RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #18

[penbeast0]

Thanks, I didn't actually look up the numbers but went off my memory and it was apparently wrong.

[trex_8063]

I haven't voted for him and I've been waiting for him to get more traction but...

How long is Mikan going to be ignored? He dominated his era. Even if it was weaker, it's not his fault he played in that era.

I've also seen people who say they don't care much about portability (myself included) but then Mikan is almost out of the top 20? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

I think it makes sense. I'm not too big on considering era portability, but imo one still has to consider strength of era.

Exaggerated hypothetical, but suppose circa-1950 basketball was so widely considered a childish and stupid game that almost no one was interested in, such that the best league in the land at the time was put together out of a small player pool of mostly children (because it was widely felt it wasn't dignified for adults to play). Then what if one decent (but not great; let's say like a 6'3" guy of moderate athleticism and still antiquated skill by modern standards) young adult player came into the game and dominated this league of mostly children to the tune of a 35 PER and .370 WS/48 etc every year of his sort of short career, while leading his team to a perfect record and the championship every year. Suddenly, after his career, the general public FINALLY saw the potential in this game and many others began to play it, and the player pool exploded continuously for 4+ decades and the league was thereafter restricted to grown men only and it also became integrated, etc, until we had the modern game we enjoy today.

Should we consider this player a top 25-30 player all-time? idk; this hypothetical player's impact on the course of the game would have some weight with me, personally. But on his actual merits as a player, I would say probably not; the league he played in just so lacked in legitimacy (and yes, what I've described suggests he likely wouldn't have succeeded in many other eras).

Now obviously Mikan was taller than 6'3", and a better player than the one I've described, and the league he played in was much better than the one I described. But there's no question is WAS a less competitive league than later eras. The questions we all must answer to our own satisfaction are two-fold: 1) Does the difference in competition matter to you? And if so, 2) HOW MUCH less competitive was it?


I have some materials which directly relate to popularity (and size of player pool) for earlier eras which I've been meaning to share. I keep mentioning that, and I suppose it's now the time where I need to come forward with it. Will try to do so this evening.

Anyway, this is my bumbling way of saying that while how well you dominated your own time and/or being one of the best of your time matters to me, the relative competitiveness of that era also matters to me.

[wojoaderge]

penbeast has been the only guy supporting Mikan to this point

[penbeast0]

... But there's no question is WAS a less competitive league than later eras. The questions we all must answer to our own satisfaction are two-fold: 1) Does the difference in competition matter to you? And if so, 2) HOW MUCH less competitive was it?


I have some materials which directly relate to popularity (and size of player pool) for earlier eras which I've been meaning to share. I keep mentioning that, and I suppose it's now the time where I need to come forward with it. Will try to do so this evening.

Anyway, this is my bumbling way of saying that while how well you dominated your own time and/or being one of the best of your time matters to me, the relative competitiveness of that era also matters to me.

These are absolutely the right questions to be asking and to some degree my championing of Mikan so early is a bit of counterprogramming for the many posters who aren't even asking them (at least not in their posts) but just dismissing the 50s and even for some, the 60s. The 50s are by far the weakest era in basketball, the 60s much stronger between integration and concentration of players on relatively few teams. But, the 70s are the second weakest between rampant expansion and playing for contracts (plus the cocaine epidemic to a lesser degree) and few seem to penalize Kareem's spectacular numbers for fattening on all the teams starting Kevin Kunnert or Lloyd Neal.

I have no problem with people who choose another player, even someone like Isiah or Chuck who I think should be much lower; different criteria, different experiences with the game. I have a problem with those who aren't considering players from before their "comfort zone" and yet participating in this project.

[trex_8063]

I have no problem with people who choose another player, even someone like Isiah or Chuck who I think should be much lower; different criteria, different experiences with the game. I have a problem with those who aren't considering players from before their "comfort zone" and yet participating in this project.

Yeah. I hope that isn't happening (and I specifically addressed this in OP of sign-up thread) to any large degree, though obviously we have little means of determining if it is.

