.956
2. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar...10.221
3. Michael Jordan............9.578
4. Wilt Chamberlain.........7.818
5. Magic Johnson............7.114
6. LeBron James.............6.652
7. Tim Duncan...............6.248
8. Larry Bird..................6.147
9. Shaquille O'Neal...........5.910
10. Julius Erving.............5.046
11. Karl Malone..............4.649
12. Bob Pettit................4.466
13. Oscar Robertson.........4.413
14. Kobe Bryant..............4.380
15. Hakeem Olajuwon.......4.380

(from http://rpoy.dolem.com/)

[colts18]

For those saying that Dr. J declined in the NBA.

Per 100 possession numbers:
74-76 (ABA): 32-13-6, 5.1 stl/blk
77-79 (NBA): 28-10-5, 4.0 stl/blk
80-82 (NBA): 34-10-6. 5.2 stl/blk

His rebounding numbers dropped off which can be explained by the ABA being a smaller league, but Dr. J's numbers from 80-82 are very comparable to his 74-76 ABA peak. Even his steals and blocks, an indicator of athleticism, went up in the NBA despite the fact that he was age 29-31 in that span compared to 23-25 from 74-76.

[HeartBreakKid]

Hardly have any time to read these threads as I've been having a lot of school lately, but I'll quickly give my in-put based on what I've read here.



I think Hakeem is the best player here. I think a lot of the stats posted here have probably shown that Olajuwon is pretty underrated during the earlier portions of his career. The argument that "it is revisionist history to say this guy was good, when people thought he wasn't back then" is a very poor argument, especially when you are considering an age where information and press were severely limited to now.

I emphasis heavily on prime and peak, more so quality than quantity, so longevity doesn't matter much to me (but Olajuwon is very good here too).


With Shaq getting put in, it kinda leads me to why people would not want Olajuwon in there. I think Hakeem and Shaquille are reasonably equal players, I voted for Shaq over Hakeem, but Hakeem is certainly not far behind.


I think Hakeem was a better player than Bird and Magic. Bird and Magic lead some incredible offenses, but their teams were stacked, while as Hakeem never had a super talented team. He won with an ensemble group of roleplayers, then repeated with an upgraded group with Drexler being the most note worthy of the new talent.


Hakeem was able to carry and raise his game to the playoffs, people say that those two years salvaged Hakeem's careers - probably, but...they were amazing years all the same.


Bird and Magic are phenomenal offensive players, far better than Hakeem. But Hakeem is about as good as you can get when it comes to post scoring bar Shaq and Kareem (who I actually think Hakeem is pretty close too). I'd also much rather take Hakeem's offense rather than Wilt Chamberlain's loosy-goosy and sometimes cancerous style.

But really, the big thing here is defense. As someone who put Bill Russell as their #1, it's hard for me to objectively look the other way from Hakeem's impact. Hakeem's defense is astronomical. Statistically, I don't think I can prove it's as high as Bird or Magic's offenses, but I think their stats are often skewed by how good their teams were. But Hakeem is certainly a top 5 defender of all time, and he is a true #1 option and a serious match up nightmare on the other end.

Hakeem is the best two way big, it's hard for me to take even a Lebron James over him (who I think is a better player than both Bird and Magic). Hakeem will net you 4-5 blocks, 12-14 rebounds, a good 23-25 points, do all the little things, all while being a phenomenal and loyal teammate.


My vote goes to Hakeem Olajuwon

[HeartBreakKid]

Oh wow, so I just skimmed the past few pages and I'm semi-shocked to see Hakeem is a distant 3rd party. James is winning against Magic huh? Did not expect that (though if it comes to a run off, I'll likely vote James).

[PCProductions]

My vote for #7 of all time: Lebron James

I think I can comfortably say these three things:

1. He has the highest peak of all players left in the pool, save for the possibility of Larry Bird. Just at a glance, here are the number of players who have posted a PER of 30 in a meaningfully-long playoff run:

1. Michael Jordan (1990, 1991, 1993)
2. Lebron James (2009, 2012, 2014)
3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (1977)
4. Tim Duncan (2002)
5. Shaq (1998, 2000, 2003)
6. Wilt (1964)
7. Chris Paul (2008)

I tried to find some reasonable cutoff for "meaningfully-long", and I arbitrarily did 450 MP in a single playoff run. PER is a flawed stat as we know, but it does a good job of summing up a box score, and can you really argue with the results in this case? Most of those are well known playoff runs by all timers.

