Well, if we are going to try to get this thing done, or mostly done, by the end of April, we need to do a tier today. So, here goes. Tier 18-14
18. Moses Malone. While it hurts me some to have Moses here at #18 (I had him at #15 in 2015), when you reach this level you are really splitting hairs. So what I did was look at this chart:
What that chart will tell you is, for the years where the guy was First-Team All-NBA, how did he play. So, what you see here is that Moses was 29th in total Win Shares and 42nd in WS/48 for the guys on the list. Also, while Moses has 3 MVPs he only is 15th in MVP Award Shares. He also only has 8 seasons with 10+ Win Shares. Moses Malone from 1979-83 may have been the best player in all of basketball. Certainly that was the case in 1982-83. He was ridiculously dominant, so much so that he swept Kareem's Lakers in 1983. So what do I say here? I think 18 is an acceptable spot. Moses was unbelievable for 4-5 years, outstanding for 3-4 more, then really good. I will go #18.
17. Hakeem Olajuwon -- again, a slight drop from 2015. Looking again at the aforementioned chart, we see that Hakeem was 20th in overall WS, 57th in WS/48 as an all-NBAer, Outside of the chart, he is also 15th in playoff WS/48, 19th in MVP Award Shares, he is 21st in career WS and he is only a 1X MVP. An argument can be made that Moses should be higher, but Hakeem was the better defender and he has 2 titles to Moses' one. He goes here.
16. Bob Pettit - Named by Bill Russell as the best PF he ever faced, Pettit has 2 MVPs, 10X First-team all-NBAs, his Win Shares and WS/48 as an all-NBAer are almost identical to Larry Bird. He won a title. He retired as the NBA's all-time leading scorer. His 26/16 career line places him 8th all-time in scoring per game and 3rd all-time in rebounds per game. While his career was shorter than most great players, he had 10 seasons with at least 10 WS. Not only was Pettit a great player and recognized as such (4x MVP of the all-star game for example), he was objectively a great Win Shares and WS/48 player for the years he played. Any list that does not put Bob Pettit pretty close to Larry Bird is a terrible list.
15. David Robinson - now, David Robinson had VERY little team success with the crappy teammates that the Spurs gave him pre-Duncan. Once he got Duncan - 2 titles. Robinson had only 1 MVP, only 4X First-team all-NBAs. No Finals MVPs. Ergo, shouldn't he be lower? For his career, Robinson is 3rd in WS/48 (Paul, Jordan). In the years he was first-team all-NBA his WS/48 were better than George Mikan and LeBron James. So at the peak of the peak, Robinson was amazing. Great defender. And he actually was better for longer than most recall (11 seasons with 10 or more WS).
I believe that David was a better player than Hakeem, and you are never going to convince me otherwise, so here is an example of how if you want to make your own list - go ahead. This is mine. David is #15.
14. George Mikan -- Sadly, I am going to fold to pressure here. Mikan was named to the 25th and 35th anniversary teams. He was deemed the best player of the first 50 years of the NBA. They changed the rules for him (wider lane, shot clock, no goaltending). He won 5 titles. But looking at the overall stats (and knowing I kept out guys like Neil Johnston and Dolph Schayes altogether) I have to concede that Mikan (barely cracked 100 WS) who played for the 15th most WS at all-NBA status, who only played 3 enormous seasons (21, 21, 23 Win Shares) needs to be docked for only playing 439 games. It is too bad, but unless I am going to pull an ESPN Panel deal and say Steph Curry's 3 super-great seasons rank him top 20, I need to show some consistency and rank Mikan a little lower than I'd like.
That leaves us with 13 guys to rank, in alphabetical order Abdul-Jabbar, Bird, Bryant, Chamberlain, Duncan, James, Johnson, Jordan, Malone, O'Neal, Robertson, Russell, West
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