[Senior]

penbeast has been the only guy supporting Mikan to this point

Sorry I forgot you man

Mikan is in a unique position - his teams were dominant defensively led by his shotblocking/rim protection (called goaltending in the day) his mobility was a strong suit as his coaches at DePaul emphasized moving fluidly/gracefully, he was a great scoring option since he could use both hands and his hook shots were reliable (ahead of his time by a lot) and the Lakers won 5 of 6 titles from 49-54. The only one they lost was 1951...a season where Mikan broke his ankle late in the season. This is not a stretch that anyone can match except Russell.

And yet...it's hard to argue against the 50s. He didn't really adjust well post-shot clock, his career ended at 30, and the only all-timers playing in his era are like Dolph Schayes and maybe Joe Fulks.

I try not to penalize players for being born too early or at a wrong time...but he probably just wasn't as good as others on pure ability...but should it matter? I don't really know. I'm not sure what the right place for Mikan is because his era is just so different from every other all-timer's. I almost wish we could just designate Mikan as an all-timer without numbering his place in the all-time list because who's to say if Mikan was actually a better or worse player than someone like Isiah? His accomplishments/accolades crush everyone left and he was miles better than everyone in his era so he should get points for dominating the scene and his peers.

[Lou Fan]

I haven't voted for him and I've been waiting for him to get more traction but...

How long is Mikan going to be ignored? He dominated his era. Even if it was weaker, it's not his fault he played in that era.

I've also seen people who say they don't care much about portability (myself included) but then Mikan is almost out of the top 20? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Should we consider this player a top 25-30 player all-time? idk; this hypothetical player's impact on the course of the game would have some weight with me, personally. But on his actual merits as a player, I would say probably not; the league he played in just so lacked in legitimacy (and yes, what I've described suggests he likely wouldn't have succeeded in many other eras).

The strength of era is by far the biggest concern for me. The league was white only for the first half of his career which clearly limits the player pool and the NBA was a shell of what it became. No one really cared about basketball yet and (in general) little kids didn't grow up practicing basketball in hopes of a chance to play in the NBA. I would argue that the NBA became popular in 1979 when it adopted the 3pt shot and Bird and Magic were drafted. That's when kids everywhere dreamt of being in the NBA. That's when the pool of potential players skyrocketed. The pool of players was exponentially smaller in the 40s-50s. Therefore the talent was exponentially weaker. I have to give credit to Mikan for dominating his era and "beating who was in front of him," but I also feel the degree to which he dominated has been overstated. I don't think, despite penbeast's claim, he even dominated his own era at the level of Shaq, Duncan or Hakeem. While his PER and his ws/48 are very good a simple look at the box shows he was not as dominant as Shaq, Duncan, or Hakeem. As a center in a weak era where he was bigger, stronger, and taller a wouldn't be a career 40% shooter. Surely a player as dominant as Shaq could at least come up with one season he shot at least 45%. I know players typically shot a low percetage during this era, but to me that just shows how weak this era was if Mikan could dominate as a 40% shooter. The longevity is also a big concern for me as he retired at 31 and only had 6 seasons of prime. He did not play his age 30 season because he was retired. I can't consider him until at least the top 30 have passed. That's just my opinion on era strength. However, I think the 60s were a pretty strong era due to concentration of talent on fewer teams. 40s,50s<<<70s<60s<80s

[eminence]

Spoiler:

I haven't voted for him and I've been waiting for him to get more traction but...

How long is Mikan going to be ignored? He dominated his era. Even if it was weaker, it's not his fault he played in that era.

I've also seen people who say they don't care much about portability (myself included) but then Mikan is almost out of the top 20? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Should we consider this player a top 25-30 player all-time? idk; this hypothetical player's impact on the course of the game would have some weight with me, personally. But on his actual merits as a player, I would say probably not; the league he played in just so lacked in legitimacy (and yes, what I've described suggests he likely wouldn't have succeeded in many other eras).

