RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #21 (Charles Barkley)

[SeniorWalker]

I have time to participate today.

1) Curry
2) Barkley
3) Durant

I don't have any novel reasons for putting Curry first here. Others haave alreayd said what I want to say, i.e., that Curry had a higher peak than either player and the impact of his offball gravity. Curry is in my personal top 20 list and I would have voted for him a few slots ago actually. If Curry gets another MVP and leads another roster to the finals beofre his time is up he will be knocking on my top 10 list. The only reason he isn't there now is because he didn't seal the deal in 2016.

I actually like Barkley's career better than Durant's so far, even though I think Durant is better in a vacuum. Thing is, Durant is a better player than most ATG players in a vacuum and could easily make a top 10 all time list, if it were based on talent. But when I think back on his career so far, he really hasn't shown a consistent ability to lift a cast to contendership. Well, he has somewhat, but he also played with an MVP candidate in his prime and its often hard for me to seperate out how much Durant was lifting those OKC teams to prominence, despite the fact that he was clearly superior to Westbrook. The fact is, OKC ran the offense through Westbrook (for better or worse) and KD didn't really put his stamp on that franchise like a player of his caliber should. Someone can easily find disagreement with this statement though, I'm happy to change my mind.
To add, KD had about the easiest job for a top level star playing next to Curry of anyone, maybe ever. Kudos to him for actually sacrificing his game in the initial golden state years to play more beautiful basketball, I actually admired that about him and agreed with some of his sentiments that winning basketball is not purely about how much output one guy can give you if you shoulder him with all the responsibility, like a Harden or LeBron. He did however go to a team that already had a championship level core in place, and so....yeah. Golden state was about even with Cleveland overall in 2016 with their core and depth. They lost the depth but adding KD was just too much compensation. I do not look at those titles for Durant and think his contribution was something special and the rest of his career is individual excellence without noteworthy teamlifting.

The only thing missing for Barkley was a ring but it wasn't because of anything he lacked, at least in my view. He just came against a mount rushmore player. No shame in being denied by that and even Barkley knows that and seems at peace with it.
I recall in a number of interviews that MJ, depsite liking Charles, always felt that Charles did lack a certain quality usually had in winning players, or a winning mentality. And when he retired in the mid 90s he told Scottie not to play with him because he would never win anything. I can't really comment on that but its interesting to note coming from a psychopathic winner such as MJ that he sensed this in Charles. He had literally no reason to hate Chuck, as they were noted friends off the court and were not feuding at the time in any way. MJ seemed to speak honestly and I've alwasys been interested to know more about why he would say something like that. MJ's word is not gospel by any means but I don't think he was just speaking haphazardly.

[Doctor MJ]

Add on top of that that as much as I marvel at Barkley, 3-point shooting matters a lot,

Why is that?.. Another pro-modern biased portability thinking right there.

Barkley from '86 to '93;
24.8 pts per game on .586 efg, .638 ts in 604 regular season games (+2375.3 ts add, +3.93 per game)
25.6 pts per game on .541 efg, .594 ts in 62 playoff games

Durant from '12 to '19;
27.7 pts per game on .569 efg, .635 ts in 535 regular season games (+2132.7 ts add, +3.99 per game)
29.4 pts per game on .538 efg, .604 ts in 116 playoff games

Why does it matter that Barkley's efficiency didn't come from an underutilized method in his time?

And those numbers for Durant has 3 seasons of Curry creating space. Durant's efficiency in the playoffs without Curry in that time frame; 29.2 ppg on .513 efg, .579 ts.

I mean, in terms of how you see things, think of it how you want. I've been pretty clear about how I see things.

Am I looking to knock guys in the past specifically for not taking enough 3's? No.

Am I asking myself how good of an outside shooter they'd be today now that we know higher levels of basketball require it? Yup.

In a league without 3-point shooting, I probably take Barkley over Durant.
Of course, we don't live in that world, and neither did (or does) Barkley.

[Odinn21]

Am I looking to knock guys in the past specifically for not taking enough 3's? No.

If you reward a player for a style that's utilized way more compared to before, yeah - you're basically knocking.

Am I asking myself how good of an outside shooter they'd be today now that we know higher levels of basketball require it? Yup.

This is still an interesting topic with you. The list is top 100 project. Is it an all-time ranking or who'd be the best in the '10s/'20s ranking?

In a league without 3-point shooting, I probably take Barkley over Durant.
Of course, we don't live in that world, and neither did (or does) Barkley.

In Barkley's prime, the teams averaged 7 three pointers a game ('87-'94). Durant as an individual has been averaging nearly 6 since 2014.

The way you put it sounded like the teams were averaging 25+ in Barkley's time as well. While we're at it, we could knock down Magic or even Abdul-Jabbar for lack of three pointers since the line was there...

[Doctor MJ]

With this slew of names being voted, Durant, Cp3, Curry, Steve Nash and Charles Barkley i'd really like to see Wade's name being brought up more. His longevity and durability isn't great, but I'd argue he's had more meaningful career value than Curry up to this point and more durability in the playoffs than Curry and Paul.

