RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #1 (LeBron James)

[70sFan]

James Clerk Maxwell is the goat physicist. Fight me.

Nobody should get mad from your pick

[70sFan]

Coming back to basketball debates, I think that era weakness is important to some degree but here is my counter argument - when I watch Bill Russell, I don't see outdated player. I don't think "he could be great if he played today, but he's too oldschool". Bill Russell was a modern type of defender inside extremely athletic body. He also had very high BBIQ, which is also visible on the tape. You can watch the game from 1966 and see someone who could start playing in the league tomorrow. This is why I don't think saying that Russell gets unfair advantage is completely true. Some may disagree, but I still see Russell as MVP level player today.


By the way, in GOAT scoring debate Kareem has been always underrated and I don't know why. After 1973, Jabbar literally didn't have a bad scoring series until he became old. He dominated some of the best defenses and defenders of all-time. He has stats, prime, longevity and peak. I know that he's not a sexy choice, but why not even consider him.

[limbo]

I would go for Ed Witten, but 70sFan would say his era was the most information-friendly and that Newton is #1 because he developed calculus while the rest of the world was harvesting potatoes, so his impact was definitely the highest relative to the field.

[Odinn21]

After 1973, Jabbar literally didn't have a bad scoring series until he became old. He dominated some of the best defenses and defenders of all-time. He has stats, prime, longevity and peak. I know that he's not a sexy choice, but why not even consider him.

Even before 1973, the only times he had "bad" scoring series he was playing against two of the goat low post defenders in Wilt Chamberlain and Nate Thurmond. Kareem's performances against those names were better than what Jordan had against Payton in '96 finals for instance.

The average defensive quality Kareem faced directly is greater than what Jordan and James did.

[frica]

I think that Newton is definitely among the GOAT physicists if you want to make ranking. What he did wasn't easier at all - I'm well aware that now most physics students know more than him (I am the one), but it doesn't make it any less impressive. You can't overstate how powerful mind you have to have to link the movement of planets with free fall. It's such an abstract thing, not obvious at all.

Not to mention that Newton's knowledge is highly underrated and I'm sure that most people who pretend that know more than him aren't right. He was a highly specialized mathematician and astrophysicist. Newton knew a lot of things most students of physics don't.

People don't realize that it's one thing to apply knowledge, it's another to come up with it (and formally prove mathematical concepts).

With prior knowledge it's trivial to apply the Pythagorean Theorem and formally proof it. Actually being the first to come up with it, not so much.

It's also why the minds of early greats in NBA should often not be underestimated.
None of them had the benefit of modern analytics, youtube videos, coaching build on decades of experience, decades of knowledge all readily available, etc.

[limbo]

By the way, in GOAT scoring debate Kareem has been always underrated and I don't know why. After 1973, Jabbar literally didn't have a bad scoring series until he became old. He dominated some of the best defenses and defenders of all-time. He has stats, prime, longevity and peak. I know that he's not a sexy choice, but why not even consider him.

Idk, his old pals Jack Sikma and Billy Paultz gave him a few scares there.

[Gibson22]

Coming back to basketball debates, I think that era weakness is important to some degree but here is my counter argument - when I watch Bill Russell, I don't see outdated player. I don't think "he could be great if he played today, but he's too oldschool". Bill Russell was a modern type of defender inside extremely athletic body. He also had very high BBIQ, which is also visible on the tape. You can watch the game from 1966 and see someone who could start playing in the league tomorrow. This is why I don't think saying that Russell gets unfair advantage is completely true. Some may disagree, but I still see Russell as MVP level player today.


By the way, in GOAT scoring debate Kareem has been always underrated and I don't know why. After 1973, Jabbar literally didn't have a bad scoring series until he became old. He dominated some of the best defenses and defenders of all-time. He has stats, prime, longevity and peak. I know that he's not a sexy choice, but why not even consider him.

But then again I also see a 6-10, 235 center, very athletic but not like a giannis or ben simmons (I don't care too much about the high jump, most of these guys could match those numbers), who could slide his feet and move with the best of em (as far as bigs) but also didn't have a jumper and didn't really have an offensive skillset. Take an adebayo. He's slightly less long (1 inch in height and 2 in wingspan) and can't move vertically like that, also slides his feet a bit worse, but he's a lot stronger (more muscular, 255), more explosive, has a short mid range shot etc.

I still have russell about 4th or 5th, and I'm not saying I don't see what you see, but I also see what I see. You don't think that nowadays there are a lot of 6-9/6-10 guys who have a track athlete type of body and athleticism? I think there's plenty of them in high school and in college, they just never sniff the league because they don't have an nba game. A shorter, 235 pounds center with basically no jumper or defined offensive game? Does he make the nba just because he's an elite track and field type of athlete (for his size)?

Honestly no, if I watch a 1966 game I don't think oh, this guy could play in the nba right now. I think oh well, with modern day training etc this guy would be bigger and would develop a jumper, which would make him a pretty decent offensive player (not great, he would still be undersized and he lacked that type of talent/touch) with his athleticism, bbiq, passing etc, and he would eventually be an anthony davis type of defender

[limbo]

It's also why the minds of early greats in NBA should often not be underestimated.
None of them had the benefit of modern analytics, youtube videos, coaching build on decades of experience, decades of knowledge all readily available, etc.

