RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #14 (Oscar Robertson)

[penbeast0]

The gap in longevity of Malone and Dirk against Mikan should be enough for him not to be even considered.

Oscar has a longer career, so that gap might not be so important... but please. I wouldn't even consider Mikan against Moses, Oscar, Jerry, Dirk, Malone, etc.

Sure you are counting his full prime? He came into the league in 1946-47 (B-R.com only starts keeping stats in their main page from 1948-49) and played through 54 (ignoring his abortive comeback in 56) and was still top 5 in the league in 1953-54 in points and rebounds (though not minutes) so let's call that a 8 year prime.

Compare to Steph Curry (7 year prime) with appreciably more missed games, in the modern age of basketball where players have the best equipment and medical training. So, Curry isn't going into your top 100? He's going into mine.

I can see ruling out Bill Walton (1 year prime) but Mikan was dominant in basketball for 8 years and certainly the best in the game for 5 with at least 2 more as possibly the best, that's a very solid career arc. He just doesn't have many of the lesser seasons to flesh it out.

For me, an 8 year prime is right about where I quit penalizing players for short careers; though I still give bonus weight to guys who were good for a lot longer like Karl or Moses.

[DQuinn1575]

For all the people voting Mikan.

Don't you think he should be even more scrutinized for his era then we are currently doing? For his career he played with a limited amount of black athletes. If the black athletes were allowed in full force into the league I do not think there is anyway he reaches the heights that he did.

Yes, again he played in the era given to him but this is not just a weak era this is basically him going up against players who are definitely not the best in the world.

Look at the top 20, we might have two white guys that make the list. This is no doubt a sport dominated by black players and Mikan had to play against only a few black athletes. If we take guys that dominated even the 60 and 70s they would absolutely destroy the league Mikan played in. Hell, even a guy like say Andrew Bynum would be the player in the world in that setting.

Just my thoughts. I just feel that this is not some era where the talent pool just wasn't great, it was in fact a specific demographic that usually dominates the game that had a quota on how many can play in the league. How do we know there were not better players then Mikan out there that were just not allowed in the league. Was there some kind of propaganda going on to make sure the best player in the league was white? Just too many variables and unknowns to consider Mikan this early...

On the note of black athletes, something I have to note:

Mikan's (and Kurland's) dominance as super-bigs wasn't just novel for White basketball, it was novel for any basketball.

When the Lakers played the Globetrotters in 1948, the Globetrotters center was 6'3", and it was just a glaring weakness next to Mikan. The Globetrotters still managed to win the game, but they soon acquired Sweetwater Clifton who was 6'8" (although bkref has him at 6'6" and I'm not going to profess to know which number was right there) to be their new center.

All this to say while I'd love to take more about the great Black players of that era and all the myriad effects of White basketball leagues not letting Blacks play, I don't think we have a Negro league-type situation like we do in baseball. Mikan's advantage wasn't that he didn't have to play Blacks, it's that before him, people weren't telling guys his size to play basketball.

In the 1940s there was a World Professional Basketball Tournament played in Chicago (sponsored by the defunct Chicago American newspaper). The dominant black teams, the Harlem Globetrotters and New York Rens played in this as well as many NBL teams, one of the two leagues that merged to form the NBA. The Pistons and Lakers each won this tournament. The Trotters also won once, while the Rens won twice, once playing as the Washington Bears.
Mikan played and won in 1946 and 1948 - in 1948 facing the Rens in the finals. There were 6 NBL teams out of 8 in the tourney and the Rens finished second. Mikan scored 40 in the final. The Rens featured Nat Clifton, who later played for the Trotters, and then was one of the first NBA black players. Clifton was good enough to still be a starter at age 35. The Trotters and the Lakers played a series of games from 1948-1952, with MIkan winning 5 of 7, and scoring 204 points - so 244 points in 8 games -30ppg in a league where 70-80 points was the norm. The Trotters were still good enough throughout the 50s and early 60s to play and have winning records each year against college All-American seniors in tours.
Detractors say Mikan didn't play long enough - but he won 7 champions. They changed the width of the lane because of his dominance, and he still won 3 more titles. The 24 second clock was instituted partly because of a stall AGAINST the Lakers - the Lakers were not the slowest pace team. The better teams want a shot clock and not a stall. He obviously didn't age well; but again the 7 championships are there.
His level of competition is obviously lower; that is why he is not in the Top 5. We all give in some type of era adjustment; the question is how much. I think about 3 times is enough, which is why I think he should be in the Top 15 range.

[DQuinn1575]

He came into the league in 1946-47 (B-R.com only starts keeping stats in their main page from 1948-49) and played through 54 (ignoring his abortive comeback in 56) and was still top 5 in the league in 1953-54 in points and rebounds (though not minutes) so let's call that a 8 year prime.

To be clear, B-R.com has the BAA, which started in 1946-47, and all their stats. They do NOT have the NBL, which started in 1938, and merged with the BAA to form the NBA. Mikan started played in the NBL, and later joined the BAA, which then merged into the NBA. Basically the NBL had great players, but were in smaller cities. The BAA was in bigger cities.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #83:

Oscar Robertson - 6 (DQuinn1575, Hal14, HeartBreakKid, lebron3-14-3, Magic Is Magic, Odinn21)
Karl Malone - 2 (Joao Saraiva, trex_8063)
Dirk Nowitzki - 1 (Dr Positivity)
David Robinson - 1 (sansterre)
George Mikan - 1 (penbeast0)
Julius Erving - 1 (TrueLAfan)


About 19 hours more for this thread. If you don’t see your handle above, YOU HAVEN’T VOTED IN THIS THREAD.

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[trex_8063]

Thought again on my modern Mikan comparison - a bought in Cousins with better defensive instincts is about the closest I can come up with. Anybody else have any thoughts? Emotional on court (not as much off court), very physical, high skill, strongest in the league sort.

I don't really see Mikan as being thick like Cousins. I think if Mikan played today he'd be seen as pretty typical build for his size.

The first guy that comes to mind for me is Andrew Bogut. I don't really want to justify that - the fact I thought of another white guy is awkward - but Bogut is a guy who is big but not overwhelmingly big, great smart defender, and an excellent scorer against slightly lower levels of competition.

I'll also say that if that seems super-damning, keep in mind that I respect Bogut a ton and consider his career fundamentally damaged by injury. To me he's a guy who could have been All-NBA 1st team in year without top tier superstars at the center position (Shaq, Dwight).

