RealGM Top 100 List #7

[Texas Chuck]

I was just thinking about CP3 actually. Not in terms of actually nominating him in this project as of now, but when the time comes, I'm definitely interested in how people rank him. The dude has an outstanding peak, has been a top 3 player for quite some time now and is an insanely good basketball player.

I hope he doesnt get overrated because of his current status in the league. There are a large of number of PG's who need to hit that list before we even remotely start discussing Chris Paul.

[Doctor MJ]

And sports don't always get better. Have boxers gotten better?

A good thing to bring up. The talent pool of a sport can absolutely get worse, it all depends on what other things are in play.

In the US it's clearly that at a certain point in time if you were the peak of human physical specimens, you became a boxer. That was where the big money was, and it was actually pretty easy to get into. Just to into a place where fighting happened - which was everywhere - and if you keep winning, you'll move up.

Now, the money has shifted, and that's part of the issue. General rule is that basketball is the place to make the most money, though to be honest the best boxers still make tons, and that's despite the fact that we haven't seen much crossover from them at least in the US for quite a while.

I would actually argue the bigger issue for boxing talent is that it's far less intuitive how to get into it relative to other sports nowadays. If you were to find a 3rd grade LeBron James and looking to encourage him to make the most of his body, you're probably not going to advice to go to the place where people will try to bash his head in even though you know he might be able to get rich with it. And so by the time he's old enough that you might even suggest boxing to him without feeling like a terrible person, he's already a massively hyped basketball prospect.

[Doctor MJ]

I was just thinking about CP3 actually. Not in terms of actually nominating him in this project as of now, but when the time comes, I'm definitely interested in how people rank him. The dude has an outstanding peak, has been a top 3 player for quite some time now and is an insanely good basketball player.

Good chance he'll rank in my 20s. If not that, definitely 30s.

[acrossthecourt]

I said generally, by the way, not that all sports always get better with time. Finding specific examples that don't fit the mold doesn't invalidate it.

[E-Balla]

-snip-

I totally disagree with your point about James playing against weaker competition.

For one, Kevin Durant and Chris Paul are not chop liver. Kevin Durant is probably the top 20 best basketball players if we're talking peak. There are people who think Chris Paul's peak is even better than Magic's, and many more who think it is second at the very least. If we're talking actual impact, both guys are with in the top 25 best players ever. Durant would have been MVP many years other than this one.

That's why I singled them out. Those two are amazing. Not top 20 I'd say both are in the 20-30 range in their peak years but Paul hasn't been at his peak in 5 years. 2012 Paul probably isn't top 35. Also anyone putting peak Paul over Magic needs to stop watching boxscores. Chris Paul is amazing and for a PG I'll give him a top 5 peak but he's not Magic, Oscar, or Nash and he hasn't really separated himself from peak Isiah Thomas. If we are talking impact KD might hit top 25 (probably in the 20-25 range) and Paul from before his injury would be top 25 (he was 22 in the peak project from 2 years ago).

I have a hard time believing that the league is not better than it was 10 years ago, much less 40-50 years, or however far back you want to go. I'm in the belief that a star will more or less be a star no matter what, because what makes stars is that they are so much better than the average player that they are like Gods amongst men. However, the typical roleplayer in the NBA is clearly getting better as the years go by. How can it be other wise?

Well I think the level of play is about even with the early to mid 80s. The late 80's/early 90's is a different story though. It's the best era in terms of stars and if you look at any list of the best drafts ever they'll be dominated by the mid 80's and early 90's draft classes.

More people are playing basketball, from more countries, more techniques are being introduced (albeit not many, as basketball has largely stayed the same for along time), better quality athletes, better quality training. I have a hard time seeing the league from head to toe being weaker than say the NBA in the 90s during its expansion era. The NBA in the 70s is the only exception because a lot of the talent went to the ABA.

There are more players now but is that a good thing? It seems those extra players in the league now are all projects. Back in the day most people didn't sign young scrubs to develop them they'd rather have proven vets and proven NCAA athletes. That makes a large difference.

Most of all, are we forgetting that James played against the best players of the 2000s?

Chris Paul and Kevin Durant might be his competition during his championship years, but...what about before that?