The strength of era is by far the biggest concern for me. The league was white only for the first half of his career which clearly limits the player pool and the NBA was a shell of what it became. No one really cared about basketball yet and (in general) little kids didn't grow up practicing basketball in hopes of a chance to play in the NBA. I would argue that the NBA became popular in 1979 when it adopted the 3pt shot and Bird and Magic were drafted. That's when kids everywhere dreamt of being in the NBA. That's when the pool of potential players skyrocketed. The pool of players was exponentially smaller in the 40s-50s. Therefore the talent was exponentially weaker. I have to give credit to Mikan for dominating his era and "beating who was in front of him," but I also feel the degree to which he dominated has been overstated. I don't think, despite penbeast's claim, he even dominated his own era at the level of Shaq, Duncan or Hakeem. While his PER and his ws/48 are very good a simple look at the box shows he was not as dominant as Shaq, Duncan, or Hakeem. As a center in a weak era where he was bigger, stronger, and taller a wouldn't be a career 40% shooter. Surely a player as dominant as Shaq could at least come up with one season he shot at least 45%. I know players typically shot a low percetage during this era, but to me that just shows how weak this era was if Mikan could dominate as a 40% shooter. The longevity is also a big concern for me as he retired at 31 and only had 6 seasons of prime. He did not play his age 30 season because he was retired. I can't consider him until at least the top 30 have passed. That's just my opinion on era strength. However, I think the 60s were a pretty strong era due to concentration of talent on fewer teams. 40s,50s<<<70s<60s<80s

Just to expand on your era rankings a bit, how do people feel the 90's onwards fit in? My first feel would be:

40s < 50s << 70s < 60s < 90s < 80s < 00s < 10s

With the 50s probably having the most variability within decade, as the late 50s would be much closer to the 70s, but the early/mid years being pretty weak. Well, 40s were probably even more variable, but I don't think we're taking anything pre-'47 into account for this project.

Also, I think anyone considering Mikan should include his two NBL seasons in their analysis (I think I saw someone mention that he only has 6 seasons, so those 2 really help him out). The NBL was certainly stronger than the BAA at that time, and we're including ABA seasons, so it seems pretty reasonable to me.

[trex_8063]

I haven't voted for him and I've been waiting for him to get more traction but...

How long is Mikan going to be ignored? He dominated his era. Even if it was weaker, it's not his fault he played in that era.

I've also seen people who say they don't care much about portability (myself included) but then Mikan is almost out of the top 20? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Should we consider this player a top 25-30 player all-time? idk; this hypothetical player's impact on the course of the game would have some weight with me, personally. But on his actual merits as a player, I would say probably not; the league he played in just so lacked in legitimacy (and yes, what I've described suggests he likely wouldn't have succeeded in many other eras).

The strength of era is by far the biggest concern for me. The league was white only for the first half of his career which clearly limits the player pool and the NBA was a shell of what it became. No one really cared about basketball yet and (in general) little kids didn't grow up practicing basketball in hopes of a chance to play in the NBA. I would argue that the NBA became popular in 1979 when it adopted the 3pt shot and Bird and Magic were drafted. That's when kids everywhere dreamt of being in the NBA. That's when the pool of potential players skyrocketed. The pool of players was exponentially smaller in the 40s-50s. Therefore the talent was exponentially weaker. I have to give credit to Mikan for dominating his era and "beating who was in front of him," but I also feel the degree to which he dominated has been overstated. I don't think, despite penbeast's claim, he even dominated his own era at the level of Shaq, Duncan or Hakeem. While his PER and his ws/48 are very good a simple look at the box shows he was not as dominant as Shaq, Duncan, or Hakeem. As a center in a weak era where he was bigger, stronger, and taller a wouldn't be a career 40% shooter. Surely a player as dominant as Shaq could at least come up with one season he shot at least 45%. I know players typically shot a low percetage during this era, but to me that just shows how weak this era was if Mikan could dominate as a 40% shooter. The longevity is also a big concern for me as he retired at 31 and only had 6 seasons of prime. He did not play his age 30 season because he was retired. I can't consider him until at least the top 30 have passed. That's just my opinion on era strength. However, I think the 60s were a pretty strong era due to concentration of talent on fewer teams. 40s,50s<<<70s<60s<80s

Couple things.....

Mikan did indeed "beat who was in front of him" at the time. This is what is expected of a great player, no? What I mean is, if we insert an elite player of your chosing into a weak league, what would you expect him to do or to accomplish there? You'd expect him to [more or less] do exactly what Mikan did [that is: distinctly establish himself as the most dominant force in the league].


I would argue the player pool was expanding rapidly long before Bird/Magic entered the league (again, I will provide some evidence to support this later). Not that it didn't hit another little popularity explosion thru the 80's/90's. The league also expanded a fair bit in that time, and thru the early 80's was probably still playing "catch-up" (talent-depth wise) from all the expanding it had done in the 70's.


