RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #46 (Bob Cousy)

[dhsilv2]

And as I make that note about Deke, here comes the board with another cult favorite guy in Pau. Who BTW was really talented, and WHO WAS A SECOND BANANA.

You know how many MVP shares Pau got over his career? 0.0. You know how many playoff games Pau led teams won in his entire career? 0. As in 0-12. If that's kosher for the Top 50 in an all time NBAers project, maybe I shoudl start advocating for Boogie earlier than I thought.

Oh don't worry you're instincts were right about Boogie this time.

I note also you knock Gasol for being a 2nd banana while in a comparison with Cousy who also only ever won championships as a secondary force.

And I specifically mentioned the inconsistency in panning Cousy for "only" being an MVP and annual First Team All NBA guy in his solo career, and then turning around and shrugging at Pau's single All Star game and 0-12 playoff work.

Single allstar game?

[trex_8063]

And as I make that note about Deke, here comes the board with another cult favorite guy in Pau. Who BTW was really talented, and WHO WAS A SECOND BANANA.

You know how many MVP shares Pau got over his career? 0.0. You know how many playoff games Pau led teams won in his entire career? 0. As in 0-12. If that's kosher for the Top 50 in an all time NBAers project, maybe I shoudl start advocating for Boogie earlier than I thought.

Oh don't worry you're instincts were right about Boogie this time.

I note also you knock Gasol for being a 2nd banana while in a comparison with Cousy who also only ever won championships as a secondary force.

And I specifically mentioned the inconsistency in panning Cousy for "only" being an MVP and annual First Team All NBA guy in his solo career, and then turning around and shrugging at Pau's single All Star game and 0-12 playoff work.

Critics have been VERY consistent in expressing the importance of context in the weighting of All-NBA honors; that has been the crux of many long back-and-forths involving Pablo. And I specifically addressed Pau's single All-Star prior to '09 within this thread, discussion under the exact same umbrella of context. But yeah......if you say so I guess.

[Outside]

Runoff vote: Cousy

Trying to get this in before voting closes.

To me, it's not close. I like Pau, he's a nice complementary piece, but there are far better complementary players, like James Worthy. I don't even have Pau in my top 100 in its current state, and while I could be convinced to add him, it wouldn't be anywhere near this point. I'll have to give the arguments of those advocating for him a closer look.

Cousy was a leader on the floor. Yes, Russell was the best player on Cousy's championship teams, but Cousy was the floor general in an era when offenses couldn't work without them. His impact from a passing and leadership standpoint was outstanding.

[scrabbarista]

Cousy

He was a premier star in the league, is an historical icon of the game, was the best player on a title team, and crushes Gasol in honors received and MVP shares, as well as Top 5 finishes in different stats.

At the end of the fifties, Mikan and Cousy were the biggest names in the history of the game. I think I have Cousy at 38th on my List.
Gasol is generally underrated, and I'm happy to see him here, but I have him at about 51st on my current List.

[dhsilv2]

Oh don't worry you're instincts were right about Boogie this time.

I note also you knock Gasol for being a 2nd banana while in a comparison with Cousy who also only ever won championships as a secondary force.

And I specifically mentioned the inconsistency in panning Cousy for "only" being an MVP and annual First Team All NBA guy in his solo career, and then turning around and shrugging at Pau's single All Star game and 0-12 playoff work.

Critics have been VERY consistent in expressing the importance of context in the weighting of All-NBA honors; that has been the crux of many long back-and-forths involving Pablo. And I specifically addressed Pau's single All-Star prior to '09 within this thread, discussion under the exact same umbrella of context. But yeah......if you say so I guess.

Related but unrelated to this string...

Pau played 56 and 59 games in the years before and after his allstar in memphis. I think in 05 he missed mostly post, but he missed a good number before in 07. So the allstar misses don't just fall into the conference, but he was hurt. 05 he was hurt on Jan 22 so yeah he wouldn't have been available to play so I'm sure that was a factor. He missed all of feb and most of march. So while he was a darn good player at that point in time, missing games is held against players pretty consistently here.