I was thinking more like a marginally taller [and better rim-protecting and rebounding] Al Horford. Can't say if he'd have Horford's outside shooting, though.

[KPT1867]

My vote is for Oscar Robertson.

His style and composure was ahead of his time. He had major noticeable impacts on the Royals offenses. His teams rORtg increased by 2.9 when he joined and dropped by 5.7 when he left. Similarly the Bucks rORtg increased by 4.7 when he joined. He averaged a 30 point triple-double over the course of his first 5 seasons. That is of course in the inflated stat era, but accounting for pace that is still roughly 22 PPG, 10 APG, and 6 RPG. The fact of the matter, he managed to get an MVP in an era when Russell and Chamberlain were at their best and when the players selected who the MVP was

[Doctor MJ]

For all the people voting Mikan.

Don't you think he should be even more scrutinized for his era then we are currently doing? For his career he played with a limited amount of black athletes. If the black athletes were allowed in full force into the league I do not think there is anyway he reaches the heights that he did.

Yes, again he played in the era given to him but this is not just a weak era this is basically him going up against players who are definitely not the best in the world.

Look at the top 20, we might have two white guys that make the list. This is no doubt a sport dominated by black players and Mikan had to play against only a few black athletes. If we take guys that dominated even the 60 and 70s they would absolutely destroy the league Mikan played in. Hell, even a guy like say Andrew Bynum would be the player in the world in that setting.

Just my thoughts. I just feel that this is not some era where the talent pool just wasn't great, it was in fact a specific demographic that usually dominates the game that had a quota on how many can play in the league. How do we know there were not better players then Mikan out there that were just not allowed in the league. Was there some kind of propaganda going on to make sure the best player in the league was white? Just too many variables and unknowns to consider Mikan this early...

On the note of black athletes, something I have to note:

Mikan's (and Kurland's) dominance as super-bigs wasn't just novel for White basketball, it was novel for any basketball.

When the Lakers played the Globetrotters in 1948, the Globetrotters center was 6'3", and it was just a glaring weakness next to Mikan. The Globetrotters still managed to win the game, but they soon acquired Sweetwater Clifton who was 6'8" (although bkref has him at 6'6" and I'm not going to profess to know which number was right there) to be their new center.

All this to say while I'd love to take more about the great Black players of that era and all the myriad effects of White basketball leagues not letting Blacks play, I don't think we have a Negro league-type situation like we do in baseball. Mikan's advantage wasn't that he didn't have to play Blacks, it's that before him, people weren't telling guys his size to play basketball.

In the 1940s there was a World Professional Basketball Tournament played in Chicago (sponsored by the defunct Chicago American newspaper). The dominant black teams, the Harlem Globetrotters and New York Rens played in this as well as many NBL teams, one of the two leagues that merged to form the NBA. The Pistons and Lakers each won this tournament. The Trotters also won once, while the Rens won twice, once playing as the Washington Bears.
Mikan played and won in 1946 and 1948 - in 1948 facing the Rens in the finals. There were 6 NBL teams out of 8 in the tourney and the Rens finished second. Mikan scored 40 in the final. The Rens featured Nat Clifton, who later played for the Trotters, and then was one of the first NBA black players. Clifton was good enough to still be a starter at age 35. The Trotters and the Lakers played a series of games from 1948-1952, with MIkan winning 5 of 7, and scoring 204 points - so 244 points in 8 games -30ppg in a league where 70-80 points was the norm. The Trotters were still good enough throughout the 50s and early 60s to play and have winning records each year against college All-American seniors in tours.
Detractors say Mikan didn't play long enough - but he won 7 champions. They changed the width of the lane because of his dominance, and he still won 3 more titles. The 24 second clock was instituted partly because of a stall AGAINST the Lakers - the Lakers were not the slowest pace team. The better teams want a shot clock and not a stall. He obviously didn't age well; but again the 7 championships are there.
His level of competition is obviously lower; that is why he is not in the Top 5. We all give in some type of era adjustment; the question is how much. I think about 3 times is enough, which is why I think he should be in the Top 15 range.

I wholeheartedly approve of the tangent into deeper history in the midst of our grand historical project.

For those interested, here's an APBR link to various results: http://www.apbr.org/tourney.html.

I will say I don't believe that Mikan's team won in 1946 as the Pistons won that year, but he definitely led the Lakers to the title in 1948 over Sweetwater and the Rens.

On Mikan:

I'm not someone who has a huge problem with Mikan's longevity. I think when you win 7 championships in 8 years it would make sense to decide you had nothing left to prove.

However, it is unfortunate that Mikan didn't hang around long enough to battle with the next wave, which means we don't get a chance to see his Kareem-ability, standing up to future generations. This leads us to guess how Mikan would do against competition he didn't tower over, which is unfortunate because Mikan simply would not be able to rely on that at all later eras of NBA basketball. There is also the matter that he seemed like he was retiring specifically because he was becoming less able to play. While that's normally how it goes, it doesn't normally "start going" in year 20s.

As far as what all that means for his rank, well, I don't think it makes sense to think in terms of multiples of ranks (3 times 5 so Top 15), as to me that's putting the cart before the horse.

I'm judging each player comparison separately. To me that's the only way that really feels terribly meaningful. I want to look at two players and their respective play and use that to decide who should go higher on my list. Hence why I end up asking questions about Mikan versus someone like Artis Gilmore.

I will say that penbeast and I have already crossed paths on that and I take his point about Mikan's aggression. If you see Gilmore as someone who was fundamentally lacking something mental that would prevent him from being the type of superstar that Mikan was, it makes sense to rank Mikan higher.

It's hard for me to get past the thought thought that Gilmore was better than Mikan ad Mikan's best thing (defense), and played offense in a manner much closer to how Mikan would have to play in more wiser eras.

I also think it just has to be noted that Gilmore played about 4 times as many minutes in his pro career as Mikan played in his. Again not looking to damn Mikan for a short career all things considered, it does have to be noted that part of the reason why we see Gilmore as a bit pedestrian is that he kept right on playing for a very long time continuing to post high TS Add's through 16th season to pad out his explosive beginning in the ABA where he certainly seemed like a superstar.

[Doctor MJ]

Vote:

1. Oscar Robertson
2. Karl Malone
3. David Robinson

It's nice to get a chance to vote for Oscar. He's an exceptionally worthy player. To be Player of the Year every year of your college career and then come right into the pros and be better as an offensive player than anyone else playing then, or had ever played before. To carry that through a solid longevity that then culminates teaming with Kareem as a peer. Legendary.

