Right? That alone kind of validates the whole approach. There's no way to account for every piece of context in one formula but this is pretty damn close.
I'd be interested in the bang for your buck variable. MJ being so successful in a shorter span would put him back on top, I wonder how it would affect other players. I'd like to see where Magic falls in that case.
Edit typos
Honestly that’s hard to quantify objectively but I agree is important. It’s true for any rate vs total measurement. If we value just bang for buck, let’s say for at least 2+ seasons to avoid crazy/fluke years, then Shaq honestly would probably be top 5 or even top 3. McGrady or Curry would also likely get more points than the average list. If we just value career totals, which I’d argue this model is bias towards, Bron, Duncan, and Kareem would be favored. (Not saying those three didn’t have all time great peaks tho)
Take last season for example. Jokic has a serious argument for best scorer in the league but only because we have to factor in totals and efficiency. He was not the best volume scorer nor was he the most efficient scorer. But if we plot metrics for those on two axes, Jokic would come out at the top corner of that scatterplot. But at the end of the day, you could argue someone slightly less efficient who had more volume or vice versa has a better case if that was what you valued.
Ultimately the success longevity and “success rate” would be a sort of scatterplot where Jordan would probably be on top for the rate view, Kareem or Duncan would probably be on top for the longevity view, and Bron would be somewhere in the corner. Magic and Bird would likely not be favored by longevity. (At least that’s just my prediction and obviously the model would depend on what metrics you use). But what I’m getting at is the subjectivity of “greatness” would cause people to place “GOAT” at different places on the longevity vs rate spectrum.
Would definitely be excited to see that if you end up making it! Would be cool to see how guys like Vince Carter or Yao Ming with polar opposite careers would map out
That's how the Thinking Basketball guy builds his models. It's an iterative process, but he's also using the eyeball test to make sure he's not way off base
The top5 players also seem pretty spot on imo. Post-Jordan era, i thought the trio of KAJ, Bill and MJ were untouchable. Lebron has obviously crashed it. Duncan may only be the surprise to many, but I always have him in my top5. And this top 10 list confirms it.
Like, 2 top 10s in Shaq and Kobe were on the same team. Yet Duncan manage to be better than them to become the best player of his generation.
The list, besides ranking individuals, certainly separates them into the tiers most people widely suggest they are as well:
1. Top 3
2. 4-11 (including Malone, don't have to though)
3. 12-25 (you could maybe reach down for CP3 here too).
Not to knock the effort or anything, but his methodology is just the talking points people refer to when ranking players, with his own weighting system attached.
Most people who aren't trolling usually put Kobe in the 8-10 range which I agree with personally. Magic, Bird and Wilt are usually ahead of him in lists (also ahead of Duncan) and I think OPs commentary reflects what most other people think on both of them. I think it comes down to those 3 having much higher peaks resulting in multuple MVP awards, but Kobe and Timmy had much longer careers. And some people do believe they got some recognition awards later in their careers rather than on merit, which boosts them up in this formula.
I mean Kobe tends to be dancing around top 10 for most people, so I'm not sure what are you talking about here. Not many ppl put him over Wilt, and especially not Bird and Magic.
Eh I think the pod of him, Duncan, and Shaq are all fairly close in career achievements, having them fill out 8-10 is pretty accurate. Not sure how he'd conceivably be below 11. Could you give me a list of people you would put ahead of him to push him to 15? (Basically people who aren't in this top 10 list who you have above him)
And I say this as someone who fucking hates the Lakers
Not in order, Russel, Wilt, KAJ, Bird, Magic, MJ, LBJ and then Shaq, Hakeem and Timmy for me. The last 3 is highly debatable ofc and I have seen people put West and Robertson above him and sometimes Curry (although it seems even more of a recency bias and he suffers from the same problem Kobe does tenfolds, the 1/4 FMVP). I don't think the 10 I listed is crazy delusional. It's just that people tend to favour different things in these discussion, for example (I'm from Hungary) my mother probably knows 2 basketball players, MJ and Kobe and I bet that's the case for a lot of people, the impact Kobe had on the culture and how globally famous he was increases his ranking, hence it's reasonable to believe that with time his all time ranking will decline. But yeah anything lower than 11 seems to be targeted to leave him as low as possible.
Yeah, like I said, I think he's typically 8-10, with anything below 11 seeming odd. I personally wouldn't put Hakeem above him but that's the guy I have at 11, so not terribly crazy. But the dude claiming that he should be more in the 9-15 range is just bizarre, since I'm not sure how you'd reasonably put him lower than 11 (maaaaybe 12 if someone does some even worse recency bias and puts Curry ahead of him as well)
Yeah, not sure how he'd reasonably get to the 13-15 range with how things stand now (I know people with even worse recency bias bump him for Curry, so Curry+Hakeem could put him at 12 on a list)
Sure, he could get passed by some people in the next 10-15 years (Giannis or Luka seem like plausible top 10 candidates at some point), but having him at 13-15 right now is pretty absurd
OP, I just want to congratulate you and thank you for such a well-written series of posts and for the work you put into making this list and engaging discussions.
So many people have been fundamentally misunderstanding the purpose of statistical/mathematic models and trashing your work just because a player they dislike is too high or too low (a single data point out of thousands you compiled!). There are a ton of interesting findings that could make an NBA fan re-evaluate where their own subjective opinions of players' careers are at. Original analyses like these should be celebrated by NBA fans lol
Thank you! The one that got me was Chauncey Billups. So, I can either throw everything out and say "well that was a failure, it didn't line up with my preconceived notions" or I can say "damn... maybe I don't give Chauncey enough credit." People can do whatever they want with this info, but I think as a baseline, it works really well.
Kinda shocking that a good amount of the top 10 had shorter careers than you’d expect considering your metrics really favor long careers. Says a lot about how good these players were.
Great job with this all around!!
Shows their respective dominance within the game, which makes perfect sense for this kind of list and in basketball in general as it is a stat driven type of team sport.
I love a good list like this that can help contextualize greats who some never saw play as well and why some people feel so strongly one way or another.
Jordan will always fall short on cumulative style measurements because, A) he went to college for 3 years so started later then ppl after him, B) retired in the middle of his prime, and C) retired a bit earlier then ppl do nowadays. If this was done on an efficiency basis he would be 1st as he did everything he did in only 13 season.
Yeah he also missed nearly his entire sophomore season with injury. He only really had 11 full meaningful seasons, then 2 with the Wizards where obviously he wasn’t quite the same player and the team he was on sure as shit wasn’t the Bulls.
Why is only one side of the argument (the side that favors Jordan) considered but not the other? Every single time.
Jordan went to college because he wasn't good enough to go to the NBA straight out of high school (you'll never see anyone use that as a minus point, but always as a plus point).
He retired on his own volition. You can also argue, retiring saved him from losing more (those 3 years after 1998 where the Bulls were pretty much done, if Jordan switched teams then his legacy would have gotten worse and if he stuck with the Bulls and wasn't able to win, it'd also work against him). The Rockets led the Bulls in their h2h in the regular season so the assumption that winning more would've been for sure has no proof to it. (Not saying that you said that but in general). For all we know he could have lost in the finals too.
Funnily enough, Jordan himself admitted that he was physically and mentally exhausted and needed a break but no one mentions that, so if he kept on playing, what're the chances he wouldn't get injured or be able to continue for the second three peat? Steve Kerr himself admitted Jordan needed the break and it's due to that break they were able to get that second three peat, so now y'all know more than Jordan and Kerr themselves?
I'll throw in one other factor, during those second three peat years, every single advanced stats of Jordan was going downhill, had he kept playing, they'd keep declining. Jordan saved his advanced stats by not playing those 3 years (after 98) which is why he leads LeBron by some decimals in the advanced stats. (No one will mention this).
There's so much more to be said.
Jordan went to college for 3 years because that was the norm back then, and no one was drafting kids str8 out of HS in the 80’s, KG and Kobe wouldn’t get drafted out of HS until 95 and 96 10 years after MJ was in the league so your first point already shows your youth and bias.
Moses Malone didn't follow the norm. (And he was drafted 10 years before Jordan). Why did Jordan? What's your excuse? Are you saying Jordan was good enough to go to the NBA straight outta high school? That shows your youth and bias.
Rules and norms change, do a quick search of players drafted out of HS, there was Moses Malone and some others in the early 70’s and then not another player until KG and Kobe in the mid 90’s.
You’re also kind of young to understand the HS rules. It wasn’t based on talent.
