The Official Criteria Thread (2017-20)---PLEASE CONTRIBUTE if participating in top 100 project! (read OP)

[Goudelock]

My method goes something like this: I use the eye test to start with. Then I do research on the player to see how he was perceived during his playing days. Then I compare that to how he is perceived now, and I try to figure out why that is.

Team success is important to me, but if it's apparent that said player was excelling but the other players on the team were subpar despite his best efforts, then I'm not going to hold that against him.

Is that detailed enough?

[BasketballFan7]

I want to have some sort of numerical system so that I can try to not let bias overwhelm my voting. I don't plan on the system being very scientific or at all revolutionary. I only desire to be able to create it so that my ranking thought process is transparent. I looked at the past 50 championship teams to form tiers of players that have been on championship team. I will use other poster's arguments to tweak my system. I will look at individual seasons from the perspective of a GM or coach. Can I count on this player, during X season, to:

- Tier 1A: Be the clear best player on a championship team and provide GOAT-level impact throughout the RS and PS (11 points, example 88-93, 00-03 Shaq, 02 and 03 Duncan, 93-95 Hakeem, etc)
*I cut off level 10 after the top seasons of Magic and Bird
- Tier 1B: Be the clear best player on a championship team (9 points, example 08-10 Kobe, 99,05,07 Duncan, 15 Curry, 83 Moses Malone, 11 Dirk, 06 Wade) *Must have reached playoffs
- Tier 1C: Be a potential best player on a championship team (8 points, the player missed the playoffs; examples 75 and 76 KAJ, 05 Garnett), or one who had that level of play in the RS but not in the PS, example 10 Chris Paul, 94 and 95 Robinson, 85 Bird)
- Tier 1D: Be a co-best player on a championship team (7 points, example Karl Malone, non-peak versions of Malone, Dirk)
- Tier 2A: Be a quality second best player on a championship team (5 points, example John Stockton, 91 Pippen, 00 Kobe, 05 Manu, 85 Kareem)
- Tier 2B: Be a second best player on a championship team (3 points, example 05 Parker, 16 Irving, 14 Duncan, 15 Klay Thompson, 87 Kareem)
- - Tier 2C: Be a decent role player on a championship team (1 point, example 15 Bogut, 15 Livingston, 16 Duncan, 88 Kareem)

I don't give any credit for seasons where the player missed more than 50% of the regular season games or the playoffs.

Other point bonuses:

Flag Bearer(player played entire career with one team; examples Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant) - 5 points
Icon (player gives some significant value to basketball outside of the court) - 5 points
Ring Counting (won a ring as the best player on the team by MVP shares) - 2 points
Ring Counting 2 (won a ring as an all-star) - 1 point
MVP (MVP award shares) - 2 points x MVP award shares (rounded down)
Peak Bonus - Based on the RealGM peaks project; top 5 (7 points), top 11 (5), top 25 (3), and top 40 (2); my reasoning is that I believe the 4 GOAT peak contenders are MJ, LeBron, Shaq, and Wilt. I then see the next small gap following Magic and Bird at #11.

Offense v. Defense
For players who I deem to be best player on a championship team caliber, I value offense for any player I judge outside of the 1960's because it seems to me that it is generally a necessity for your best player to be a capable scorer. I nevertheless

Portability
I don't care about cross era portability. For upper echelon players, I don't care about portability at all as anything other than a tie breaker. It is the responsibility of the role-players to fit around them and the responsibility of the GM to find the pieces to make it work. I would likely only subtract value in an extreme case. Perhaps with a player such as 17 Russell Westbrook. The stars dictate. As player quality drops, I do value portability and scores will be adjusted accordingly,

Box Score Statistics
I don't use box score advanced statistics unless I a comparing a.) player's in similar circumstance and of the same position or b.) a player's ability to maintain his own production into the postseason or from season-to-season. For instance, I may compare a player's regular season PER with his postseason PER, but I won't do that without examining the context. Or I will view a player's decline through the decline of his own box score stats. I won't compare Ben Wallace and Steve Nash with PER. I won't compare Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, and Chris Paul with PER.

Impact Statistics
I like impact stats. I can be convinced by them. I like the overall per minute value over the offensive and defensive splits. I don't think they have that sorted out yet. Where impact stats are not available, I will still take "impact" into consideration. I won't lean entirely on box score for years in which impact data isn't readily available.

Playoffs vs. Regular season
For top tier players, I definitely value the playoffs greatly. I cannot give a player the benefit of the doubt if they do not make the playoffs. Not in a "greatest players / careers" list. I could do that in a "best seasons" list. But, for careers, I would essentially be saying that I would view Chris Paul, David Robinson, Karl Malone, or Kevin Garnett, to use some examples, as better players if they missed the playoffs altogether.

Accolades
As for accolades, I am using MVP award shares to determine who was the best player on each team and for adding points to player scores.

Intangibles
I don't want to value them heavily because I know zilch about these players personally. So they won't have a big impact. I will say that what I know about these players may give them the benefit of the doubt in some situations, or it may make me do the opposite.

