All Time Greats
Age before Beauty
An all-time list should by definition be exclusive. Wade doesn’t belong on it, not yet at least. A great player should be defined by their legacy. Looking at a player’s prime is a good thing, but I’m not quite sold on it. The fact that John Stockton played almost two decades at the top level is a major accomplishment.
I decided to add yet another volley into the greatest of all time debate. Using my ever standard 10.0 Wins Produced as a metric for a star season, I looked for players with multiple years as a star. I found a list of 25 players I think deserve greatest of all time consideration. And Wade isn’t one of them.
Table 1: Top Players Ranked by Number of 10+ Wins Produced Seasons
| Player | Star Seasons | Best Season | Star WP* | Star MP* | Star WP48 |
| John Stockton | 17 | 23.2 | 303.9 | 45241 | 0.322 |
| Kevin Garnett** | 15 | 30.7 | 294.8 | 42764 | 0.331 |
| Jason Kidd** | 15 | 24.3 | 283.9 | 43380 | 0.314 |
| Karl Malone | 14 | 22.8 | 261.4 | 43343 | 0.289 |
| Tim Duncan** | 14 | 25.0 | 255.9 | 38982 | 0.315 |
| Shaquille O’Neal | 13 | 27.1 | 233.4 | 34076 | 0.329 |
| Moses Malone | 13 | 23.5 | 215.3 | 36881 | 0.280 |
| Robert Parish | 13 | 21.3 | 178.3 | 33089 | 0.259 |
| Magic Johnson | 12 | 29.6 | 292.7 | 32287 | 0.435 |
| Charles Barkley | 12 | 30.2 | 276.7 | 32932 | 0.403 |
| David Robinson | 12 | 28.6 | 247.2 | 33444 | 0.355 |
| Hakeem Olajuwon | 12 | 25.7 | 225.6 | 33981 | 0.319 |
| Kobe Bryant** | 12 | 18.4 | 158.6 | 35360 | 0.215 |
| Michael Jordan | 11 | 32.9 | 265.6 | 34768 | 0.367 |
| Larry Bird | 11 | 27.6 | 251.7 | 32592 | 0.371 |
| Dennis Rodman | 11 | 33.1 | 231.1 | 26638 | 0.416 |
| Dikembe Mutombo | 11 | 24.5 | 196.9 | 31783 | 0.297 |
| Clyde Drexler | 11 | 20.8 | 187.5 | 29714 | 0.303 |
| Buck Williams | 11 | 22.3 | 166.0 | 31192 | 0.255 |
| Mark Jackson | 11 | 15.1 | 143.0 | 28825 | 0.238 |
| Scottie Pippen | 10 | 21.4 | 166.3 | 30189 | 0.264 |
| Steve Nash** | 10 | 19.0 | 144.3 | 26637 | 0.260 |
| Larry Nance | 10 | 16.8 | 140.9 | 26537 | 0.255 |
| Gary Payton | 10 | 20.4 | 136.8 | 31831 | 0.206 |
| Paul Pierce** | 10 | 17.2 | 136.0 | 30023 | 0.217 |
- *Player Wins and Minutes for the 1999 Season Adjusted for an 82 game season
- **Active Player
Longevity isn’t easy. For all of the Kobe hating I do, it’s hard to deny that playing at his level for 12 seasons is no small feat. Every player listed had a decade or more of greatness. Only three of these players failed to hit on the Wages of Wins Top 50 Podcast: Larry Nance, Buck Williams and Mark Jackson. It’s easy to focus on single season or even top players in their prime, but consistency is tough. And I think consistency deserves to be part of our conversation about all-time greatness.
Still in the Running
Still Have a Shot at Greatness!
In addition to our select set of 25 players from 1978 onwards we have some active players that still have a chance at greatness. Here’s a rundown of our candidates.
