1. We have a pool of Nominees you are to choose from for your Induction (main) vote to decide who next gets on the List. Choose your top vote, and if you'd like to, a second vote which will be used for runoff purposes if needed.
2. Nomination vote now works the same way.
3. You must include reasoning for each of your votes, though you may re-use your old words in a new post.
4. Post as much as they want, but when you do your official Vote make it really clear to me at the top of that post that that post is your Vote. And if you decide to change your vote before the votes are tallied, please edit that same Vote post.
5. Anyone may post thoughts, but please only make a Vote post if you're on the Voter list. If you'd like to be added to the project, please ask in the General Thread for the project. Note that you will not be added immediately to the project now. If you express an interest during the #2 thread, for example, the earliest you'll be added to the Voter list is for the #3.
5. I'll tally the votes when I wake up the morning after the Deadline (I don't care if you change things after the official Deadline, but once I tally, it's over). For this specific Vote, if people ask before the Deadline, I'll extend it.
Here's the list of the Voter Pool as it stands right now (and if I forgot anyone I approved, do let me know):
Spoiler:
AEnigma Ambrose ceilng raiser ceoofkobefans Clyde Frazier Colbinii cupcakesnake Doctor MJ Dooley DQuinn1575 Dr Positivity DraymondGold Dutchball97 eminence f4p falcolombardi Fundamentals21 Gibson22 HeartBreakKid homecourtloss iggymcfrack LA Bird JimmyFromNz Joao Saraiva lessthanjake ljspeelman Lou Fan Moonbeam Narigo OhayoKD OldSchoolNoBull One_and_Done penbeast0 rk2023 ShaqAttac Taj FTW Tim Lehrbach trelos6 trex_8063 ty 4191 ZeppelinPage
Alright, the Nominees for you to choose among for the next slot on the list (in alphabetical order):
For a board that understandably championed Mikan into the Top 16 with consensus voting (unsure if this is his highest position to date), am curious if a similar era/league relativity angle makes sense to use for Julius Erving. The Box Score is far from an end-all, be-all here.. but in BBR's "Big Three", Erving comes out looking like the best player of the 1972-76 ABA (28.7/12.1/4.8/2.4/2.0 on 55.8% TS in RS - 31.1/12.9/5.1/1.6/1.7 on 57.5% TS in PS). Virginia Squires' impact is a harder one to derive, but it seems like the Nets (I would reckon that's a situation more conducive towards maximizing Julius) saw their fortunes turn a full 180 team-result wise after Erving joined them; this being flanked with two damn impressive postseason runs en route to titles in 1974 and 1976. All the more impressive for a 23 and 25 year old. Aside from Giannis taking MIL to a title, I would say that's the magnum opus achievement of the nominee pool.
Furthermore, Proxy compiled these numbers - figured I'd relay them in context of this voting thread.
1971-72: (Vs 36-46 +2.2 rDRTG Floridans 4-0) 37.8 PPG Vs Team 118 PPG (32%) 64.55% TS% Vs 53.02 Allowed TS% = +11.53 rTS%
(Vs 44-40 +1.3 rDRTG Nets 3-4) 30.7 PPG Vs Team 116.7 PPG (26%) 52.84% Vs 52.02 Allowed TS% = +.82 rTS%
1972 OVERALL W/ MISSING BOX SCORE:
33.3 PPG Vs 40-43 1.3 rDRTG Team Average) 56.9 TS% Vs 52.52 Allowed TS% = +4.38 rTS% 110 TS+ ------- 1972-73: (Vs 56-28 -4.4 rDRTG Colonels 1-4) 29.6 PPG Vs Team 103.2 PPG (29%) 57.1 TS% Vs 51.51 Allowed TS% = +5.59 rTS%, 108 TS+
1973-74: (Vs 28-56 +2.6 rDRTG Squires 4-1) 26 PPG Vs Team 115.2 PPG (23%) 61.48 TS% Vs 51.68 Allowed TS% = +9.8 rTS% 121 TS+
(Vs 53-31 -3.5 rDRTG Colonels 4-0) 29.8 PPG Vs Team 102.5 PPG (29%) 54.29 TS% Vs 49.12 Allowed TS% = +5.17 rTS% 107 TS+
(Vs 51-33 +2.2 rDRTG Stars 4-1) 28.2 PPG Vs Team 102 PPG (28%) 55.48 TS% Vs 51.07 Allowed TS% = +4.41 rTS% 109 TS+
1974-75: (Vs 32-52 +2.1 rDRTG Spirits 1-4) 27.4 PPG Vs 102.4 Team PPG (27%) 50.7 TS% Vs 53.46 Allowed TS% = -2.76 rTS% 97 TS+
1975-76: (Vs 50-34 -0.5 rDRTG Spurs 4-3) 32.1 PPG Vs 106.3 Team PPG (30%) 56.6 TS% Vs 51.06 Allowed TS% = +5 rTS% 109 TS+
(Vs 60-24 -0.7 rDRTG Nuggets 4-2) 37.7 PPG Vs 116.8 Team PPG (32%) 66.1 TS% Vs 50.75 RS Allowed TS% = +15.35 rTS% 128 TS+(Using league average TS%)
POST 1972(37 GAMES OUT OF 48): 30.1 PPG+ 5.94 rTS% 111 TS+ Average
Mogspan wrote:I think they see the super rare combo of high IQ with freakish athleticism and overrate the former a bit, kind of like a hot girl who is rather articulate being thought of as “super smart.” I don’t know kind of a weird analogy, but you catch my drift.