And lastly, I would argue that Mikan did dominate his era to the same [if not probably greater] degree than Shaq, Duncan, et al. Bear in mind the only stats recorded (and this only from '52 on) were pts, reb (total, no differentiating Off/Def), ast, FG's, and FT's. These are almost entirely offensive in nature, and Mikan was still the most statistically dominant player in the league (led league in PER all three years from '52-'54, led in WS/48 in '53 [was 2nd or 3rd in '52 and '54]).
But it's on the defensive side of the ball that the Lakers truly dominated. They were an average of just +0.3 rORTG from '51-'54. That's decent, but not great. Defensively, they averaged a -5.0 rDRTG during those same years (peaking at a ridiculously elite -7.6 rDRTG--->especially elite in proportional terms, considering league average ORtg/DRtg's were not near as high as they are today)......and George Mikan was the anchor and primary enforcer of that defensive dominance.

Many [most?] students of his career would suggest that his defensive impact was decisively larger than his offensive; and how much higher would his PER and WS/48 be if blocks were recorded in that time period?

Truthfully, what was asked of him was kinda similar to what the Spurs were initially asking of David Robinson: be a near-Michael Jordan level player on offense, and be Bill Russell on defense. But whereas Robinson simply could not maintain the offensive aspect of that equation when facing tougher playoff-level defenses, Mikan DID in his time (to the tune of five titles in six years).

[Lou Fan]

Spoiler:

Should we consider this player a top 25-30 player all-time? idk; this hypothetical player's impact on the course of the game would have some weight with me, personally. But on his actual merits as a player, I would say probably not; the league he played in just so lacked in legitimacy (and yes, what I've described suggests he likely wouldn't have succeeded in many other eras).

The strength of era is by far the biggest concern for me. The league was white only for the first half of his career which clearly limits the player pool and the NBA was a shell of what it became. No one really cared about basketball yet and (in general) little kids didn't grow up practicing basketball in hopes of a chance to play in the NBA. I would argue that the NBA became popular in 1979 when it adopted the 3pt shot and Bird and Magic were drafted. That's when kids everywhere dreamt of being in the NBA. That's when the pool of potential players skyrocketed. The pool of players was exponentially smaller in the 40s-50s. Therefore the talent was exponentially weaker. I have to give credit to Mikan for dominating his era and "beating who was in front of him," but I also feel the degree to which he dominated has been overstated. I don't think, despite penbeast's claim, he even dominated his own era at the level of Shaq, Duncan or Hakeem. While his PER and his ws/48 are very good a simple look at the box shows he was not as dominant as Shaq, Duncan, or Hakeem. As a center in a weak era where he was bigger, stronger, and taller a wouldn't be a career 40% shooter. Surely a player as dominant as Shaq could at least come up with one season he shot at least 45%. I know players typically shot a low percetage during this era, but to me that just shows how weak this era was if Mikan could dominate as a 40% shooter. The longevity is also a big concern for me as he retired at 31 and only had 6 seasons of prime. He did not play his age 30 season because he was retired. I can't consider him until at least the top 30 have passed. That's just my opinion on era strength. However, I think the 60s were a pretty strong era due to concentration of talent on fewer teams. 40s,50s<<<70s<60s<80s

Just to expand on your era rankings a bit, how do people feel the 90's onwards fit in? My first feel would be:

40s < 50s << 70s < 60s < 90s < 80s < 00s < 10s

With the 50s probably having the most variability within decade, as the late 50s would be much closer to the 70s, but the early/mid years being pretty weak. Well, 40s were probably even more variable, but I don't think we're taking anything pre-'47 into account for this project.

Also, I think anyone considering Mikan should include his two NBL seasons in their analysis (I think I saw someone mention that he only has 6 seasons, so those 2 really help him out). The NBL was certainly stronger than the BAA at that time, and we're including ABA seasons, so it seems pretty reasonable to me.

My complete era rankings would be 40s,50s<<<70s<60s<80s is barely<90s<10s<00s. That's my opinion on the matter but everything after 80s is relatively close imo.

[eminence]

(to the tune of five titles in six years).

Important to remember that his one loss was almost assuredly due to the fact that he had a broken leg. He would have been 8/8 if not for that.

