How Badly Has the Finals Loss Hurt LeBron's Image and Helped Dirk's Image? Look At the ELO Rating

basketball-reference.com has an area where you can rate various players and say who you think is a better player. Before the finals, LeBron was pushing "top 10 all-time" and was slightly ahead of Dirk.

After the Finals, the fans now have him 33rd and Dirk 7th!!!!!!!!:

1 Michael Jordan* 2651
2 Magic Johnson* 2497
3 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar* 2493
4 Wilt Chamberlain* 2477
5 Larry Bird* 2412
6 Bill Russell* 2371
7 Dirk Nowitzki 2337
8 Oscar Robertson* 2295
9 Hakeem Olajuwon* 2293
10 Jerry West* 2264
11 Tim Duncan 2257
12 Karl Malone* 2256
13 Kobe Bryant 2251
14 Shaquille O'Neal 2251
15 John Stockton* 2229
16 David Robinson* 2227
17 Clyde Drexler* 2227
18 Scottie Pippen* 2216
19 Jason Kidd 2202
20 Charles Barkley* 2202
21 Julius Erving* 2186
22 Moses Malone* 2183
23 Kevin Garnett 2178
24 Steve Nash 2175
25 Elgin Baylor* 2170
26 John Havlicek* 2162
27 Patrick Ewing* 2161
28 Bob Pettit* 2151
29 Dominique Wilkins* 2145
30 Isiah Thomas* 2119
31 Bob Cousy* 2113
32 Chris Paul 2109
33 LeBron James 2104
34 Dwyane Wade 2095
35 Dwight Howard 2083


These rating are absurd in a number of ways (Moses Malone is a worse player than Clyde Drexler? Worse than Pippen? Dirk is a better player than Hakeem? Than Tim Duncan? Really. You want a one-dimensional gunner and you choose Dirk over.....The Devil!?!? By 6 spots?).

But the biggest concern for LeBron has to be that the very similar style player Oscar Robertson (1 title with Kareem at age 31) rates #8 and LeBron rates 25 spots lower. Dominique Wilkins is a better player than LeBron? Really?

Time, so they say, heals all wounds. Stockton and Malone played together for 1,000,000 years. They had a good coach in Jerry Sloan (i.e., not Erik Spoelstra). They won a total of............ZERO NBA titles. Yet they rank 12 and 15 while Wade and James (combined 1 title) are ranked 33 and 34.

In 10 years, you will see Wade move up, and hopefully the 6 bad games that LeBron just played will not forever tarnish the fact that he is a very similar player to Oscar Robertson and has put in at least 5 first-team all-NBA years, 2 MVPs and a career playoff PER of..........26.3.

Top Win Share Performer of 2011 Playoffs -- LeBron James, 3.8
Most defensive win shares 2011 Playoffs -- LeBron James, 1.5