NBA's Greatest of All Time Series: The Correct Formula To Use (Part 1 of 4)

Who is the greatest player of all time? This has proven to be the absolute, without a doubt, most debated and most unanswerable NBA question of all time.

Some may argue, “That’s easy, it’s Michael Jordan. He’s the greatest; he won six rings and could not be stopped.” A very valid point, no one could debate that. But my grandfather, who is of a different era, could rebut that and come back with, “He’s good, but Bill Russell is the greatest of all time. He won 11 rings and five league MVPs. He was even a player coach when he won one of the championships.” How do you combat that?

An argument can be made for several Hall of Fame or soon-to-be Hall of Fame players, but how can we tell who was the absolute greatest? The answer comes in the form of a question and is given by the third party in this conversation, who is a bystander and has no favorite player to offer, but offers this question to further ponder, “Why would you compare Russell, who played center, and Jordan, who was a shooting guard? They would not even guard each other, would they?”

Exactly. That’s why the first part of this formula is to only compare like-position players, so that at best we will come up with the greatest player of all time, at each position.

The next part of the debate almost always hinders on the question, “My guy is the best of all time because he has more rings than your favorite player.” Many debaters and analysts try to justify their argument by using this statistic as a basis for their reasoning.

In determining who is the greatest player of all time, this is the smallest criterion to use. There are too many other factors that go into winning a championship that giving all the credit to one player just does not make a lot of sense. This is a list of greatest individuals of all time, not greatest team players.

If that was the case, you could make an argument for a player like Tommy Heinsohn, who won eight titles in nine years of playing basketball but I don’t hear anyone saying he’s the greatest. He was an All-Star six times and was an NCAA All-American. A man of great talent and accolades but yet to make anyone’s top three of the NBA’s greatest of all time.

Using this criteria, an argument can be made for a player as rare as Robert Horry. He won seven championships with three different teams. He earned the name “Big Shot Rob” by being a clutch performer and seemingly always in the right spot to hit a game-winning shot. One could argue that the play of Horry was the key to making the Rockets, Lakers and Spurs champions during his tenure with those clubs; Horry’s departure from each of those championship teams coincided with the end of each of their championship runs.

Is being an integral part of multiple championships enough to make you the greatest of all-time?

Being a part of a team that has won multiple championships is an important characteristic in this determination process, but more important is the role of that specific player while on those teams. Was this player an important role player like Steve Kerr? Kerr was an outstanding three-point shooter who won five total championships with the Bulls and Spurs, but he was not the catalyst on either team.

That role would fall to Michael Jordan, who led the Bulls to six championships and was the MVP of the finals each time. During the Spurs' latest championship run in which Kerr was a part of, Tim Duncan was the driving force behind that team. The Spurs won titles in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007. Duncan was the finals MVP for the first three and was the league MVP in 2003.

Too many debates over who is the greatest player of all time have been based on only one or two characteristics of a player’s career but to be able to truly come up with a logical answer, the formula that has been laid out can help determine the true answer. In forming the list, this set of criteria was used: the number of league MVPs a player has won, the number of championships a player has been a part of, the role of that player while on those championship teams, comparing players in the same position and the player’s career statistics.

The final factor is determining if that player would still have the same amount of success if he played in a different era. This has a lot to do with the player’s height, weight and athletic ability. Combining all of these factors gives us the complete formula and in Part Two of this series, we will first reveal who are the greatest centers to ever play in the NBA.