I like the Wade mention. I would seriously consider voting for Wade above Durant if it looked like it was coming down between the two of them. Wade certainly did more for the Miami Heat than Kevin Durant is ever likely to do for any organization in his entire career after all. (Prove me wrong in Brooklyn KD!)

I will say that while I've always been a Wade fan, he's been sinking on my lists over the past few years. Part of it is the longevity itself I think - and I think many are in a similar boat. It's hard to watch a sport continuing to be dominated by his draftmate and teammate and to hear stories of Wade himself way far into his post-playing life where his relevance is mostly cheerleading for his old team.

But part of it is also that Wade never really led elite offenses nor achieved great scoring efficiency while also not being much of a shooter...which has everything to do with why his prime ended so early and why he wasn't much use to anyone once that happened.

I do think his scoring attack was enough that had he been an otherworldly passer it could have been the basis of a great offense, but of course, Wade wasn't such a passer.

In the end, I think that while Wade played great on his way to that 2006 Finals MVP, if we could examine many different basketball universes, in most of them Wade doesn't get a title in that era. He got a bit lucky up front and that skewed perception for many of us. As I've said, at one point I ranked peak Wade ahead of peak Kobe, and realistically there's no way I do that without the 2006 title.

What about the LeBron partnership? Locker room culture-wise Wade's awesome and I give him credit for that. I also think he happened to be at his most "oh my god" at certain times of the 2011 playoffs. But I also think we know that the hope of that team was that it would be among the very best in history - a rival to the '95-96 Bulls - and it never came close to that in part because the fit between LeBron & Wade wasn't a natural.

Those years are certainly a net positive for Wade, but any notion of rings counting here strikes me as downright offensive. (Not accusing you of this though No-more-rings.)

In the end, if I'm not concerned with personality, I'd take Durant over Wade hands down. I am concerned with personality generally though, so in this project Wade might come out ahead.

I think Nash's true superstar longevity is overstated, he has 05-10 where he was on that top 5 type level, i don't think that's more than Wade's really.

I understand that perspective, but here's a different one:

In Nash's 2nd season, at age 23, the Suns outperformed with him on the floor compared to Jason Kidd, and many within the organization though the team should have traded Kidd instead of Nash. I think those folks were right, and that Nash when healthy was basically ready to have the reins handed to him.

In Nash's 5th season, age 26, which is his next healthy season, Nash had his first year with one of the 10 best on-court ORtgs in the league, and neither Dirk nor anyone else could say this.

Beginning in Nash's 6th season, age 27, Nash would play 3 seasons in a row for Dallas during which the Mavs would have the best ORtg in the league, and Nash would have the 2nd best on-court ORtg behind teammate Dirk Nowitzki.

All of that happens before what you understandably call his "true superstar longevity", and it paints a picture of someone who was excellent for a very long time. How long?

In Nash's 15th season, age 36, in the aftermath of leading his team to the WCF losing a tough series against the eventual champion Lakers where the team would lose Amar'e to New York and Nash's best scoring teammate would be a 38 year old Grant Hill who still wasn't much of a 3-point shooter...Nash would still have the best on-court ORtg in the entire league, for the 7th straight time since his arrival in Phoenix.

In Nash's 16th season, age 37 Nash would get named all-star one more time.

And then finally it's Nash's next season where Nash gets a specific career ending injury that finally brings Nash down.

It's not just that that range is longer than Wade's quality duration, it's that it's longer than Wade's likely could ever have been by a good margin despite the fact that Nash was not put in a position to succeed early on like he could have been.

[Doctor MJ]

Am I looking to knock guys in the past specifically for not taking enough 3's? No.

If you reward a player for a style that's utilized way more compared to before, yeah - you're basically knocking.

Were that the case, I'd be knocking Jerry West for not shooting 3's.

What I'm doing is evaluating shooting ability based on what I now see it as meaning within the landscape of basketball as it has evolved to this point, which means you might say I value shooting more than others here, but I'm not literally subtracting points off a guy because he didn't shoot more 3's.

If Barkley were as good of a shooter as Durant, in other words, I wouldn't bring this up in the debate between them.

And to be clear, when I say "as good of a shooter", I mean based on my judgment of his capability. Statistically Louie Dampier doesn't look like an amazing shooter compared to modern guys, but unless we're talking about guys like Steph, I don't think it makes sense to look at Dampier as anything other than a human being with outlier shooting capacity.

Is there some uncertainty sometimes as to how a guys' shot would map on to 3-point territory. Yes.

I would note though that we don't have to guess how Chuck would be at shooting 3's. We saw. It was, well, it was what it was.

Am I asking myself how good of an outside shooter they'd be today now that we know higher levels of basketball require it? Yup.

This is still an interesting topic with you. The list is top 100 project. Is it an all-time ranking or who'd be the best in the '10s/'20s ranking?

From my perspective, there are many different types of GOAT lists we can do. For example:

We can ask about era dominance.
We can ask about historical significance.
We can ask about peak - and could also specifically have era dominance-oriented peak list.

I would argue that none of these is what's typically done in the RealGM Top 100.
It's not a Peak list because we have a specific separate project for that.
And it's not something that treats all eras as equally significant because if we did, Mikan would be brought up as a strong contender for the #1 spot.

