Another project idea; the greatest primes among the top 10 ever

[sansterre]

I like the idea. Don’t you think that Garnett should be included though considering how high many people here are on him?

Well KG got more votes than Bird for #10 on the GOAT list, and I'm extremely high on him, but no, you have to draw the line somewhere. And if we go with top 10 we go with top 10, not "top 10 plus the other basically-tied-for-number-10 guy, plus this guy that has a similar level prime, plus...".

Agree but just questioning whether or not the line should be drawn decisively at 10 (e.g. why not 7, 8, 9, 11, 12?) and if KG should be the player left out of this group. I don’t personally necessarily know where to stand on this matter.


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I don't know that there is a place to stand, besides "Odinn is taking his own time to organize something that gives all of us a chance to come together, be entertained and learn, and he had to make the cut somewhere."

[Max123]

Well KG got more votes than Bird for #10 on the GOAT list, and I'm extremely high on him, but no, you have to draw the line somewhere. And if we go with top 10 we go with top 10, not "top 10 plus the other basically-tied-for-number-10 guy, plus this guy that has a similar level prime, plus...".

Agree but just questioning whether or not the line should be drawn decisively at 10 (e.g. why not 7, 8, 9, 11, 12?) and if KG should be the player left out of this group. I don’t personally necessarily know where to stand on this matter.


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I don't know that there is a place to stand, besides "Odinn is taking his own time to organize something that gives all of us a chance to come together, be entertained and learn, and he had to make the cut somewhere."

I was wondering whether I came off combative or as if I had anykind of a problem with this project when I decided to use the expression ”where I stand on this matter”. Should’ve been more prudent with my choice of words because my intention was not to oppose this project or the way it has been planned when in all actuality I am exhilarated about it and pleased that someone is willing to take their time to organize it. I was merely wondering, mainly for my own sake, about the foundations of this project.


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[sansterre]

Agree but just questioning whether or not the line should be drawn decisively at 10 (e.g. why not 7, 8, 9, 11, 12?) and if KG should be the player left out of this group. I don’t personally necessarily know where to stand on this matter.


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I don't know that there is a place to stand, besides "Odinn is taking his own time to organize something that gives all of us a chance to come together, be entertained and learn, and he had to make the cut somewhere."

I was wondering whether I came off combative or as if I had anykind of a problem with this project when I decided to use the expression ”where I stand on this matter”. Should’ve been more prudent with my choice of words because my intention was not to oppose this project or the way it has been planned when in all actuality I am exhilarated about it and pleased that someone is willing to take their time to organize it. I was merely wondering, mainly for my own sake, about the foundations of this project.


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I gotcha. And that's completely reasonable.

There's always an awkward semantic difference between "How this other person ought to do their project" and "How would I do this project if I were running it"? Asking questions like that is important and it's good that it was brought up; I probably should have been less declarative in my response.

[Odinn21]

I think that got a little too heated but appreciate the understanding of the both sides. Cheers. (Max123, fwiw, I didn't think of your post as combative. It was already a discussion I saw it coming. )

It looks like 8-10 people are interested in the project and tbh that's a bit too low to go ahead considering real life causing some variance. Hopefully we'll get more interest in the next days and start the project.

[LAL1947]

I think Kobe should replace Tim Duncan on this list of Top 10 players... or it won't have much credibility.

Best players of each decade:
1960s: Wilt > Russell
1970s: Kareem > Dr J
1980s: Bird = Magic
1990s: MJ > Hakeem
2000s: Shaq = Kobe
2010s: Lebron > Durant

Dr J and Durant get left out from this list of 12 to make 10.

Unless you really, really wanna include a Spurs player in the list.

[70sFan]

I think Kobe should replace Tim Duncan on this list of Top 10 players... or it won't have much credibility.

Best players of each decade:
1960s: Wilt > Russell
1970s: Kareem > Dr J
1980s: Bird = Magic
1990s: MJ > Hakeem
2000s: Shaq = Kobe
2010s: Lebron > Durant

Dr J and Durant get left out from this list of 12 to make 10.

Thankfully, you're not the one who gives credibility of this project

[eminence]

I would try to participate in case I wasn't being counted above

[Dutchball97]

I think Kobe should replace Tim Duncan on this list of Top 10 players... or it won't have much credibility.

