Haha, I know man, I'm not big on ESPN and their lists... I'm also not sure about them putting some of the current players that are still in their primes/yet to reach theirs...
If I had to choose a player to start a franchise with ... List of players I'd definitely take over Pippen: Patrick Ewing Kevin McHale Clyde Drexler Elvin Hayes John Havlicek (similar skill set to Pippen and was a better player) George Gervin It's Toss-up: Dominique Wilkins James Worthy Bill Walton (if healthy) I would say Steph Curry is too high, but if Golden State wins another title, this year. Championship wise, as far as elite point guards go, Curry would be in the same league as Magic, Cousy, West, and Zeke. Point guard lead teams, historically, rarely win championships. He's been so dominant, the last two years. It's unrealistic for a guard to be averaging, these kind of points, unless your name is Jerry West (who was more of combo guard) or Oscar Robertson.
Is Kobe even top 20 going off advanced metrics? His averages and advanced stats are nothing special. The only thing that looks great is the totals...i mean he's played so long at a high level and it's the longevity which gives him the most argument for his placement even at 12. He's the weirdest player to discuss on the list. You have his fans who believe with all their little hearts that Kobe is either the greatest or just a bit behind MJ. I just don't understand their view. Then there are so many who have him ranked 5-10. 5-8 is still too high for him IMO, but 9-12 is okay with me and i wouldn't argue with someone who has him placed 12-20. I feel like personally Kobe is more of a Dominique Wilkins of the 2000's but was on much better teams in a larger market. Kobe was a better ball handler, passer, and had more range, but most importantly is that they are both known as scorers and when you measure their scoring, they are virtually the same. "Closest to Jordan" doesn't mean he was as good as Jordan. It just means he copied his mid range and post up game..and manner of speech...and walk..and attitude...and personality. That's what closest to Jordan actually means. But, as time goes on, kids who never watched Jordan will really believe Kobe is #2 all time because they hear Kobe was closest to Jordan so it is only logical to say he's the 2nd greatest of all time. I browse through the Espn rankings on facebook and so many comments are about Kobe fans flipping their **** that he's at 12 and not top 3 and also that LeBron is ahead of Kobe. Their main argument is always 5 rings. Why is it that Kobe is given equal weight to his 5 rings? No one argues Havlicek has 8 rings. Why does Kobe who has 5 rings, 3 of which were obviously as a 2nd option have that as a main argument over someone like LeBron? To me it's basically 2 to 2 as the main guy, except Pau Gasol could very realistically won at least 1 of those FMVP awards instead of Kobe. It's basically almost being brushed aside and forgotten just how dominant Shaq was. This wasn't a Kareem and Magic thing where both had incredible numbers alongside each other. No. This was Shaq 38, 17 with 3 blocks next to Kobe's 15.6 on 36.7%fg , 4.6 and 4.2 against the Pacers. #'s replaced by any starter quality guard and they still would have won. This was Shaqs 33ppg, 16rpg, 5apg, 3.4bpg to Kobes 24.6ppg on 41%, 7.8, 5.8 against the Sixers. Numbers easily replaced by any other all star guard next to Shaq. This was 36, 12, 4 and 3 to Kobes nice 26.8 on 51%, 5.8, 5.3 against the Nets. His best finals performance, but honestly replaceable with any superstar guard like Harden and they still win. They still win any of these finals series because of how dominant Shaq was. But....5 rings right? Weak opponents and so much controversy throughout their dynasty. The Kings should have a championship. They were cheated.
who is left?? hakeem ends up at 9 or 10? so im guessing jordan kareem wilt magic shaq lebron bill russell i think that will be the order for the top 7 and this will be the last 3 not sure about them. bird hakeem duncan
stockton at 19? granted i hated the jazz, but stockton is a legitimately fairly bad playoff performer (except for one shot). malone was a very bad playoff performer as well, which is probably why it's no coincidence that stockton and malone never won a title, though maybe they never quite had the supporting cast. either way, it's not that unfair to point out that stockton shouldn't be in the top 20.
I understand the view, even though I don't agree with it at all. A generation of basketball fans grew up with Michael Jordan as the idealized form of basketball player (justifiably, as Jordan was legitimately amazing). Jordan blended hero-ball, mid-range shooting and rim attacks and championships. That became the formula for basketball greatness--one-on-one chops, the ability to either go to the rack or pull-up from outside the paint and win titles. Kobe Bryant came along almost exactly as Jordan was finishing up (they overlap slightly, but for all intents and purposes) and had the exact same game. Considering how Bryant patterned everything else, his approach to the media, his distancing himself from teammates, even his farewell letter, on Jordan, it's quite likely he patterned his game on Jordan. He was pretty much a spot-on Jordan impersonator and he won nearly as many titles. He nailed the formula, even though he didn't do it nearly as well as Jordan, as advanced metrics show. But he did it well enough that a lot of people saw him as Jordan reborn. Bryant will always have a disproportionately sparkling image with the majority of those who's fandom took place primarily over the '90s and '00s. Fans who didn't grow up watching either player will mostly look back and wonder what the fuss was all about. Not that Bryant won't go down as a great player--but future generations won't even begin to consider him as a top-ten player. His performance just doesn't merit it. He's more of a top-25 guy, which is still pretty inner circle.
