Ranking Shaq with the Centers

Only Shaquille O'Neal could steal attention from an exciting NBA finals as an over the hill 39 year old. His impact has been humongous not only on the court but off it too. Just look at the name at the top of the page (Kobe, Tell Me How My ? Tastes!). Watching him over the last 5 years it's easy to think of him just as an outsized personality, but he was maybe the most dominant basketball player of all-time. In the all time pinnacle of centers, where does the Big Aristotle rank? I created a cumulative index to try to find out. And then I changed things a little bit (I'll explain for each change).

My index was a combination of my work on the Top 5 each year, career win shares, MVP share, Basketball-reference's Hall of Fame odds (to include championships), and BBR's Elo player ratings. I altered things a little bit to help some defensive studs out, but pretty much stuck to the results.

There were two big names who maybe should be on the list. Arvydas Sabonis never got a chance to show the world what he could do in his prime, but some suspect he could've been the best center ever. Also, I left Tim Duncan out, even though he's really more a center (I'd probably put him right behind Shaq).

TIER THREE

10. Dwight Howard (5 points in the index)

He proved himself the second best player in the NBA, and with it moved himself into the top 10, knocking Bill Walton (or Willis Reed) out. He and Ewing were the only centers under consideration who haven't won a championship, and everybody else besides Malone has won at least two. Howard's entering his prime, and his time will come.

9. George Mikan (7 points)

Mikan is without a doubt the hardest player to rank on this list. He played in a completely different era, and probably would play something like Aaron Gray if he were in the league now. At the same time, he was the NBA's first superstar, and the center piece of the leagues first dynasty.

8. Patrick Ewing (9 points)

He will always be known for failing to break through (or for his Snickers commercials) but he took the Knicks to the finals twice, and led a renaissance of New York basketball. It's just tough to go up against MJ in your prime.

TIER TWO

7. Moses Malone (25 points)

Moses Malone is often a forgotten name among centers, quickly replaced by Olajuwon in Houston and never living on Dr. J's level in Philly. He peaked in a way that few players ever have. According to my top 5 calculations, Moses was the best player in the NBA in 1978-79, 81-82, and 82-83.

6. David Robinson (28 points)

Robinson was a physical specimen, and is being appreciated even more with advanced statistics. He consistently shows up at the top of Career PER or win shares lists, and can be seen by some methods as one of the best players of all time. He needed Duncan for playoff success though, and in his prime got it taken to him by the next man on this list.

5. Hakeem Olajuwon (24 points)

While his regular season stats aren't quite on par with Robinson or even Malone, taking both of the titles during MJ's break earned him a top 5 spot among greatest centers ever. He beat both Patrick Ewing and Shaq in those finals, and the way he dominated NBA MVP David Robinson forced me to give him a bump up this list.

TIER ONE

4. Shaquille O'Neal (38 points)

Shaq was the best player in the NBA in the immediate post Jordan era, ruling over the league in 1999-00 in a way that few ever have. He could rule games physically, but also had great touch around the hoop. He never quite got all he could out of his basketball potential, but winning 4 rings and being an absolute force for 3 different teams still put him 4th on the list.

3. Bill Russell (37 points)

Russell helped integrate the sport, anchored the greatest dynasty in the history of athletics, and my be the best defensive basketball player ever. A player with 11 championships will never be seen again in any high level team sport.

2. Wilt Chamberlain (44 points)

He occasionally cared more about women or statistics than about winning, but he also once averaged 50 points and 27 rebounds per game, over an entire season. Nobody has had a game like that since him, and that what he used to average! Wilt the Stilt also managed to squeeze in a couple chips around Russell's hogging.

1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (46 points)

Kareem was the best player in the NBA for 7 total years, and was the best player in the league for 4 straight seasons from 1970-74, a streak matched only by Michael Jordan and now Lebron James (didn't see that one coming huh?). The NBA's all-time points leader is also the greatest center of all time. For now.