Best players of each decade:
1960s: Wilt > Russell
1970s: Kareem > Dr J
1980s: Bird = Magic
1990s: MJ > Hakeem
2000s: Shaq = Kobe
2010s: Lebron > Durant

Dr J and Durant get left out from this list of 12 to make 10.

Unless you really, really wanna include a Spurs player in the list.

So your one agenda on this board is going to be that since pretty much everyone here agrees Kobe is either barely in the back end of the top 10 or in most cases even not in the top 10 at all nothing that is being discussed can be taken seriously? Wouldn't you be better off just not being on this forum then? Not like you're going to change anyone's minds. Twitter and instagram would be much more in line with the way you view basketball, so what is wrong with going there instead?

[Odinn21]

I would try to participate in case I wasn't being counted above

You definitely were. The project won't be bound by a "only voter pool". Though I'm tracking everyone showing some interest in the project right now. We have;
Myself
Yourself
homecourtloss
Dutchball97
70sFan
LukaTheGOAT
sansterre
Max123

falcolombardi
DQuinn1575
Jaivl
Was active in the thread but did not say anything about participating or not.

So we have 8 + 3 right now. To go ahead and start the project, I think we still need a little bit more than that.

[Odinn21]

By the way, I'm thinking about implementing a winner's system. Here's how it work with an example;

(The following is just an example, please don't focus on names and ranking)

Top 12 seasons between Shaq and Hakeem;
1. 2000 Shaq
2. 2001 Shaq
3. 1994 Hakeem
4. 1993 Hakeem
5. 1995 Hakeem
6. 2002 Shaq
7. 1990 Hakeem
8. 2003 Shaq
9. 1989 Hakeem
10. 1998 Shaq
11. 1988 Hakeem
12. 1987 Hakeem

Now, Hakeem leads Shaq by 7-5 in there. Also, in a linear point system (12/11/.../2/1), Hakeem is the winner.
But there's a chance the voter could actually prefer Shaq over Hakeem because the gaps he sees might not be that linear and the gaps at the top might be bigger than the gaps at the bottom (especially might be the issue with denied seasons, in this instance picking between 1987 Hakeem and 1995 Shaq is more decisive for a linear point system).

So the voter will post his rankings, and declare his winner*.
*: No player with a worse record than 5-7 in the ranking can be a winner.
I'll keep track of the winners, and if there's a tie at the end, I'll use a linear point system as a tiebreaker.

How does that sound?

[LA Bird]

Great idea, ranking individual seasons is really the best approach for player comparisons. It lessens the influence of career reputations and legacies and forces one to take a closer look at how good the players actually were in each season.

I don't think each voter needs to declare their winner though. We can just assign a point system to each ranked season and then add up all the votes to get the final top 12 seasons as well as the overall winner based on point totals in one go. That will take into account the gaps between each placing already. If we are counting total votes for Shaq vs Hakeem instead as an example, there is still the potential problem that not all votes for either candidates will have equal gap.

[DQuinn1575]

Great idea, ranking individual seasons is really the best approach for player comparisons. It lessens the influence of career reputations and legacies and forces one to take a closer look at how good the players actually were in each season.

I don't think each voter needs to declare their winner though. We can just assign a point system to each ranked season and then add up all the votes to get the final top 12 seasons as well as the overall winner based on point totals in one go. That will take into account the gaps between each placing already. If we are counting total votes for Shaq vs Hakeem instead as an example, there is still the potential problem that not all votes for either candidates will have equal gap.

I think I like that idea, if I understand it.
So you will total up all the votes for the year, on a ranked scale (12-1, unless you want to assign a bonus for 1st), and then each season will be ranked - so if Shaq 2000 gets all 1st place votes and there are 5 voters he gets 60 (12 x 5) points. Rinse and repeat multiple times. Then we as a group have ranked all the seasons between the 2 players; we will virtually always have more than 12 total seasons, but are only counting 12.
Then from that consensus list, I would prefer to declare the winner by
1. ranked scale, 12-1 if tied
2. number of seasons on list, so 7 years beats 5, if tied
3. player with best season wins, and if that is tied
4. next highest ranked season - so if Shaq 2000 and Hakeem 1994 have same number of points, then next best season.

So we are doing it all by season, and the ranking once the seasons are done are objective.
It will be pretty cool, because we will have a ranking of top seasons of the top 10 players, something like the majority of the top 60 seasons of all-time ranked.

