RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #3

[Cyrusman122000]

Official 1st place vote:

His resume is outstanding and only comparable to the likes of Jordan, Kareem
5x NBA Champion
Rookie of the year
3x Finals MVP (T-2nd most with Magic and Shaq,Lebron)
2x MVP
15x all star
15x All-NBA Team (T-1st most with Kareem and Kobe)
15x All-Defensive Team (most in NBA history)
Career records are also outstanding and he's on the top of numerous playoff records as well
Longevity that rivals Kareem (look at his last 4 playoff run prior to 2016), and he was still an amazing defensive presence in the league up until age 39.
Anchor of one of the greatest dynasty in the modern era of sports
Duncan's teams always had a winning record on the road, and won 50 games in every season but 1999 simply because there were only 50 games.
Put up a PER of at least 20 in 18 of his 19 seasons!
When you take into consideration the team success, personal success, longevity, and the fact that he played for one team his whole career to me he's the greatest draft pick in NBA history.

2nd vote: Lebron James

Who are you actually voting for 1st? Is it Duncan? I don't see in the post.

Lol! Fixed it, but yes Duncan. That's what can happen when you do this kinda buzzed

[scrabbarista]

3rd. Bill Russell

4th. Tim Duncan.

I've already commented in favor of Russell over Abdul-Jabbar in the thread for #2. To summarize, his impact during his (eight year) prime as evidenced by MVP voting may have been greater than Kareem's. His team only made one or two trades, I believe, during a run of eleven championships. That speaks not only to his ability to coexist with a sizable group of diverse people for over a decade in what must have been, at times, a volatile and intense environment, but also to his supreme ability to maintain motivation and motivate others.

[kayess]

There have been some great posts, but I'm not sure there has been some great discussion, if at all.

It feels more like everyone saying "here's my argument", "oh great, sure, here's my argument" - and while I agree with Doctor MJ that the value isn't necessarily in changing your mind now... I'd love to see more challenges on the following:
- Is your criteria logical? Is it internally consistent? Why/why not?
- Science progresses when hypotheses are challenged and then proved/disproved. So to this end: what kind of evidence would make you change your mind on the selection of your criteria, and the ranking of your players?
- Acknowledge your biases! Arguably the ATG insight/impact per post poster on this board, fpliii, acknowledges his bias towards two-way bigs and longevity in nearly every other post. SSB always clearly states his agenda with every thread. This is not as a way for people to suddenly attack you - but for people to recognize that these biases might form part of the explanation for why you are further apart on a criteria set/player than you ought to be.

Biases: Favorite players are Duncan, Hakeem, MJ, Bird, and Bron. I tend to over-compensate for this and might end up arguing sub-optimally however.

Criteria: For me, the "no accounting for era" assumption is always in flux: there's no post summarizing the pros/cons, so I seem to be swayed by whatever strongest post is recent. Currently it seems arbitrary to say that Russell should be punished because his era might not translate... While LeBron and company at the very least, because they played in the more modern, more difficult era. I guess it comes down to: does changing the era significantly affect the way they're able to deliver impact? LeBron to the 60s would lose some value because he doesn't create more points via kick-outs, but he also shorten the court more vs. his less athletic, badly spaced competition. Russell though - would still be a great asset today (like an uber Gobert on D + more), but the impact would be severely diminished. He deserves massive credit for being a pioneer, however, which I suppose you can argue is a component of greatness. For now though - cutting him off of this tier.

Vote: Who deserves the #3 spot? My contenders:

Duncan: Again - the L5 leader stuff sounds... kooky, but if it holds true, that would mean his expected championship count continues to accumulate even after he's done playing. On top of his already ridiculous longevity and great peak, what else is there? Maybe the GOAT career value, even if not the GOAT player.

Garnett: Tons of high-impact, superstar years, great skill-set, highly portable... What else needs to be said? Like Nash, the impact cuts across different team contexts - his smoking gun will always be "well, we thought his impact wouldn't hold-up on superior teams, but lo and behold - on a team that everyone thought would succeed due to O, he brought by far the most impact on D, which became their calling card". Later years still had ton of per-minute impact, and I could envision him playing a similar role to Duncan on the '14 Spurs, for example. Incredible peak as well - Voulgaris even says it's the best single-season peak ever - and that guy knows hoops better than anyone.

I don't buy the "his skill-set is scarcer therefore more valuable!", and if you're reading this and you do, just know that this is the same logic that enables "top-tier shot-making/volume scoring is what wins games in the playoffs! Just look at the empirical evidence of past champions!" - both of which are not really sound methods of comparatively evaluating player value. Even if his staunchest supporters are starting to annoy me as much as Kobe stans (which I recognize might bias me against him), owing to their idealization of the Garnett skill-set as one that all big men must have to have an impact as big as him (not accounting for stuff like: availability bias, actual player goodness+situation, etc.), I still can't argue in the face of the overwhelming evidence that Garnett has presented us all with. A top-tier all-timer.

If it could somehow be proven that volume scoring efficiently (post-ups, FT rate, etc.) is a statistically significant driver of success (not just playoffs), even at the expense of say, better perimeter D, then sure, you can then convince me that Garnett is a tier below the other 2 guys here.

LeBron: His case is based on his amazing impact across vastly different team contexts, and the recent run has smoked any "why does he marginalize Love like he did with Bosh" talks. So I would have to believe his impact at peak level isn't good enough, he doesn't have enough high level minutes (He's at ~55k... but how much of his pre-2008 minutes were impactful?)

Vote: Duncan
Alt: LeBron

Probably a bit biased now - since my null hypothesis is "LeBron's pre-2007 years weren't worth that much - not useless, but not that much". If someone can prove that he was a ~+4 player these years, then he takes the spot over Duncan (because then his longevity would be similar, with those early years being similar to post-prime years for Duncan.

[LA Bird]

Where did the assumption that they ran a fast pace to maximize their defense come from?

I ask this because I was the one who posted the excerpt people reference about the Celtics running a fast pace on this board to begin with. It was new to the posters here when I posted it. So as I know what it said due to having exposed everyone here to it in the first place, I'm wondering where in the explanation was there any mention of doing it to help their defense.

Just from my own observation that the Celtics defense in the 60s showed a negative correlation to the relative pace that they played at. This 70sFan's post from a week ago also pointed out Boston's use of faster pace to help defense:

Auerbach created system to play for Bill strengths. Celtics played as fast as possible on offense to play defense longer than opponents. They sacrified offensive production to beat opponents defensively. While we have to give credit Jones and Havlicek (and Cousy/Sharman) for scoring points, it wasn't really a factor for Celtics. It's defense and defensive rebounding.

Nash is criticized because he never won a championship. If he'd won, there wouldn't be any criticism. That's the way it goes.

If something doesn't inhibit a team's chance of winning, it doesn't matter. The Bulls didn't have a dominant center, but since that lack didn't prevent them from winning six championships, it's irrelevant. Now, people can talk about how it would put them in a disadvantage against historic teams, but that's some completely different side issue, as the Bulls were facing the teams in front of them, not teams from other eras. LeBron's Miami Heat were dead last in the league in rebounding, but their weakness on the boards didn't prevent them from winning the championship, so it didn't matter.