To my mind what this project has always been is one that could be argued to have a bias toward the modern game which we tend to characterize as "adjusting for competition". But bias or no, the more interesting part is how we all go about doing this, because we approach it differently from each other, and sometimes we change our perspective.

What I settled upon a long time ago was something where when I compare two players particularly from different eras, I try to imagine them in each other's era and go from there. With this approach, Bill Russell became my #1 for a long time. While I didn't think he'd be the best player in today's game, I also didn't think anyone from today's game could have done what Russell did. In the end I found Russell's 13 year run of dominance to be the most impressive accomplishment of anyone, and that won out.

But the wheels have been turning in my head basically since the "pace and space" approach to basketball went from "Look at how successful that team is" to "Everybody has to play this way or they're just going to lose". This is sometimes called the "gimmick to gospel" transition. While I argued vociferously that the Suns' SSOL offense deserved to be seen as more than a gimmick the whole time, I wasn't saying "This is the way" while Nash was playing. More like I was saying, "No y'all seriously, this is a viable way!"

By the late '10s it was clear not only that taking tons of 3's was the way any non-stupid team should play, but that the dominance of this paradigm re-allocated the weights of various skills within the game, with one of the most interesting aspects of this being specifically that if you have better outside shooters, this specifically is done to hurt the value of Russell-like players.

To say another way: Outside shooting IS the Russell-counter, and people always knew it, but back then they didn't have faith in the human body to be able to hit shots like this, and so they didn't have their players practice them.

Which means that Russell's game is one that is optimized for opponents with a lesser ability to shoot than we know we can expect from athletic humans.

That's what ended up moving LeBron & MJ ahead of Russell on my list time, and it's something I expect I'll continue to chew on with Russell perhaps moving lower (or perhaps not).

Now if you look at all that I understand trying to pithily sum it up as "Right so, it's who is the best at playing today that you're evaluating", but what I'm trying to point out are the aspects of the question that led me to this point. I don't mind in principle the idea of ranking a player from an older era ahead of a guy from the new era even if I think the old era guy wouldn't be as good as the new ear guy in today's game.

But if you're dominance is based on a particular skill that has now been specifically countered, it gets tricky.

How tricky? Well consider how this would work if we made it a true all-time list. Nat Holman was seen by many as the best player in the world in his day, and it's a mistake to think that players from future eras were simply better than him in all facets. Holman knew more about basketball than almost any player knows today, was whip smart as a decision maker, passer, and mover, and a leader on the floor. But the mere fact that he was 5'11" and not much of a shooter means he couldn't possibly play in the NBA today.

I think people should consider their criteria and how it would scale back to eras before Mikan. However you're treating Mikan, consider treating Holman the same way. Where would he end up on your list?

For me, if I'm going based on era dominance or historical significance, Holman would be quite high on my list. Perhaps Top 10.

But Holman would not appear on the list with the criteria I'm using right now for this project basically no matter how far we went, because there's just no way to do a mapping comparison where the effect of the knowledge we've gained in the time since Holman doesn't lead him to getting his ass handed to him by pretty much any modern player we'd think to pit him against.

Consider the discrepancy between my ranking of Holman between those list types, and then understand that what I'm saying is, I don't know of any coherent middle ground. If I start looking to actually compare Holman as a basketball player, what he can and can't do on the court, he immediately falls off a cliff, and that's just how it goes. I say that as someone with deep respect and admiration for the man.

Here's my last thought on this:

I always say that with this project, the real value is in the thinking it makes us do, not the final rankings we create. I think folks should continue to ask themselves whether the criteria they are using is making them think about the most valuable thing to think about.

We can take all the data from bkref and make an algorithm that ranks every player ever. And while we analysts may turn up our nose at those sort of algorithms and insist we can do a better job, consider if that wasn't the case. Would there still be something better with our spot-by-spot analysis where we tend to specifically pit players against each other?

From my perspective absolutely. The more deeply your process makes you research a given player, the better. So then, what drives you to research the deepest? For me it's actually trying to think about them as players on the hardcourt. I'm not saying I do this anything close to perfectly - I'm not making a statement about my competence here - I'm saying that when I first started doing all-time rankings, I was thinking more in terms of algorithms and my time on RealGM has really made me understand the limitations of doing this.

I do what I do now in part because I think it's best at driving me to learn. I'm not abandoning a superior approach in order to do this of course, the learning just comes out organically of my deeper analysis, but still, the fact I'm learning signals to me that I'm on a good track.

In a league without 3-point shooting, I probably take Barkley over Durant.
Of course, we don't live in that world, and neither did (or does) Barkley.

In Barkley's prime, the teams averaged 7 three pointers a game ('87-'94). Durant as an individual has been averaging nearly 6 since 2014.

The way you put it sounded like the teams were averaging 25+ in Barkley's time as well. While we're at it, we could knock down Magic or even Abdul-Jabbar for lack of three pointers since the line was there...

I went into this a bit above so generally I'll just reiterated this is about me evaluating players and their skillsets based on what works against the most capable players I can imagine, not about specifically penalizing earlier players because they didn't shoot 3's.

