Steph Top 10 All Time - According to Bleacher report

[Capn'O]

Don't like the list too much as a longevity / durability guy. Also, this was written by Andy Bailey who's a huge fan of doing blind player A vs player B polls on Twitter thinking he's so clever. Essentially to catch people's own biases. When in actuality all those polls do is remove context from the players being compared. He's literally posting them all over Twitter today to defend his rankings.

Scrolled through his Twitter. A quote

The difference between me and those who react to me is the reactions generally have no evidentiary basis.

Eyes rolled into my **** head.

Yup. His bias weights certain empirical factors above others.

Take the Isiah Thomas debacle of a ranking as an example. His own analysis acknowledges that Thomas' advanced metrics improved during the playoffs justifying him as a Top-10 all time performer... and he puts him at 47.

I mean, what else is sports about really if not playing at the highest level on the biggest stages? A guy that plays at an all time great level during the playoffs is an all time great. Those playoff performances are the baseline and you dock him a little bit from there for having less impressive regular season stats than others around his level, not the other way around.

[red96]

Absolute joke of a list.

Curry and David Robinson both ahead of Hakeem and Kobe? Lol.

Robinson was rated over Kobe, too? I'm no Laker fan or Kobe stan, but I know that is flat out wrong on multiple levels.

[LKN]

Bleacher Report makes no sense. How is Stephen Curry a top 10 of all time when his career isn't done? He has no FMVP and blew a lot of games in the finals.

finals MVP is such an arbitrary threshold...why does he need it? looks how Steph's #s in the finals vs. Kawhi's and tell me who's are better...yet has Kawhi more FMVPs because FMVPs is entirely circumstantial

I still can't believe people are posting about this. Steph should have been the MVP in 2015 and all arguments to the contrary are stupid.

The Finals MVP is the best player on the winning team every single year - not some role player who had a good series (no offense to Iggy).

If the standards used for 2015 were used for 2011 We'd have Jason Terry or Tyson Chandler as the MVP with a bunch of votes for Wade too.

It's absolutely absurd that the voters (who are apparently too stupid to understand even simple advanced metrics) decided to make a change to the standards for just that year.

[I_Like_Dirt]

Curry does not have a playoff peak like Hakeem though. Hakeem actually increased his performance pretty significantly in the postseason during his peak. Curry - while he's been great in the postseason - has seen his numbers fall off in the postseason to some degree.

Hakeem was the offensive AND defensive anchor of back to back title teams.

Had Lebron taken two years off, Curry would have anchored back to back title teams, too. You're right that Hakeem stepped up in the playoffs. But he didn't always. In 89 he couldn't really get going against a Seattle team that didn't have much size to challenge him. Then he wasn't quite up to his normal standards the next couple seasons against the Lakers. He dominated Roy Tarpley in 88 but still lost in the first round.

He was pretty similar to Anthony Davis in terms of production and accolades despite the finals run in 86 until he finally separated himself a bit with a couple rings when Jordan took the years off. Had Jordan taken two different years off, we'd be talking about Hakeem with no rings and Karl Malone with two. And it's not just about Jordan's dominance. It's about the Bulls' dominance in having so much talent together at the same time along with Jordan.

In all, though, I don't have any issues putting Hakeem above Curry. Like I said, right now I'd probably do the same; I just expect Curry is probably going to pass Hakeem over time provided he keeps doing what he's doing. They're pretty close right now, though. Curry's playoff stats are pretty comparable to Hakeem's too, though. People just look at them differently because Curry is even better in the regular season. Hakeem coasted the regular season and jumped up to the level Curry comes down to. That teams are double and triple teaming Curry from the half-court line when he gets to the finals, even to the point where they leave one of the greatest scorers ever in Durant in single coverage or wide open, is a credit to Curry in my eyes. It's not something I've ever seen done before. And really, teams do it and it doesn't really work because they still lose. The only player who beat Curry was Lebron , who is better than both Curry and Hakeem; and that was probably his greatest achievement.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

It's embarrassing and the only thing they must of took into consideration is he's the goat shooter. It's like saying Steve Nash should be top 10 all time because he's the goat passer.

[LKN]

Curry does not have a playoff peak like Hakeem though. Hakeem actually increased his performance pretty significantly in the postseason during his peak. Curry - while he's been great in the postseason - has seen his numbers fall off in the postseason to some degree.

Hakeem was the offensive AND defensive anchor of back to back title teams.