With the Suns it mattered because of stuff like this:

A fourth-quarter rally fueled by layups, dunks and 3-pointers is to be expected in a game featuring the Phoenix Suns.

Yet it was the San Antonio Spurs who did it Sunday in the opener of the Western Conference finals.

Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Brent Barry and the Spurs proved that defense might be their best thing, but not their only thing. Beating the league’s top offense at their own style, San Antonio used its inside-outside scoring practically to perfection in the final period to beat Phoenix 121-114.

The Suns got outscored. Their offense scored 114 points, so that wasn't the problem, but their defense allowed more, so they lost. That didn't happen with the Celtics' defense. In '64, for example, the Celtics had the worst shooting percentage in the postseason, but it didn't matter, because they held their opponents to an even worse percentage. They faced the highest-scoring team in the league and reduced its offense by 18.7%.

I've said the same thing when people on The General Board talked about Jordan's 3-point shooting as a weakness. If it didn't inhibit his team's ability to win during the time that he played, it doesn't matter.

But are we using Russell's defense to show why he won championships or are we using his championships to validate his defensive impact? Most of the Russell voters in round 2 didn't vote for him just because of his 11 rings so while it is true that nothing else matters for a team which has won the championship, it is not particularly useful here. Nash has the best relative team ORtg in both regular season and playoffs but is not generally regarded as the offensive GOAT because those numbers aren't taken at face value due to the Suns sacrificing defense for more offense and would most likely have a less impressive offense if they played more defense (see first half of 2006 season). This same criteria is not applied to the Celtics who arguably sacrificed offense for more defense to a greater degree. I am not criticizing Russell's ability to win rings but why should we think more of his defense and overall impact if the Celtics were a -4/+10 on offense/defense instead of a more balanced +1/+5 if they both net the same result?

[penbeast0]

Official 1st place vote:

His resume is outstanding and only comparable to the likes of Jordan, Kareem
5x NBA Champion
Rookie of the year
3x Finals MVP (T-2nd most with Magic and Shaq,Lebron)
2x MVP
15x all star
15x All-NBA Team (T-1st most with Kareem and Kobe)
15x All-Defensive Team (most in NBA history)
Career records are also outstanding and he's on the top of numerous playoff records as well
Longevity that rivals Kareem (look at his last 4 playoff run prior to 2016), and he was still an amazing defensive presence in the league up until age 39.
Anchor of one of the greatest dynasty in the modern era of sports
Duncan's teams always had a winning record on the road, and won 50 games in every season but 1999 simply because there were only 50 games.
Put up a PER of at least 20 in 18 of his 19 seasons!
When you take into consideration the team success, personal success, longevity, and the fact that he played for one team his whole career to me he's the greatest draft pick in NBA history.

2nd vote: Lebron James

Who are you actually voting for 1st? Is it Duncan? I don't see in the post.

Actually, it is in the post, as underlined. But 5-time NBA champion, 3-time Finals MVP, 15-time All-Star, All-NBA, and All-Defense, Kareem-type longevity, and 20 PER in 18 of 19 seasons is obviously Duncan.

If it hadn't said "tied with Kobe" I was thinking it was him to that point.

[Outside]

Is that why Curry has the greatest difference on the team's NetRTG, BY FAR, of those 4 legs? Because he's equal in value to the 3 others?

I'm not going to argue your points on LeBron, because it's
(1) tired, and
(2) complex (who else exactly was available on the market for a trade at the time he was going back? Could the Cavs have built a Warriors-like team with the assets they had in 2014? - none of these things factor into your narrative, but sure, let's take all that as a given and accept that it's all selfish LeBron's fault that the Cavs are so dependent on him.) - but your over-romanticized (implied) description of the Warriors as some team that's beyond the sum of their parts PURELY because of the style they play is a distortion of the truth.

The Warriors are able to empower this "everyone can make a decision" style of ball because Curry makes everyone else's decision easier. Without him, most of them would be far less effective... and guess what, when the going got tough, did the Warriors flash go with the type of ball implied by your table analogy? No. They spammed Curry and Durant PNRs and Curry/Durant ISOs when it got tough (and it ONLY got tough because LeBron was playing out of his damned mind, and Kyrie was flashing some GOAT-level shotmaking. The Cav's shooters IIRC shot below average, even on wide open looks).

The table analogy does not work at all here, and I feel like your agenda is backfiring because you're actually taking away from what the Warriors are by mis-characterizing them as something they're not - the Warriors are the GOAT team because they were a GOAT-level team driven by Curry's outlier level shooting, 2 way players who can make plays/defend at an above average level at every position, a great system and culture to house them in, AND they added a redundancy, a valve, a fail-safe in Durant. It's that simple.

Sorry that my table analogy was overly simplistic. Of course it's easy to find fault in it, but I don't think it's totally wrong. I'm also sorry that I brought in the Warriors as the 4-legged table example, because now you've made it all about the Warriors when I was trying to make a point about LeBron.

As to your point (2), it's not about the Warriors, it's about playing distributed team basketball. Other recent examples of that are the 2014 Spurs and 2012 Heat.

[kayess]

Is that why Curry has the greatest difference on the team's NetRTG, BY FAR, of those 4 legs? Because he's equal in value to the 3 others?

I'm not going to argue your points on LeBron, because it's
(1) tired, and
(2) complex (who else exactly was available on the market for a trade at the time he was going back? Could the Cavs have built a Warriors-like team with the assets they had in 2014? - none of these things factor into your narrative, but sure, let's take all that as a given and accept that it's all selfish LeBron's fault that the Cavs are so dependent on him.) - but your over-romanticized (implied) description of the Warriors as some team that's beyond the sum of their parts PURELY because of the style they play is a distortion of the truth.

The Warriors are able to empower this "everyone can make a decision" style of ball because Curry makes everyone else's decision easier. Without him, most of them would be far less effective... and guess what, when the going got tough, did the Warriors flash go with the type of ball implied by your table analogy? No. They spammed Curry and Durant PNRs and Curry/Durant ISOs when it got tough (and it ONLY got tough because LeBron was playing out of his damned mind, and Kyrie was flashing some GOAT-level shotmaking. The Cav's shooters IIRC shot below average, even on wide open looks).

The table analogy does not work at all here, and I feel like your agenda is backfiring because you're actually taking away from what the Warriors are by mis-characterizing them as something they're not - the Warriors are the GOAT team because they were a GOAT-level team driven by Curry's outlier level shooting, 2 way players who can make plays/defend at an above average level at every position, a great system and culture to house them in, AND they added a redundancy, a valve, a fail-safe in Durant. It's that simple.

Sorry that my table analogy was overly simplistic. Of course it's easy to find fault in it, but I don't think it's totally wrong. I'm also sorry that I brought in the Warriors as the 4-legged table example, because now you've made it all about the Warriors when I was trying to make a point about LeBron.

As to your point (2), it's not about the Warriors, it's about playing distributed team basketball. Other recent examples of that are the 2014 Spurs and 2012 Heat.

I'm not sure if you're taking this seriously because now you're faux apologizing and then back tracking on that analogy (but also still slightly hedging by saying it's not totally wrong).