2011 NBA Top 5

Last year at the end of the year I created an index to help figure out the NBA's top 5 players that year. It used the top 5 in Roland Rating, PER, Win Shares, Points Per Game, MVP voting, and the All NBA first team. This year I also added adjusted plus minus, although it's high variance can give some weird results. Here are this year's top 5 players, along with the points they have in the index:

Lebron James - 24

Dwight Howard - 22

Derrick Rose - 9

Kevin Durant - 9

Dwayne Wade - 8

There are a few things that stand out to me. First, Lebron James is once again the best player in the NBA, marking the fourth consecutive year by this index. It was a lot closer this year though as Dwight Howard stepped up his game to become the second best basketball player in the world. Next, the bottom became much more bunched together this year. Rose, Durant, Wade, Chris Paul and Kobe Bryant were all within two points of each other, which is pretty unusual. Finally, Kobe dropped out of the top 5 this year (and his post season performance supports that) marking for the first time a top 5 full of the leagues new stars. This is a generation that never really played in MJ's shadow, and is bringing the league back in the national spotlight. It's a fun group to watch.

Are the Spurs tanking on purpose?

Okay, almost certainly not it'd be kinda dumb. But here's an interesting thought. As of a few days ago the number 1 seed in the west had to play a dangerous Memphis team, followed by either the super hot Nuggets or Kendrick Perkins Thunder. The two seed though got New Orleans w/o David West or maybe the Trail Blazers just hanging on, followed by a struggling Mavericks team. Is that enough to over come home court in the third round? The playoff odds (now adapted for the NBA, with home court!) give us a good look:

With Spurs #1, Lakers #2

Spurs are champs 15.1%

Lakers are champs 14.7%

With Lakers #1, Spurs #2

Spurs are champs 15.6%

Lakers are champs 13.4%

So with last Wednesday's standings it actually is beneficial for the Spurs to lose. On the whole though, it's risky because right now the Hornets have dropped into eighth, and the clear goal is to avoid the Grizzlies.

Another possible winner here is the Bulls, who would go from 28.0% to 28.8% if they get home court advantage over the Spurs in the finals. For a team that was given little shot earlier in the year, the Bulls have really come on strong over the last month. Maybe there is an advantage to playing all the way through the season.

How often does the best team win?

A couple months ago I asked how often the best team wins the world series. It turned out to be a surprisingly low percentage, and with the wacky final four I started asking the same questions about college basketball. Using the random chance in sports method to determine how often the best team won I calculated the probability of the best team being champion. Naturally it extrapolated itself to all sports:

NBA: 81%

This is by far the highest, and also the most wrong. Single teams don't distance themselves as often in the NBA, and some research I did in high school suggests that better teams win 60% of finals games, not 80%. Adjusting for that in the last two rounds puts the odds at around 48%.

College Football: 57%

People rag on the BCS, but I showed during BCS week that small playoffs are often better at selecting champions. Again, adjusting for using only the top teams and not the general random chance lowers the odds to 47%, which is still pretty high.

NFL: 55%

Even though this is the pro sport where the best team wins most often, single elimination hurts it. Byes help though (these odds assume the best team gets a bye). Assuming that the best team only wins .7 of the time (better for the playoffs) lowers the odds to 42%

You may be laughing now because I've corrected the random chance odds for each sport so far. It's much more accurate for the remaining sports though, either because top teams distance themselves farther (MLB and NHL) or because there is a full range of opponents in tourney play (MCBB and WCBB).

Women's College Basketball: 36%

We're probably a little thrown off because of UConn's recent success, but actually with 6 rounds of play even the women's tourney is ripe with upsets.

MLB: 33%

Series' are a necessity in a sport where even the worst teams win almost 40% of their games. The first round should probably become a best of 7 to help that out (it'd boost odds about 5%).