Vote is for Julius Erving - I look at Dr.J as a "bigger" Dwyane Wade (who I think is a comparable player to Dirk). He doesn't dominate in the ways that you would think a superstar should in 2023. He doesn't have overly dominant defense. Isn't a point forward or a eyes behind the back passer. Doesn't have an amazing pull up game. Doesn't have a 3 ball.
What he does have though is really good decision making and insane athleticism. I think Bball IQ is the most scalable attribute in basketball. If you make the right decision then even if you a mediocre athlete you will come out ahead. Dr.J finds ways to get to the rim and leverage his insane athleticism.
While he doesn't look as good as he should in Phily, I think a lot of that comes down with coaching. The Sixers had good talent but they were not used properly, I think this goes without saying.
Dr.J's ABA career is enough proof to me of his dominance. Nearly every year his team upset another team in the post season and often had great records despite not having a very stacked team. Even when the Nets key players left the Nets still won titles, beating the very team that those players joined (the Spurs if I can recall). If Dirk's biggest claim to fame is carrying a team to a title that shouldn't have won, then Dr.J did the same thing (and quite frankly, there was more evidence that the 2011 Mavs should have won the playoffs regardless of what mainstream media thought).
I think Dr.J gets punished because of his aesthetics really. He doesn't play like how people want their best players to play, so he is assumed to be lesser than, but it doesn't really line up with what he did. He also is not properly interpreted as a 3 time champion as people often forget that the ABA titles are just as valid as NBA titles.
His impact must have been pretty high to do what he did in the ABA.
Even if one were to say the ABA wasn't as good competition, his teams were still not supposed to do what they did. Off the top of my head, I think one Dr.J team was upset or underachieved, the rest more or less exceeded expectations.
Even going back to Virginia, they are a terrible club that had barely any money in it. Dr.J took them to the playoffs twice even winning a series (going to the playoffs in a small league is nothing special, but both seasons Virginia did not have a losing record). The year after he left they were 28-56 (2nd to last in standings), which is about right for a team like that.
The year Dr.J joins the Nets they not only improved from a 30 win first round playoff team to the champions, but they swept an incredibly talented Kentucky team (and swept Utah in the finals as well).
The final ABA season the Nets aren't expected to do much. They had a huge collapse in the year prior in the post season, and then lose both their 2nd and third leading scorers due to financial troubles if I can recall. They beat the same team that inherits those players in the Spurs who have other NBA all-star level talent and a highly talented ensemble cast in the Nuggets (who would go on to be a good NBA team with many of their players intact post merger).
Now, those clubs are built much differently than Philly so it is entirely possible that the structure of Philly depressed Dr.J's impact (I think on many levels we do know that coaching was a problem for them).
It's a shame we do not have more advance data for the ABA because it seems clear that Dr.J's must have some type of incredible impact on his teams that he can carry them to defeat teams that should be way superior on paper. Maybe Dr.J is a bit like D-Wade in that he doesn't have the best impact stats but he seems to be the driving factor for winning games in a more crude manner.
Alternate vote is for Chris Paul - CP3 has about everything you cold ask for except health.
Usually his size is cited as a weakness. Size, speed, strength etc are means to an end. Being undersized is a weakness for defense not offense. No one thinks CP3 is a weak defender. People are naturally inclined to link lack of success with offense.
Now, one might naturally say "yeah, but if he was bigger he would be able to dunk". And it's like....the Clippers did not lose because they could not score. CP3 has anchored many elite offenses.
The whole "he plays too safe" is nonsense and is usually said by Americans because they are subconsciously influenced by American Football. There is no such thing as a hail marry in basketball. You get the ball in the hoop or you do not. There isn't any difference between someone who scores in the half court by hitting a pick and roll pass and someone who for some reason throws a bounce pass 2/3rd of the court in transition - they are both worth 2 points in the end.
So the criticism that he plays too safe doesn't make much sense because in the end his offense was often the best. If he played more wreckless how would that help?
The criticism that he is too small doesn't make sense as a weakness, as for a point guard he is one of the better defenders of his era. Now, him being bigger COULD become a major strength like Ben Simmons, but that is more of an anomaly. A player is more likely to be like Magic Johnson on defense if they are big and playing PG.
He, like a lot of players during his era is slammed for "lebron ball", but again, it is rather baseless. Elite offenses, why are we punishing people for aesthetics? He has lead the league in assist and hockey assist multiple times.
He takes safe shots - well, then how come he is cited as the best mid range shooter of his generation? Mid range are not safe shots, if anything he was "bigger" then he would get getting dunks which are safer shots.
His play holds up in the post season likely because he has insanely high b-ball iq, handles, and shot making with good defense. Those things tend to be highly transferable and resilient.
