LeBron vs Jordan - tak na poważnie

[Koelner]

strasznym musi być nygusem 

[LeweBiodroSmoka]

 

[agresywnychomik]

The Basketball 100” is the definitive ranking of the 100 greatest NBA players of all time from The Athletic’s team of award-winning writers and analysts, including veteran columnists David Aldridge and John Hollinger. This excerpt is reprinted from the book, which also features a foreword by Hall of Famer Charles Barkley.

“The Basketball 100” is available today. Read David Aldridge’s introduction and all of the excerpts here.

---

How do you rank the greatest players in history?

With great difficulty, would be my answer. Attempting to rank the best players in history from one to 100 for this book was impossible, especially when asked to compare between different roles, different positions, and different eras. How the heck are we supposed to split hairs between Ricky Barry and Dwyane Wade, the 26th- and 27th-ranked players on The Athletic’s list?

 

Well, that’s where data can help us. Or at least, if we use it well, it can help refine and improve our thought process for making the list. There is no ultimate truth here, no one correct and final answer. But for a sport that has been uniquely awful at preserving and discussing its history, it seems that developing a framework for the discussion might be a good place to start.

So how do we make a list of the best players of all time? There are some questions that I think should guide this. That perhaps, if pondered more deeply, might produce a bit less of the reflexive leaning toward secondary players on great teams that has plagued most “best-of” historical lists I’ve seen, including those by the league.

Let’s start here: If we’re covering more than 75 years worth of players, more or less, and only naming 100, that’s basically only one player a year. I get that most good players play for 10 to 20 years, but still, their prime seasons don’t encompass that whole span. (Except LeBron, you freak.) Only three players in history have been First Team All-NBA more than 10 times; only 20 did it more than five times.

Do the math: split 100 half-decade-long “peak primes” across 75 years and you get fewer than seven players a year; do the same with a decade-long prime and you get three. Any way you slice it, the bar for this list is pretty darned high.

Work backward, and one of the first gates for considering somebody for the top-100 list is: was this guy ever considered one of the 10 best players in the league?

That’s just the cover charge to get in the door. To really crack the list, you probably want to answer yes to the next question. Was this guy ever considered one of the five best players? It’s amazing how many players made the NBA’s list for whom those questions are, at best, iffy.

 

Or look at it another way: through the 2022–23 season, 72 players had made First Team All-NBA at least twice. That includes virtually all of the shoo-in types on the top 100, as well as some great players who didn’t quite make the list (it also includes Max Zaslofsky and Bob Feerick, but I digress).

Those two questions above are not the only valid ones, of course. There are a lot of related questions that should be part of the discussion, especially if we’re ranking players from one to 100.

In particular, if we’re talking about the cream of the cream, I would propose the following outline of important questions. (This cribs heavily from Bill James’s work in the 1985 Baseball Abstract, a dog-eared copy of which still lines my office bookshelf.)

• Was he the best player in the league? Did anyone, at any point, suggest that he might be the best player in the league?
• Did he win MVP? Did he factor heavily in MVP races?
• Was he the best player in the league at his position?
• Was he ever voted First Team All-NBA?

What about Second Team?

• How many All-NBA–caliber seasons did he have?
• Was he the best player on his team?
• If he wasn’t the best player on his team, was he at least the second-best player on a team with a clear all-time great as the best player?
• Was he ever the best player on a champion? Is it likely that this player could be the best player on a championship team?
• Did he have a major impact on the postseason, beyond just lucking into being on the same team as Magic Johnson or LeBron James? Did he have a greater impact on games played at the highest level?
• Was he good enough to be an impact player past his prime or was his career over at 30?
• How many All-Star–caliber seasons did he have?
• Was he a fixture on the All-Star team? And, um, not because of fan voting?
• Do players with similar advanced stats get consideration in the top 100?
• Is there any evidence that he was significantly better or worse than his stats?
• Is there evidence that he was significantly better or worse than contemporaries voted in awards?