Durability
I don't count seasons where a star player ended the season missing the playoffs or when he missed over half of the regular season. I don't expect to win a championship (or have a chance to) under those circumstances. As for missed games, I don't really care if a player missed a few games a year. I am looking at seasons that I gave credit for in which the player missed 10 or more games. I am adding the missed games in such seasons together and subtracting one point from the players total score for every 20 missed games during these seasons. This is essentially the Shaq rule. His score is inflated without it. I don't care about missed RS games much, but he missed a lot.

Please inform me on inconsistencies or suggestions for my system. I don't want it to be precise. I simply want to be consistent and have it reflect what I value.

[ardee]

Total career value, skewed a bit towards Playoff performance.

Essentially it's similar to what ElGee does only I'm not as scientific as coming up with a formula for expected titles, I simply mentally assign a rating to every season, add them up, and look at the total value a team gets from their career. I do think RS injuries are more serious than some others do, as such I punish Shaq for example for his '96-'98 stretch a bit.

I'm also a little skewed to offensive players, as I generally think an amazing offensive player with 4 defensive role players will yield a more successful team than an amazing defensive player with 4 offensive role players.

I don't factor in accolades too much, but I don't ignore them entirely. Where there's smoke there is some fire: hence I don't think 2011 Rose's season was as overrated as some do, and I do believe Kobe was a much better defender than some people here give him credit for.

I generally don't dock points for personality unless the guy is an absolute dick and causes major problems, like Cousins for example, or when someone has a perfect personality like Duncan, I add points.

That's about it I think.

[trex_8063]

My method goes something like this: I use the eye test to start with. Then I do research on the player to see how he was perceived during his playing days. Then I compare that to how he is perceived now, and I try to figure out why that is.

Team success is important to me, but if it's apparent that said player was excelling but the other players on the team were subpar despite his best efforts, then I'm not going to hold that against him.

Is that detailed enough?

Does statistical evaluation factor into you method to any great degree?

[trex_8063]

Spoiler:

I want to have some sort of numerical system so that I can try to not let bias overwhelm my voting. I don't plan on the system being very scientific or at all revolutionary. I only desire to be able to create it so that my ranking thought process is transparent. I looked at the past 50 championship teams to form tiers of players that have been on championship team. I will use other poster's arguments to tweak my system. I will look at individual seasons from the perspective of a GM or coach. Can I count on this player, during X season, to:

- Tier 1: Be the clear best player on a championship team and provide GOAT-level impact throughout the RS and PS (10 points, example 88-93, 96 Jordan, 00-03 Shaq, 02 and 03 Duncan, 93-95 Hakeem, etc)
- Tier 2: Be the clear best player on a championship team (9 points, example 08-10 Kobe, 99,05,07 Duncan, 15 Curry, 83 Moses Malone, 11 Dirk, 06 Wade, 12 Durant)
- Tier 3: Be a potential best player on a championship team (8 points, signifies missing the playoffs or not making the playoffs' second round; examples 75 and 76 KAJ, 03 McGrady, 09 Wade, 05 Garnett), or one who had that level of play in the RS but not in the PS, example 10 Chris Paul, 94 and 95 Robinson, 85 Bird) *Created this out of necessity. If I gave 03 McGrady, for instance, tier 2 (9 points) and gave 2010 CP3 the tier below this (7 points), I would in essence be saying that I would rate CP3's career higher if he would have missed the playoffs altogether rather than make it and play poorly. In a greatest of all time list, the burden of proof is on the player's for playoff performance IMO. This also agrees with my own intuition that Wade's 2006 campaign did more for his career than his 2009 run.
- Tier 4: Be a co-best player on a championship team (7 points, example 81 Erving, Karl Malone, non-peak versions of Malone, Dirk)
- Tier 5: Be a quality second best player on a championship team (4 points, example John Stockton, 91 Pippen, 00 Kobe, 05 Manu)
- Tier 6: Be a second or third best player on a championship team (3 points, example 05 Parker, 96 Rodman, 93 Grant, 16 Irving, 14 Duncan, 15 Klay Thompson)
- Tier 7: Be a valued role player on a championship team (1 point, example 15 Bogut, 15 Iguodala, 15 Livingston, 07 Bowen, 96 Kukoc, 14 Danny Green)

I will narrow my criteria. For instance, I don't expect to give any points to a player who misses the postseason entirely or whom misses a certain amount of regular season games.

After doing this calculation, I will add or subtract points for things such as overall career durability, team loyalty, iconic value, and playoff resilience. I will also edit for those qualities which I value. These include, for example, playmaking from a wing, foul drawing from any position, floor spacing from a big, and defensive anchoring from a big. Some of these will have objective criteria and others will be subjective and influenced by the other posters. I will tinker with this over time.

Iron Man (player played in 95+% of possible games during 10 year prime span by PER; examples Karl Malone, Elvin Hayes) - 5 points
Dinged Up (player played in less than 85% of games during 10 year prime span by PER; example Shaquille O'Neal, Tracy McGrady) - minus 10 points
Lost Seasons (player missed 2/3 of a season or an entire season during his 10-year prime) - minus 5 points
Mr. Consistent (player played in over 80% of his game during every year of his 10-year prime)
Flag Bearer(player played entire career with one team; examples Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant) - 5 points
Icon (player gives some significant value to basketball outside of the court) - 5 points
Playoff Dropoff (player's median career PER is 2 points lower than his regular season PER) - minus 5 points
Ring Counting (won a ring as the best player on the team by MVP shares) - 3 points
Ring Counting 2 (won a ring as an all-star) - 1 point
MVP (MVP award shares) - 2 points x MVP award shares

Offense
For players who I deem to be best player on a championship team caliber, I value offense for any player I judge outside of the 1960's because it seems to me that it is generally a necessity for your best player to be a capable scorer.