For the next two spots the 3 guys on my mind are Malone, Robinson, and Dirk Nowitzki. I'll not that I've been seriously pondering Dirk as a candidate for longer than the other two, and that's because Dirk is an unusual enough player that it's fairly easy to make compelling cases for him over a lot of guys, and fairly easy to make cases for a lot of guys over him.

In the case of Malone vs Dirk, I really could go either way, but in general it just seems to me like the big thing is Dirk's ring and what you connect with it. If you see it as evidence for Dirk reaching a crescendo that Malone never hit, I get it. I do think though that we don't think of Dirk that way if they had to play Jordan's Bulls. And if I don't think of his peak that way, Malone just loomed larger over his era than Dirk did. He was more of an MVP candidate and won more playoff series. I kinda feel like I need good reason to go against him here, and I don't think I've got enough of one for Dirk.

Robinson vs Dirk is perhaps surprisingly easy for me. I'm really impressed by Robinson's ability to transition to a secondary offensive role and dominate on defense. You combine that with what he can do as an alpha, and I'm just more impressed with Robinson. Dirk does have a longevity edge, but when viewed from the lens of continuing to add significant value until his last day, Robinson's career actually lasts a pretty long time. I don't feel absolutely compelled to give Dirk the nod simply by longevity.

But y'know, as you might hope, it's the top two guys of this particular love triangle that is most devilish of a comparison.

What if I like the idea of Robinson more, but it matters to me that Malone seemed destined to get the best of Robinson? How do I weight these two things? How big of a deal should match up advantage be when comparing two players?

From a purely bottom-up quantitative perspective, the answer should be that the question is irrelevant because the player's relative success was captured in other stats.

Here's another way of looking at it:

Through '97-98, the 34 year old Malone had won 14 series, while the 32 year old Robinson had won 6, and Malone's Jazz had beaten Robinson's Spurs all 3 times they played with general consensus that Malone was just too strong for Robinsons. What should it take from Robinson's beat career to surpass that?

And the answer is "I don't know", but forced to choose, so far I've chosen Malone.

[Odinn21]

3. David Robinson

This whole the PF debate aside, I find this as an interesting pick.

As you know, I have Moses Malone ahead of David Robinson when I compare them, this is what I see going by my criterias;
* Peak- I have higher regards for 1981, 1982 and 1983 Moses over 1994, 1995 and 1996 Admiral. The gap on offense was bigger than the gap on defense IMO. Robinson's high post offense never translated into proper postseason performances and Malone's offense was much more impactful. And even if we do not agree on that, I think we have to agree that Moses' rebounding and ability to draw fouls should put him over Robinson.
It's worth mentioning that Robinson was better at passing but that also did not translate into postseason impact well enough due to Robinson's high post approach in a time of low post dominance.
* Prime duration- Both had 7 seasons of proper prime.
* Average prime level- Aside from their peaks, I have higher regards for Malone's non-peak seasons. Malone from 1979 to 1985 was a better player than Robinson from 1990 to 1996, despite 1984 being a clear down season for him.
* Longevity- This is where it gets interesting. Robinson was pretty strong in 1998 and 1999. I'm not so sure if I'd say he was a top 5 player in the league in 1998, but he was in 1999. One could make a very good argument for his 1999 being the best #2 scoring option performance of all-time. 2000 and 2001 are also good seasons for him. Malone on the other hand, kept being a 20+/10+ player for another 5 seasons. His offensive production was there, though his defense was pretty inconsistent. 1986 did not go well for him or the Sixers. But he and Jeff Malone were the players that took the Bad Boys Pistons to an elimination game in 1988. 1989 was another strong season from him. There's also the seasons before 1978-79 which he added some value to his career.
I guess I'm going to give the edge to Robinson because Robinson looks more consistent. But I'm not so sure if the longevity edge makes up for the gap between their primes.
* Career resume- This is among my criterias and I'd say Moses had the better career resume for sure. But I don't think it really matters between players this close.

Interesting note; looking at Retro PotY vote shares, Moses is 18th with 3.478 and Robinson is 24th with 2.431. I don't know what to do with that right now. At a first glance, Moses looks like he was on the next level compared to Robinson. But that's just first glance.

Edit;
Diving into those Retro PotY results...

Moses Malone
3rd in 1979, agreed. (0.529 share)
4th in 1980, he was the 3rd best after Abdul-Jabbar and Erving, rookie Bird was not better than him. (0.259 share)
2nd in 1981, being 2nd to Bird is a winning bias IMO, should've been 1st. (0.572 share)
1st in 1982, not much to discuss. (0.971 share)
1st in 1983, again. (1.000 share)
8th in 1984, I think he shouldn't get a single top 5 vote. (0.042 share)
5th in 1985, I'd probably have him at 4 but it's just interchangeable between him, Abdul-Jabbar and Jordan. 3-5 range is accurate for him. They were very close, picking a certain spot is just being too nit-picky on this occasion. (0.105 share)

David Robinson
6th in 1990, agreed. (0.045 share)
5th in 1991, agreed. (0.268 share) [I was about to say maybe that share was a bit too much for Robinson but then realized other than Jordan and Magic, that was not a particularly good season for individuals.]
5th in 1992, agreed. (0.165 share)
5th in 1993, agreed. (0.096 share)
2nd in 1994, I think that's overrated. I wouldn't put Ewing behind Robinson. I'd say Robinson should be in 3-5 range along with Malone and O'Neal after Olajuwon and Ewing. (0.538 share)
3rd in 1995, agreed. (0.559 share)
2nd in 1996, agreed. (0.567 share)
5th in 1998, agreed I guess. (0.116 share)
5th in 1999, agreed. (0.077 share) [Though I'd expect him to have a higher share. That's too low.]

So...
The rankings look in line with my evaluation. Moses was not a top 5 player outside of his prime. Robinson was barely.
Moses' top results 1/1/2/3/4/5.
David's top results 2/2/3/5/5/5/5/5. Two not so strong but still top 5 seasons after his big injury.

We can talk about the individual competition Robinson faced being better than what Moses had but Moses was closer to late prime Abdul-Jabbar and he was better than prime Erving and early prime Bird, while Robinson struggled to put a clear distance between himself and Malone, Barkley and young / early prime O'Neal.

