Clyde had one of the greatest 10-year stretches in the history of the NBA from 84-85 to 94-95. Absolutely crazy that he's this low.
I would go(i don't weigh team accomplishments like championships as the largest factor in my ratings) #1 MJ #2 WILT #3 MAGIC #4 KAREEM #5 RUSSELL #6 BIRD #7 Hakeem #9 SHAQ #10 OSCAR #11 LeBron #12 Duncan #13 West #14 Kobe #15 DR J #16 Baylor #17 Moses #18 Mailman #19 Barkley #20 Petit #21 Isiah #22 Admiral #23 Garnett #24 DWADE #25 E Hayes #26 Durant #27 Dirk #28 Pippen #29 Stockton #30 Hondo
I'd probably have Drexler, Nique, Ewing, Kidd rounding out the top part of the 30s. So 36 might not be such a bad placement honestly now that i made my top 30.
I'd consider Drexler to be a better player than Hondo, for example, but perhaps that's my own recency bias. It's for the same reason people may rank Hakeem over Russell - it's much harder to dominate as a two-way player in the modern NBA. But I think the real insult here will come with Hakeem's inevitably low ranking.
Havlicek's peak season is 29, 9 and 7. That's pretty monstrous. His defense puts him ahead of Drexler. Hondo is said to be one of the best defenders ever. Very versatile, very athletic in his prime. The %'s are low, i'd say he had a better shot than Drexler. Just as good a passer or maybe better than Drexler. Both had great vision. Both probably equal in terms of ball handling skills compared to players today, which is to say not very good. But, that is something i don't focus much on because ball handling is one of the aspects of the game that has evolved the most. Most moves today would have been carrying or palming back then. I'd say any legend of the past could learn to dribble well for todays standards. You could probably say both had bad shot selection. Anyway, i just think defense separates the two. I remember Drexler took way too many risks jumping the lanes going for steals. He just wasn't a very disciplined defender at all. Now, i admit i never witnessed Hondo play, but i won't dismiss his place in history and the accounts and stories of him and other past players and just automatically assume he's no good because he's a white boy from the 70s like so many millennials immediately think(as if we don't have 3 MVP's belonging to white players in the past 10 years or that white players aren't good today either). The only thing a player can do is be the best they can be against their competition and though i do think the 70s was one of the weakest decades in basketball history, he still was clearly a top player of his time.
That's a fair argument. He was also playing like 45 mpg, so the dude was an iron man. It's hard for me to compare stats from that day and age to modern stats as apples to apples, but you're right - his peak seasons were pretty amazing.
Regarding Drexler's D, I remember him being good at jumping the lane but also good at defending bigger guards and keeping up with faster guards on the perimeter, but I also only really watched his game from the late 80's on.
Hakeem is just more skilled than any other center that's ever played. Both sides of the floor. He's just flat out better than all of the greats routinely mentioned in front of him except Wilt IMO. I could easily put Wilt as the #1 greatest individual player of all time and my reason is that if there was a lottery pool of every player that ever played, i think Wilt goes #1 ahead of even Jordan by most GMs that ever held that position. Just the size, the length, the strength, the speed, the skills. I just value big men to building a championship team more than i do a guard or SF. If you find a dominant big man, you can find a guard or SF that isn't that much of a step back from the best guard or small forward later in a fantasy all time draft. But, if you go guard or small forward in that draft, the step back from the best big men is much more obvious. Someone like Kobe is in my top 15 simply for his deadly ability to catch fire and destroy a teams will as Curry does this season. But, statistically, both raw and advanced and honestly? Kobe's not much better than Dominique Wilkins for me. I'm just not impressed with his playoff career either. He's had at one point the most dominant big man with no competition left(Shaq) and the most dominant rebounding and defending front line for that time(Gasol, Odom, Bynum) in which Gasol could very realistically have won both of those FMVP's and led in WS. Kobe is better than Nique and much higher than him in my rankings simply because he is also just much more skilled at ball handling, and scoring skill set including passing IQ and vision. Those same skill sets set Hakeem apart from Kareem, Shaq, Duncan, Russell for me.
Yeah, but Hondo came off the bench during his prime (in fact, he was pretty much the first example of the "sixth man" as a role), so he couldn't be a star.
I've already said 3 times in the other thread that scorers can come off the bench and still be superstars. But, Rodman is not a superstar as he could never carry a team.