[Odinn21]

Great idea, ranking individual seasons is really the best approach for player comparisons. It lessens the influence of career reputations and legacies and forces one to take a closer look at how good the players actually were in each season.

I don't think each voter needs to declare their winner though. We can just assign a point system to each ranked season and then add up all the votes to get the final top 12 seasons as well as the overall winner based on point totals in one go. That will take into account the gaps between each placing already. If we are counting total votes for Shaq vs Hakeem instead as an example, there is still the potential problem that not all votes for either candidates will have equal gap.

The reasons why I have such winner's system in mind that I see not all gaps being linear and see a good chance for snubbed seasons having big impact on the results and leaving some close calls to personal preferences/interpretations.

Or maybe I'm just reading into too much into close calls, I don't know.

The first idea I had in mind was doing the same thing, just in reverse.
This was the initial tracking process I had in mind (again, going with Shaq/Hakeem as an example);
2000 Shaq gets 5 first place votes, 2 second place votes, 3 third place votes
1994 Hakeem gets 3 first place votes, 5 second place votes, 2 third place votes
2000 Shaq has 1.8 and 1994 Hakeem has 1.9 average ranks, so 2000 Shaq gets the top season between the two. I do this for each season gets voted on. Then publish the results.
Though the gaps still stay linear in that approach and I voiced my concerns over linear gaps multiple times already.

I might be reading into too much. I don't know. Just thinking aloud (with my keyboard ) about it.

[Djoker]

This is a good idea for a project! 12 seasons between two players sounds about right as well.

[DQuinn1575]

Great idea, ranking individual seasons is really the best approach for player comparisons. It lessens the influence of career reputations and legacies and forces one to take a closer look at how good the players actually were in each season.

I don't think each voter needs to declare their winner though. We can just assign a point system to each ranked season and then add up all the votes to get the final top 12 seasons as well as the overall winner based on point totals in one go. That will take into account the gaps between each placing already. If we are counting total votes for Shaq vs Hakeem instead as an example, there is still the potential problem that not all votes for either candidates will have equal gap.

The reasons why I have such winner's system in mind that I see not all gaps being linear and see a good chance for snubbed seasons having big impact on the results and leaving some close calls to personal preferences/interpretations.

Or maybe I'm just reading into too much into close calls, I don't know.

The first idea I had in mind was doing the same thing, just in reverse.
This was the initial tracking process I had in mind (again, going with Shaq/Hakeem as an example);
2000 Shaq gets 5 first place votes, 2 second place votes, 3 third place votes
1994 Hakeem gets 3 first place votes, 5 second place votes, 2 third place votes
2000 Shaq has 1.8 and 1994 Hakeem has 1.9 average ranks, so 2000 Shaq gets the top season between the two. I do this for each season gets voted on. Then publish the results.
Though the gaps still stay linear in that approach and I voiced my concerns over linear gaps multiple times already.

I might be reading into too much. I don't know. Just thinking aloud (with my keyboard ) about it.

That works for awhile, but towards the bottom you will have something like
Season A has 1 11th place, 1 12th place
Season B has 1 9th place
Season C has 1 10 place, 1 11th place and 1 12th place

since the seasons dont appear in every vote, you cant average the ordinal place of the votes - you'll want to do it on a descending scale.

[Odinn21]

That works for awhile, but towards the bottom you will have something like
Season A has 1 11th place, 1 12th place
Season B has 1 9th place
Season C has 1 10 place, 1 11th place and 1 12th place

since the seasons dont appear in every vote, you cant average the ordinal place of the votes - you'll want to do it on a descending scale.

Not necessarily. There are ways around ascending scale.

With a 12/11/.../2/1 points scale;
Season A has 3 points
Season B has 4 points
Season C has 6 points

On an ascending scale, the thing to do offset the 0 point is adding the next worse ranking to missing rankings (13 in this case);
(Assuming there are 12 votes)
Season A has an average of 12.75 ranking
Season B has an average of 12.67 ranking
Season C has an average of 12.50 position
(This will yield the same ranking no matter of number of votes, assumption of 12 was just to give exact numbers)

C > B > A rankings will hold up no matter of way of calculating. Descending point scale and ascending ranking scale are quite literally the same thing in here. Just different starting points. A season not being present in every single vote is not an issue for ascending ranking scale.

