Top 10 Greatest Players Of All Time

http://btabasketball.com/forums/index.php?

We sat in the living room in my house just last week. My brother exclaimed that "you can't prove an opinion wrong by definition."

The reply about opinions? No, you can't prove them wrong. And yes, everyone is entitled to them. And no, no one will factually ever scientifically prove anything beyond a shadow of a doubt regarding any sports. Hell, in some sports like the NFL, you can't even draw comparisons at all between different positions. Can you compare Joe Montana and Ray Lewis? No! They play different sides of the ball. How do you relate blocking to running the football? You can't. In the NBA though everyone plays defense, everyone shoots, everyone accumulates/can accumulate assists.

The reply was that if we all state our opinions, the thing that will differentiate 100 of us in the eyes of unbiased observers will be what information we offer as persuasion that our opinion should be taken more seriously than the next guy.

The list - The list is tricky.

I think you can rate priorities as follows:

1. Winning -

a) You play to win the game. That about ends it. All the stats in the world don't matter if you're not winning.

Consider this.....

Bill Russell just won, stats weren't great
Dominique Wilkins just put up stats, couldn't win a thing

Ditto Bernard King, Allen Iverson and Tracy McGrady. Just on a laugh test, which four of those five players make you crack up if I mention them as a top ten player all time? Everyone but Russell, right...? Exactly.

B What's your role? Rings are not the same. It's no different than a science fair or hunting for deer. If you're the second best hunter or second best shot in your group, it's a lot easier to win the science fair or kill a deer if I give you someone who is even better.

I'd love to call Scottie Pippen better than around 20th all time. I'd LOVE to. As much as I love to I won't. Because it's a lot easier to win a ring when you have a set of roles and you can always watch MJ hit a game winner, or know that Bird is going to start making it rain, or know that "hey if I can't hit my hookshot cause I'm getting old, Magic will run the show and we'll run the floor and win."

Again, laugh test - Would you call Pippen's six rings a greater achievement than Hakeem's ring in 94? I'm of the biggest Pip fan alive and I wouldn't.

Hakeem did the unthinkable. With no hall of famers in his locker room he said "guys, jump on my back, we're going to get a ring."

You know how I know that Pippen's 6 rings don't mean he could necessarily do what Hakeem did? He lost to the same team in 94 that Hakeem BEAT... Ewing's Knicks. And Pippen was playing with two guys who went to the all star game in 94.

2. But, once you're leading teams to rings.... or in comparisons where neither player has a ring, then what? How do you differentiate Shaq and Jordan. Russell and Kareem.

I'd say that you'd weigh winning against stats... you'd give winning the edge by a 2-1 margin. Russell's 11 rings would factor as 2/3 of the discussion between he and Jordan. However, Jordan is #1 statistically all time; I believe Russell is in the low 80s.

Informally that's how I'd do it. 2-1 sounds like stats are more of a tiebreaker than something that's going to make someone who can't win, or make a 2 time winner greater than a 6 time winner...

3. If you're still looking for something to tip the scales, I'd look to MVPs.... regular season MVPs. Any time you're voted the best player in the NBA for an entire season, that's a big deal. But, if you can't win and you don't dominate statistically, Steve Nash's 2 MVPs won't even bring you into the discussion.

So that's my way to pretty much do it. I'm not interested in 100, 81 or 69 point games... I'm really not even interested in Finals MVPs except as ONE tool to help us determine who the leader of a team was.

When I factor all of that, I will be able to begin building my revised list.

The big change in the top ten -

When I look at everything, I probably slot Kobe 9th-10th if he retired today.

The main goal of my list... to have no single player in the top 15 be overrated or underrated by more than 3 slots.... so if I rate Kobe 10th and you think he's 7th, fine. If however you think he's 15th or 2nd, you're probably an idiot. Ditto Jordan, Abdul-Jabbar, Shaq and Bird...