In terms of "goodness" and longevity CP3 is well there. He was the best player on a finals team a couple years ago in his mid 30s. His one weakness is he gets injured, and it's a major weakness, but hey, Karl Malone not being resilient is a major weakness also.
My nomination is for Nikola Jokic(I'm very peak oriented and he has enough seasons where it is pretty easy to see he is no fluke, he is probably better than some of the players on the top 10 list already)
I'm considering putting CP3 over Dr.J but I have to say, what Dr.J did in the ABA still feels undersold.
ABA's competition doesn't even matter. His teams were objectively not the best and they all overachieved multiple times. We are talking about a guy who played for the Virginia squires and was still winning series every year.
If a supplementary or major argument against Dr.J is that he had the weakest competition in a pre merger era then you can counter by saying he had the worst teammates by far - and you can't even begin to contest that. I mean Kevin Durant is on the list for god sakes, you really want to compare Durant's teammates to the Nets and the Virginia Squires? (I'm bolding it because it just sounds so scrubby, kind of like how people always cite Smush Parker).
Dr.J was a dominant enough force that teams filled with not only NBA All-stars but All-NBA level players still couldn't defeat the Nets. That is really powerful. Multiple players from Kentucky and Denver have made the top 100 in the past and will probably make it here as well.
How else can you explain the Nets winning other than Dr.J having some out of this world impact? He must be comparable at some level to guys like Nowitzki and Wade.
Seriously, someone explain it to me because I feel like this kind of trumps all the other (legitimate) questions about Dr.J.
Vote: Karl Malone: I could easily have gone Kevin Durant here if not for his off court issues which lead to my questioning his leadership. Karl Malone obviously had off court issues too but they didn't affect his play or his team until his final year in LA. Otherwise he was a monstrously hardworking ironman who played with consistent intensity during regular seasons and playoffs. I have both Malone and Durant over Nowitzki here, Malone for his consistency and defense, Durant for both offensive and defensive play. Erving also deserves a strong look.
Alternative: Kevin Durant: While Durant's personality and ability to elevate teammates is certainly questionable, he's been one of the NBA's all-time greatest scorers and a solid defender for well over a decade in what I classify as the strongest era in league history (albeit one that is easier to be an ATG scorer than any other). I think there's been a backlash against him that will die down a bit over time and this seems the right spot for him though, again, it's close with Julius who will probably be my next choice.
Nomination: Jokic Not sure this guy deserve this spot in front of guys like Frazier, Stockton, Moses, or Ewing, but not sure they don't. When in doubt, I will go with the active player knowing that sometimes I don't give them enough credit for what they've done.
Alternate Nomination: Moses Malone -- HUGE flaws but great strengths as well. Was a legit MVP and great player for a few years and a very good one for a lot more. I normally don't like bigs who don't pass but Moses led those Houston teams further than they should have gone then made the superteam in Philly work for at least a year.
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
Voting: Karl Malone trumps everybody with his huge longevity advantage. Alternate: Julius Erving: at his best was better than durant, that's it imho.
Durant is just behind. i think cp3 needs to be behind those 3, pettit and maybe barkley. giannis, i just think it's too early for him, i would still have all of these guys mentioned, stockton, nash, wade, ewing, harden, pippen, baylor. mhhh, i think he's 30ish right now. and chill with jokic, he has 5 all nba seasons.
Nominations: pettit. like i said previously, he's not that far off robertson and west, slightly worse era and longevity but he was about as prominent or more in the league in his time and was the best player in the world in 57 and 58. needs to be like top 23, he's over paul and barkley in my opinion, i can see kd erving and both malones above him.
alternate nomination would be moses: best player on a championship team and bridged the best player in the world title between the kareem era and the bird era
Gibson22 wrote:Voting: Karl Malone trumps everybody with his huge longevity advantage. Alternate: Julius Erving: at his best was better than durant, that's it imho.
Durant is just behind. i think cp3 needs to be behind those 3, pettit and maybe barkley. giannis, i just think it's too early for him, i would still have all of these guys mentioned, stockton, nash, wade, ewing, harden, pippen, baylor. mhhh, i think he's 30ish right now. and chill with jokic, he has 5 all nba seasons.
Nominations: pettit. like i said previously, he's not that far off robertson and west, slightly worse era and longevity but he was about as prominent or more in the league in his time and was the best player in the world in 57 and 58. needs to be like top 23, he's over paul and barkley in my opinion, i can see kd erving and both malones above him.
alternate nomination would be moses: best player on a championship team and bridged the best player in the world title between the kareem era and the bird era
I don't know, Dr.J's longevity is pretty big. With 16 all-star selections I am surprised he is not considered a longevity guy (that's more than K Malone, albeit that doesn't mean that he aged better).
Do you feel that Karl Malone was usually better than Julius Erving on a year to year basis?