All nba's. 09-11 were really Pau's coming out years and I'm struggling with that too. In 09 he fell behind Lebron, Dirk, Duncan, and Pierce. Now I believe you were supporting Pierce, but regardless I believe the case for him was longevity not peak. So we see Gasol a bit below Peirce in what was a past his prime year. The next year in 2010 Pau falls behind KD, Lebron, Dirk and Mello. Melo hasn't gotten any traction here. I consider myself a pretty big fan of Gasol, but I'm struggling with the second best player on a very very good LA team couldn't make a case over Pierce? Now he did miss games that year, but how many times do we have to defend or work around missing games? I actually hadn't realized how often he missed games. I won't ding him much for no first teams, but at the same time, it's hard to not want to see at least a few more 3rd teams on a guy who's case is longevity.

[pandrade83]

The way I've conceptualized Cousy for nutritional benefits, etc. is to place him in a hypothetical basketball league comprised exclusively of white American born players with 16 teams. There's only enough such players in the current NBA to fill half the starting positions in the league. I can't go back in the '51-'56 era & point to a year where Cousy was the best player - so in his prime - at his apex - he would be like the 4th/5th best player in this hypothetical league - he wouldn't lead his teams to any real success; always winning a playoff series at most; he'd be the best player on the equivalent of this league's Toronto Raptors and the league would be of very low quality. I don't see much value in a player of that caliber in the big picture.

I think the argument for Cousy using this exercise would be if you called him #2 of his pre shot clock era behind Mikan which is what he had the accolades of. While his WS and efficiency doesn't look that great Cousy's combination of best in the league at both slashing and passing for a guard by miles, could have led to higher offensive impact creating than just the boxscore said. Depending on the time period the 2nd best white North American in the league can be a top 50 caliber player, such as McHale

I've got schayes ahead of him - the playoff results alone bear that out. Arizin also led a squad to a chip during that era - that knocks him to 4th.

That doesn't account for Macauley had a couple years where he was better, the suspended guys, stokes has a couple years where you could make a case and population growth. Im comfortable with where I have him on this. The mythos and legends don't hold up to the actual results for me.

If not for Russell, I seriously question if he'd even get any top 100 support. I understand im an outlier here though

[trex_8063]

Cousy

He was a premier star in the league, is an historical icon of the game, was the best player on a title team, and crushes Gasol in honors received and MVP shares, as well as Top 5 finishes in different stats.

At the end of the fifties, Mikan and Cousy were the biggest names in the history of the game. I think I have Cousy at 38th on my List.
Gasol is generally underrated, and I'm happy to see him here, but I have him at about 51st on my current List.

It's nice to have the added content, but fwiw in the future you are not required to state your runoff pick if you'd already cast your alternate pick for one of the runoff candidates (I already had you counted in Cousy's camp at the start of runoff).

[dhsilv2]

The way I've conceptualized Cousy for nutritional benefits, etc. is to place him in a hypothetical basketball league comprised exclusively of white American born players with 16 teams. There's only enough such players in the current NBA to fill half the starting positions in the league. I can't go back in the '51-'56 era & point to a year where Cousy was the best player - so in his prime - at his apex - he would be like the 4th/5th best player in this hypothetical league - he wouldn't lead his teams to any real success; always winning a playoff series at most; he'd be the best player on the equivalent of this league's Toronto Raptors and the league would be of very low quality. I don't see much value in a player of that caliber in the big picture.

I think the argument for Cousy using this exercise would be if you called him #2 of his pre shot clock era behind Mikan which is what he had the accolades of. While his WS and efficiency doesn't look that great Cousy's combination of best in the league at both slashing and passing for a guard by miles, could have led to higher offensive impact creating than just the boxscore said. Depending on the time period the 2nd best white North American in the league can be a top 50 caliber player, such as McHale

I've got schayes ahead of him - the playoff results alone bear that out. Arizin also led a squad to a chip during that era - that knocks him to 4th.

That doesn't account for Macauley had a couple years where he was better, the suspended guys, stokes has a couple years where you could make a case and population growth. Im comfortable with where I have him on this. The mythos and legends don't hold up to the actual results for me.