The gist of your point is: "LeBron is polarizing, bad! Warriors share equally, good!". What I am showing is that:
(a) your table analogy is not only too simplistic, it doesn't reflect reality: the Warriors are HEAVILY dependent on Curry, they just have far more redundancies in place to not suck - unlike the Cavs without LeBron, therefore:
(b) even if everything you said applied to LeBron (and given the extreme nature of your points - it's probably not), it's something the Warriors are guilty of as well - they just have far better talent, so it is not apparent.

I don't think you want to make it about LeBron (not really), because your logic that:
P: Because LeBron had a large say in the team getting structured around him, then...
Q: It is his fault if they don't do well in his absence.

Has so many pitfalls: Is "player wanting to be at the center of things" the only (hell, is it even the biggest?) driver of performance without said player? Of course not. There's coaching, there's opponent strength, there's talent mix with/without the player...

[this is all even assuming that it's a bad idea to structure a team around LeBron. I don't think this is true at all, btw - when you have someone as GOAT-smackingly good as him, or Shaq, or Magic, you absolutely build your team to enable their strengths and shore up their weaknesses. There's tons of evidence for this - Net RTGs, historical ORTGs in the PS, etc. - but sure, let's assume for the sake of argument that structuring around someone is bad]

You said it yourself: It seems like Kyrie+shooters and Thompson should do well without LeBron but they don't - and the conclusion is it's LeBron's fault? That's not scientific at all, you need to (aside from a whole host of other things) look at other samples, e.g., how does Kyrie do when LeBron is on? He plays almost the exact same way, and while he's gotten better, he still doesn't read the defense the same way even a Delly does. Which is not to say he isn't more valuable than Delly on O, of course - his GOAT-level tough shot making is priceless vs. someone like the Warriors. He just stinks it up if it's not falling, which is what you might have observed when he plays with role players. How any of this can be construed to be LeBron's fault is beyond me.

Case in point: Remember when everyone (yes, everyone) was up in arms about Blatt being fired? At the time, LeBron was being crucified, was saying he wanted a yes-man in Lue (a point you yourself make, I believe), just essentially buying into all this **** because of (let's face it) all the losing LeBron had done recently. I'm guilty of this too - I thought he was a despicable human being for getting a coach fired like that.

Of course, time revealed the facts: (1) Blatt was actually the yes man who didn't want to criticize James, which ticked off his teammates (2) he acted like he deserved respect (which he did, IMO) from the get-go, which is about as tone-deaf as you could be as a head coach in this league, (3) Lue absolutely **** James for missing rotations and tells him to S T F U, thus not actually being a yes-man (4) But his coaching pedigree, bar ATO plays I guess, is still below Blatt's.

But sure, LeBron wanted a yes-man in Lue.

One last thing: I hope you're not serious with putting the 2012 Heat in the same sentence as the 2014 Spurs. The 2014 version, when he went more off-ball because somehow even Mario Chalmers started making correct reads, is actually more comparable (as was the 2013 version - that streak where LeBron got 30+ on 60TS he wasn't taking that many shots), than the 2012 version which relied on star power more than anything. The 2014 Spurs just wiped that eam off of the place of the planet, as they would have done with pretty mcuh any team the way they were playing.

[Outside]

To play in a "system" like the Warriors you need multiple playmakers. Cavs don't have that. They have Kyrie, who's had more usage than he deserves frankly. Whenever LeBron's had capable playmakers and decision makers, he's been more than willing to play off ball. Heck, he was an incredible pick and roll partner with freaking Delly. I saw the Cavs try to pigeon hole Shump into a playmaking role this year, it was terrible. I don't buy this 'my way or the highway' attitude you're trying to ascribe to LeBron. He's more than proven himself as an off ball player.

I agree that you need multiple players capable of making good decisions, but I don't think you need multiple playmakers in the classic sense, as in Chris Paul or Jason Kidd types.

Think of the 2014 Spurs as a better example than the Warriors (oh how I wish I hadn't mentioned them). They used brilliant ball movement and player movement, but you don't have to be a great playmaker in that system. Boris Diaw was probably the most effective playmaker, and he averaged only 5.8 assists in the finals. Parker averaged 4.6, Ginobli averaged 4.4, and no one else averaged more than 2.0. Parker and Ginobli are obviously good playmakers, and Diaw was too, but it was more about the hot-potato passing and player movement that broke the defense down to get easy shots.

That's different from making someone a playmaker in PnR situations, which requires a different skill set.

I'm also not saying that LeBron doesn't play off the ball and requires the ball in his hands all the time, because that's obviously not the case. But he does initiate the offense the majority of the time. Don't you agree that's true?

I don't see how it's all that controversial to say that the Cavs offense is built around LeBron.

[Outside]

I'm not sure if you're taking this seriously because now you're faux apologizing and then back tracking on that analogy (but also still slightly hedging by saying it's not totally wrong).

The gist of your point is: "LeBron is polarizing, bad! Warriors share equally, good!". What I am showing is that:
(a) your table analogy is not only too simplistic, it doesn't reflect reality: the Warriors are HEAVILY dependent on Curry, they just have far more redundancies in place to not suck - unlike the Cavs without LeBron, therefore:
(b) even if everything you said applied to LeBron (and given the extreme nature of your points - it's probably not), it's something the Warriors are guilty of as well - they just have far better talent, so it is not apparent.

Sigh... I've never said anything about LeBron being polarizing, and it's not about the Warriors. That's you reading something into my arguments that's not there.

I wish I hadn't mentioned the Warriors the one time I mentioned them because now it seems to be largely about the Warriors instead of LeBron.

I don't think you want to make it about LeBron (not really)

Oh, I do. That's all this particular discussion was supposed to be about. I don't see how anyone reading my posts can think I wanted it to be anything other than LeBron.

your logic that:
P: Because LeBron had a large say in the team getting structured around him, then...
Q: It is his fault if they don't do well in his absence.

Has so many pitfalls: Is "player wanting to be at the center of things" the only (hell, is it even the biggest?) driver of performance without said player? Of course not. There's coaching, there's opponent strength, there's talent mix with/without the player...

I never said it was the only or biggest driver of said player, or that there were no other factors affecting performance. That's like another poster (Joao Saraiva) turning what I said into 100% this and 100% that.

[this is all even assuming that it's a bad idea to structure a team around LeBron. I don't think this is true at all, btw - when you have someone as GOAT-smackingly good as him, or Shaq, or Magic, you absolutely build your team to enable their strengths and shore up their weaknesses. There's tons of evidence for this - Net RTGs, historical ORTGs in the PS, etc. - but sure, let's assume for the sake of argument that structuring around someone is bad]

It's not that it's a BAD idea. A team relying heavily on one player can clearly be successful since teams like that have won championships. My point is that building a team to rely so heavily on one player, no matter how great that player, has a lower ceiling than team playing excellent distributed team basketball.

You said it yourself: It seems like Kyrie+shooters and Thompson should do well without LeBron but they don't - and the conclusion is it's LeBron's fault? That's not scientific at all, you need to (aside from a whole host of other things) look at other samples, e.g., how does Kyrie do when LeBron is on? He plays almost the exact same way, and while he's gotten better, he still doesn't read the defense the same way even a Delly does. Which is not to say he isn't more valuable than Delly on O, of course - his GOAT-level tough shot making is priceless vs. someone like the Warriors. He just stinks it up if it's not falling, which is what you might have observed when he plays with role players.

