RealGM's Top 100 Players of All Time (2026) - #20 (Kevin Durant) and #21 (Chris Paul)

[lessthanjake]

I just can't really get to Nash over Wade (or really even close). 2006 for Wade is a far better season than any Nash season, with his ECF/finals just at a level very few have ever reached for volume and efficiency and a carry job against good teams with a weak offensive supporting cast. I would say the worst offensive supporting cast on any champion since 1980, before which I would not know enough to say.

And even if we ignore very good seasons like 2005 and 2012, his 2009/10/11 seasons are healthy seasons (76+ games) with even better numbers than 2006 in the regular season (28 PER, 0.225 WS48, 8.9 BPM) and essentially identical post season numbers to 2006 (27 PER, 0.214 WS48, 9 BPM). In other words, there's not much to suggest that Wade is any lesser of a player than an already incredible 2006 season. And even if we talk on/off, 2005-2012 Wade is +9 in the RS and +10 in the PS, with Nash only matching a long stretch like that in the RS if we go out to post prime 2011/12 seasons where they weren't even making the playoffs. Now if someone has 4 seasons better than the other guy, then the other guy better either have a huge winning advantage or a huge longevity advantage. But it's Wade with the winning advantage, and again with a superlative effort as the main guy for one of those. And Nash is no real longevity guy, ranking near the bottom of anyone in this range for any of the career measures like WS and VORP or the fact he wasn't much in the playoffs until 2005 and never played a playoff game after 2010 (and missed a year in there to boot).

So I’m not sure whether I have Nash above Wade or vice versa. I definitely don’t feel strongly about it either way, and I voted for 2006 Wade higher on the recent greatest peaks project than I voted for Nash. I think I was higher on 2006 Wade that anyone else in that peaks project. That said, I do think 2005 Nash was close. As incredible as Wade was in the 2006 playoffs, 2005 Nash really was close. His series against Dallas was one of the most incredible playoff series I’ve ever seen from any player (like, even including guys like Jordan and LeBron). And his overall on-court rORTG in the playoffs was an outrageous +17.4, after having been a ridiculous +14.3 in the regular season. Yes, the Suns played small ball so that plays into those numbers, but it was still outrageous. I’ve never felt so confident in a player offensively as I did with peak Nash. He gave away some of that on defense, which is a big reason why I can certainly see Wade ahead of Nash. I also think you’re right that Nash isn’t really a big longevity guy—in large part because he wasn’t really a top-tier player until his Phoenix years, and I tend to emphasize longevity as a top-tier player. So yeah, I probably actually will vote for Wade ahead of Nash here. But prime/peak Nash was genuinely incredible.

[trelos6]

Nash v Wade. I think it comes down to Wade's injuries and fall off. Even looking at their best 8 seasons only, I have Nash ahead, despite Wade peaking higher, IMO.

[Hakeem1995]

That seems like a pretty limited point to me. The Rockets may have been a bit worse by DRTG, but they were still ranked 17th out of 22 teams in points given up per game. The voters knew they were giving an all-defensive team nod to a center on a bad defensive team, and they did it anyways. So I’m not sure that the fact that the Rockets were a bad defensive team negates the accolade even if they may have been a bit worse than people at the time realized. It certainly suggests people considered him a very good defender at the time despite his team’s bad defense.

It’s true that drtg wasn’t a thing back then, but we have it now. We also know now that great rebounding doesn’t always equate to great defense; it’s not clear everyone understood that back then.
The rockets were next to last in opponents fg%, a stat that existed back then, so the all-d voters have no excuse. Center is the most important position defensively, so the terrible defensive performance of Moses teams before he joined jones and cheeks in Philadelphia is a mark against him in my book. None of those Houston teams managed 50 wins in a season either. Then he goes to a sixers team that was averaging 60 wins a season and playing great D before he got there
Edit: 79 rockets were 3rd worst , 20 out of 22 in opponents fg%

Thought this might be relevant here:

I’m surprised to see free throw rate above tov% and drb%. I thought ftr was the least important factor?