If not for Russell, I seriously question if he'd even get any top 100 support. I understand im an outlier here though

What former MVP won't get any top 100 support? I mean the guy was an MVP....and he had a long career.

I think you've taken the dislike for Cousy on very fair measures way too far with that statement.

[trex_8063]

All nba's. 09-11 were really Pau's coming out years and I'm struggling with that too. In 09 he fell behind Lebron, Dirk, Duncan, and Pierce. Now I believe you were supporting Pierce, but regardless I believe the case for him was longevity not peak. So we see Gasol a bit below Peirce in what was a past his prime year. The next year in 2010 Pau falls behind KD, Lebron, Dirk and Mello. Melo hasn't gotten any traction here. I consider myself a pretty big fan of Gasol, but I'm struggling with the second best player on a very very good LA team couldn't make a case over Pierce?

Regarding '09 and '10, I don't know what to tell you other than [imo] those are mistakes, and are illustrative of why I don't think All-NBA honors do any better [relating to previous discussions with Pablo Novi] than MVP award shares, for instance.

I don't think Pierce deserved to be a team ahead of Pau in '09; I don't think Melo deserved honors over Pau in '10. I might have thought '10 perhaps had something to do with Pau missing 17 games that year; but I see Melo missed 13 himself, so not a huge difference there. But the voting panel (as with casual fans) tend to be overly enamored with volume scoring, so perhaps that's the explanation. Melo heaved up 28.2 ppg (3rd in the league) that year, but with a 1.06 Ast:TO ratio (borders on atrocious for a wing) and his characteristic poor defense.......I don't think that deserves the nod over what Pau was doing that year.

[pandrade83]

I think the argument for Cousy using this exercise would be if you called him #2 of his pre shot clock era behind Mikan which is what he had the accolades of. While his WS and efficiency doesn't look that great Cousy's combination of best in the league at both slashing and passing for a guard by miles, could have led to higher offensive impact creating than just the boxscore said. Depending on the time period the 2nd best white North American in the league can be a top 50 caliber player, such as McHale

I've got schayes ahead of him - the playoff results alone bear that out. Arizin also led a squad to a chip during that era - that knocks him to 4th.

That doesn't account for Macauley had a couple years where he was better, the suspended guys, stokes has a couple years where you could make a case and population growth. Im comfortable with where I have him on this. The mythos and legends don't hold up to the actual results for me.

If not for Russell, I seriously question if he'd even get any top 100 support. I understand im an outlier here though

What former MVP won't get any top 100 support? I mean the guy was an MVP....and he had a long career.

I think you've taken the dislike for Cousy on very fair measures way too far with that statement.

I really should've spelled out the why here.

The team's offensive efficiency was in steady decline for 2 straight years - which is where Cousy shines - and with Russell, the defensive efficiency jumps to outlier status and the team wins a bunch of games. Cousy won MVP - but I question if Auerbach doesn't go & get Russell in the first place, if Cousy even wins the MVP - and then he's just another 50's guy probably on par with Neil Johnston and having to scrap it out with him for the 5th 50's guy to make our list.

But, it would've helped if I had written out the chain of events to begin with obviously - otherwise, it does come off as a little un-hinged.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #69:

Pau Gasol - 4 (trex_8063, Doctor MJ, micahclay, pandrade83)
Bob Cousy - 7 (euroleague, Pablo Novi, scabbarista, Dr Positivity, Winsome Gerbil, dhsilv2, Outside)

Thread will be open another 10-15 hours, depending on when I can get to it tomorrow.

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[trex_8063]

Well nothing's changed, so I'm calling it for Cousy. Will have the next one up shortly.

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[Pablo Novi]

Oh don't worry you're instincts were right about Boogie this time.

I note also you knock Gasol for being a 2nd banana while in a comparison with Cousy who also only ever won championships as a secondary force.

And I specifically mentioned the inconsistency in panning Cousy for "only" being an MVP and annual First Team All NBA guy in his solo career, and then turning around and shrugging at Pau's single All Star game and 0-12 playoff work.

