10th best season team

[penbeast0]

Anyone who can just give us a baseline using Win Shares or a similar total value season stat, it would help kickstart the discussion.

Looking for the greatest 8 man rotation of all time using the 10th best season of every player's career. Obviously this favors the guys who were great forever like Kareem, Karl Malone, Stockton, etc.

[Dutchball97]

This are the 10th best (regular) seasons by win shares for some of the most likely candidates.

Point guards:
Magic Johnson - 10.5 WS (1980)
Steph Curry - 6.6 WS (2011)
Jerry West - 10.6 WS (1973)
Oscar Robertson - 12.3 WS (1968)
Chris Paul - 10.4 WS (2006)
John Stockton 11.2 WS (2000)
Steve Nash - 7.9 WS (2011)

Shooting guards:
Michael Jordan - 15.8 WS (1998)
Kobe Bryant - 10.6 WS (2000)
Dwyane Wade - 4.9 WS (2016)
James Harden - 7.6 WS (2022)
George Gervin - 7.3 WS (1974)
Clyde Drexler - 6.8 WS (1994)
Reggie Miller - 10.3 WS (2001)

Small forwards:
LeBron James - 14 WS (2018)
Larry Bird - 9.5 WS (1990)
Kevin Durant - 8.4 WS (2022)
Julius Erving - 10.1 WS (1984)
Kawhi Leonard - 0.9 WS (2018)
Scottie Pippen - 5.7 WS (1990)
Elgin Baylor - 6.2 WS (1967)
John Havlicek - 7.4 (1976)

Power forwards:
Tim Duncan - 10.9 WS (2010)
Kevin Garnett - 9.8 WS (1998)
Dirk Nowitzki - 11.1 WS (2011)
Karl Malone - 13.8 WS (1995)
Charles Barkley - 10.5 WS (1996)
Bob Pettit - 10.7 WS (1955)
Giannis Antetokounmpo - N/A (going into his 10th season in 22/23)

Centers:
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 13.8 WS (1970)
Bill Russell - 11.3 WS (1958)
Wilt Chamberlain - 15.8 WS (1972)
Shaquille O'Neal - 9.9 WS (2004)
Hakeem Olajuwon - 9.7 WS (1996)
Moses Malone - 9.4 WS (1987)
David Robinson - 12.1 WS (2001)

So a starting line-up of Oscar, MJ, LeBron, Karl Malone and Wilt. With a 2nd team of Stockton, Kobe, Dr. J, Dirk and Kareem.

[Jaivl]

Going purely by position, with no regard to fit, I get

1982 Magic Johnson
1987 Michael Jordan
2018 LeBron James (!)
2006 Tim Duncan (luckily 2006 Duncan played with Rasho and Nazr Mohamed so he's actually unquestionably a PF, sorry 1999 Kevin Garnett)
1970 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

That's a completely ridiculous team lol.

[penbeast0]

Dang, sort of the usual suspects. Not what I was aiming at. Maybe I have to go with 15th best season to get separation.

[Dutchball97]

Dang, sort of the usual suspects. Not what I was aiming at. Maybe I have to go with 15th best season to get separation.

It's hard because the best players are usually the ones who play the longest as well. Even when you do 20th best season you'd still get Kareem, Dirk, Kobe and KG. Only now with Vince Carter, Kevin Willis, Robert Parish and Jamal Crawford to fill out the rotation as those are the only 8 players to even play 20 seasons. I imagine the 15th best seasons would be somewhere in the middle with maybe some guys of the 10th best seasons falling off but the rotation looking mostly the same.

[homecourtloss]

Dang, sort of the usual suspects. Not what I was aiming at. Maybe I have to go with 15th best season to get separation.

It's hard because the best players are usually the ones who play the longest as well. Even when you do 20th best season you'd still get Kareem, Dirk, Kobe and KG. Only now with Vince Carter, Kevin Willis, Robert Parish and Jamal Crawford to fill out the rotation as those are the only 8 players to even play 20 seasons. I imagine the 15th best seasons would be somewhere in the middle with maybe some guys of the 10th best seasons falling off but the rotation looking mostly the same.