I agree my conclusion isn't scientific, but I'm not sure anyone can come up with a scientific conclusion. We can come up with lots of data that shows how good the Cavs are with LeBron on the court and how bad they are when he sits, but I don't think that's in dispute. The Cavs were +8.4 in the RS with LeBron on the court and -8.6 when he was off. It was drastically worse in the playoffs -- +12.9 with him on, -17.9 with him off. (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jamesle01/on-off/2017) Can we all agree on that as a given for this discussion?

Where it gets tricky is figuring out WHY that is the case. I have my theory that the Cavs are specifically built to operate with LeBron on the court, that the other Cavs have their roles customized to complement LeBron, that they spend the vast majority of their time playing that way, and that they're far less efficient when LeBron's no longer there, both because of the absence of their best player and that it's not so easy to switch from the complementary roles they are trained to play.

Perhaps you have a different theory. That's fine. I also agree (and have said during this discussion) that Kyrie is a great, great scorer. That's not the issue. Too many side issues are getting brought into what was initially a pretty simple question.

[drza]

I've posted a lot in this project, but haven't yet done much in the way of advocating rankings. In the first thread, most of my posts were about characteristics that I found to be admirable and important, particularly with regard to defense. I continued from there, into the 2nd thread, with comparison cases trying to illustrate what I found to be important in comparison with Kareem, who was the favorite to (and eventually did) win that vote. Because of that, while I stayed with a Russell vote (I'd voted for him at #1 too), when it came time to vote for a 2nd player I didn't have a pick settled.

Now, I think it'd be useful to be more proactive about things. To lay out my rough groupings of upcoming players, as I see them, and some of the characteristics that group these players together. Note: everyone in a group won't necessarily be voted ahead of everyone in another group, this is primarily a way of loosely characterizing player archetypes.

I'll call my first category dominant defensive big men that have all-time level impact, but have only additive contributions to any reasonably built team...nothing really taken off the table. This group includes Russell, Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan. If we'd have gotten 10 years of healthy Walton instead of 10 minutes, he'd have been in this category as well. And this group also has varying ranges of offense, as well, and has the ability to make varying degrees of impact on that side of the ball as well. Once we get into the teens, David Robinson likely ends up in this grouping as well.

Then, there's the amazing scoring big men. I'm including Wilt Chamberlain and Shaquille O'Neal in this category, and it's where Kareem fits in as well. They put eye-popping scoring numbers on the board, are generally what people think of when the word "dominant big man" is used, and they all had positive defensive qualities as rim protectors. I'm not sure whether to put Hakeem Olajuwon in this group or the first one, but I lean towards him being in this one because his dominant, iso scoring is one of his hallmarks and fits with this category. I'll also say that Wilt is another that played at times like the first group, and I think he would have ultimately had more impact in his career if he'd played that way more often.

The last two categories are both perimeter-offense based. One is the savant team offense types (Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Oscar Robertson) that have distributing and floor generalship as their primary skill feature, though each could score as well with ramps up to nigh dominant scoring. The other is the dominant perimeter scorer that can do everything, including run the team offense as well (Michael Jordan, LeBron James & Kobe Bryant). LeBron could really be in either category, because he's on the continuum between, but I think he's more on-ball/iso scorer than distributor on that continuum so I put him with Mike.

That's 14 names, in those 4 groups. It's a veritable lock that my top-10 votes will come from here. By the time we get past 10, some of the guys mentioned here might have some tight competition from guys I didn't mention for those spots (e.g. Jerry West, Dirk Nowitzki, Julius Erving).

Kayess asked for biases...I don't think it's any secret that my preferred style of play is the one listed in that first group. This is the style of play that I believe to be the best combination of ultra impact, ultra-portable, ultra-scalable, completely additive and relatively sparse. Plus, this group still has the ability to have a huge offensive impact as well.

Of the remaining three categories, I think I personally prefer the savant team offense type, as kind of the offensive analog to the defensive dominant defensive bigs. Of the two dominant scoring groups, I prefer that to come from the perimeter than the interior. More upside, more control, and generally more offensive impact.

Thus, I think I'd tend to rank the dominant scoring bigs archetype that can most easily have their impact be over-estimated by those that equate scoring with team offensive impact (which you've seen me argue thus far, and will continue to see as we get into Wilt). For the bigs in that category, I think (outside of Shaq) they require their defensive impact to be truly all-history impact, as their offense (outside of Shaq) isn't as impactful as the boxscore stats would suggest. On the flip side, when this group hits it perfect (like Wilt did at times, or like Hakeem) they can hit a 2-way impact level that the perimeter players can be hard-pressed to match.

Generally speaking, that's where my head is at the moment. Will engage more specifically from here

[drza]

Spoiler:

Kareem at #2 is terrible! I'm leaving the project!!


A different take on LeBron vs Russell:
[spoiler]Why LeBron over Russell:
It's not only the fact that at this point he has more longevity, or that his game is more between portable between different contexts/eras.

I think LeBron has superior impact, each on their own era.

"LeBron has never lead a team as good as xxxxx"
This year's Cavs topped as one the best offenses of all time in the playoffs. Remember how good they looked when LeBron sit? Yeah, not very much. That team had a -5 relative ORtg without LeBron on court (on the RS). And on the Playoffs... We've seen it! Like a week ago. Those stretches of bad play when LeBron was out. A FINALS GAME lost because LeBron had to rest for 2 minutes. And some people have the nerve of calling this a superteam.

LeBron offensive plus/minus +19.9
Irving/Love offensive plus/minus +2.1/+1.5 (and those are the second and third best players!)

His total +/- in the postseason tops +30, +17 on the regular season. That's on an offensive ATG team, +12 SRS on the playoffs. That's higher quality than any of Russell's teams. And when that load isn't supported on LeBron's shoulders, it falls to the ground, badly. The same happened in the last years of the Heat, by the way.

Russell took a team that without him was around a -2 defensively (1957) and took them to -4... and even to -10 GOAT defenses. That's massive: a team built mostly on his shoulders (I'm not gonna enter the narrative of "Russell was surrounded by HOF's!!" because I don't buy it: most of those are HOF's because of Russell). But... that's not enough when you compete against something that just made more with less.
LeBron "doesn't work well with other stars":
[spoiler]If you have LeBron and Wade in the same team (similar roles), you play through LeBron (the better player) and Wade has to adapt to another role. Just like if you had Russell and Ben Wallace in the same team... yeah, Wallace better start learning to shoot 3s or something, because he is not gonna play center.

Love isn't worse than before: Love has changed his role. In fact he is better with LeBron, he just shoots less:

Code: Select all

                     min   TSA   PTS   TSA/36   PTS/36   PPS

Love   with LeBron   6402   2811   3209   15.81   18.04   1.142
Love      w/o LeBron   1726   968   1026   20.19   21.40   1.060


Boxscore numbers don't make you a better player.