[homecourtloss]

It’s true that drtg wasn’t a thing back then, but we have it now. We also know now that great rebounding doesn’t always equate to great defense; it’s not clear everyone understood that back then.
The rockets were next to last in opponents fg%, a stat that existed back then, so the all-d voters have no excuse. Center is the most important position defensively, so the terrible defensive performance of Moses teams before he joined jones and cheeks in Philadelphia is a mark against him in my book. None of those Houston teams managed 50 wins in a season either. Then he goes to a sixers team that was averaging 60 wins a season and playing great D before he got there
Edit: 79 rockets were 3rd worst , 20 out of 22 in opponents fg%

Thought this might be relevant here:

I’m surprised to see free throw rate above tov% and drb%. I thought ftr was the least important factor?

It is—higher FTr means higher DRtg, but higher TOV% equals a much higher inverse correlation with DRtg. eFG% the most correlative factor. If you look at the same graph, but instead of looking at the r, we look at the absolute value of r, it becomes clear.

[Djoker]

VOTING POST

20. Moses Malone - His deficiencies have come to light more in recent years like seriously lacking passing and inconsistent defensive effort... I've come away thinking that Kareem is just clearly better than Moses from 1979-1981. But then again, Kareem is a GOAT candidate so having fewer years better than him isn't exactly a death sentence at this point on the list. Moses was still pretty close to the undisputed best player in the world in 1982 and 1983 which is more than all but a handful of players in history can say. And while his high end longevity isn't that impressive, he still has a lot if not all remaining guys beat in terms of high level seasons.

21. Julius Erving - Like Mikan, he dominated a weaker league. The ABA was more flash less substance, up-tempo, red-blue-and-white balls etc. but Dr J dominated the last three years of that league which were the strongest relatively speaking. Leading two teams to titles in 1974 and 1976 behind incredible performances... Then he moved to the NBA with the merger and fell off the cliff.. no not quite. He was still a top 5 player in the NBA at from 1977-1982 and clearly behind only Kareem for most of that time and behind Moses from 1979 onwards who ended up leading the Doctor to his only NBA title. Looking at the totality of the Doctor's accomplishments puts him about the others. When it comes down to it, I do give the tiebreaker to guys with the achievements over the guys who possible could have had those achievements in the same situation. Maybe others could have dominated the ABA to the same degree that Erving did. But they didn't... Actual vs. hypothetical.

By the way I voted Dr J in the last thread so normally he'd be first here but Moses wasn't nominated until this thread and I would have had Moses first last thread.

[eminence]

Vote
20. Karl Malone
21. Chris Paul

I don't see much of a gap in prime quality from 1-10 of available candidates (understandable as we go down the list), they're all excellent players capable of leading winning teams, some got the opportunity and did so, some didn't.

Going K. Malone and CP3 due to believing they have a longevity edge on the others here.

Karl played on some great defensive teams early in his career (obviously mostly Eaton), visually looked pretty good on that end imo and was pretty well received/accoladed. The impact numbers bring me down some on him on defense, but they aren't complete enough for me to truly tank him. Great scoring numbers, good on the glass, became a reasonably capable playmaker. Fairly consistent playoff scoring struggles. Doesn't generally get enough credit on the other end for being the one defending Robinson when his scoring blew up in his peak years.

CP3 is probably the most all-around of the great PGs. Strong scorer, strong playmaker, strong defender. Think he's probably a bit better than Malone, but his health lets him down a bit while Karl was an ironman.

Moses the other I considered the most. I'm a bit too low on his longevity due to not believing in his post PHI years.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Vote:
1. Julius Erving
2. Giannis Antetokounmpo

In addition to being the ABA GOAT, Dr. J has by far the most decorated resume of anyone left on the board - all told three titles, six Finals runs, nine Conference Final runs, three MVPs, he was the engine of that Sixers era, and it's not a coincidence that their relevance more or less ended for the better part of 15 years when he retired. I have written at some length about my skepticism regarding the on/off data for him.

I had a heck of a time choosing between Giannis and Moses for my second vote, but I went with Giannis simply because A. I'm just marginally more impressed with his 2021 title run than with Moses's 1983 run(or 1981 run), and B. Giannis has fairly impressive WOWY over a long period of time.