Had Lebron taken two years off, Curry would have anchored back to back title teams, too. You're right that Hakeem stepped up in the playoffs. But he didn't always. In 89 he couldn't really get going against a Seattle team that didn't have much size to challenge him. Then he wasn't quite up to his normal standards the next couple seasons against the Lakers. He dominated Roy Tarpley in 88 but still lost in the first round.

He was pretty similar to Anthony Davis in terms of production and accolades despite the finals run in 86 until he finally separated himself a bit with a couple rings when Jordan took the years off. Had Jordan taken two different years off, we'd be talking about Hakeem with no rings and Karl Malone with two. And it's not just about Jordan's dominance. It's about the Bulls' dominance in having so much talent together at the same time along with Jordan.

In all, though, I don't have any issues putting Hakeem above Curry. Like I said, right now I'd probably do the same; I just expect Curry is probably going to pass Hakeem over time provided he keeps doing what he's doing. They're pretty close right now, though. Curry's playoff stats are pretty comparable to Hakeem's too, though. People just look at them differently because Curry is even better in the regular season. Hakeem coasted the regular season and jumped up to the level Curry comes down to. That teams are double and triple teaming Curry from the half-court line when he gets to the finals, even to the point where they leave one of the greatest scorers ever in Durant in single coverage or wide open, is a credit to Curry in my eyes. It's not something I've ever seen done before. And really, teams do it and it doesn't really work because they still lose. The only player who beat Curry was Lebron , who is better than both Curry and Hakeem; and that was probably his greatest achievement.

Did you miss the finals that literally happened like 2 months ago?'

(Some of your points aren't bad...... I'm an MJ guy - but MJ did play in the 1995 postseason so I'm not sure Hakeem should take flack for that... and MJ retiring is no different than someone having a season ending injury - the Rockets can only play the teams in front of them - not their fault if someone else is out).

[clyde21]

It's embarrassing and the only thing they must of took into consideration is he's the goat shooter. It's like saying Steve Nash should be top 10 all time because he's the goat passer.

you talking about embarrassing takes is pretty funny tbh

[dhsilv2]

Are you people serious with these Robinson/Hakeem takes? Hakeem has the advantage even if we ignore the postseason entirely.

https://www.landofbasketball.com/player_comparison/hakeem_olajuwon_vs_david_robinson.htm

... And then you compare their postseasons.

It is not even a competition. David Robinson wins five series without Duncan and gets carried to two titles, while Hakeem carried his own mediocre roster to two. Suggesting they are on the same level and that it is solely dependent on Hakeem embarrassing Robinson in their playoff series is one of the more profoundly ignorant takes I have seen here (Kobe stans aside).

Didn't see anything I'd really use that closely in there.

Career

VORP 80.9 77.1 Robinson
WS 178.7 162.8 Robinson
PER 26.2 23.6 Robinson

So in all the major stats Robinson has a career lead despite less playing game. So if we're going on regular season alone, it's David pretty easily.

Hakeem never lead the league in PER, WS, WS/48, BPM, or VORP. Mean while Robinson lead the league in all of them. More impressively he lead the league in all of them 3 straight seasons.

So should we throw Anthony Davis into the top 10 pretty soon then? Doesn't he show up really well in the individual advanced stats?

27.4 career PER for AD. Higher than Robinsons'!

Except this is not usually how we rate players all time. Don't you think accomplishments like league MVP, Finals' MVP, Defensive player of the year, first team All NBA, All Star selections, being the best player on a championship team, etc. should be primary factors?

We can find a lot of guys with great career VORP, WS, PER that don't belong anywhere near the top 25 All Time.

Or do you really think we should put AD in the top 10 when he retires, even if he never leads a team to a Title?

I wasn't the person who attempted to remove the playoffs from the discussion. AD currently has a career VORP of 27.6 and WS of 72. He is not yet even halfway to Robinson so while it's cute to US AD who's been underrated a lot lately here, he's not remotely comparable here. if we are talking about regular season, I would far rather use these metrics than all nba, allstar, and to some degree even MVP awards. These tell me far more about how good both those players were than if one person has 14 vs 12 allstar appearances or how many first team all nba's they have.

[jinxed]

Absolute joke of a list.

Curry and David Robinson both ahead of Hakeem and Kobe? Lol.

Robinson was rated over Kobe, too? I'm no Laker fan or Kobe stan, but I know that is flat out wrong on multiple levels.

Based on what do you have Kobe over Robinson?

