Luka Doncic - Doncic is 5x 1st Team All-NBA and led his team to the NBA Finals. He has averaged 29 points per game in the regular season and 31 in the playoffs. That said, he has played 6 years, and my evaluation system does give credit for longevity and evaluates players as if they will never play another game as of the time of rating. He is not top 100 in any counting stat and he has never had the most Win Shares, VORP or MVP votes in a season. If you are going to rank someone top 36 after 6 years, they should have a couple MVPs or at least had a #1 advanced stat season.
Doncic can try again in 2027.
Patrick Ewing, Steve Nash, Gary Payton - at the end of the day, these guys dropped off my Top 36 list with the addition of Jokic, Giannis and my #36 guy. It was a difficult decision, and arguments can be made for leaving these guys on and putting other guys off. But they are off. Maybe I will reconsider by 2027.
Less Well-Known Guys I considered --
Artis Gilmore - If you count his ABA stats and give them 100% full credit, he is very close to a Top 36 player. His NBA stats and accomplishments are not as great. As is the case with Dr. J and other ABAers, I give their ABA accomplishments some level of discount.
Neil Johnston - Champion, scoring champion, rebounding champion, 4x 1st team All-NBA, 5x led the NBA in Win Shares. Players to lead the NBA in Win Shares more seasons? Kareem, Jordan, Wilt. WS/48 - 5th all-time (Jokic, MJ, David Robinson, Wilt). There is not great longevity, plus, the people who watched him play never seemed to stand up for him on the All-Time teams rankings. Most underrated player of all-time.
Some Well-Known Guys I considered who did not make it (again):
Walt Frazier, Anthony Davis, Isiah Thomas, Allen Iverson, Clyde Drexler, Ray Allen, Reggie Miller, Jason Kidd, Willis Reed
All of these guys have some argument for Top 36.
Isiah has the two titles in Detroit, but his overall advanced stats are poor. There is no other way to put it. He is not TOP 100(!!!) in PER, WS, WS/48. Not top 80 in BPM and not top 55 in VORP. His best ranking in MVP voting was 5th. Best 5 MVP finishes: 5/8/9/9/12. The years the Pistons were playing for the title, he made no team All-NBA and finished 15/18/17 in All-NBA balloting. It wasn't exactly a close miss.
Iverson has a better overall case (1-4-5-6-7 in MVP, was MVP the year his team reached the Finals). He has some better (still bad for our purposes) PER and BPM and VORP finishes (60th in PER, 59th in BPM, 39th in VORP) but none of this approaches Top 36, and he was a low efficiency chucker (minus 1,222 points in Adjusted Shooting for his career, somewhat overcome by +800 in FT shooting). Roughly similar to Isiah Thomas (negative 818, plus 45 FT),
Davis has 4x 1st team All-NBA and has some really high WS/48 and BPM numbers, both in the regular season and playoffs. And, subjectively, when you watch him play, at his best he is an absolute monster on both ends. But he has almost no MVP support over the years, and when he needs to be the top dog his team often gets left out of the playoffs or eliminated quickly.
Kidd, of course, was a horrible shooter and averaged 12.6 PPG for his career as a starting guard who played a ton of minutes. 6th in career minutes played, 94th in career points. That is hard to do.
The shooting guards just don't quite make it. They all have some weaknesses for a top 36 resume. Ray Allen received almost no recognition for All-NBA or MVP voting. Drexler has better advanced stats and some All-NBA recognition, but, for example, he was 1x 1st team All-NBA and is 57th in MVP Award Shares. Reggie Miller has huge WS and VORP (top 25 in each) and his advanced stats are top 5 (sometimes top 2) for shooting guards, but he was just absolutely never judged to be a top 5 player during any year. His best year was probably 1997-98 where he was 3rd team All-NBA, 16th in MVP balloting and 14th in All-NBA votes. Despite his astounding +3,449 Adjusted Shooting, it is hard to name him Top 36 when he NEVER was considered a Top 5 player by anyone voting on the issue.
Anyway, let's move on to who DID make it.
