Joined: 24 Dec 2007 Posts: 35750 Location: Santa Clarita, CA (Hell) ->>>>>Ithaca, NY -≥≥≥≥≥Berkeley, CA
Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 10:43 am Post subject: Which players are in the 11-20 range of all-time greats?
There have been so many discussions about who's in the top ten, but who would you put in the next ten after that? Do players like KG and Dirk make the cut? _________________ Damian Lillard shatters Dwight Coward's championship dreams:
Yes on Dirk, no on KG, at least in my opinion. As for the rest, there are a bunch of players in the mix for the last few spots in the top 10, or the first few spots in the second ten. Hakeem and Oscar are examples. Some guys who most people would rank in the second ten, but not the first ten, are K. Malone, The Admiral, and Jerry West.
Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 10:29 pm Post subject: Re: Which players are in the 11-20 range of all-time greats?
CandyCanes wrote:
There have been so many discussions about who's in the top ten, but who would you put in the next ten after that? Do players like KG and Dirk make the cut?
Off the top of my head, and tomorrow it would likely be differently ...
Jerry West.
Moses Malone.
Karl Malone.
Dirk.
Dr. J
Charles Barkley
Oscar Robertson
Bob Pettit
Elgin Baylor
Kevin Durant
Joined: 24 Dec 2007 Posts: 35750 Location: Santa Clarita, CA (Hell) ->>>>>Ithaca, NY -≥≥≥≥≥Berkeley, CA
Posted: Sun Feb 04, 2018 11:52 pm Post subject:
How is Hakeem outside of your guys' top ten? Dominant on both ends of the floor. _________________ Damian Lillard shatters Dwight Coward's championship dreams:
Joined: 02 Jun 2009 Posts: 2415 Location: Far from home
Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2018 6:38 am Post subject:
I oppose making these all-time top tens and twenties anymore. I feel a different calling.
I recognize that perceptions of greatness are wholly era-based and viewer-specific, which makes player legacies cast forever only within the context of the rules, coaching techniques, and worlds within which was played and exposed to the viewer. Greatness is too era-specific to slot Bill Russell before or after Hakeem, let alone juxtapose Westbrook with Oscar, or Elgin to LeBron. Each guy has greatness not transferable in any meaningful sense across time. Greatness does not translate well enough across eras (at least, not those separated by two or more decades anyway) to make sense of top ten and top twenty lists. _________________ “These GOAT discussions are fun distractions while sitting around waiting for the pizza to be served.”
Yes on Dirk, no on KG, at least in my opinion. As for the rest, there are a bunch of players in the mix for the last few spots in the top 10, or the first few spots in the second ten. Hakeem and Oscar are examples. Some guys who most people would rank in the second ten, but not the first ten, are K. Malone, The Admiral, and Jerry West.
I think Dirk has def close the gap on KG by winning the chip and playing high level longer... I don’t have an argument against putting Dirk ahead of KG, not by much tho
How is Hakeem outside of your guys' top ten? Dominant on both ends of the floor.
Who do you take out from these 10?
MJ
Kareem
Magic
Wilt
Russell
Kobe
Shaq
Duncan
LeBron
Bird
Hakeem is part of the big 11 or big dozen if you put Oscar on the GOAT short list, as many do. Inevitably someone has to slip out of the top 10.
The three guys I see drop out of top 10 most often in various lists are Oscar, Kobe and Hakeem.
Yeah the fixation with 10 is silly. Even if you put, idk, Kobe at #11, the difference between his career and, say, Shaq at #8 is small and fairly subjective.
Btw do people not consider West to be part of that group?
Yes on Dirk, no on KG, at least in my opinion. As for the rest, there are a bunch of players in the mix for the last few spots in the top 10, or the first few spots in the second ten. Hakeem and Oscar are examples. Some guys who most people would rank in the second ten, but not the first ten, are K. Malone, The Admiral, and Jerry West.
wait no KG?
How is dirk ahead of him and he played half the defense his entire career?
If i have one job and thats to score and i do that to a top 10 level but my defense is middle 300's. yet there's another guy that scored at a top 30 level, but played defense at a top 10 level. How do you rate the 2nd guy lower than the first? is it all about scoring?