Critics have been VERY consistent in expressing the importance of context in the weighting of All-NBA honors; that has been the crux of many long back-and-forths involving Pablo. And I specifically addressed Pau's single All-Star prior to '09 within this thread, discussion under the exact same umbrella of context. But yeah......if you say so I guess.

ALL-League Selections Are Closer To Valid Than They Are To Wildly-Off
It is true that there have been many and long back-and-forths involving me about "the importance of context" in weighting of All-NBA honors. I'm just weighing in here to say that "the importance of context" is a catch-word that very often is super-useful; but it can also, SOMETIMES, be a distraction.

The choice for us here is:
a) treat EVERY INDIVIDUAL REGULAR SEASON's ALL-NBA (/ABA / NBL) honors separately, "in context"; meaning this award is not very important because, by implication, what is represented is WILDLY UNEVEN performances; or
b) treat them all as RELATIVELY equal (with the proviso that, generally speaking, decade-by-decade, they become more valuable (read: in my system, they are worth more "Points")).

Imo, it comes down to this: either, relatively speaking one year's ALL-League selections are worth ABOUT as much as other year's OR they aren't. If they aren't, then the award isn't very useful for determining GOAT lists AND, necessarily, some other criteria must take precedence over it. BUT, there is nothing even remotely approaching UNIVERSAL agreement on WHICH criteria (singular or plural) should be used. Similarly, there is NOTHING close to UNIVERSAL agreement about which seasons were better generally (much less at specific positions) than others.

My belief is that the selections have been closer to equal than closer to super-unequal; IF that is the case, then the validity of using ALL-League selections comes into question. On that, I feel very strongly that using ALL-League selections as the FIRST and MOST IMPORTANT criteria is valid.

Imo, the SELECTORS are of the highest quality especially COLLECTIVELY speaking. It's been their very job to study what is going on on the court and report on it; and, at the end of each Reg. Season - vote on it. They have better access to the stats, the analysis of others, the eye-test, etc. Collectively, the process weeds out homerist votes.

Proof In The Pudding?
Tom Haberstoh has just used ALL-NBA selections (from the past 3 years for his particular analysis) to determine which 2017-18 teams are true super-teams (having 3 great players). He even assigns almost exactly the same number of "Points" per 1st-Team, 2nd-Team and 3rd-Team selections: 5, 3 and 1 (whereas I use: 5, 3 and 1.8). I consider him to be highly informed about what's going on in the NBA. (I'd argue for my "Points" values over his because, 2nd-Teamers are not nearly 3 times as good as 3rd-Teamers; and, instead, the gap between 2nd-Teamers and 3rd-Teamers should be relatively the same as between 1st-Teamers and 2nd-Teamers; with the lower-level guys meriting 60% in each instance).
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19795490/tom-haberstroh-nba-superteam-rankings-warriors-cavaliers-timberwolves-more

I make no claim to being any kind of expert, but, imo, my GOAT Top 5 (KAJ, Magic, MJ, LBJ & TD) would beat anybody else's GOAT Top 5 in a best-of-seven series most of the time. Same for my GOAT Top 10 (adding: Wilt, Kobe, Dr J, "O" & K.Malone) and GOAT Top 15 (adding: Shaq, Jerry West, Bird, Pettit & Cousy).

The Alternative(s):
I make ZERO claim that my system is anything approaching perfection. Instead, I merely claim that in a process so TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE (with as many GOAT lists as there are people opinionating on them); THE BEST system is the one that most closely approaches OBJECTIVE analysis - and, again, the ALL-League selectors are far more qualified than any of us, or all of us taken collectively.

I've been a heavy-duty peace-justice activist since 1965. To be effective such movements REQUIRE as much UNITY as possible. As an activist dedicated to building UNITY: First, Last & Always, I THINK (who knows if I'm right?) that formulating a plan to build such unity depends to some great extent on first, identifying what are the principal dis-unifying issues; and then, working towards overcoming them.