The point isn't really to say Newton is 'dumber' than modern Physicists (even though the fact that he knew less about Physics is true, but obviously you need to adjust this to be relative, of course people now know more than in the past). The point was more about about the degrees of possibility and difficulty relative to the human timeline... To discover/enact something like fire, you needed to be super-smart. But in the grand scheme of things, that is a basic concept relative to how far along we've come as humans, hence why it was discovered 2 **** million years ago... We have smarter people now, but a concept as impactful as fire can no longer be as easily 'stumbled upon'.

You need to judge something based on its evolutionary curve which is not linear. Otherwise the cavemen homo erectus are GOAT scientists and Stephen Hawking has nothing on them, as they invented 'fire' and the very 'wheels' that were predecessors to those that eventually transported Stephen Hawking around... So Stephen Hawking has nothing on Homo Erectus... Also, Homo Erectus 'invented' standing up straight, which was a pivotal development in playing defense or basketball in general. If Homo Erectus didn't stand up, nobody would be playing basketball, so he was way more impactful in a vacuum than Bill Russell.

Homo Erectus is #1 on my GOAT list. So now we can move on

[Gibson22]

Guys stop talking about physics lol

[Doctor MJ]

As I've mentioned, I think there are two general approaches. Either context is averaged out or it is not. This is the difference between asking "who played their hand the best" and "who could play any hand the best". I think there's a real argument that second approach is more fair since players have limited control over what the rules were when they played, who they played against, and so on. But I also understand that the first approach may be more meaningful in a human way. And there's fewer "what-ifs", so the analysis is more factual, so there are ways in which the first approach is more fair. Regardless, I've said I think both are equally reasonable.
.

It's like if we were making a GOAT list for Physicists. Who would be #1 on that list? Well if we judged by the impact they had in a vacuum, then Sir Isaac Newton would be number 1 and it wouldn't be even remotely close. Dude literally invented Physics and all the basic laws/concepts of it. But what Newton invented is basically known by most teenagers in elementary school now. If you compare the scientists in Newton's time to the ones now, there's no comparison. Even if you compare Newton himself to scientists/physicist now, there's no comparison. The guys now know everything Newton did and WAAAAAAY more. The problem now is that we live in an era where basic concepts like gravity can not be invented by someone tinkering around with an apple tree in his backyard or something... Those days are long gone. Now you need a crew of brilliant scientists with knowledge of +500 years of Physics, the right amount of money, the right type of scenario, and then maybe you can incrementally discover some new findings in the field...

And that's kind of how i see the Russell debate. He was like Newton. He played in an era where it was still possible to revolutionize basic concepts of the game and he was the first to make all the stars align. Which is absolute kudos to him, and the reason why i can accept him as a GOAT candidate, but when i contrast him to someone like Hakeem Olajuwon, what happens? Hakeem Olajuwon knows all the concepts and moves Bill Russell knew, likely even more than that, but he just can't put them in practice in a way that would make his team completely lap the field like the Celtics did in the 60's, because the league caught up and adjusted to that long time ago. So now i'm going to punish Hakeem Olajuwon in a sense for maybe not even being a worse defender than Russell in a vacuum, just not in the right place at the right time.

So yeah, it's totally valid to put Russell/Newton at #1, but in that case, they're going to stay #1 forever, and then it just becomes kind of boring making a GOAT list every 5-10 years, and Russell ending #1 always, because there's just no possible way for anyone to unseed him in impact. The same way it's not possible for a Physicist now to come along and make a bigger impact on Physics than Newton did less than 400 years ago, despite the fact that he knows everything Newton knew about Physics when he was 15 years old in elementary school, and has just kept on studying the field until he dies.

But i'm sure 70'sFan will have plenty to say on this subject.

Alright so these are two things very much up my alley so I've thought about this. Here's the BIG difference:

When you're talking about the greatest physicists in history, we're largely concerned with their innovations rather than their production/longevity. I think it's really interesting to look at the greatest innovators in basketball history, but it's not the same thing was what we typically concentrate on in GOAT lists.

I think this really gets juicy when you look at the greatest coaches where it seems really dang important to me when guys do a thing that forever changes how everyone plays even if the next year he could get outcoached by a guy who can steal his idea and better optimize the details.

Back on the players, I tend to look at a player's ability to innovate as it saying something about his expected contextual intelligence. I expect that Bill Russell would be smart as they come whenever they played even if he couldn't revolutionize the game if someone else had revolutionized it in a similar way first.

Now to the physicists. :cracks knuckles:
There's no clear cut way to evaluate one giant compared to the giants whose shoulders he stands upon. And of course it was Newton who talked about standing on the shoulders of giants, so that tells you right there he's not the guy who figured out everything from scratch. "Newton's 1st Law" is also at times called "Galileo's Law" because it's not Newton's idea. He's simply stating the existence of inertia as something of first principle on which he's building the rest of his thought.

People also have a tendency to emphasize Newton's effect on mathematics, and he did do quite a lot but: 1) He built on Kepler's Laws which Kepler came up with by painstakingly going through painstakingly collected astronomy data, and 2) He held back English mathematics until his death because you were essentially blacklisted from the Royal Society if you used Leibniz calculus method and Leibniz's formulation is vastly more scalable.

You could actually say that Newton was something of a floor raiser, in other words. That's too harsh of course, but Newton was a notorious curmudgeon with a bad temper, a big ego, and a mean streak with the capacity to hold grudges forever. And also like many floor raisers, he was so all-around capable that he didn't seem to feel he needed others all that much unless they followed him.