Anyway, this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to finding where Lebron pops up in searches of "ridiculous stat cutoffs that few players in history qualify for." You'll often find Lebron's 2009 season as one of those "how in the world did somebody play that well?" kind of seasons. It'll likely go down as the best season by a player to not win the championship, if you ask me.

However, I don't even view 2009 as Lebron's peak season, though I think he was in his athletic peak that year. It's clear that we've seen the best of his physical play by now, and we're starting to ramp down as we wind into the 2015 season on that end. Lebron's peak isn't actually unanimously agreed upon, even by his fans, similar to Kobe. Some say 2009 because of the eye popping numbers and of course the Orlando series. Some say 2012 because of his consistency throughout the playoffs in his first championship at the classic peak age of 27. I'm in the camp that would argue 2013 as his true peak. My belief is that it was the year where he finally had slimmed back down to his pre-2011 days in Cleveland combined with his new skillset of working out of the post--which he seldom employed as a Cav--and an absolutely devastating jumper, especially from three. It was his most complete offensive season and was also the last year, up to now, at least, that he gave it his all on the defensive end. 2013 Lebron might be the best two-way perimeter player not named Michael Jordan, and he, in my opinion, gives his airness a run for his money.

2. Even if we stopped his career right now, he would have decent longetivity. For example, he's surpassed Magic in career, regular season minutes. He's neck and neck with Larry's career minutes in both the post and regular season. He's logged close to a pretty complete career level of minutes before he's even turned 30, and he hasn't missed more than 6 straight games at any point of his NBA career. Lebron embodies dependability, and hopefully this translates into a long, Malone/Jabbar-like career with the care he takes of his body.

3. His skill set is highly-portable. Lebron has displayed a mastery of working off of the ball in Miami, especially last year. He has possibly the most lethal post game in the league now, and this bodes well for his athletic decline. He's a devastating catch and shoot player (2nd in the league behind Kyle Korver in eFG%) who can't be left alone on the perimeter. He has probably the best passing and court vision of any forward ever save for Bird, once again. Defensively, he's an anchor and can disrupt all over the court like Jordan, though last year he's lost a step on that end. I'm very curious to see how this second run in Cleveland works out for both the Heat and the Cavs because it will certainly help explain how immediately portable and impactful he can be, especially defensively.

It feels a little preemptive to vote for him this high up, but if you look at his career up to now, it already stacks up with Bird, Magic and the like. I'm confident that he will rise as his career goes on, but I can comfortably say he's already at this level with 11 seasons under his belt.

[DQuinn1575]

Given that you could make the NBA playoffs with 36 wins, I'm not sure why we're dismissing the Pacers as a non-playoff team with 39 wins. Ditto the Spirit. You still played 5/6 games against playoff teams in the ABA, 3 of whom were Goliathesque playoff teams. That's a heck of a lot tougher than the average NBA schedule, even if there's 1/6 easy games thrown in, which of course only serves to make me wonder just how much more some of those ABA teams could have won in the NBA.

Your trashing the Colonels makes zero sense. They were a dominant ABA team. If a lesser Spurs team could play even better in the NBA then there's every reason to think the Colonels would have transitioned just as well.

Goliathesque playoff teams? the ABA teams won a combined 2 playoff games in 1977 NBA

The Colonels in1976 were 4th place - that is not a dominant team. The Spurs were better in 1976 than the Colonels.

The Pacers were below the Colonels, and finished 8 games out of the playoffs in 1977.
The math would also say if the Colonels > Pacers by 7 games, then the Colonels miss playoffs by 1 -
It was a stupid conference alignment where teams with 40 wins did not make the playoffs and a team with 36 did.
Maybe the Colonels make playoffs. But not the Pacers.

The Spirits finished below the Pacers. Talent was there, the pieces didnt fit together right.