[Joao Saraiva]

The gap in longevity of Malone and Dirk against Mikan should be enough for him not to be even considered.

Oscar has a longer career, so that gap might not be so important... but please. I wouldn't even consider Mikan against Moses, Oscar, Jerry, Dirk, Malone, etc.

Sure you are counting his full prime? He came into the league in 1946-47 (B-R.com only starts keeping stats in their main page from 1948-49) and played through 54 (ignoring his abortive comeback in 56) and was still top 5 in the league in 1953-54 in points and rebounds (though not minutes) so let's call that a 8 year prime.

Compare to Steph Curry (7 year prime) with appreciably more missed games, in the modern age of basketball where players have the best equipment and medical training. So, Curry isn't going into your top 100? He's going into mine.

I can see ruling out Bill Walton (1 year prime) but Mikan was dominant in basketball for 8 years and certainly the best in the game for 5 with at least 2 more as possibly the best, that's a very solid career arc. He just doesn't have many of the lesser seasons to flesh it out.

For me, an 8 year prime is right about where I quit penalizing players for short careers; though I still give bonus weight to guys who were good for a lot longer like Karl or Moses.

Not putting into my top 100 is diferent from not consdering him against Malone, Dirk, Oscar or Moses don't you think?

Obviously both Mikan and Curry will make my top 100. Yet they won't make it above any of those guys or Kevin Durant, or David Robinson for example. I'm sorry but I can't take 8 years of Mikan against 20 of Karl Malone.

[Dutchball97]

1. Kevin Durant - I mentioned how KD has done more in less time than the longevity cases like Karl Malone and Dirk. The main thing holding him back right now is some durability questions and a relatively easy situation with the Warriors. That said, his play-off performance throughout the years is of a consistently high level that Karl Malone or Oscar Robertson could only dream of, while he has been one of the top regular season performers throughout his career as well. I just don't think there is anyone left with a resume as good as KD.

2. Oscar Robertson - I've explained why I don't have him higher but even with limited team success, he's one of the best to ever play the game. He's going to get in this round regardless.

3. Julius Erving - I'm still considering Curry here as well and there are of course always some others deserving of consideration so since this won't effect the vote this round I'll have Dr. J here for now.

[70sFan]

That said, his play-off performance throughout the years is of a consistently high level that Karl Malone or Oscar Robertson could only dream of

Again, I don't want to sound like a Durant hater, but how is Durant better playoff performer than Oscar? Because he had much better team that went deeper into playoffs? Because he played more rounds due to playing in bigger league?

[Dutchball97]

That said, his play-off performance throughout the years is of a consistently high level that Karl Malone or Oscar Robertson could only dream of

Again, I don't want to sound like a Durant hater, but how is Durant better playoff performer than Oscar? Because he had much better team that went deeper into playoffs? Because he played more rounds due to playing in bigger league?

Of course it has a big impact that Oscar played in a league with less play-off rounds, while playing on a pretty average team for his time. I'm not saying Oscar would definitely do worse in a similar situation than KD nor do I think KD would necessarily perform much better in Oscar's shoes. We have to look at what actually happened though. Oscar had two great runs in 63 and 64. If we're putting heavy emphasis on team strength then I think there is even a strong argument for Oscar's 64 run to be the best between the two regardless of how good I think KD's 2012 and 2017 runs were especially.

My main criticism of Oscar's play-offs is that after those two years it gets awfully quiet. Three straight first round losses (even though they were to the Celtics and 76ers) followed by three straight years of missing the play-off altogether from age 26-31 in the middle of his prime hurts his case. He did have a redemption arc with the Bucks but that was as the clear 2nd guy who wasn't on the same level as he was in the 60s. Maybe Oscar would've done much better in a more ideal situation, just like KG (I think their career arcs are very similar) but I'm going off what actually happened. It might seem a bit unfair towards players on worse teams than other All-Time greats but proving yourself in the play-offs is my most important criteria and when that doesn't happen or doesn't happen often then that does raise some questions even though those players have a legit top 10 case based on regular season.

To be honest it's a difficult one to me but at some point I need to draw a line how much I value what actually happened vs what could've happened if everyone had the same situation.

[sansterre]

3. David Robinson

This whole the PF debate aside, I find this as an interesting pick.

As you know, I have Moses Malone ahead of David Robinson when I compare them, this is what I see going by my criterias;
* Peak- I have higher regards for 1981, 1982 and 1983 Moses over 1994, 1995 and 1996 Admiral. The gap on offense was bigger than the gap on defense IMO. Robinson's high post offense never translated into proper postseason performances and Malone's offense was much more impactful. And even if we do not agree on that, I think we have to agree that Moses' rebounding and ability to draw fouls should put him over Robinson.
It's worth mentioning that Robinson was better at passing but that also did not translate into postseason impact well enough due to Robinson's high post approach in a time of low post dominance.
* Prime duration- Both had 7 seasons of proper prime.
* Average prime level- Aside from their peaks, I have higher regards for Malone's non-peak seasons. Malone from 1979 to 1985 was a better player than Robinson from 1990 to 1996, despite 1984 being a clear down season for him.
* Longevity- This is where it gets interesting. Robinson was pretty strong in 1998 and 1999. I'm not so sure if I'd say he was a top 5 player in the league in 1998, but he was in 1999. One could make a very good argument for his 1999 being the best #2 scoring option performance of all-time. 2000 and 2001 are also good seasons for him. Malone on the other hand, kept being a 20+/10+ player for another 5 seasons. His offensive production was there, though his defense was pretty inconsistent. 1986 did not go well for him or the Sixers. But he and Jeff Malone were the players that took the Bad Boys Pistons to an elimination game in 1988. 1989 was another strong season from him. There's also the seasons before 1978-79 which he added some value to his career.
I guess I'm going to give the edge to Robinson because Robinson looks more consistent. But I'm not so sure if the longevity edge makes up for the gap between their primes.
* Career resume- This is among my criterias and I'd say Moses had the better career resume for sure. But I don't think it really matters between players this close.

Interesting note; looking at Retro PotY vote shares, Moses is 18th with 3.478 and Robinson is 24th with 2.431. I don't know what to do with that right now. At a first glance, Moses looks like he was on the next level compared to Robinson. But that's just first glance.

Edit;
Diving into those Retro PotY results...