The obvious contrast to Newton is Einstein who can be seen as a ceiling raiser pretty easily. He wasn't the smartest in the sense of "a sharp, usually superficial, stinging pain". What he had was depth. The kind of depth you only get by sticking with something that no one else would stick with and seeing it through to its conclusion. While others zoomed by nodding their head at fundamentals, Einstein would stop and stare until something came into focus for him.

And when he was in his groove, like he was in 1905, he could do this at incredible speed. That year he published many papers but specifically he published 4 different papers that were revolutionary and Nobel Prize worthy, all while working a day job because no one would hire him to teach physics because his professors would not recommend him, and refused to do so for reasons that had nothing to do with his aptitude and everything to do with the arguments they'd get into.

Einstein's the kind of spearhead that could have easily never speared anything, or at least never speared anything the world became aware of. While we think of Einstein being a happy old man sticking out his tongue at everyone, he was very much a kind of tortured genius. He lacked certain types of, shall we say, portability. You might say he could play a big role on a championship team, but only in a very specific role.

Now consider Michael Faraday, someone who to this day is still underrated by many in physics imho. Faraday is seen as possibly the greatest experimental physicist in history (along with one of the great experimental chemists) because of all the stuff he came up with. He invented the motor & generator and did more to build the foundation of the modern electrically-dependent world than anyone else after all. He also was the first to build an experiment that demonstrated a clear relationship between electromagnetism and light which is a really, really big deal.

Part of what's fun about Faraday's story is also what people underrate about him: He was not of upper class roots and had basically no school education which rendered him essentially mathematically illiterate (compared to the requirements of the fast-moving mathematical cutting edge in physics). People will say that Faraday had some ideas, but that it was James Clerk Maxwell who really figured things out because Maxwell was the one that did the math.

Now, I don't want to be negative on Maxwell. He was amazing. One physics site online calls him a "terrifying mathematical prodigy", and without him it's possible the world never realized that Faraday had a revolutionary theoretical mind that went right along with what he did on the experimental side of things, because Maxwell was the one who was captivated by Faraday's biggest idea while everyone else saw Faraday as a bit of a kook when it came to theory. Maxwell translated Faraday's idea into what you might call proto-vector calculus, and with that math, the idea was able to spread across physics and later other fields (AI owes gradient descent to it) like...

a wave propagating through a field...which is fitting because "fields" are what we call Faraday's idea of lines of force propagating through space. Force as a thing in motion across space. A visualization of what me might today think of as a movie, decades before the technology existed for movies. Nowadays the concept of a field is seen by many as more fundamental than the idea of force.

But you know what's cool about Faraday too? While Newton was generally seen as a pompous jerk and Newton was an undeniably self-absorbed-to-a-massive-fault husband and father, Faraday was said to have a close and loving partnership with his wife, and he did a lot of things to expose children to science with his Christmas lectures.

Back to Einstein, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that this sort of visualization is at the heart of how Einstein made his great leaps. He visualized things constantly and famously gave us the concept of "warping" space and time as an explanation for gravity. And this, among other things, eventually led to the concept of gravity in the basketball field court.

Now you'd probably think I'm looking to rank those guys, but the thing is, now y'all know whatever I know and I'm sure not everyone in this thread would agree on the ranking even if we agreed on all I've posted above.

I think the more fun thing here is to try to draw analogies between specific physicists and specific basketball players or athletes.

In terms of what pops to mind...
Wilt feels a bit like Newton to me.
Russell maybe Leibniz or Faraday.
Kareem perhaps Maxwell.
Magic/Bird remind of Einstein.

[penbeast0]

I would also add that I think the 60s is greatly underrated relative to the rest of the 20th century in terms of era strength. What makes an era strong is (a) the truly elite players that separate themselves from even the greats of their day -- the 60s had 4 which is a ridiculously high number (today there is really 1 for example) and (b) the degree of strength 1-12 (or really 1-8) on every team which provides competition. The 60s was the last era to have deep talent before the explosive expansion of the 70s and 80s (which really started in 67). I don't think the pool of existing athletic talent was expanding nearly as fast as the actual league until the 90s and it wasn't really until the advent of talent from outside the USA in the current century that I think the player pool of talent seriously outstripped the expansion of the league. It's one reason I have LeBron in front of MJ though the true outliers are (to my mind) less reliant on the expansion of the player pool. They are genetic or intellectual freaks.

But to me, the 60s are a significantly more competitive era than the 70s, particularly in terms of centers where the player pool expanded much slower (it was never hard to recognize a guy was nearly 7' tall or that for a guy that height, basketball was an option) . . . Russell was playing Wilt, Thurmond, Bellamy, Reed, Beaty in over half his games in 1965. Kareem was facing some good centers but also a lot more stiffs as a percentage of his opponents. Even in the 80s and 90s, the percentage of quality centers per team was lower than in the 60s. And overall, the concentration of talent in fewer teams meant that the top teams didn't have as strong a competitive advantage as they did even well into the 80s. So I don't give Jordan a huge advantage (some but not huge) in terms of discounting performance for league strength when compared to Russell or Wilt. I do give LeBron a much stronger edge as the world athlete has made such a huge difference in today's league and the NBA quit expanding at such a rapid rate in the 21st century.

[Doctor MJ]

James Clerk Maxwell is the goat physicist. Fight me.

I love that I didn't read this until I made my post. I think we found a through-line to our differing perspectives.

