ESPN NBA 75th Anniversary Team Rankings - Reactions

[pr0wler]

lol @ Harden ranked only #50.

[ZombieKilla]

Who would you put ahead of him?

Kareem for one

It’s debatable, but i just don’t see it. LeBron is about to take away the one thing that made Kareem seemingly immortal by this time next year and become the all time league leading scorer in every category. LeBron has been more dominant consistently, it’s as simple as that.

Dominant players do not have to join a super team to win championships.
They dominate.
That's literally what the word means.
No matter how much LeBron fans try to rewrite history, he could not win until he joined a super team.
Facts.

[dygaction]

Giannis is too high this is not a peak ranking and everything is based on the career.
ESPN is putting up some crazy recency bias...what a joke

They always put some projection into the ranking. Shaq made it to NBA Top 50 in 1996.
Giannis' resume is already a top 20ish. He is most likely trending to a top 10 atg without big injuries.

[HardenandWilt]

harden just needs to go ahead, bute the bullet and hire an agent.. espn ranked him at 50.. lol have you seen hardens basketball reference page.. his similarity scores match legit all-time greats

Until he has meaningful playoff performances and consistently plays defense, he should be thankful he even made the list.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/33343387/nba-75th-anniversary-team-biggest-questions-our-top-76-countdown

harden will finish a top 20 player when he is retired.. too many scoring records

Kevin Pelton: Harden. In general, it feels like many contemporary players were downgraded based on their current level of play. Harden (19th in my championships added metric, 50th in these rankings) was the most notable example of a group that also included Anthony Davis (47th in championships added) and Russell Westbrook (46th). I think once these players retire, it will be easier to remember how great they were in their primes.

[-Sammy-]

Can someone proffer a reasonable argument for why Reggie Miller should be ranked higher than George Gervin?

[TheLand13]

harden just needs to go ahead, bute the bullet and hire an agent.. espn ranked him at 50.. lol have you seen hardens basketball reference page.. his similarity scores match legit all-time greats

Until he has meaningful playoff performances and consistently plays defense, he should be thankful he even made the list.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/33343387/nba-75th-anniversary-team-biggest-questions-our-top-76-countdown

harden will finish a top 20 player when he is retired.. too many scoring records

Kevin Pelton: Harden. In general, it feels like many contemporary players were downgraded based on their current level of play. Harden (19th in my championships added metric, 50th in these rankings) was the most notable example of a group that also included Anthony Davis (47th in championships added) and Russell Westbrook (46th). I think once these players retire, it will be easier to remember how great they were in their primes.

Lol.

No he won’t. And I’m not going to waste my time reading that article.

[TheLand13]

Kareem for one

It’s debatable, but i just don’t see it. LeBron is about to take away the one thing that made Kareem seemingly immortal by this time next year and become the all time league leading scorer in every category. LeBron has been more dominant consistently, it’s as simple as that.

Dominant players do not have to join a super team to win championships.
They dominate.
That's literally what the word means.
No matter how much LeBron fans try to rewrite history, he could not win until he joined a super team.
Facts.

It’s stupid takes like this that make me wonder what someone’s thought process is going into a post.

[ZombieKilla]

It’s debatable, but i just don’t see it. LeBron is about to take away the one thing that made Kareem seemingly immortal by this time next year and become the all time league leading scorer in every category. LeBron has been more dominant consistently, it’s as simple as that.

Dominant players do not have to join a super team to win championships.
They dominate.
That's literally what the word means.
No matter how much LeBron fans try to rewrite history, he could not win until he joined a super team.
Facts.

It’s stupid takes like this that make me wonder what someone’s thought process is going into a post.

Stupid take?
Please list all of the championships LeBron won before he joined a super team.

[HardenandWilt]

Until he has meaningful playoff performances and consistently plays defense, he should be thankful he even made the list.

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/33343387/nba-75th-anniversary-team-biggest-questions-our-top-76-countdown

harden will finish a top 20 player when he is retired.. too many scoring records

Kevin Pelton: Harden. In general, it feels like many contemporary players were downgraded based on their current level of play. Harden (19th in my championships added metric, 50th in these rankings) was the most notable example of a group that also included Anthony Davis (47th in championships added) and Russell Westbrook (46th). I think once these players retire, it will be easier to remember how great they were in their primes.

Lol.