Moses Malone
3rd in 1979, agreed. (0.529 share)
4th in 1980, he was the 3rd best after Abdul-Jabbar and Erving, rookie Bird was not better than him. (0.259 share)
2nd in 1981, being 2nd to Bird is a winning bias IMO, should've been 1st. (0.572 share)
1st in 1982, not much to discuss. (0.971 share)
1st in 1983, again. (1.000 share)
8th in 1984, I think he shouldn't get a single top 5 vote. (0.042 share)
5th in 1985, I'd probably have him at 4 but it's just interchangeable between him, Abdul-Jabbar and Jordan. 3-5 range is accurate for him. They were very close, picking a certain spot is just being too nit-picky on this occasion. (0.105 share)

David Robinson
6th in 1990, agreed. (0.045 share)
5th in 1991, agreed. (0.268 share) [I was about to say maybe that share was a bit too much for Robinson but then realized other than Jordan and Magic, that was not a particularly good season for individuals.]
5th in 1992, agreed. (0.165 share)
5th in 1993, agreed. (0.096 share)
2nd in 1994, I think that's overrated. I wouldn't put Ewing behind Robinson. I'd say Robinson should be in 3-5 range along with Malone and O'Neal after Olajuwon and Ewing. (0.538 share)
3rd in 1995, agreed. (0.559 share)
2nd in 1996, agreed. (0.567 share)
5th in 1998, agreed I guess. (0.116 share)
5th in 1999, agreed. (0.077 share) [Though I'd expect him to have a higher share. That's too low.]

So...
The rankings look in line with my evaluation. Moses was not a top 5 player outside of his prime. Robinson was barely.
Moses' top results 1/1/2/3/4/5.
David's top results 2/2/3/5/5/5/5/5. Two not so strong but still top 5 seasons after his big injury.

We can talk about the individual competition Robinson faced being better than what Moses had but Moses was closer to late prime Abdul-Jabbar and he was better than prime Erving and early prime Bird, while Robinson struggled to put a clear distance between himself and Malone, Barkley and young / early prime O'Neal.

I could understand somebody preferring Moses over Robinson on account of career length/longevity. But I'm genuinely surprised to hear the argument being built around peak. Would you mind elaborating on that?

For the three-year peaks (playoffs only) you're talking about (I'm going to grab Robinson's entire '90 to '99 Peak, because including '94 seems weird since his playoff sample size is tiny):

Moses: 54.9 TS%, 15.0 Oreb%, 24.0 DReb%, 6.8 Ast%, 1.1 Stl%, 2.2 Blk%, 10.6% TOV, 26.2 USG%
Robinson: 55.1 TS%, 10.2 Oreb%, 24.3 DReb%, 13.3 Ast%, 1.9 Stl%, 5.4 Blk%, 12.3% TOV, 26.6 USG%

They're weirdly comparable in a lot of ways. Almost identical shooting, defensive rebounding and usage rates. The difference is pretty simple: Moses was much better at offensive rebounding (though Robinson, at 10.2% was quite good); that's his upside. Robinson was much better at passing and *way* better at defense. So I feel like giving the edge to Moses on offense is pretty automatic; those 5% offensive rebounds are awesome. But him being such a ball-stopper isn't great for his team offense, and Robinson, while not a *strong* passer, has an assist rate that says "I work well with my offense; my passing doesn't compromise my value". And with Moses it certainly did. Moses is still probably better on offense, but on defense there's no question; Robinson is obviously way better (steals and blocks are fairly bad approximations of defensive value, but they're what we have. And scouting reports certainly agree).

And overall stats:

Moses: 0.203 WS/48, +4.3 BPM, +5.6 OBPM, -1.3 DBPM, 114 ORat, 102 DRat, +12 Net
Robinson: 0.199 WS/48, +6.6 BPM, +3.7 OBPM, +2.9 DBPM, 111 ORat, 98 DRat, +13 Net

Comparable WS/48 numbers, but Robinson has considerably better BPM numbers, mostly because he's considered a strong defender and Moses is weak.

So let's say we looked at this and concluded that the two players are comparable. This is Moses' three-year peak, but Robinson's *ten* year peak.

I see the argument for Robinson here as follows:

1) Robinson's peak was comparable to (or better than) Moses' in quality but far longer
2) Robinson's wildly superior regular season performance was worth better seedings for his team, which in turn led to championship equity value that we can't see in their postseason stats.

I see the argument for Moses as follows:

1) He played longer
2) He was a better offensive player in the postseason
3) He had more team success during the peak years that you picked

The team success argument doesn't seem too reasonable; Moses' team success magically got better once he was playing with Erving; Robinson's team success magically got better once he was playing with Duncan.

I'm not saying that I think that there aren't arguments for Moses, but I'm surprised by the argument that peak is the selling point for you. Would you mind elaborating?

[70sFan]

That said, his play-off performance throughout the years is of a consistently high level that Karl Malone or Oscar Robertson could only dream of

Again, I don't want to sound like a Durant hater, but how is Durant better playoff performer than Oscar? Because he had much better team that went deeper into playoffs? Because he played more rounds due to playing in bigger league?

Of course it has a big impact that Oscar played in a league with less play-off rounds, while playing on a pretty average team for his time. I'm not saying Oscar would definitely do worse in a similar situation than KD nor do I think KD would necessarily perform much better in Oscar's shoes. We have to look at what actually happened though. Oscar had two great runs in 63 and 64. If we're putting heavy emphasis on team strength then I think there is even a strong argument for Oscar's 64 run to be the best between the two regardless of how good I think KD's 2012 and 2017 runs were especially.

My main criticism of Oscar's play-offs is that after those two years it gets awfully quiet. Three straight first round losses (even though they were to the Celtics and 76ers) followed by three straight years of missing the play-off altogether from age 26-31 in the middle of his prime hurts his case. He did have a redemption arc with the Bucks but that was as the clear 2nd guy who wasn't on the same level as he was in the 60s. Maybe Oscar would've done much better in a more ideal situation, just like KG (I think their career arcs are very similar) but I'm going off what actually happened. It might seem a bit unfair towards players on worse teams than other All-Time greats but proving yourself in the play-offs is my most important criteria and when that doesn't happen or doesn't happen often then that does raise some questions even though those players have a legit top 10 case based on regular season.

To be honest it's a difficult one to me but at some point I need to draw a line how much I value what actually happened vs what could've happened if everyone had the same situation.

I get your reasoning, but the problem with Durant is that he isn't some kind of all-time great playoffs performer. Before he came to GSW, he underperformed in all but one run despite having very strong roster around him.