But on Magic & Kareem specifically:

Magic fits into the modern game like LeBron. You'd love for LeBron to be a better shooter, but what he gives you is more than enough. Of course, I think Magic probably was a better shooter than LeBron.

Kareem is his own thing and probably not all that affected by differences in era play. I do think his game loses a bit of pop relative to competition on both ends of the floor if opponents are good at 3-point shooting, but I don't know if that would really make a difference in any comparison.

[eminence]

So, I'll take this moment to talk some about the older players as I see them.

First thing is that before we get to Pettit, I think it makes sense to compare Schayes and Paul Arizin who were born within about a month of each other.

In terms of basic player descriptions:

Schayes was 6'8" and mostly played the 4. Arizin was 6'4" and mostly played the 3.

Both were excellent shooters who loved to use the threat of their shot as an opening to drive.
Schayes used a set shot that he off the shot off of passes.
Arizin used a starkly modern looking jump shot that he typically took off the dribble, and was known for mid-air adjustments to his shots and "hang time".
Schayes was the superior free throw shooter.

Schayes was seen a soft early in his career but toughed up as he went.
Arizin was known for his leaping ability and long arms. Arizin had a positive reputation as a defender from what I've read.

On longevity, which is significant in this comparison:

Schayes played pro from age 20 to 35, being a star level player basically from the beginning through age 32 in '60-61 (he was named all-star the following year as well).

Arizin began pro ball at 22 and ended at 33. After his first two seasons, he was called into the Marines for two years during which he was a star within their basketball league, he came back in what would normally be his 5th season, but would not look like a superstar again until the year after. Arizin would continue to score at star-volume and be named all-star until the very end, though I will note that that was on Wilt's team, and it's interesting that that team's offense wasn't more effective than it was.

On peak scoring volume:

Schayes would not break 20 PPG until his 8th year in '55-56. His peak scoring year came in '57-58 with 24.9 PPG on 50.8% TS. He would score 20+ PPG in 6 seasons.

Arizin's first 20+ PPG season would be in his 2nd year in the league in '51-52. In that year he would lead the league in scoring at 25.4 PPG on 54.6% TS (3rd in the league). He would also that season win the all-star game MVP, and also the Metropolitan Sportwriters Sam Davis Memorial Award, which was intended as an MVP award for that season.

Here's what Arizin looked like in games against Mikan that season:

29 points, win
34 points, win
24 points, loss
27 points, win
26 points, win (all-star game)
36 points, loss
27 points, win

I don't want to overplay the W-L record there, but I think it's really clear from the awards that people were struck by the fact Arizin sure seemed to be able to do his thing just fine against Mikan, and meanwhile Mikan's TS% was down to 45.9%. They didn't know that number back then, but they could see that Arizin's scoring was seeming to work better than Mikan's.

Considering TS Add:

Make of it what you will, but this is the new bkref stat that estimates gain/loss due to having this guy make that bucket at that efficiency compared to league norms.

Schayes:
Total TS Add: 1321.9 (note that this doesn't include his first pro season in the NBL).
Best TS Add year: 206.0 in '57-58
Number of 200+ TS Add years: 1
Number of 100+ TS Add years: 7

Arizin:
Total TS Add: 1600.9
Best TS Add year: 329.7 in '51-52
Number of 200+ TS Add years: 4, all higher than Schayes best
Number of 100+ TS Add years: 6

Overall Team Success:
Schayes' won a championship in '54-55 with a team that went 43-29 and had an SRS of 1.23.

Worth noting that: Best Schayes' team was arguably the '52-53 team which had a 47-24 record or '53-54 with a 4.27 SRS.

A note on Team Offense
Schayes' best year by rORtg came in '52-53 with a +2.6, which came from an absolute ORtg of 90.6.
During the team's championship year in '54-55, they had a rORtg of -2.3 and an absolute of 87.5

Arizin's best year by all of these measures was '55-56. The team won the championship with a record of 45-27, an SRS of 3.82, a rOrtg of +4.3 and an absolute ORtg of 94.6. I'll note that this ORtg would remain the best in league history until Oscar Robertson came into the league a half decade later.



What should we think about all of this?

For me, I think it's pretty clear that Arizin was a better player with worse longevity. I don't begrudge anyone siding with Schayes based on longevity, but if we're having a debate about who was actually better, I really struggle to see arguments for Schayes.

In Arizin you're talking about someone who was seen as the best offensive player in the world in '51-52, got pulled away by the military, and by '55-56 was the best again, this time while leading his team to a championship. While I won't try to give Arizin "credit" for the gap in between, I would be so bold as to say that if you think Arizin wouldn't have been similarly dominant in the years in between had he been given the opportunity, I honestly don't understand where the skepticism comes from.

Aside from individual stats, it also matters to me that both of these guys can end up in the same bucket because they won rings back to back, but their role in those championships was starkly different. Schayes was an offensive player scoring less than 20ppg on a team winning with defense. Arizin was the leader of the best offense of the '50s, and absolutely carried his team in the playoffs which included a dominating performance against Schayes and the Nats.

Add in the fact that from what I can see, Arizin had a better defensive reputation (though granted, I'm open to whatever else comes to light in terms of this because I'm not going by a lot).