This was the exact process I used vis-a-vis the universally divisive issue of GOAT lists. I recognized disunifying issues as:
homerism (my favorite team, my favorite player(s)),
positional-ism,
decade-ism,
League-vs-League ism,
stas (and groups of them) vs other stats (and groups of them).

The one "metric" that best overcomes the mess of division-producing criteria is the ALL-League selections. While far from perfect, it both more-closely approximates the truth of what's happened AND less divisive than the 100s of sets other criteria AND quite simple and thus easy to understand and use.

N.B. My system is not solely composed on ALL-League selections - they are just my #1 criteria.

P.S. For what it's worth, I spent 40+ hours a week, 50+ weeks a year, 1965-1975 (20,000+ hours of volunteer effort) trying to help end US Gov slaughter of 2-3 million innocents in Vietnam. I ended up playing a leading role in the US Anti-War Movement; particularly in UNITING it. I've been a 9/11 Truther since the afternoon of 9/11. A year ago I presented: "The 9/11 Truth UNITY Manifesto" to a group of 40 9/11 Truth Movement leaders *; and for the first time in the history of that group, a proposal was given UNANIMOUS support ("subject to minor revisions for clarity" - which was accomplished about 2 weeks later in a subcommittee).

* In 50+ years of peace-justice activism, the 9/11 Truth Movement is easily the most-divided movement I've ever seen.

[euroleague]

And I specifically mentioned the inconsistency in panning Cousy for "only" being an MVP and annual First Team All NBA guy in his solo career, and then turning around and shrugging at Pau's single All Star game and 0-12 playoff work.

Critics have been VERY consistent in expressing the importance of context in the weighting of All-NBA honors; that has been the crux of many long back-and-forths involving Pablo. And I specifically addressed Pau's single All-Star prior to '09 within this thread, discussion under the exact same umbrella of context. But yeah......if you say so I guess.

ALL-League Selections Are Closer To Valid Than They Are To Wildly-Off
It is true that there have been many and long back-and-forths involving me about "the importance of context" in weighting of All-NBA honors. I'm just weighing in here to say that "the importance of context" is a catch-word that very often is super-useful; but it can also, SOMETIMES, be a distraction.

The choice for us here is:
a) treat EVERY INDIVIDUAL REGULAR SEASON's ALL-NBA (/ABA / NBL) honors separately, "in context"; meaning this award is not very important because, by implication, what is represented is WILDLY UNEVEN performances; or
b) treat them all as RELATIVELY equal (with the proviso that, generally speaking, decade-by-decade, they become more valuable (read: in my system, they are worth more "Points")).

Imo, it comes down to this: either, relatively speaking one year's ALL-League selections are worth ABOUT as much as other year's OR they aren't. If they aren't, then the award isn't very useful for determining GOAT lists AND, necessarily, some other criteria must take precedence over it. BUT, there is nothing even remotely approaching UNIVERSAL agreement on WHICH criteria (singular or plural) should be used. Similarly, there is NOTHING close to UNIVERSAL agreement about which seasons were better generally (much less at specific positions) than others.

My belief is that the selections have been closer to equal than closer to super-unequal; IF that is the case, then the validity of using ALL-League selections comes into question. On that, I feel very strongly that using ALL-League selections as the FIRST and MOST IMPORTANT criteria is valid.

Imo, the SELECTORS are of the highest quality especially COLLECTIVELY speaking. It's been their very job to study what is going on on the court and report on it; and, at the end of each Reg. Season - vote on it. They have better access to the stats, the analysis of others, the eye-test, etc. Collectively, the process weeds out homerist votes.