Some numbers for that 2021 run:

Overall for the whole run: 30.2ppg/12.8rpg/5.1apg/1.0spg/1.2bpg, 59.9% TS, 105 TS+, .224 WS/48, 9.9BPM, +8.0 on/off

In the decisive 7th game vs the Nets in Brooklyn that went to OT: 40/13/5 assists/1 block, 66.3% TS in 4 point win

Goes down in Game 4 of ECF vs Hawks, misses last two games, everyone think's he's done, and then he comes back for the Finals:

For the Finals: 35.2ppg/13.2rpg/5.0apg/1.8bpg/1.2spg, 65.8% TS

Game 5 of Finals in Phoenix, series tied 2-2: 32/9/6, 57.5% TS in 4 point win

Game 6 of Finals in Milwaukee to clinch title: 50/14/2 assists/5 blocks, 74.9% TS in 7 point win where most of his teammates didn't shoot particularly well

WOWY

I'm starting from 2016-17, because he wasn't Giannis right away. So, 2016-17->2025-26:

With: 422-235(.642), +5.4 MOV
Without: 63-77(.450), -1.4 MOV

Even if you take out 2025-26:

With: 405-216(.652), +6.6 MOV
Without: 49-49(.500), +0.0 MOV

(Those MOVs are pulled by AI, so if they're wrong, let me know).

The lift is evident.

As for others...I should probably be voting for Durant here, but the Warriors thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Wade may warrant consideration, but it would be a wasted vote right now as he has zero support ATM. I struggle with CP3 for reasons discussed before.

[JimmyFromNz]

Vote Post

#20: Giannis Antetokounmpo

I didn't think I'd have Giannis here, and had really been considering Durant/Malone. But given how much I weight peak, I struggle on review to ignore the historic two‑way 6 to 7 year peak that very few players at this point can match. His best seasons combine MVP‑level offensive creation with DPOY‑level defensive impact, with an RAPM footprint higher than the other candidates (it may comes as shock my preference here given how vocal I am about the issues with RAPM). His playoff apex is one of the strongest modern postseasons ever...which funnily came famously against another candidate Chris Paul whose team orchestrated another playoff collapse. I'm being slightly facetious, but regardless of where the blame lies for that series its hard not to correlate it with what else we've seen from Paul led teams. Closing out that series with 50/14 can be relegated to 'just a moment' but few players in history have ever had that 'moment' or shown they can reach that level of two way dominance when it matters most.

Although slightly inconsistent with my heavy weighting of portability and demonstrated success across other situations, with Giannis he was never dependent on a system he was the system f for those Bucks. It will be interesting to see how that translates into an awkward Miami fit, but i digress. In terms of peak height, peak length, and analytic dominance, Giannis is already in the tier of stars ranked around 5-15.

Giannis has another 5 seasons to write his ending, injuries may circumvent that, but at this point I don't see it as negatively impacting his argument against...

#21: Kevin Durant

There's no debate I'd consider Kevin as one of the most skilled players ever, in fact much higher on that sole basis compared to the athletic brute force and length of Giannis. But still to this day have not felt like I've seen a version of Kevin Durant that just blows me out of the water, makes me get up off the couch and pace back and forwards with my hands on my head. The previous pick did - am i just numb to his scoring efficiency and refined offensive dominance? Perhaps... Now of course that's a silly criteria and not my actual answer, but it is symptomatic of Kevin's career.

Incredibly high offensive peaks, all time efficiency and pound for pound a top 3 'pure scorer' in nba history, good longevity as a scorer, all time portability. If I'm focussing on that argument solely, I could easily talk myself into a top 15 spot. Yet I just can't point to any particular stretch and say oh that's indomitably the best player in the world at this point in time.

Like for many people, the Golden State years really complicate things for me and the evidence following that is patchy at best. The Nets situation which was supposed to be the affirmation we were all looking for was unfortunately a failure based on a variety of external factors (KD not blameless though). Whilst Bill Simmons has always provided a good PR job for Kevin for framing the playoff losses as 'what if' kevin's foot was not on the line against Bucks, how that might change his career trajectory and the Nets organisation. However the foot was, and it was but one play in a series where again Giannis team loudly progressed over yet another candidate in this portion of the all time list.