I mean, Oscar lost to Sixers in 1965, 1967 and to Celtics in 1963, 1964 and 1966. When did Durant actually do better in losing effort than Oscar? Certainly not in 2011, 2013, 2014 or 2016. 2012 is basically his whole argument for being good in playoffs before 2017.

Then about Oscar not making the playoffs - Royals would have been in the playoffs had they not play like 20 wins team without him. It's not like he missed a lot of games, but they went 4-13 without him and they lost playoffs spot by one game. I mean, they would have been 3rd seed with Oscar playing 82 games - that's how much of a difference these 17 games made.

In 1969 he missed playoffs with 41-41 record, because Royals played in much stronger conference. Fair enough, you can blame him for that. Keep in mind that Royals were very strong offensively again, so it's not like Oscar couldn't do his things.

There is one 1970 season when he seemed to have lesser impact (due to disagreement with coach Cousy).

Why don't you use the same criteria for Durant missing playoffs though? He missed playoffs in 2008, 2009 and 2015. He also got injured in 2019 playoffs. Given that Durant has weaker longevity than Oscar, you can't just forget about these years because the longevity gap becomes even larger.

To have Durant over Oscar you have to believe that he's much more impactful player in his best 5 or so seasons and I don't see any argument for that to be honest.

Not to mention that if you want to judge players by how they played in playoffs, then Dirk and Barkley were better in playoffs than Durant.

[Odinn21]

I could understand somebody preferring Moses over Robinson on account of career length/longevity. But I'm genuinely surprised to hear the argument being built around peak. Would you mind elaborating on that?

For the three-year peaks (playoffs only) you're talking about (I'm going to grab Robinson's entire '90 to '99 Peak, because including '94 seems weird since his playoff sample size is tiny):

Moses: 54.9 TS%, 15.0 Oreb%, 24.0 DReb%, 6.8 Ast%, 1.1 Stl%, 2.2 Blk%, 10.6% TOV, 26.2 USG%
Robinson: 55.1 TS%, 10.2 Oreb%, 24.3 DReb%, 13.3 Ast%, 1.9 Stl%, 5.4 Blk%, 12.3% TOV, 26.6 USG%

They're weirdly comparable in a lot of ways. Almost identical shooting, defensive rebounding and usage rates. The difference is pretty simple: Moses was much better at offensive rebounding (though Robinson, at 10.2% was quite good); that's his upside. Robinson was much better at passing and *way* better at defense. So I feel like giving the edge to Moses on offense is pretty automatic; those 5% offensive rebounds are awesome. But him being such a ball-stopper isn't great for his team offense, and Robinson, while not a *strong* passer, has an assist rate that says "I work well with my offense; my passing doesn't compromise my value". And with Moses it certainly did. Moses is still probably better on offense, but on defense there's no question; Robinson is obviously way better (steals and blocks are fairly bad approximations of defensive value, but they're what we have. And scouting reports certainly agree).

And overall stats:

Moses: 0.203 WS/48, +4.3 BPM, +5.6 OBPM, -1.3 DBPM, 114 ORat, 102 DRat, +12 Net
Robinson: 0.199 WS/48, +6.6 BPM, +3.7 OBPM, +2.9 DBPM, 111 ORat, 98 DRat, +13 Net

Comparable WS/48 numbers, but Robinson has considerably better BPM numbers, mostly because he's considered a strong defender and Moses is weak.

So let's say we looked at this and concluded that the two players are comparable. This is Moses' three-year peak, but Robinson's *ten* year peak.

I see the argument for Robinson here as follows:

1) Robinson's peak was comparable to (or better than) Moses' in quality but far longer
2) Robinson's wildly superior regular season performance was worth better seedings for his team, which in turn led to championship equity value that we can't see in their postseason stats.

I see the argument for Moses as follows:

1) He played longer
2) He was a better offensive player in the postseason
3) He had more team success during the peak years that you picked

The team success argument doesn't seem too reasonable; Moses' team success magically got better once he was playing with Erving; Robinson's team success magically got better once he was playing with Duncan.

I'm not saying that I think that there aren't arguments for Moses, but I'm surprised by the argument that peak is the selling point for you. Would you mind elaborating?

If I'm not mistaken, you're rather new to this goat talks stuff. And I get the appeal of looking at numbers on BBRef. Though there's more to it.

For example, which box score aggregate overrates what. PER overrates volume score. Also PER has massive issues with keeping up with 15.0 league average. It also rewards less number of games in playoffs for similar production. BPM used to overrate assist numbers too much. Now it BPM 2.0 does a better job with offense. WS/48 is derived from MOV numbers, and calculated with box numbers. Its approach has some issues mainly because it does nothing with roster structure.
Most importantly; Box score numbers are just useless at capturing defensive impact. It's very easy to understand on a fundamental level. To produce something of a box score value, you need to touch the ball. But defense happens like without toching the ball 90-95% of the time. That's why we mostly rely on +/- driven data if we want to rely on any data about defense. And we need eye test on defense as well. (Probably even more so than offense since it's keeping up with off-ball impact.)
Defensive components of box numbers are not entirely useless but they can not be relied on like you did on your post.
The gap between their defensive levels is close than their box numbers would suggest. The reason many of the defensively good bigs from mid '80s to mid-late '90s as Mutombo, Ewing, Olajuwon, Robinson, got such big defensive box numbers is they gambled their position for them. Way more often than Duncan or Garnett did for example. Malone was not one of those gamblers. Camby, Howard are recent examples for that type of gambling.
Another thing is; looking at box numbers, you wouldn't be able to tell in which seasons Malone's defensive impact was good or not. His blocks and steals numbers are stable. But his impact wasn't. At his peak, Malone was a proper defensive force. 1983 Malone vs. 1995 or 1996 Robinson? Yeah, the gap on offense is definitely bigger. Though that gap gets closer prime to prime comparison due to Malone's inconsistency on defense.
(Never use Rtg numbers on player profile pages. Those are the calculations about "if a player kept their box score numbers over 48 minutes / 100 possessions game, how would their results differ from score of 100". They are just completely useless. Would you believe if I said Horace Grant in 1991-92 regular season had a goat level season on offense? No one would.)

