Slam Magazine's 50 Best NBA Players - Page 8

38. Gary Payton
39. Allen Iverson
40. Billy Cunningham
41. Clyde Drexler
42. LeBron James
43. Dominique Wilkins
44. Dave Cowens
45. George Gervin
46. Bob McAdoo
47. Earl Monroe

Gary Payton listed higher than any of these players is total Bull shit

error

If LeBron plays 15 more seasons and retires with the highest PER in history but no rings, he is not a top-10 player, much less top-5. Period.

If LeBron plays 15 more seasons and retires with the highest PER in history but no rings, he's not top 10, but if, say, he somehow ends up on a team with Dwight Howard, Kobe, and Chris Paul and wins a ring, he is? Why not judge players on things over which they have direct control (the things that make up PER) and not things based in larger part on things outside the player's control (e.g., championships)?

Because basketball isn't just about one person and it isn't just about individual stats or PER. Anyone can put up numbers when a system is designed for them to do so. You and Lebron need to realize that. There are contributions you make to the game besides just playing it as well.

there are 12 guys on the team!!! get that through your head! all this talk about statistics and championships won is just a lazy way of assessing players without having the basketball knowledge to simply watch them play and say this guy is better than that guy. you want to believe that someone who knows nothing about the sport can just look at a list of numbers and determine greatness, and sports are not like that.

it is posts like this that lead me to believe you chase ambulances head on and blindfolded.

Now that I think about it, the situation in soccer is more or less the same. If you ask a million soccer fan who the greatest players ever are, the following names would likely come up most often (in no particular order, and I might forget a few):

- Pele (3 World Cup titles, and various club-level accolades)
- Diego Maradona (2 WC)
- Beckenbauer (1 WC as player, 1 as coach, 1 Euro championship, 3+ Champions League, then called European Cup, titles)
- Johan Cruyff (3 European Cup titles)
- Zinedine Zidane (1 WC, 1 Euro, 1 CL)

One day Ronaldo (the fat one) or C. Ronaldo/Kaka will join them, then again, these 3 have all had won at various levels.

Find me a football great who hasn't won a major championship, and I'll show you then whoever he is, he's at least one notch below the names mentioned.

that's because the greatest players in futbol are bought by the best teams with the most money to have a great player at every position. in the case of pele, he was with brazil and they would have won those cups without him. in fact, many brazilians prefer rivelinho over pele. if pele played for iceland he would have zero world cups, but he would still be pele. whether or not people would recognize his greatness is a another question, but obviously, anyone who saw him play would recognize it.

in american sports it is common for great players to be on mediocre teams, and sometimes the franchise 'builds around them' and creates a champion. sometimes the franchise can't put the pieces together and the guy never wins a championship.

We could spend a lifetime arguing about the merits and the ordering of the top 50, but I think it's easier to make a shorter list (Among the top 50, I'd include Bob Lanier instead of Walt Bellamy and I wouldn't rank either McHale or Pippen as highly. No one would remember either of them if they didn't win championships with Bird and Jordan, respectively).

Here's my top 8 based on how they changed the way the game, and/or their position, is played:

1. Michael Jordan
2. Wilt Chamberlain
3. Bill Russell
4. Oscar Robertson
5. Magic Johnson
6. Shaquille O'Neal
7. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
8. Larry Bird

I had to run my original list of the top 5 to a top 8 to include Shaq, Kareem and Bird.

That's a pretty sensible list, except I'd put Duncan in that gourp. I'd drop the Big O to the end of the group and argue that Kobe is now vying with him for that spot, but I think you mostly have the right cast of characters. The next group includes:

Hakeem
Moses Malone
The Logo
Isaiah

Jordan
Russell
Wilt
Magic
Kareem
Bird
Duncan
Shaq
Oscar
Kobe or J. West

Yeah, Duncan, West, and Kobe probably head up my next group. I rank Robertson so high because the guy was the original "stat-stuffer". He leads in career triple-doubles with 181 (John Havliceck is his only contemporary in the top 10 with 30) and averaged a triple-double over an entire season!

Isiah and Moses were good players, but not, in my mind, Top 15. I'd rate Kobe significantly above Thomas (I wouldn't even put Thomas in the top 30) and there are at least five centers better than Moses.

But that's the great thing about sports - we can argue this crap all day.