Beyond the amazing scoring peaks in efficiency and impact, there's an unavoidable emptiness trying to put this peak into perspective against Giannis' two-way dominance, superior analytics profile during that peak, and the ultimate team anchoring and success that came with it. Whilst Jrue Holiday, Middleton and to an extent Brook Lopez don't nearly get enough praise as star level producers, those bucks rosters compare starkly against the loaded rosters that Durant curated for himself.

Whilst we head into Giannis twilight, for Durant the post Nets and twilight years are probably the biggest drawback irrespective of his continued individual awards and recognition. The Suns/Rockets seasons are a real stain to me, where again he has had his opportunity to curate a new favourable (not perfect but favourable) situation and as the lead those teams severely underperform.

Fully appreciate those choosing to place KD over Giannis, but ultimately when the hairs are so fine to split, those notable career peaks and moments do come into play. Phew I wish I had time to contribute more on the analytics but I suspect others already will. Thankfully I can also now forget and move on from my indignance towards the George Mikan word of mouth tributes and focus on all the super amazing all modern players that are going to fill up the next 10 places

[homecourtloss]

Spoiler:

Since we're on CP3 vs. Durant, I thought I'd see who leads in different advanced stats each year. Going to use EPM, xRAPM, 3 year RAPM (counting middle season), and DARKO

2008: Paul by all metrics
2009: Paul by all metrics
2010: Paul by all metrics
2011: Paul by all metrics
2012: Paul by EPM, xRAPM, and DARKO, Durant by RAPM
2013: Paul by all metrics
2014: Paul by all metrics
2015: Paul by all metrics
2016: Paul by xRAPM, RAPM, and DARKO, Durant by EPM
2017: Paul by all metrics
2018: Paul by all metrics
2019: Paul by xRAPM, RAPM, and DARKO, Durant by EPM
2020: Paul by EPM, xRAPM, and DARKO, Durant by RAPM
2021: Paul by xRAPM, Durant by EPM, RAPM, and DARKO
2022: Durant by all metrics
2023: Durant by all metrics
2024: Durant by all metrics
2025: Durant by all metrics

That's a pretty huge advanced stats lead for Paul in their primes. Paul's age 35 season is the first one where KD has the majority of the metrics and that's a season where KD misses most of the season injured while Paul leads his team to the Finals. DARKO has Paul ahead of KD for each of Durant's first 14 years in the league. When the top metrics are that overwhelming on one guy over another, I tend to trust them

.

Vote:

20. CP3—ATG defensive impact as a small guard and offense creator. Peak perhaps limited by size, but overall impact is undeniable.

21. KD—Inelastic scoring via scoring tool box. Longevity. Playoffs riser.

Frankly both have good cases against some already voted in.

[penbeast0]

...Thankfully I can also now forget and move on from my indignance towards the George Mikan word of mouth tributes and focus on all the super amazing all modern players that are going to fill up the next 10 places

Just for that I should change my vote to Dr. J and Moses and wait for Bob Pettit to come up on the board.

[Doctor MJ]

Vote:
20. Julius Erving
21. Kevin Durant

Once again, deadline looms and I must choose.

I've been thinking a lot about the overall arc of Erving's career. I take +/- data pretty seriously, but not so seriously that I feel comfortable knocking guys too much who were part of something great.

Here's one perspective: If we take the first decade after the merger ('76-77 to '85-86), who won the most NBA games, RS + PS?

Turns out, it's Dr. J.

This is happening at a time where his franchise is building around him as the franchise player, and as I've noted before is really the only reasonable candidate for a "76er Golden Age".

And it's not Erving at his best. That came in the ABA in Virginia & New York when I would say he had the highest peak from any perimeter player in the '70s, and right up there with West & Oscar as the best we'd ever seen at that time.

This continued achievement without any serious negatives over 15 years is something we don't see from someone like KD, and I find myself siding with Julius when push comes to shove.

KD's place remains a bit fragile for me, and maybe he'll slide further if he's still around, but as I've said before, I think when you start really looking to credit the Warrior players for being part of the GOAT team rather than pitting them against each other as if they were no better than any other champ, he shouldn't be someone dropped lightly.

[Owly]

Fair point about that particular one(though I'd be skeptical about Hot Rod having any significant impact at that point), but I argue that when a tool shows consistent impact over the span of a decade, it become less crude, less noise, etc.