Did Lebron James not play against Dirk Nowitzki in his prime, and was James not considered a better player than him? In 08, 09 and 10 - even 2011 during the RS, that was the general consensus, one could argue that just because ti is the consensus doesn't mean it is right, however it's pretty clear to see that pre peak Lebron James was as good as the best players from the 2000s, a smidget worse, but James is a much better player now than what he was as a Cav.


James played against Kevin Garnett, Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, D-Wade, Nowitzki and Steve Nash, when all of them were in his prime. He was either considered better than some, or as good as them all. From 06-10 all of those players were more or less in their primes, or at the very least had prime years, and James was either an MVP run away or an MVP candidate in all of those years, and that was him before his peak.

So I don't get the competition argument. If James competed with the who's who of the 2000s before his peak, why does that diminish that he is dominating the competition in the 2010s? The only real great player of the 2000s whos prime didn't properly align with James was Shaquile O'Neal. Other than that, James looked as good as anyone else.

He should look great/better than them that's why he's being discussed. My point in bringing that up was that people were talking down Magic (he wasn't even better than Bird for half his career) and Hakeem (he only won after Jordan left and the Sonics lost/Robinson and Ewing were better at times) like those same points could't be used for Lebron (he wasn't better than Wade most his early career and he wasn't the best player in the league for a while). Overall if you want to see these as negatives look at how the same type of arguments can be applied to all 3 guys receiving votes.

Also, you're discrediting James MVP seasons, and then citing things like Shaq's competition being old Karl Malone, Gary Payton and Zo? Seriously? How on earth is Kevin Durant and Chris Paul inferior competition to those guys? How is Zo great competition to you, yet you do not even mention Dwight Howard who has played against James his entire career?

Peak ZO > Peak Howard (who I didn't include because he got hurt in 2012 and was never the same).
Gary Payton in 2000 was about as good as Paul now.
Old Malone was MVP Malone so I don't know why his age would be an issue. His 5 year prime was from ages 32-36 and he won MVP the season before that (yes he was better than both Paul and maybe KD in 2012).

[Texas Chuck]

I was just thinking about CP3 actually. Not in terms of actually nominating him in this project as of now, but when the time comes, I'm definitely interested in how people rank him. The dude has an outstanding peak, has been a top 3 player for quite some time now and is an insanely good basketball player.

Good chance he'll rank in my 20s. If not that, definitely 30s.

Can't wait to hear your arguments for him over a number of other PG's then. This may be a chance to really have my eyes opened on a guy.

[E-Balla]

I was just thinking about CP3 actually. Not in terms of actually nominating him in this project as of now, but when the time comes, I'm definitely interested in how people rank him. The dude has an outstanding peak, has been a top 3 player for quite some time now and is an insanely good basketball player.

I hope he doesnt get overrated because of his current status in the league. There are a large of number of PG's who need to hit that list before we even remotely start discussing Chris Paul.

Actually I've started to somehow get a little lower on his peak but I'd still take him over all PGs other than Nash, Magic, Walt, and Oscar. Payton, Thomas, and Kidd are close but I'm not really sure I'd take them over CP3. I could easily be convinced though.

[E-Balla]

And sports don't always get better. Have boxers gotten better?

A good thing to bring up. The talent pool of a sport can absolutely get worse, it all depends on what other things are in play.

In the US it's clearly that at a certain point in time if you were the peak of human physical specimens, you became a boxer. That was where the big money was, and it was actually pretty easy to get into. Just to into a place where fighting happened - which was everywhere - and if you keep winning, you'll move up.

Now, the money has shifted, and that's part of the issue. General rule is that basketball is the place to make the most money, though to be honest the best boxers still make tons, and that's despite the fact that we haven't seen much crossover from them at least in the US for quite a while.

I would actually argue the bigger issue for boxing talent is that it's far less intuitive how to get into it relative to other sports nowadays. If you were to find a 3rd grade LeBron James and looking to encourage him to make the most of his body, you're probably not going to advice to go to the place where people will try to bash his head in even though you know he might be able to get rich with it. And so by the time he's old enough that you might even suggest boxing to him without feeling like a terrible person, he's already a massively hyped basketball prospect.