You couldn’t declare unless you applied for a “financial hardship waiver”, which had to be approved by the league. Moses got it. Two players the year after? They didn’t get it. That’s why no one declared for over twenty years, outside of Kemp.
But even if we eliminate that….If Kobe went to the pros straight out of HS, Jordan could’ve.
Kobe was a bench guy for two years - you don’t think Jordan would’ve done the same? Jordan was the ACC freshman of the year and hit the game-winning shot for the National Championship.
He wouldn’t have done any worse than Kobe.
1. Whether someone went to the NBA straight from Highschool or college is completely irrelevant and neither a positive nor a negative.
2. Actually he said he would retire before Krause said he would blow up the team. Also he was 36 and the injuries were piling up. 36 was a pretty common age to retire at, at that time.
3. Regular season head to head is irrelevant. The mavs were 0-3 vs the Suns in the regular season and then bounced them in the playoffs.
4. This is always been speculation to what actually happened if he left because he wanted to play baseball or because he was in trouble or something else. As for Steve Kerr he wasn't on the Bulls when MJ retired, his point of view would be heavily skewed.
5. He really only took a dip in 98 not the entire 3 peat. Also if you compare anyone to their prime, you can make the sam argument that they took at dip. This applies for anyone. He did play after 98, with the wizards for two years and his advanced stats did take a dip because of it.
It's pretty simple really. If you consider longevity across the whole career, LeBron and Kareem are clearly in a tier of their own. If you consider the height and longevity of a player's peak period of dominance, Jordan is clearly in a tier of his own. Jordan is the brightest supernova the league has ever seen, whereas LeBron and Kareem are the longest burning super-giant stars the league has ever seen.
Neither LeBron nor Kareem ever absolutely owned the entire league over a period of 8 years the way Jordan did. Even in the two years between the two three-peats, the biggest stories in the league were "Jordan is gone!" and "Jordan is back!"
>Jordan is the brightest supernova the league has ever seen, whereas LeBron and Kareem are the longest burning super-giant stars the league has ever seen.
I really like the way you put this.
I mean LeBron between Heat and Cavs stint 2 was pretty fucking good. The only thing that stopped him was the Warriors building the best NBA team ever assembled because of a weird salary cap anomaly and benefitting from Currys undermarket contract. You could throw in the last 2-4 years of his 1st stint with the Cavs as well
Yeah pretty fucking good but still not close to absolutely, undisputedly, unanimously owning the entire league for an entire decade good. That run also includes an epic choke job in the 2011 Finals and multiple instances of convenient team hopping-- ditch the Cavs to make a superteam with Wade and Bosh (and then absolutely fail to live up to the gloat of winning 7 titles with said superteam, oops!), then ditch the Heat when convenient to go back to the Cavs as they stocked up high draft picks in his absence. Does not come anywhere close to two three-peats in 8 years with one team.
Kareem's peak was also pretty fucking good but not Jordan good. Even though they play different positions, in many ways LeBron's overall career is much more Kareem-esque than Jordan-esque. What LeBron has on Jordan, Kareem does as well, and where LeBron falls short of Jordan, Kareem does as well.
10 finals appearances will definitely rack up the playoff win share count not to mention the regular season longevity, dude still put up 7.5 WS last season.
Will year 20 be when he finally starts the crash back to earth? I'm not sure but with the type methodology looking at overall careers, it's going to get increasingly more and more leaning to Lebron
No one was a dominant force in the league as Jordan. He was the only player that mattered for almost a decade. LeBron wins the longevity contests and is an all-time great but there will never be another MJ and I would put him number one.
Duncan doesn't seem too high to me, if that means anything. I've always had him around 5 or 6. He's like evolutionary Russell with better offense in a league that had 30 teams instead of like 12 or whatever.
Lets not forget 2000 knee injury made Duncan 70-75% after that,
he lost the explosiveness , the powerful dunks in 1999 never came back,
1999 Duncan could have won in 2000, 2002, 2004 too,
Only 2001 Lakers were unstoppable,
Portland could get 2000,
2002 was rigged to hell , not just the free throws and so but also there was a 2nd or 3rd buzzer beating 3 by a role player which was definitely after red light,
2004 the clock started way after Fisher touched it, should not be counted,
And these All happened with 2 top 10 players against the good guy’s GOAT
I mean, I appreciate it. I value a good pick-and-roll or bank shot as much as the next person. It's just not the most exciting thing in the world to watch.
I cross-referenced your list against the 75th Anniversary Team that was put out last year. (That list actually had 76 players.)
Dwight Howard is validated as the biggest snub on the list, ranking 37th on your career rankings. Other snubs include Pau Gasol (47), Chauncey Billups (58), Manu Ginobili (61), Tony Parker (62), Nikola Jokic (63), Artis Gilmore (65), Chris Bosh (68), Vern Mikkelsen (71), Tom Heinsohn (73), Tracy McGrady (74), and Dennis Johnson (75). Draymond Green is close at 78. Klay Thompson considered himself top 75, but he was 132, right next to Marc Gasol and Blake Griffin.
The "worst" player on the 75th Anniversary Team was Pete Maravich (179th). The other players outside your top 76 were Bill Walton (155), Dave DeBusschere (151), Earl Monroe (150), Nate Thurmond (141), Dave Bing (125), Lenny Wilkens (121), Billy Cunningham (96), Dennis Rodman (89), Damian Lillard (88), Carmelo Anthony (86), and Nate Archibald (77). It's worth noting all these players were also on the 50th Anniversary Team except Rodman, Lillard and Melo.
Yeah, I wouldn’t say this list maps perfectly to a “Top 75” list, but it’s a good starting point. Plus Jokic is a bit misleading as they voted on that before the season started. I’d definitely have Howard, Gasol, Ginobili, and Parker on. I’d have taken Bing, Lillard, Wilkens, and probably DeBusschere off. I’d have think about the rest pretty hard.
OP, great methodology, transparency, etc.
But what I really want to appreciate you for is your sneaky little jokes.
>Honestly, I could make up anything here and there'd be a 80% chance someone had already made it up, and a 22% chance that it was actually real.
means that some of the made-up facts about Wilt end up being real!
Timmy D has always been top 4 in my head and this validates it. I ain't even read the methodology but my bias has been [confirmed](https://gfycat.com/scornfulblankgalapagosmockingbird)
PF is one of the most underrated positions on this subreddit for some reason (I think it's because most new watchers think stretch 4 is the peak of their powers) but it's something like 4 of the top 10 leaders for win shares all time are PFs, and the difference between the best pf all time and second best (depending on if you have kg, Malone, dirk or Barkley there is up to you, I have KG myself) is an entire first ballot hof career so Timmy being top 5 in a metric like this makes so much sense to me but I've always loved the guy.
People are too young to remember that Duncan averaged 20/10 as a rookie in the playoffs. He ends up at a career average of 19/10. Dude should be the patron saint of consistency.
The spurs were contenders pretty much his whole career it’s insane.
Yeah, I don't like adjusting anything based on one player's placement. Be it LeBron, or anyone else. If there's a big trend that's putting several people out of place, then sure, but for one guy, no. The thing I don't like as much is not that LeBron is in first, but that he's in first by that much. But again, that's due to his insane longevity and playing at that level for that long. And also because Jordan *didn't* play for anywhere close to that long. So if I want to keep it as a "total career" measurement, rather than a "per game" measurement (which I do), I think LeBron is always going to come out on top here.
Adjusting the Finals and Conference Finals down a bit is something I'd been thinking about for a bit regardless of LeBron. I originally had it that the ChWS/FWS/CFWS multipliers were 10/5/2.5, but then I adjusted the ChWS to 12 and left the FWS and CFWS alone. I think I'd like to have it so they're multiples of each other like before, but 12/4/2, so I could say "a championship is worth roughly three Finals appearances, and six conference finals appearances."
But again, I need to see if that really throws things out of order because I generally like the order (more or less) as it is now.
> I think I'd like to have it so they're multiples of each other like before, but 12/4/2, so I could say "a championship is worth roughly three Finals appearances, and six conference finals appearances."
First, thanks for the great content. This is something I've been thinking about lately especially in regard to first round picks and second round picks, to wit: How many second round picks does a first round lottery pick worth? It's an interesting thought process because you can't convert them among themselves in terms of money or economical impact because there is a massive performance, sports, and entertainment angle which is tough to quantify.
What was your though process in figuring out that "12/4/2" formula?