And then for those of you who are looking to compare between eras, I'll say that I have considerably more confidence in Arizin making his transition to the modern game than Schayes. To me Arizin reminds of Jerry West. Modern shot, long, driving-prone while being at a height that can still pull that off.

Schayes? I mean, I think if you're imagining him as a talent today, you're hoping he can be Dirk Nowitzki-like, but Dirk is 3-4 inches taller. At 6'8", the closer comparison might be Kyle Korver. I will say that Schayes was known for driving so he certainly had a far more complete game than Korver, but I don't trust that many 6'8" guys to dribble in from the perimeter in this day and age. Those who can do it are pretty special in my mind, and I question whether Schayes could really do it.

One last note on Arizin: It should be noted that he had a teammate Neil Johnston that was often more efficient than he was, but whose play didn't seem to correlate much with team success and who didn't extend his dominance in the playoffs as well as Arizin. A conversation about Johnston seems in order at some point too.

Okay, I think that's enough for now. Not avoiding talking about Pettit, but I think that since he comes in a bit later than Schayes & Arizin, it makes sense to bring him as a comparison to both guys. I will tell say that I've always had Pettit pretty cleanly ahead of both the other guys. I don't think it's a given that Pettit was better than Arizin, but he's got a good argument and his longevity kills Arizin. Pettit vs Schayes, I've just always seen Pettit as better.

I don't mind it as an Arizin/Schayes comparison at all! Kind of a running list of thoughts as I read through.

I think Schayes was one of the last guys to really use the set shot effectively. I know he shot his free throws that way . On film I've seen him take a few one-handed runner sorts and it looks like he had pretty good touch, but it's hard to tell in such limited play.

Interestingly, I haven't heard a ton on Arizin's defensive rep one way or the other. I've heard generally positive things on Schayes.

I agree with '49-'61 as Schayes prime so to speak, I'd also probably agree that essentially Arizin's whole career '51-'62 was at a star level, but it strikes me as a bit more up and down, with some years in the late 50's throwing me off.

Agreed on the general point that Arizin was the premier scorer and offensive player of the decade. I would note Schayes volume is probably a bit depressed due to playing more of his career pre-shot clock.

Not too high on the award stuff Arizin garnered prior to his service time. Not that they were undeserved per se, but I also don't think I'd have had him at the top of my awards heap.

I'd add the '50 Nats that went 51-13, 6.48 SRS as a contender for best squad. '54 was the year Schayes had the broken right wrist in the playoffs, likely could've dethroned Mikan if not for that. Or perhaps even the '59 squad that went 7 vs Russells Celtics should be considered, though the record/SRS disparity is interesting.

I generally think Arizin had enough inconsistencies in his post '56 career that it's worth asking if he could've kept up the output over the missed war years. 6 of his 10 career offenses were below average after all, and the '62 offense with Wilt was only a +0.9, so 3 legit good offenses ('52,'56,'57).

I'm quite a bit higher on Schayes' D it sounds, and don't really think of him as offense focused at all, more balanced (along the same lines as Pettit/Karl Malone). He played on decent to good D's throughout his career, peaking in '54 when he played C on a squad that was better defensively than Arizin's '56 squad was offensively (-4.5). 6'5, 215 lb Osterkorn was the next largest starter.

Arizin does remind me a lot of West (harkening back to Luisetti as well).

Schayes isn't Dirk sized, but I think you're overstating how rare the talent is for 6'8 sorts, or at least how good they have to be at it to be useful. Griffin, Siakam, Durant, Tatum, Bam, Gallinari, Gordon, Millsap have all employed their driving games to various degrees of positive effect while being approximately Schayes sized. Schayes doesn't strike me as the sort to break a guy down off the dribble, but their are a lot of opportunities to attack a guy if you're quick off the catch and they're rotating and I believe he'd succeed there. I believe he's very slightly larger than Pettit.

I have no idea what to do with Johnston, I don't think I've ever seen a players numbers correlate so little with team play.

I guess overall we have pretty similar offensive takeaways on Schayes and peak Arizin, with me having some questions about what went wrong for Arizin later in his career offensively. I seem to have a notably more positive defensive impression of Schayes.

Any thoughts on Schayes time as Wilt's coach (Havlicek stole the ball!)

[Owly]

Schayes doesn't strike me as the sort to break a guy down off the dribble, but their are a lot of opportunities to attack a guy if you're quick off the catch and they're rotating and I believe he'd succeed there. I believe he's very slightly larger than Pettit.

So far as time machine stuff goes I don't know, but Schayes saw the long shot as a means of increasing driving opportunities and he drew a ton of fouls iirc.

[Franco]

I'll edit with some reasoning in an hour (give or take), but as of now my choices are:

1) Stephen Curry
2) Charles Barkley
3) Kevin Durant

These three are probably the closest group outside of the top 10 for me, and in the end I’m splitting hairs here. Each one has certain advantages and cons that I weighted.