Portability
I don't care about cross era portability. For upper echelon players, I don't care about portability at all as anything other than a tie breaker. It is the responsibility of the role-players to fit around them and the responsibility of the GM to find the pieces to make it work. I would likely only subtract value in an extreme case. Perhaps with a player such as 17 Russell Westbrook. The stars dictate. As player quality drops, I do value portability and scores will be adjusted accordingly,

Box Score Statistics
I don't use box score advanced statistics unless I a comparing a.) player's in similar circumstance and of the same position or b.) a player's ability to maintain his own production into the postseason. For instance, I may compare a player's regular season PER with his postseason PER, but I won't do that without examining the context. I won't compare Ben Wallace and Steve Nash with PER. I won't compare Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, and Chris Paul with PER.

Impact Statistics
I like impact stats. I can be convinced by them. I like the overall per minute value over the offensive and defensive splits. I don't think they have that sorted out yet.

Playoffs vs. Regular season
For top tier players, I definitely value the playoffs greatly. I cannot give a player the benefit of the doubt if they do not make the playoffs. Not in a "greatest players / careers" list. I could do that in a "best seasons" list. But, for careers, I would essentially be saying that I would view Chris Paul, David Robinson, Karl Malone, or Kevin Garnett, to use some examples, as better players if they missed the playoffs altogether. I demand two playoff rounds for a player to be a top two tier player. For example, I can't give 03 McGrady, 05 Garnett, or 09 Wade the same career boost that I give 11 Dirk or 83 Moses. They get 8 points, not 9.

Accolades
As for accolades, I am using MVP award shares to determine who was the best player on each team and for adding points to player scores.

Please inform me on inconsistencies or suggestions for my system. I don't want it to be precise. I simply want to be consistent and have it reflect what I value.

Very unique and interesting methodology. I don't agree with each and every premise of it, but I dig how detailed and richly thought-out it is.

Most of the things I "disagree" with are simply with how certain factors are weighted or other minor "preferential" things. I find the only thing I disagree with out of principle is that a season cannot rate higher than tier 3 without at least two playoff rounds. Is '09 Wade lesser than '06 Wade by any relevant degree (or even lesser at all)? Or is the big difference there the presence of a late-prime Shaquille O'Neal (and also a touch of help from the refs in the playoffs/finals)?

Other than that, I really like the meticulous nature of your criteria.

[BasketballFan7]

Spoiler:

I want to have some sort of numerical system so that I can try to not let bias overwhelm my voting. I don't plan on the system being very scientific or at all revolutionary. I only desire to be able to create it so that my ranking thought process is transparent. I looked at the past 50 championship teams to form tiers of players that have been on championship team. I will use other poster's arguments to tweak my system. I will look at individual seasons from the perspective of a GM or coach. Can I count on this player, during X season, to:

- Tier 1: Be the clear best player on a championship team and provide GOAT-level impact throughout the RS and PS (10 points, example 88-93, 96 Jordan, 00-03 Shaq, 02 and 03 Duncan, 93-95 Hakeem, etc)
- Tier 2: Be the clear best player on a championship team (9 points, example 08-10 Kobe, 99,05,07 Duncan, 15 Curry, 83 Moses Malone, 11 Dirk, 06 Wade, 12 Durant)
- Tier 3: Be a potential best player on a championship team (8 points, signifies missing the playoffs or not making the playoffs' second round; examples 75 and 76 KAJ, 03 McGrady, 09 Wade, 05 Garnett), or one who had that level of play in the RS but not in the PS, example 10 Chris Paul, 94 and 95 Robinson, 85 Bird) *Created this out of necessity. If I gave 03 McGrady, for instance, tier 2 (9 points) and gave 2010 CP3 the tier below this (7 points), I would in essence be saying that I would rate CP3's career higher if he would have missed the playoffs altogether rather than make it and play poorly. In a greatest of all time list, the burden of proof is on the player's for playoff performance IMO. This also agrees with my own intuition that Wade's 2006 campaign did more for his career than his 2009 run.
- Tier 4: Be a co-best player on a championship team (7 points, example 81 Erving, Karl Malone, non-peak versions of Malone, Dirk)
- Tier 5: Be a quality second best player on a championship team (4 points, example John Stockton, 91 Pippen, 00 Kobe, 05 Manu)
- Tier 6: Be a second or third best player on a championship team (3 points, example 05 Parker, 96 Rodman, 93 Grant, 16 Irving, 14 Duncan, 15 Klay Thompson)
- Tier 7: Be a valued role player on a championship team (1 point, example 15 Bogut, 15 Iguodala, 15 Livingston, 07 Bowen, 96 Kukoc, 14 Danny Green)

I will narrow my criteria. For instance, I don't expect to give any points to a player who misses the postseason entirely or whom misses a certain amount of regular season games.