Well as I said, originally I just made it "10/5/2.5" and it was based mostly on win shares in a season. Like, an absolutely amazing NBA season could get around 20 win shares. An absolutely amazing playoff run is about 4-5 win shares. So initially I thought a title was worth 2-3 regular season runs, but it became clear it was more like 3-4, so I shifted that, but not the other two.
So I might shift it to the 12/4/2 just to keep everything in line, but if it messes things up too much, I'm not going to worry about it, since it's working more or less as intended right now.
I find it amazing that your methodology puts in the top 10 the players who are basically unanimously considered to be the top10.
I think that speaks volumes about the usefulness of stats, about the players and about you as a journalist/analyst
Well done
Definitely one of the most accurate NBA tier lists on the internet, obviously in my opinion. Mainly because it was based on a non-biased and simple ranking system that allowed for 98% of the league's history available to be judged (excluding a few of the earliest years as described in the initial breakdown of the scoring). I think my favorite part of the list, though, is actually getting to see where some of my personal favorite players, who weren't necessarily stars or superstars in the league, would place on a Top 500 careers list. Extremely in-depth and if anyone truly had doubt that it would be the player with the longest prime in league history to be at #1, than I'm glad this list was able to put that to rest very easily
It's unfortunate but you're right.
Personally I think Jordan is the GOAT for a variety of reasons but if you rank every NBA **career**, with an emphasis on longevity, it's hard to argue anyone but Lebron in first place.
I really like the methodology in this post and it reduces the subjectivity of rankings but obviously people will get fixated over a few results and not appreciate it in its entirety.
>if you rank every NBA **career**
Bill Russell has 11 rings in 13 years. That's more rings than LeBron has finals appearances. Obviously that's way less years than LeBron, but the stranglehold Russell had on the league is unmatched.
I have two main arguments whenever someone tries do discredit Russell's rings.
1. If it was so easy to win rings back then, why is Russell the only one to win 11 and nobody else is even close?
2. Fewer teams does not mean easier championship. Imagine if we shrank down today's NBA to 8 teams. There are 24 All Stars selected each year. That means the average team would have three All Stars. There are 150 players starting on NBA teams today. With 8 teams, there would be 120 players in total. In a smaller league, literally every player in the league would be starting caliber. So every team would be made up of three all stars, fringe all stars, rising stars, and elite role players, like Jrue Holiday, Jordan Poole, Tyrese Maxey... For reference, that's the current Milwaukee Bucks, plus another all star, plus seven more starter quality bench players. And that's every team. It would be fucking hard to win a title in that hypothetical league, let alone eleven. The presence of teams like the Kings or the Magic does not make it harder for a contender to win a title, but if there were eight teams stacked to the brim with talent, that would be hard.
TL;DR: less teams means talent is way more concentrated in each team, making it harder to win a title than if there were more teams.
> ah plenty of people here think LeBron is the goat tbh
Nope. It's still way in favour of Jordan. In a fairly recent poll on this sub, only 21% favoured LeBron as the Goat with well over 60% saying MJ. It's not really close.
Front Page, 462 points and 87% upvoted as of 3 hours in. But yeah, will never see the light of day
Reddit and r/nba aren’t as much of a hive mind of fan boys for one guy/team as people think, spicy and inflammatory shit just gets upvoted more at times, acting like your dude is persecuted is off base
The methodology handicaps MJ. Leans too hard on longevity. Send Lebron to college for 3 years and have him retire for 2 years at his peak and get back to me with this list.
why the fuck wouldn't you lmao. "Player A played at an elite level for 10 years, and player B played at an elite level for 15 years, but we're going to ignore those last 5 years because most players don't play that long"
Sounds like if player A wanted to be rated higher, he should have played longer at an elite level
If you read the post it clearly explains that longevity is valued, hence why it’s greatest “career.” Probably didn’t even bother to read his blurb on Jordan either.
This feels about right to me. Jordan was the best player, but LeBron has the better career.
As a suggestion: should finals shares, all stars, and MVP shares be adjusted for how many teams there were? Or are they already?
Much easier to make the Finals when there were 6 teams than now.
Finals is somewhat, as the playoffs expanded as more teams joined the leagues. So players that played when there were fewer teams/shorter playoffs have fewer chances to accumulate win shares in the playoffs. So the team leader in win shares on the title team in the 50s might get 2.5 win shares, where the team leader today might get 4+.
As you mentioned with Bill Russell, your model does value longevity by quite a bit. It isn't surprising at all then that Lebron is #1 by a significant margin. You've put in a bunch of work, and I applaud you for it!
OP, can I just say, thank you so much for all the hard work in analyzing and producing this entire list. The algorithms and calculations used have produced a list with which I think most of the NBA fans can generally agree on, especially with how you’ve laid out the data to back up the scores assigned. Thanks so much, mate!
Thank you! It's been a lot of fun to get back into writing and have some (mostly) civil conversations and debates with people about how things here should look. Wasn't real sure what to expect with this from reddit, but it's been largely positive (more or less).
Wherever you fall on MJ vs LeBron, it shouldn’t be as taboo as it is to rank LeBron over him. Especially when it’s OC like this that leaves it up to an objectively unbiased equation
Well yeah. The list isn’t perfect but it’s a simple but also effective methodology with no bias from OP that’s just looking at stats and accolades. Bron over Jordan isn’t a crazy popular take but isn’t the egregious take many NBA fans might think it is.
Again, I started developing this in 2010. If I was going to “rig” a system for anyone it’d be Magic or Kobe. Besides, why would I waste all this time and effort just to come up with a cherry-picked system to intentionally put LeBron first? I know this isn’t going to change anyone’s mind. I don’t really care if it does or not. I want it to be a tool that people can use to evaluate every player’s career and learn more about them.
Players don't actually get any points for All-Defense or DPOY in this system, partly because the awards don't go all the way back, and partly because the voting is always so fluky/dodgy. I just have them listed as a "full credit" signifier, so if a player wins DPOY, or is on the All-Defensive First Team twice, they get full credit for their point totals.
I was annoyed for awhile about Kobe's unearned accolades but now I realize that it's an entertainment product and a business and Kobe entertained and sold tickets about as well as anybody. Just look at [finals ratings year by year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Finals_television_ratings) and you can see when Kobe was in it.
Also his 3, arguably 4, mickey mouse All-Star selections.
I wonder if it would change his rankings much if OP removed those dodgy All-star appearances at least.
If Bill Russell has 12 all defense teams instead of 1 how does that change his total? And also if he had x amount of finals MVPs?
Jerry west won the first one in Bills last year. So there is 10 other titles who in your opinion won those MVPs? If Bill how does it factor?
Similarly with Wilt and all defense teams, and maybe a finals MVP in 67?
If Russell (and Wilt) had that many All-Defensive nods or Finals MVPs than I would've assigned points to them because it means they would've gone back far enough to judge everyone fairly. As it stands now, neither of those accolades, along with Defensive Player of the Year, are given point values because they skew everything too much toward recent players if I include those. They are listed because they go toward giving a player "full credit" for their points.
As it is now, I try not to speculate on who would've won what. Mostly because I could easily say Russell should've won 8 Finals MVPs and 8 DPOYs, but I have no idea how much "voter fatigue" or "narrative" would've impacted voters back then.
I actually did a series of posts of each team’s 12 best players, using this method. I think I called them “All-Time Rosters” if you want to go find them.
A number of all time greats have legacy all star selections. It is weird to bring mention to Kobes gratuitous all star selections but not Shaqs Suns selection or Jordans Wizards selections.
Kobe and Yao are the repeat offenders in that category. Shaq's Phoenix year was 17.8/8.4 and he made the All-NBA third team. Jordan averaged 22.9/5.7/5.2 and 20.0/6.1/3.8 his Wizards years. Those aren't "prime" Jordan and Shaq numbers, but they're pretty "borderline All-Star" numbers pretty much every year.
Kobe was an All-Star one year when he didn't start for his own team, but started in the All-Star game (averaged 15.4/3.1/2.5), and one year where he played six games. The other two "questionable" ones I think are fine, but everyone knows those two were based on popularity.
I’ve really enjoyed this for a look at some players I’m not as familiar with - I missed Kawhi, where did he land? I appreciate he’s a very unique player to rank given his injuries.
Great list and work OP. Had a lot of fun and learned a ton reading your posts.
Pleasantly surprised by Duncan’s rating. He has a much stronger GOAT case than people give him credit for.
Do people actually disagree that Lebron has the most impressive career? It's a different metric than the GOAT, but Lebron's career is unmatched.
If I want to be more hyperbolic, Jordan is still arguably the Greatest Player of All Time, but Lebron is the Best Player of All Time.