Proof In The Pudding?
Tom Haberstoh has just used ALL-NBA selections (from the past 3 years for his particular analysis) to determine which 2017-18 teams are true super-teams (having 3 great players). He even assigns almost exactly the same number of "Points" per 1st-Team, 2nd-Team and 3rd-Team selections: 5, 3 and 1 (whereas I use: 5, 3 and 1.8). I consider him to be highly informed about what's going on in the NBA. (I'd argue for my "Points" values over his because, 2nd-Teamers are not nearly 3 times as good as 3rd-Teamers; and, instead, the gap between 2nd-Teamers and 3rd-Teamers should be relatively the same as between 1st-Teamers and 2nd-Teamers; with the lower-level guys meriting 60% in each instance).
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19795490/tom-haberstroh-nba-superteam-rankings-warriors-cavaliers-timberwolves-more

I make no claim to being any kind of expert, but, imo, my GOAT Top 5 (KAJ, Magic, MJ, LBJ & TD) would beat anybody else's GOAT Top 5 in a best-of-seven series most of the time. Same for my GOAT Top 10 (adding: Wilt, Kobe, Dr J, "O" & K.Malone) and GOAT Top 15 (adding: Shaq, Jerry West, Bird, Pettit & Cousy).

The Alternative(s):
I make ZERO claim that my system is anything approaching perfection. Instead, I merely claim that in a process so TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE (with as many GOAT lists as there are people opinionating on them); THE BEST system is the one that most closely approaches OBJECTIVE analysis - and, again, the ALL-League selectors are far more qualified than any of us, or all of us taken collectively.

I've been a heavy-duty peace-justice activist since 1965. To be effective such movements REQUIRE as much UNITY as possible. As an activist dedicated to building UNITY: First, Last & Always, I THINK (who knows if I'm right?) that formulating a plan to build such unity depends to some great extent on first, identifying what are the principal dis-unifying issues; and then, working towards overcoming them.

This was the exact process I used vis-a-vis the universally divisive issue of GOAT lists. I recognized disunifying issues as:
homerism (my favorite team, my favorite player(s)),
positional-ism,
decade-ism,
League-vs-League ism,
stas (and groups of them) vs other stats (and groups of them).

The one "metric" that best overcomes the mess of division-producing criteria is the ALL-League selections. While far from perfect, it both more-closely approximates the truth of what's happened AND less divisive than the 100s of sets other criteria AND quite simple and thus easy to understand and use.

N.B. My system is not solely composed on ALL-League selections - they are just my #1 criteria.

I don't value all-nba selections vary highly, but having an objective system to use and weigh people against is always good.

Per/WS/RAPM stats all also have flaws.

[Johnlac1]

The problem with Cousy is that after looking at his career pre-Russell and with Russell, his pre-Russell career was more important to the Celtics and the league even though they never won a title.
The huge problem with Cousy in the latter half of his career is that he refused to sublimate his scoring. In short, he was a poor shooter who wouldn't stop gunning even when the Celtics added jump shooters who were clearly better shooters than Cousy.
But Cousy even took more shots than Sharman who was one of the best jump shooters of the fifties and who started with the Celtics only a season or two after Cousy. In the second half of the fifties the Celtics had Sharman, Sam Jones, Tom Heinsohn, and Frank Ramsay all good jump shooters and all clearly better shooters than Cousy.
But Cousy refused to stop gunning and averaged close to 20 shots a game in the last half of the fifties despite never shooting 40% from the floor.
The question has to be asked: would the Celtics, the greatest team of the second half of the fifties and all of the sixties, have been an even greater team if they could have stopped the poor shooting Cousy from his incessant gunning? It looks to me that the Celtics won titles despite Cousy.
Look at Cousy's fg pct. in the playoffs. It was in many playoffs spectacularly awful. It was the Celtic defense that won titles year in and year out.
So while I'll give Cousy credit for being the best pg of the fifties, it was only because on average the league was very weak at that position.

[monojoli]

Critics have been VERY consistent in expressing the importance of context in the weighting of All-NBA honors; that has been the crux of many long back-and-forths involving Pablo. And I specifically addressed Pau's single All-Star prior to '09 within this thread, discussion under the exact same umbrella of context. But yeah......if you say so I guess.

ALL-League Selections Are Closer To Valid Than They Are To Wildly-Off
It is true that there have been many and long back-and-forths involving me about "the importance of context" in weighting of All-NBA honors. I'm just weighing in here to say that "the importance of context" is a catch-word that very often is super-useful; but it can also, SOMETIMES, be a distraction.

