John Lopez Just Gave his list of Top Ten NBA Players

Hell, even Shaq himself says his favorite player is Hakeem.

 

Yes, but would he have had sex with 20,000+ women? That's the question.

 

Lopez's List
1.Jordan - 6 Championships, 5 MVPs
2.Wilt - 2 Championships, 4 MVPs
3.Kareem - 7 Championships, 6 MVPs
4.Russell - 11 Championships, 5 MVPs
5.Shaq - 4 Championships, 1 MVP
6.Oscar - 1 Championship, 1 MVP
7.Magic - 5 Championships, 3 MVPs
8.Bird - 3 Championships, 3 MVPs
9.West - 1 Championship, 0 MVP
10.Irving - 1 Championship, 1 MVP

Dream - 2 Championships, 1 MVP
Duncan - 3 Championships, 2 MVPs

 

I was absolutely giddy watching Dream teach Yao some unstopable post moves, which were basic moves to Dream.

The top 10 list is undeniable, except for Erving at 10. That is the only one on the list that I could potentially replace.

I thought about Russell, who I felt had more Bball IQ than Dream during his career. As far as Defense I would consider them in the same boat and dream was 10 times better on offense. Russell has 11 rings > 2 for Dream, scoreboard.

 

GOD, that's painful...

 

A good list. Notice the Boston/Lakers loading. It is true though, those two cities harbored the best.

No qualms about Hakeem missing. He didn't succeed like the others did in their early years (neither did Jordan but look where he went). It doesn't matter much.

 

jordan is 1 but then i don't really know how to go at 2-6. wilt might be 2 but he didn't win and failed to beat russell in russell's last season when wilt definitely had a better team. did he really have the drive to win? even he wouldn't say so.

kareem has all the titles and mvp's, but he mostly won mvp's without titles and then started racking up titles when magic came along. and bill simmons seems to like to mention that kareem got dominated way too much for an all-timer (maybe he's just biased (he calls kareem a ninny), but moses did work him over and he managed to not win titles while being the singular figure of the 70's so maybe he's right). should he have rebounded better in the 80's? can you deny his numbers from the 70's?

magic is way up there, but do i have to put him over hakeem? i mean hakeem did beat him in a playoff series ('86) when magic had a better team so it's not as if he just had some will to win hakeem didn't. obviously had more help, but still led an amazing attack and came up big and was the leader of a team that had kareem, which has to mean something.

hakeem and shaq? how do you separate them? offensive advantage vs defensive advantage. more titles vs less help. clutchness vs fouling out the other guy. better competition for hakeem at his position?

if you put a gun to my head and make me put magic ahead of hakeem, i'd make the list something like

1. jordan
2. wilt
3. magic
4. kareem
5t. hakeem
5t. shaq
7. bird
8. russell (i'm not really sure but guess i can't justify him as any lower)
9. oscar robertson
10. i'm tempted to say duncan. hard to shake the thoughts of the shaq/kobe lakers owning him in '01 and '02 and '04, but has won 4 titles and not always been overwhelmingly talented (though still often the best team in the league and the favorite). could put west in here but just by virtue of being a guard i bet he didn't affect a game like duncan. not putting erving here, so i guess i'll just throw duncan in at 10 for lack of a clearly better choice.

could easily put hakeem/shaq tied for 4th and flip kareem to 6th.


i wonder how high lebron will end up on this list.

 

With all due respect to the many legendary centers who came before Hakeem, i'm pretty sure they couldn't do half the things Hakeem could do on the offensive end, i just can't place a center above him because he is the best all-around center of all time especially when you factor era's and competition.

Bob Cousy is considered an all time great PG, but i've never even seen him dribble with his left hand Meanwhile, Tony Parker is allowed to just waltz into the lane simply because he can't be touched. I wish the NBA would allow for some consistency so we could truly measure how great a player is.

But these lists are never anything more than someone's opinion so it's not worth getting worked up over, the film speaks for itself.

 

wah wah wah I'm a rockets fan and I'm mad that everyone else isn't as much as a rockets fan as me. let me start the 400th thread of the year about how someone has WRONGED me and mine because they don't think that my team is the BEST!!!