[Lou Fan]

Should we consider this player a top 25-30 player all-time? idk; this hypothetical player's impact on the course of the game would have some weight with me, personally. But on his actual merits as a player, I would say probably not; the league he played in just so lacked in legitimacy (and yes, what I've described suggests he likely wouldn't have succeeded in many other eras).

The strength of era is by far the biggest concern for me. The league was white only for the first half of his career which clearly limits the player pool and the NBA was a shell of what it became. No one really cared about basketball yet and (in general) little kids didn't grow up practicing basketball in hopes of a chance to play in the NBA. I would argue that the NBA became popular in 1979 when it adopted the 3pt shot and Bird and Magic were drafted. That's when kids everywhere dreamt of being in the NBA. That's when the pool of potential players skyrocketed. The pool of players was exponentially smaller in the 40s-50s. Therefore the talent was exponentially weaker. I have to give credit to Mikan for dominating his era and "beating who was in front of him," but I also feel the degree to which he dominated has been overstated. I don't think, despite penbeast's claim, he even dominated his own era at the level of Shaq, Duncan or Hakeem. While his PER and his ws/48 are very good a simple look at the box shows he was not as dominant as Shaq, Duncan, or Hakeem. As a center in a weak era where he was bigger, stronger, and taller a wouldn't be a career 40% shooter. Surely a player as dominant as Shaq could at least come up with one season he shot at least 45%. I know players typically shot a low percetage during this era, but to me that just shows how weak this era was if Mikan could dominate as a 40% shooter. The longevity is also a big concern for me as he retired at 31 and only had 6 seasons of prime. He did not play his age 30 season because he was retired. I can't consider him until at least the top 30 have passed. That's just my opinion on era strength. However, I think the 60s were a pretty strong era due to concentration of talent on fewer teams. 40s,50s<<<70s<60s<80s

Couple things.....

Mikan did indeed "beat who was in front of him" at the time. This is what is expected of a great player, no? What I mean is, if we insert an elite player of your chosing into a weak league, what would you expect him to do or to accomplish there? You'd expect him to [more or less] do exactly what Mikan did [that is: distinctly establish himself as the most dominant force in the league].


I would argue the player pool was expanding rapidly long before Bird/Magic entered the league (again, I will provide some evidence to support this later). Not that it didn't hit another little popularity explosion thru the 80's/90's. The league also expanded a fair bit in that time, and thru the early 80's was probably still playing "catch-up" (talent-depth wise) from all the expanding it had done in the 70's.


And lastly, I would argue that Mikan did dominate his era to the same [if not probably greater] degree than Shaq, Duncan, et al. Bear in mind the only stats recorded (and this only from '52 on) were pts, reb (total, no differentiating Off/Def), ast, FG's, and FT's. These are almost entirely offensive in nature, and Mikan was still the most statistically dominant player in the league (led league in PER all three years from '52-'54, led in WS/48 in '53 [was 2nd or 3rd in '52 and '54]).
But it's on the defensive side of the ball that the Lakers truly dominated. They were an average of just +0.3 rORTG from '51-'54. That's decent, but not great. Defensively, they averaged a -5.0 rDRTG during those same years (peaking at a ridiculously elite -7.6 rDRTG--->especially elite in proportional terms, considering league average ORtg/DRtg's were not near as high as they are today)......and George Mikan was the anchor and primary enforcer of that defensive dominance.

Many [most?] students of his career would suggest that his defensive impact was decisively larger than his offensive; and how much higher would his PER and WS/48 be if blocks were recorded in that time period?

Truthfully, what was asked of him was kinda similar to what the Spurs were initially asking of David Robinson: be a near-Michael Jordan level player on offense, and be Bill Russell on defense. But whereas Robinson simply could not maintain the offensive aspect of that equation when facing tougher playoff-level defenses, Mikan DID in his time (to the tune of five titles in six years).