As a 16th item, I’ll note that we should value the opinion of the contemporaries who were watching these players in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s, when most of us couldn’t . . . either because we weren’t alive yet or because the games were only televised locally, if at all. Additionally, the statistical record from this era just isn’t nearly as complete. Like it or not, the eye test matters quite a bit for that era.

You might look at these questions and think, know what would be great? It would be cool if someone had a formula to weigh these accomplishments and rank players by where they stood. Well, funny you should ask. In the process of making my own list for The Athletic’s Basketball 100 project, I developed a formula to help guide my process.

That formula is called GOAT points, which stands for . . . Greatest Of All Time, duh. I don’t have some funky alternative abbreviation, sorry, nor have I found an obscure backup center to name this after. (Someday I will create a formula called “SMREK.” Someday . . . )

 

Again, we’re trying to divine the players who succeeded at the highest levels and separate them from the ones who were merely very good players for a long time. Because of that, the highest-value achievements are orders of magnitude more important than more common accomplishments (like making the All-Star team or Third Team All-NBA) that in any other company might be very impressive.

GOAT points is a cumulative points system that adds up all the “quality” from a player’s career. In that way, it rewards longevity, but not at the expense of excellence. Bill Walton’s 1976–77 and 1977–78 seasons are worth more than a lot of players’ entire careers.

Here’s the system:

MVP vote shares: 50 points for each 1.0

Basketball-reference.com has a system for determining a player’s share of the MVP vote, which is a more precise metric than a binary first-second-third and even allows us to distinguish among near-unanimous awards from more contested votes.

For example, Bill Walton had 0.117 MVP vote shares in 1977 (when he finished second) and 0.403 MVP vote shares in 1978 (when he won). He goes in the books with 0.52 career vote shares. The all-time leader here through 2022–23 is LeBron James, with 8.8.

One note here: There are eight players (Julius Erving, Rick Barry, Billy Cunningham, Spencer Haywood, Artis Gilmore, Connie Hawkins, George McGinnis, and Mel Daniels) who factor at least somewhat into the top-100 discussion and received significant ABA MVP vote shares; I took these at one-third of their value. This feels like a fair adjustment: first, because the ABA had half as many teams as the NBA for nearly the entirety of its existence and, second, while it was close to the NBA in quality, I don’t think anyone thought it achieved full parity.

Additionally, I had to go back in time and give an estimated 3.5 MVP vote shares to George Mikan; the league didn’t give out the award until 1955–56, when Mikan’s prime years had passed. If you’re scoring at home, I also gave 1.0 to Joe Fulks and 0.5 to Paul Arizin.

• First Team All-NBA: 10 points each
• Second Team All-NBA: 3 points each
• Third Team All-NBA: 1 point each
• First Team All-ABA: 5 points each

Roughly tripling the value between First and Second Team, and again between second and third, keeps the emphasis on the highest-order achievements. Note that even First Team All-NBA is just one-fifth as valuable as a full MVP vote share. Consistent with the treatment above, I also halved the reward for achieving ABA First Team and didn’t acknowledge the second team.

 

Finals MVP: 10 points

Note that for those who played before the advent of the award in 1969, I had to “award” a Finals MVP based on who likely would have won it that year. I handed out seven to Bill Russell, four to George Mikan, one more to Wilt Chamberlain, and one each to Bob Pettit, Bob Cousy, Paul Arizin, Bob Davies, Sam Jones, and Dolph Schayes. Hopefully you agree with my voting.

All-Star team: 1 point

In the context of comparing all-time greats, making the All-Star team is just not that big a deal; it’s the floor, not the ceiling.

Every player in the GOAT points top 100 was named to at least five All-Star teams except the players from before the ’50s, who didn’t have an All-Star Game to play in. (I “selected” those players for the years they were first-team all-league and didn’t have a game to play in.)

I did not acknowledge making an ABA All-Star team; in conferences with five and six teams, respectively, the bar was just too low.