After doing this calculation, I will add or subtract points for things such as overall career durability, team loyalty, iconic value, and playoff resilience. I will also edit for those qualities which I value. These include, for example, playmaking from a wing, foul drawing from any position, floor spacing from a big, and defensive anchoring from a big. Some of these will have objective criteria and others will be subjective and influenced by the other posters. I will tinker with this over time.

Iron Man (player played in 95+% of possible games during 10 year prime span by PER; examples Karl Malone, Elvin Hayes) - 5 points
Dinged Up (player played in less than 85% of games during 10 year prime span by PER; example Shaquille O'Neal, Tracy McGrady) - minus 10 points
Lost Seasons (player missed 2/3 of a season or an entire season during his 10-year prime) - minus 5 points
Mr. Consistent (player played in over 80% of his game during every year of his 10-year prime)
Flag Bearer(player played entire career with one team; examples Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant) - 5 points
Icon (player gives some significant value to basketball outside of the court) - 5 points
Playoff Dropoff (player's median career PER is 2 points lower than his regular season PER) - minus 5 points
Ring Counting (won a ring as the best player on the team by MVP shares) - 3 points
Ring Counting 2 (won a ring as an all-star) - 1 point
MVP (MVP award shares) - 2 points x MVP award shares

Offense
For players who I deem to be best player on a championship team caliber, I value offense for any player I judge outside of the 1960's because it seems to me that it is generally a necessity for your best player to be a capable scorer.

Portability
I don't care about cross era portability. For upper echelon players, I don't care about portability at all as anything other than a tie breaker. It is the responsibility of the role-players to fit around them and the responsibility of the GM to find the pieces to make it work. I would likely only subtract value in an extreme case. Perhaps with a player such as 17 Russell Westbrook. The stars dictate. As player quality drops, I do value portability and scores will be adjusted accordingly,

Box Score Statistics
I don't use box score advanced statistics unless I a comparing a.) player's in similar circumstance and of the same position or b.) a player's ability to maintain his own production into the postseason. For instance, I may compare a player's regular season PER with his postseason PER, but I won't do that without examining the context. I won't compare Ben Wallace and Steve Nash with PER. I won't compare Karl Malone, Scottie Pippen, and Chris Paul with PER.

Impact Statistics
I like impact stats. I can be convinced by them. I like the overall per minute value over the offensive and defensive splits. I don't think they have that sorted out yet.

Playoffs vs. Regular season
For top tier players, I definitely value the playoffs greatly. I cannot give a player the benefit of the doubt if they do not make the playoffs. Not in a "greatest players / careers" list. I could do that in a "best seasons" list. But, for careers, I would essentially be saying that I would view Chris Paul, David Robinson, Karl Malone, or Kevin Garnett, to use some examples, as better players if they missed the playoffs altogether. I demand two playoff rounds for a player to be a top two tier player. For example, I can't give 03 McGrady, 05 Garnett, or 09 Wade the same career boost that I give 11 Dirk or 83 Moses. They get 8 points, not 9.

Accolades
As for accolades, I am using MVP award shares to determine who was the best player on each team and for adding points to player scores.

Please inform me on inconsistencies or suggestions for my system. I don't want it to be precise. I simply want to be consistent and have it reflect what I value.

Very unique and interesting methodology. I don't agree with each and every premise of it, but I dig how detailed and richly thought-out it is.

Most of the things I "disagree" with are simply with how certain factors are weighted or other minor "preferential" things. I find the only thing I disagree with out of principle is that a season cannot rate higher than tier 3 without at least two playoff rounds. Is '09 Wade lesser than '06 Wade by any relevant degree (or even lesser at all)? Or is the big difference there the presence of a late-prime Shaquille O'Neal (and also a touch of help from the refs in the playoffs/finals)?

Other than that, I really like the meticulous nature of your criteria.

I battled this as well. I may end up changing it. To me, it comes down to two things:

1.) For this list, winning does play a factor for me. I don't like a completely results oriented approach, and yet I do feel that Wade's 2006 does more for me with regards to his all time ranking that's 2009 does. I have 2009 Wade as the better player but to me that is a slightly different question.

2.) It seems unwise to me to assume drawn out playoff success. Ill probably put 2010 LeBron on tier 2 due to his Boston playoff series. He would be tier one had he stopped playing after the first round. 2010 CP3 is dropped for his playoff showing. Malone, Robinson, etcétera. I feel that without requiring a certain playoff sample I am saying that these players would have been better off without making the playoffs, which seems backwards. It's troublesome either way.

I'll rely on posters like you to tinker with it though. Because I'm relying on integers, some of this is obviously going to be messy. I was already considering it. I think I will make the tier 3 ceiling for no-playoffs at all and tier 2 for a first round exit. Tier one will need second round or more.

I don't like the somewhat blurry line between tiers 1 and 2 (for instance, where does 86 Bird go? 87 Magic? 96 and 97 Jordan? 95/98 Shaq? 10 LeBron?). Do you believe the aforementioned seasons belong more in tier 1 or tier 2? I was thinking that any season I am questionable about belongs moreso in tier 2.