The choice for us here is:
a) treat EVERY INDIVIDUAL REGULAR SEASON's ALL-NBA (/ABA / NBL) honors separately, "in context"; meaning this award is not very important because, by implication, what is represented is WILDLY UNEVEN performances; or
b) treat them all as RELATIVELY equal (with the proviso that, generally speaking, decade-by-decade, they become more valuable (read: in my system, they are worth more "Points")).

Imo, it comes down to this: either, relatively speaking one year's ALL-League selections are worth ABOUT as much as other year's OR they aren't. If they aren't, then the award isn't very useful for determining GOAT lists AND, necessarily, some other criteria must take precedence over it. BUT, there is nothing even remotely approaching UNIVERSAL agreement on WHICH criteria (singular or plural) should be used. Similarly, there is NOTHING close to UNIVERSAL agreement about which seasons were better generally (much less at specific positions) than others.

My belief is that the selections have been closer to equal than closer to super-unequal; IF that is the case, then the validity of using ALL-League selections comes into question. On that, I feel very strongly that using ALL-League selections as the FIRST and MOST IMPORTANT criteria is valid.

Imo, the SELECTORS are of the highest quality especially COLLECTIVELY speaking. It's been their very job to study what is going on on the court and report on it; and, at the end of each Reg. Season - vote on it. They have better access to the stats, the analysis of others, the eye-test, etc. Collectively, the process weeds out homerist votes.

Proof In The Pudding?
Tom Haberstoh has just used ALL-NBA selections (from the past 3 years for his particular analysis) to determine which 2017-18 teams are true super-teams (having 3 great players). He even assigns almost exactly the same number of "Points" per 1st-Team, 2nd-Team and 3rd-Team selections: 5, 3 and 1 (whereas I use: 5, 3 and 1.8). I consider him to be highly informed about what's going on in the NBA. (I'd argue for my "Points" values over his because, 2nd-Teamers are not nearly 3 times as good as 3rd-Teamers; and, instead, the gap between 2nd-Teamers and 3rd-Teamers should be relatively the same as between 1st-Teamers and 2nd-Teamers; with the lower-level guys meriting 60% in each instance).
http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/19795490/tom-haberstroh-nba-superteam-rankings-warriors-cavaliers-timberwolves-more

I make no claim to being any kind of expert, but, imo, my GOAT Top 5 (KAJ, Magic, MJ, LBJ & TD) would beat anybody else's GOAT Top 5 in a best-of-seven series most of the time. Same for my GOAT Top 10 (adding: Wilt, Kobe, Dr J, "O" & K.Malone) and GOAT Top 15 (adding: Shaq, Jerry West, Bird, Pettit & Cousy).

The Alternative(s):
I make ZERO claim that my system is anything approaching perfection. Instead, I merely claim that in a process so TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE (with as many GOAT lists as there are people opinionating on them); THE BEST system is the one that most closely approaches OBJECTIVE analysis - and, again, the ALL-League selectors are far more qualified than any of us, or all of us taken collectively.

I've been a heavy-duty peace-justice activist since 1965. To be effective such movements REQUIRE as much UNITY as possible. As an activist dedicated to building UNITY: First, Last & Always, I THINK (who knows if I'm right?) that formulating a plan to build such unity depends to some great extent on first, identifying what are the principal dis-unifying issues; and then, working towards overcoming them.

This was the exact process I used vis-a-vis the universally divisive issue of GOAT lists. I recognized disunifying issues as:
homerism (my favorite team, my favorite player(s)),
positional-ism,
decade-ism,
League-vs-League ism,
stas (and groups of them) vs other stats (and groups of them).

The one "metric" that best overcomes the mess of division-producing criteria is the ALL-League selections. While far from perfect, it both more-closely approximates the truth of what's happened AND less divisive than the 100s of sets other criteria AND quite simple and thus easy to understand and use.

N.B. My system is not solely composed on ALL-League selections - they are just my #1 criteria.

I don't value all-nba selections vary highly, but having an objective system to use and weigh people against is always good.

Per/WS/RAPM stats all also have flaws.

I am agree with you.