Men's College Basketball: 28%

We've seen this on full display in the tournament, as the clear best three (Ohio St, Kansas, Duke) have all fallen to lesser opponents. 6 rounds is fun though, so it's worth diluting it, but a 7th in the future would be a stretch.

NHL: 28%

This may seem weird with many former dynasties like the Canadiens, but in reality the modern day NHL is as full of parity as baseball, and with an extra round the best team's chances are the worst of any major U.S. sport.

Cleveland

The Cleveland Cavaliers have been having an awful rough time lately (except tonight of course). Before their overtime victory against the Clippers tonight they had lost 26 straight, and 36 of their last 37 games. 26 straight losses ties (but does not exceed) the record for consecutive defeats by a professional sports team, equalling the mid-70's Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the 1889 Washington Capitals. Yet while 26 straight losses seems amazing, I'm maybe more impressed by losing 36 of 37. This is a question that has always bothered me, comparing runs in basketball games or streaks of losses/wins. Is it more impressive to win 3 straight or 4 of 5 ? (3 straight) Or in this case, is it more devastating to lose 26 straight, or 36 of 37? To calculate this, we'll assume the Cavs are the worst team in the league (a safe assumption) and because of that lose 76% of their games.

Odds of losing 26 straight: .00080

Odds of losing 36/37: .00049

Odds of going 9-73 (worst ever): .0027

While losing 26 consecutive games is awfully impressive, it's actually 38% less likely to lose 36 of 37. More amazingly, both of these are significantly rarer that going 9-73. They are marks fitting of a Cleveland team that has the worst power ratings since the 99-00 Clippers, even though they started off 7-9. In another parallel of history it looks like the modern day Cavaliers are just as lost as the 1600s english ones after they've lost their king.

Challenging A Comfortable Margin

A little while back I wrote about A Comfortable Margin, what score differential is safe in basketball. It turns out it's not a point per minute as I thought when I was young, but actually 6*n^.5 where n is the number of minutes left. My dad and I met a challenge though last Friday at the Warriors-Bobcats game (on a side note, this game proved that all NBA games are exciting. Two bad teams and we had a great time cheering for Stephen Curry and laughing at Kwame Brown's free throws). With 1:46 left in the game Curry hit a 3 to put the Warriors up 8. I called it the game winner. (106/60)^.5*6 is 7.97, and 8 is barely bigger than that so I was right with my call. Nonetheless, Stephen Jackson mounted a furious comeback, sinking 3 free throws with .6 seconds left to send the game to over time where the Bobcats won. The lesson here is not that the margin isn't comfortable, it's that somebody needs to tell Monta Ellis that being comfortable doesn't mean he can miss his free throws and commit terrible fouls.

Dunking On The Moon

Blake Griffin has been throwing down emphatic dunks all across the NBA, soaring high above the 10 foot rim. Many people might wonder how high Griffin could actually dunk, but I'll go a small step (or maybe a giant leap) beyond in the spirit of applying for a SpaceX internship. How high could Griffin dunk on the moon? And who would be the highest dunker?

It's not actually very complicated physics, just use M*G*H (conservation of energy), and M (for mass) doesn't actually matter here because it's the same for a player on the moon. With gravity (G) on the moon roughly 1/6 of earth gravity, just multiply an earth vertical (H) by 6 to get a moon vertical. Here's what happens with some of Earth's best basketball players:

Player	Height	Vert	Earth	Moon
Yao Ming	7'6"	21	10'11"	19'9"
Austin Link	6'4"	24	9'11"	20'0"
Blake Griffin	6'10"	35.5	11'3"	26'2"
Nate Robinson	5'9"	43.5	10'9"	29'0"
Jamario Moon	6'8"	43	11'8"	29'9"
Michael Jordan	6'6"	48	12'4"	32'6"
Kadour Ziani	5'10"	60	12'0"	37'3"

Even I could dunk on a 20 foot hoop on the moon, despite inconsistency on the earth. It's also striking how much more important jumping ability is on the moon. All of a sudden I can out dunk Yao Ming, and Nate Robinson has almost 3 feet on Blake Griffin. The aptly named Jamario Moon and Michael Jordan can of course hold their own (MJ based off his probably inflated vertical may be the best earth dunker) but the title of best moon dunker probably goes to the man with the highest vertical on earth, Kadour Ziani. Of course, he already makes his living as a professional dunker, so he may not even need the moon. But with it, he'd outshine even the brightest of NBA stars.

