It seems like the list was a bunch of nothing. Ended up being as predictable as pie. Bill Russell, as great as he was, lives on the reputation of those rings. He certainly isn't an innovator in the way hakeem was. I also think that he believes wilt is overrated due to his rings. Magic got dinged due to his lack of numbers (aids). Lebron is not better than Magic. And neither is Kareem. People still seek out hakeem to help them with their game. They don't seek out shaq or kareem, and I still think that Tim is better than Shaq and Hakeem. I would move Kobe, Tim and Magic up and lower Russell and Lebron and Kareem. Kareem was good when he was younger but he lost everything but the skyhook and was hanging on at the end.
I just looked up the stats and Harden has actually played almost 1 entire season more in regular games than Curry Curry played 625 games and is out for the rest of the season Harden so far has played 683 games and should play at least 3 more games. Makes zero sense why Harden isn't on this sense. Not even counting this year's MVP year, which will make 6 TOP 10 in MVP voting, Harden has already finished Top 10 MVP voting 5 times 5 times in TOP 10 MVP VOTE!!! And he's 27 years old . so we're talking 6 times at 27 years old! Ray Allen = 1 time (9th place) Paul Pierce = 1 time(7th) I'm not even going to talk about Reggie Miller and how this guy is #28th considering he never even made ALL NBA 2nd team. HE NEVER MADE ALL NBA 2nd team!!!
Yea, KAREEM WAS REALLY HANGING ON AT THE END!!! AT age 38 years old... I REPEAT 38. KAREEM WAS HANGING ON AT AGE 38 where he averaged 23 points at AGE 38 AT AGE 38, he was TOP 5 in MVP VOTE. AGE AGE 38, he was ALL NBA 1st team HE MADE ALL NBA 1st team during the GOLDEN ERA oF CENTERS playing against guys like: HAKEEM MOSES SAMPSON(The Hall of Fame version of Ralph Sampson before his injuries) EWING PARRISH SILKMA ARTIS GILMORE AND HIS SIDEBURN JOE BARRY CARE ROLL(JUST KIDDING ON THIS ONE, but he put Awesome stats. The modern day version of Joe Barry Caroll is KAT and COUSINS. Great stats, lousy players)
Curry set the all time single season in 3s, has won 2 titles, mvp. Harden hasn't done any of that. Now he might. Others on the list haven't either, but most on the list that haven't won a title have longevity over harden, so that we can see their career properly. Guys like westbrook and paul george and the greak freek and anothony davis are all too new. Harden is in that same boat. Curry has had career defining moments, harden hasn't.
you can score 23 when you are 7'9 inchs and nobody can block your shot. His defense wasn't good. Look at his rebounding after age 33. It was pitiful. It's like craig biggio and 3000 hits. He was embarrassing himself.
LOL..."you can score 23 when you are 7'9 inch" said Manute Bol, Mursean, Shawn bradley, Bullit(that India guy, don't know his game, sam bulit something), Nevitt,Preiest Laurderale, Keith Kloss, Mark Eaton...there's like 20 guys on this list!!!! And yet, only one other guy that could score like that, YAO MING. That's the same stupid YAO MING CRAP, "he should score 20 just because he's 7'6", let's not put in facts that other 7'6, 7'4 guys can't even walk
So based on height(according to WHAT's logic) THABETT #2 pick overall of Mempis at 7'3" should score more points than Kareem at only 7'2"(Kareem never measured higher than 7'1", so probably about 50 players taller than Kareem in the NBA history)
See, its hard to define career. Because if you look at Duncan's, its the epitome of a pristine career. Had the top chair from day 1 when he arrived, was begged to never leave them when he was a FA, was told of personnel movement (Ginobili), had his pick of when he wanted to leave. Widely regarded as the best power forward to ever play the game. Revered by Spurs fans, teammates, coaches, owners. Shaq left Orlando and was the bad guy, fought with Kobe and his ass kicked out, hung around teams too long who didn't really want him anymore. Huge weakness in one aspect of his game throughout his career. Was overweight almost half his career but got away on physical talent and experience later on, as well as a weaker level of competition. Just how I saw it.
Right, exactly. Sure, but all those things are just within his era. There is virtually ZERO way of knowing how Russell would perform in the 80s/90s/00s/10s. There is similarly no way of doing it in reverse.... EXCEPT in reverse it is a MUCH MUCH easier argument to hypothesize. For example, I feel MUCH MUCH better about hypothesizing that Hakeem would be just as dominant defensively if he replaced Russell than the reverse. Is that unfair? Perhaps... but not really. In any sport, as the sport evolves and grows in a positive way - eg. gets bigger, more popular, faster, more teams with more great players, etc. it only makes sense the all time greats from those newer eras player vs player would probably be better. Not that Russell couldn't have been better if he grew up in this era, but he didn't. As I said previously, if we ignore that, why isn't Russell #1 on everyone's list with Wilt #2 then? Not the offensive stats of Wilt, but the equivalent defensively, the equally dominant rebounder, equal passer, etc. and won championship after championship...
No list would satisfy everyone's opinion and/or settle once for all who is better than whom. I kind of like this list. I have always believed that there is no objective way to compare players from different eras in an absolute sense. For example, you can't compare Shaq with Wilt and ask, "Who is the BETTER PLAYER in the absolute sense. Even the shoes Wilt wore were inferior to Shaq's, not to mention the medical treatment, the coaching sophistication, etc. Heck, you can't even compare players in the same era in absolutely objective ways. Look at how the MVP debate goes year after year. Comparing CAREER immediately relativizes the eras. You are now judged by how much you have accomplished given the environment in which you played. Of course, the methodology still matters. How much one weights some aspects would affect the ranking.