Table 2: Active Players with more than 5 Seasons of 10+ Wins Produced
| Player | Star Seasons | Best Season | Star WP* | Star MP* | Star WP48 |
| Ben Wallace | 9 | 27.1 | 171.6 | 23836 | 0.345 |
| Shawn Marion | 9 | 24.0 | 162.2 | 26765 | 0.291 |
| Dirk Nowitzki | 8 | 18.5 | 126.1 | 23332 | 0.259 |
| Marcus Camby | 8 | 19.0 | 124.3 | 17526 | 0.340 |
| Andre Miller | 8 | 15.6 | 93.1 | 23092 | 0.194 |
| LeBron James | 7 | 27.2 | 155.8 | 22049 | 0.339 |
| Dwight Howard | 7 | 24.6 | 141.3 | 20405 | 0.332 |
| Andre Iguodala | 7 | 14.4 | 91.0 | 21008 | 0.208 |
| Manu Ginobili | 7 | 16.0 | 89.7 | 15204 | 0.283 |
| Chauncey Billups | 7 | 16.1 | 87.5 | 18723 | 0.224 |
| Ray Allen | 7 | 17.4 | 81.9 | 20335 | 0.193 |
| Chris Paul | 6 | 29.4 | 117.3 | 15747 | 0.358 |
| Dwyane Wade | 6 | 21.0 | 99.9 | 16466 | 0.291 |
| Tracy McGrady | 6 | 20.0 | 92.7 | 16624 | 0.268 |
| Elton Brand | 6 | 19.3 | 86.8 | 17318 | 0.241 |
| Pau Gasol | 6 | 16.8 | 86.6 | 16711 | 0.249 |
| Vince Carter | 6 | 12.6 | 70.4 | 17925 | 0.189 |
*Player Wins and Minutes for the 1999 Season Adjusted for an 82 game season
I’ll wholeheartedly agree with a point Arturo made in his recent post. Dwyane Wade is amazing. But there are some more deserving players ahead of him including Dwight Howard, Chris Paul and Marcus Camby. Wade is the strongest candidate with 6 seasons of greatness and is only a few years away from the decade club. I hope he makes it.
Summing Up
Be Careful about being overly optimistic.
Great players are rare. All-time greats are even rarer. When looking at players it is easy to get caught up in what they could do if they kept going at their current pace. The thing is injuries happen. I just ask when crowning players greatest of all time we take a step back and look at the big picture. After we do that we can all go back to debating why our favorite players deserve in the club and why Andre Iguodala — when his career finally ends — might be a Hall of Fame First-Ballot candidate.
-Dre
Wages of Wins Journal 
chris (@chrisofspades)
August 22, 2011
Iggy needs to have some playoff success before he can be considered for the Hall, especially first ballot.
Dre
August 22, 2011
Chris,
This is an interesting problem. The Hall of Fame (as well as any awards and All-NBA and All-Star) are INDIVIDUAL awards. It’s not Michael Jordan and the Bulls in the Hall, it’s Michael Jordan. Iguodala has consistently been a great player. For him to earn a top individual award why are requiring him to have a better team?
LuckyLeft
August 22, 2011
Dre
It seems teams that have better records, or teams that have been winning consitently over a longer period of time, would have earned him some more recognition. It’s rather unfortunate that things are this way, and I hate it. If you look at the numbers, Igoudala has been stellar. But people’s perceptions get in the way, and it affects things, such as Derrick Rose a top 5 player in the league just because he won an MVP and ESPN says so and the ‘self-proclaimed experts’ who do nothing but base their opinions off of ESPN. I love relying on stats for things, and hate “the eye test”. I felt that if Iguodala were say, the Celtics, the Bulls, the Lakers, etc., he would have much more All-Defensive nominations than he has. Dwyane Wade had MVP seasons but didn’t get considered b/c his teams were low seeds in the playoffs. Kobe Bryant shouldn’t have had an MVP in 2008, when Chris Paul was clearly the best player AND the most valuable. The only awards that I know that aren’t involved with “Good Teams” are Most improved and the Rookie of the Year. Bobby Simmons won over Wade in (MIP), in fact…
I don’t know why people require be on good teams to win awards, either. If you’re the best at the assigned award, who you play for shouldn’t matter…..
fricktho
August 22, 2011
If you ask the general Sixers fan about Igoudala you hear complaints about how he can’t get it done in crunch time. How he’s the last guy you want taking a shot when it’s needed etc. I think you’d hear the same for Marion. Guys that are perceived ‘not able to create a shot’, or in other words lower usage players. Unless advanced metrics become widely accepted by voters further down the road, which I suppose is a possibility, I don’t think either Marion or Igoudala, or even Ben Wallace, have a chance at the HOF let alone first ballot chances. High usage/high production players trump low usage/high production players when it comes to public perception. Heck even high usage/low production players sometimes win out, although I sense that changing to a degree. It would seem the best correlation for the HOF would be between usage and productivity along with longevity.
gelfnerd
August 22, 2011
Being on a good or great team is often a matter of luck or having excellent leadership in management. HOWEVER, putting up epic (WP) performances in the playoffs and leading your team to a title HAS to count for something.
What counts as a “season”? The playoffs are looong and it is obviously far harder (better talent, wins are worth more) to put up “star” numbers in the playoffs than the regular season no?
There has to be a measure that gives more weight to a playoff performance than a star regular season game no? The Heat won the finals BECAUSE Dwayne Wade put on one of the greatest Finals performances of all time. That still just counts as one season? Sorry that is silly.