[Gibson22]

BTW, I also see a guy who shot 44% in his time (43 in the playoffs) I just don't see how anybody would see a center who scored significantly less than half of his shots and go like "Oh, translate this guy in 2020, he could still play in the nba". Again, not trying to diminish his impact IN HIS TIME, as again I think 6th is the worst absolute position where bill could be put

[Gibson22]

I would also add that I think the 60s is greatly underrated relative to the rest of the 20th century in terms of era strength. What makes an era strong is (a) the truly elite players that separate themselves from even the greats of their day -- the 60s had 4 which is a ridiculously high number (today there is really 1 for example) and (b) the degree of strength 1-12 (or really 1-8) on every team which provides competition. The 60s was the last era to have deep talent before the explosive expansion of the 70s and 80s (which really started in 67). I don't think the pool of existing athletic talent was expanding nearly as fast as the actual league until the 90s and it wasn't really until the advent of talent from outside the USA in the current century that I think the player pool of talent seriously outstripped the expansion of the league. It's one reason I have LeBron in front of MJ though the true outliers are (to my mind) less reliant on the expansion of the player pool. They are genetic or intellectual freaks.

But to me, the 60s are a significantly more competitive era than the 70s, particularly in terms of centers where the player pool expanded much slower (it was never hard to recognize a guy was nearly 7' tall or that for a guy that height, basketball was an option) . . . Russell was playing Wilt, Thurmond, Bellamy, Reed, Beaty in over half his games in 1965. Kareem was facing some good centers but also a lot more stiffs as a percentage of his opponents. Even in the 80s and 90s, the percentage of quality centers per team was lower than in the 60s. And overall, the concentration of talent in fewer teams meant that the top teams didn't have as strong a competitive advantage as they did even well into the 80s. So I don't give Jordan a huge advantage (some but not huge) in terms of discounting performance for league strength when compared to Russell or Wilt. I do give LeBron a much stronger edge as the world athlete has made such a huge difference in today's league and the NBA quit expanding at such a rapid rate in the 21st century.

Agreed. To me it goes: 10s-80s-00s-60s-90s-70. 60s may even seem a bit low but 00s is too modern to be below that, even tho the style of basketball was ugly and there were many down years as far as best teams (think 2006 nba finals), and the 80s just made great stripes as far as style, marketing and the game also expanded beyond the bigs, with the 3 point line, bird and magic. 10s it goes without saying.

[Dr Positivity]

I think some people really overstate the weakness and lack of popularity of 1960s NBA.

Yes, here is a good test to show why.

To people skeptical of Russell/Celtics - Say you dropped the 68 Sixers, 69 Knicks and 69 Lakers in a time machine in future years. At what point do they lose to a strictly because the league outdated them in terms of strategy and style of play.

I don't see a reason they they couldn't contend the entire 80s, even with the same amount of shooting skill as they had in the 60s. The 89 Pistons averaged 4.9 3s a game and hit 30%, meaning it barely did anything for them compared to if they just took long 2 instead. Plus the 60s teams wouldn't shoot zero 3s, some guys like West might take them. No reason for me to think DeBusschere and Reed couldn't match Laimbeer as outside shooting bigs. 68 Sixers vs 89 Pistons and 69 Knicks vs 88 Lakers should be good series in my opinion. Since the Celtics beat teams like 68 Sixers and 69 Knicks there should be no reason why they can't compete equally well against those teams. And if you think the late 60s Celtics could compete with any team in the 80s, it means a Russell team could have beat players like Jordan, Magic, Bird, Olajuwon etc. in a playoff series.

Do the Lakers in the 80s have a more modern style of play than the Lakers in the 60s, or a less modern one? The 60s is the decade they have the elite shooting PG as their best player. If the Celtics were so outdated, why did a team with a very modern style of play like the Royals (all time great ballhandling/PNR guard, best shooting big in the league as his floor spacer and pick and pop guy) not do better?

There's also some offensive bias at work - you may think the 86 Celtics are more modern than the 69 Celtics on offense, but they're NOT on defense. Havlicek, Sanders and Russell is easily a more modern defensive frontcourt than Bird, McHale and Parish.

If people are going to treat 60s players with a grain of salt because they would lose by 50 to the Warriors if you made them play with their 60s level of 3pt shooting, then the most internally logical thing to do would also be skeptical of teams like 83 Sixers, 86 Celtics and 87 Lakers who were post driven teams that didn't shoot 3s and defensively would get cooked by 2017 Warriors if you dropped them against them. The biggest change in the game is 3pt shooting and the breaking point for that was some time after the 80s. Even by early 2000s they are playing a pretty different game. You could 2003 finals is more different than 2017 finals as 1969 finals is to 2003. A modernist position that 2010s basketball wipes out anything before it makes more sense to me than thinking the 80s-2020 is about the same and the 60s is YMCA ball, but even then the Lakers proved that you don't have to go full Warriors to compete. if the argument is that we should judge Magic and Bird by what they did in their own time, and it wouldn't be fair to make their teams compete in 2017 without giving them a few modern role players and letting them adjust their rotations, well you could say the same of Russell.

[Odinn21]

In terms of what pops to mind...
Wilt feels a bit like Newton to me.
Russell maybe Leibniz or Faraday.
Kareem perhaps Maxwell.
Magic/Bird remind of Einstein.

James Clerk Maxwell is the goat physicist. Fight me.

I love that I didn't read this until I made my post. I think we found a through-line to our differing perspectives.

This is only fitting.

As someone who's knee deep into the Gaussian maths, I'm very low on Newton because not only he plagiarised some of his major works, him being an egomaniac hindered the development curve. That's one of worst qualities a scientist can have. Hindering progress.