[janmagn]

For me it's about who I feel like is the better player, who I would rather with start a franchise with, trying to not look to play style differences (etc. Magic because he makes everyone around him better)

Lähetetty minun LG-H440n laitteesta Tapatalkilla

[trex_8063]

I don't like the somewhat blurry line between tiers 1 and 2 (for instance, where does 86 Bird go? 87 Magic? 96 and 97 Jordan? 95/98 Shaq? 10 LeBron?). Do you believe the aforementioned seasons belong more in tier 1 or tier 2? I was thinking that any season I am questionable about belongs moreso in tier 2.

It's a good question; those are excellent examples of seasons that are "on the fence" (except '96 Jordan and probably '10 Lebron, imo; I think those are worthy of tier 1).
I find when I'm doing little personal projects like this (those that require assigning of a score based on my subjective assessment of quality), I frequently cave or compromise when I can't decide.......and ultimately award 0.5 measures (that is, a season like '86 Bird may get put in "tier 1.5" and get 9.5 pts).

[Dr Positivity]

- I'm not going to judge how players would do in different eras. I judge how they did in their era, and then adjust for if I think that era is weaker. So a player dominating the 60s would not be as rated as valuable as equal domination in 2010s, but it's not because the player wouldn't fit as well today, but because of adjusting the entire 60s downward in comparison.

- Will try to use RAPM and RPM to suggest what type of players probably would've performed best in the past in those categories, when they're not available

- I don't care at all about the small sample size of games in the middle of a season when they were injured. When a player is injured the other teammates can play harder in his absence or there's an adjustment period where the rest of the league doesn't know how to play the new team yet. If there's a full offseason for both the team and opponent to prepare for player changes, I think it becomes more useful

- Don't care that much about ring counting, it's a team sport with a lot of context. However there's a difference between the regular season and playoffs and I don't subscribe to the idea that SRS determines who's the best team and the rest is luck, there's reasons why some teams translate their regular season success and others don't

[penbeast0]

-

Spoiler:

I'm not going to judge how players would do in different eras. I judge how they did in their era, and then adjust for if I think that era is weaker. So a player dominating the 60s would not be as rated as valuable as equal domination in 2010s, but it's not because the player wouldn't fit as well today, but because of adjusting the entire 60s downward in comparison.

- Will try to use RAPM and RPM to suggest what type of players probably would've performed best in the past in those categories, when they're not available

- I don't care at all about the small sample size of games in the middle of a season when they were injured. When a player is injured the other teammates can play harder in his absence or there's an adjustment period where the rest of the league doesn't know how to play the new team yet. If there's a full offseason for both the team and opponent to prepare for player changes, I think it becomes more useful

- Don't care that much about ring counting, it's a team sport with a lot of context. However there's a difference between the regular season and playoffs and I don't subscribe to the idea that SRS determines who's the best team and the rest is luck, there's reasons why some teams translate their regular season success and others don't

How do you rate the different eras? You say the 60s are weaker than today (I agree), however, I'd argue that the 60s were stronger than the 90s which were expansion weakened -- I don't think the talent pool expanded nearly as fast as the league from 8 teams in 65 to 27 teams in 1995 (it did expand rapidly in the 2000s when the NBA started recruiting overseas and you had the great influx of Euro and South American talent), plus the 1990s featured a style of basketball that maximized individual iso play at the expense of thinking about team play.

I'd rate the eras:
2010s
*****
2000s
*****
1960s
1990s
1980s
*****
1970s
*****
1950s

with the 60s, 80s, and 90s all being very close.

[Dr Positivity]

I'm going to have to think about that one, you make some decent points about why the 60s may be underrated compared to 80s and 90s and why 70s may be below all of them. On the other hand I'm concerned with the lack of jumpshooting skill in the 60s

[Jaivl]

I'm gonna change my criteria from past years. Or at least I'll try to.

Spoiler:

At the moment, the main question I ask myself when qualifying a player is "How would he improve the chances of winning a ring in a certain team?". And here "certain team" means "any team". How would D-Green do as the primary star of the Wolves? Would Giannis thrive replacing LeBron in Cleveland... or replacing Jordan in the 80s Bulls... or replacing Random Player #7 on the 60s Hawks? Those kinds of things. I think most posters/analists only think about "what happened" and not about "what would happen if everybody was given the same chance". That means, for this project, I will use GOAT as synonimous of "best player in vacuum".

In an ideal world I'd have a supercomputer to give me those answers. But right now I only know, more or less, what a certain player does in a certain team within a certain context. And I would like to know how that same player does on maybe 8-10 types of teams, playing in maybe 1-3 different roles (depending on the player, obviously Manute Bol isn't playing as anything other than a defensive center)... that's basically impossible to quantify out of thin air, so at the end of the day I have to simplify things and ending up using actual performance to help me (what happened in the real world?). So I use +/- stats, tracking and probably terrible video analysis to attempt to measure it. But I do try to de-contextualize impact as much as possible, trying to isolate what would be transportable between teams, roles and such. That means I'll probably (definitely!) be the high voter on some names (looking at you, Chris Paul), and probably would be the low voter on some more.