A Comfortable Margin

I was watching a rerun of Winning Time on ESPN the other day, which was highlighted by Reggie Miller's 8 points in 9 seconds to beat the Knicks, all after Pacers owner Donnie Walsh had given up and retreated to his smoking room. The Knicks had been up by 6 with about 30 seconds left, was it reasonable for Walsh to leave? At what point in a game can you feel safe your team will win?

Just by observing basketball, a few years ago I had decided 6*(n)^.5 (where n is minutes left and n^.5 is the square root of n) was a good amount. If you were up by 6 or more with 1 minute left, 12 or more with 4 minutes left, 18 or more with 9 minutes left, etc. you'd be pretty safe.

Turns out the square root of n is pretty accurate. That's because the chance a team recovers a given amount of points depends on the standard deviation of the distribution of points. Standard deviation is the square root of variance, and variance can add. So the if the variance of 1 minute is V then for 2 minutes it's 2V, for 3 it's 3V, etc. So the variance is some constant k times n, and standard deviation is (kn)^.5, which is proportional to the safe margin.

Is the 6 constant accurate? Let's take a look at things on a per possession basis. The variance in one possession, based off of last year's numbers, is 1.22. In the final minute there are an average of 6 possessions total (more than the usual 4 or so), so the variance in the final minute is 7.3, and standard deviation is 2.7. Multiplying by 2.33 (so we're 99% sure, it's from z tables) we get 6.3, which is our final constant. 6.3!

Turns out 6*n^.5 was a pretty good guess, and accurate enough to use. It won't always work (it'll probably be a little less than 99% because one possession is not normally distributed), but it's a pretty good guide on when you should head back to your smoking room. Unless of course the other team has Reggie Miller.

Streaks in the NBA

Even without much press for the Bulls and their 7 straight wins there's been a lot of coverage of win streaks so far this season. How unusual is it that teams win 10 in a row? It's not as easy to calculate because assuming a 50% chance of winning makes streaks unlikely. It's easier to win 10 games in a row if you're the favorite than if you're even. What we're gonna use then is the number from Random Chance In Sports which say the better team wins 77% of the time in the NBA. From that we know even the best team in the league has only a 7% chance of winning it's previous 10 games. From other (rough) approximations we can learn there's roughly a 20% chance of any team in the league being on a 10 game winning streak. On average there should be one 6 game winning streak, and one that's longer (about 8 games), which is less than our current and recent win streak total. One possibly reason is the stratification of the Eastern Conference. The few really good teams can beat up on the really bad teams, leading to long winning and losing streaks (Celtics and Heat vs Cavs and Nets). We can also dig in deeper for certain teams:

Chicago Bulls: 7 wins

They've got Carlos Boozer back, and the team is working well. Unfortunately it'll be a while till we see everyone again with Noah's surgery.

New York Knicks: 8 wins (just lost)

It sure helps to have the easiest schedule in the league (average opponent: The Toronto Raptors). They've played will, but they're not gonna get out of the first round of the playoffs.

Miami Heat: 10 wins

They've won 10 straight because they've become Dwyane Wade's team. The offseason was full of "Lebron is #2" jokes, but it might actually be the truth. Wade has averaged 25.3 ppg in wins (27.3 on the streak), but just 18.7 in losses. Lebron has averaged 23.2 ppg in wins (24.9 on the streak) and 26 in losses. So they are gelling better, but it's because Dwyane is now the alpha dog.