I'm also quite high on Faraday. I'd definitely have him in my top 5. Probably top 3 along with Maxwell and Einstein. What makes Maxwell the greatest for me is that not only his work was top notch, I'd say it was his work is that enabled Physics to move forward the most.

I voted for Kareem, James, Russell, in that order. So, I'd say your selections are just on point. Maxwell, Einstein, Faraday order feels just right to me.

Though, I'd disagree with Chamberlain hindering progress in basketball. That's the only obvious similarity I'd disagree with in there.

[Joao Saraiva]

Coming back to basketball debates, I think that era weakness is important to some degree but here is my counter argument - when I watch Bill Russell, I don't see outdated player. I don't think "he could be great if he played today, but he's too oldschool". Bill Russell was a modern type of defender inside extremely athletic body. He also had very high BBIQ, which is also visible on the tape. You can watch the game from 1966 and see someone who could start playing in the league tomorrow. This is why I don't think saying that Russell gets unfair advantage is completely true. Some may disagree, but I still see Russell as MVP level player today.


By the way, in GOAT scoring debate Kareem has been always underrated and I don't know why. After 1973, Jabbar literally didn't have a bad scoring series until he became old. He dominated some of the best defenses and defenders of all-time. He has stats, prime, longevity and peak. I know that he's not a sexy choice, but why not even consider him.

Well I have him at #3. I defnitely can see the case for GOAT going Kareem's way.

The 70s is a period that is not easy to watch for who started watching NBA in the 2000s or even the 90s. The lack of 3 point line, the game itself doesn't feel the same way. I've watched a bit, but I gotta say I've seen a lot of 80s games and even the early 90s on youtube. However, I didn't watch a ton of the 70s because somehow I don't feel it the same way. So for younger people, it's more likely they witnessed (even if on youtube) MJ's greatness or LeBron's greatness more than Kareem's. That is one of the reasons I think he doesn't get more traction.

The other thing is according to team success. He won with Oscar Robertson, and then with Magic. In between he has some years missing the playoffs or not having deep playoff runs, so he's not seen as much of a floor raiser as for example LBJ.

I think also his 6 rings, when comparing to MJ's, are seen as a weaker argument - less FMVPs, rings when he was old and didn't have the same type of impact.

However yes, he might be a bit underrated. If he's not tier 1 peak wise he's at least tear 2, has a great and extended prime and his longevity is brutal.

Another thing is that there is this notion he wasn't among the elite defensive Cs. It's not like he was bad, but for a C it's much more glaring when there are guys like TD and Russell in the mix. Jordan, LBJ, Russell, TD, Hakeem from the top 10 can be argued as the best in their position on defense. I think that has some weight as well.

Of course the case is still there, and you've made some great posts about that. I'm just trying to write the reasons why I think there isn't as much traction to him as there is to others. I agree with some portion of it.

[kayess]

I think you guys are maybe taking limbo's post the wrong way.

As I understand it, what he's saying is:

1) If no attempts at adjustments for era are made, Russell is by far the GOAT, and there is zero argument against it.
2) Discussing the #1 spot when it's a foregone conclusion because of the criteria [i.e., in-era dominance] is boring
3) If no attempts at adjustments for era are made, why stop at Russell? The aztec example I think is exaggerated for effect, I don't think he seriously meant that (and thus is not really reductionist)

I think he's (at least in spirit) right. Not to say the guys voting for Bill aren't trying to do this - there's just disagreements on e.g. would he be an effective player on offense today.

Some thoughts regarding the central problems we are dealing with when it comes to era.

How do we compare extreme dominance of a less-advanced era vs. lesser dominance of a far more advanced era? Should we be looking at what extent it is possible to dominate an era instead (which is almost impossible to do a-priori, of course)? Note that this isn't a statement on how great they were, but just using "dominance" as a placeholder for "value" to test how get a balanced view across eras

In that case, wrt to the common "Mount Rushmore" picks we're seeing: I think Jordan comes off as the most impressive of these guys, dominating in a Russell-like fashion in a far more advanced league, with about the same "luck".

Russell dominated his era almost to the fullest extent possible (11 rings in 13 years). He had a SHITTON of luck (Chamberlain's insanely bad luck - as discussed by TLAF before - is not an insignificant contributor here), which I think shouldn't be overstated, but it's definitely there. That said, my impression is he optimized pretty much everything he could control - something you couldn't say about Wilt.

Kareem didn't (6 rings overall, but "only" 3 when he was an absolute top tier superstar), but he also had some pretty bad luck. Don't have a very good sense of whether he optimized what was under his control

Jordan did (6 in 8 years) - and like Russell, was the beneficiary of tremendous factors beyond his control: inflection point in the league - roster expansion and starting to go global diluting talent as it the total pool was being expanded, a truly ahead of his curve GM, great coach, etc.