Vote: LeBron James[/spoiler]

And since I have him in my top 5 anyway and I don't mind being "that guy":[/spoiler]
Second vote: Kevin Garnett

The case for Kevin Garnett over Bill Russell:

Spoiler:

-Around 15 years of proven superstar impact (Russell: 12 years) + additional years as a solid piece.

-Proven impact on both ends, on different roles:
*Played as a 4 and as a 5, maybe even the 3 at some point.
*Played as a jack-off-all-trades on offense, horizontal defender (mid-decade Wolves), with worse-O-better-D quasi LeBron levels of impact (average around +7, peaked as +10 -higher than Bron-). <- outside of LeBron, probably the better scrub-carrier of all time
*Played as a defensive anchor and secondary/tertiary scorer (Celtics) on a contender, with Mutombo/Russell-esque levels of impact, considering era (+0 off +6 def) - and arguably outside his prime!
*At close to 40-years old, still a valuable contributor off the bench on defensive duties with a reduced offensive role.

-Has the physical qualities and IQ to quasi-replicate the impact of Russell in his era (similar mobility, greater length but worse verticality, top-tier defensive instincts, nightmare on switches) while Russell doesn't have the additional tools KG has (better finishing, mid-range proficiency, better offensive orchestrator).

-Doesn't have the GOAT-tier leadership of Bill, but it's one of the ones that are closer.

The case for Tim Duncan over Bill Russell:

Spoiler:

tomorrow if I have time

Since you're the first vote for KG (unless I missed someone) I'd like to ask you this:
How can he get a pass for missing the playoffs three years in a row?
Basketball is where a single player has the most impact even with a sub-par team.

His supporting cast wasn't the best so I'm not expecting championship runs but it also wasn't as awful as people make it out to be.
In these same 3 years Kobe only missed the playoffs once in the same WC while playing with Smush Parker, Kwame Brown and Chris Mihm.

Dirk took his team to the playoffs 3 times, one of these years they made the finals.
Was his supporting cast THAT much better? It's not like Josh Howard and Marquis Daniels are on a different level to Wally Szczerbiak, Ricky Davis or Latrel Spreewell.

Were KG's teammates worse than DRob's in the '90s?

Is there another top 20 (even top 30) player that missed the playoffs 3 years in a row in their prime?

Basketball is a team game and KG did some great things in his career but this is something that shouldn't be ignored in top 10 discussion and there's no way he can be top 3 all time IMO.

How does one determine how bad a cast is? Or how much an individual is doing with that cast? There are ways to try quantify it...if someone is interested in doing so. And this actually plays an interesting parallel to the LeBron conversation that's on-going as well. So, I'm kind of curious to see how this goes, as we go through the thread.

At a first blush, one could use different boxscore composite stats to get a general estimate of how productive the supporting cast is. Just a rough idea. Kobe and Dirk, in the passage above, played in the same databall era as Garnett. So, let's compare Garnett's 06 and 07 casts to Kobe's 06 & 07, and Dirk's 06 & 07, using summed win shares, wins produced, and VORP to get a general baseline estimate of how the casts compared to one another quantitatively:

2006 (without the star, boxscore estimates)
Win Shares: Lakers 34, Mavs 42.1, Timberwolves 21.7
WIns Produced: LA 33.4, Mavs 39.4, Timberwolves 9.4
VORP: Lakers +6.8, Mavericks +11.5, Timberwolves +0.3

2007 (without the star, boxscore estimates)
Win Shares: Lakers 28.5, Mavs 46.7, Timberwolves 21.7
Wins Produced: LA 25.9, Mavs 42.2, Timberwolves 10.8
VORP: Lakers +5.0, Mavericks +13.6, Timberwolves +0.5

The benefit of doing the comp for the databall era guys, is, we also have +/- info. Averaging the off-court +/- for the star players in 2006 and 2007 (again, a rough idea, but this time based on team performance when star wasn't on court)

Off-court +/-, average of 2006 & 2007
No Kobe, Lakers: -6.4
No Dirk, Mavs: -0.3
No KG, Wolves: -12.8

Now, with every caveat that there is about these being estimates, not exact measures, and there being room for error...I humbly submit that the answer to Xherdan 23's questions are overwhelmingly clear.

Dirk's cast didn't have big names, but they were a team full of productive, contributing members that together was actually very strong in those two years.

The Lakers cast was poor. There's no way around that.

But the Wolves' casts in those two years? They weren't just poor, they were repugnant. I could describe the ways in which they were some of the worst casts that I've ever seen, using the eye test. But there's no need to be in any way subjective here, and possibly derail the thread with the type of drawn out cast-centric debate that drives Texas Chuck crazy. In this case, the numbers are INCREDIBLY clear. And keep in mind, those are three different boxscore approaches that value entirely different parts of the game. Then, there's a +/- score that looks only at what the team actually accomplished without the star player.

So, emphatically...YES, Garnett's casts in 06 and 07 were THAT BAD. They were horrendous. They were bad on a scale that none of the star players of his generation, and very possibly ever, had to play with. Yes, basketball is a game where an individual can do a lot...but he has to have SOMETHING to work with. As the VORP scores showed, the 06 and 07 Wolves were the closest thing we've ever seen to a superstar going out on the court with absolutely zero support, almost playing 1 on 5.

[drza]

Spoiler:

Question to any/all:

Does Lebron, in your opinion, bear any of the blame for the fact that his team (even a presumably "good" cast) falls off a cliff any time he's not on the court? And if so, why?

I mean some of those old casts in Cleveland 1.0 it's obvious: those were just crummy casts.

But in Cleveland 2.0, where he has K.Love and Kyrie, and reasonable depth (though lacking in interior presence, especially defensively), they still seem to utterly drown without him.
Is it somehow [even partially, perhaps?] his fault? Or is this squarely on the the supporting cast? I mean, these are grown men, they're professionals (and almost exclusively veterans, too), should they be considered responsible for themselves?

Thoughts on this?

It's a very tough question. I start by reminding myself that Kyrie and Love led mediocre at best teams pre-Lebron and other than that one year with the Wolves, they led truly awful teams. Now Kyrie was just a kid so he might do a bit better now, but its my opinion that neither of these guys are good enough to build a franchise around. Does putting 2 of them together make the basis for a playoff team? Maybe, but you would need quality depth around them and the Cavs don't have that. Nor do they have a coach imo who can scheme the team to play above their talent.

I think the team is utterly and totally dependent on Lebron just from a pure talent standpoint. Now Doctor MJ has been harping for years now that Lebron's chosen style of play limits those around him, but imo he doesn't when he's on the court. He elevates them in fact imo. So how much blame do I give Lebron? Well it better be the same blame I give KG later. A huge part of KG's case is based on RAPM and its affiliates and much of that is based on just how bad the Wolves in particular were without him on the court. It can't be a plus for KG and a negative for Lebron if we are to show consistency.

Ultimately for me I'm not holding Lebron very accountable for how dependent his teams are on him. A little his first year in Miami since he was part of the orchestration of the team which required Miami to dump all depth but Haslem and Mike Miller. And maybe a little now in Cleveland since he's been part of FO decisions, but given their options its hard to fault him or the FO--they have spent big money trying to have some depth around him.

Bottom line is Love and Kyrie are complementary players in their own right. Very talented ones, but complimentary none the less.