Player A has an excellent regular season and his team misses the playoffs. Player B has an excellent season, an incredible playoffs and leads his team to the title (leader in WP/48) they don’t get extra consideration? That isn’t an “eye” test that is basketball.
brgulker
August 22, 2011
Dre I’m curious, did Ben Wallace’s year in Cleveland when he broke his leg make it into his star seasons?
LuckyLeft
August 22, 2011
@Gelfnerd
I was referring to teams who did make the playoffs, and aren’t on as well-known teams. Of course a guy who puts up 28 points a game and the team only wins 28 games isn’t going to get as much recognition as a guy who is guy who avg. 25 and their team wins 57 games. That isn’t an “eye test”. You don’t need an “eye test” for something that glaringly obvious. How many MVPs win for teams that don’t make the playoffs? Or even get All-NBA/All-Defense Honors.
And besides, guys like Zach Randolph, who averaged 20 and 10 for subpar teams consistently, and Elton Brand, who did the same for his bad Clipper teams, will never get the same recognition because of their teams. And they averaged around the same numbers when their teams were winning, so my point is players shouldn’t be always punished for putting up good numbers for bad teams.
I was referring to players like Paul and Williams getting overlooked because of the “eye test” that fools (general NBA fans) make of Rose being the better than both because of highlights and not looking at the stats. Or still thinking Kobe is a top 5 NBA player, for example. I was always under the impression that you needed the “eye test” for supposedly closer rated players…..
@fricktho
I’m astonished that Ben Wallace’s HOF predictor on basketball-reference is only 1/1000 higher than Josh Smith’s. Ben Wallace is my most favorite player of this decade, but I don’t think he’s gettting in, either, just because defensive players don’t get the same recognition as offensive players. Mutombo and Mourning would probably get in before Wallace. There still could be hope, considering Reggie Miller didn’t get in as a First-Balloter (as he shouldn’t have) and Rodman getting in (Granted, his uncanny rebounding #s). I don’t think Marion and Iguodala are HOFers either, at least for now……
Dre
August 23, 2011
Ben,
No he was at around 7 Wins Produced that year so he may have hit that with another 16 games. Ben Wallace and Marcus Camby make an interesting point. Both were very productive early in their career (barring Toronto for Camby) but were not played a lot. It wasn’t until Wallace went to Detroit he got the minutes to crack 10+ WP and until Camby’s 3rd year in New York that he was. It’s a shame to be sure.
brgulker
August 23, 2011
That’s what I was guessing. Thanks, Dre!
Christian
August 23, 2011
Great article! It’s unfortunate that great players like Andre Iguodala are undercut because they aren’t primarily scorers. In Philly, fans seem ready to send Iggy out for a sometimes overrated player in Monta Ellis, and that isn’t a decision I understand. Iggy is clearly the more valuable player in my eyes, and it’s nice to see metrics supporting that.
Incidentally, I notice that Kobe’s highest WP season number is significantly lower than nearly everyone on this list. I know it’s dangerous to go there, but can that be used to support the idea that Kobe as a top 10 all time player is false? I hope not, because Kobe is one of my favorite players in league history.
I’m new to the concept of wins produced, by the way, so forgive my ignorance on analysis of the metric.
fricktho
August 23, 2011
What you see here are regular season based, so if you want to take into account post-season success to debate whether Kobe is a top 10 player in the NBA I suppose there is a case to be made, if however you leave out the fact Kobe has actually been better in the regular season than the postseason over his career.
James
August 23, 2011
Dre,
Great read. I think longevity is very important in determining a player’s overall contributions to the game. That said, I think longevity has to be weighted with peak performance. Would you rather have Parish for 13 years or Jordan for half of that? Personally I’d take Jordan because my chances of winning at least one title are probably higher in that small window than having even a player as productive as Parish for 13 years. Of course, since the concept of “greatness” is so subjective, there will always be argument about it, even among people who generally agree on the contributions of players (e.g., us stat nerds). But I think the best measure of greatness falls somewhere in between best prime and most substantial longevity.
Christopher,
It’s well documented that Kobe is nowhere near the top 10 of all time in terms of WP. Consider this: Michael Jordan’s Career WP is about 284, his career WP48 is about .332, and his prime WP per season is 27.5. Kobe’s respective numbers are 159, .203, and 15.3.
James
August 23, 2011
I meant Christian not Christopher, sorry.
Christian
August 23, 2011
@James How is it, then, that such a player is so widely canonized into GOAT lists despite the fact that his production isn’t necessarily on par? Is it partly because he is the Lakers’ star? Would it be different if he accomplished the same feats on a less historic NBA team?
