Top 100 NBA Players: #1

Michael Jordan

(Kalb: #3, Simmons: #1, BBR: #1)

Ask 100 people who the greatest player of all time is, and the top response will most likely be Michael Jordan, but it would be far from a landslide. Many others would get a significant number of votes, from Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, and Oscar Robertson to Shaquille O'Neal, Kobe Bryant, and even LeBron James.  So what makes Michael Jordan the best player of all time?

There are five factors that I feel qualify a player to be considered one of the greatest of all time. Those are offensive and defensive prowess, regular season and playoff dominance, and longevity. By using these 5 factors, I'll show that Michael Jordan is the greatest player of all time.

First, offensive prowess. The purpose of offense is to score points, and there has never been a greater scorer than Michael Jordan. Wilt Chamberlain may own the record for points in a game and points per game for a full season, but Michael Jordan owns the record for most points per game over a full career. Among the top 20 players of all time, the five with the highest career scoring averages are, in order:

Michael Jordan
Wilt Chamberlain
LeBron James
Elgin Baylor
Jerry West

Next, defensive prowess. This one is a little tougher to define, especially since the All-Defensive Team has only existed since 1969, Bill Russell's final season. Three players have appeared on the All-Defensive First Team nine times in their career, and if you add in Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain, both of whom were said to have blocked at least 8 shots in a game quite regularly, this is the list you come up with:

Michael Jordan
Kobe Bryant
Kevin Garnett
Bill Russell
Wilt Chamberlain

Then let's consider regular season dominance. Michael Jordan was the best player in the league for his final 9 seasons with the Chicago Bulls, and would have made it at least 11 if he hadn't kept retiring prematurely. He was the best player in 1988, and he was the best player in 1998, a feat only Kareem can match with his 1970 and 1980 seasons. The list of players who spent the longest time as the league's top star is as follows:

Wilt Chamberlain
Michael Jordan
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
LeBron James
Larry Bird

Perhaps the most important category is playoff dominance. The whole point of playing the game is to win championships, and Jordan was the best player on more champions than anybody but Bill Russell. He made 6 trips to the NBA Finals in his career, and won all 6 times. The record for highest scoring average in a Finals series is 41.0, and it's no surprise that Jordan holds that record for his performance against the Phoenix Suns in 1993. Here is the list of the players who have led their teams to the most championships:

Bill Russell
Michael Jordan
Magic Johnson
Tim Duncan
Shaquille O'Neal
Larry Bird

Finally, let's look at longevity. When looking at this category, I'm looking at more than just playing for a long time. You must also play at a high level for a long period of time, and Michael Jordan fits that bill as well. In his first game after turning 40, he obliterated the old record for points by a player of that age. Kareem had held the record of 27, but Jordan poured in 43 that night, and scored at least 30 points 9 other times after his 40th birthday, meaning he owns the 10 highest-scoring games for a 40-year old player. Here are the 5 players who had the most productive seasons after the age of 35:

Karl Malone
Elgin Baylor
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Michael Jordan
Jerry West

There's only one player that appears on all 5 of these lists, and you've probably already guessed who that is. It's also worth noting that only one other player appears even 3 times on these lists, and that is Wilt Chamberlain, the player I ranked as second-best all time. Michael Jordan is the only player in history who has been dominant in every important facet of the game, which is what makes him the greatest of all time.

With that in mind, are there any current players that have a chance at displacing Jordan at the top? In my opinion, there are only two that have a chance, and the two happen to be facing each other in the NBA Finals right now. The obvious one is LeBron James, who has already cracked two of these lists, and has already made the All-Defensive First Team four times, and has a head start on the longevity since he started so young. A championship would start him down the road in the fifth category as well. The other is Kevin Durant, who is a great offensive player and is improving on defense, and also entered the league very young, which could help his longevity.

While there is nobody who can measure up to what Wilt did in his first few years, Jordan became just as dominant a player after that point, even beating Wilt at the tail of of his career, when Wilt was returning from injury and Jordan from retirement. What sets Jordan apart is that he took home 6 NBA titles, while Wilt only won 2, and he wasn't even the best player during one of those playoff runs. All of this leads me to believe that Michael Jordan is still the best player ever to play the game of basketball.

Top 100 NBA Players: #2

Wilt Chamberlain

(Kalb: #2, Simmons: #6, BBR: #2)

Every serious basketball fan has an opinion about Wilt Chamberlain. Either he is the greatest basketball player who ever lived, or he was vastly overrated and couldn't win when it mattered. The truth is somewhere between the two, and I'll explain why.