I can't dispute anything that you said and Mikan dominated his era. I truly did mean beating who was in front of him as a compliment I am not sure what you took it as. What I meant when I said that is he had no choice in the level of talent he had to face, and he beat who was in front of him and that is all you can ask him to do. I just don't think it was all that impressive because of the lack of talent he faced and that is no fault of his. I think he has absolutely no era portability and I hold that against him. I can't imagine anyone believing he would even make it into the league at all if he would have had to play in the 80s. I would argue he wouldn't even have made it in the mid 60s. Just watch his "highlights" and to me its obvious that he wouldn't make it any other era. The lack of longevity also really hurts him in my eyes. He dominated the weakest era for a short amount of time. I might be in the minority in this but I don't even see him over a player like Tracy McGrady who had 7 years of ~top 10 player in the league type seasons in a much more competitive era. Use the eye test and its plain to see who is a more skilled/athletic player who was only 2 inches shorter. If you put McGrady in that era I think he would dominate way more than Mikan did. He would probably average 50-20 while being a top notch defender. McGrady averaged more points than Mikan did in his prime in a way tougher era. How do you get around that? I personally can't see any way to refute that. I would need to see a borderline indisputable argument to change my mind about having top 30 let alone 18th. I think your metaphor of only boys playing and then one man started playing who was only average but since he was only playing boys he dominated.

[Winsome Gerbil]

1. Dirk Nowitzki
A top 5 offensive GOAT who is not a complete disaster on defense (see Barkley). Dirk has great longevity and ranks very highly in both box score based stats as well as plus minus stats. Consistently excellent team win % throughout his prime and performs well in the playoffs. To a certain extent, I think Dirk's offensive style was so diametrically different from how PFs were traditionally supposed to play that many were more intent on scrutinizing any potential shortcomings of him as a player rather than look at what he actually achieved throughout his career.

2. David Robinson
Weak longevity is the only reason why DRob is so low. I rank him very highly (#2 player in the 90s) and he would have been a lock for top 10 had he not started so late as a rookie and missed the 92/97 seasons.

Ok where did this come from since you're comparing him with Dirk regarding defense.

I’d been meaning to do some scouting wrt Barkley’s defense, as it’s an important part of the debate at this point. I just fully scouted the entire game vs the Bulls from ‘91 in this video:

Watch on YouTube

TOTALS:
Excellent Plays - 1 (1.3%)
Good Plays - 5 (6.6%)
Neutral-to-Good Plays - 7 (9.2%)
Neutral Plays (adding 1, since I know there was at least one neutral play early on that I disregarded because he was largely uninvolved in what transpired) - 40 (52.6%)
Neutral-to-Poor Plays - 15 (19.7%)
Poor Plays - 8 (10.5%)

So overall, I rated 17.1% of his defensive possessions as at least slightly above average, while 30.3% were at least slightly below average, with the rest being basically average. NOTE: that’s including all uninvolved plays (which inflates the number of “neutral” or average plays). If I remove all neutral plays in which basically there’s nothing to note (uninvolved), that eliminates 17 of those plays (making 22.0% of those remaining “above average/neutral”, and 39.0% “below average/neutral”).
Also note that there were a handful of grades I felt I was perhaps being marginally generous on.


Man! This kind of scouting (and report) does take awhile to put together. I can see why people so rarely do it. Fwiw, I did also watch part of game 7 of the ‘86 ECSF between Sixers/Bucks. My impression from that (wrt Barkley’s defense) was similar.

I found an old thread on here (2014) with a lot of old statistical work on Barkley:

viewtopic.php?t=1344019

Colts18 calculated out a

Regressed RAPM adjusted for 2014 Variance

1988 2.40
1989 7.29
1990 7.73
1991 6.71
1992 5.45

Here is where those RAPM numbers would rank in 2014:
88: 33rd
89: 1st
90: 1st
91: 3rd
92: 5th

[Winsome Gerbil]

As far as Mikan...it looks to me like he's going to fall in the 20s somewhere on this list, and that's when I will seriously turn to him. Because it's so impossible to compare his resume to modern resumes, really it just comes down to whenever you hit the point where the remaining choices are less intimidating. I may take a look at him as early as #21 once it's guys like Wade, Durant, Pippen, Stockton etc. High level modern MVPs = can't do it. But once you run out of those, respect should be paid in my mind.

[JoeMalburg]

As far as Mikan...it looks to me like he's going to fall in the 20s somewhere on this list, and that's when I will seriously turn to him. Because it's so impossible to compare his resume to modern resumes, really it just comes down to whenever you hit the point where the remaining choices are less intimidating. I may take a look at him as early as #21 once it's guys like Wade, Durant, Pippen, Stockton etc. High level modern MVPs = can't do it. But once you run out of those, respect should be paid in my mind.