Thats like saying kobe was far better than bron. no he wasnt. for his size. yes. but player to player its not true. and you know i know kobe was better than bron.
hakeem could do more with less than either of those two. or could he? we have no idea what kind of moves shaq would've had if he was 6'10 and wasnt as heavy. he was super quick for his size/weight and super agile to boot. he still had very very good footwork. imagine if you make him smaller how much better his quickness would've been?
Yes on Dirk, no on KG, at least in my opinion. As for the rest, there are a bunch of players in the mix for the last few spots in the top 10, or the first few spots in the second ten. Hakeem and Oscar are examples. Some guys who most people would rank in the second ten, but not the first ten, are K. Malone, The Admiral, and Jerry West.
wait no KG?
How is dirk ahead of him and he played half the defense his entire career?
If i have one job and thats to score and i do that to a top 10 level but my defense is middle 300's. yet there's another guy that scored at a top 30 level, but played defense at a top 10 level. How do you rate the 2nd guy lower than the first? is it all about scoring?
At his peak, KG was the better player in my opinion. Dirk had a better overall career in my opinion. It’s not just a question of offense vs. defense. KG was not a top 30 scorer. He finished in the top 10 only three times, and never higher than third.
If you want to rank KG over Dirk, that’s fine. There’s a legitimate case to be made for it. I wouldn’t rate them that way, though.
Edit: I must have gotten distracted, because I didn't finish the thought in the first paragraph. You can argue that KG was a top 10 defender, and there are some metrics that would support the argument. However, those same metrics show that Dirk was a lot better defender than you suggest. For example, DWS ranks Garnett 7th, but Dirk is 30th. I don't particularly care for the methodology of Win Shares. I'm citing those numbers just for illustrative purposes. I'm not going to deny that Garnett was a substantially better defender. He has the merit badges to prove it. But does the defensive difference outweigh the offensive difference? In my opinion, no.
Last edited by Aeneas Hunter on Mon Feb 05, 2018 7:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
How is Hakeem outside of your guys' top ten? Dominant on both ends of the floor.
Who do you take out from these 10?
MJ
Kareem
Magic
Wilt
Russell
Kobe
Shaq
Duncan
LeBron
Bird
Hakeem is part of the big 11 or big dozen if you put Oscar on the GOAT short list, as many do. Inevitably someone has to slip out of the top 10.
The three guys I see drop out of top 10 most often in various lists are Oscar, Kobe and Hakeem.
Yeah the fixation with 10 is silly. Even if you put, idk, Kobe at #11, the difference between his career and, say, Shaq at #8 is small and fairly subjective.
Btw do people not consider West to be part of that group?
People like nice round numbers. But really the fixation on the top 10 is fairly new. It wasn't until the Shaq/Duncan/Kobe era that the GOAT short list expanded passed 10, and then people all got in an uproar when their guy got left off.
All the GOAT guys are pretty close. Not much really separates Kobe, Shaq, and Duncan, who come from the same era, in terms of accomplishments. People will be arguing Wilt vs. Russell vs. Kareem forever, just as they'll argue Shaq vs. Hakeem. I think a lot of it comes down to the style of play an individual fan likes; a lot is emotional, since very few people have some kind of rigorous methodology they use to compare players.
***
As far as West, he probably doesn't make the cut because he never won an MVP and he only won a single ring, and it's arguable if he was even the best player on the ring team or Wilt was.
Last edited by activeverb on Mon Feb 05, 2018 10:28 pm; edited 1 time in total
Thats like saying kobe was far better than bron. no he wasnt. for his size. yes. but player to player its not true. and you know i know kobe was better than bron.
hakeem could do more with less than either of those two. or could he? we have no idea what kind of moves shaq would've had if he was 6'10 and wasnt as heavy. he was super quick for his size/weight and super agile to boot. he still had very very good footwork. imagine if you make him smaller how much better his quickness would've been?
In my view, Hakeem and Shaq were roughly equivalent, though they had different strengths.
Shaq is regarded as better because (1) he won more rings, (2) he was more of an offensive force (and people prize offense more than defense); and (3) he was a physical beast in his prime, and that resonates with people more than Hakeem's athletic grace.
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