No he won’t. And I’m not going to waste my time reading that article.

but the article came from the same article as the OP smh

[HardenandWilt]

lol @ Harden ranked only #50.

he'll be a universal top 20 player when he is retired

he changed and revoultionized the stepback three, his gather techniques are stuff of legends that many younger players in the aau circuit emulate.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-kids-want-to-be-james-harden-11565100311

[TheLand13]

Dominant players do not have to join a super team to win championships.
They dominate.
That's literally what the word means.
No matter how much LeBron fans try to rewrite history, he could not win until he joined a super team.
Facts.

It’s stupid takes like this that make me wonder what someone’s thought process is going into a post.

Stupid take?
Please list all of the championships LeBron won before he joined a super team.

Please list all the championships Michael Jordan won before Horace Grant joined his team.

[TheLand13]

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/33343387/nba-75th-anniversary-team-biggest-questions-our-top-76-countdown

harden will finish a top 20 player when he is retired.. too many scoring records

Kevin Pelton: Harden. In general, it feels like many contemporary players were downgraded based on their current level of play. Harden (19th in my championships added metric, 50th in these rankings) was the most notable example of a group that also included Anthony Davis (47th in championships added) and Russell Westbrook (46th). I think once these players retire, it will be easier to remember how great they were in their primes.

Lol.

No he won’t. And I’m not going to waste my time reading that article.

but the article came from the same article as the OP smh

I don’t care. I’m not reading nonsense like that. Harden isn’t going to be a top 20 player when he retires. We’ve seen him at his best and he just barely cracked the top 50. Not to mention, you are never going to be a top 20 player if you a disaster on defense. At least Curry is active at that end and is capable of playing the passing lanes.

[LAL1947]

Lol.

No he won’t. And I’m not going to waste my time reading that article.

but the article came from the same article as the OP smh

I don’t care. I’m not reading nonsense like that. Harden isn’t going to be a top 20 player when he retires. We’ve seen him at his best and he just barely cracked the top 50. Not to mention, you are never going to be a top 20 player if you a disaster on defense. At least Curry is active at that end and is capable of playing the passing lanes.

"MacMahon: James Harden (No. 50). It feels like he got demoted several spots due to being in the middle of -- or creating, if we're being totally honest -- yet another melodrama. He certainly should be higher based on statistics. If we're holding the lack of a title against him, that's fine, but there are a bunch of players above him who don't own a championship ring."

[TheLand13]

but the article came from the same article as the OP smh

I don’t care. I’m not reading nonsense like that. Harden isn’t going to be a top 20 player when he retires. We’ve seen him at his best and he just barely cracked the top 50. Not to mention, you are never going to be a top 20 player if you a disaster on defense. At least Curry is active at that end and is capable of playing the passing lanes.

"MacMahon: James Harden (No. 50). It feels like he got demoted several spots due to being in the middle of -- or creating, if we're being totally honest -- yet another melodrama. He certainly should be higher based on statistics. If we're holding the lack of a title against him, that's fine, but there are a bunch of players above him who don't own a championship ring."

I’m actually glad you posted that and I read it. Now I have all the reason in the world to not take these people seriously. This guy is actually suggesting we ignore context and critical aspects of the game and just blindly look at stats. What a hack.

[syrus3]

Pippen and Wilkins being ahead of Ewing makes no sense.

Hakeem is too low. Lebron is too high.

Kobe ahead of Shaq? No!

[Triple7]

Tony Parker, Manu and Gasol should be in before AD, and most definitely over Lillard.

[LAL1947]

Tony Parker, Manu should be in before AD, and most definitely over Lillard.

I agree, it's crazy how much those two get disrespected. Probably has something to do with how much people have downgraded their talent and importance for so many years to big up the legend of Timmy Duncan. So now a lot of people probably think that Parker and Ginobili were only a little better than Derek Fisher and Robert Horry.

[CumberlandPosey]

wow another absurd list.lost for words actually....wow

[John Murdoch]

KG getting disrespected ...if u gave him the same infrastructure as Duncan with the Spurs/Pop he would have performed on par or better in terms of titles . Im glad to see West, Baylor, Oscar start to slip on these all time list...also Dr J seems high. I dont think i could ever allow Giannis to pass Curry on this list

[dhsilv2]

Can someone proffer a reasonable argument for why Reggie Miller should be ranked higher than George Gervin?

If we're talking NBA only, there's roughly a 600 game gap. Reggie doubles the ice man's nba career VORP and then some. Nearly 100 more winshare.

That seems like a pretty easy one to argue to be honest.