Career win shares above 100: 1 point

To balance some of the emphasis on peak value versus career value, and to reward more general team accomplishment and durability, I added a bonus for players who achieved at least 100 career win shares on basketball-reference.com. This is a fairly simplistic measurement, yes, but it has the advantage of being available back to the beginning of the NBA.

Conveniently, 96 players in NBA history had at least 100 career win shares through 2022–23, and received extra points this way. Most got scraps, however; only 24 players in league annals have cleared 150 win shares. Setting a bar at 100 strikes a balance between rewarding quality longevity without overly rewarding “hanging around” years or overly punishing players with brief peaks.

Note that I did not count ABA win shares here; there are some totals from the early years of that league especially that are just batty; suffice to say it produced results that I do not think I could defend.

 

Career BPM above 2.0: 7.5 points per point

Finally, we have a contribution from the advanced stats, somewhat. Basketball-reference.com only has BPM dating to 1974, and uses some tricks to fill in gaps for everything prior to 1985, so it’s definitely more valuable for modern players than for old-timers. I included it here to help weigh the modern players in particular; I think it’s hard for us to answer the question “How great is Paul George?” while his career is going on, and this helps provide a historical guidepost.

The limitation here is that I had to make crude estimates for pre-1974 players, generally giving them the benefit of the doubt and rating them comparable to historical peers from later eras. Because of this, I had to make BPM’s contribution relatively minor; doubling my estimate for Elgin Baylor, for instance, would only move him up three spots in the GOAT point standings.

So what do GOAT points give us? Still a lot of questions about comparing eras and roles, of course. What do we do with Mikan, for example? GOAT points tells us something we already know — he dominated the early 1950s — but tells us nothing about the relative strength of the league then versus in 1972, let alone 1992 or 2022.

For that matter, GOAT points doesn’t really know what to do with Dennis Rodman, either, or how to handle cases of extreme longevity (Karl Malone, John Stockton), or what to do about Michael Jordan skipping two years of his prime and then retiring at 35.* It can’t tell you whether Walt Frazier was better than Isiah Thomas, or if Clyde Drexler was better than Dwyane Wade, or if 1.75 God-level seasons from Bill Walton is better than 15 years of Robert Parish being the third-best center in the East.
* (Those Wizards years didn’t happen.)

What it can do, at least, is set the stage for the discussion. Maybe I weighted some stuff too highly and other things not highly enough; surely there are ways this can be improved in the coming years, especially if we get better historical advanced stats.

That said, it also brings some important debate questions to light, particularly regarding a few players who were excluded from this list or, perhaps, vaulted too prominently in it.

OK, enough of my yapping. It’s time for the envelopes. Here’s what the GOAT points formula spits out for the top 100 players in pro basketball history:

 

GOAT Points: "The Basketball 100"