I agree it's very difficult. I prefer a historians approach to making these lists. I think it's less important to measure impact in a vacuum, but instead to be able to tell the story of the history of the game within the list.

I also think it's brutally unfair to punish a player for circumstances beyond his control. Mikan played when Mikan played and his performance during those years relative to the competition is what's most significant in my view.

When you break it down that way it's much easier to be objectively consistent in your rankings, though I am coming to realize you do lose something in the way of higher understanding from an analytical perspective. My approach clearly isn't best suited for this project, but it does solve the Mikan conundrum you illuminated for us above.

[Dr Positivity]

I haven't voted for him and I've been waiting for him to get more traction but...

How long is Mikan going to be ignored? He dominated his era. Even if it was weaker, it's not his fault he played in that era.

I've also seen people who say they don't care much about portability (myself included) but then Mikan is almost out of the top 20? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

For me the longevity is a major part of why I don't think he should get top 20. If Kareem or Russell retired after 6 years, would they even make top 20 over Robinson/Barkley/Moses? So when adding in the obvious competition deduction, it seems easy to me that Mikan shouldn't get in here

[JoeMalburg]

For me the longevity is a major part of why I don't think he should get top 20. If Kareem or Russell retired after 6 years, would they even make top 20 over Robinson/Barkley/Moses? So when adding in the obvious competition deduction, it seems easy to me that Mikan shouldn't get in here

Mikan had 8 good seasons. 47-54. Was the best in basketball every year and his team won the title in 7 of 8 with the lone exception coming while we had a broken leg in 1951.

If Russell played 1958-65 and everything turned out the same, I think he is still top 5. He'd have 7 rings and 5 MVPs. God enough for me to keep him 2-4.

If Kareem played from 70-77, despite only one title I think he's still top six with 5 MVPs.

Ask yourself as a fan or GM would you rather have the consensus best player in the league for 8 years and a 10-12 year prime as a top 5-10 player who was arguably the best or one of the best for a 3-5 year period?

[Dr Positivity]

For me the longevity is a major part of why I don't think he should get top 20. If Kareem or Russell retired after 6 years, would they even make top 20 over Robinson/Barkley/Moses? So when adding in the obvious competition deduction, it seems easy to me that Mikan shouldn't get in here

Mikan had 8 good seasons. 47-54. Was the best in basketball every year and his team won the title in 7 of 8 with the lone exception coming while we had a broken leg in 1951.

If Russell played 1958-65 and everything turned out the same, I think he is still top 5. He'd have 7 rings and 5 MVPs. God enough for me to keep him 2-4.

If Kareem played from 70-77, despite only one title I think he's still top six with 5 MVPs.

Ask yourself as a fan or GM would you rather have the consensus best player in the league for 8 years and a 10-12 year prime as a top 5-10 player who was arguably the best or one of the best for a 3-5 year period?

Are we counting the NBL?

[JoeMalburg]

For me the longevity is a major part of why I don't think he should get top 20. If Kareem or Russell retired after 6 years, would they even make top 20 over Robinson/Barkley/Moses? So when adding in the obvious competition deduction, it seems easy to me that Mikan shouldn't get in here

Mikan had 8 good seasons. 47-54. Was the best in basketball every year and his team won the title in 7 of 8 with the lone exception coming while we had a broken leg in 1951.

If Russell played 1958-65 and everything turned out the same, I think he is still top 5. He'd have 7 rings and 5 MVPs. God enough for me to keep him 2-4.

If Kareem played from 70-77, despite only one title I think he's still top six with 5 MVPs.

Ask yourself as a fan or GM would you rather have the consensus best player in the league for 8 years and a 10-12 year prime as a top 5-10 player who was arguably the best or one of the best for a 3-5 year period?

Are we counting the NBL?

I am from 1946-47 on since that's when the BAA started and those two leagues merged to form the NBA three years later. Remember it is exclusively NBL teams that won the title from 1949-1955.

[Dr Positivity]

I can support that I guess, much like including ABA. It makes Mikan's case better but concerns about the competition level must be even worse