Add all his seasons together to determine CORP.Calculate the probability change in championships based on his health.Evaluate how much a player impacts different lineups ( Global offense and defense).All of this ultimately leads to a numerical valuation that allows me to compare the impact of different seasons. The high-level criteria for determining “best career of all-time:” (To avoid winning bias, I watched segments of games from random quarters.)Īfter establishing the skill set and tendencies of a player (“Scouting Report”), I then leverage data to quantify the effect of these tendencies (“Impact Evaluation”). (Rebounding counts too, separately for offense and defense.) I tracked these, shot selection, and passing habits in over 100 hours of video study specifically for this series. On defense, quality of rotations, court coverage, rim protection and length are all countermeasures to the above offensive criteria. Of course, some skills are more valuable than others. Perhaps the most beautiful thing about basketball is that there are so many ways to skin the proverbial cat 20 points per game for one player is not the same as 20 for another. My practice starts with film study in order to understand context. The first step is to evaluate a player season. (Buying the book also supports the blog and is greatly appreciated!) List Criteria If you’re struck by the lack of discussion around clutch play or why “losing” players are ranked highly, all of these topics and more are explained in detail in Thinking Basketball. The book also examines critical components of team building (portability) and individual scoring that are foundational to these rankings. I’ll only call out the playoffs if they reflect something larger about a player. That’s because sample-sizes are incredibly small instead, playoffs are included as part of an entire evaluation. Thinking BasketballĪs you read player profiles, you will notice little mention of playoff performances or game-winning shots. (If David Robinson backed up the two best centers ever, he wouldn’t be very valuable, but he’d still be very good.) Players do not earn credit for potential - Michael Jordan helped no one in 1994.Īll told, in the last seven years I’ve evaluated over 1,500 player-seasons to compile this list. This list is really about evaluating players based on “goodness,” not merely situational value. You can make a great list with those criteria, but that’s not what this exercise is intended to be. This means that having great Finals moments or winning the hearts of fans with innovative passes is irrelevant. Instead, this is a career-value, or CORP list it ranks the players who have provided the largest increase in the odds of a team winning championships over the course of their careers. This list also goes far beyond the box score - indeed, the box score is merely a reference for quantifying tendencies - so if you’re used to citing points per game and Win Shares, this will be a bit different. It’s about the impact each had in his own time over the course of a career. There are no time machines either - it’s not about how players would do today if transported into the past or future. Sometimes that lift is good enough to win, sometimes it’s not. I won’t attempt to balance Kobe’s championships without Shaq, nor do I care about accolades like All-Star teams or the number of Hall of Fame teammates someone played with. I also don’t care how many rings a player won the very thing I’m trying to tease out is who provided the most lift. This list will not make traditional “arguments” for players. If you like videos, charts and graphs, you’ve come to the right list. This is less about The List and more about the exercise of player evaluation. It’s intended to be an historical reference, organized by player, that (hopefully) adds to the understanding and appreciation of players, coaches and teams over the years. Either way, this particular one is a little different. Maybe you have your own list of the NBA greats. Follow to the Backpicks GOAT, a list seven years in the making! You may have seen ESPN, Slam, Elliot Kalb and Bill Simmons take a crack at the top basketball players ever.
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