Curry:

- Shortest prime of the tree by a significant margin (even when I’m high in 2013 and 2014 Curry), also has had the worst playoff disasters between them.
+ Best peak between the players left on the board for me, by a good margin. I would take 2 or 3 Curry seasons above both KD’s and Barkley’s best.
+ One of the most portable superstars ever, his crazy gravity on an off the ball make him an elite ceiling-raider.
- I also have my doubts that he can lift mediocre teams too much, and while it’s not as important as ceiling-raising, I think it is important.
+ Impact metrics in general love Curry as almost an equal to LeBron for a period of years, something that KD certainly can’t claim by direct evidence.
+ I vehemently believe he was Golden State’s best player for their 2017-19 run, despite not winning FMVP with Durant around.

KD:

+ He has the most consistent prime of the three IMO.
+ So far, his average season is of a significantly higher level than either Curry or Barkley.
- Before joining Golden State his playoff scoring dipped in both volume and efficiency, and it does concern me how certain teams just had his number.
- A minor sidenote, but I do question his intangibles and off-court chemistry problems. The volatility in Golden State was apparent and it led to their eventual break.
- Even with Curry’s injury reputation, KD has missed almost as much time and now has probably shortened his career with the latest Achilles injury.
- Although his assisting numbers are high, he gives me a lot of doubt in the passing department whenever he is asked to set up the offense.
+ His defensive impact is clearly the best in this group, even if I disagree with him ever being elite on that side of the ball.

Barkley:

+ I consider him to have the longest prime in the group, even if the average level of his seasons is the lowest by a hair.
+ His ludicrous scoring and efficiency almost match Curry’s, and in some ways I think he put up even more pressure on defenses than either Curry or KD.
+ Rebound prowess actually makes me wonder how he would fair as a “small ball” player in this day and age.
- By far the worst shooter and spacer in the group.
- Portability is questionable at best, even in his best days he was an average ish passer in my book.
+ Despite his blown series leads and famous playoff debacles, I actually don’t think he ever had a series as bad as Durant’s and Curry’s worst outs in his prime.

I’ll probably add more later since I’m still at work, but this is my initial reasoning for the ranking.

[Cavsfansince84]

Schayes isn't Dirk sized, but I think you're overstating how rare the talent is for 6'8 sorts, or at least how good they have to be at it to be useful. Griffin, Siakam, Durant, Tatum, Bam, Gallinari, Gordon, Millsap have all employed their driving games to various degrees of positive effect while being approximately Schayes sized. Schayes doesn't strike me as the sort to break a guy down off the dribble, but their are a lot of opportunities to attack a guy if you're quick off the catch and they're rotating and I believe he'd succeed there. I believe he's very slightly larger than Pettit.

I have no idea what to do with Johnston, I don't think I've ever seen a players numbers correlate so little with team play.

I guess overall we have pretty similar offensive takeaways on Schayes and peak Arizin, with me having some questions about what went wrong for Arizin later in his career offensively. I seem to have a notably more positive defensive impression of Schayes.

Any thoughts on Schayes time as Wilt's coach (Havlicek stole the ball!)

To some degree I think we have to ask ourselves how much it matters to what degree a player from the 60's or prior would be effective today or whether that even matters at all. Everyone is going to have their own way of taking that into account and to some people its not a factor when they do lists like this. What I look for is a guy having a skill set which is considered advanced for the era he played in and which gives me reason to think he could play today with proper training which carries over to athleticism to some degree. I do want to ask you also why you think Schayes was slightly bigger than Pettit.

[eminence]

Schayes doesn't strike me as the sort to break a guy down off the dribble, but their are a lot of opportunities to attack a guy if you're quick off the catch and they're rotating and I believe he'd succeed there. I believe he's very slightly larger than Pettit.

So far as time machine stuff goes I don't know, but Schayes saw the long shot as a means of increasing driving opportunities and he drew a ton of fouls iirc.

Oh yeah, tons of drawn fouls. I'd say arguably the 2nd best ever to Harden.

[eminence]

Schayes isn't Dirk sized, but I think you're overstating how rare the talent is for 6'8 sorts, or at least how good they have to be at it to be useful. Griffin, Siakam, Durant, Tatum, Bam, Gallinari, Gordon, Millsap have all employed their driving games to various degrees of positive effect while being approximately Schayes sized. Schayes doesn't strike me as the sort to break a guy down off the dribble, but their are a lot of opportunities to attack a guy if you're quick off the catch and they're rotating and I believe he'd succeed there. I believe he's very slightly larger than Pettit.

I have no idea what to do with Johnston, I don't think I've ever seen a players numbers correlate so little with team play.

I guess overall we have pretty similar offensive takeaways on Schayes and peak Arizin, with me having some questions about what went wrong for Arizin later in his career offensively. I seem to have a notably more positive defensive impression of Schayes.

Any thoughts on Schayes time as Wilt's coach (Havlicek stole the ball!)

To some degree I think we have to ask ourselves how much it matters to what degree a player from the 60's or prior would be effective today or whether that even matters at all. Everyone is going to have their own way of taking that into account and to some people its not a factor when they do lists like this. What I look for is a guy having a skill set which is considered advanced for the era he played in and which gives me reason to think he could play today with proper training which carries over to athleticism to some degree. I do want to ask you also why you think Schayes was slightly bigger than Pettit.