I think the underlined above is what some are questioning, which is why the bolded is not fully accurate. The position that seems, for now, to be best articulated by Outside is that the Cavs aren't dependent on LeBron from a pure talent standpoint. That they have the talent to play better without LeBron, because they have the ability to do more than they are asked to do when LeBron is playing. And that they thus modify their game to fit what would work best with LeBron, and practice/play that way all of the time, to the point that when LeBron isn't there they are no longer equipped to play to their full potential anymore and the team struggles.

I'm not going to weigh in on that here, because I don't want to distort my point about why this stance isn't the same as the case for Garnett. So, focus: Garnett.

The difference, is, that there's no question at all about Garnett's individual impact was limiting his talented teammates. When his teams were awful in Minnesota, as you point out, KG posted huge impact stats that indicated he was lifting those squads in a major way. However, whenever he played with talent, two things happened:

1) KG maximized his impact (2004 and 2008 are two of KG's three best RAPM scores, according to Doc MJ's spreadsheet, and he posted consistently high per-minute impact, given his health, over his entire Celtics tenure)

2) KG's talented teammates ALSO maximized their impact (2004 was the Cassell's career-high in RAPM; 2008 was Pierce's career-high in RAPM; Allen's two best RAPM seasons were 2009 and 2010)

That's the difference being debated. If someone believes that the Cavs actually do have more talent but playing "LeBron's way" limits them, then they could very easily argue that while still being very consistent to credit Garnett's impact-based accomplishments.

[kayess]

I'm not sure if you're taking this seriously because now you're faux apologizing and then back tracking on that analogy (but also still slightly hedging by saying it's not totally wrong).

The gist of your point is: "LeBron is polarizing, bad! Warriors share equally, good!". What I am showing is that:
(a) your table analogy is not only too simplistic, it doesn't reflect reality: the Warriors are HEAVILY dependent on Curry, they just have far more redundancies in place to not suck - unlike the Cavs without LeBron, therefore:
(b) even if everything you said applied to LeBron (and given the extreme nature of your points - it's probably not), it's something the Warriors are guilty of as well - they just have far better talent, so it is not apparent.

Sigh... I've never said anything about LeBron being polarizing, and it's not about the Warriors. That's you reading something into my arguments that's not there.

I wish I hadn't mentioned the Warriors the one time I mentioned them because now it seems to be largely about the Warriors instead of LeBron.

I don't think you want to make it about LeBron (not really)

Oh, I do. That's all this particular discussion was supposed to be about. I don't see how anyone reading my posts can think I wanted it to be anything other than LeBron.

your logic that:
P: Because LeBron had a large say in the team getting structured around him, then...
Q: It is his fault if they don't do well in his absence.

Has so many pitfalls: Is "player wanting to be at the center of things" the only (hell, is it even the biggest?) driver of performance without said player? Of course not. There's coaching, there's opponent strength, there's talent mix with/without the player...

I never said it was the only or biggest driver of said player, or that there were no other factors affecting performance. That's like another poster (Joao Saraiva) turning what I said into 100% this and 100% that.

[this is all even assuming that it's a bad idea to structure a team around LeBron. I don't think this is true at all, btw - when you have someone as GOAT-smackingly good as him, or Shaq, or Magic, you absolutely build your team to enable their strengths and shore up their weaknesses. There's tons of evidence for this - Net RTGs, historical ORTGs in the PS, etc. - but sure, let's assume for the sake of argument that structuring around someone is bad]

It's not that it's a BAD idea. A team relying heavily on one player can clearly be successful since teams like that have won championships. My point is that building a team to rely so heavily on one player, no matter how great that player, has a lower ceiling than team playing excellent distributed team basketball.

You said it yourself: It seems like Kyrie+shooters and Thompson should do well without LeBron but they don't - and the conclusion is it's LeBron's fault? That's not scientific at all, you need to (aside from a whole host of other things) look at other samples, e.g., how does Kyrie do when LeBron is on? He plays almost the exact same way, and while he's gotten better, he still doesn't read the defense the same way even a Delly does. Which is not to say he isn't more valuable than Delly on O, of course - his GOAT-level tough shot making is priceless vs. someone like the Warriors. He just stinks it up if it's not falling, which is what you might have observed when he plays with role players.

I agree my conclusion isn't scientific, but I'm not sure anyone can come up with a scientific conclusion. We can come up with lots of data that shows how good the Cavs are with LeBron on the court and how bad they are when he sits, but I don't think that's in dispute. The Cavs were +8.4 in the RS with LeBron on the court and -8.6 when he was off. It was drastically worse in the playoffs -- +12.9 with him on, -17.9 with him off. (http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/j/jamesle01/on-off/2017) Can we all agree on that as a given for this discussion?

Where it gets tricky is figuring out WHY that is the case. I have my theory that the Cavs are specifically built to operate with LeBron on the court, that the other Cavs have their roles customized to complement LeBron, that they spend the vast majority of their time playing that way, and that they're far less efficient when LeBron's no longer there, both because of the absence of their best player and that it's not so easy to switch from the complementary roles they are trained to play.

Perhaps you have a different theory. That's fine. I also agree (and have said during this discussion) that Kyrie is a great, great scorer. That's not the issue. Too many side issues are getting brought into what was initially a pretty simple question.

- You never saying LeBron was being polarizing: That's my bad, I meant centralizing (I used it interchangeably here), but it doesn't change my overall point.

- I'll have to politely ask you to stop saying "I didn't want to it to be about the Warriors" - I think we all get that. However, you used a comparison to them to make a point about LeBron - so clearly, looking at the comparison to them (and the implications the comparison has on how you view the player) is absolutely fair game.

Do you honestly not see that:

1) Because your point is: "LeBron has a huge role in constructing a team that centers around him... contrast that with the Warriors, who are far more equal opportunity". Given all the negative implications of the latter (e.g. "...don't do as well without him"), it's pretty clear that you're implying that the latter is better, correct? Therefore...

2) ...showing that this "equal opportunity" bit (or however you want to call it - I'd appreciate you skipping the semantics for the sake of semantics since the increased nuance of this vocabulary isn't really furthering the discussion) is false, and that their structure has some characteristics of the first approach which you have criticized so much...

...is a logical response to what you are saying?

- Not making it about LeBron: Not-so-subtle (apparently too subtle) jab that you don't want to discuss this, because the way you write is as if it's cut and dried that it's his fault.

- Ceilings: this is exactly the point I'm trying to make - if you think the driver of the Warriors success and the reason they have a higher ceiling is purely (or hell, even largely) due to this, you're dead wrong (see: reliance on Curry as the engine, Durant as a failsafe, how they played when the Cavs got it close). And that's not a bad thing, and this is why discussing the Warriors is relevant to this discussion.

- You didn't say it was the only, or not even the biggest driver explicitly: but you did say he is the most to blame because of it. How is that not equivalent to saying that the biggest driver of a team's non-performance without the said player is the construction of the team around him?

- I don't know how you can read what I wrote and come up with the conclusion that the point was to say Kyrie is a great scorer and that I'm sidetracking this with too many side issues - I'm not the one complaining about bringing the Warriors into this (when they are relevant), and semantic nuances which do not inform the discussion further.

