LONG POST ALERT!
Inspired by the discussion in the NBA playoff thread (in which I was talking up Larry Bird for some bizarre reason), I devised a simple point system to try to rank the great NBA players by career accomplishments.
Each year, a total of six points are awarded: one for winning the MVP, one for leading in scoring, and half a point each for leading in rebounds or assists. The team which wins the championship gets two points and the Finals loser gets one, which are divided equally among all its players who made an all-NBA team (first, second or third).
So, for example, this year, Stephen Curry earned two points (one for being one of two all-NBA players on the champion and one for winning the MVP). Klay Thompson earned a point for winning the championship, and LeBron and Kyrie Irving both earned half a point for winning the East. Russell Westbrook earned a point for leading the league in scoring, and Chris Paul and DeAndre Jordan earned half-points for winning the assist and rebounding titles respectively.
Boring minutiae: Points for reaching the Finals were divided between a team’s All-Stars if it had no all-NBA players; in the few cases where a team made it to the Finals without even one All-Star, I divided its points between its top three in P+A+R. Prior to 1957, the league didn’t elect a MVP, so I decided to assume that the scoring leader in those years would have been the MVP. Rebounds weren’t kept as a statistic during the league’s first two years; I decided to deal with it.
This system rewards all the things I think we look for in great players: statistical dominance, playing a crucial role on championship teams, and the subjective opinions of those who saw him play. Obviously it is a fairly blunt instrument and there may be good reasons for arguing that a player is somewhat better or worse than this would suggest.
The envelope, please…here are all the players with career scores of 5 or above, active players bolded:
- Michael Jordan 22
- Wilt Chamberlain 20
- Kareem 14 ½
- Magic 14 ½
- Bill Russell 14
6**. Tim Duncan ** 10 ½ - George Mikan* 10 1/6
- **Kobe ** 10
- **LeBron ** 10
- Bob Cousy 9 2/3
- Larry Bird! 9 ½
- Bob Pettit 9
- Jerry West 8
- Moses Malone 8
- Shaq 8
- John Havlicek 7 1/3
- Neil Johnston* 7 1/6
- Oscar Robertson 6
- Hakeem 6
- Allen Iverson 5 ½
- **Kevin Durant ** 5 ½
Other notable active players: Kevin Garnett 4 1/3, Dwayne Wade and Dirk Nowitzki 4, Dwight Howard 3 ½
Notes: Well, I guess it bodes well for the system that it agrees with the general consensus about the best player ever. The thing I can’t believe I had somehow forgotten about MJ is that he led the league in scoring ten times, the most ever. Of course he also won five MVPs and six rings (he gets both points for 1991 and splits them with Pippen the other five).
Wilt counters with seven scoring titles, eleven rebounding titles, and one assist title, four MVPs. He earned one point each for three NBA Finals appearances (lost with the ’64 Warriors, won with the ’67 Sixers and ’72 Lakers); he also went to the Finals in his last year with the ’73 Lakers, but didn’t make the all-NBA team that year. Wilt’s problem, of course, was that his career largely overlapped with the Celtic dynasty – he lost seven conference finals in his career, six of them to the Bostons. If we awarded a half point for just reaching the conference finals, he would edge ahead of MJ 23 ½ - 23. If he had had the fortune to play with better teammates (or, as some might put it, if he had been more of a leader and less of a pain in the ass) he easily could have won a few more titles and pulled ahead of MJ – but then again, Jordan could also have earned even more points if he hadn’t taken two of his prime seasons off.
Again, this is a very simple system to gauge career accomplishment, and it may miss a lot, but I am now convinced that these two men are the only reasonable GOAT candidates, far ahead of the rest of the pack.
I think it is pretty cool that the two pillars of the Showtime Lakers end up exactly tied.
In the other thread I argued that nobody has ever done more with less than Tim Duncan, and although he’s nowhere near the top overall on this ranking I did have a point: Duncan has been the only all-NBA player on four championship teams. Magic did it three times, Havlicek and Bird twice each, nobody else more than once.
Mikan and Johnston get the * because they each earned three extra points for winning three scoring titles in the pre-MVP era, so if you don’t like the choice I made about that adjustment they would place lower.
Other than the very early career guys, LBJ is the only active player who seems to have even an outside chance of breaking into the top two. Comparing LeBron and MJ, MJ at LeBron’s current age had “only” 14 points, with three championships, three scoring titles, and two MVPs still to come. LeBron’s basic problem according to this system (aside from losing the Finals a lot) is that he doesn’t usually lead the league in anything, having won only one scoring title. You could argue that this system unfairly treats players who do many things well without dominating a particular category; I think that’s a legitimate criticism, but LeBron is still several trophies away from being anywhere near the GOAT discussion.
The all-time leader in championship-related points is Magic Johnson, with 9 ½; the leader in regular season points is Wilt, with 17. Bill Russell got exactly 7 points from each category.
Anyway, that’s how I spent my afternoon. Hope you found it interesting.