while his totals have longevity going for them, it actually turns out that after all of the injuries, his production does not. after kobe's season at 34, he had 173.3 Win Shares. he now has 172.8 Win Shares. he's actually lost win shares in the last 3 seasons! that's how bad he has been. he basically stopped helping teams win at age 34. now would he have done much better without the injuries? certainly, but, even for kobe, injuries are part of longevity. still, i don't put a ton of weight on what someone does after their early 30's. you can be a duncan and still be productive until you're 40, but does that happen without minutes management, a superb team around you, and superb coaching making your job easier on your body? most players aren't that lucky and start dropping off by 35 so i won't penalize kobe too much for this drop in production. 12 seems like an ok place. on a list like this, you probably can't ask for any lower. he could probably be in the mid to low teens, but maybe the sheer volume of his scoring is underrated and he could be slightly higher. 12 seems fair.
i'm pretty surprised hakeem made the top 10. granted, if they did the kind of "matchups" that basketball reference did, hakeems looks really good in those, especially due to his playoff performance (#6 in playoff PER, #5 if you aren't counting mikan). but still top 10 is good. this seems like a pretty good top 10. i think bird should probably be #10 out of the 10 remaining but i suspect he'll be around 5-7. amazing fact, larry bird played in 32 career playoff series and had homecourt advantage in 30 of them! and 1 of them was his last series against charlotte. the other was the 1987 finals. meaning he didn't play an eastern conference road series for 12 years. and he lost 7 of them. that's not a sparkling performance.
I don't think your giving kobe enough credit. I'm Not a fanboy but kobe was insanely good when Shaq got traded before Pau arived. He was hands down the best player in the game for a year stretch. Not to mention the team he played on after Shaq left were terrible. He had Smush Parker kawame Brown and Chris mimh in the starting lineup. That's bad!!!! Had Gasol or any other allstar level player gotten to LA sooner im almost positive kobe would have another ring maybe 2. The NBA was a lot easier back then to get rings than it is now. There is the warriors and everyone else now the competition is just better on top of a historical alltime team playing in Oakland. ...... I hate the Warriors.
Being a top-25 player in the game's history is insanely good. Honestly, though, I don't think he was ever the best player in the game. After O'Neal, I consider Duncan to have been the best player in the game until James took over. Duncan is the guy I don't think gets enough credit because he never put up huge raw scoring seasons. He simply blended extremely high efficiency offense with stellar rebounding and some of the best defense ever (I'd argue that he was the best defensive big man after Olajuwon and perhaps Russell). If I could start a team with either a young Kobe Bryant or a young Tim Duncan, it wouldn't even be a hard decision for me to choose Duncan.
Hakeem being top 10 confirmed makes me get over the Curry strokefest. I thought he would have been criminally underrated knowing how much the media tends to overlook Houston players.
Barkley criminally underrated (Robinson too). Career win shares per 48 minutes has Robinson 2nd and Barkley 9th. Kobe is down in the 50s. Being a chucker for 20 years shouldn't be rewarded.
Doubt it. Jordan, Kareem, Wilt, Russel... Shaq? Bird? Magic? Duncan? Thats hard. I honestly expect Duncan to be rated higher than Hakeem and MAYBE Shaq I can see Hakeem making the 7-9 range in all honesty. I wouldn't put Lebron over him, but ESPN probably will.
there's no way he will be higher than 9. in my opinion though he is the 3-5th best player ever. and had probably the most dominant 3 year stretch or so of any player in the nba history. jordan kareem hakeem shaq wilt duncan magic bird lebron bill russell that's personally how i would rank the top 10 remaining.
Duncan,Russel and Bird are my 3 all time favorite players but peak bryant is leval over. peak duncan on both side.
Many of you are boxscore bb fans who rank players on some stupit advance stats like share per...thats adv.stats dont show anything about skills of plaxlyers ,they importanncel for team...
those 2 are definitely interesting. barkley being among the career leaders in TS% goes a long way towards elevating his WS/48 and then he still had great scoring volume, rebounding totals, and assists totals, and even threw in quite a few blocks and steals. and he got a team to the finals without any big time HOFer next to him. i don't really think he could knock any of the top 10 out so 11 or 12 is probably his limit. then it depends how you weight titles to figure out if he's at 11 or 12 or in the high teens. like how much credit should someone like dirk get for a solo superstar title in 2011. or malone get for 2 trips to the finals. or kobe get for 5 titles, even if you can make good arguments that the scariest part of all 5 titles was the frontcourt. robinson is even weirder. he's like the anti-russell. unbelievable stats but a lack of winning and seeming underperformance on his part leading to the lack of winning. i won't blame him too much for 1995 because a) that would indirectly be a putdown to hakeem and b) hakeem was making shots and moves that no center before or since has really ever even approached. but robinson's general lack of playoff success is so hard to balance with is otherwordly stats. just like bill russell's lack of stats (even win shares which is surprising) combined with his nearly perfect winning record is hard to balance.