Your numbers do not have postseason numbers. Robinson was comfortable on high post and not in low post. He was easily forced out of his comfort zone on offense. Moses Malone's offense was much, much reliable than David Robinson's offense. He had every type of offensive move a big could have other than three point shot and he was at least darn good at almost every one of them.
Moses was also the goat foul drawing big man. He did it even better than Shaquille O'Neal. From Olajuwon's rookie season to Moses' last 19/10 season, in those 6 seasons, Malone made Olajuwon fouled out more than half the time in their h2h meetings. 40% of the time with Ewing.

No one has 10 year peak. It just doesn't make sense. We usually refer peak as a player's best single season performance.

Robinson "prime" did not last longer than Malone's. I don't know how you get that notion. It's already clearly mentioned in my previous post. Both had a prime of 7 seasons. It is not Malone's 3 best seasons vs. Robinson's 10 best seasons. That's just ridiculous.

"which in turn led to championship equity value"
This is also just inaccurate.
If that was the case, then why Robinson never had a season like Malone did in 1981? In terms of Malone's situation in 1981, imagine 2006 Bryant or 2009 Wade. A terrible teams carried with massive scoring effort. Those are not short of Robinson's "championship equity via regular season impact". Yet Malone also led that kind of a team to an NBA Finals series. He was great against late prime Abdul-Jabbar (Robinson never came close to such performance against great positional competition). Then he kept on carrying.
The best playoff series Robinson had on offense during his best 3 season stretch was the series he got owned by Olajuwon in 1995 WCF.

"The team success argument doesn't seem too reasonable; Moses' team success magically got better once he was playing with Erving; Robinson's team success magically got better once he was playing with Duncan."
This is also inaccurate in the way you intended. Sure, Moses joined a great team. But the following points make this statement inaccurate;
- Malone was the best player on the Sixers in their success.
- Duncan was the best player on the Spurs after Duncan's rookie season.
Malone was the one put the Sixers over the hump. Duncan was the one put the Spurs over the hump, not Robinson.
Malone was the biggest driving force of his team. Robinson wasn't. 1983 Erving and 1999 Duncan are not even on the same level. The gap between those two are massive.
This is just a comparison of peak or near peak Moses Malone vs. David Robinson after his big injury. And I don't think it'd do any good for the comparison.

Like I said, I get the appeal of extracting context out of numbers. But in majority of the time, numbers need context.

[sansterre]

I could understand somebody preferring Moses over Robinson on account of career length/longevity. But I'm genuinely surprised to hear the argument being built around peak. Would you mind elaborating on that?

For the three-year peaks (playoffs only) you're talking about (I'm going to grab Robinson's entire '90 to '99 Peak, because including '94 seems weird since his playoff sample size is tiny):

Moses: 54.9 TS%, 15.0 Oreb%, 24.0 DReb%, 6.8 Ast%, 1.1 Stl%, 2.2 Blk%, 10.6% TOV, 26.2 USG%
Robinson: 55.1 TS%, 10.2 Oreb%, 24.3 DReb%, 13.3 Ast%, 1.9 Stl%, 5.4 Blk%, 12.3% TOV, 26.6 USG%

They're weirdly comparable in a lot of ways. Almost identical shooting, defensive rebounding and usage rates. The difference is pretty simple: Moses was much better at offensive rebounding (though Robinson, at 10.2% was quite good); that's his upside. Robinson was much better at passing and *way* better at defense. So I feel like giving the edge to Moses on offense is pretty automatic; those 5% offensive rebounds are awesome. But him being such a ball-stopper isn't great for his team offense, and Robinson, while not a *strong* passer, has an assist rate that says "I work well with my offense; my passing doesn't compromise my value". And with Moses it certainly did. Moses is still probably better on offense, but on defense there's no question; Robinson is obviously way better (steals and blocks are fairly bad approximations of defensive value, but they're what we have. And scouting reports certainly agree).

And overall stats:

Moses: 0.203 WS/48, +4.3 BPM, +5.6 OBPM, -1.3 DBPM, 114 ORat, 102 DRat, +12 Net
Robinson: 0.199 WS/48, +6.6 BPM, +3.7 OBPM, +2.9 DBPM, 111 ORat, 98 DRat, +13 Net

Comparable WS/48 numbers, but Robinson has considerably better BPM numbers, mostly because he's considered a strong defender and Moses is weak.

So let's say we looked at this and concluded that the two players are comparable. This is Moses' three-year peak, but Robinson's *ten* year peak.

I see the argument for Robinson here as follows:

1) Robinson's peak was comparable to (or better than) Moses' in quality but far longer
2) Robinson's wildly superior regular season performance was worth better seedings for his team, which in turn led to championship equity value that we can't see in their postseason stats.

I see the argument for Moses as follows:

1) He played longer
2) He was a better offensive player in the postseason
3) He had more team success during the peak years that you picked

The team success argument doesn't seem too reasonable; Moses' team success magically got better once he was playing with Erving; Robinson's team success magically got better once he was playing with Duncan.

I'm not saying that I think that there aren't arguments for Moses, but I'm surprised by the argument that peak is the selling point for you. Would you mind elaborating?

If I'm not mistaken, you're rather new to this goat talks stuff. And I get the appeal of looking at numbers on BBRef. Though there's more to it.

For example, which box score aggregate overrates what. PER overrates volume score. Also PER has massive issues with keeping up with 15.0 league average. It also rewards less number of games in playoffs for similar production. BPM used to overrate assist numbers too much. Now it BPM 2.0 does a better job with offense. WS/48 is derived from MOV numbers, and calculated with box numbers. Its approach has some issues mainly because it does nothing with roster structure.
Most importantly; Box score numbers are just useless at capturing defensive impact. It's very easy to understand on a fundamental level. To produce something of a box score value, you need to touch the ball. But defense happens like without toching the ball 90-95% of the time. That's why we mostly rely on +/- driven data if we want to rely on any data about defense. And we need eye test on defense as well. (Probably even more so than offense since it's keeping up with off-ball impact.)
Defensive components of box numbers are not entirely useless but they can not be relied on like you did on your post.
The gap between their defensive levels is close than their box numbers would suggest. The reason many of the defensively good bigs from mid '80s to mid-late '90s as Mutombo, Ewing, Olajuwon, Robinson, got such big defensive box numbers is they gambled their position for them. Way more often than Duncan or Garnett did for example. Malone was not one of those gamblers. Camby, Howard are recent examples for that type of gambling.
Another thing is; looking at box numbers, you wouldn't be able to tell in which seasons Malone's defensive impact was good or not. His blocks and steals numbers are stable. But his impact wasn't. At his peak, Malone was a proper defensive force. 1983 Malone vs. 1995 or 1996 Robinson? Yeah, the gap on offense is definitely bigger. Though that gap gets closer prime to prime comparison due to Malone's inconsistency on defense.
(Never use Rtg numbers on player profile pages. Those are the calculations about "if a player kept their box score numbers over 48 minutes / 100 possessions game, how would their results differ from score of 100". They are just completely useless. Would you believe if I said Horace Grant in 1991-92 regular season had a goat level season on offense? No one would.)