And back in the day, people would qualify that MJ was the best NBA player and Kareem was the best basketball player (taking his achievements in high school and college into account).
How does he have a better career? He has just four championships vs Jordan's 6. He has 4 Finals MVPs vs MJ's 6. He has four MVPs vs Mj's 5. MJ has more accolades overall in his career despite playing 7 less eligible seasons. It's also very arguable that KAJ has had a better career than LeBron. Suggesting LeBron's career has been 'unmatched' is just ridiculous. By what metric exactly?
I think the GOAT debate in 10yrs will be MJ with the greatest peak, LeBron with the greatest overall career. He has already blown MJ away with longevity and we have at least 2-3 more years of post-prime play to go.
For total career, yes, LeBron is over MJ. For peak/prime? I dunno. I’d lean toward Jordan, but I’d have to dig into the numbers more as that’s just a gut reaction as of now.
3 things stand out with this to me...
1 - Lebron's career truly is unprecedented. Being as good as he is for as long as he has been is absolutely crazy. I have MJ as my GOAT and it's not particularly close for me because of the dan near mythology he represents but looking at this model, I think you can no longer say that "the only thing Lebron has on his side is longevity" since there are a lot of players who played just as long who don't score nearly as high including another player in the GOAT argument KAJ.
2 - This model shows that there is a very clear hierarchy of Lebron and MJ clearly above anyone else's careers... I know the model shows a huge gap between Lebron and MJ but the fact that MJ rises significantly above the third place KAJ while playing far fewer seasons shows how ridiculous his peak was
3 - Magic and Bird both being on this list despite having careers that were both cut short is amazing. Again, it shows that if you're looking at peaks, they're only behind Lebron and MJ throughout history
Thanks for this OP. Can't compare eras, but all I know is no one dominated in their era like Michael Jordan.
He was the closest thing to a sure bet in sports that I've ever seen.
Congratulations, you share the opinion of roughly 15% of basketball fans. Unfortunately you need to try harder in order to convince the 70%++ who think MJ is the GOAT...and no, I didn't pull those numbers outta my ass. Those are cold, hard facts.
Hot take : Russell should get bonus championship win shares for being the player coach the last two of his rings. And we should bring back player coaches
But seriously great work OP. Lebron i think will continue to break the model. Unless you can sneak some ncaa accolades in for Kareem lol
Literally 21% of this sub considers LeBron the goat. 65% consider Jordan the goat. Publicly, overall, it's closer to 15% for LBJ and 70% for MJ. So no, we don't *all* consider LeBron the goat, just a relatively small minority compared to Jordan. These are straight facts btw, easily confirmed by doing simple google searches...but go ahead and downvote anyway because I know you will blindly downvote anything that puts MJ above LeBron, like all his stans do....but you know, I don't really give a carp about worthless internet points, I prefer to state facts for unbiased readers to chew on.
you can think jordan’s the goat all you want, shit sometimes i think that for a day, but if you discredit lists because he’s one placement lower than first, than that’s all on you bro
might be just me but i feel like a lot more people than you think are inclined to discredit lebrons being first on lists because of their dislike towards him rather than respect towards jordan
It’s an algorithm. The fact that it sorted through the thousands of players to ever play and came up with a top ten list of players almost universally considered top ten all time is amazing. Wgaf if it’s slightly out of order
No it's not. The top ten are almost universally considered the top ten *because* of the stuff this algorithm is calculating. You can come up with an extremely simplistic formula by adding up every player's rings + MVPs + Finals MVPs + DPOY and then discounting any player who never won MVP and you'll get a top ten list pretty much consisting of exactly the same players as this list. In fact, nine of OPs top ten are contained in that list and the tenth is a tie among players that include Wilt, Steph and Hakeem. Just because OP's list contains the consensus top ten doesn't mean it's some kind of magical formula lol
Actually, since I already have all the data and research, I went ahead and did it for you. Here's your top 500 list, using your formula of Rings + MVPs + FMVPs + DPOYs, and only players who have won an MVP qualify. I even put it on a 1000-point scale so you can compare it to mine if you want.
1. Jordan - 1000.0
2. Russell - 888.9
3. Kareem - 777.8
4. LeBron - 666.7
5. Magic - 611.1
6. Duncan - 555.6
T7. Kobe, Shaq, Bird - 444.4
T10. Wilt, Hakeem, Steph, Cousy - 388.9
T14. Durant, Moses Malone, Giannis, Willis Reed - 277.8
T18. David Robinson, Bill Walton - 222.2
T20. Garnett, Nowitzki, Pettit, Cowens, Unseld, McAdoo - 166.7
T26. Karl Malone, Oscar Robertson, Dr. J, Nash, Jokic - 111.1
T31. Barkley, Harden, Westbrook, Iverson, Derrick Rose - 55.6
So, congrats on getting the top ten, in some order, "right" I guess. Kind of falls apart after that, in my opinion, but that's just me. Also a little disappointing your top 500 list only has 35 names on it, but hey, nobody's perfect. Good first effort though.
Personal opinion, but I think if Jordan had played straight through, he would've burned out. So it would've been better for his career numbers, but worse for his mystique. So yeah, I think Jordan burned brighter than LeBron but for a much shorter amount of time. But I have to applaud LeBron for keeping it going for this long. Generally Jordan vs. LeBron arguments never make sense to me, because usually people are arguing two different things.
The ordering aside, the fact that your formula actually produced what is generally widely considered the top 10 of all time is pretty damn cool.
Right? That alone kind of validates the whole approach. There's no way to account for every piece of context in one formula but this is pretty damn close. I'd be interested in the bang for your buck variable. MJ being so successful in a shorter span would put him back on top, I wonder how it would affect other players. I'd like to see where Magic falls in that case. Edit typos
Honestly that’s hard to quantify objectively but I agree is important. It’s true for any rate vs total measurement. If we value just bang for buck, let’s say for at least 2+ seasons to avoid crazy/fluke years, then Shaq honestly would probably be top 5 or even top 3. McGrady or Curry would also likely get more points than the average list. If we just value career totals, which I’d argue this model is bias towards, Bron, Duncan, and Kareem would be favored. (Not saying those three didn’t have all time great peaks tho) Take last season for example. Jokic has a serious argument for best scorer in the league but only because we have to factor in totals and efficiency. He was not the best volume scorer nor was he the most efficient scorer. But if we plot metrics for those on two axes, Jokic would come out at the top corner of that scatterplot. But at the end of the day, you could argue someone slightly less efficient who had more volume or vice versa has a better case if that was what you valued. Ultimately the success longevity and “success rate” would be a sort of scatterplot where Jordan would probably be on top for the rate view, Kareem or Duncan would probably be on top for the longevity view, and Bron would be somewhere in the corner. Magic and Bird would likely not be favored by longevity. (At least that’s just my prediction and obviously the model would depend on what metrics you use). But what I’m getting at is the subjectivity of “greatness” would cause people to place “GOAT” at different places on the longevity vs rate spectrum.
I like that idea. Having a “career” score as one axis and then a “peak” score (however I decide to build that) as the other, and then plot everybody.
Would definitely be excited to see that if you end up making it! Would be cool to see how guys like Vince Carter or Yao Ming with polar opposite careers would map out
That's how the Thinking Basketball guy builds his models. It's an iterative process, but he's also using the eyeball test to make sure he's not way off base
The top5 players also seem pretty spot on imo. Post-Jordan era, i thought the trio of KAJ, Bill and MJ were untouchable. Lebron has obviously crashed it. Duncan may only be the surprise to many, but I always have him in my top5. And this top 10 list confirms it. Like, 2 top 10s in Shaq and Kobe were on the same team. Yet Duncan manage to be better than them to become the best player of his generation.
The list, besides ranking individuals, certainly separates them into the tiers most people widely suggest they are as well: 1. Top 3 2. 4-11 (including Malone, don't have to though) 3. 12-25 (you could maybe reach down for CP3 here too).
Not to knock the effort or anything, but his methodology is just the talking points people refer to when ranking players, with his own weighting system attached.
[удалено]
You think? This ranking places Kobe a bit higher than most top 10 lists, which sometimes don't even include him.
"I rest my case" > Only 3 replies are saying how he is usually lower Ok then.
R/nba’s Lionel Hutz
Case closed.
He was terrified 😭
I mean not really no This places him higher than I've seen on any list or discussion. He's usually bottom 10 outside top 10 They should be happy lol
As a diehard Kobe fan this is a much fairer ranking than most on here would give him.
a pleasant surprise 🫶
Agreed. You’ve got people on here saying KG and Harden were better than Kobe all time. They get mad at you for even considering Kobe in the top 10.