On Williams I'd note a couple of things. One is he was still pretty well regarded as a defender coming in to that season (I haven't checked the stats but recall the last Barry Bible still pretty positive on him in that regard). And two value is contextual. If you're saying "I don't think Williams rates X high in the league" ... maybe. But in this context he was valuable because losing him opened a gaping wound at center.

On WoWY - I think its nature is crude. Your "on/with" is now "on and off" your "off/without" is now "without but maybe digging some minutes from beyond our rotation, maybe with a different construction than envisioned". In different scales of absence teams might adjust their plans or just make do. When you go from points margin to W-L binary too you lose so much data, too.

Where we have on-off - and we mostly do for Barkley ... maybe there's a marginal role for arrival/departure stuff in terms of a different angle, though that's pretty noisy even by the norms of impact stuff so ... I can't see championing WoWY over more precise measures.

I just disagree. I think there's a body of impact illustration big there over enough time that makes little sense to ignore.

I don't mind disagreement.

To be clear though, season internal WoWY is already factored into the +/- and then on/off data. It's just much more precise at the input (i.e. in is only in) and output (full points dif, rather than the binary W-L used here). So such I'd argue the it isn't "ignore[d]" so much as not counted twice (and counted in the more precise form).

[Dr Positivity]

Current votes Paul 10 - Erving 8 - Giannis 7 - Durant 7

[jalengreen]

20. Kevin Durant
21. Chris Paul

Could go either way with this ranking but I'm most confident with these two atop my ballot. I slot Kevin Durant ahead because of the more proven postseason impact, my preference for his late career impact, and also I have to knock CP3 for playoff injuries (which I'm also doing for Giannis). I'm sympathetic to the argument that CP3 didn't get a whole lot in the way of defensive supporting casts which is a pretty big deal for a small point guard, but nonetheless his postseason resume leaves a bit to be desired.

[Hakeem1995]

Vote:

Was flirting with Giannis, but I’m going to repeat my vote from last time

KD, then Doctor J

Will elaborate later

Edit:
KD is an elite scorer with elite shooting, who led several elite offenses, won mvp and 2 finals mvps.

Doc is 4 time MVP, 3 time champ and 6 time bpm leader across 2 leagues. On/off was over 10 in both 1982 and 83

[Hakeem1995]

Chris Paul was great. But the history of late season injuries, and corresponding lack of playoff success, makes this feel too soon. As they say in the nfl, the most important ability is availability

[trex_8063]

The eisley waved off 3 was especially egregious. Watching it live it seemed so obviously before the clock and then I think there are still photos (can't verify how accurate) showing the ball a good 5 or 6 feet out of his hands. At least the Harper one is in the range of believability (though mostly in a "I believe they aren't counting it if Russell is the one shooting it for the jazz" kind of way).

Yeah, the Eisley trey was egregious to the point of being rather shocking (like....how could they possibly blow such an obvious call). Here's the photo of the moment the shotclock went to 0:



Bear in mind, the thing we can't tell from this angle is how far LATERALLY the ball has moved; but we can tell it's a solid 5' VERTICAL of his hand.

I remember pausing the standard halfcourt televised view and thinking it looked like the ball was at least 8-9' out of his hand.

[Owly]

A fair assessment, with the qualifier that "when he [Barkley] was working hard at that end" was, in fact, not all that often [most years].

Mailman was also arguably the GOAT at "pulling the chair" in the post, imo.


Crazy [to me] that Karl Malone may end up outside the top 20. Though I'm heavy on longevity.
Still......if the Jazz had won the title in '98, which they very likely would have done if not for two egregiously horrible shot-clock calls in game 6---missed calls which would literally be impossibly in today's league, btw---I'm confident Malone would have been voted top 15-16 [at worst].
It would remove this "can't win with him as your #1" narrative that dogs him, holding him back on these lists.

Very likely probably a touch generous. Still have to win that last game. It's in Utah and Pippen is probably hurting but ... looking to see if "very likely" has an accepted associated probability and the results are coming back with something like circa 90% or above 90% (not saying that's an absolute truth, but that's what I've seen). Which seems bullish in terms of how much better you'd expect them to be to have those odds in a single game.