[Dutchball97]

Maybe a possibility could be doing a point system that is more similar to the Formula 1 system? This way the top seasons get weighted a bit heavier compared to the fringe prime seasons.

[Odinn21]

Maybe a possibility could be doing a point system that is more similar to the Formula 1 system? This way the top seasons get weighted a bit heavier compared to the fringe prime seasons.

It's not about making it top heavy though. It's about leaving up to preference/interpretation. I just want to provide some form of a leeway.
But I'll guess I'll stick with 12/11/.../2/1 point system because even though I find that winner system reasonable, it wasn't popular enough to go ahead with it.

---

I'll start the first thread in 24 hours. We'll have the same timeline as we did in the previous project. 2 days voting window starting and ending at 10:00 EST (14:00 UTC).

Also, I randomised the possibilities for order (with a rounds rule, think of it as 9 rounds of 5 matchups), here's the order;

1. Bill Russell vs. Magic Johnson
2. Hakeem Olajuwon vs. Larry Bird
3. Michael Jordan vs. Wilt Chamberlain
4. LeBron James vs. Tim Duncan
5. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar vs. Shaquille O'Neal

6. LeBron James vs. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
7. Michael Jordan vs. Hakeem Olajuwon
8. Shaquille O'Neal vs. Larry Bird
9. Tim Duncan vs. Magic Johnson
10. Bill Russell vs. Wilt Chamberlain

11. Michael Jordan vs. Larry Bird
12. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar vs. Hakeem Olajuwon
13. LeBron James vs. Bill Russell
14. Tim Duncan vs. Wilt Chamberlain
15. Magic Johnson vs. Shaquille O'Neal

16. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar vs. Bill Russell
17. Shaquille O'Neal vs. Hakeem Olajuwon
18. Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird
19. LeBron James vs. Wilt Chamberlain
20. Michael Jordan vs. Tim Duncan

21. LeBron James vs. Michael Jordan
22. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar vs. Wilt Chamberlain
23. Tim Duncan vs. Larry Bird
24. Bill Russell vs. Shaquille O'Neal
25. Magic Johnson vs. Hakeem Olajuwon

26. LeBron James vs. Larry Bird
27. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar vs. Magic Johnson
28. Michael Jordan vs. Shaquille O'Neal
29. Bill Russell vs. Tim Duncan
30. Wilt Chamberlain vs. Hakeem Olajuwon

31. Wilt Chamberlain vs. Shaquille O'Neal
32. LeBron James vs. Hakeem Olajuwon
33. Bill Russell vs. Larry Bird
34. Michael Jordan vs. Magic Johnson
35. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar vs. Tim Duncan

36. Wilt Chamberlain vs. Larry Bird
37. Tim Duncan vs. Shaquille O'Neal
38. Bill Russell vs. Hakeem Olajuwon
39. LeBron James vs. Magic Johnson
40. Michael Jordan vs. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

41. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar vs. Larry Bird
42. LeBron James vs. Shaquille O'Neal
43. Wilt Chamberlain vs. Magic Johnson
44. Tim Duncan vs. Hakeem Olajuwon
45. Michael Jordan vs. Bill Russell

We'll be starting with Bill Russell vs. Magic Johnson and ending with Michael Jordan vs. Bill Russell.

Making the order got me pretty hyped about this.

[Baski]

I really like this idea. I've been away from RGM for a while so I missed the beginning of this thread, but it looks like something we can refer to in future discussions. It'll be helpful to know the board's general view of peaks and primes of the top 10 guys relative to one another.

I don't have much confidence in the frequency, or even quality tbh, of my contributions to this project, but I'll definitely be reading along and commenting when I can.

[LA Bird]

The reasons why I have such winner's system in mind that I see not all gaps being linear and see a good chance for snubbed seasons having big impact on the results and leaving some close calls to personal preferences/interpretations.

Maybe I misunderstood your idea but based on this comment, I thought you would just be adding up all the points for both players to determine the winner (ie. 497 for Russell, 283 for Magic in the first round). This method would take into account how the gap between the #2 and #3 season (110 vs 87) was larger than the gap between the #8 and #13 season (39 vs 22) for example. It wouldn't change the end result there since Russell beat Magic by a very large margin but it could make a difference in a later round when the two players in question are closer.