Let's look at the numbers..we will use their career rankings in the following major stats.

xRAPM (91-2014)

1. David Robinson
32. Kobe Bryant

BPM
4. David Robinson
39. Kobe

WS/48
2. David Robinson
58. Kobe

PER
5. David Robinson
25. Kobe

Career PIPM
2. David Robinson
>50 Kobe Bryant

[GeorgeMarcus]

Absolute joke of a list.

Curry and David Robinson both ahead of Hakeem and Kobe? Lol.

Robinson was rated over Kobe, too? I'm no Laker fan or Kobe stan, but I know that is flat out wrong on multiple levels.

Based on what do you have Kobe over Robinson?

Let's look at the numbers..we will use their career rankings in the following major stats.

xRAPM (91-2014)

1. David Robinson
32. Kobe Bryant

BPM
4. David Robinson
39. Kobe

WS/48
2. David Robinson
58. Kobe

PER
5. David Robinson
25. Kobe

Even less abstract is the degree to which the Spurs improved when they got him (jumped from bottom tier to top tier), maintained elite standing year in and year out without supporting stars, and absolutely plummeted to a bottom tier team again the year he got injured. Not a coincidence.

[lakerz12]

Didn't see anything I'd really use that closely in there.

Career

VORP 80.9 77.1 Robinson
WS 178.7 162.8 Robinson
PER 26.2 23.6 Robinson

So in all the major stats Robinson has a career lead despite less playing game. So if we're going on regular season alone, it's David pretty easily.

Hakeem never lead the league in PER, WS, WS/48, BPM, or VORP. Mean while Robinson lead the league in all of them. More impressively he lead the league in all of them 3 straight seasons.

So should we throw Anthony Davis into the top 10 pretty soon then? Doesn't he show up really well in the individual advanced stats?

27.4 career PER for AD. Higher than Robinsons'!

Except this is not usually how we rate players all time. Don't you think accomplishments like league MVP, Finals' MVP, Defensive player of the year, first team All NBA, All Star selections, being the best player on a championship team, etc. should be primary factors?

We can find a lot of guys with great career VORP, WS, PER that don't belong anywhere near the top 25 All Time.

Or do you really think we should put AD in the top 10 when he retires, even if he never leads a team to a Title?

I wasn't the person who attempted to remove the playoffs from the discussion. AD currently has a career VORP of 27.6 and WS of 72. He is not yet even halfway to Robinson so while it's cute to US AD who's been underrated a lot lately here, he's not remotely comparable here. if we are talking about regular season, I would far rather use these metrics than all nba, allstar, and to some degree even MVP awards. These tell me far more about how good both those players were than if one person has 14 vs 12 allstar appearances or how many first team all nba's they have.

Who said to remove the playoffs from the discussion? The post you responded to said that even if you remove the playoffs they still have Hakeem ahead.

Either way, your post makes it sound like you consider PER, WS, WS/48, BPM, and VORP to be the authorities on determining greatness and all time rank.

You cannot remove winning and the playoffs and leading a team to a championship, etc. from an All Time great discussion.

[LKN]

I hadn't read the summary on BPM in awhile.... they referenced it so many times in this list I had to go take a look at it again. They appear to be treating it a bit more definitively than they should be:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/bpm.html


(as an aside...it would be nice to see this work redone with some of the newer (R)APM data sets and see if they could get even better results - the OBPM results are pretty good... but DPBM (not surprisingly) is rougher)

[freethedevil]

idk i think its weird to have a defensive liability who shrinks in big moments in the top ten, but I can see the logic in why he's there although I dont even think he's higher than durant.

Wanna explain how the team of the defensive liability has always improved when he's on the court?

[LKN]

idk i think its weird to have a defensive liability who shrinks in big moments in the top ten, but I can see the logic in why he's there although I dont even think he's higher than durant.

Wanna explain how the team of the defensive liability has always improved when he's on the court?

I think Steph is very similar on defense to Larry Bird. Not a lock down/elite defender, but he's smart, plays good team defense and is underrated by people who ignore positioning and such.

[freethedevil]

idk i think its weird to have a defensive liability who shrinks in big moments in the top ten, but I can see the logic in why he's there although I dont even think he's higher than durant.

Wanna explain how the team of the defensive liability has always improved when he's on the court?

I think Steph is very similar on defense to Larry Bird. Not a lock down/elite defender, but he's smart, plays good team defense and is underrated by people who ignore positioning and such.

pretty good on smalls in terms of man d and he does well forcing bigs into help(check how he helped on harden). The big knock on him really is the lack of rim protection, which dooms him to a cieling of being a good complimetary peice.

