36. James Harden -- Harden will be this year's MVP, and he has cleared 100 Win Shares on his career. His teams have reached the Finals, the Conference Finals three times, and who knows what else this year. His whiny and flopping style is unbearable to watch, but there is a very good argument that he has TWICE been screwed for MVP and will win this year. But for the fact that his style of play is so easy to hate, he could be one of the few guys in NBA history with 3 MVPs!!!
35. Stephon Curry -- Curry has his 2 MVP's and has been the great leader of a great team. There is an argument that Harden's actual career for advanced stats has been better, however, if you look into NBA history and say "who dominated the league for 2-3 years both individually and his team also" there are not many of those guys, so we will give the mouthpiece-gnawing Curry the nod here.
34. Steve Nash -- a good argument could be made for keeping him off the list entirely, but he has 2 MVPs and a #2 vote, has one more all-NBA than Curry and he played longer so he has significantly more WS than Curry. I'll drop him off here.
33. Gary Payton - another guys just getting on, but he has 145 WS and 9 all-defense awards to prop up his candidacy. Interestingly, he places on the list next to Nash, who was superior offensively, but also one of the worst defenders in NBA history. Give him the nod over Nash for better WS and defense.
32. Patrick Ewing -- His candidacy has some flaws (one first-team all-NBA, no titles, no MVPs), but recall that Ewing played against Kareem and Moses Malone and Hakeem and David Robinson and Shaq. That is Ewing's peer group. And yet he is 6X Second-team all-NBA and 1X First-team. Just a tad overrated, but a great player nonetheless. If you look for his career averages of 21-9.8 and 2 blocks or better, you get a pretty impressive peer group: http://bkref.com/tiny/6yJjV
31. Dwyane Wade - I ranked Wade as top 36 in 2015, and I sort of regret that in hindsight. In the three seasons since April 2015, Wade has TOTALED 3 Win Shares, and his poor play has dragged down his generally great stats from earlier in his career. That said, he has three titles, he has 2 first-team all-NBA's, he has a Finals MVP, he was a far above average defender (up through 2013-14 he had over 2 steals+blocks every single year, as an off guard)! Wade is #15 all-time in PER (ahead of Karl Malone and Steph Curry, two spots behind Magic Johnson), #23 in Box Plus-Minus, #26 in career VORP. He still gets in, and #31 is about right.
30. Bob Cousy -- I left Cousy out in 2015. In reviewing the list of available guys this year, I had to concede that someone who has 6 titles, an MVP, and 10 First-team All-NBA awards just has too good of a resume to be left off. And he should probably place higher than #36. Cousy's primary drawbacks are that he played a million years ago and that his Win Shares and WS/48 are terrible. So how do I put him "in" when I keep out huge "eye test" guys like Iverson and Isiah and huge Win Share guys like Reggie Miller and Artis Gilmore? Well, imagine if Steve Nash had 10 first-team All-NBAs and 6 titles. Or if John Stockton had 6 titles and 10X first-team. I'd have those guys top 12. So, how can I deny Cousy ANY place at all on the list just because I don't think he is such a great player based upon his advanced stats? I mean, the guys who actually watched him play voted for him every year, and he was the PG on a great title team. What else, really, is there? I mean, we play the game for recognition and to win. So, I guess the time for my boycott of Bob Cousy is at an end (but I am still grouping him down here).
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