RANK	PLAYER	GOAT POINTS
1	LeBron James	857.3
2	Michael Jordan	750.2
3	Kareem Abdul-Jabbar	660.1
4	Tim Duncan	504.2
5	Karl Malone	503.6
6	Wilt Chamberlain	499.0
7	Larry Bird	487.7
8	Magic Johnson	486.6
9	Bill Russell	471.5
10	Shaquille O'Neal	459.6
11	Kobe Bryant	457.1
12	Kevin Durant	373.7
13	James Harden	356.2
14	Oscar Robertson	344.5
15	David Robinson	335.1
16	Kevin Garnett	324.1
17	George Mikan	320.0
18	Bob Pettit	317.5
19	Hakeem Olajuwon	316.0
20	Jerry West	315.5
21	Nikola Jokić	307.9
22	Giannis Antetokounmpo	307.1
23	Chris Paul	305.2
24	Charles Barkley	305.0
25	Dirk Nowitzki	297.1
26	Moses Malone	286.0
27	Steph Curry	268.0
28	Julius Erving	230.5
29	Steve Nash	218.7
30	John Stockton	204.2
31	Elgin Baylor	202.5
32	Bob Cousy	196.5
33	Dolph Schayes	184.5
34	Joel Embiid	181.5
35	Dwight Howard	161.0
36	Kawhi Leonard	160.3
37	Jason Kidd	159.6
38	Rick Barry	152.8
39	Russell Westbrook	150.9
40	Patrick Ewing	141.8
41	Gary Payton	140.5
42	Allen Iverson	140.0
43	John Havlicek	138.5
44	Dwyane Wade	138.4
45	Luka Dončić	133.5
46	Clyde Drexler	129.7
47	Anthony Davis	129.1
48	George Gervin	123.8
49	Scottie Pippen	120.7
50	Tracy McGrady	107.0
51	Willis Reed	106.5
52	Elvin Hayes	102.0
53	Dominique Wilkins	99.4
54	Joe Fulks	98.0
55	Bob McAdoo	94.2
56	Paul Pierce	93.6
57	Reggie Miller	93.3
58	Dave Cowens	89.0
59	Paul Arizin	87.0
60	Walt Frazier	83.5
61	Damian Lillard	83.1
62	Hal Greer	82.0
63	Wes Unseld	76.8
64	Robert Parish	75.0
65	Isiah Thomas	74.8
66	Sidney Moncrief	74.5
67	Billy Cunningham	73.0
68	Alonzo Mourning	71.5
69	Connie Hawkins	71.1
70	Ray Allen	70.9
71	Chauncey Billups	70.0
72	Pau Gasol	70.0
73	Bill Sharman	69.5
74	Bob Lanier	68.6
75	Bill Walton	67.3
76	Tiny Archibald	67.0
77	Mel Daniels	66.6
78	Chris Webber	65.7
79	Artis Gilmore	65.4
80	Adrian Dantley	64.3
81	Shai Gilgeous-Alexander	64.3
82	Jayson Tatum	63.0
83	Spencer Haywood	62.0
84	Grant Hill	61.5
85	Derrick Rose	59.5
86	Paul George	59.3
87	Bernard King	58.0
88	Tony Parker	57.0
89	Bob Davies	57.0
90	Jimmy Butler	50.5
91	Carmelo Anthony	50.0
92	Dave Bing	50.0
93	Vince Carter	49.5
94	Neil Johnston	49.0
95	Kevin McHale	48.8
96	Tim Hardaway Sr.	48.3
97	Jerry Lucas	48.0
98	Blake Griffin	48.0
99	Paul Westphal	44.0
100	Penny Hardaway	43.8

[RappaR]

Przeczytałem kryteria i potem listę. Powinienem najpierw listę potem kryteria. Jakakolwiek lista gdzie Malone jest 6 jest bezwartościowa 

[julekstep]

2 minuty temu, RappaR napisał(a):

Przeczytałem kryteria i potem listę. Powinienem najpierw listę potem kryteria. Jakakolwiek lista gdzie Malone jest 6 jest bezwartościowa 

uff

to autorzy mają szczęście że dali go na 5tym!

[agresywnychomik]

9 minut temu, RappaR napisał(a):

Przeczytałem kryteria i potem listę. Powinienem najpierw listę potem kryteria. Jakakolwiek lista gdzie Malone jest 6 jest bezwartościowa 

Kryteria zapewne boostują longevity w tym Lebrona i właśnie Malona...

P.s. Cieszę się że dałem ci powód żeby ponarzekać, miło by było nawet proste dzięki stary ale lista c***owa xD

Edytowane 27 Listopada przez agresywnychomik

[Koelner]

ten Penny zamykający listę tak ślicznie wygląda

[ignazz]

9 godzin temu, Koelner napisał(a):

ten Penny zamykający listę tak ślicznie wygląda

Ja nie mam za bardzo jak z listą wojować gdy TD BRuss i DR są wysoko. Boli harden aż tak wysoko ale tak to ok 

[vero1897]

Już nawet tylko zerkając na szybko na miejsca wielu graczy od razu widać, że ta metoda jest błędna i nadaje się na śmietnik. Embiid wyżej niż Wade, Kawhi, Doncic czy Isiah to jakieś nieporozumienie. K.Malone 5, lol. No ale ważne, że LeBron jest #1 i to z dużą przewagą a pewnie ostatecznie tylko o to autorowi chodziło.