The point of that is this: you said you would expect the Cavs to do well without LeBron given they have Kyrie+shooters and Thompson. Your hypothesis is because because they are so used to playing with him, they cannot play without him. I am saying well, okay, why don't we look at Kyrie? Why does he play worse without LeBron than with him? And then you look at his style of play - great 1v1, can create his own shot at will. Why isn't that something that translates to without LeBron?

Because his reading of the defense and playmaking isn't that good, despite the tons of opportunities he's been afforded. Therefore, when his shots aren't falling without LeBron, the team does way worse. Potential conclusion: maybe it's not just LeBron's absence that's causing this - but Kyrie's inability to consistently make plays for others?

And of course, we go back to "distributed team basketball". Let's use an example (which I am bringing in, not you - don't worry): The Warriors, when their best player sits, can trot out a lineup of 2 of Klay/Durant/Green, Pachulia, + Iggy + Livingston. Hm. Seems to me there's something else other than distributed team basketball driving their success, but idk, not sure.

Anyway actually, my conclusion from all this is that you're right, the Cavs should empower JR Smith and Iman Shumpert to play point guard, just like Iggy/Livingston do for the Warriors, but if they can't play PG it's LeBron's fault because he wanted them there and the Cavs should've just gone for other people.

[gaf234]

All that leads to a team that is designed to operate around him, but it also leads to a team that is terrible when he's not on the court. You look at the roster and say that a team with Kyrie, Love, Thompson, and a bunch of three-point shooters should be pretty good without LeBron, but they apparently don't know what to do when he's not on the court. The fact that they are so dependent on LeBron is by LeBron's design, so yes, he bears most of the responsibility for that.

Can you explain why this is a fault of James? You claim he is basically the defacto GM over the Cavs, (which, btw, is an empirical that every single Cavs beat writer disagrees with), but if we assume that's true, then he's not just a GOAT caliber player, but a GOAT caliber GM. The Cavs were one of the worst franchises in the league the 3 years prior to 2014, while post 2014 they're a freak injury and a KD signing away from three-peating. The moves they have made, from trading Wiggins for Love, to acquiring guys like Smith, Korver, Shumpert and Mozgov (regardless of how well or not they're playing today) have been terrific. So you have no trouble blaming him for the flaws of the Cavs current roster, but I haven't seen you write a single word of praise for the upgrades the Cavs have had on the roster.


I also wonder how closely you watched basketball 5 years ago. You claim

This is different than his first stint in Cleveland, where LeBron was the star player who did the best with the roster he had but didn't have the power to control the makeup of the roster or the offense or defense the team ran. In Miami, he was first among the superfriends, especially by the end with Wade's decline, but Pat Riley was the most powerful figure in the franchise, and he and Eric Spoelstra decided what offense and defense to run and how best to use LeBron's talents in that system.

Gaining power over the franchise was a key reason why he left Miami and returned to Cleveland. He'd never have that power in Miami, and with the Cavs' descent into suckatude after he left, he had a golden opportunity to exert power when he came back.

This seems like a just so story you made up. In fact, it was received wisdom that Lebron was the defacto GM in Miami as well. Here's an article pre 2012 NBA finals that didn't age so well:

He won’t stop Kevin Durant from stealing his crown as the best basketball player on earth. Worse, LeBron James is about to get posterized by a bespectacled guard from a tiny college nowhere to be found on the hoops radar.

The real mismatch of the NBA Finals: Sam Presti vs. James.

While stars will make TV ratings rise, the more compelling basketball question is: Does how you build a champion still matter?

Presti is the general manager of Oklahoma City, a contender built with sweat and love by a 35-year-old man who never played above the Division III level in college.

James is the de facto architect of the Miami Heatles, a South Beach party thrown together by winks and nods among friends.

See http://www.denverpost.com/2012/06/11/kiszla-thunder-gm-sam-presti-may-be-most-important-man-in-nba-finals/

Notice a trend here? Whenever James' teams are underperforming, however Lebron the player performs, James is criticized because, well actually, Lebron is the 'secret' GM (oh and the coach) as well, and therefore its all fair play. But these same folks don't seem to give credit to Lebron for being a great GM or coach either, when he would appear to warrant such praise. Me personally, I don't think Lebron is the coach of the Cavs, nor the GM, anymore than Jordan was calling all the shots in Chicago, so I don't have to worry about parsing out how much value Lebron the 'architect' deserves - I think we should just focus on Lebron the player.

The analogy I've used is a table. The Warriors, for example, are like a table with four legs; if you remove one of the legs, you can shift the stuff on the table around and the table still stands. The Cavs, on the other hand, are a pedestal table; if you remove the pedestal, the table falls no matter what you do. It's an overly simplistic analogy, but I do think there is a ring of truth to it. LeBron is the one who decided he wanted to be the pedestal that the Cavs were built on, and part of that deal is that the table doesn't hold up without the pedestal.

Yeah dude Lebron most definitely wants his team to be totally reliant on him at all costs. That's why he left Cleveland in 2010: the team operated too well without him. And after the 2014 NBA Finals he must have been really really mad when he saw how well the Heat did when he was off the floor, so he packed his toys and went home.


To be perfectly honest, you seem to be engaging in some pretty garden variety Bron bashing. It's not that you think he's no 8 all time - that's a bit low (he was no 7 overall last time we did this list), but hey diversity of perspectives makes the world go round. It's that you're applying some absurdly specific criteria to Lebron, but then failing to even apply those criteria evenly.

[Xherdan 23]

[
Were KG's teammates worse than DRob's in the '90s?

I've lived through too many arguments built around just how bad the 05-07 Wolves supporting casts were that I'm not interested in rehashing it.

But I did want to speak to David Robinson because I think he and KG have some interesting parallels. Both guys were far and away the best players on their team until KG went to Boston and became (after 08) a first among equals essentially and Robinson quickly became Robin to Duncan's Batman. And both had less than star studded supporting casts outside of that brilliant 04 Cassell campaign.

And yes Robinson's teams won more in the RS than KG's tho when you factor in the competition level of the West during those stretches the gap closes a bit. And both players got a bit of a bad rap as playoff disappointments. Both guys forced to be number 1 offensive options when ideally both guys are probably #2 offensive options while anchoring the defense.

But my take is that Robinson is a better floor raiser because as a true defensive anchor/rim protector his defensive impact is considerably higher than KG's. And while Robinson is the more efficient scorer, I would suggest KG was the better overall offensive player. But not so good as to make his team truly elite at that end the way Robinson could for the Spurs defense.

Spurs were middle of the pack defensively the year prior to Robinson. Immediately 3rd, then 1st the next 2 years, and 2 and 3 in years following that. He was a total game changer that gave the team a defensive foundation to build on.

But KG is a player who does so many things well, and the things he does well are additive, rather than redundant. Essentially you KG to almost any team and he increases their level by almost his full individual level because of the things he provides in terms of rebounding, passing, floor spacing, ability to guard out on the floor, guard in the post, his defensive communication out on the court, etc....

So KG not being able to do what Lebron or Robinson or Dirk did with weak casts to me is more a sign of him not being as dominant on one side of the ball or the other as those guys so he can't lift a floor quite as high. But his ability to turn a good team into a championship level team is up there with the very best players we've ever seen. And it doesn't really matter who is already on the team, you can slide KG in and he makes the team considerably better.