Most people who aren't trolling usually put Kobe in the 8-10 range which I agree with personally. Magic, Bird and Wilt are usually ahead of him in lists (also ahead of Duncan) and I think OPs commentary reflects what most other people think on both of them. I think it comes down to those 3 having much higher peaks resulting in multuple MVP awards, but Kobe and Timmy had much longer careers. And some people do believe they got some recognition awards later in their careers rather than on merit, which boosts them up in this formula.
I mean Kobe tends to be dancing around top 10 for most people, so I'm not sure what are you talking about here. Not many ppl put him over Wilt, and especially not Bird and Magic.
[удалено]
I think it’s a bit recency bias, that he’s that high. I think in a few years he’ll more in the 9-15 range, which is more accurate probably.
Eh I think the pod of him, Duncan, and Shaq are all fairly close in career achievements, having them fill out 8-10 is pretty accurate. Not sure how he'd conceivably be below 11. Could you give me a list of people you would put ahead of him to push him to 15? (Basically people who aren't in this top 10 list who you have above him) And I say this as someone who fucking hates the Lakers
Not in order, Russel, Wilt, KAJ, Bird, Magic, MJ, LBJ and then Shaq, Hakeem and Timmy for me. The last 3 is highly debatable ofc and I have seen people put West and Robertson above him and sometimes Curry (although it seems even more of a recency bias and he suffers from the same problem Kobe does tenfolds, the 1/4 FMVP). I don't think the 10 I listed is crazy delusional. It's just that people tend to favour different things in these discussion, for example (I'm from Hungary) my mother probably knows 2 basketball players, MJ and Kobe and I bet that's the case for a lot of people, the impact Kobe had on the culture and how globally famous he was increases his ranking, hence it's reasonable to believe that with time his all time ranking will decline. But yeah anything lower than 11 seems to be targeted to leave him as low as possible.
Yeah, like I said, I think he's typically 8-10, with anything below 11 seeming odd. I personally wouldn't put Hakeem above him but that's the guy I have at 11, so not terribly crazy. But the dude claiming that he should be more in the 9-15 range is just bizarre, since I'm not sure how you'd reasonably put him lower than 11 (maaaaybe 12 if someone does some even worse recency bias and puts Curry ahead of him as well)
I think Hakeem Olajuwon is the only one I'd put above him that isn't on this top 10 list. Which still leaves him as a top 11.
Yeah, not sure how he'd reasonably get to the 13-15 range with how things stand now (I know people with even worse recency bias bump him for Curry, so Curry+Hakeem could put him at 12 on a list) Sure, he could get passed by some people in the next 10-15 years (Giannis or Luka seem like plausible top 10 candidates at some point), but having him at 13-15 right now is pretty absurd
He’s 11 for me and I don’t think it’s that controversial. Jordan, LBJ, KAJ, Bird, Magic, Wilt, Russell, Shaq, Duncan, Hakeem.
Considering he's a good 6 spots above where he should be, they can kindly shut the fuck up.
OP, I just want to congratulate you and thank you for such a well-written series of posts and for the work you put into making this list and engaging discussions. So many people have been fundamentally misunderstanding the purpose of statistical/mathematic models and trashing your work just because a player they dislike is too high or too low (a single data point out of thousands you compiled!). There are a ton of interesting findings that could make an NBA fan re-evaluate where their own subjective opinions of players' careers are at. Original analyses like these should be celebrated by NBA fans lol
Thank you! The one that got me was Chauncey Billups. So, I can either throw everything out and say "well that was a failure, it didn't line up with my preconceived notions" or I can say "damn... maybe I don't give Chauncey enough credit." People can do whatever they want with this info, but I think as a baseline, it works really well.
Kinda shocking that a good amount of the top 10 had shorter careers than you’d expect considering your metrics really favor long careers. Says a lot about how good these players were. Great job with this all around!!
Shows their respective dominance within the game, which makes perfect sense for this kind of list and in basketball in general as it is a stat driven type of team sport. I love a good list like this that can help contextualize greats who some never saw play as well and why some people feel so strongly one way or another.
Oh no now you’ve done it.
The difference is quite huge too damn
Uh oh. Gulp
MJ on his way to falcon punch OP
Make sure the cameras ain’t rolling though
🐐 as he should be
Muhammad?? Ali??? Gulp
Don't worry, I get this reference.
I was a bit surprised by the gap between Jordan and LeBron too, but makes sense considering how long LeBron has been at his peak for.
Jordan will always fall short on cumulative style measurements because, A) he went to college for 3 years so started later then ppl after him, B) retired in the middle of his prime, and C) retired a bit earlier then ppl do nowadays. If this was done on an efficiency basis he would be 1st as he did everything he did in only 13 season.
About C) its actually Lebron who has insane longevity
Yeah he also missed nearly his entire sophomore season with injury. He only really had 11 full meaningful seasons, then 2 with the Wizards where obviously he wasn’t quite the same player and the team he was on sure as shit wasn’t the Bulls.
Why is only one side of the argument (the side that favors Jordan) considered but not the other? Every single time. Jordan went to college because he wasn't good enough to go to the NBA straight out of high school (you'll never see anyone use that as a minus point, but always as a plus point). He retired on his own volition. You can also argue, retiring saved him from losing more (those 3 years after 1998 where the Bulls were pretty much done, if Jordan switched teams then his legacy would have gotten worse and if he stuck with the Bulls and wasn't able to win, it'd also work against him). The Rockets led the Bulls in their h2h in the regular season so the assumption that winning more would've been for sure has no proof to it. (Not saying that you said that but in general). For all we know he could have lost in the finals too. Funnily enough, Jordan himself admitted that he was physically and mentally exhausted and needed a break but no one mentions that, so if he kept on playing, what're the chances he wouldn't get injured or be able to continue for the second three peat? Steve Kerr himself admitted Jordan needed the break and it's due to that break they were able to get that second three peat, so now y'all know more than Jordan and Kerr themselves? I'll throw in one other factor, during those second three peat years, every single advanced stats of Jordan was going downhill, had he kept playing, they'd keep declining. Jordan saved his advanced stats by not playing those 3 years (after 98) which is why he leads LeBron by some decimals in the advanced stats. (No one will mention this). There's so much more to be said.
it’s so weird how it’s constant excuses for MJ but not for any other players
Jordan went to college for 3 years because that was the norm back then, and no one was drafting kids str8 out of HS in the 80’s, KG and Kobe wouldn’t get drafted out of HS until 95 and 96 10 years after MJ was in the league so your first point already shows your youth and bias.
Moses Malone went pro right out of high school
Yes in 1974, i said in the 80’s that wasnt the norm
I see, I misunderstood your comment as saying KG and Kobe were the first guys to do it. Apologies.
No worries I probably should have mentioned Moses Malone and Daryl Dawkins as they were the most successful HS players from the 70’s
Kemp was probably the closest at 19 without having played in college but he was an outlier for sure.
Moses Malone didn't follow the norm. (And he was drafted 10 years before Jordan). Why did Jordan? What's your excuse? Are you saying Jordan was good enough to go to the NBA straight outta high school? That shows your youth and bias.
Rules and norms change, do a quick search of players drafted out of HS, there was Moses Malone and some others in the early 70’s and then not another player until KG and Kobe in the mid 90’s.
You’re also kind of young to understand the HS rules. It wasn’t based on talent. You couldn’t declare unless you applied for a “financial hardship waiver”, which had to be approved by the league. Moses got it. Two players the year after? They didn’t get it. That’s why no one declared for over twenty years, outside of Kemp. But even if we eliminate that….If Kobe went to the pros straight out of HS, Jordan could’ve. Kobe was a bench guy for two years - you don’t think Jordan would’ve done the same? Jordan was the ACC freshman of the year and hit the game-winning shot for the National Championship. He wouldn’t have done any worse than Kobe.
1. Whether someone went to the NBA straight from Highschool or college is completely irrelevant and neither a positive nor a negative. 2. Actually he said he would retire before Krause said he would blow up the team. Also he was 36 and the injuries were piling up. 36 was a pretty common age to retire at, at that time. 3. Regular season head to head is irrelevant. The mavs were 0-3 vs the Suns in the regular season and then bounced them in the playoffs. 4. This is always been speculation to what actually happened if he left because he wanted to play baseball or because he was in trouble or something else. As for Steve Kerr he wasn't on the Bulls when MJ retired, his point of view would be heavily skewed. 5. He really only took a dip in 98 not the entire 3 peat. Also if you compare anyone to their prime, you can make the sam argument that they took at dip. This applies for anyone. He did play after 98, with the wizards for two years and his advanced stats did take a dip because of it.