Generally, I don't like the direction where this project as far as: 1) Modernism. It was always understood that the point of these rankings was to measure the impact they had in their career, not to judge if 60s players were as good as superstars of today. They weren't, they were ridicolously bad compared to even nice high school players of today. The things about the rules, and basketball today looking so easy had a lot of yall thinking that really players of 50 years ago would be better today or that players of today wouldnt be allowed to bla bla bla. That's not it. But that's not the point of a ranking. 2) The point of longevity isn't about it being enough to assess how good a player was, it's about determining who added more cumulative marginal value to their team. Like, i see somebody saying like, ok, 8 seasons is enough for me to judge bla bla bla. the point is not about the player being in enough situations and doing enough stuff for us to judge and to understand if he was a fraud or not, it's about the damn cumulative value. if you do good things for 17 seasons it's better than if you do for 11, that's it.
So the project i think is getting too influenced by these 2 bad concepts that i feel were always clear but now aren't anymore, as much.
Gibson22 wrote:Generally, I don't like the direction where this project as far as: 1) Modernism. It was always understood that the point of these rankings was to measure the impact they had in their career, not to judge if 60s players were as good as superstars of today. They weren't, they were ridicolously bad compared to even nice high school players of today. The things about the rules, and basketball today looking so easy had a lot of yall thinking that really players of 50 years ago would be better today or that players of today wouldnt be allowed to bla bla bla. That's not it. But that's not the point of a ranking. 2) The point of longevity isn't about it being enough to assess how good a player was, it's about determining who added more cumulative marginal value to their team. Like, i see somebody saying like, ok, 8 seasons is enough for me to judge bla bla bla. the point is not about the player being in enough situations and doing enough stuff for us to judge and to understand if he was a fraud or not, it's about the damn cumulative value. if you do good things for 17 seasons it's better than if you do for 11, that's it.
So the project i think is getting too influenced by these 2 bad concepts that i feel were always clear but now aren't anymore, as much.
I think you're being influenced by a loud minority for #1. It's just one guy saying the same thing.
For number two, if that is a response to me, I am saying Dr.J played for 16 full seasons. That is a long career. How is he not a longevity guy? Cumulatively he did add value to his team, likely more than players like Larry Bird.
On a related note, longevity and how it was evaluated was never clear. Some people do not care about longevity, some do - that has always been the case here.
There are at least 2 posters that have said they look strongly at modernity for what it is worth, and seeing Giannis this early does indeed show that longevity is less important to some poster than others. I know I am one that uses it as a relatively small factor once we have enough seasons (8 or so) to establish a level of prime. I don't ignore it but it's not as strong a factor for me as for many others.
“Most people use statistics like a drunk man uses a lamppost; more for support than illumination,” Andrew Lang.
penbeast0 wrote:There are at least 2 posters that have said they look strongly at modernity for what it is worth, and seeing Giannis this early does indeed show that longevity is less important to some poster than others. I know I am one that uses it as a relatively small factor once we have enough seasons (8 or so) to establish a level of prime. I don't ignore it but it's not as strong a factor for me as for many others.
Giannis has been around for a long time already.
Just because a player is active does not mean he isn't a great player or his career is too short. Giannis isn't 22 years old, he is a grown man with a full career already. This project has always had players with short careers rank highly.
Some people need to learn to accept that current doesn't mean premature (always ).
There aren't that many 20 season players to choose from. 7-8 strong seasons is the norm in the NBA for star players.
Actually, as I am looking at this list, all those players except Giannis played for an incredibly long time.
1/5th of the nominees have "low" longevity, and he just got in this round (and the guy who was elected to the actual list before Giannis was nominated played 21 seasons).
It would see to me that if you value longevity you are likely to have more favorable results than someone who favors peak.
Gibson22 wrote:Generally, I don't like the direction where this project as far as: 1) Modernism. It was always understood that the point of these rankings was to measure the impact they had in their career, not to judge if 60s players were as good as superstars of today. They weren't, they were ridicolously bad compared to even nice high school players of today. The things about the rules, and basketball today looking so easy had a lot of yall thinking that really players of 50 years ago would be better today or that players of today wouldnt be allowed to bla bla bla. That's not it. But that's not the point of a ranking. 2) The point of longevity isn't about it being enough to assess how good a player was, it's about determining who added more cumulative marginal value to their team. Like, i see somebody saying like, ok, 8 seasons is enough for me to judge bla bla bla. the point is not about the player being in enough situations and doing enough stuff for us to judge and to understand if he was a fraud or not, it's about the damn cumulative value. if you do good things for 17 seasons it's better than if you do for 11, that's it.
So the project i think is getting too influenced by these 2 bad concepts that i feel were always clear but now aren't anymore, as much.
Re: point of these rankings to measure career impact. It's more open-ended than that. An approach like this is fits within the parameters of the project, but there are many approaches that do as well. To me the key things are:
1. Career not Peak. Up to you to decide how Longevity factors in, but you shouldn't have the same ranking order for your Career GOAT list as you would for your Peak GOAT list.
2. Competition-focused not Influence-focused. An an Influence-focused endeavor, someone who comes up with something new matters regardless of how much they were able to use it toward superior competitive achievement. This is a worthy GOAT list in its own right, but here we're focused on your competitive achievement.
(Note that this might seem like something that implies all eras are to be weighted equally, but it is not specified as such, and nor has it ever practically been the case.
Bob Pettit was always ahead of George Mikan in these projects until 2020, and it looks likely Mikan's lead is going to grow further this time. Frankly I find this to be interesting the shift we've seen, and it certainly could serve as a topic for a deeper conversation in its own right.)