Yep, that's a completely fair way to view it as well. I just know that Doc MJ is a guy who does value that sort of thing.

And hmm, his frame just looks a little naturally wider to me. Everything I've ever seen points to them being essentially the same height. Pettit probably played a bit heavier as one of the very 1st guys to do regular weight training and that's a credit to him.

[Cavsfansince84]

Yep, that's a completely fair way to view it as well. I just know that Doc MJ is a guy who does value that sort of thing.

And hmm, his frame just looks a little naturally wider to me. Everything I've ever seen points to them being essentially the same height. Pettit probably played a bit heavier as one of the very 1st guys to do regular weight training and that's a credit to him.

ok, I just thought I'd ask since Pettit was listed an inch taller(6-9 to 6-8) and everything I've seen of Pettit makes me think he had near prototypical pf size. As a guy with high set shoulders, long but still somewhat muscular and good athleticism. I also think he may have been a legit 6-9 based on some photos. I might add that the toughest guy for me to place from that era is Cousy. People generally seem to be pretty low on him but I mean he was all nba 1st team 10 times and won a ton of rings so its hard to not say he was one of the most dominate players of his era along with leading the league in assists a bunch of times.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #172:

Charles Barkley - 4 (Cavsfansince84, Hornet Mania, Odinn21, trex_8063)
Kevin Durant - 4 (DQuinn1575, Dutchball97, Joey Wheeler, Joao Saraiva)
Stephen Curry - 4 (Doctor MJ, Franco, penbeast0, Senior Walker)
Chris Paul - 3 (LA Bird, sansterre, Whopper_Sr)
Steve Nash - 2 (eminence, Jordan Syndrome)
Bob Pettit - 1 (Dr Positivity)
Elgin Baylor - 1 (Hal14)


Wicked 19-vote turnout, 10 required for majority, so we'll eliminate Pettit and Baylor first. That transfers one vote to Barkley, one to Durant....

Barkley - 5
Durant - 5
Curry - 4
Paul - 3
Nash - 2

So Nash is next, which transfers two additional votes to Barkley....

Barkley - 7
Durant - 5
Curry - 4
Paul - 3

Paul is chopped next, which transfers two votes to Barkley, one to Curry....

Barkley - 9
Durant - 5
Curry - 5

By the usual method both Durant and Curry are next eliminated and Barkley wins by default. fwiw, of the info I have presently Barkley would win the Condorcet method.
If we were doing a 5/3/1-point ballot system, the scores would be:

Barkley - 47
Durant - 31
Curry - 30
Paul - 17
Nash - 16
Pettit - 14
Stockton - 8
Baylor - 5
Wade - 2

So Barkley does appear to have it in hand. I'll get the next up in a minute.
btw--There are several posters I have quoted for notification purposes, but from whom we've not heard in awhile. If anyone would prefer to be taken off the notification list, please just let me know via PM.

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[eminence]

Yep, that's a completely fair way to view it as well. I just know that Doc MJ is a guy who does value that sort of thing.

And hmm, his frame just looks a little naturally wider to me. Everything I've ever seen points to them being essentially the same height. Pettit probably played a bit heavier as one of the very 1st guys to do regular weight training and that's a credit to him.

ok, I just thought I'd ask since Pettit was listed an inch taller(6-9 to 6-8) and everything I've seen of Pettit makes me think he had near prototypical pf size. As a guy with high set shoulders, long but still somewhat muscular and good athleticism. I also think he may have been a legit 6-9 based on some photos.

Wouldn't be surprised at all to hear Pettit was a legit 6'9 (measurements generally seem less inflated from that era). The only halfway decent photo I can think of the two together is from at the 25th anniversary team honoring, where both are notably shorter than Mikan/Russell and notably taller than everyone else. Do you know of/have any others?

[Cavsfansince84]

Wouldn't be surprised at all to hear Pettit was a legit 6'9 (measurements generally seem less inflated from that era). The only halfway decent photo I can think of the two together is from at the 25th anniversary team honoring, where both are notably shorter than Mikan/Russell and notably taller than everyone else. Do you know of/have any others?

No, I was looking a while ago for some but couldn't find any. I also mentioned Cousy above so maybe you could respond to what I added in there.

[eminence]

Wouldn't be surprised at all to hear Pettit was a legit 6'9 (measurements generally seem less inflated from that era). The only halfway decent photo I can think of the two together is from at the 25th anniversary team honoring, where both are notably shorter than Mikan/Russell and notably taller than everyone else. Do you know of/have any others?

No, I was looking a while ago for some but couldn't find any. I also mentioned Cousy above so maybe you could respond to what I added in there.

I need to re-look at Cousy, I'm uncertain on him as well. I'm certainly lower on him than in era folks were, but if I were that high on him I'd have been voting for him for a bit now. Not sure yet where he comes into the picture for me.

[No-more-rings]

But part of it is also that Wade never really led elite offenses nor achieved great scoring efficiency while also not being much of a shooter...which has everything to do with why his prime ended so early and why he wasn't much use to anyone once that happened.

I'm honestly surprised people still push this thing about not leading elite offenses. Wade co-led the 3rd ranked ortg with Lebron in 2011, and while you can argue Lebron did more i don't think we can just wave it away because he played with another superstar.