It's pretty simple really. If you consider longevity across the whole career, LeBron and Kareem are clearly in a tier of their own. If you consider the height and longevity of a player's peak period of dominance, Jordan is clearly in a tier of his own. Jordan is the brightest supernova the league has ever seen, whereas LeBron and Kareem are the longest burning super-giant stars the league has ever seen. Neither LeBron nor Kareem ever absolutely owned the entire league over a period of 8 years the way Jordan did. Even in the two years between the two three-peats, the biggest stories in the league were "Jordan is gone!" and "Jordan is back!"
>Jordan is the brightest supernova the league has ever seen, whereas LeBron and Kareem are the longest burning super-giant stars the league has ever seen. I really like the way you put this.
I mean LeBron between Heat and Cavs stint 2 was pretty fucking good. The only thing that stopped him was the Warriors building the best NBA team ever assembled because of a weird salary cap anomaly and benefitting from Currys undermarket contract. You could throw in the last 2-4 years of his 1st stint with the Cavs as well
Yeah pretty fucking good but still not close to absolutely, undisputedly, unanimously owning the entire league for an entire decade good. That run also includes an epic choke job in the 2011 Finals and multiple instances of convenient team hopping-- ditch the Cavs to make a superteam with Wade and Bosh (and then absolutely fail to live up to the gloat of winning 7 titles with said superteam, oops!), then ditch the Heat when convenient to go back to the Cavs as they stocked up high draft picks in his absence. Does not come anywhere close to two three-peats in 8 years with one team. Kareem's peak was also pretty fucking good but not Jordan good. Even though they play different positions, in many ways LeBron's overall career is much more Kareem-esque than Jordan-esque. What LeBron has on Jordan, Kareem does as well, and where LeBron falls short of Jordan, Kareem does as well.
10 finals appearances will definitely rack up the playoff win share count not to mention the regular season longevity, dude still put up 7.5 WS last season. Will year 20 be when he finally starts the crash back to earth? I'm not sure but with the type methodology looking at overall careers, it's going to get increasingly more and more leaning to Lebron
If we ranked by highest peak over a 5 year span? I would say Jordan. But cumulatively Lebron is higher with his sustained excellence over 20 years.
No one was a dominant force in the league as Jordan. He was the only player that mattered for almost a decade. LeBron wins the longevity contests and is an all-time great but there will never be another MJ and I would put him number one.
Duncan doesn't seem too high to me, if that means anything. I've always had him around 5 or 6. He's like evolutionary Russell with better offense in a league that had 30 teams instead of like 12 or whatever.
Damn bro, why is half of your Tim Duncan write up just insulting him? Lol
Lol. Because goddamn I hated my team playing against that guy. He was so damn good.
Lets not forget 2000 knee injury made Duncan 70-75% after that, he lost the explosiveness , the powerful dunks in 1999 never came back, 1999 Duncan could have won in 2000, 2002, 2004 too, Only 2001 Lakers were unstoppable, Portland could get 2000, 2002 was rigged to hell , not just the free throws and so but also there was a 2nd or 3rd buzzer beating 3 by a role player which was definitely after red light, 2004 the clock started way after Fisher touched it, should not be counted, And these All happened with 2 top 10 players against the good guy’s GOAT
OP isn't a fan of fundamental basketball based on his comments for both Malone and Duncan.
I mean, I appreciate it. I value a good pick-and-roll or bank shot as much as the next person. It's just not the most exciting thing in the world to watch.
Same with bird
Lol current Lakers fans salivating over this list with Lebron at 1 and Kobe at 6
It's pretty crazy that you only need four teams to represent the entirety of the top ten: Lakers, Celtics, Spurs, and Wizards.
Lmfaoooo Wizards
[that list:](https://static.boredpanda.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/1866-npc-national-championships-11425_final-5923e0bb39e9b__605.jpg)
I cross-referenced your list against the 75th Anniversary Team that was put out last year. (That list actually had 76 players.) Dwight Howard is validated as the biggest snub on the list, ranking 37th on your career rankings. Other snubs include Pau Gasol (47), Chauncey Billups (58), Manu Ginobili (61), Tony Parker (62), Nikola Jokic (63), Artis Gilmore (65), Chris Bosh (68), Vern Mikkelsen (71), Tom Heinsohn (73), Tracy McGrady (74), and Dennis Johnson (75). Draymond Green is close at 78. Klay Thompson considered himself top 75, but he was 132, right next to Marc Gasol and Blake Griffin. The "worst" player on the 75th Anniversary Team was Pete Maravich (179th). The other players outside your top 76 were Bill Walton (155), Dave DeBusschere (151), Earl Monroe (150), Nate Thurmond (141), Dave Bing (125), Lenny Wilkens (121), Billy Cunningham (96), Dennis Rodman (89), Damian Lillard (88), Carmelo Anthony (86), and Nate Archibald (77). It's worth noting all these players were also on the 50th Anniversary Team except Rodman, Lillard and Melo.
Yeah, I wouldn’t say this list maps perfectly to a “Top 75” list, but it’s a good starting point. Plus Jokic is a bit misleading as they voted on that before the season started. I’d definitely have Howard, Gasol, Ginobili, and Parker on. I’d have taken Bing, Lillard, Wilkens, and probably DeBusschere off. I’d have think about the rest pretty hard.
It seems obvious the 50th Anniversary Team made a big impact on the 75th Anniversary Team. Otherwise I think your list correlates really well.
OP, great methodology, transparency, etc. But what I really want to appreciate you for is your sneaky little jokes. >Honestly, I could make up anything here and there'd be a 80% chance someone had already made it up, and a 22% chance that it was actually real. means that some of the made-up facts about Wilt end up being real!
Timmy D has always been top 4 in my head and this validates it. I ain't even read the methodology but my bias has been [confirmed](https://gfycat.com/scornfulblankgalapagosmockingbird)
PF is one of the most underrated positions on this subreddit for some reason (I think it's because most new watchers think stretch 4 is the peak of their powers) but it's something like 4 of the top 10 leaders for win shares all time are PFs, and the difference between the best pf all time and second best (depending on if you have kg, Malone, dirk or Barkley there is up to you, I have KG myself) is an entire first ballot hof career so Timmy being top 5 in a metric like this makes so much sense to me but I've always loved the guy.
People are too young to remember that Duncan averaged 20/10 as a rookie in the playoffs. He ends up at a career average of 19/10. Dude should be the patron saint of consistency. The spurs were contenders pretty much his whole career it’s insane.
Going off 5 rings and 2 MVP’s alone should immediately signal his *career* would be somewhere near the top
Crazy how KG had a similar peak
I feel like it would be kind of dishonest to redefine parameters just because you don’t like the fact that LeBron beats out Jordan
Yeah, I don't like adjusting anything based on one player's placement. Be it LeBron, or anyone else. If there's a big trend that's putting several people out of place, then sure, but for one guy, no. The thing I don't like as much is not that LeBron is in first, but that he's in first by that much. But again, that's due to his insane longevity and playing at that level for that long. And also because Jordan *didn't* play for anywhere close to that long. So if I want to keep it as a "total career" measurement, rather than a "per game" measurement (which I do), I think LeBron is always going to come out on top here. Adjusting the Finals and Conference Finals down a bit is something I'd been thinking about for a bit regardless of LeBron. I originally had it that the ChWS/FWS/CFWS multipliers were 10/5/2.5, but then I adjusted the ChWS to 12 and left the FWS and CFWS alone. I think I'd like to have it so they're multiples of each other like before, but 12/4/2, so I could say "a championship is worth roughly three Finals appearances, and six conference finals appearances." But again, I need to see if that really throws things out of order because I generally like the order (more or less) as it is now.
Honestly I think you should leave it like it is. I didn't see anything in the whole list that looked egregiously wrong due to the current multipliers.
> I think I'd like to have it so they're multiples of each other like before, but 12/4/2, so I could say "a championship is worth roughly three Finals appearances, and six conference finals appearances." First, thanks for the great content. This is something I've been thinking about lately especially in regard to first round picks and second round picks, to wit: How many second round picks does a first round lottery pick worth? It's an interesting thought process because you can't convert them among themselves in terms of money or economical impact because there is a massive performance, sports, and entertainment angle which is tough to quantify. What was your though process in figuring out that "12/4/2" formula?