When ABC play-by-play man Chris Schenkel opined during a Havlicek foul shot in the 1973 ASG at Chicago that 11-year veteran John had gone from supersub to superstar, Russell quickly corrected his partner. "Maybe a supersub at one time, but always a superstar, always a superstar," he pointed out. I'll take the big fellas words for it.
Again, I rely alot on statistics, but it is almost night and day between Parrish and Gasol. Parrish was a bulldog of a player on a great team, he's numbers would've been alot better on mediocre team -- he would've been a 20-10 guy, annually. But, look who he played with Bird, McHale, Johnson, and few others. He's arguably one of greatest defensive big men in history, while he intimidated opponents. Their stats maybe similar, but Parrish was the greater player of the two with or without rings. He's impact on the court was slightly better than Gasol's.
Yeah, I wasn't seriously contending that Havlicek wasn't a star, I just thought it was funny you talked him up so much after you insisted in another thread that coaches always start superstars for chemistry reasons and no true superstar ever comes off the bench. But, apparently, superstar scorers have no ego and can be brought off the bench.
Reggie Miller at 51 is the biggest joke I have ever seen. Never was even considered/close in any MVP race, really, iirc. No clicks for ESPN. Uhhhh, Iverson in the top 50 is easily justified. Easily one of the most underrated players in nba history now. His '01 season was incredible. If a player retires with an MVP, he is basically an automatic lock in the top 50 of all time for me.
Yeah bro, i was disgusted that Iverson was so low and that Curry's name hadn't been seen yet, so that means they already have Curry much better than Iverson after 1.5 seasons of being great.
Here is a simple ranking of players. It's basically just an average of their rankings in regular season PER and WS/48 and playoff PER and WS/48, with twice the weighting to the playoffs. THIS IS NOT MY RANKINGS (i.e. bill russell is at 41). it's just a quick sanity check for the "how can that guy be ranked in that spot" questions. Code: 1 Michael Jordan 1.000 2 LeBron James 0.927 3 George Mikan 0.923 4 Kareem Abdul-J 0.870 5 Wilt Chamb 0.807 6 Shaq O'Neal 0.784 7 Chris Paul 0.779 8 Kevin Durant 0.772 9 David Robinson 0.759 10 Tim Duncan 0.751 11 Dirk Nowitzki 0.710 12 Charles Barkley 0.704 13 Magic Johnson 0.697 14 Hakeem Olajuwon 0.689 15 Jerry West 0.654 16 Oscar Robertson 0.632 17 Stephen Curry 0.627 18 Dolph Schayes 0.626 19 Dwight Howard 0.607 20 Kobe Bryant 0.596 21 Kevin Garnett 0.594 22 Bob Lanier 0.593 23 Bob Pettit 0.592 24 Larry Bird 0.591 25 James Harden 0.587 26 Neil Johnston 0.581 27 Kevin Love 0.576 28 Dwyane Wade 0.564 29 Artis Gilmore 0.563 30 Moses Malone 0.561 31 Manu Ginobili 0.546 32 Karl Malone 0.535 33 Amar'e Stoud 0.533 34 Julius Erving 0.528 35 Yao Ming 0.525 36 Kawhi Leonard 0.524 37 Russell Westb 0.522 38 Elgin Baylor 0.504 39 Reggie Miller 0.503 40 Blake Griffin 0.502 41 Bill Russell 0.499 42 Chauncey Bil 0.493 43 Paul Arizin 0.488 44 Adrian Dantley 0.486 45 George Yardley 0.486 46 Elton Brand 0.484 47 Cliff Hagan 0.484 48 Dan Issel 0.482 49 Walt Frazier 0.479 50 John Stockton 0.476 51 Pau Gasol 0.474 52 Tracy McGrady 0.468 53 Kevin McHale 0.464 54 Rick Barry 0.457 55 Sam Jones 0.457 56 Clyde Drexler 0.439 57 Shawn Kemp 0.439 58 Clyde Lovel 0.438 59 Carmelo Anthony 0.434 60 Grant Hill 0.431 61 George Gervin 0.428 62 Patrick Ewing 0.423 63 Bill Walton 0.411 64 Ray Allen 0.411 65 Arvydas Sabonis 0.405 66 Alex English 0.404 67 Alonzo Mourning 0.393 