LeBron didn't (4 in 17 years, 8 if you only count when he started winning) - and like Wilt, had some pretty bad luck (including what looked to be the modern day equivalent of the Russell Celtics when GSW took advantage of the cap spike). He didn't optimize everything under his control as he had some really bad micro decisions (e.g. forced some bad acquisitions) for his teams, but his macro decisions were great, and unprecedented at that time (i.e., not just switching teams, but making sure they made moves to contend ASAP)

Just as we shouldn't punish Russell for not being able to make the same impact in later eras due to how the game's evolved, I also don't think we should punish Kareem or LeBron for not being "as dominant", especially when it was fundamentally harder to do so for them (especially for LeBron), and because of their circumstances. At the same time - "Russell in today's game" arguments aren't quite as easy as looking at his physical tools and how he played and projecting them to today. Russell growing up to be an NBA player in today's game would have an entirely different paradigm - and while this shouldn't serve as an excuse to either diminish his weaknesses (i.e. his relative TS was average) or add to his strengths (no, he wouldn't have innovated defense to the same degree as before - that's simply not possible given the non-linear rate of improvement and difficulty with innovating), it does mean it's not as simple as "he would be Bam Adebayo with even more amazing defense".

[Doctor MJ]

I think some people really overstate the weakness and lack of popularity of 1960s NBA.

Yes, here is a good test to show why.

To people skeptical of Russell/Celtics - Say you dropped the 68 Sixers, 69 Knicks and 69 Lakers in a time machine in future years. At what point do they lose to a strictly because the league outdated them in terms of strategy and style of play.

I don't see a reason they they couldn't contend the entire 80s, even with the same amount of shooting skill as they had in the 60s. The 89 Pistons averaged 4.9 3s a game and hit 30%, meaning it barely did anything for them compared to if they just took long 2 instead. Plus the 60s teams wouldn't shoot zero 3s, some guys like West might take them. No reason for me to think DeBusschere and Reed couldn't match Laimbeer as outside shooting bigs. 68 Sixers vs 89 Pistons and 69 Knicks vs 88 Lakers should be good series in my opinion. Since the Celtics beat teams like 68 Sixers and 69 Knicks there should be no reason why they can't compete equally well against those teams. And if you think the late 60s Celtics could compete with any team in the 80s, it means a Russell team could have beat players like Jordan, Magic, Bird, Olajuwon etc. in a playoff series.

Do the Lakers in the 80s have a more modern style of play than the Lakers in the 60s, or a less modern one? The 60s is the decade they have the elite shooting PG as their best player. If the Celtics were so outdated, why did a team with a very modern style of play like the Royals (all time great ballhandling/PNR guard, best shooting big in the league as his floor spacer and pick and pop guy) not do better?

There's also some offensive bias at work - you may think the 86 Celtics are more modern than the 69 Celtics on offense, but they're NOT on defense. Havlicek, Sanders and Russell is easily a more modern defensive frontcourt than Bird, McHale and Parish.

If people are going to treat 60s players with a grain of salt because they would lose by 50 to the Warriors if you made them play with their 60s level of 3pt shooting, then the most internally logical thing to do would also be skeptical of teams like 83 Sixers, 86 Celtics and 87 Lakers who were post driven teams that didn't shoot 3s and defensively would get cooked by 2017 Warriors if you dropped them against them. The biggest change in the game is 3pt shooting and the breaking point for that was some time after the 80s. Even by early 2000s they are playing a pretty different game. You could 2003 finals is more different than 2017 finals as 1969 finals is to 2003. A modernist position that 2010s basketball wipes out anything before it makes more sense to me than thinking the 80s-2020 is about the same and the 60s is YMCA ball, but even then the Lakers proved that you don't have to go full Warriors to compete. if the argument is that we should judge Magic and Bird by what they did in their own time, and it wouldn't be fair to make their teams compete in 2017 without giving them a few modern role players and letting them adjust their rotations, well you could say the same of Russell.

So, I've been finding myself thinking that a strategic shift toward spacing was always an optimality waiting to be discovered. The 3 helped teams figure it out, yes, but I think it's pretty clear that if humans can shoot like this, the optimal way top play is with more spacing.

More spacing hinders the impact of a defensive anchor, and not coincidentally, they play further out precisely to evade the anchor.

What this has me feeling is that Russell was the GOAT at a, shall we say, at a form of basketball attached to a lower level of skill.

To be clear, I'm not saying guys from the '60s lacked "skill". I think guys in the '20s has incredible skills. It's not about being all around less skilled, it's specific shooting. When people can shoot well enough, a Bill Russell becomes less valuable.

Or does he? Feel free folks to argue otherwise, but while I consider him to be smart as they come and a candidate for a point center game, but when his defense inevitably is mitigated against by modern shooting skill, that's no small thing to overcome.

[O_6]

There are different ways to measure the "GOAT", and it really depends on the way that you frame the discussion. I believe I take into account different things than some others on here.

1. Impact the player has relative to his era
2. Weighting the player's era relative to NBA history
3. Trying to measure how situation-specific that the player's impact was
4. Estimating how the player's impact + play-style would evolve and translate across different eras
5. Projecting how a player's relative impact would be affected by league quality (including a theoretical all-time league)

I think most here probably have some sort of formula that takes into account 1-3, but I'm not sure how many others try to take into account 4-5 since they are basically impossible to measure and rely so heavily on your own biases/intuition about the game and the players. I don't want to go too crazy talking about my methodology, but just wanted to give a basic outline of how I try contextualize an essentially impossible comparison like one between John Havlicek and Joel Embiid.

There are a handful of players who I believe belong in the GOAT conversation. MJ/LeBron/Kareem/Russell are my Mt. Rushmore, and I even think Wilt has an outside argument although that opinion has become less and less popular over the years. Wilt's an interesting one because although I think he has the best GOAT argument of those not in my Top 4, I also can see arguments for him outside the Top 8. Although I'm a true fan of Bill Russell and respect the hell out of Kareem, but my personal GOAT discussion has turned into LeBron vs. MJ over the last couple of years so I'll focus on that debate for this post.

