what if all the goats played at the same time

[falcolombardi]

remember how the 90's had a insane bottleneck of great centers? what if that happened on steroids?

lets focus in perimeter players

imagine that magic johnson, jordan, lebron, kobe, wade, curry, durant, dr J, drexler, cp3, harden, jerry west, larry bird, nash and whoever else you can think of... all came in the league withing 2-3 drafts difference an their careers overlapped

now put them all in their primes in the 2010's alongside every other good to great guard that played at that decade

forget about who wins rings, how would their careers be affected in perception?

would other players from other eras get a big bump from being the best in weaker leagues...even if their numbers didnt change?

if Alex english was the best perimeter player left in the 80's would he be seen as a goat level player now by having been the best wing at his era?

would the legacy of lebron or jordan be diminished by standing off less from the now much stronger pack?

would the players like mike conley become criminally underated by not even being above average starters in their era?

would the insane amount of great players make people question this era instead of appreciaying? after all if there were 15 players putting Legit strong mvp level campaigns would people blame defense instead?

[Hawk]

I would sleep a lot less, that is for sure.

[JediMasterRevan]

If this happened lebron would be begging a dozen of them to team up.

[Mr B]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Jaivl]

If this happened lebron would be begging a dozen of them to team up.

You mean making them team up against him?

[Doctor MJ]

That would be a trip.

Literally, a group of goats is called a trip.

[Wallace_Wallace]

Then you could separate the sheep from goats.

[penbeast0]

Baa, humbug.

[falcolombardi]

what i am more interested is thinking how the effect of playing in this superstacked league would affect our evaluation of all these players

since to an extent we evaluate all time greats by how much they stood out among peers

if harden was exactly the same player but went from a top 5 into a top 15 player in the league how much lower would de evaluate the value of the same player?

[Statlanta]

The ones who are on a superteam will reign supreme and we will no longer rank Bill Russell, Michael Jordan or LeBron James as the GOAT.

[Doctor MJ]

Then you could separate the sheep from goats.

Sheep go to heaven, goats go to hell.

[picko]

what i am more interested is thinking how the effect of playing in this superstacked league would affect our evaluation of all these players

since to an extent we evaluate all time greats by how much they stood out among peers

if harden was exactly the same player but went from a top 5 into a top 15 player in the league how much lower would de evaluate the value of the same player?

In the moment we wouldn't know that the league is full of all-time great players. So that will impact our assessment of players. Very few people account for league quality when assessing a players performance even with the value of hindsight.

The deeper the league's talent pool the less likely there are to be outlier talents and outlier talents tend to be those we elevate to the GOAT conversation (guys such as Mikan, Russell, Wilt, KAJ, Jordan and LeBron).

Nobody is going to argue that a player is an all-time great if they never make an all-NBA first team and in this scenario a lot of all-time great talents wouldn't sniff the first or second teams. In this scenario, a lot of outstanding players wouldn't even make the all-star team regularly.

Statistically the league would be more even (for example lower top-end PERs or BPMs) that would make it seem as though the players in this league weren't as dominant as, say, the likes of Alex English in the 1980s. It's quite plausible that in this scenario we'd judge Jordan (25 PPG; 25 PER) lower than Alex English (32 PPG; 28 PER), despite the fact that in this scenario English is dominating a relatively weaker league.

It's not all that different to how we judge the players from the 1940s / 1950s / 1960s. We take the achievements at face value even though the talent pool was relatively shallow (limited black athletes, no international players, poorly paid etc). And there are many people to elevate the players of that era to GOAT status despite concerns about overall talent levels.

So, yes, I think shifting the distribution of talent would greatly impact our assessment of players.

[HeartBreakKid]

It would depend on the marketing. If it's not good then a lot of those players would go underappreciated.

[RCM88x]

People would still complain about the current era and say the teams of the past would be as good/better than current teams.

[KobesScarf]

Look at Dwight Howard. People will convince themselves that he's really elite

[SNPA]

Bird dominates.

[LukaTheGOAT]

what i am more interested is thinking how the effect of playing in this superstacked league would affect our evaluation of all these players

since to an extent we evaluate all time greats by how much they stood out among peers

if harden was exactly the same player but went from a top 5 into a top 15 player in the league how much lower would de evaluate the value of the same player?

In the moment we wouldn't know that the league is full of all-time great players. So that will impact our assessment of players. Very few people account for league quality when assessing a players performance even with the value of hindsight.

The deeper the league's talent pool the less likely there are to be outlier talents and outlier talents tend to be those we elevate to the GOAT conversation (guys such as Mikan, Russell, Wilt, KAJ, Jordan and LeBron).

Nobody is going to argue that a player is an all-time great if they never make an all-NBA first team and in this scenario a lot of all-time great talents wouldn't sniff the first or second teams. In this scenario, a lot of outstanding players wouldn't even make the all-star team regularly.

Statistically the league would be more even (for example lower top-end PERs or BPMs) that would make it seem as though the players in this league weren't as dominant as, say, the likes of Alex English in the 1980s. It's quite plausible that in this scenario we'd judge Jordan (25 PPG; 25 PER) lower than Alex English (32 PPG; 28 PER), despite the fact that in this scenario English is dominating a relatively weaker league.

It's not all that different to how we judge the players from the 1940s / 1950s / 1960s. We take the achievements at face value even though the talent pool was relatively shallow (limited black athletes, no international players, poorly paid etc). And there are many people to elevate the players of that era to GOAT status despite concerns about overall talent levels.

So, yes, I think shifting the distribution of talent would greatly impact our assessment of players.

This. So basically whoever you think would be among the best perimeter players in this era, would be argued as the modern GOAT, however, I don't know if they would get discussed seriously in all-time great discussions. I imagine the GOAT conversation would maybe strongly be between Kareem and Bill? At the same time, I think 2020 and moving forward is probably the most optimal time for perimeter players with the freedom of movement, spacing, etc., so those perimeter players who get to have some of their prime in 2020 and onward are likely beneficiaries.

Someone like Alex English and those like him would get a boost, but I'm not certain it would be enough to topple over Kareem and Bill, as well as some of the perimeter talent that we would see in the 2020s in their potential primes.

[Mazter]

You would probably have 10-15 players averaging 25-30+ per game and people would be saying how there isn't hardly any defense being played, stats are inflated...wait, that sounds familiar...

[McBubbles]

All their legacies would get worse. Dominance is only possible because you destroy your competition, but when everyone is at your level nobody really stands out. It's a possibility that several multiple time champions and MVP's could have zero of either.