 

Disclaimer: I'm not advocating even remotely his inclusion in the top 10 players of all time, or even the top 10 C of all time based on how his career turned out but being european and having witnessed his greatness for a short while ...

and since there seems to be a discussion regarding center's in that list...

I just want to mention (in passing) : if only Sabonis had moved to the NBA in his prime and hadn't been injured....

Just an if only....nothing else...I just felt the need to mention it as respect for a talent that never really got to show what it could do....

 

Lists are fun, and are for fun! Hakeem would make my list before Shaquille and Irving any day. And in truth I’d waffle back and forth with Rick Barry vs Larry Bird (though I'm positively irrational for acting as if they're mutually exclusive, but only one of them could make my top ten). And though it’s not a positional list, if a power forward had to be listed, either Tim Duncan or Bob Pettit would get my vote.

 

Duncan was just terrible against the Lakers in 2001 and pretty bad against LA in 2004 who had a 40 yr old Malone guarding him that series. Then he was not very good against Detroit the yr they won, esp in Game 5 from the FT line when he was 1-7 in the 4th Q and missed a gimme tipin. If not for Horry's 3 that game, would have gone down as a colossal choke by Tim.

As great as Tim has played at times in his postseason career, images like that are just tough to shake when comparing him to the Super all time greats. I mean dropping 25-14 on Okur and Amare just doesn't make up for getting beaten and outplayed by Shaq and Karl Malone in the playoffs the majority of the time from 98-04.

 

1. Wilt
2. Kareem
3. Jordan
4. Magic
5. Bird
6. Russell
7. Malone (Moses, not Karl)
8. Robertson
9. Shaq
10. Erving (including his ABA numbers, the all time leading scorer)

 

He's a San Antonio native, born and raise there. He's always complimentary of the Spurs, which is fine because I think any objective sports fan can see how great a franchise they are, but he's a closet Spurs fan, and doesn't do a great job of hiding it.

Anyways, no Top Ten list is etched in stone, there is no 'official' list. It's all just opinion, and you can make an argument for any of those guys.

 

I agree. I couldn't name one Chron writer who is competent.

 

I sure would put Dream ahead of Bird- a member of one of the greatest ever teams in the '86 Celtics. Bird had much more talent around him.


Dream did a lot with much less talent than Bird had. Hakeem Olajuwon dominated from his rookie year on. Hakeem played in an era of very dominant big men and dominated them consistently.

There has never been another Player like Olajuwon.

 

I like Feigen - he has good insight and very fine analysis-we are lucky he is here

 

I forgot about Feigen. He's usually reasonable.

 

First of all to anyone who is considering MVP's as a benchmark for your list..... NEVER use MVP's as a bench mark for selections of greatest all-time players.....NEVER.

Because they voted on by clowns like Lopez.

Plus, if you did go by MVP's you would have Dirk Nowitski ahead of (or tied with): Jerry West, Kobe Bryant, Hakeem, Oscar Robertson, Charles Barkley, Dr. J....the list goes on.


Anyway, his list isn't great but it's not like I haven't seen a version of that before. So I'm not offended or anything.

He has just fallen victim to listening to other people TELL him how great someone was without going and doing research or actually watching game footage.

I still can't believe that writers/media-types of this generation LOVE Shaq sooo much. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills because even though I'll never argue with his physical/athletic dominance over a 5-6 year period, he never had any real offensive skills.

I just can't find it in me to put a guy in the TOP 5 basketball players of all-time who couldn't hit anything outside of 5 feet on a consistent basis. I know some say Wilt was the same way but he KILLED people, averaging over 30 ppg during his career. In fact, I don't know if anyone in the history of the game can put together the something as ridiculous as Wilt's first 7 NBA seasons.

37.6 ppg
38.4
50.4
44.8
36.9
34.7
33.5

oh yeah, Wilt also averaged 22.9 rebounds per game over his career.....Absolutely insane. At least Lopez put Wilt before Shaq, I've seen lists with Shaq before Wilt.