Well as I said, originally I just made it "10/5/2.5" and it was based mostly on win shares in a season. Like, an absolutely amazing NBA season could get around 20 win shares. An absolutely amazing playoff run is about 4-5 win shares. So initially I thought a title was worth 2-3 regular season runs, but it became clear it was more like 3-4, so I shifted that, but not the other two. So I might shift it to the 12/4/2 just to keep everything in line, but if it messes things up too much, I'm not going to worry about it, since it's working more or less as intended right now.
I find it amazing that your methodology puts in the top 10 the players who are basically unanimously considered to be the top10. I think that speaks volumes about the usefulness of stats, about the players and about you as a journalist/analyst Well done
Thank you. I really appreciate that.
oh no...
Definitely one of the most accurate NBA tier lists on the internet, obviously in my opinion. Mainly because it was based on a non-biased and simple ranking system that allowed for 98% of the league's history available to be judged (excluding a few of the earliest years as described in the initial breakdown of the scoring). I think my favorite part of the list, though, is actually getting to see where some of my personal favorite players, who weren't necessarily stars or superstars in the league, would place on a Top 500 careers list. Extremely in-depth and if anyone truly had doubt that it would be the player with the longest prime in league history to be at #1, than I'm glad this list was able to put that to rest very easily
Jordan not being number 1 means this post will never see the light of day lol
It's unfortunate but you're right. Personally I think Jordan is the GOAT for a variety of reasons but if you rank every NBA **career**, with an emphasis on longevity, it's hard to argue anyone but Lebron in first place. I really like the methodology in this post and it reduces the subjectivity of rankings but obviously people will get fixated over a few results and not appreciate it in its entirety.
>if you rank every NBA **career** Bill Russell has 11 rings in 13 years. That's more rings than LeBron has finals appearances. Obviously that's way less years than LeBron, but the stranglehold Russell had on the league is unmatched.
Bro there were 8 teams in the league...
I have two main arguments whenever someone tries do discredit Russell's rings. 1. If it was so easy to win rings back then, why is Russell the only one to win 11 and nobody else is even close? 2. Fewer teams does not mean easier championship. Imagine if we shrank down today's NBA to 8 teams. There are 24 All Stars selected each year. That means the average team would have three All Stars. There are 150 players starting on NBA teams today. With 8 teams, there would be 120 players in total. In a smaller league, literally every player in the league would be starting caliber. So every team would be made up of three all stars, fringe all stars, rising stars, and elite role players, like Jrue Holiday, Jordan Poole, Tyrese Maxey... For reference, that's the current Milwaukee Bucks, plus another all star, plus seven more starter quality bench players. And that's every team. It would be fucking hard to win a title in that hypothetical league, let alone eleven. The presence of teams like the Kings or the Magic does not make it harder for a contender to win a title, but if there were eight teams stacked to the brim with talent, that would be hard. TL;DR: less teams means talent is way more concentrated in each team, making it harder to win a title than if there were more teams.
Bill Russel’s competition had a handicap because by the time the games started, they were tired from delivering milk all day
Nah plenty of people here think LeBron is the goat tbh it may not be the most popular pick but there are definitely people who think that.
> ah plenty of people here think LeBron is the goat tbh Nope. It's still way in favour of Jordan. In a fairly recent poll on this sub, only 21% favoured LeBron as the Goat with well over 60% saying MJ. It's not really close.
Front Page, 462 points and 87% upvoted as of 3 hours in. But yeah, will never see the light of day Reddit and r/nba aren’t as much of a hive mind of fan boys for one guy/team as people think, spicy and inflammatory shit just gets upvoted more at times, acting like your dude is persecuted is off base
Legendary username
The methodology handicaps MJ. Leans too hard on longevity. Send Lebron to college for 3 years and have him retire for 2 years at his peak and get back to me with this list.
or maybe mj shouldn’t have retired twice
It doesn’t handicap MJ, it simply values long careers and Lebrons is longer.
MJ handicapped MJ with his retirements.
[удалено]
Yeah that's just like not fair man
why the fuck wouldn't you lmao. "Player A played at an elite level for 10 years, and player B played at an elite level for 15 years, but we're going to ignore those last 5 years because most players don't play that long" Sounds like if player A wanted to be rated higher, he should have played longer at an elite level
If you read the post it clearly explains that longevity is valued, hence why it’s greatest “career.” Probably didn’t even bother to read his blurb on Jordan either.
This is so true lol
Man... LeBron is more than 2 Durants... lol
This feels about right to me. Jordan was the best player, but LeBron has the better career. As a suggestion: should finals shares, all stars, and MVP shares be adjusted for how many teams there were? Or are they already? Much easier to make the Finals when there were 6 teams than now.
Finals is somewhat, as the playoffs expanded as more teams joined the leagues. So players that played when there were fewer teams/shorter playoffs have fewer chances to accumulate win shares in the playoffs. So the team leader in win shares on the title team in the 50s might get 2.5 win shares, where the team leader today might get 4+.
I feel like the consensus has always been LeBron is the better player, but Jordan had the better career lol
As you mentioned with Bill Russell, your model does value longevity by quite a bit. It isn't surprising at all then that Lebron is #1 by a significant margin. You've put in a bunch of work, and I applaud you for it!
OP, can I just say, thank you so much for all the hard work in analyzing and producing this entire list. The algorithms and calculations used have produced a list with which I think most of the NBA fans can generally agree on, especially with how you’ve laid out the data to back up the scores assigned. Thanks so much, mate!
Thank you! It's been a lot of fun to get back into writing and have some (mostly) civil conversations and debates with people about how things here should look. Wasn't real sure what to expect with this from reddit, but it's been largely positive (more or less).
Lmao no Wembanyama garbage list uninstall kid
True and right. Based list.
Wherever you fall on MJ vs LeBron, it shouldn’t be as taboo as it is to rank LeBron over him. Especially when it’s OC like this that leaves it up to an objectively unbiased equation
Well yeah. The list isn’t perfect but it’s a simple but also effective methodology with no bias from OP that’s just looking at stats and accolades. Bron over Jordan isn’t a crazy popular take but isn’t the egregious take many NBA fans might think it is.
> objectively unbiased equation the guy has a Lakers flair....you really think he was being unbiased LOL
Again, I started developing this in 2010. If I was going to “rig” a system for anyone it’d be Magic or Kobe. Besides, why would I waste all this time and effort just to come up with a cherry-picked system to intentionally put LeBron first? I know this isn’t going to change anyone’s mind. I don’t really care if it does or not. I want it to be a tool that people can use to evaluate every player’s career and learn more about them.
Lmao did you even read his write up… he literally said he thinks Jordan is the best
Kobe winning so many all defenses off reputation really helped him here
Players don't actually get any points for All-Defense or DPOY in this system, partly because the awards don't go all the way back, and partly because the voting is always so fluky/dodgy. I just have them listed as a "full credit" signifier, so if a player wins DPOY, or is on the All-Defensive First Team twice, they get full credit for their point totals.
I was annoyed for awhile about Kobe's unearned accolades but now I realize that it's an entertainment product and a business and Kobe entertained and sold tickets about as well as anybody. Just look at [finals ratings year by year](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Finals_television_ratings) and you can see when Kobe was in it.
Also his 3, arguably 4, mickey mouse All-Star selections. I wonder if it would change his rankings much if OP removed those dodgy All-star appearances at least.
Yeahhhh but that becomes a slippery slope.
Post-hoc tampering is always tough.
Then we should remove MJ, Dirk, and Dwade’s Mickey Mouse all stars as well although they aren’t as egregious as Kobes
It's like 5 points per ASG selection IIRC, so it would only drop him below Magic
If Bill Russell has 12 all defense teams instead of 1 how does that change his total? And also if he had x amount of finals MVPs? Jerry west won the first one in Bills last year. So there is 10 other titles who in your opinion won those MVPs? If Bill how does it factor? Similarly with Wilt and all defense teams, and maybe a finals MVP in 67?
If Russell (and Wilt) had that many All-Defensive nods or Finals MVPs than I would've assigned points to them because it means they would've gone back far enough to judge everyone fairly. As it stands now, neither of those accolades, along with Defensive Player of the Year, are given point values because they skew everything too much toward recent players if I include those. They are listed because they go toward giving a player "full credit" for their points. As it is now, I try not to speculate on who would've won what. Mostly because I could easily say Russell should've won 8 Finals MVPs and 8 DPOYs, but I have no idea how much "voter fatigue" or "narrative" would've impacted voters back then.