Yup. Going by win shares, you would still have 15th seasons from 1986 Kareem, 2013 Duncan, 2012 KG, 2020 LeBron, 2012 Kobe, 1998 Stockton, 2007 CP3, and 2002 Karl Malone

[Jaivl]

Dang, sort of the usual suspects. Not what I was aiming at. Maybe I have to go with 15th best season to get separation.

Big revelation: great players are great

You could restrict it for players outside the RealGM top 20/30/50 or something.

[penbeast0]

Well, I knew Kareem, Moses, Karl Malone would be in the mix, just didn't know what others players were that good for that long.
Maybe go the opposite way and do best players to play less than 5 seasons in the NBA who have been retired 5 years or longer. The Drazen Petrovic team.

[Dutchball97]

Well, I knew Kareem, Moses, Karl Malone would be in the mix, just didn't know what others players were that good for that long.
Maybe go the opposite way and do best players to play less than 5 seasons in the NBA who have been retired 5 years or longer. The Drazen Petrovic team.

Man that's a tough one. I really wouldn't know where to start there. Arvydas Sabonis played 7 seasons in the NBA, Ralph Sampson had a whopping 9 seasons and as far as I can see none of the main 40s/50s guys who usually made their debuts before the NBA was a thing played less than 5 seasons under the NBA banner either.

I can plug my fellow Dutchman Hank Beenders who played 111 games in 3 seasons in the BAA from 1947 till 1949. His peak WS is only 1.1 though and he had a jawdropping 26.5 career FG% so there should still be some guys out there who did better, right?

[penbeast0]

I'm guessing maybe a few of the guys that crashed and burned early with drugs (or gambling if you want a top center from the 50s) like Richard Dumas might make it too. Was thinking Roy Tarpley but he had a 5 game long 6th season.

[Jaivl]

Well, I knew Kareem, Moses, Karl Malone would be in the mix, just didn't know what others players were that good for that long.
Maybe go the opposite way and do best players to play less than 5 seasons in the NBA who have been retired 5 years or longer. The Drazen Petrovic team.

Surrounding Petrovic with the spanish squad: Navarro, Rudy Fdez., Garbajosa and Mirotic (left only 3 seasons ago but oh well, use Mo Stokes instead).

[Rich Michmond]

I'm guessing maybe a few of the guys that crashed and burned early with drugs (or gambling if you want a top center from the 50s) like Richard Dumas might make it too. Was thinking Roy Tarpley but he had a 5 game long 6th season.

You'd have Indiana's frontcourt of the mid-80s: Clark Kellogg and Steve Stipanovich. Michael Dickerson comes to mind, too.
If you stretch to six seasons, you will get Brandon Roy, Reggie Lewis, and Geoff Petrie.

[Owly]

Most of the 5 of fewer shortlist have been mentioned.
Obviously few are really great.
Stokes, Drazen, Kellogg and Stipo.
Groza and maybe Beard implicitly.

The shooting from the field never came round, we're working with a small sample etc. But Ernie (No) D flashed some potential. Great at the stripe in a limited sample. Managed an assist lead too in his rookie year.
That's the only other one in my old, incomplete, abandoned player rankings/siginifcant player database. Well that I have career duration for. Well of those I put career duration for. Skimming others that I thought might ... Eddie Miller is possible (50s center, 2 years, one good, one bad, never played after his good year). Muresan has 6 playing years plus one other missed but "present" year (though one of the playing years is 1 minute long). Pekovic has 6 years. Freeman Williams, notable for his aggressive volume shooting (and being Boston's "other" pick) more than goodness has 6 years with his comeback. Slick Watts, another assist leader played 6 years.

Maybe there's some ABA guys that got squeezed out by contraction at the merger (but Barnes got to 6, Roche's "comeback" kills his eligibility) or early guys that squeezed out by that merger/contraction and or better pay in other jobs or amateur AAU related jobs (though it will also depend what you count ... technically you could get there with NBL MVP Don Otten by only counting BAA/NBA lineage years but that seems contrary to the spirit here). Bob Feerick, of 18.6 WS in 55 games in the first BAA season only played 4 years.

Another pool might be "flash in the pan" scorers like Robert "Bubbles" Hawkins or Billy Ray Bates (each 4 years)?