Your numbers do not have postseason numbers. Robinson was comfortable on high post and not in low post. He was easily forced out of his comfort zone on offense. Moses Malone's offense was much, much reliable than David Robinson's offense. He had every type of offensive move a big could have other than three point shot and he was at least darn good at almost every one of them.
Moses was also the goat foul drawing big man. He did it even better than Shaquille O'Neal. From Olajuwon's rookie season to Moses' last 19/10 season, in those 6 seasons, Malone made Olajuwon fouled out more than half the time in their h2h meetings. 40% of the time with Ewing.

No one has 10 year peak. It just doesn't make sense. We usually refer peak as a player's best single season performance.

Robinson "prime" did not last longer than Malone's. I don't know how you get that notion. It's already clearly mentioned in my previous post. Both had a prime of 7 seasons. It is not Malone's 3 best seasons vs. Robinson's 10 best seasons. That's just ridiculous.

"which in turn led to championship equity value"
This is also just inaccurate.
If that was the case, then why Robinson never had a season like Malone did in 1981? In terms of Malone's situation in 1981, imagine 2006 Bryant or 2009 Wade. A terrible teams carried with massive scoring effort. Those are not short of Robinson's "championship equity via regular season impact". Yet Malone also led that kind of a team to an NBA Finals series. He was great against late prime Abdul-Jabbar (Robinson never came close to such performance against great positional competition). Then he kept on carrying.
The best playoff series Robinson had on offense during his best 3 season stretch was the series he got owned by Olajuwon in 1995 WCF.

"The team success argument doesn't seem too reasonable; Moses' team success magically got better once he was playing with Erving; Robinson's team success magically got better once he was playing with Duncan."
This is also inaccurate in the way you intended. Sure, Moses joined a great team. But the following points make this statement inaccurate;
- Malone was the best player on the Sixers in their success.
- Duncan was the best player on the Spurs after Duncan's rookie season.
Malone was the one put the Sixers over the hump. Duncan was the one put the Spurs over the hump, not Robinson.
Malone was the biggest driving force of his team. Robinson wasn't. 1983 Erving and 1999 Duncan are not even on the same level. The gap between those two are massive.

Like I said, I get the appeal of extracting context out of numbers. But in majority of the time, numbers need context.

I absolutely am new here, but I am certainly aware that context to numbers is a thing. That said, I prefer starting from the numbers, as the alternative is to open yourself up to a million cognitive biases. And without the numbers, discussion gets unproductive pretty easily.

And all my numbers were postseason numbers.

But if this discussion is going to be me saying "I don't know that there's objective evidence for that, look at these numbers" and you saying "numbers mean nothing, Moses was obviously better", then absolutely nothing I would want to write will go anywhere useful for the discussion.

Cheers.

[LA Bird]

Okay so I understand Karl Malone was really good for really long but imo his longevity is a disadvantage if anything against certain other players.

I mentioned in the last thread that Karl Malone, Dirk and KD have nearly identical cumulative stats in the play-offs. Dirk has 23.1 WS and 11.8 VORP, KD has 23.1 WS and 12.6 VORP and Karl Malone has 23 WS and 12.1 VORP.

The main difference is that KD needed 139 play-off games to reach these numbers, Dirk needed 145 games and Karl Malone needed 193 games to do the same the other two did in about 50 less games. To me that looks like Karl Malone gets rated ahead of the other two because he played for longer but it seems like people are overlooking how even with Karl Malone's lengthy career, KD has already done at least as much in the play-offs. That means KD was better than Karl year by year by quite a bit.

In comparisons like Kobe vs KG or West vs Oscar you have one more succesful play-off performer vs someone with a clear regular season edge. What I'm arguing here is that KD is a step above Karl Malone both in the play-offs and regular season.

How in the world is Durant a step above Karl Malone in the regular season? If you are going to post cumulative WS and VORP for the playoffs, do the same for the regular season too.

Malone: 234.6 WS, 99.0 VORP
Durant: 141.7 WS, 69.0 VORP

Even if we ignore 1/3 of Malone's career, he still has a higher WS and VORP from 1990~2000 in a similar number of games as Durant.

[eminence]

Think I'm sticking with the same ballot as last time.

1. George Mikan
2. Oscar Robertson
3. Dirk Nowitizki

Mikan was the absolute face in a way nobody remaining managed, and he did it for a fair period of time. He retired (initially) as still the best player in the world despite fading some from his peak. I get the era criticisms pertaining to the NBA in particular, but if we slightly extend the scope of the project we recognize that he played and beat everyone in the world (winning records against the Trotters/Rens/Kurland).

Oscar - arguably the best guard in history (I take MJ/Magic), perhaps the 3rd best extended offensive run in history (Magic/Nash). I really really don't get the playoff criticisms. Fine enough longevity, 11 seasons at super duper star, 3 solid ones after.

Dirk vs Malone is how this is shaping up for me (I can't justify putting Robinson over Malone with the worse longevity and the head to head shellackings Malone delivered in the middle of their primes, Moses is also up for consideration). I'm still taking Dirk this round, but am open to changing in the future. I worry about Malone's later career defensive impact numbers. I suspect he was better earlier, but how much better? Cause I need him to be a solidly better defender than Dirk to take him even with the slightly better longevity, as I have Dirk as the clearly better offensive player.

[Mazter]

Karl Malone - 2nd scorer of all time, 13 consecutive years top 10 in scoring an 13 consecutive years All NBA first (both NBA records until LeBron broke them), 5 All Defensive, 2x NBA Finals.

Oscar Robertson - Co-dominated for the whole decade in the sixties. Too bad for him there were 3 who did it a little better. Still a great resume, with All NBA, an MVP award and a championship.

David Robinson - One of the few players who managed both DPOY and MVP in their career. 10x All NBA, 8x All Defensive. With Kareem the only players to lead the league at least once in scoring, rebounding and shot blocking in their NBA career.