First of all, when it comes to regular season dominance, Wilt Chamberlain is the best player to ever set foot on a basketball court. Most people know about his 100-point game, but just one year earlier he also grabbed 55 rebounds in a game, which is still a record. But let's start back at the beginning.

When Wilt entered the NBA in 1959, he broke his first record before playing a game when he signed the richest contract in history, making $30,000 during his rookie season. That season turned out to be the most dominant rookie season ever in any sport, as he set new records for scoring and rebounding and won the All-Star MVP, regular season MVP, and Rookie of the Year awards. He also took a Warriors team that had missed the playoffs the previous year all the way to the Conference Finals, where they lost to the Boston Celtics, which would be a recurring theme throughout his career.

Two years later he had the most dominant season in history, even by today's standards. That year he averaged 50.4 points, 25.7 rebounds, and 2.4 assists while playing 48.5 minutes per game. That season represents two records which will never be broken, and his rebounding record (27.2 per game) from the previous season is just as unreachable today. The fact that games have only 48 minutes make his minutes record the most solid record in sports, and it was reached by playing all but a handful of minutes during the season and having several games go into overtime.

The scoring record is also pretty impressive. During that season he reached 50 points 45 times, which is more than any other player has done it in an entire career. Michael Jordan had 37 50-point outings for second on the all-time list, but he's far behind Wilt's 122. His 100-point game is also interesting, since he could have scored more, but the game ended immediately after he scored his final basket and the fans rushed the court. The game was such a blowout that the referees decided to call off the final minute.

Throughout the process of unveiling these rankings, I have made a point of mentioning that the pace of the game was much faster in the 1960's, which caused statistics to balloon out of proportion. In 1962 alone, Wilt averaged 50 points, Oscar Robertson averaged a triple-double, and Elgin Baylor had the highest scoring season ever by anyone not named Wilt. In order to bring these numbers into perspective, I've adjusted them to the pace of today's game, and in most cases it makes those seasons become just very good, but Wilt's 1962 season still stands the test of time. Here are what his averages look like adjusted for inflation:

Chamberlain (1962) adjusted - 40.3 pts, 15.2 reb, 2.1 ast

Even adjusted, Wilt's 1962 season stands alone as the greatest season ever in the NBA. Through the 1960's, he was the best player in every single season, even if he only won 4 MVP awards. So how can a player who was the best in the league for 10 seasons (a record, by the way) not be the best player of all time? The answer lies in the other argument I mentioned in the opening paragraph, that Wilt was not a winner.

While Wilt was the best regular season player of all time, he had the misfortune of running into the best playoff player of all time 8 times in one decade, that man being Bill Russell. In those 8 seasons, the Celtics beat Wilt's teams 7 times, each time in the Conference Finals or the Finals, with Wilt and the 76ers triumphing once, in 1967. With the help of Jerry West, he was able to win a second championship in 1972.

The persistent rumor that Wilt's teams did not win was slightly overblown. In 14 seasons, his teams won two championships, reached 6 NBA Finals, and played in the Conference Finals 12 times. If Boston and Philadelphia had been in different conferences, it's likely he would have played in the Finals at least 10 times. Even in his final season, he was still a great player, averaging a league-leading 18.6 rebounds per game and setting a league record with a 72.7% field goal percentage at age 36.

Wilt had most of the factors that lead to a high ranking on this list. He was a great offensive player. He was a great defensive player. He was a great player in the regular season. He had the longevity that is needed for greatness. What he lacked, and what ultimately kept him from the #1 spot was that greatness in the playoffs, where he was good but not great. Every player I've chronicled so far is lacking at least somewhat in one of those areas, but in my next post you'll see the one player who can be considered great in every one of those areas.

Kareem's numbers throughout the early part of his career were pretty incredible, but they look pretty average when compared to those of Wilt's first decade. Kareem may have won more championships, although half of those had more to do with Magic than Kareem, and Kareem didn't dominate a decade the way Wilt did the 1960's, although he is one of only two players to come close. It seems pretty clear to me that Wilt was the better overall player.

NBA Finals Preview

The waiting game is over. Only two teams remain. Miami, eager to make up for last season's disappointment in the Finals, closed out the Eastern Conference Finals with two huge wins over the Boston Celtics. Oklahoma City, a team that has been on the rise for years, came back from a 2-0 deficit and ended San Antonio's 20-game winning streak with four straight wins to advance to their first Finals since the move to the Midwest. It's shaping up to be a very fun and competitive Finals.