Actually I was talking about this recently and I feel a lot of the basketball talent is going into football now. Look at how many giant physical specimens are joining the NFL nowadays. All the top players n the drafts are 6-5 to 6-7 behemoths (and that's barefoot NFL listings). Look at someone like Calvin Johnson who if he came up back in the 80's would either stay in football as a tight end or play basketball. Remember football is still the number one sport and now that defenses are trying to get bigger in the secondary and faster in the front 7 a ton of those guys you see out there look like basketball players athletically. That's not even mentioning how many athletes soccer is taking from all sports.

[HeartBreakKid]

And sports don't always get better. Have boxers gotten better?

A good thing to bring up. The talent pool of a sport can absolutely get worse, it all depends on what other things are in play.

In the US it's clearly that at a certain point in time if you were the peak of human physical specimens, you became a boxer. That was where the big money was, and it was actually pretty easy to get into. Just to into a place where fighting happened - which was everywhere - and if you keep winning, you'll move up.

Now, the money has shifted, and that's part of the issue. General rule is that basketball is the place to make the most money, though to be honest the best boxers still make tons, and that's despite the fact that we haven't seen much crossover from them at least in the US for quite a while.

I would actually argue the bigger issue for boxing talent is that it's far less intuitive how to get into it relative to other sports nowadays. If you were to find a 3rd grade LeBron James and looking to encourage him to make the most of his body, you're probably not going to advice to go to the place where people will try to bash his head in even though you know he might be able to get rich with it. And so by the time he's old enough that you might even suggest boxing to him without feeling like a terrible person, he's already a massively hyped basketball prospect.

Actually I was talking about this recently and I feel a lot of the basketball talent is going into football now. Look at how many giant physical specimens are joining the NFL nowadays. All the top players n the drafts are 6-5 to 6-7 behemoths (and that's barefoot NFL listings). Look at someone like Calvin Johnson who if he came up back in the 80's would either stay in football as a tight end or play basketball. Remember football is still the number one sport and now that defenses are trying to get bigger in the secondary and faster in the front 7 a ton of those guys you see out there look like basketball players athletically. That's not even mentioning how many athletes soccer is taking from all sports.

Not at all, the best athletes still go to the NBA. The best athletes who are 6'6 in football are considered basketball rejects.


Football isn't the #1 sport, nor is boxing worse now than it is before. You're clearly talking from a domestic view, when sports are international. Basketball is one of the most popular sports in the world, and NBA players make way more money than Football players. Most tall great athletes (which is really what is relevant, as great athletes from 5'0-6'0 are pretty irrelevant in the NBA) would prefer and are drawn to the NBA, not the NFL.

[E-Balla]

A good thing to bring up. The talent pool of a sport can absolutely get worse, it all depends on what other things are in play.

In the US it's clearly that at a certain point in time if you were the peak of human physical specimens, you became a boxer. That was where the big money was, and it was actually pretty easy to get into. Just to into a place where fighting happened - which was everywhere - and if you keep winning, you'll move up.

Now, the money has shifted, and that's part of the issue. General rule is that basketball is the place to make the most money, though to be honest the best boxers still make tons, and that's despite the fact that we haven't seen much crossover from them at least in the US for quite a while.

I would actually argue the bigger issue for boxing talent is that it's far less intuitive how to get into it relative to other sports nowadays. If you were to find a 3rd grade LeBron James and looking to encourage him to make the most of his body, you're probably not going to advice to go to the place where people will try to bash his head in even though you know he might be able to get rich with it. And so by the time he's old enough that you might even suggest boxing to him without feeling like a terrible person, he's already a massively hyped basketball prospect.

Actually I was talking about this recently and I feel a lot of the basketball talent is going into football now. Look at how many giant physical specimens are joining the NFL nowadays. All the top players n the drafts are 6-5 to 6-7 behemoths (and that's barefoot NFL listings). Look at someone like Calvin Johnson who if he came up back in the 80's would either stay in football as a tight end or play basketball. Remember football is still the number one sport and now that defenses are trying to get bigger in the secondary and faster in the front 7 a ton of those guys you see out there look like basketball players athletically. That's not even mentioning how many athletes soccer is taking from all sports.

Not at all, the best athletes still go to the NBA. The best athletes who are 6'6 in football are considered basketball rejects.