68 Walter Davis 0.391 69 Chris Bosh 0.390 70 Harry Gallatin 0.389 71 Vince Carter 0.383 72 Paul Pierce 0.383 73 Brad Daugherty 0.380 74 Larry Foust 0.378 75 Steve Nash 0.377 76 Larry Nance 0.375 77 Kevin Johnson 0.375 78 Marc Gasol 0.372 79 Ed Macauley 0.371 80 Bill Sharman 0.368 81 Scottie Pippen 0.362 82 Bobby Jones 0.360 83 Allen Iverson 0.357 84 Terry Porter 0.355 85 Paul George 0.354 86 Vern Mikkelsen 0.353 87 Dikembe Mutombo 0.351 88 Frank Ramsey 0.338 89 Willis Reed 0.333 90 Jeff Hornacek 0.332 91 John Havlicek 0.328 92 Deron Williams 0.327 93 Marques Johnson 0.325 94 Serge Ibaka 0.324 95 Penny Hardaway 0.323 96 Terrell Brandon 0.321 97 Cedric Maxwell 0.319 98 Bob McAdoo 0.317 99 Horace Grant 0.315 100 Jimmy Butler 0.312 101 Bailey Howell 0.310 102 Gary Payton 0.304 103 Paul Millsap 0.303 104 Tom Heinsohn 0.303 105 Don Nelson 0.302 106 Ben Wallace 0.302 107 Jason Kidd 0.299 108 Al Horford 0.298 109 Walt Bellamy 0.294 110 Robert Parish 0.293 111 Shawn Marion 0.292 112 Bob Cousy 0.287 113 Dominique Wil 0.283 114 DeAndre Jordan 0.283 115 Zydrunas Ilg 0.281 116 Joakim Noah 0.280 117 David Thompson 0.279 118 Sidney Moncrief 0.277 119 Toni Kukoc 0.273 120 Chris Webber 0.270 121 Mark Price 0.267 122 Maurice Cheeks 0.266 123 Chet Walker 0.265 124 Damian Lillard 0.260 125 Rasheed Wallace 0.255 126 LaMarcus Ald 0.252 127 Paul Westphal 0.251 128 Tony Parker 0.249 129 Kiki Vandeweghe 0.245 130 Eddie Jones 0.245 131 Doc Rivers 0.244 132 Carlos Boozer 0.241 133 Draymond Green 0.240 134 David West 0.238 135 Bill Laimbeer 0.238 136 Marcus Camby 0.238 137 Dave Cowens 0.237 138 Tyson Chandler 0.234 139 Calvin Natt 0.228 140 Chuck Share 0.225 141 Jack Sikma 0.221 142 Jerry Lucas 0.219 143 Wes Unseld 0.209 144 Ricky Pierce 0.209 145 Sam Perkins 0.208 146 Vlade Divac 0.203 147 Sam Cassell 0.199 148 Chris Mullin 0.196 149 Peja Stojakovic 0.195 150 Jack Twyman 0.187 151 Tim Hardaway 0.185 152 Nene Hilario 0.182 153 Mehmet Okur 0.178 154 Dennis Rodman 0.166 155 Brad Miller 0.155 156 Anthony Mason 0.151 157 Detlef Schrempf 0.121 158 Kyle Lowry 0.067
That's a very interesting list. Do you have a link? I'm surprised Harden is that high, and ahead of Dwade or even Westbrook who is almost 50 spots ahead of Harden in the ESPN list. Interesting to see Draymond Green ahead of Rodman as well. Kidd, Chris Mullin and Tim Hardaway so low is odd. I wonder how this list would look if you added more criteria like only seasons in which a player played more than 25mpg should be counted and injury seasons or there after should be removed as well. For example even though MJ is #1, his #s from his sophmore injury season and the season where he came back for the last 17 games in 95 shouldn't be counted IMO. The Wizards years bring down his numbers too, but those should count since he did play heavy minutes regardless of age, compared to someone like Moses Malone who shouldn't have anything past his 36 year old age count or T-Mac's many injury filled years post 07-08. I guess what i am saying is i'd like to see a ranking with these same advanced stats average for only every players PRIME seasons and put an * of how many seasons that prime lasted or add a point system for prime seasons.
WHOA. What the?? Iverson is not a top 155 player?!? WOW. That's extremely surprising considering he carried his teams basically on his own. Chris Webber is also not a top 155 and he carried his teams. Damn. I mean even Chris Bosh is a top 70 player. Something is really odd about that. Penny another not on that list. No other stand out to me yet but i'm going to keep looking it over to see if there are more.