I agree. For this list, career comparison isn't so much on end-result accomplishments like MVPs, total team wins, championships, but rather on the capabilities of that player to lift his team to championship-level over his career relative to his peers. A guy who is just stuck in a bad situation for several years of his prime through no fault of his own, like Kevin Garnett, is not docked by this methodology. Instead he tries to tease out the player's impact on his team based on his combination of skills and tendencies (supplemented by the box score stats) and the +/- data that is publicly available. I like it.
I get it for sure, and generally agree. My problem with the NBA in particular is just how different of a game it was. When Russell entered the league there were 8 teams. Average height of almost every position (except PG) has increased by about 2 inches over the last 50 years. Weight and athleticism have gone way way up. Ball handling has become so much better. Shooting has become so so so much better. Etc. A lot of this is to be expected, but the degree of the changes, IMO, is far more than one would naturally think. In other words, IMO - I know some others disagree - on the whole the NBA when Russell entered the league would be more akin to like the ACC now if that. Which makes including players from such vastly different eras on the same list in may ways just insane.
Do you feel the same way for all sports? Greatest baseball players ever? Greatest Olympians ever? I'd rather the list is balanced in its representation of the history of the league. I agree wit @Easy that there is no clear-cut way of building the list, otherwise. Skill, athleticism, and scheme are always evolving.
Yeah, I said that a few posts above. Where all else being equal, as a sport grows and matures and evolves in a positive manner (gets bigger, more attention and players, etc.) and you have clear obvious superstar all time greats from those new eras, than those new era guys generally are clearly "better". In Olympic sports, often, its easy, because those are individual sports often based on "times". I agree with it in baseball... to an extent. The caveat is you have to look at timeline. Baseball's been around since the mid 1800's. So by the 1920's or 40's or 60's the sport was already very well matured. So you kind of have to take it on a sport by sport basis. Cause otherwise, it's not a question in anyway. If you are not factoring in eras, then bar none the best players in nba history are Wilt and Bill Russell. No one will ever be able to match their records. Russell on the combination of stats and rings. Wilt on the absolute stat dominance. Wilt averaged 48.5 mpg for an entire season once. Led the league in assists because people thought he was too selfish. Russell had what, 15 straight championships college through NBA. Had multiple player-coach championships. Etc, etc, etc, etc. If you're not factoring in era, how are they not #1/#2????
I think he lays out his reasons in fair amount of detail why he doesn't just put them #1 and #2. It's not a ranking of players who have filled up the record books. Really what he's going off of is how much he believes that player would increase his team's point differential in place of a replacement player on a random average team within their era. The further back he goes in time, the less accurate his estimate would be for that number. But he has his methodology for trying to ballpark it as best he can for players of that era. I assume he tries to give extra credit to players that consistently lifted their level of play in the playoffs, too.
Since he caveats that he doesn’t factor things in like championships, teammates played for and era it makes it a completely useless list then. If the NBA was filled with 3 foot 5 midgets in the 50’s and I, at my 6’1 came along and dominated, as I would, I’d clearly then be the most “irreplaceable” player of all time. That’s hyperbole of course but in my view has kernels if truth to it. Of course there’s empty stats but generally not and the fact that those two guys were so astronomically statistically dominant goes hand in hand with their impact and their era. Again... it’s illogic and makes no sense to not factor in era. It’s part and parcel to determining a ranking imo
People, you gotta read a bit more carefully. The author has always said it's a range. For example, for Shaq he said he could easily drop him to 9th, behind Wilt. He also explained why he didn't rank Hakeem higher, because Hakeem's team was never that great. So even Hakeem has great stats, there are 'uncertainty' on how much he can actually elevate a TEAM. Compare Hakeem to say Russell or Shaq where their team numbers went through the roof and reached historic levels, it creates 'uncertainty' whether Hakeem is capable of doing the same with his style (high volume, mid-efficiency, iso scoring), You can say how much you believe it, Hakeem may be able to play on a historically good team, but he hasn't done it. So there is 'uncertainty'.
But why weren't other 6'1 dudes playing basketball? You should not be punished because other talented players weren't there. It's the same argument people say the Rockets' championships were cheap because MJ wasn't there. You know how bogus those arguments are. Now you are saying that because basketball wasn't as popular back then as now, so those guys' careers shouldn't count? Again, it's not about who is better. It's about who's career is better. Who helps his team win more. I've often used the analogy of the greatest minds in history. Was Einstein smarter than Aristotle? Aristotle's physics was completely wrong. Because there were a lot fewer people in Aristotle's time, his intellectual accomplishment is inferior to Einstein who lived in a time when there were a whole lot more "competition" in scientific achievements?
That is not factual. In his second season, Dream was on a young and inexperienced roster, an aspiring Rockets super team in the making, on the verge of breaking the Lakers/Celtics duopoly for years to come. And all going to plan, a team playing the Detroit's and Chicago's for the 90's championships. Imagine Dream and Houston being blessed with sustained team success that would rival Duncan and SA's history. http://grantland.com/features/an-oral-history-hakeem-olajuwon-ralph-sampson-1980s-houston-rockets/