James
August 23, 2011
Christian,
I think there are a few contributing factors behind the media and fans crowing Kobe as a top 10 player. First, the desire to find the “next Jordan” in the post-Jordan era. Once Michael retired, the media was dying to find his successor, and since Duncan and Shaq were big men and didn’t bring the excitement that a two-guard brought, they needed to look elsewhere. Kobe, being the same size and position as Jordan, seemed to fit.
Second, Kobe’s high volume scoring. He has led the league in the media’s favorite stat – points per game, which does not necessarily equate with production since players don’t necessarily have to be efficient scorers to score a lot of points, they only need to shoot a lot.
Finally, Kobe has had the privilege of being surrounded by good players nearly his entire career. When the Lakers were winning in the early 2000s everyone knew Shaq was the best player on those teams and Kobe was a great supplement. Now we tend to forget that. Recently Kobe has played with one of the best front courts the league has seen (Gasol, Bynum, Odom), all of are as productive or arguably more productive than Kobe. The media places a great deal of emphasis on an individual’s success even though it’s a team game, and that’s why Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady, who were both volume scorers as productive as Kobe in their primes, aren’t in the conversation. To Kobe’s credit, as this article points out, he has been good for a long time. Most players can’t sustain that kind of production for that long, and though he hasn’t ever produced at the high level of a Michael Jordan, he deserves recognition for what he has done.
As far as his being a Laker, it’s hard to say whether the large market and storied franchise where he has spent his career has contributed to his perceived greatness. It probably has something to do with it, but had he had the same teams and success in other markets, he would probably still be considered a top player by the media.
fricktho
August 23, 2011
My argument for Kobe being a top 10 player isn’t so much about peak performance, not to discount that Kobe has been very good, or longevity, for a long time, but that he’s worked so hard to get there. He was determined to be great. He’s worked so hard to turn himself into a multifaceted scorer. He’s worked hard on the defensive end. He’s put more time in the gym than I imagine any player in the league.
On top of that he’s played over 8,000 playoff minutes. He’s played the equivalent of almost 18 seasons in his 15 year career. There was a stretch where he played 82 games in 07-08, played 21 playoff games going to game 6 against Boston, participated in the Beijing Olympics taking home the gold, then returned in 08-09 to play 82 more regular season games and 23 playoff games culminating in a championship. That work load is insane and it would have been a miracle if his body didn’t break down at some point, which it finally seemed to at the end of last season. So not so much based on stats as much as just respect for the amount of work Kobe has done I rank him as a top 10 player.
Christian
August 25, 2011
@fricktho I would add to that by noting the impact Kobe had on the game and it’s audience. Kobe was electric and lit the hoops world on fire. Fans love his style of play and incredible work ethic and mindset. Highlight reels of his career gamewinners still send chills down my spine. Excitement definitely factors into stardom and Kobe is one of the greatest stars in league history.
@James Interesting. T-Mac, VC, and Gilbert Arenas were all in my mind when I asked about whether Kobe being a Laker helped him. These and other players had incredible scoring years when they were younger but none (except perhaps VC) were given the hype that Kobe had.
Dre
August 26, 2011
Christian,
I respectfully have to disagree on your point about Kobe being electric. Kobe has played on very good teams and is a high volume scorer. Given that he takes a ton of shots of course he’ll make some amazing ones, including game winners (although Abbott has pointed out Kobe’s clutch shooting is not actually good and he’s much more likely to miss than make). Winning teams (thanks largely to Shaq, Gasol+Odom and yes Kobe too) got Kobe a large audience. Being a high volume shooter gave Kobe many opportunities to have memorable shots (people forget the misses). I’ll agree with a point Arturo has made though. If you were to swap out Ray Allen with Kobe the story would be that Allen was the most electric player since Jordan and that Kobe was very good.
Christian
August 26, 2011
Dre,
Perhaps Allen would have garnered the same following had he played on the great teams that Kobe was privileged to be on. It’s tough to speculate about scenarios like that, for me at least. I suppose what I meant to say is that Kobe’s legacy is obviously more than just numbers. I read the Abbott article when he published it but just reviewed it and it is still astonishing to me that Kobe has such a reputation as a clutch scorer despite his actual production.
For fans like me, though, Kobe symbolized greatness in basketball because he was such a volume scorer. I never noticed the relative inefficiency with which he obtained his numbers. All I saw was 81 points in one game or 12 threes in one game. These games plus the outrageous game winners plus documentaries like the Spike Lee joint cemented his legacy in my young mind. These games were electrifying performances and seemed unreal. His efficiency stats reveal that there are many better offensive weapons in NBA history, but Bryant was incredibly exciting.
brgulker
August 26, 2011
Kobe Thread!!!!1111