Boston Celtics: 11 wins

11 straight wins happens normally if you have 4 hall of fame starters and the 5th is an MVP candidate. Especially with a little schedule break and some luck.

Pau Gasol vs Scottie Pippen

There are some silly people out there who've tried comparing Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan. It's not a contest of course, MJ is the G.O.A.T. and Kobe hasn't ever been the best in the league. A more interesting contest is between their number 2s, Scottie Pippen to MJ and Pau Gasol to Kobe. It sounds absurd at first to compare Pau and Scottie, but Pau is one of the most under rated players in the game today and Scottie was over rated in his time.

First off, let's look at their place in my Top 5 ratings. Pau never shows up in the top 5 of any year. Pippen is the 4th best player in 93-94, but that was his best year and more importantly he was his teams star that year (MJ was playing baseball). Still, the edge here goes to Scottie.

Next, let's look at PER, a John Hollinger special. Specifically, let's look at their 3 best years as a #2.

Pau: 22.2 (08-09) 22.9 (09-10) 24.0 (07-08 and this year).

Scottie: 21.0 (95-96) 21.3 (96-97) 21.5 (91-92)

Admittedly, PER undervalues defense some, but the according to Hollinger's stats Pau is still better.

How about Win Shares? Here's each's three best years again.

Pau: 13.9 (08-09) 12.0 (05-06) 11.0 (09-10)

Scottie: 13.1 (96-97) 12.7 (91-92) 12.3 (95-96)

When he plays Pau is better, but thanks to his durability Scottie is more consistent. It's a pretty even draw.

One for Scottie, one for Pau, and one tie makes the two pretty even. Looks like it's a tie, which in a way makes sense. Kobe tried to match Mike with a great #2, a crazy guy (Artest for Rodman), a high level 6th man (Lamar Odom for Toni Kukoc), and of course Phil Jackson. All Kobe has to do now is win 72.

New NFL and NBA rankings

Each week I have a chance to go over the college football rankings, but I haven't had a chance recently to look at the professionals. What's up in the NBA and NFL (besides me being embarrassed by the Detroit Lions)?

Here's four trends to look at going ahead:

1. The NFC West sucks.

Anybody who follows football already knew this, but having 24th ranked St. Louis as their best team is almost unbelievable. Ishan stands a chance at winning his bet that the 49ers make the playoffs (made when they were 0-5) but I think the winner is goint to be the Rams. That's right Masta' P, your St. Louis Rams will beat Seattle on January second for their 7th win of the season, clinching the division by tiebreaker over the Seahawks.

2. The Bears aren't just lucky.

Yeah, the Bears have won some close games this season. They've lost some too though, and updating the rankings through today they'd project to have 6.23 wins at this point, not too far from the 7 they actually have. They have a touch finishing schedule (average opponent rating of 1.67, right in between the Colts and Patriots) but with the parity in the NFL this year they are still predicted to have 2.73 wins. A 10-6 Chicago Bears team? That could make the playoffs.

3. The Heat will "get better".

Yeah, they're 7-4, but they're atop the power rankings and should be 9-2 (9.09 wins exactly). As the season goes on those mistakes will iron out, and I project them to finish at 67-15 at their current pace. They'll probably regress to the mean some, but the MiAmigos are still a very good team, probably the best in the NBA.

4. The Hornets are for real.

Chris Paul's return (not "CP3" a terrible excuse for a nickname) and the new focus on defense are a big deal. They boast the best record in the NBA at 9-1, and THEY'VE PLAYED THE TOUGHEST SCHEDULE. Once the easier teams roll in, they'll kick even more butt. At this rate, they'll finish the season 70-12! Don't expect that, but do expect them to stick around as a legitimate dark horse contender.