I do use real-world longevity in my analysis, though. So, in my delusions, Kareem plays 20 seasons in every team, and his level peaks and decreases at the same rate as it happened; Jordan still retires for a total of 5 years, Anthony Davis only plays 5/whatever seasons he has played, those things. How much value can they add during their careers?

Also, I don't give nearly any value to the boxscore (except for scoring) and won't use it, if possible, when rating a player. Of course that's gonna be hard to carry out with past players, but I'll certainly do it with s.XXI players.

About era adjustments, I'm still thinking about that. I'd guess that the game gets tougher with time, so I'll probably give a small boost to recent players.

It's probably going to be a mess, but I will have a lot of fun, for sure, and hopefully help the project offering a different perspective. And if it goes downhill I can just

Spoiler:

rate what happened as every sane person does

[penbeast0]

I'm going to have to think about that one, you make some decent points about why the 60s may be underrated compared to 80s and 90s and why 70s may be below all of them. On the other hand I'm concerned with the lack of jumpshooting skill in the 60s

See, now that is something that doesn't worry me about either the 60s or the 50s. If you grow up learning basketball in the day of the 2 handed set shot and you are the best in the world in that era, then to me its a question of the strength of the natural talent pool in that era rather than the degree of learned skills taught by coaches. We all stand on the shoulders of the generations before us in terms of skills and learning; but not on the degree to which we advance the world. I do grade down for players that don't adapt successfully to changes in the league (24 second rule, shortened/lengthened 3 point line, etc.) so I am interesting in listening to the Mikan analysis as to whether he truly didn't adapt or whether it was age and injury that brought him down.

I also give some, but not complete weight to length of career as players come straight out of HS like LeBron as opposed to Wilt having to weight for 4 years after graduating HS. Should that implay that Wilt's longevity should take a hit? Some . . . 4 years of NBA is tougher than 4 years of college ball on the body . . . but then modern medicine is appreciably better too. Same for playing Wilt playing ridiculous minutes, it helps him some but not as much as it would if he did it in an era when everyone else was playing under 35. Context basically.

[2klegend]

My criteria is a simple formula

GOAT = (Peak x 20%) + (Prime x 35%) + (Longevity x 10%) + (Award x 35%).

The mythology I use have changed a bit to fix some "subjective" input. The rest stays consistent.

[MyUniBroDavis]

A combination of longevity, prime, and peak.

I don't really have a set way on how to weigh each although I generally value prime and peak and length of prime. Low level filler seasons don't matter to me tbh.

Also will try to look for things like leadership and off the court impact.

Winning doesent play a huge role but it definitely has a role.

Playoff>RS for me if the playoffs extend past 10 games for said player.

Impact = fit+ability+role as trex said, but part of me will see that as portability as well

Also see how completely players skill sets are and stuff like that

Also yes I will have some sort of "how often did he show up" and things like that.

Will definitely try to find some off the court stuff if I have time.

[wojoaderge]

I'm compiling my first ever Top 100. It's not particularly scientific, and it goes something like this:

1. Dominance - Was the player ever considered the best in the league? The best at his position? Could you build a team around him, and if so, how good would that team be? I am more or less down on role players. See below
2. Prime
3. Peak
4. W/L - Rings
5. Longevity/Career - It counts for something but I give significant preference to players who were considered the best for a few years over players who had long, very good careers but didn't come close to being considered the best

I also go by something i'll call the Kiki Vandeweghe>E.C. Coleman maxim which I hope is self-explanatory.

Era/recency plays little or no factor in my rankings. Efficiency is a concept which has been brought to the fore by analytics geeks. You haven't heard about it before now because coaches and players didn't think about it back then, so i'm not going to either. In that same vein, the concept of portability is even less important. I don't see why the zone defense/three pointers era, which I consider to be more vastly different than any other era, should serve as any kind of template for 70 years for basketball history. OK, my list should be ready today or tomorrow . . .

[Quotatious]

I'm quite a bit different than most people in the sense that I don't really rank players based on who is most likely to help a team in terms of winning a championship. I rank players based on who is most likely to help a team win as many games as possible, period. That's why I don't put excessive emphasis on playoffs. In fact, I'm one of the guys on this board who put relatively the biggest emphasis on regular season compared to playoffs. Obviously I still weigh one playoff game as significantly more important than one regular season game, but I really don't like to look at a 10-20 game sample as more important than an 80-game sample. I'm a firm believer in things like sample size and matchups - so basically I don't see how playoffs describe a player's real ability more accurately than regular season. I just think that matchups play too big of a role in the playoffs - you have to go against more or less the same opponents game after game in the regular season, everybody plays against similar competition, difference is how many times you face a certain team, depending if you are in the Eastern or Western conference. In the playoffs, everybody faces a different competition. If you run into a favorable matchup at your position and exploit it, your playoff performance might seem to be a lot more impressive than it would be, if you ran into a bad matchup for yourself.

I just refuse to look at 150 playoff games as more important than 1050 RS games (this is approximately the career length of a typical all-time great). Basically about 85-90% of every player's career consists of regular season games. It's such an overwhelming majority, in addition to a more evenly-matched competition, that I just think the regular season is a better sample.