[RonnieArtestics]

Godzinę temu, vero1897 napisał(a):

Już nawet tylko zerkając na szybko na miejsca wielu graczy od razu widać, że ta metoda jest błędna i nadaje się na śmietnik. Embiid wyżej niż Wade, Kawhi, Doncic czy Isiah to jakieś nieporozumienie. K.Malone 5, lol. No ale ważne, że LeBron jest #1 i to z dużą przewagą a pewnie ostatecznie tylko o to autorowi chodziło.

Cp3 wyżej niż Curry to dopiero niezły trolling. 

[vero1897]

13 minut temu, RonnieArtestics napisał(a):

Cp3 wyżej niż Curry to dopiero niezły trolling. 

Nawet tego nie zauważyłem, zerkając tylko pobieżnie. To już wogóle totalny cyrk biorąc pod uwagę ich dokonania, zarówno indywidualne jak i drużynowe. 

[Chytruz]

Super, że mamy wklejoną tą listę na forum, bo jakbym wszedł i nabił im jedno kliknięcie za takie gówno, to bym się źle z tym czuł.

[lorak]

23 godziny temu, RappaR napisał(a):

Jakakolwiek lista gdzie Malone jest 6 jest bezwartościowa

zależy co ma mierzyć. jeśli dokonania wyrażone nagrodami oraz boxem, to ta się jako tako sprawdza. tylko że raczej nie coś takiego większość uważa za bycie GOAT i stąd kontrowersje. z drugiej jednak strony też mało kto w takich dyskusjach na starcie podaje definicję i określa swoje kryteria, a z takiej ukrytej pozycji łatwiej krytykować, niż gdy też się samemu wystawi na strzał i rzuci weryfikowalną propozycję. 

[RappaR]

5 minut temu, lorak napisał(a):

zależy co ma mierzyć. jeśli dokonania wyrażone nagrodami oraz boxem, to ta się jako tako sprawdza. tylko że raczej nie coś takiego większość uważa za bycie GOAT i stąd kontrowersje. z drugiej jednak strony też mało kto w takich dyskusjach na starcie podaje definicję i określa swoje kryteria, a z takiej ukrytej pozycji łatwiej krytykować, niż gdy też się samemu wystawi na strzał i rzuci weryfikowalną propozycję. 

Sęk w tym, że celem listy miało być określenie greatest, a koniec końców na 5 miejscu mamy gościa, który w żadnym pojedynczym sezonie nie był najlepszy w lidze i jest all time greatest pod względem stat padding/longevity.

Dlatego też widać, że przyjmując kryteria jakie przyjął, przyjął je błędnie.

Jedno 1st team Malone jest warte więcej niż 4 all-nba Curry z 2017, 2018, 2022, 2024, gdy w zasadzie każda z tych nominacji jest warta więcej niż kilka nominacji Malone.

Już lepiej oceniać po MVP voting niż po all-nba które leci po pozycji.
Ogólnie wiadomo, że łatwiej krytykować niż tworzyć, ale czasem lepiej niż nie robić, niż robić źle. 

[MarcusCamby]

33 minuty temu, RappaR napisał(a):

koniec końców na 5 miejscu mamy gościa, który w żadnym pojedynczym sezonie nie był najlepszy w lidze i jest all time greatest pod względem stat padding/longevity.

Już nie przesadzajmy. Malone miał sezony, gdzie gdyby wygrał MVP kosztem bardziej medialnego Jordana to nie byłoby kontrowersji.