Random Chance in Sports

This post is a followup to Random Chance in the NFL which highlighted the lowered competition in the NFL this year. It showed that the best teams win 62% of the time this year, far less than previous years. How often the better team won in previous years and in other sports were still left unknown though. Until now. Here, using the same methodology focusing on variance, here are the data on the last three full seasons in the four major american sports:

	2008	2009	2010
MLB	0.59	0.6	0.59
NBA	0.77	0.77	0.75
NHL	0.56	0.61	0.61
NFL	0.8	0.8	0.78

On average the better team wins 60% of the time in MLB, 77% in the NBA, 60% in the NHL, and 79% in the NFL. But how about this year? How often does the best team win in the NFL this year? It's gotten better since the last look, so far this year in the NFL the better team wins 70% of the time. While this is still an unprecedented increase in parity, it is also slowly getting closer to the norm we'd expect, thanks largely to big losers like the Bills and Panthers. So while this NFL season may have some crazy outcomes, it's still less random than sports like Hockey.

This article originally ran with a bug in the program used to calculate variance. While the effect on previous season results was minimal, it messed with the current season results a lot. The NFL is not actually just random chance this year, although going with just home field advantage would still be pretty good.

NBA Rankings Debut!

Since baseball season is over, I suppose it's time to move on. To the NBA!! Here are the first rankings of the season:

Rank	Team	W	L	Rating	SOS
1	Miami	4	1	9.203	0.872
2	LA Lakers	5	0	6.845	1.17
3	Denver	2	2	5.997	2.12
4	New Orleans	4	0	4.012	1.583
5	Orlando	2	1	3.58	0.978
6	Dallas	3	1	3.055	0.89
7	Boston	4	1	2.023	0.791
8	Houston	0	4	1.668	3.907
9	Atlanta	5	0	1.611	0.491
10	Phoenix	1	3	1.554	1.97
11	Portland	4	2	1.509	0.634
12	San Antonio	3	1	1.476	0.953
13	Golden State	3	1	1.414	1.504
14	New York	2	2	1.234	1.116
15	Memphis	2	3	1.181	1.637
16	Utah	2	2	0.988	1.225
17	Philadelphia	1	4	0.917	0.942
18	Toronto	1	3	0.765	0.684
19	Chicago	2	2	0.664	0.571
20	Sacramento	3	2	0.506	0.676
21	Milwaukee	1	4	0.425	0.932
22	Washington	1	2	0.411	1.742
23	LA Clippers	1	4	0.379	1.248
24	Cleveland	1	3	0.354	1.06
25	Indiana	2	2	0.348	0.733
26	Oklahoma City	3	2	0.315	0.584
27	New Jersey	2	2	0.308	0.666
28	Minnesota	1	4	0.247	1.53
29	Charlotte	1	3	0.233	0.611
30	Detroit	0	5	0.181	0.732

What stands out about these rankings?

First, the ever intriguing Lakers Heat battle starts off actually in favor of the Heat. If they manage to keep this pace up (they won't) it gives them a winning percentage of .913, or 75 wins. Not quite the 78 Hollinger's pythagorean said, but close. The Three MiAmigos (thanks Andy) have done well.

Second, the surprisingly 0-4 Rockets have actually not played terribly, they just had an incredibly hard schedule. It appears Yao could still lead them to the playoffs this year.

Finally, the struggles of the OKC Zombie Sonics should be watched. Maybe all of the hype for such a young team was too much? As with all things this season, only time will tell. And I'm looking forward to it.

How many for wins the Heat?

It's been covered, a lot. Everybody up through John Hollinger has projected the number of wins for the Miami Heat this season, and I have no secret methods, but I'm interested and there need to be some basketball articles for the NBA season. I looked at it two different ways. First, I added up last season's Win Shares of all the Heat players. Lebron had 18.5, Dwayne Wade had 13, and Chris Bosh had 9. Impressively, Udonis Haslem had 6 win shares last year (he's a solid defender), but that's where the help stops. For the season the Heat project to have a total of 67.1 win shares.

Some other historic teams:

08-09 Lakers: 60.8 win shares, 65 wins.

08-09 Cavaliers: 68.0 win shares, 66 wins.