[Reeko]

[url][/url]

Seems about right for Steph. I think you can put him anywhere in the 9-14 range. The one player who’s rated way too high IMO is Larry Bird. He was the 3rd best player in a weak decade, his numbers fell off quite a bit in the postseason, and he wasn’t an impact defender like all the top 8-9 players should be IMO.

I would liken his defense to Curry's, maybe a tad better. Super high IQ and minimized his athletic disadvantages enough to be a good not great defender relative to position.

Yeah, that seems fair. Bird was probably even a better defender than Curry. But whereas Magic and Curry were both capable of being one man elite offenses to elevate them to the 10-14 range even without much of an impact on defense, I don't think Bird was quite at that level on O. He certainly doesn't belong in the Top 8 with the elite 2-way superstars.

This is a laughable statement. Larry Bird was about as elite as it gets on offense, definitely a more dangerous scorer than Magic ever was. Magic could score from 15 ft and in whereas Larry could score easily from all three levels. Add this to the fact that Bird made 3 all defensive teams.

[dhsilv2]

So should we throw Anthony Davis into the top 10 pretty soon then? Doesn't he show up really well in the individual advanced stats?

27.4 career PER for AD. Higher than Robinsons'!

Except this is not usually how we rate players all time. Don't you think accomplishments like league MVP, Finals' MVP, Defensive player of the year, first team All NBA, All Star selections, being the best player on a championship team, etc. should be primary factors?

We can find a lot of guys with great career VORP, WS, PER that don't belong anywhere near the top 25 All Time.

Or do you really think we should put AD in the top 10 when he retires, even if he never leads a team to a Title?

I wasn't the person who attempted to remove the playoffs from the discussion. AD currently has a career VORP of 27.6 and WS of 72. He is not yet even halfway to Robinson so while it's cute to US AD who's been underrated a lot lately here, he's not remotely comparable here. if we are talking about regular season, I would far rather use these metrics than all nba, allstar, and to some degree even MVP awards. These tell me far more about how good both those players were than if one person has 14 vs 12 allstar appearances or how many first team all nba's they have.

Who said to remove the playoffs from the discussion? The post you responded to said that even if you remove the playoffs they still have Hakeem ahead.

Either way, your post makes it sound like you consider PER, WS, WS/48, BPM, and VORP to be the authorities on determining greatness and all time rank.

You cannot remove winning and the playoffs and leading a team to a championship, etc. from an All Time great discussion.

Well, Robinson won more too if we take playoffs out of the discussion too if you want to go there.

i do rank metrics and stats (useful stats) over awards.

My post was to point out that without the playoffs Robinson has a clear advantage...because he does.

[dhsilv2]

I hadn't read the summary on BPM in awhile.... they referenced it so many times in this list I had to go take a look at it again. They appear to be treating it a bit more definitively than they should be:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/bpm.html


(as an aside...it would be nice to see this work redone with some of the newer (R)APM data sets and see if they could get even better results - the OBPM results are pretty good... but DPBM (not surprisingly) is rougher)

I'd LOVE to see it redone, we can get into the math but how it handles high rebounds and assists reach a point where it goes crazy.

[LKN]

I hadn't read the summary on BPM in awhile.... they referenced it so many times in this list I had to go take a look at it again. They appear to be treating it a bit more definitively than they should be:

https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/bpm.html


(as an aside...it would be nice to see this work redone with some of the newer (R)APM data sets and see if they could get even better results - the OBPM results are pretty good... but DPBM (not surprisingly) is rougher)

I'd LOVE to see it redone, we can get into the math but how it handles high rebounds and assists reach a point where it goes crazy.

See Westbrook, Russell

[PaulLee]

Agree or Disagree?

Steph is by far my favourite player this past decade, and i hope one day he'll deserve this spot, but I personally have him sitting around 15-20 range at the moment.

If you agree - then why?
If you dont agree - then what do you feel Steph needs to accomplish to reach top ten all time?

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2854727-bleacher-reports-all-time-player-rankings-nbas-top-50-revealed#slide42

I got him 12th right now. I use a formula, so I can't say exactly what he needs to do - there are different paths he could take - but I think he's got a decent chance of getting there. (Even jumping one spot can sometimes take a lot once you get that high on the list.) I'd probably put it between 40% and 50%. I think his odds of getting to 11th (where I have Kobe) are probably more like 80% to 90%. I'm factoring in the possibility of injury in these numbers.

I have a formula as well (still tweaking), but mine has Steph sitting at 22. Interested to see your top 25 all time from your formula.