Football isn't the #1 sport, nor is boxing worse now than it is before. You're clearly talking from a domestic view, when sports are international. Basketball is one of the most popular sports in the world, and NBA players make way more money than Football players. Most tall great athletes (which is really what is relevant, as great athletes from 5'0-6'0 are pretty irrelevant in the NBA) would prefer and are drawn to the NBA, not the NFL.

The best 6-6ish athletes in the NFL are mostly defensive linemen and wide receivers. The only basketball rejects are the recieving tight ends and the best tight end (Gronk) is a football guy. Then there's guys like AP who is the same height as D. Rose with more strength and explosiveness. The only guys that go into basketball first are the 7 footers and they're all trying to be Kobe so they have mismatched skills for the most part.

Also boxing is clearly worse. Only the middleweights aren't weak and all the other weight classes are missing all time greats (outside of Mayweather who has a top 20 argument that's boxing right now and isn't old?). Most tall athletes are still drawn to basketball but not as many as before because the NFL is starting to spread even in the US where it has a chokehold on other sports.

[Clyde Frazier]

Spoiler:

Current vote count approximately 1 day in Updated to the present:

Magic (9)
JordansBulls
Andrewww
GC Pantalones
Basketballefan
Ardee
TrueLAfan
An Unbiased Fan
Clyde Frazier
RayBan-Sematra

LeBron (16)
Penbeast0
SactoKingsFan
Rico381
Trex_8063
DannyNoonan1221
Dquinn1575
Acrossthecourt
Baller2014
fpliii
Narigo
DoctorMJ
batmana
PCProductions
rich316
O-6
Chuck Texas

Hakeem (6)
Gregoire
Ronnymac2
therealbig3
HeartbreakKid
colts18
MacGill

I counted "preemptive runoff votes" as having changed their vote. I am not going back past the start of the runoff looking for these in the future so please don't do this in the future. And . . . be sure to put analysis with your votes; again, for the sake of counting the votes, I don't want to be making judgement calls as to whether previous posts actually made your case for the person you were voting for.

This gives us a 16 to (9+6) 15 victory for LeBron. I could easily have gone the other way with my judgments and put us into a runoff (DoctorMJ, fpliii, magicmer) but I don't think it would have changed the eventual outcome.
LEBRON JAMES

Did you decide on this in the interest of time? I think we could've waited an extra day to do a real run off as it's still early on. The discussion wasn't really slowing down. Just curious.

[Doctor MJ]

And sports don't always get better. Have boxers gotten better?

A good thing to bring up. The talent pool of a sport can absolutely get worse, it all depends on what other things are in play.

In the US it's clearly that at a certain point in time if you were the peak of human physical specimens, you became a boxer. That was where the big money was, and it was actually pretty easy to get into. Just to into a place where fighting happened - which was everywhere - and if you keep winning, you'll move up.

Now, the money has shifted, and that's part of the issue. General rule is that basketball is the place to make the most money, though to be honest the best boxers still make tons, and that's despite the fact that we haven't seen much crossover from them at least in the US for quite a while.

I would actually argue the bigger issue for boxing talent is that it's far less intuitive how to get into it relative to other sports nowadays. If you were to find a 3rd grade LeBron James and looking to encourage him to make the most of his body, you're probably not going to advice to go to the place where people will try to bash his head in even though you know he might be able to get rich with it. And so by the time he's old enough that you might even suggest boxing to him without feeling like a terrible person, he's already a massively hyped basketball prospect.

Actually I was talking about this recently and I feel a lot of the basketball talent is going into football now. Look at how many giant physical specimens are joining the NFL nowadays. All the top players n the drafts are 6-5 to 6-7 behemoths (and that's barefoot NFL listings). Look at someone like Calvin Johnson who if he came up back in the 80's would either stay in football as a tight end or play basketball. Remember football is still the number one sport and now that defenses are trying to get bigger in the secondary and faster in the front 7 a ton of those guys you see out there look like basketball players athletically. That's not even mentioning how many athletes soccer is taking from all sports.

You don't make the same money in football and the damage to your body is far worse. While I won't claim that clinches that the best athletes would prefer basketball instead, there's actually a long of history of people going into football reluctantly. Both Joe Montana and Barry Sanders - guys growing up pre-Jordan-glamour, stated that they preferred basketball and only went with football because their talent pushed them so clearly in that direction.