07-08 Celtics: 70.2 win shares, 66 wins.

99-00 Lakers: 63.3 win shares, 67 wins.

96-97 Bulls: 71.3 win shares, 69 wins.

95-96 Bulls: 75.3 win shares, 72 wins.

It appears that win shares do a good job of predicting wi- Wait, THIS WON'T BE LEBRON'S BEST TEAM?!?! That's right, the 08-09 Cavaliers had 68 win shares, .9 more than this year's Heat project to have. The weak bench behind the Three Amigos will cost them this year.

The other way to analyze the Heat's upcoming performance is to look at their projected points. Last season they averaged 96.5 ppg, and gave up 94.2. Using Bill James's pythagorean method (winning percentage = ppg^14/(oppg^14 + ppg^14)), and updating projected ppg totals, it's possible to project win total. Adding Lebron and Bosh is a huge advantage here, bringing in 916 and 513 points each according to John Hollinger. The pythagorean method projects the Heat at 71.97 wins. One key difference between the two is Chris Bosh. He ranks the 8th best NBA player in Hollingers Value Added, but only the 19th best by win shares. Either way, high 60s is a good win projection for the Miami Heat this season. I like win shares better so I'll say the Miami Heat get 67 wins this season.

I'd also appreciate possible nicknames for this year's Heat. Andy, this is your time to shine.

All Time Top 12

A couple weeks ago I posted my top 5 players of the past decade (and made a sporcle quiz!). I've since gone back all the way through 1955 (when data becomes scarce) with results that will get posted at some point. I began wondering if I could use the numbers to create a list of the top players ever to play. Just adding up totals like in the players of the decade post gave an unfair advantage to long careers like Karl Malone and Kareem. So I combined total top 5 points and average position in years ranked (I had a minimum of 5 years, so Kevin Durant who's only been ranked for 1 year has an average of .8). The rankings aren't great, but they bring up interesting ideas.

1	Jordan
2	Abdul-Jabbar
3	Chamberlain
4	Robertson
T5	K. Malone
T5	O'Neal
7	James
8	Pettit
9	Robinson
10	Duncan
11	Bird
12	West

There's also a top 12 using just years being the best in the NBA

	Player	Years	Consecutive	Ties
1	Jordan	10	7	2
2	Kareem	7	4	0
3	Chamberlain	7	3	0
4	James	4	3	0
5	Bird	3	3	0
6	K. Malone	3	3	2
T7	M. Malone	3	2	0
T7	Pettit	3	2	0
T9	Robinson	2	2	0
T9	Shaq	2	2	0
11	Duncan	2	2	1
12	Nowitzki	2	1	0

There are a few interesting things to notice here:

First, it's clear the Michael Jordan is the best player of all time, followed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar then Wilt Chamberlain. This is a very believable thing without numbers to back it up, and it's solidified here.

Second, Bill Russell and Magic Johnson are missing from both lists. Each suffers from playing in a loaded era (Russell was always stuck behind Robertson and Chamberlain, Magic had Bird and Kareem/Jordan). Both probably also suffer from a lack of plus/minus data for their years because they set a unique style of play for their team. What their absence does indicate though is that both may be over-rated. While each was definitely a top-20 player top 5 may be a little bit of a reach.

Finally, Lebron James is ranked impressively high on both lists, 4th and 7th. It puts him in serious danger of challenging Karl Malone for best player ever to not win a championship ( something which could change this year). Just halfway through his career this is an amazing achievement. He had the highest average score of any player not named Jordan, and is on his way to possibly dethroning our current top 3. It will be an interesting next few years to watch.