3. Constraints about what basketball competition is used as the foundation for analysis. This is something that's varied to degrees depending on who runs the project, but in all circumstances it has been NBA-dominated .
penbeast0 wrote:There are at least 2 posters that have said they look strongly at modernity for what it is worth, and seeing Giannis this early does indeed show that longevity is less important to some poster than others. I know I am one that uses it as a relatively small factor once we have enough seasons (8 or so) to establish a level of prime. I don't ignore it but it's not as strong a factor for me as for many others.
Have you compared the longevity of Giannis and Petit?
While Pettit has a couple extra seasons of Prime, Giannis has the best 3-4 seasons [in a tier of their own] and a much better post-season track-record.
KD is my vote. I have him ranked ahead of Dirk, who just got in, and Malone. I haven’t seen anyone really justify why KD isn’t ahead of Malone and Dirk. Here are their per 100 stats.
In the case of D.Rob, the big argument in his favour is being a GOAT candidate on D, the fact he can also league the league in scoring is just a nice add on benefit that pumps him up even further. But with Dirk and Malone their case over KD is heavily reliant on how their offense holds up compared to his, and it’s a comparison they lose by huge margins. I think Dr J honestly has a better case over KD than those guys. I don’t buy his case, but at least it exists. KD is a solid defender when he wants to be too. Not as impactful as Karl, but certainly more than Dirk. I just feel there is not enough discussion about how KD should be in already.
KD is faster, longer, more athletic, and a better shooter and defender than Dirk on the eye test. Stats and the way each did and didn't drive various upper degrees of high level winning seem to back that up. I would say KD had a better handle and was a better passer too, which the stats also back up.
Kobe is in already, but look how he compares to KD. Clearly inferior.
Spoiler:
As for Durant vs Kobe I don’t understand the argument for Kobe. Durant was a better scorer, better defender, and a better complementary piece who fit in more easily with others. His longevity is enough that any minor advantage Kobe has is negated.
Let’s just look at a peak to peak comparison to start with. Because KD has the consistency of a metronome (when he’s on the court), a number of different years can be advanced as his “peak”. But 2014 seems to have the strongest case. So let’s look at 2014 KD v.s 2008 Kobe (which is often advanced as Kobe’s best year).
KD: 41.8 pp 100, 9.6 rp 100, 7.2 ap 100, 123 Ortg, 104 Drtg, on an insane 635. TS%
Kobe: 36.5 pp 100, 8.1 rp 100, 6.9 ap 100, 115 Ortg, 106 Drtg, on 576. TS%
KD is better in literally every, single category, and not by a small margin. But let’s be fair to them and look at a bigger, more representative sample.
Here’s KD from 2010 to 2023, a 13 year stretch if we exclude 2020.
RS per 100: 38.2, 10, 6.3, 120 Ortg, 106 Drtg, on 631. TS%
So again, KD is basically beating him in every single category except for a trivial defensive rating difference, which could just be noise given how close it is and the sample size. He’s scoring more, and scoring more on insane efficiency. Even his assists are similar, despite Kobe’s supposed passing advantage (which FYI isn’t much of an advantage if you don’t like passing). The difference in Ortg is insane. KD is just cooking him.
On the defensive end KD is almost 7 feet tall with crazy long arms, so he can to a limited extent provide rim protection and switch on to bigger guys, all of which was key to his time on the Warriors. KD fits so much better than Kobe in so many situations, needing a lower usage and complementing other guys. KD was also misused to some degree in OKC, with it now being apparent in hindsight that Westbrook was not an optimal co-star for KD (to put it lightly). He often played with poor spacing in OKC, and thrived anyway.
But let’s turn to the one thing Kobe supporters can maybe argue, which is longevity. I don’t buy this, because KD has had enough longevity to score almost 27K points despite playing through several seasons cut short by COVID and lock outs, so at that point I’d say he has “enough” longevity that unless the person he’s being compared to is a comparably good player longevity isn’t enough to move the needle. But then I’m not even sure we can criticise KD’s longevity too much. Kobe has basically 12-13 healthy-ish, prime type seasons. His last few seasons were negative value add, and the early part of his career is mostly not adding too much. If we took out those years Kobe actually only has 28k+ points, so barely different to KD (who isn’t done yet either).
But what of KD? He was healthy from 2010 to 2014. That’s 5 prime seasons right there. 2016 healthy. That’s 6. 2017 and 2018 he was being rested and was out by design basically, I count those as healthy seasons. KD is up to 8 prime seasons. 2019? He was healthy all the way to the finals, then had an injury. I don’t dock him for that because it’s absurd. It would be rewarding guys like Kobe for getting bounced out in the first round, before they had a chance to injure themselves. That’s 9 prime seasons. In my mind that’s enough to overcome Kobe’s longevity easily. But I also feel KD added good value from 2021 to 2023. In those 3 seasons some of the games he missed were for rest, or due to reasons having nothing to do with injury; if he and the team were keen on him playing more, he could have. He was also healthy for the playoffs in 2021 and 2023 when it mattered (which is what he was being rested for).