KG is as versatile as anyone and he's really great at a bunch of things, but we're talking about the third best player of all time here and he's getting votes.
KG's argument for being this high is usually impact stats, but in reality he just didn't impact his teams to the level that other ATGs have.

We still have guys on the board that can make any team into a contender, why are we talking about a guy who can't even guarantee you a playoff spot?

[Jaivl]

We still have guys on the board that can make any team into a contender, why are we talking about a guy who can't even guarantee you a playoff spot?

Weird criticism to have when the #1 and #2 guys didn't either.

EDIT: sorry about double post

[Jaivl]

Since you're the first vote for KG (unless I missed someone) I'd like to ask you this:
How can he get a pass for missing the playoffs three years in a row?

He had all-time bad teams those years. Just take a look at the names (though @drza already did a good job with that) and remember the Joe Smith fiasco.

Basketball is where a single player has the most impact even with a sub-par team.

Yeah, but not when you're playing with sub-replacement level teammates. Look at those 07 Wolves. Ugh. Garnett missed 6 games that season. In those games, the Wolves were a -14 SRS team. That would be literally an all-time worst. With Garnett they were "only" a -2 team. That's massive impact.

His supporting cast wasn't the best so I'm not expecting championship runs but it also wasn't as awful as people make it out to be.
In these same 3 years Kobe only missed the playoffs once in the same WC while playing with Smush Parker, Kwame Brown and Chris Mihm.

I don't hold that against Kobe either (you forgot Lamar Odom and Caron Butler, though). He had no business making the playoffs some of those years. Garnett had muuuuch less business, though.

Dirk took his team to the playoffs 3 times, one of these years they made the finals.
Was his supporting cast THAT much better? It's not like Josh Howard and Marquis Daniels are on a different level to Wally Szczerbiak, Ricky Davis or Latrel Spreewell.

Huhhh... yes, it was, lol.

Wally stopped being a good player in 2003. Sprewell about the same. And still, Sprewell retired in 2005 (Minny missed the playoffs, but by a hair) and Wally left in the same year, so Garnett had none of that in 2006 or 2007. Ricky Davis was a teeeeerrible player, way below replacement level. Josh Howard was a very good player. Dirk had some other good players in Jason Terry or Devin Harris. That takes nothing away from Dirk's awesomeness, but yeah, you need at least positive-level players to do something.

Just as a rough measurement, here are their respective RAPMs in the 01-15 dataset:

Spoiler:

Josh Howard: +3.35 (#60)
Devin Harris: +1.92 (#121)
Jason Terry: +1.14 (#181)
Marquis Daniels: -0.17 (#325)
Latrell Sprewell: -0.18 (#327)
Wally Szczerbiak: -0.44 (#360)
Ricky Davis: -3.74 (#1273)

Were KG's teammates worse than DRob's in the '90s?

Logic would say yes. If they weren't, Garnett would still be high on my list, but Robinson would be my GOAT by a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge margin. I have Robinson very high as it is, though.

Is there another top 20 (even top 30) player that missed the playoffs 3 years in a row in their prime?

Nope. Is there another top... top 100, even, that had to deal with the disgraceful Wolves front office and with such terrible teammates?

Basketball is a team game and KG did some great things in his career but this is something that shouldn't be ignored in top 10 discussion and there's no way he can be top 3 all time IMO.

Luckily for us, nobody has voted him top 3 yet.

[eminence]

Is there another top 20 (even top 30) player that missed the playoffs 3 years in a row in their prime?

Nope. Is there another top... top 100, even, that had to deal with the disgraceful Wolves front office and with such terrible teammates?

Oscar did in '68/'69/'70. (missed playoffs that is)

[Texas Chuck]

That's the difference being debated. If someone believes that the Cavs actually do have more talent but playing "LeBron's way" limits them, then they could very easily argue that while still being very consistent to credit Garnett's impact-based accomplishments.

Yeah you are right.

I should clarify my comments to state that I'm not surprised by how much the Cavs struggle with Lebron off the court because I don't think Kyrie and Love are really good enough to anchor a team--which as I stated we've seen in their actual careers pre-Lebron.

I also disagree overall with the idea that Lebron should be prioritizing helping his teammates succeed versus helping his team succeed. And while some may wonder if there is truly a difference between those two things I clearly think there is. I also disagree with how much he is actually holding them back. Kyrie in particular is an iso scorer and a brilliant one, but adds nearly nothing defensively and isn't that great of a team offensive player. Not sure what Lebron's supposed to do for him. Love does get marginalized as an individual player because obviously he could do more than he does, but is the team better off putting the ball in Love's hands and playing Lebron off-ball more? No, clearly they aren't. So Love's stats aren't what they were in Minny but its absolutely the best approach for the Cavs as a team and that's what should matter.

And as I stated in a separate line of discussion, I agree KG lifts his team. But he can't do as much with poor rosters as Lebron can. So its frustrating to hear the same posters who continually praise KG for his lift to criticize Lebron who is actually doing more to benefit his teams because he doesn't play in the manner they believe to be best. Fine to suggest Lebron might could do more--but if what he is doing is already at a level like we've almost never seen, it feels unfair.

[TrueLAfan]

#2 Vote: LeBron James

If you have the time, I kind of want to hear your reasons for Lebron as your second pick (as opposed to other candidates like Duncan or Wilt).

Well, I have TD, LeBron, and Wilt essentially equal. I think LeBron from 2005-17 was clearly (although not greatly) better than Duncan ever was. In advanced stats, TD has slightly better +/- and slightly lower On-Off. Other than that, it’s pretty much all LeBron. I don’t think TD’s OBPM is fair, but other people can scramble over that. Win Shares, WS/48, BPM, VORP …all show a clear superiority. I don’t think that’s accurate…or, rather, I think it underestimates TD.

I think the MVP voting values both equally, and it’s much closer and more interesting. LeBron and Duncan both had parts of their peaks between 2004 and 2011. Duncan had 3 top 4 finishes, and 3 more top 11 finishes. LeBron won the award twice, has three more top 4 finishes, and 3 more top 9 finishes. In the periods where their peaks merged, LeBron was better. Now, Td did better (and I think was better) in most of the years from 1998 to 2003—he recorded his own pair of MVPs and was never out of the top 5. But LeBron still one ups him by a hair—LBJ has two more MVPs after 2011, and was never out of the top 3.

So the question for me is whether Duncan's later play (after 2010 or so) is enough to elevate him over LeBron. And for me, it isn’t. Timmy has intangibles and D, and he’s likely going to be next on my list. He makes up some ground. But LeBron's peak period was enough better to push and keep him ahead. As a matter of fact, as I wrote in another recent post, I’m of the opinion that if LeBron has 3 more decent years, he’ll be in the top group. My .02 on that.

Wilt is the outlier in every sense. I think he had the most valuable seasons. His portability is criminally undervalued. He had more bad luck than any other major player. But he was also the most self destructive of the top 10 (with Shaq running second). He wasn’t a leader. I can’t put him ahead of TD or LeBron. I'll write him in more detail as he comes onto the list.