2ndly, outside of that year he wasn't really put into position to achieve such and it says way more about the way the Heat were structured and coached. The 2009 and 2010 teams under Spolstra emphasized defense way more than offense, and that personnel wasn't equipped to achieve a high ranked offense.

I do think his scoring attack was enough that had he been an otherworldly passer it could have been the basis of a great offense, but of course, Wade wasn't such a passer.

There's no evidence to believe Wade's passing was the issue, he always fared extremely well in offensive impact metrics not quite on Curry or Nash level but better than Durant and his ORAPM often graded out better than Cp3's when their primes happened to overlap.

These claims are theoretical, when the facts and data all point to Wade being extremely dominant and impactful on offense. I think the counters to that claim are sort of a witch hunt type of thing.

Funny no one mentions that before D'ntoni coached the Rockets, Harden led the 7th and 12th ranked offenses the seasons before. That's not particularly impressive. Or that the Warriors couldn't achieve a top 10 offense under Mark Jackson. Not even saying they're solely responsible for it, but for people to just ignore coaching and roster structure in all this is silly.

In the end, I think that while Wade played great on his way to that 2006 Finals MVP, if we could examine many different basketball universes, in most of them Wade doesn't get a title in that era. He got a bit lucky up front and that skewed perception for many of us.

I don't know how to respond to this point other than it's utter nonsense. The Heat were contenders for 2 straight years in that era, and were on the brink of two straight finals appearances. There's nothing lucky or unusual that they were.

What about the LeBron partnership? Locker room culture-wise Wade's awesome and I give him credit for that. I also think he happened to be at his most "oh my god" at certain times of the 2011 playoffs. But I also think we know that the hope of that team was that it would be among the very best in history - a rival to the '95-96 Bulls - and it never came close to that in part because the fit between LeBron & Wade wasn't a natural.

Another lie. They never reached that team level because Wade started declining each year after 2011. They had a record breaking win streak in 2013 when Wade was healthy. That was some of the most dominant basketball ever played. We can't sweep these things under the rug when they actually happened. So those things are a knock on Wade's health which should be the main focus, not that the fit wasn't good because that simply isn't true.

[freethedevil]

I have time to participate today.

1) Curry
2) Barkley
3) Durant

I don't have any novel reasons for putting Curry first here. Others haave alreayd said what I want to say, i.e., that Curry had a higher peak than either player and the impact of his offball gravity. Curry is in my personal top 20 list and I would have voted for him a few slots ago actually. If Curry gets another MVP and leads another roster to the finals beofre his time is up he will be knocking on my top 10 list. The only reason he isn't there now is because he didn't seal the deal in 2016.

I actually like Barkley's career better than Durant's so far, even though I think Durant is better in a vacuum. Thing is, Durant is a better player than most ATG players in a vacuum and could easily make a top 10 all time list if it were based on talent.


Is he reallt tho? Or are you just looking at scoring, because if we're looking at creation and defense, I think there's at least 8 players TODAY who blow him out as far as talent is concerned in Giannis, Lebron, AD, Jokic, Kawhi, Curry, and Luka.


I think the problem is people equate scoring with talent and hence get all suprised when a player who can't pass or defend at an elite level suddenly isn't that valuable. But when I think back on his career so far, he really hasn't shown a consistent ability to lift a cast to contendership. Well, he has somewhat, but he also played with an MVP candidate in his prime and its often hard for me to seperate out how much Durant was lifting those OKC teams to prominence, despite the fact that he was clearly superior to Westbrook. The fact is, OKC ran the offense through Westbrook (for better or worse) and KD didn't really put his stamp on that franchise like a player of his caliber should. Someone can easily find disagreement with this statement though, I'm happy to change my mind.
To add, KD had about the easiest job for a top level star playing next to Curry of anyone, maybe ever. Kudos to him for actually sacrificing his game in the initial golden state years to play more beautiful basketball, I actually admired that about him and agreed with some of his sentiments that winning basketball is not purely about how much output one guy can give you if you shoulder him with all the responsibility, like a Harden or LeBron. He did however go to a team that already had a championship level core in place, and so....yeah. Golden state was about even with Cleveland overall in 2016 with their core and depth. They lost the depth but adding KD was just too much compensation. I do not look at those titles for Durant and think his contribution was something special and the rest of his career is individual excellence without noteworthy teamlifting.

The only thing missing for Barkley was a ring but it wasn't because of anything he lacked, at least in my view. He just came against a mount rushmore player. No shame in being denied by that and even Barkley knows that and seems at peace with it.
I recall in a number of interviews that MJ, depsite liking Charles, always felt that Charles did lack a certain quality usually had in winning players, or a winning mentality. And when he retired in the mid 90s he told Scottie not to play with him because he would never win anything. I can't really comment on that but its interesting to note coming from a psychopathic winner such as MJ that he sensed this in Charles. He had literally no reason to hate Chuck, as they were noted friends off the court and were not feuding at the time in any way. MJ seemed to speak honestly and I've alwasys been interested to know more about why he would say something like that. MJ's word is not gospel by any means but I don't think he was just speaking haphazardly.