I value "playing great for the sake of playing great" so to speak. Basically playing at your best level as often as you can. Obviously you don't win championships in the regular season, but as analysts, I think we should focus on finding out the best way to objectively evaluate how good a player really was, and the way NBA schedule is constructed, regular season is where we see all players facing each other over a long season where it's essentially impossible to be great by accident. If you are great, 82 games is more than enough time to prove it. Playoffs are IMO much more susceptible to give us a somewhat skewed perception of a player's real worth, because of small sample size and uneven competition.

Besides, almost a half of the league misses the playoffs every year. 14 of 30 teams miss it, it's been this way since 2004-05 season, so over a decade now, but it was similar before that, too. A guy like DeMarcus Cousins has never played in the postseason. Not one game. He's clearly a very good player. You can argue he's overrated to some extent, and certainly not a serious candidate for top 100 all-time right now, but he's been one of the best bigs in the NBA for the last 4 seasons or so. A guy like Elton Brand (who made the top 100 last time we did the project, was ranked 79th) played only 12 playoff games in his prime, because his supporting casts didn't allow him to make the playoffs in more years. Even among true all-time greats, guys like Oscar Robertson and Kevin Garnett, played less than 50 postseason games in their first 10 years in the league. Just because a great player plays with mediocre/bad supporting casts, therefore doesn't have much team success, doesn't mean he's not a great player. The realization that basketball is a team game, is something that many people still struggle to accept, which is baffling to me, really never ceases to amaze me.

I have a rule like this:

If someone plays in one playoff round, I look at 80% regular season and 20% playoffs, when I evaluate his overall season.

If someone plays two rounds, I look at it 70% RS/30% playoffs.

Three playoff rounds (conference finals nowadays), I weigh it 60% RS/40% playoffs.

Full playoff run to the finals (four rounds) - I weigh it 50/50. Which means that 1 playoff game is roughly the same as 4 regular season games in terms of importance. I think that's a fair estimate.

I also punish players heavily for missing games. Durability matters a ton to me. This is why I've been lower on Shaq recently. If we look at O'Neal's 1996-98 seasons, he missed 81 games. He averaged 36.7 minutes per game for that three-year stretch, so he pretty much missed an entire extra season, that's how bad his durability was. I totally believe that a worse player can be more valuable than a better player, if the latter misses a ton of games. So, I would take a guy like 2009-11 Dwight over 1996-98 Shaq, without a second of hesitation (Dwight was also a very good playoff performer in those years, so I feel very comfortable saying that three year stretch of his was more valuable than Shaq's 1996-98, because of vastly superior durability).

I don't care if someone likes these criteria or not. This is a conclusion that I've arrived to, after years of pondering over my criteria.

There are some obvious results of this thinking - I'm really high on Karl Malone, for instance. I don't think I could have an all-time list without Karl in my top 10 right now. His body of work, even with his somewhat disappointing playoff career, is incredible. The guy was still an all-star who led his team to the playoffs in an all-time stacked conference at his position, at age 39, averaged almost 21/8/5/2 stl. on decent efficiency, going up against prime Duncan, Garnett, Nowitzki, so three of the top 5 players of all-time at his position, and also other very good power forwards like prime Brand, Webber, Rasheed Wallace and Pau Gasol. Malone did that at an age where majority of NBA players are barely able to contribute as role players, averaging 15-20 minutes per game, are missing a ton of games due to injuries, or are already retired. Malone was still a very good, all-star caliber player at that age, and he barely ever missed a game, still playing heavy minutes (81 of 82 games played, at 36.2 minutes per game in his last Jazz season).
Malone was a top 5 player for over a decade, most consistent player of all-time (I know he wasn't particularly consistent in terms of his shooting percentages in the playoffs, but you could bet on Malone to stay healthy and put up roughly 27/10/3 with good defense, on high efficiency, for about 13 years - the group of players who ever put up just ONE season like that, is quite small, and it seems like every time we see a player who gets those numbers at a young age, while playing on a team good enough to make the playoffs, he's hailed as possibly the next big thing...Well, Karl did that ROUTINELY. He was just a machine).

I've never even liked Karl, he's up there with Kobe as perhaps my top 2 least favorite superstars in NBA history (or at least in my lifetime as an NBA fan, I mean players that I saw in their primes when they were still active), I was very happy to see the Bulls beat the Jazz twice in the finals, so I have no bias at all in Malone's favor, quite the opposite actually. Objectively, putting my personal bias aside, I'm just extremely impressed with the career that he had, even without a championship.

I value longevity pretty highly. Well, not all longevity, but for all-time greats, I certainly value every year that is all-star quality, because all-stars make a significant difference in terms of winning games. To me, seasons like Kareem's from 1982 to 1987 (especially '82 to '86, when he was still making All-NBA teams and got recognition in MVP voting), Malone's and Stockton's seasons in early 2000s, Duncan's seasons in 2010s (except for his last season, when he was nothing more than a role player), are all very much relevant and bring a lot of value to their careers.

Okay, I should probably wait and save those things for the project and then start making a top 10 case for the Mailman, but I just wanted to share where I'm at right now, in terms of my criteria.

[90sAllDecade]

I value the best individual player based on combined offensive and defensive impact. I don't rank individual players based on team based accolades, metrics or stats. For example MVP is often the best player on one of the best teams, but many times another player can be better but has worse teammates, coaching or organization around them.