I may be speaking with bias here, but part of the issue is that basketball is just more fun to play if you're a person who relishes in being creative out there. I'll certainly acknowledge that there's nothing like watching Barry Sanders, but he was so, so far off the charts even by NFL standards that he's just not any kind of norm. For the most part, when football is serious, running is done economically. You're trying to eek out just a few more yards and the moment where things get congested it ends in a violent thud followed by boredom. Basketball, by contrast only sees things get more interesting as the congestion happens.

Re: soccer. There you're quite right to point out the nuance, but there's a pretty clear dividing line: If you're short outside of the US, soccer is typically the thing to focus on, if you're tall it's basketball. And in the US, if you're tall it's still basketball, while if you're short it's more debatable what to focus on.

Also, soccer was another one of my favorite sports to play, but of course the issue is is that it's a sport whose premise is basically "What's the most amazing thing about a human's physicality? Hands. Alright we'll have a sport specifically designed to not showcase that." I mean, again, I still loved it, but if you're trying to build the best possible sport, soccer is designed by starting out with the stupidest possible decision. Realistically I don't think most factor that in when deciding what to focus on, but growing up in Southern California where we could play anything we wanted most days, I was always arguing for basketball despite the fact I played on a soccer team every season too (and ftr, my height was pretty average back then so that wasn't the draw for me).

[penbeast0]

Spoiler:

Current vote count approximately 1 day in Updated to the present:

Magic (9)
JordansBulls
Andrewww
GC Pantalones
Basketballefan
Ardee
TrueLAfan
An Unbiased Fan
Clyde Frazier
RayBan-Sematra

LeBron (16)
Penbeast0
SactoKingsFan
Rico381
Trex_8063
DannyNoonan1221
Dquinn1575
Acrossthecourt
Baller2014
fpliii
Narigo
DoctorMJ
batmana
PCProductions
rich316
O-6
Chuck Texas

Hakeem (6)
Gregoire
Ronnymac2
therealbig3
HeartbreakKid
colts18
MacGill

I counted "preemptive runoff votes" as having changed their vote. I am not going back past the start of the runoff looking for these in the future so please don't do this in the future. And . . . be sure to put analysis with your votes; again, for the sake of counting the votes, I don't want to be making judgement calls as to whether previous posts actually made your case for the person you were voting for.

This gives us a 16 to (9+6) 15 victory for LeBron. I could easily have gone the other way with my judgments and put us into a runoff (DoctorMJ, fpliii, magicmer) but I don't think it would have changed the eventual outcome.
LEBRON JAMES

Did you decide on this in the interest of time? I think we could've waited an extra day to do a real run off as it's still early on. The discussion wasn't really slowing down. Just curious.

Actually, I made the call and count first and was quite surprised it wasn't a runoff. I made the comment because of having to redo everything after I screwed up the count in thread number two.

[RSCD3_]

A good thing to bring up. The talent pool of a sport can absolutely get worse, it all depends on what other things are in play.

In the US it's clearly that at a certain point in time if you were the peak of human physical specimens, you became a boxer. That was where the big money was, and it was actually pretty easy to get into. Just to into a place where fighting happened - which was everywhere - and if you keep winning, you'll move up.

Now, the money has shifted, and that's part of the issue. General rule is that basketball is the place to make the most money, though to be honest the best boxers still make tons, and that's despite the fact that we haven't seen much crossover from them at least in the US for quite a while.

I would actually argue the bigger issue for boxing talent is that it's far less intuitive how to get into it relative to other sports nowadays. If you were to find a 3rd grade LeBron James and looking to encourage him to make the most of his body, you're probably not going to advice to go to the place where people will try to bash his head in even though you know he might be able to get rich with it. And so by the time he's old enough that you might even suggest boxing to him without feeling like a terrible person, he's already a massively hyped basketball prospect.

Actually I was talking about this recently and I feel a lot of the basketball talent is going into football now. Look at how many giant physical specimens are joining the NFL nowadays. All the top players n the drafts are 6-5 to 6-7 behemoths (and that's barefoot NFL listings). Look at someone like Calvin Johnson who if he came up back in the 80's would either stay in football as a tight end or play basketball. Remember football is still the number one sport and now that defenses are trying to get bigger in the secondary and faster in the front 7 a ton of those guys you see out there look like basketball players athletically. That's not even mentioning how many athletes soccer is taking from all sports.