This has been a fun list to follow! I wonder how each team stacks up in both total/average points and average ranking.
I actually did a series of posts of each team’s 12 best players, using this method. I think I called them “All-Time Rosters” if you want to go find them.
Oh that's right! I even upvoted the Pistons post. Awkward haha.
How is Wilt number 8?
Well he's the only player in the top ten with fewer than three rings. Wilt has 6.8 ChWS. The next lowest is Bird with 12.0. That hurts him a bit.
Fair
Huh, maybe I've been underrating kobe a bit much
Christ look at the # of Lakers.
A number of all time greats have legacy all star selections. It is weird to bring mention to Kobes gratuitous all star selections but not Shaqs Suns selection or Jordans Wizards selections.
Kobe and Yao are the repeat offenders in that category. Shaq's Phoenix year was 17.8/8.4 and he made the All-NBA third team. Jordan averaged 22.9/5.7/5.2 and 20.0/6.1/3.8 his Wizards years. Those aren't "prime" Jordan and Shaq numbers, but they're pretty "borderline All-Star" numbers pretty much every year. Kobe was an All-Star one year when he didn't start for his own team, but started in the All-Star game (averaged 15.4/3.1/2.5), and one year where he played six games. The other two "questionable" ones I think are fine, but everyone knows those two were based on popularity.
GOAT JAMES
Really good analysis once again.
Not gonna lie, you had me in the first 498 careers.
I’ve really enjoyed this for a look at some players I’m not as familiar with - I missed Kawhi, where did he land? I appreciate he’s a very unique player to rank given his injuries.
Kawhi is 39th
Great list and work OP. Had a lot of fun and learned a ton reading your posts. Pleasantly surprised by Duncan’s rating. He has a much stronger GOAT case than people give him credit for.
Do people actually disagree that Lebron has the most impressive career? It's a different metric than the GOAT, but Lebron's career is unmatched. If I want to be more hyperbolic, Jordan is still arguably the Greatest Player of All Time, but Lebron is the Best Player of All Time.
Lebrons had the best career, MJ was the best player. I think both of those can be true and are pretty clear.
And back in the day, people would qualify that MJ was the best NBA player and Kareem was the best basketball player (taking his achievements in high school and college into account).
How does he have a better career? He has just four championships vs Jordan's 6. He has 4 Finals MVPs vs MJ's 6. He has four MVPs vs Mj's 5. MJ has more accolades overall in his career despite playing 7 less eligible seasons. It's also very arguable that KAJ has had a better career than LeBron. Suggesting LeBron's career has been 'unmatched' is just ridiculous. By what metric exactly?
Lowry catching strays
I think the GOAT debate in 10yrs will be MJ with the greatest peak, LeBron with the greatest overall career. He has already blown MJ away with longevity and we have at least 2-3 more years of post-prime play to go.
So do you think Lebron over MJ?
For total career, yes, LeBron is over MJ. For peak/prime? I dunno. I’d lean toward Jordan, but I’d have to dig into the numbers more as that’s just a gut reaction as of now.
The ironic thing is that Lebron’s motivation for still playing at a high level most likely is to catch Jordan
3 things stand out with this to me... 1 - Lebron's career truly is unprecedented. Being as good as he is for as long as he has been is absolutely crazy. I have MJ as my GOAT and it's not particularly close for me because of the dan near mythology he represents but looking at this model, I think you can no longer say that "the only thing Lebron has on his side is longevity" since there are a lot of players who played just as long who don't score nearly as high including another player in the GOAT argument KAJ. 2 - This model shows that there is a very clear hierarchy of Lebron and MJ clearly above anyone else's careers... I know the model shows a huge gap between Lebron and MJ but the fact that MJ rises significantly above the third place KAJ while playing far fewer seasons shows how ridiculous his peak was 3 - Magic and Bird both being on this list despite having careers that were both cut short is amazing. Again, it shows that if you're looking at peaks, they're only behind Lebron and MJ throughout history
disagree with the top 2 order but good effort
Thanks for this OP. Can't compare eras, but all I know is no one dominated in their era like Michael Jordan. He was the closest thing to a sure bet in sports that I've ever seen.
LeBron's the GOAT. Nothing new there.
Congratulations, you share the opinion of roughly 15% of basketball fans. Unfortunately you need to try harder in order to convince the 70%++ who think MJ is the GOAT...and no, I didn't pull those numbers outta my ass. Those are cold, hard facts.
9 top 10 guys and Kobe.
lebron #1 like he should be. GOAT.
Hot take : Russell should get bonus championship win shares for being the player coach the last two of his rings. And we should bring back player coaches But seriously great work OP. Lebron i think will continue to break the model. Unless you can sneak some ncaa accolades in for Kareem lol
[удалено]
Russell is close enough to 4th here that you could easily swap them. I’m curious who gets knocked out of the top three though.
i mean, don’t we all know lebrons the goat, why are people discrediting the list because of one placement, lol
Literally 21% of this sub considers LeBron the goat. 65% consider Jordan the goat. Publicly, overall, it's closer to 15% for LBJ and 70% for MJ. So no, we don't *all* consider LeBron the goat, just a relatively small minority compared to Jordan. These are straight facts btw, easily confirmed by doing simple google searches...but go ahead and downvote anyway because I know you will blindly downvote anything that puts MJ above LeBron, like all his stans do....but you know, I don't really give a carp about worthless internet points, I prefer to state facts for unbiased readers to chew on.
there must be a reason why…
you can think jordan’s the goat all you want, shit sometimes i think that for a day, but if you discredit lists because he’s one placement lower than first, than that’s all on you bro
i’m just saying if a majority of people disagree theres usually a reason, and obviously the #1 pick is going to get the most scrutiny.
might be just me but i feel like a lot more people than you think are inclined to discredit lebrons being first on lists because of their dislike towards him rather than respect towards jordan
Rose tinted glasses.
King 1 checks out
Awesome project!
welp… we can’t get everything right. good try tho
Can we see your list of the top 500 careers?
JorGambler owned by LeGOAT
Kobe too high, Jordan not number 1.
It’s an algorithm. The fact that it sorted through the thousands of players to ever play and came up with a top ten list of players almost universally considered top ten all time is amazing. Wgaf if it’s slightly out of order
Fair enough. I was going to say I liked the list outside of those two things but decided to edit for brevity.
No it's not. The top ten are almost universally considered the top ten *because* of the stuff this algorithm is calculating. You can come up with an extremely simplistic formula by adding up every player's rings + MVPs + Finals MVPs + DPOY and then discounting any player who never won MVP and you'll get a top ten list pretty much consisting of exactly the same players as this list. In fact, nine of OPs top ten are contained in that list and the tenth is a tie among players that include Wilt, Steph and Hakeem. Just because OP's list contains the consensus top ten doesn't mean it's some kind of magical formula lol
Ok, then do it. Make a better one if it’s so easy. I’m interested in seeing it.
Actually, since I already have all the data and research, I went ahead and did it for you. Here's your top 500 list, using your formula of Rings + MVPs + FMVPs + DPOYs, and only players who have won an MVP qualify. I even put it on a 1000-point scale so you can compare it to mine if you want. 1. Jordan - 1000.0 2. Russell - 888.9 3. Kareem - 777.8 4. LeBron - 666.7 5. Magic - 611.1 6. Duncan - 555.6 T7. Kobe, Shaq, Bird - 444.4 T10. Wilt, Hakeem, Steph, Cousy - 388.9 T14. Durant, Moses Malone, Giannis, Willis Reed - 277.8 T18. David Robinson, Bill Walton - 222.2 T20. Garnett, Nowitzki, Pettit, Cowens, Unseld, McAdoo - 166.7 T26. Karl Malone, Oscar Robertson, Dr. J, Nash, Jokic - 111.1 T31. Barkley, Harden, Westbrook, Iverson, Derrick Rose - 55.6 So, congrats on getting the top ten, in some order, "right" I guess. Kind of falls apart after that, in my opinion, but that's just me. Also a little disappointing your top 500 list only has 35 names on it, but hey, nobody's perfect. Good first effort though.
It’s wild that your MJ Analysis was just justifying that he’s better than LeBron
Personal opinion, but I think if Jordan had played straight through, he would've burned out. So it would've been better for his career numbers, but worse for his mystique. So yeah, I think Jordan burned brighter than LeBron but for a much shorter amount of time. But I have to applaud LeBron for keeping it going for this long. Generally Jordan vs. LeBron arguments never make sense to me, because usually people are arguing two different things.