Jordan vs. LeBron
I've had Jordan as my GOAT since I've been a fan of the sport, but I've also been a fan of LeBron since he was in High School. I've always been a fan of LeBron's outside of 2011 when I probably still liked him more than most people did. The 4th quarter explosion in 2007 vs. Detroit was the first glimpse of GOATness, the 2009 Playoff game-winner vs. the Magic was when it really started to feel like a possibility, the 2013 season was when he truly entered the conversation, the 2016 comeback in the Finals is when it felt like it wouldn't be crazy to consider him GOAT, the 2018 one man carryjob cemented him as a true GOAT candidate, and this 2020 title run just continues to strengthen his candidacy.

I consider LeBron the GOAT finisher among perimeter players, his efficiency/volume numbers At the Rim are 2nd only to Shaq over the last 25 years. I think the only perimeter player in history even comparable to LeBron in terms of adding value as a finisher is Dr. J, but even then I think LeBron's longevity has created some distance there. I also think LeBron is one of the all-time great passers the game has seen. The root of his greatness has been his ability to mesh his GOAT-level finishing with his All-Time Great passing and above-average outside shooting to become a never-before-seen type of dominant offensive hub, or atleast a freakish remix of Magic Johnson.

However, I simply view MJ as having a more complete offensive arsenal which allowed him to be a tougher assignment to gameplan against. Whereas LeBron's flaw has always been obvious "fairly average and streaky outside shooter, average to below average free throw shooter", MJ never had anything that defenses could focus on. '07 and '11 are two Finals that LeBron lost by playing well below his standards because the opposing defenses forced him to shoot the ball from outside and he couldn't make them pay. He was about to lose the 2013 Finals in the same exact fashion, with the opposing team giving his outside shot no respect, except LeBron woke up in that Game 6 4th quarter and the rest is history.

MJ's flawless offensive repertoire allowed him to become the GOAT scorer in NBA history. I know volume scoring is an aspect that gets overrated by some fans, but that doesn't mean it isn't an important thing to look at. I actually feel like a lot of people on this site who are "analytically literate" tend to underrate the ability to volume score effectively. Great volume scorers who can carry an offense are very valuable because of the burden they take away from their teammates, especially when they are also very good passers and defenders like prime MJ.

Jordan is the only player in NBA history to average over 30 PPG in the playoffs over his career, and he's at an absurd 33.5 PPG on another level from anyone else. But MJ scored that 33.5 PPG (.568 TS%) while maintaining a 28.2 AST% and a miniscule 9.4 TOV%, compared LeBron who averages 28.8 PPG (.584 TS%) and 35.4 AST% on a pretty good 12.9 TOV%. Jordan scored a ton of points, but the beauty and mind-blowing aspect of his historic volume scoring is the fact that MJ rarely forced it. He was playing within the system, a system that was designed to rely on him to shoulder an inhuman amount of the scoring load, and the excellent turnover economy and strong passing on top of the good scoring efficiency really show how "easy" the scoring came for him. Despite the fact that MJ's 33.5 PPG still laps the field in the playoffs, I feel as if his volume scoring is underrated based on that because he'd regularly turn it up a notch in the 4th quarters and moments when his teams really needed to score and there wasn't much defenses could do to stop it.

I went on NBA.com and compiled Playoff Clutch scoring stats of all the players since 1997 when the data was first available.

Most "Clutch Points" (Last 5 mins +/- 5 Points) during a single Playoff run ('97-'20)
1. 1998 Jordan ------ 68 Points
2. 2011 Dirk ---------- 64 Points
3. 1997 Jordan ------ 55 Points
4. 2006 Wade -------- 48 Points
5. 2008 Kobe -------- 48 Points
6. 2019 Kawhi ------- 48 Points
7. 2020 Butler ------- 48 Points
8. 2018 LeBron ------ 47 Points
9. 2010 Kobe -------- 47 Points
10. 2002 Pierce ----- 46 Points

There's really nothing surprising in that group, outside of maybe Pierce's 2002 performance. You have '11 Dirk and '06 Wade near the very top, generally considered two of the best playoff runs of the last 20 years. Yet MJ in his '97 and '98 season, which aren't even among his Top 7 best seasons, is actually matching and surpassing those epic seasons in back to back runs in terms of scoring volume. Those Bulls' teams were extremely dependent on his scoring, Scottie Pippen was the #2 option and was quite mediocre as a scorer during those years. MJ scored 123 points in 98 minutes on a .580 TS% during these two playoffs, with a +51 plus/minus. That's a 45.2 PTS/36 rate which is so far ahead of the field that it's crazy. How far ahead of the field?

After researching the "Clutch" stats of all players since 1997, I made a shocking discovery. The two players who scored the most points and had the best clutch scoring per minutes played were LeBron James and Kobe Bryant. Both of these two players came out looking very impressive all-around btw, not just in terms of scoring. I was planning on making a bigger thread about Clutch Performance since '97 during the off-season, maybe I'll still do it I find the time. But anyways, Kobe (32.7 PTS/36) and LeBron (32.3 PTS/36) ranked #2 and #3 in Points per minute among players with more than 40 career clutch playoff minutes since '97.