I just don’t see what Kobe’s argument over KD would be. KD is just flat out better.
I’d also be interested in Karl Malone, who has more longevity than most if not all remaining candidates, and whose case v.s Kobe I discussed below. Moses Malone has a lot of longevity also, but I am doubtful about how his game would translate today. He feels like a player who was built for a different era, and that holds him back a little.
Spoiler:
I am looking at the stats, and I'm not really seeing Kobe's case.
From 88 to 98 Malone's per 100 stats were 36.6/14.5/4.5 with 591 TS%.
From 00 to 10 Kobe's per 100 stats were 36.9/7.6/6.9 with 558 TS%
But Karl gets worse in the playoffs right? Um, ok a little bit, but not enough that his production drops below Kobe.
From 88 to 98 Malone's per 100 PS stats were 35.2/14.9/3.9 with 534 TS%.
From 00 to 10 Kobe's per 100 PS stats were 35/7/6.6 with 545 TS%
Then leave the stats aside. Karl Malone is a huge force on D, clearly more impactful than Kobe on that end. Malone certainly led the Jazz to successful seasons. He just didn't have the fortune to play with the stacked teams Kobe did. Kobe also juices his stats by playing alot of his prime during the post 2004 rule changes; Malone is doing it under less favourable scoring rules. Malone has a big longevity advantage too.
It seems like the Mailman just flat out delivered, regular season or not
Dr J seems to have peaked higher than Kobe, who has already been nominated, as I discuss below.
Spoiler:
I've already had threads discussing Malone and D.Rob's case, but let's look at Dr J. Underrated due to injuries later in his career that slowed him a little, and forced to take less shots to help manage the egos on his early NBA teams. However there's really no doubt in my mind he peaked higher than Kobe and had longer longevity than people think at first. He also has size, length, hands and athleticism that let him do stuff on both ends that Kobe never could.
1976 PS Erving: 37.4 pp 100, 13.6 r, 5.3a, 2.1, 2.2, 128 Ortg/103 Drtg, 610 TS%, and a title.
1976 ABA was as strong or stronger than 1976 NBA in terms of top teams.
Giannis is another player in this category. Yeh, sure, Giannis only has 10 years in the league; but when Jordan first retired he only had 9 and people were already calling him one of the greatest ever. In today’s game would Jordan really be more impactful than Giannis? I have my doubts. Just comparing Giannis/D.Rob/Dirk/Kobe’s best seasons, here’s how they come out:
So the first observation is that Giannis is the best of the bunch and it’s not close. The only reason not to take him yet is if you don’t think he has “enough” longevity. He isn’t just a force offensively, he’s one of the best defensive players you could have in the modern era. Defense is something that’s hard to measure, but I think we can all agree D.Rob and Giannis are 2 of the best defensive players ever. Then on the other end they’d only need to be solid to be in discussion here. But they’re not just solid. Giannis is flat out better than the rest on offense, and while D.Rob is the “worst” of the 4 in the playoffs on O, he’s still close enough that I don’t know that the others have much of a case over him given his all-time defensive anchoring ability. If you’re taking Dirk or Kobe it’s got to be on longevity. Kobe looks the worst on balance by far. He’s 2nd of the group on volume scoring, but he does it by having bad efficiency which is probably part of why his TS% is the worst of anyone except playoffs D.Rob, and his Ortg is the worst of the bunch on balance (because regular season isn’t worthless, your performance there adds a lot of value). Then factor in this is literally Kobe’s very best stretch. If we’d run this from 00-10 for instance, he’d look so much worse (see above comparison with KD).
Dirk’s high end run in the 2011 playoffs is a level of impact neither D.Rob nor Kobe had during a singular playoff run, putting up 39.1 pp100, 11.5 rp100, 3.6 ap100 on 115 Ortg/105 Drtg, and 609 TS% while taking out Kobe’s Lakers, KD’s Thunder, and Blazers, and the first incarnation of the Heatles, is crazy impressive. Yeh, they’d have gone down to the 2012 Heatles once they balanced the team a little and figured out the line-ups to play, etc, but nobody expected them to win that year. They weren’t even supposed to beat the Lakers, and they ka-rushed them. Check out the stat-line of 32 year old Kobe v.s 32 year old Dirk. It’s not pretty. Kobe had 23.3 ppg, 3rpg, 2.5 apg on 519 TS%, v.s Dirk’s 25.3ppg, 9.3 rpg, 2.5apg on an insane 673 TS%.
Warspite wrote:Billups was a horrible scorer who could only score with an open corner 3 or a FT.
rk2023 wrote:The Box Score is far from an end-all, be-all here.. but in BBR's "Big Three",
The death of the box score has been greatly exaggerated.
We know the PC board tends to eschew the box score. Perhaps it gets a passing mention before we venture into "better" stats like impact metrics and WOWY or before we venture into the realm of film study and issues like leadership and winning. I mean, for goodness sake, the box score barely even accounts for defense, and it's half the game! So let's look at our project so far. All the sophisticated arguments, all the ink spilled, all the hours spent debating fellow posters. With the wisdom and varied views of basketball beyond the box score, surely the deviations from a simple box score ranking would be fairly extreme.
