How do we figure out the Greatest Basketball Player of All Time?

To see the first part of the list (77 to 51) please click here

In October and November of 2017, I started working on a question that has bothered me for years. Who are the top fifty NBA players of all time? Who is the GOAT? I worked on it so much that my fiancé said, “You better do something with this.” So now, in my small way, I am.

People have opinions that match up with their ages, me included. LeBron is the GOAT, and Jordan couldn’t play in this era. In 1988 that sentence read like this. Kareem is the GOAT Russell couldn’t play in this era. 1998. Jordan is the GOAT Kareem couldn’t play in this era.

Recency bias seems to rule the day. This bias has always been around. I remember a time not long ago after Miami won its first title in the mid-2000s. I went into Borders books (RIP) because I am sad and read a published book that said Shaq was the Greatest Player of all time. I don’t think anyone feels that way now, but the Aughts were a wild time when everyone was into the Flaming Lips and 50 Cent. We like to think that what we watch now is the best thing ever.

I have a personal bias against Shaq O’Neil being better than Hakeem Olajuwon. Because in 1995, Hakeem dominated Shaq in the finals. It feels like I’m picking on Shaq. That is coincidental; I don’t hate him passionately or get mad whenever I see his stupid face.

The point is that everyone is biased. So we need a system. So I’ve tried to create one. I have scored players in six categories career peak, playoff success, box score stats, Longevity, ERA, playoff success, and advanced stats. Below I will explain the scoring of these categories. I will post three parts in the coming weeks, starting with number 77 (because we have had 77 NBA seasons) until we get to the greatest player of all time.

Career Peak: I measure individual awards first/second all NBA appearances, MVP, MVP runner-up, defensive Player of the Year, first-team defense, and all-stars appearances. I don’t count third-team all-nba because I am trying to measure the best players in a given year, not the fifteenth best. I counted for both the NBA and ABA. I don’t subtract in this category for the two leagues or ERA. I will do that a little later.

I won’t run through all the points in this category, but every ABA/NBA MVP gets Fifty points, and All-Star appearances get one point.

The MVP is the most important regular-season career achievement for a professional player. It’s fifty times more important than making an all-star team in my system.

Playoff Success: A player’s individual measure of success in the playoffs. The championship team’s best player gets one hundred points in my system. That is the most I give to any single accomplishment. I also give points to the best player on a losing finalist team, the second to the sixth-best player on a championship team, and the best player on a losing conference finalist.

Deciding who is the best player in a championship is one of the hardest things to do in this process.

Stats: In any given NBA season, the top ten players in assists, rebounds, and points per game for each season points in my system. As do the top five players in blocks and steals; I weigh these five categories so that points are the most important and steals are the least.

Advanced stats: Again, simple, the top Player in VORP, Box +/-, win shares, and PER for each season gets points all the way down to the tenth-best player.

Should I have had different advanced stats or more? Maybe but I didn’t for this round.

Longevity: This is simple a player gets points for every healthy season (65 games) that he plays.

Note: Stats, Advanced stats, ERA, and Longevity are all capped at 100 points each. I use a different formula in each case to get scores in the 0–100 range.

ERA Bonus: Each year, a player in the 40s and 50s got zero points, 60’s and 70s seven points, 80’s the 10s, the 20s nine points, and the 90s and 00s eight points.

Super simplistic, I know.

ABA ERA penalty: NBA players lose three points per season during ABA Era. ABA players lose four points per season during ABA Era. Pre-1960 seasons lose eight points.

I did this because I felt ABA players were not credited for playing in the ABA in other lists. Players in NBA who played during the ABA ERA did not get penalized. That is how someone like Bill Simmons can put John Havlicek over Dr. J that and he is an incredible homer.

I gave everyone credit for all ABA/NBA stats and awards but deducted points because of a deluded league.

Finally, the Pre 1960s were segregated and not modern, so players lost the most points for those seasons.

So that is how I come up with my list. If you have read this far, thank you. You can read part 1 (77 to 51) of the updated 2023 of 77 list here.

Note: This was initially published in 2018; I have updated it to represent the updated scoring on my list but kept all the fun Shaq bits. I don’t hate him as much anymore.