You don't make the same money in football and the damage to your body is far worse. While I won't claim that clinches that the best athletes would prefer basketball instead, there's actually a long of history of people going into football reluctantly. Both Joe Montana and Barry Sanders - guys growing up pre-Jordan-glamour, stated that they preferred basketball and only went with football because their talent pushed them so clearly in that direction.

I may be speaking with bias here, but part of the issue is that basketball is just more fun to play if you're a person who relishes in being creative out there. I'll certainly acknowledge that there's nothing like watching Barry Sanders, but he was so, so far off the charts even by NFL standards that he's just not any kind of norm. For the most part, when football is serious, running is done economically. You're trying to eek out just a few more yards and the moment where things get congested it ends in a violent thud followed by boredom. Basketball, by contrast only sees things get more interesting as the congestion happens.

Re: soccer. There you're quite right to point out the nuance, but there's a pretty clear dividing line: If you're short outside of the US, soccer is typically the thing to focus on, if you're tall it's basketball. And in the US, if you're tall it's still basketball, while if you're short it's more debatable what to focus on.

Also, soccer was another one of my favorite sports to play, but of course the issue is is that it's a sport whose premise is basically "What's the most amazing thing about a human's physicality? Hands. Alright we'll have a sport specifically designed to not showcase that." I mean, again, I still loved it, but if you're trying to build the best possible sport, soccer is designed by starting out with the stupidest possible decision. Realistically I don't think most factor that in when deciding what to focus on, but growing up in Southern California where we could play anything we wanted most days, I was always arguing for basketball despite the fact I played on a soccer team every season too (and ftr, my height was pretty average
back then so that wasn't the draw for me).

Well they have a sport which is very similar to soccer but uses the hands and I think it could become something huge soon. Handball , basically soccer with using your hands and a ball that most people can palm.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[Baller2014]

Pleased to see my switched vote made the difference. Looking forward to the Bird v Magic discussion now.

[ceiling raiser]

Overall Royals without Robertson during his career there were 22.2 WIN% team (12 wins and 40 loses, so pretty big sample and the biggest single season sample also tells the same story), with him 54.4 WIN%. That's big impact and it's consistent with how much he improved Bucks in 1971 or how Milwaukee played without him (when still was in his prime), so it's not like he only had big impact on weak teams. He also improved good/very good teams to GREAT ones. That's top 10 all time level player and only because of lack of team success in crappy organization so many people don't see how good he was - similar story is with KG and his Wolves years.

Slow down there. Splits and gamr breakdowns on bballref only go back to 1964, so I'm not sure where you're getting your stats from but I'll stick with the actual stats, which give the Royals a 11-35 record without Oscar from 1964 onwards. So yes, the team was bad, that's a 20 win pace. But with Oscar they were only a 46 pace win team over that stretch (this would be even lower if I'd included the previous 3 seasons). That's a big improvement, but it doesn't really quite compare to the top end carry jobs we're looking at for the top 10-15 players. It also was done in a weaker NBA. Lebron can improve a 20 win team to a lot more than 46 wins, especially in an NBA that was still becoming professional, and recovering from segregation and lack of money.

I don't know what you mean "consistent with how much he improved the Bucks". The Bucks won 56 games before Oscar even arrived, and Kareem by every reasonable assessment (stats, eye test, media analysis, etc) got better after his rookie year. The Bucks played on a 60 win pace in games Oscar missed over his 4 years there. Oscar was a good addition, but he wasn't "making" the Bucks good, they were probably going to win the 1971 title without him anyhow.

This is a previous thread, but I just though I'd chime in here.

Check out nbastats.net when you have a chance. I'm one of the researchers on the site there so I can affirm their authenticity. We dump newspapers from archives and other primary sources to accumulate complete box scores (from local papers) and look through articles for other mentions of stats.

For Oscar in particular, here's his game log:

http://nbastats.net/01NBA/09playerlogs/Robertson.xls

there's some useful stuff in there that might help in your analysis.