ESPN “Experts” Rank the Top 74 Players in NBA History

I'd put Harden definitely over Pippen, Giannis, Stockton, Nash, and Iverson. I'd personally put him over Garnett because most of his teams were bad and Robinson who stole his only MVP from Hakeem.

 

u'd be wrong. without Kobe, Shaq would not have won a ring as a Laker

 

I can agree with all of that except Harden over Garnett. But then I have Harden above Wade so he ends up at 25 with me, too. Thought it'd be tougher than that.

 

Kobe wasn't really Kobe yet for that first one. 15 ppg on 36% shooting in the finals compared to Shaq's 38 and 16 rpg on 61%. You could have replaced him with a number of shooting guards at that time and the Lakers still ring.

 

u do know about hack a Shaq , no?

once again, ur uninformed.

Shaq was teamed w a all-nba g, Penny, who was not a killer in the last 2 min like Kobe, his team lost the finals to a lesser-talented Rox team

the hack a shaq tactice nullified Shaq in the last 2 min of game, and Kobe w the killer instinct took over

 

Yes I'm aware of the strategy, not so aware of what relevance it has to anything I said..

 

u just contradicted urself in one sentence

 

Garnett is way too low. He’s a top 15 guy easily. Pippen isn’t better than Charles Barkley or David Robinson, that’s silly.

I’d put Garnett, Pippen, Barkley, Robinson, and probably Wade over Harden right now. Nash maybe. That’s 24 - 26. Harden is easily better than Baylor, Iverson, and Thomas. Stockton is a tough one. Either way Harden is a solid top 30 guy. If we see basketball again he may crack the top 20 one day.

I’m not looking at the list so there might be some people behind Harden that are better than he is as well.

 

Woah! Wtf? Players that ride coattails to rings are bench players not the second best player on the team. Do you remember Games 4 and 5 against the Jazz ? 41 points and 9 rebounds in Game 4. 31 points and 10 rebounds in Game 5. In Game 7 in the next series, Drexler again stepped up with 29 points and 8 rebounds in a very close game. In Game 1 of the WCF, where the Rockets won by a single point, he had 25 points and 12 rebounds. Go back and watch how awful the other starters were in the game besides Olajuwon and Drexler. He averaged 21.5 points, 9.5 rebounds, and 6.8 assists in the NBA Finals.

Hakeem's '95 playoff run was one for the ages. Maybe the best ever given the circumstances. He's my favorite athlete of all time. Underrated by most, as well. But please... You don't have to blow out Clyde's candle to make Hakeem's brighter. Clyde was a major reason why the Rockets were able to win a second championship.

 

Yeah, Pippen is entirely too high. I know we discussed it before with him, a great player, amazing defensive player, but I really don't think he wins those titles with a lot of other players. We know he has a terrible attitude, it took a super alpha Jordan to reign that in and Phil Jackson.

Giannis just doesn't have the resume really or the team success to put him past Harden. Harden has been deeper in the playoffs and a win or two away from the finals and has put up legendary numbers.

Stockton, eh, all time great PG but he was Malone's sidekick. It's not fair to knock a guy down for being a loyal and good teammate but on paper I do not think skill wise he's better than Harden.

Nash has about the same amount of team success as Harden, multiple MVPs, but I don't think people put Nash on the same level as other multiple MVP players. It kind of feels like he just benefitted from favorable voting.

Iverson is so high on this list because of his popularity. The greatest little guy in the NBA no doubt, super exciting and fun to watch, all that, but there is no way I'm putting him over Harden.

Robinson didn't lead his team any further than Harden did and his MVP is very dubious to me.

Garnett I get, so yeah, that is debatable.

So yeah, around 25 is probably right for him.

 

same for me.

until the Dream had won the the 2 rings consecutively, it was generally accepted that he was the 2nd best Center in the NBA behind Ewing.
it was due to a combination of east coast bias and the fact the Ewing's G'Town team had beaten Dream's college team

as for Clyde, i call them as i see them

• after all, the year before, Dream had carried the Rox across the finish line. w a mediocre team to win the ring, without Clyde.