[RappaR]

Teraz, MarcusCamby napisał(a):

Już nie przesadzajmy. Malone miał sezony, gdzie gdyby wygrał MVP kosztem bardziej medialnego Jordana to nie byłoby kontrowersji.

I nawet wygrał tak MVP.

W którym sezonie uważasz, że Karl Malone był po prostu lepszym koszykarzem od Jordana?

[Zimny]

Malone w sumie taki nieco zapomniany zawodnik w jakichkolwiek innych dyskusjach niz longevity. Trochę kwestia że to Utah Jazz, trochę kwestie pozaboiskowe. A to generalnie ciekawy koszykarz i imo powinien być częściej wymieniany w tych wszystkich rozmowach (np. o AT PFach)

To tak abstrahując od tej śmiesznej listy. Ale chociaż jest pretekst żeby pogadać

[RappaR]

21 minut temu, Zimny napisał(a):

Malone w sumie taki nieco zapomniany zawodnik w jakichkolwiek innych dyskusjach niz longevity. Trochę kwestia że to Utah Jazz, trochę kwestie pozaboiskowe. A to generalnie ciekawy koszykarz i imo powinien być częściej wymieniany w tych wszystkich rozmowach (np. o AT PFach)

To tak abstrahując od tej śmiesznej listy. Ale chociaż jest pretekst żeby pogadać

Bo nigdy nie miał peaku i dlatego właśnie jest tylko długowiecznym ALL-NBA, który właśnie może się wybić tylko na takich kryteriach, gdzie jak pisałem jego śmieszne ALL-NBA 1-st jest więcej warte od kilku ALL-NBA Curry, gdzie w takim 17 i 18 Curry był ATG MVP lvl i wylądował nisko, gdy w 99 Malone musiał być lepszym skrzydłowym od Toma Chambersa by znaleźć się w 1st. .

Malone nie miał żadnego peaku, jego finały i największe osiągnięcia to kiedy zachód stał się najsłabszy w jego karierze i nie stał się lepszy od swoich przeciwników, co wziął ich właśnie na longevity.

Malone po prostu na poziom tej dyskusji po prostu był rekordowo długo solidny, ale nigdy naprawdę wielki i jeśli to miała oceniać ta lista, to tak, faktycznie Malone powinien być wysoko(ale nie na 5 mimo wszystko). Ale jego peak w naszych draftach lądował poza top25, a te drafty mają swoje lata i doszło trochę nowych graczy. 

[lorak]

10 godzin temu, RappaR napisał(a):

Sęk w tym, że celem listy miało być określenie greatest, a koniec końców na 5 miejscu mamy gościa, który w żadnym pojedynczym sezonie nie był najlepszy w lidze

można sobie wyobrazić teoretyczną sytuację, gdy prime danego zawodnika przypadł akurat na czasy, gdy GOAT grał. wtedy nie będzie pierwszy w żadnym sezonie, ale overall był lepszy niż wszyscy inni w historii. i w niewielkim stopniu, ale to właśnie dotyczy Karla, który przecież miałby 2 tytuły, gdyby nie MJ, a to zmieniłoby jego postrzeganie drastycznie - jak widzimy choćby na przykładach Dirka czy Hakeema.

[RappaR]

4 minuty temu, lorak napisał(a):

można sobie wyobrazić teoretyczną sytuację, gdy prime danego zawodnika przypadł akurat na czasy, gdy GOAT grał. wtedy nie będzie pierwszy w żadnym sezonie, ale overall był lepszy niż wszyscy inni w historii. i w niewielkim stopniu, ale to właśnie dotyczy Karla, który przecież miałby 2 tytuły, gdyby nie MJ, a to zmieniłoby jego postrzeganie drastycznie - jak widzimy choćby na przykładach Dirka czy Hakeema.

Rozumiem, że wedle tej logiki Kidd miałby tytuł w 2002 gdyby nie Shaq? Serio tak sądzisz?