I look at team support, competition and rules as well when factoring my decision. Can this player translate across eras? Were they only a product of thier era or was thier game portable?

Other things like mental strength play a part as well.

Lastly, I value playoff performance over regular season. The competition is better, teams gameplan for a series etc.

Also, this thread is a great idea. Looks like a fun project this year!

[Texas Chuck]

IThe realization that basketball is a team game, is something that many people still struggle to accept, which is baffling to me, really never ceases to amaze me.

First let me say I love the perspective you are going to bring to this overall. Lots of great stuff in there--even if I personally look at much of it differently.

I just wanted to comment how we can see things pretty differently and yet share a core belief. I am personally obsessed over the idea that basketball is a team game. I keep this at the very heart of all my individual player analysis. Yet it leads me not further away from team success, but closer to it.

It's why I tend to value players who aren't as impressive statistically as others, but whom you find so directly tied to winning no matter what else is around them that I can't wash that away. Just like there are some players who are fairly impressive from an individual statistical level, but again it never seems to translate to nearly enough winning even with they have seemingly good situations around them.

I am not talking about KG. I refuse to get into this with KG. But Jason Kidd's teams just win. And win. And win. He has made enormous differences in team fortune when he moves. His new team immediately wins a ton more games. His old team immediately loses a ton more. And he's always moved via trade and his old team has always gotten win-now pieces back so its not like a Lebron or a Durant leaving in FA. TMac has been on some really talented teams--teams that managed to play at really high levels when he missed games and despite his own big numbers it didn't translate.

I just can't and won't ignore that. I won't just immediately accept big box scores or high RAPM scores and brush aside poor team results. I think we have to spend more time talking about how a player helps his teammates elevate their level of play rather than just saying well his teammates weren't good enough. My man Dirk's teammates generally weren't good enough in the playoffs and I used to just believe Dirk was unlucky--until drza posted some really interesting information that suggested prior to the post game that Dirk wasn't elevating his teammates enough in the post-season and good teams were able to render his teammates less effective in the PS. I didn't want to hear that. I wanted to hold to this idea that Dirk is an elite playoff performer based on his individual numbers. But the reality may be different. It deserves to be explored. And maybe that has to push Dirk down a bit in my rankings if legit.

Anyway this is way longer than I intended, but I love your perspective even if this diatribe sounds different.

[Quotatious]

IThe realization that basketball is a team game, is something that many people still struggle to accept, which is baffling to me, really never ceases to amaze me.

First let me say I love the perspective you are going to bring to this overall. Lots of great stuff in there--even if I personally look at much of it differently.

I just wanted to comment how we can see things pretty differently and yet share a core belief. I am personally obsessed over the idea that basketball is a team game. I keep this at the very heart of all my individual player analysis. Yet it leads me not further away from team success, but closer to it.

It's why I tend to value players who aren't as impressive statistically as others, but whom you find so directly tied to winning no matter what else is around them that I can't wash that away. Just like there are some players who are fairly impressive from an individual statistical level, but again it never seems to translate to nearly enough winning even with they have seemingly good situations around them.

I am not talking about KG. I refuse to get into this with KG. But Jason Kidd's teams just win. And win. And win. He has made enormous differences in team fortune when he moves. His new team immediately wins a ton more games. His old team immediately loses a ton more. And he's always moved via trade and his old team has always gotten win-now pieces back so its not like a Lebron or a Durant leaving in FA. TMac has been on some really talented teams--teams that managed to play at really high levels when he missed games and despite his own big numbers it didn't translate.

I just can't and won't ignore that. I won't just immediately accept big box scores or high RAPM scores and brush aside poor team results. I think we have to spend more time talking about how a player helps his teammates elevate their level of play rather than just saying well his teammates weren't good enough. My man Dirk's teammates generally weren't good enough in the playoffs and I used to just believe Dirk was unlucky--until drza posted some really interesting information that suggested prior to the post game that Dirk wasn't elevating his teammates enough in the post-season and good teams were able to render his teammates less effective in the PS. I didn't want to hear that. I wanted to hold to this idea that Dirk is an elite playoff performer based on his individual numbers. But the reality may be different. It deserves to be explored. And maybe that has to push Dirk down a bit in my rankings if legit.

Anyway this is way longer than I intended, but I love your perspective even if this diatribe sounds different.

Thanks. As far as big numbers that don't correlate with winning - a significant reason why I'm really high on Malone and Stockton right now, is that they not only had an incredible combination of big box-score stats, durability and longevity, but they also consistently anchored excellent teams. They were the top 2 players of twelve 50+ win teams, including four teams with 60+ wins (I've extrapolated their 37-13 record in 1998-99 season - they had .740 winning percentage, so for 82 games, that gives them 61 wins).

Even their postseason record is pretty solid. Somewhat disappointing, certainly, but two finals appearances (losing to a team that beat all other great teams in their era that got thrown their way), three more conference finals, and a loss in 7 games in conference semifinals to a defending champion Lakers in 1988, that's quite an impressive resume. Malone and Stockton never won a championship, but there's no doubt they were winners, in spite of that.