A fair point, which I willingly concede (you are, as ever, a stickler for semantics; though I can't fault you for it, as I sometimes do so myself).

I'll amend my statement to say Utah is "likely" [as opposed to "very likely"] to win the title if not for those blown calls.

As per subsequent post (and the degree to which Chicago was barely hanging around), I think it's an ~95-98% probability [or more] that they win Game 6 if not for those calls.....calls which, again, are not even possible for the last 10-15 years. Seriously imagine a circumstance where such calls are impossible (which has very literally been the reality of the NBA for the last decade or so).

And then I think they're at least something like 55:45 fav in Game 7 due to the factors we've both alluded to. That makes them at least a slim "likely" to win it all that year.

Fwiw I'm inclined that Stockton was the better player.

It's an intriguing position, and I'm not fully against it, though I can't quite get there myself. Both of them are comfortably in the top 25 for me. The added focus [of the opposing defense] that Malone had to deal with is what kind of allows me (based also on his box production) to give him the nod. Watching some of those old games, and watching the defense sag WAAAAY to F off of Stockton, I must admit I am occasionally irritated that as good a shooter as he is, he doesn't just take the uncontested 19-21' shot. Are we not confident Stockton will hit that 60+% of the time? It's a high% shot that he repeatedly passes up, and I must admit there are instances I think this hurt their offense.

Alternately though I'm not certain that Kobe was better.

I suppose I'm not certain either. Kobe loomed large on basketball culture in a way Karl Malone never approached, however. This isn't a BIG consideration in my criteria. But it's not nothin' either.

The case for Stockton ...
"box production" ... isn't necessarily in the direction we intuitively think.
Pelton's WARP had Stockton ahead
VORP has Stockton ahead.
WS has Malone ahead (but has too low a baseline - e.g. on a Malone theme WS thinks Randy White and fellow Maverick forward Doug Smith had positive value careers (.017 WS/48, 1.9 WS; .024 WS/48, 3.0 WS)). I don't think that's all the gap but I think more than half of it (this is I suppose subjective, depending on where you think is an apt baseline).
EWA (PER) tilts for Malone.

My understanding has been 97 on long term RAPM skewed pro-Stockton at least by rate (distinct from value). (A Screaming had him competitive or better in each of the earlier years where raw stuff skewed pro Malone due to lineups - though think at least one more modern source may differ). 94-96 went pro-Malone. Earlier stuff (versus 76ers, Squared) in limited, uneven samples looked a lot better for Stockton than Malone.

Can't speak to sagging off Stockton, not something I recall (or have heard noted at the time) but won't pretend to have an eye for these things, especially given the time elapsed. Would somewhat argue in any case if the impact is there and certain choices are baked in ... how much does a particular "didn't do" notional flaw matter. Now impact metrics are imperfect. Fwiw, think it's more noted that he'd take 3s somewhat "on-the-run" when teams gave him airspace expecting him to advance forward. I guess era norms differ too.

[edited for accuracy/clarity of intent]

[LA Bird]

Vote 1: Chris Paul
Vote 2: Kevin Durant

Past the deadline already so will keep it short

Chris Paul checks basically every box except rings and nobody is ranking six ring Cousy this highly anyway so who cares. The other criticism with Paul is his durability but before the 2023 postseason at age 38, Paul missed half as many playoffs games from injury as Durant and Giannis as well as the already inducted West and Curry. Would 6 missed games still be a big deal if people weren't fishing for a reason for 0 rings? Unlikely. So it's really just ring counting repackaged into a different argument.

Not too sure about Durant because I find him to be overrated (OKC: Westbrook TS = impact slander, GSW: Ironically the very ring counters who "hated" him going there). But at the end of the day, if I am also low on everybody else too, it's a process of elimination to find the next best man. Used to have Malone higher but then he is arguably an even bigger OTS merchant in 6 factors with a larger playoffs crash in that very area.

[Dr Positivity]

After fixing a typo mistaking a Giannis vote for Durant before, the current votes are Paul 13-Durant 13-Erving 9-Giannis 7, Moses 4-K Malone 2-Barkley 1. So I will run off Erving and Giannis to decide the Paul and Durant order. The available voters are Djoker (Moses/Erving), OldSchoolNoBull (Erving/Giannis).