Oklahoma City is entering the NBA Finals with three days more rest than the Miami Heat, thanks to their ability to close out their series a game earlier than their new opponent. But how much does rest really matter? In the history of the NBA, 61 teams have entered the Finals with at least a day more rest than their opponent, and those teams have a record of 34-27, for a winning percentage of .557. It's not a huge advantage, but it has been becoming more important in recent years, so that gives a slight advantage to OKC.

There is also a great individual matchup going on in this year's Finals. For only the 6th time in history, the league's MVP is going up against the league's scoring leader for the championship trophy. In the previous 5 matchups, the scoring leaders have a 3-2 advantage, but all three of those victories belong to Michael Jordan, when they beat LA in 1991, Phoenix in 1993, and Utah in 1997. In each of those seasons Jordan probably should have been the MVP, so maybe they shouldn't really count. I would say that the advantage here goes to Miami.

The biggest factor in the series may be home court advantage. In NBA Finals history, the team with home court advantage has won 47 out of 65 series, for a winning percentage of .723. Add to that the fact that Oklahoma City is undefeated on its home court in this season's playoffs, and all they need to do is win those four games and the title is theirs. Big advantage to the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Overall, I put the odds of the Thunder winning the series at 55.8%, and my Finals pick is Oklahoma City in 7 games.

Top 100 NBA Players: #3

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

(Kalb: #5, Simmons: #3, BBR: #5)

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar dominated the 1970's in a way no decade has been dominated before or since, then adjusted to his role as sidekick to another superstar better than any other player in history, which allowed him to finish his career with 6 championships and 10 NBA Finals appearances.

There was no doubt that Kareem (then Lew Alcindor) would be the top pick in the 1969 NBA Draft, after he led UCLA to an 88-2 record in 3 seasons and 3 straight NCAA championships, where he was named the Most Outstanding Player each time. He easily won the Rookie of the Year trophy, and should have been given the MVP as well, but it was awarded to Willis Reed, who led the New York Knicks to the league's best record and their first championship that season. Here are how their numbers stacked up that year:

Alcindor - 28.8 pts, 14.5 reb, 4.1 ast, .518 FG%, .653 FT%
Reed - 21.7 pts, 13.9 reb, 2.0 ast, .507 FG%, .756 FT%

Although Reed may have led his team to a few more wins (Milwaukee had the second-best record), it's very easy to see that Kareem had the bigger impact, leading a team in its second year of existence to the league's second-best record and a trip to the Conference Finals. In fact, from 1969-1980, a span of 11 seasons, Kareem was the best player 8 times, with the only exceptions coming in two seasons in which he missed time with a broken hand and one season in which George Gervin was on top of his game. He holds the record for most MVP's won, with 6, but I believe he should have been awarded 8.

Even with how great he was for so long, he was only able to make it to 3 NBA Finals during his time as team leader, winning twice. There were even two seasons right during his peak seasons in which his teams missed the playoffs completely, which no other top 10 player can say. That all changed in 1981, when Magic Johnson became the center of the Lakers' offense and Kareem became their #2 star.

In the final 8 seasons of Kareem's career in Los Angeles, the Lakers made it to the Finals 7 times, and Kareem was a major contributor for most of those teams, although by the time he retired he was not near the player he had once been, posting just 10 points per game along with fewer than 5 rebounds.

Kareem is the NBA's all-time leader in All-Star appearances, MVP awards, points scored, and minutes played, and he is also one of only 3 players in history to win the scoring title, MVP, and Finals MVP in the same season, along with Michael Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal. That season was 1971, just his second season as a pro, when he averaged 31.7 points and 16.0 rebounds, took 133 out of 153 MVP votes, then led Milwaukee to the title by winning 12 of 14 in the playoffs and sweeping the Baltimore Bullets in the Finals. He was the first to do it, and it wouldn't happen again for 20 years, when Jordan won his first title.

In terms of longevity, Kareem and Karl Malone are basically even. When you look at playoff success, the edge goes to Abdul-Jabbar, who won a couple of titles as the star player and several more playing with Magic as the star. When looking at regular season dominance, there is no doubt that Kareem was better, as he was the best player 8 times, while Malone spent nearly as long as the league's #2 player. Overall, it's easy to see that Kareem was the better player, and deserves the #3 spot among the all-time greats.