 

I really didn't but whatever. I actually agree Kobe definitely played the closer role for those laker teams, but it was to a much greater degree in the following championships and wasn't a role that he was irreplaceable in that particular year.

 

garnett is definitely ahead of harden for now (though i still think 2018 rockets are better than any non-title winner from the alpha non-title winners list like barkley, robinson, malone, garnett and were stopped by an even better team than probably all but the '96 bulls). garnett wasn't always reliable offensively in the playoffs because you could force him to take tough fadeaways too easily, but arguably the 3rd best defender of all-time.

isiah thomas's numbers are way too low to be over harden, iverson better add about 5 TS% to even think of being in the convo (or not flameout so early), stockton is a way worse regular season player who suffers fairly dismal drop-offs in the playoffs and has no ring. nash was already covered as basically harden without as many peak seasons or as good a team as 2018 rockets.

i would have wade ahead of harden. he had a fairly stellar peak of 8 or 9 seasons. not a lot of playoff success without lebron but a) the heat had a lot of bad teams and b) the success he had includes a finals that is arguably the best ever and a really good run as a 2nd year player the year before. also lost in 5 games but had an enormous first round against the 2010 celtics with 33 ppg on 65 TS%. so it's not like he was holding the heat back. he basically fell apart by the time the playoffs rolled around in 2013 (only 10th year) and never recovered so not a lot of longevity.

pippen is tough to rank because he was so good defensively and definitely had a really good year in '93-'94, but man there seem to be a lot of "while pippen only shot 41%" games and series in the jordan career profile. and that was with everyone focused on the greatest scorer ever. pippen isn't giving you 10-12 barkley type years carrying a team and isn't throwing down 5 mvp-level seasons like harden. definitely needs to be lower.

 

I stopped reading once I saw they had Zeke ranked in the 30's, behind guys like Curry, Dirk and the Greek Freak.

 

He didn't look right because:

1) It was his first playoff series in two years where the other team didn't have significant players injured.

2) The refs allowed Cle to be physical with him, instead of just letting him have free shots while GS held guys on moving screens.

3) The Cavs attacked him as much as possible on D, which he isn't great at. That takes a toll on your legs.

No way in hell should Curry be ranked 13th. He was exposed in those Finals and had to get big brother Durant (who is better than him) to come save the day. The same thing happened in the most recent Finals as well when their real MVP went down.

 

Zeke led a team to 3 Finals and 2 titles, and beat Magic/Cap, Bird and Jordan. Under rules that allowed more physicality, when PG's got knocked for being score first guards. Harden can't lead a team past the Spurs with their stars on the bench. To hell with those empty numbers in this comparison. You can't rank him ahead of guys that have led teams to multiple titles. Winning is the goal, not stats.

 

1) Magic wasn't better than Cap until he was around 35.

2) Longevity matters. Cap still making all nba 1st teams when he was 38 is nuts.

3) His peak numbers and career numbers stack up to anyone's besides Wilt.

4) They had to change the rules because of him.

5) He won without Magic. Magic can't say the same.

6) He has Magic beat in titles, accolades and numbers. What more is there?

 

which NBA rule was that?

unless ur referring to the college rule of no dunking​

true

 

Outlawed the dunk in college.

 

I don't agree that the 1994 team was "mediocre." It was a roster perfectly built around Olajuwon. Everyone played their part to perfection most of the time. But, when looking at the 1994 playoffs, you do see more of a variety of players stepping up to help Olajuwon. Maxwell was the second best player in some rounds, Thorpe and Smith were more important in others. In 1995, the team didn't have that quality of depth. Thorpe and Maxwell were gone. With rebounding and scoring, Drexler had to fill those holes they left behind. Pointing to 1994 to prove Olajuwon could win with anybody actually shows how essential Drexler was to the 1995 championship. He was clearly the second most important player on the team.

Also, Drexler had a playoff scoring average over 20 ppg in '95. He was the first teammate of Olajuwon's to average 20+ over multiple playoff rounds since Sampson in '86. Sampson and Drexler are the only Rockets teammates of Hakeem's to average 20+ ppg in multiple playoff rounds.