1. Jordan --- 45.2 PTS/36 ---- .580 TS% ---- +25.0 plus/minus (per 48) ---- 98 minutes
2. Kobe ------ 32.7 PTS/36 ---- .544 TS% ---- +18.5 plus/minus (per 48) --- 366 minutes
3. LeBron ---- 32.3 PTS/36 --- .545 TS% ---- +19.2 plus/minus (per 48) ---- 452 minutes

That's the top 3 in terms of career clutch scoring per minute played in the playoffs. Now obviously, you're going to point out that it's unfair to compare MJ's two seasons vs. LeBron and Kobe's entire playoff careers. That totally makes sense. But you have to also realize that LeBron only surpassed the 45.2 PTS/36 mark twice in his career ('06, '18) and Kobe never had a single playoff run where he matched it (topping out at 43.6 in '03). Jordan's '97 + '98 season playoffs Clutch scoring was just outlandish. Now, maybe these two runs were outliers in his career. But I have a hard time believing that since these were MJ's 8th and 9th best seasons respectively and he was clearly not as explosive or efficient as he was from '88-'96.

The great Dipper 13 (who I hope makes an appearance during this project), had a fantastic thread where he logged Jordan's clutch performance during his entire playoff career.

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?t=1297293

Jordan's Career Clutch performance in the Playoffs
45.8 PTS/36 --- .625 TS% ---- +23.3 plus/minus (per 48) --- 408 minutes

So basically, Dipper's research came to the conclusion that '97 and '98 were far from an anomaly and that MJ was basically a consistent God in terms of "Clutch Scoring" over his career. I spent time watching a bunch of MJ playoff games and tried to keep track of his Clutch scoring as well, and I don't think there is anything "funky" about Dipper's numbers. In fact, his +/- numbers for Jordan's career are actually lower than what they were for '97 and '98 in which we have the real stats. Based on the official '97 and '98 Clutch stats, the bunch of MJ 4th quarters I watched trying to verify the numbers, and Dipper 13's reputation as an awesome poster; I see no reason to doubt the numbers.

Remember, I didn't just pick LeBron and Kobe because they were the most popular names. It just so happened that they were the two most prolific scorers in Clutch situations over the past 24 years, both in terms of overall Points scored and Points scored per minute played. Points per 36 of 32.7 and 32.3, for the two best clutch playoff scorers of a generation. 45.8 for MJ. I think the difference might be more meaningful if we just look at it per minute.

Career (Playoffs)
1. Jordan --- 1.27 Clutch Points per Minute (.625 TS%)
2. Kobe ----- 0.91 Clutch Points per Minute (.544 TS%)
3. LeBron -- 0.90 Clutch Points per Minute (.545 TS%)

Michael Jordan was simply on a completely different level as a scorer from basically anyone who has ever lived, and this includes LeBron James. By easily being able to take on a historic offensive load and being able to not just score, but having such a versatile and deep repertoire of ways to score while also being a strong passer and defender, Jordan's presence allowed his team many different options in terms of team building. As great as Pippen was, he wasn't exactly a great secondary scoring option and he is also a player that needed the ball in his hands to get the best out of him on offense. Jordan being able to play off-ball with ease and master the Triangle was able to give Pippen the space needed to develop into a strong Point-Forward. Jordan being able to carry such a massive scoring load basically allowed Dennis Rodman to focus solely on offensive rebounding, with the Bulls essentially being able to play 4v5 on Offense before the shot because MJ was just that damn good. Horace Grant didn't need to score 18+ a game in order to have a good game because MJ's scoring allowed Grant to focus on his role as a solid mid-range shooter with very good defense who just needed to chip in 10-13 PPG in order to have a good game.

I consider MJ's volume scoring and overall volume offensive package to be a borderline outlier in NBA history. By so many different measures, he stands alone. And as I mentioned above, his turnover economy and strong assist numbers indicate that he wasn't exerting a ton of effort in order to score at historic levels. Based on the info we have, his Clutch numbers indicate that when he needed to expend more energy as a scorer and Scale Up, he could Scale Up from "GOAT" to "God" and control games in a manner that no one else in league history has been able to replicate.

LeBron has 16 All-NBA selections vs. Jordan only having 11 of them. The longevity edge is becoming very hard to overlook at this point. For the first time in my life, I believe that LeBron has a better than 50% chance of becoming the GOAT as of today. If he plays another 2-3 more years at a similar level to this, I think that's all it would take for him to become the GOAT over MJ in my eyes. At a certain point, that longevity edge is just impossible to make up when their primes were so close. But unlike a lot of you, I still don't think LeBron's quite there yet because Jordan's offensive skillset simply had less clear flaws prime vs. prime and I still think there's a slight but clear edge for MJ in terms of peak/prime because of it.

My Vote
1. Jordan
2. LeBron
3. Kareem


Kareem vs. Russell
After writing all of that with LeBron vs. Jordan, I'm not going to write too much about these two. I'll save it for another thread. But unlike MJ vs. LeBron, this is a situation where Longevity is enough to give Kareem the edge because of the questions I have about how era-specific that Russell's GOAT tier impact was. Russell is my favorite basketball player ever and I think he had a superior prime to Kareem. I think you could argue based on his ATG defenses, that Russell may have been the most impactful player of all-time when you are looking purely at their impact relative to their eras. However, Kareem was incredibly impactful too. His combination of great volume scoring, great scoring efficiency, good passing for his position, great rim protection, and amazing longevity just makes him such a valuable player for his career. I simply have less doubt that Kareem would be dominant in various different situations and eras than Russell, that plus longevity is enough for him to be #3 in my book. Although I could definitely change my mind, because as I said before, Russell is my favorite player ever.