Now as it just so happens, I have a simple box score ranking. It goes from ages 22-31**, so it's only a 10 year peak measure (so no longevity considered), and it uses the BBRef "Big Three" and it's weighed 75/25 postseason to regular season (**karl malone and steve nash are 27-36 and 26-35 respectively because they have such late peaks, and I included Dr. J in the ABA). Also, note that I removed Jokic (short career), Kawhi and AD (injuries) and Dolph Schayes (era) who clearly were not going to get traction in this project up until now for reasons other than people not believing their box score numbers reflect how good they were.
If we include all of the current nominees plus the closest nominee from last time (Barkley), that gets us to 24 players. So how many players in the Top 24 comes from say, spots 101-200 on the box score list?
Well, here it is, with the players who have been inducted bolded:
101 Draymond Green 102 Tom Heinsohn 103 Gary Payton 104 Rajon Rondo 105 Bailey Howell 106 DeAndre Jordan 107 Hersey Hawkins 108 Rik Smits 109 Jeff Hornacek 110 Maurice Cheeks 111 Chris Webber 112 Fred Brown 113 Mike Conley 114 Steve Smith 115 Paul Millsap 116 John Havlicek 117 Paul Westphal 118 Marcus Camby 119 Antonio Daniels 120 Bob Cousy 121 Terry Cummings 122 Dominique Wilkins 123 Bob Dandridge 124 Jerome Kersey 125 Mark Aguirre 126 Sidney Moncrief 127 Mark Price 128 Rasheed Wallace 129 Kerry Kittles 130 Maurice Lucas 131 Charlie Ward 132 Joakim Noah 133 Neil Johnston 134 Robert Parish 135 Rashard Lewis 136 Wes Unseld 137 Clifford Ray 138 Dave Cowens 139 Zelmo Beaty 140 James Posey 141 Serge Ibaka 142 Bam Adebayo 143 LaMarcus Aldridge 144 Gail Goodrich 145 Roy Hibbert 146 Lou Hudson 147 Jack Sikma 148 Robert Horry 149 Lamar Odom 150 Kyle Lowry 151 Rod Strickland 152 Kiki Vandeweghe 153 Carlos Boozer 154 John Salley 155 Karl-Anthony Towns 156 Chet Walker 157 Tony Parker 158 Josh Smith 159 Sam Perkins 160 Jerry Lucas 161 Bill Laimbeer 162 Bryon Russell 163 Peja Stojaković 164 Alvan Adams 165 Tobias Harris 166 Vlade Divac 167 Earl Monroe 168 Kirk Hinrich 169 Bob Lanier 170 Mookie Blaylock 171 Yao Ming 172 Paul Arizin 173 Hassan Whiteside 174 Paul Pressey 175 Otis Thorpe 176 Artis Gilmore 177 Tristan Thompson 178 Pat Connaughton 179 Tracy McGrady 180 Jrue Holiday 181 Michael Cooper 182 Ed Macauley 183 Richard Hamilton 184 Jason Terry 185 Harry Gallatin 186 Grant Hill 187 Tyson Chandler 188 Anthony Mason 189 Domantas Sabonis 190 Montrezl Harrell 191 Nate McMillan 192 Darryl Dawkins 193 Tayshaun Prince 194 Phil Chenier 195 Rolando Blackman 196 Boris Diaw 197 Pascal Siakam 198 Khris Middleton 199 Hal Greer 200 Joe Dumars
Hmm, no bolded names. But ok, that's spots 101-200, how much deviation were you expecting? Surely spots 51-100 will be a target-rich environment.
51 Jamal Murray 52 Shawn Kemp 53 George Gervin 54 Patrick Ewing 55 Jimmy Butler 56 Kevin McHale 57 Anfernee Hardaway 58 Gus Williams 59 Clint Capela 60 Paul Pierce 61 Blake Griffin 62 Carmelo Anthony 63 Bobby Jones 64 Frank Ramsey 65 Isiah Thomas 66 Terry Porter 67 Scottie Pippen 68 Steve Nash 69 Marc Gasol 70 Allen Iverson 71 Walter Davis 72 Larry Foust 73 Damian Lillard 74 Bill Sharman 75 Kevin Johnson 76 Brad Daugherty 77 Vern Mikkelsen 78 Paul George 79 Ben Wallace 80 Al Horford 81 Alonzo Mourning 82 Jayson Tatum 83 Willis Reed 84 Cedric Maxwell 85 Chris Bosh 86 Kevin Love 87 Don Nelson 88 Shawn Marion 89 Tim Hardaway 90 Horace Grant 91 Elvin Hayes 92 Bob McAdoo 93 Marques Johnson 94 Toni Kukoč 95 Jason Kidd 96 Deandre Ayton 97 Deron Williams 98 Doc Rivers 99 Devin Booker 100 James Worthy
Hmm, ok, I guess we'll look at 41-50. Surely a few names will be there.