Also for funsies, here's where a couple other top-40 players rank in the first ranking:

Tie 16th- Garnett and Nowitzki

18th - Magic

19th - Kobe

Tie 27 - T-Mac

29 - Bill Russell

30 - D-Wade

Tie 34 - Chris Paul

Top NBA players of the last 10 years

A few days ago I posted the top 5 NBA players last year, according to an average of various measures. What happens over the last decade? Here are the last ten years, ties broken first by eliminating PPG, then by counting who appeared in the most categories (with adjustments to roland rating, switched to adjusted +- for 02-03 to 04-05 and dropped before that because neither existed):

	2009-10	2008-09	2007-08	2006-07	2005-06
1	James	James	James	Nowitzki	James
2	Durant	Wade	Paul	Duncan	Bryant
3	Wade	Bryant	Bryant	Bryant	Nowitzki
4	Howard	Paul	Garnett	James	Nash
5	Bryant	Howard	Stoudemire	Nash	Wade

	2004-05	2003-04	2002-03	2001-02	2000-01
1	Nowitzki	Garnett	Duncan	Duncan	O'Neal
2	Duncan	Duncan	McGrady	O'Neal	Iverson
3	O'Neal	Stojakovic	Garnett	McGrady	Duncan
4	Garnett	McGrady	Bryant	Kidd	Webber
5	Nash	Bryant	O'Neal	Nowitzki	Carter

A couple interesting things to note: First, it splits up into the Duncan first half and the Lebron second half (and it surprises me at least how early Lebron was the best). Also interesting is that Dirk Nowitzki had a three year stretch where he may have been the best player in the NBA (robbed of a championship only by some curious 06 officiating, and a sudden collapse in 07). Finally, it's amazing to note that Kobe was not once the best player in the NBA. He's been fairly steady top 3 recently, which is really good, but no where near MJ territory (who was the best player in 10 straight seasons he played, but we'll get to that). So that argument needs to be put to rest.

What does this mean for the decade? Who's the best player?

Giving a player 5 points for first, 4 for second, and so on, here's the top 8:

Rank	Player	Points
1	Duncan	25
2	Lebron	22
3	Bryant	17
4	Dirk	14
5	O'Neal	13
6	Garnett	12
7	McGrady	9
8	Wade	8

Best player of the decade? Still Tim Duncan (there you go George). Yeah, Kobe's third. But the player who really stands out is Lebron James. At just 25 years old, he's already been the best player in the league 3 straight years. Who else has been the best three years running? Jordan of course, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, and Karl Malone (end of the Jordan era, believe it or not). That means Lebron James has a serious shot at being the best basketball player of all time. And that I'm gonna get tickets when Miami visits the Bay Area.

NBA's Top Five

Who are the top five players in the NBA? There are multiple ways look at it. On voting, you could use the All NBA first team (5 players), or MVP vote shares. Statistically, you could use PER, Win Shares, Roland Rating, or even Points Per Game (weak, but the point of basketball is to score points). For explanation, Win Shares is an estimate of how many wins a player adds to his team (click here for more info) and Roland Rating is basically a hockey style plus minus rating (with adjustments for teammates, or for out preforming opponents, explained here).

What happens this year?

All NBA-Lebron, Kobe, Dwayne Wade, Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant

MVP votes-Lebron, Durant, Kobe, Howard, Wade

Win Shares-Lebron, Durant, Howard, Wade, Dirk Nowitzki

PER-Lebron, Wade, Durant, Chris Bosh, Tim Duncan

PPG-Durant, Lebron, Carmello Anthony, Wade, Kobe

Roland Rating-Lebron, Durant, Wade, Howard, Kobe

Say we give 5 points for first, 4 for second, and so on (All-NBA is 3 points each). For Durant, for example, he would get 3, 4, 4, 3, 5, and 4 points, giving him a total of 23 points. What are the final standings?

1. Lebron James - 27 points

2. Kevin Durant- 23 points

3. Dwayne Wade- 15 points

4. Dwight Howard- 10 points

5. Kobe Bryant- 8 points

Kinda makes sense right? Some might say Kobe should be higher (not in the regular season he wasn't), but it's a fairly accurate assessment of the NBA's top five players.