41 Clyde Drexler 42 Chauncey Billups 43 Sam Jones 44 Rick Barry 45 Clyde Lovellette 46 Russell Westbrook 47 Vince Carter 48 Rudy Gobert 49 Amar'e Stoudemire 50 Adrian Dantley
31 Manu Ginóbili 32 Elgin Baylor 33 John Stockton 34 Walt Frazier 35 Moses Malone 36 George Yardley 37 Dwight Howard 38 Joel Embiid 39 Pau Gasol 40 Kyrie Irving
Well, we've got 24 names, so they must at least start by position 24. So where does the first inducted person finally come in on the box score list?
1 Michael Jordan 2 George Mikan 3 LeBron James 4 Wilt Chamberlain 5 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 6 Giannis Antetokounmpo 7 Chris Paul 8 Shaquille O'Neal 9 Tim Duncan 10 Kevin Durant 11 Hakeem Olajuwon 12 Jerry West 13 Charles Barkley 14 Magic Johnson 15 David Robinson 16 Oscar Robertson 17 Dirk Nowitzki 18 James Harden 19 Julius Erving 20 Stephen Curry 21 Kevin Garnett 22 Larry Bird 23 Karl Malone 24 Kobe Bryant 25 Ray Allen 26 Dwyane Wade 27 Bill Russell
27th. And of course it's Bill Russell. Not only the biggest outlier in NBA history in so many ways, but a guy who is hamstrung by the fact the box score didn't keep track of his biggest outlier stat (blocks) when he played and there was no BPM, a stat I feel like he would do very well in. He is almost certainly jumping DWade and Allen if he has all of his stats. The other 23 players are literally squished into the top 24. So with longevity factored in and some winning bonuses/demerits factored in, basically the box score rankings hold amazingly firm and have just been shuffled around a little.
Takeaways?
1. Downplaying the box score doesn't really seem to make a lot of sense. In fact, these very rankings don't downplay it at all and hew quite closely to it. 2. James Harden has to be nominated quite soon. Can't nominate everyone who is great by the box score and just skip one guy. 3. Ray Allen? Well, he was genuinely amazing from age 22-31 in the playoffs, with his numbers soaring; however, he only had 4 playoffs and it only encompassed 37 games. Almost 80% of his playoff games come from after he turned 31 so this is just an example of the fact that any hard-coded criteria will probably let someone slip through. His 2008-2010 playoffs do not show the same resiliency. 4. The Steve Nash talk I've seen in recent threads seems quite premature. No has been selected outside of the box score top 27 so far. And arguably his nearest comp, Magic Johnson, was 14th and, with even better elite longevity than Nash, he was only Inducted at 10th. Nash is at 68th. You could probably remove 5 or 6 names that will not be considered for one reason or another and get him into the lower 60's, but that's a very far leap up the board for someone who didn't have exceptional longevity (or even above average longevity), didn't win a title, does very poorly by actual vs expected titles, does very poorly by playoff resilience, and who has no real defining WCF/Finals series (not that he was terrible) that usually boost lower longevity type players.
HeartBreakKid wrote:I'm considering putting CP3 over Dr.J but I have to say, what Dr.J did in the ABA still feels undersold.
ABA's competition doesn't even matter. His teams were objectively not the best and they all overachieved multiple times. We are talking about a guy who played for the Virginia squires and was still winning series every year.
If a supplementary or major argument against Dr.J is that he had the weakest competition in a pre merger era then you can counter by saying he had the worst teammates by far - and you can't even begin to contest that. I mean Kevin Durant is on the list for god sakes, you really want to compare Durant's teammates to the Nets and the Virginia Squires? (I'm bolding it because it just sounds so scrubby, kind of like how people always cite Smush Parker).
Dr.J was a dominant enough force that teams filled with not only NBA All-stars but All-NBA level players still couldn't defeat the Nets. That is really powerful. Multiple players from Kentucky and Denver have made the top 100 in the past and will probably make it here as well.
How else can you explain the Nets winning other than Dr.J having some out of this world impact? He must be comparable at some level to guys like Nowitzki and Wade.
Seriously, someone explain it to me because I feel like this kind of trumps all the other (legitimate) questions about Dr.J.
I did a comparison a thread or two back, but Chris Paul’s years in New Orleans line up age-wise with Dr. J’s ABA years and he put up very similar numbers against much better competition. He didn’t have the same playoff success in a team level, but he did beat Dirk 4-1, narrrowly lost to the Duncan Spurs 4-3, and then had another big series in a loss to the championship Pau/Kobe Lakers. Whereas the best player Dr. J had to go up against was Artis Gilmore.
From age 26 on, when Erving went to the NBA and Paul went to the Clippers, it feels like Paul has a very clear edge the rest of their careers. Paul has better box numbers and his impact numbers exceed his box numbers as much as anyone in history due to his excellent passing, playmaking, and defense. Meanwhile, the on/off data we have of Erving in Philadelphia paints a very different picture. He generally is very middle of the pack on a team level finishing well behind Malone and Cheeks.
Even if you take Dr. J’s ABA success at face value and assume that yes, he really was a massively impactful star for those 5 years and it didn’t have anything to do with the weaker competition he faced, I would still posit that Paul outplayed him by a larger amount on a per year basis over the next 11 seasons to say nothing of the 2 extra seasons Paul had when Erving wasn’t in the league.
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