ESPN just announced their top 10 NBA players of all time

[big dick]

forgot about hakeem

Malone was my 6th guy

[big dick]

stockton over miller too

he was a great player but im taking miller it is close

[BCR]

Barkley performed in playoffs much better than Malone. Karl was always way off regular season numbers. Barkley well ahead of him in all advanced playoff stats.

Neither ever got a championship, but Barkley played way better. Malone is all about longevity.

[blake]

Barkley performed in playoffs much better than Malone. Karl was always way off regular season numbers. Barkley well ahead of him in all advanced playoff stats.

Neither ever got a championship, but Barkley played way better. Malone is all about longevity.

barkley couldn't play any defense, while malone was a damn good at it.

[nightmarefish]

My top 5 from 1980 or so till 2000

MJ
Larry Bird
Charles B
Shaq
Reggie Miller

hakeem olajuwon is right behind jordan on this list imo

karl malone > barkley imo

also i'm taking drexler over miller.

moses malone was still a dominant player for the entire 80s so he might make the list too

Love Hakeem, Jordan going to play baseball robbed the world of getting to watch those two go at it in the finals. Those rockets teams were build well to beat the Bulls. Malone had a better career much to do with how well Malone played towards the end. Early-mid careers Barkley was better.

[BCR]

Yeah, Malone always gets the nod over him on these lists. I just never loved Malone’s game. They’re compared a lot with Malone getting nod because of longevity. If it was some weak season with no great teams and I had to roll with one to try and steal a championship, I’m taking Barkley. Malone was a cagey defender. Much better than Barkley, but not a shot blocker type. Just so strong. I always disliked Malone and those Jazz teams. They just were there every year and you knew without a doubt they weren’t winning shit despite piling up gaudy regular season stats and record. I’m probably biased.

[Sloppy Joe]

I’m guessing you don’t remember what he was in his prime.

He didn’t even take 10 shots a game his last five years. He was the most underpaid player ever until the end and stole money at end of career and made more than Jordan by the time he quit

Basically look at Kawhi when you wonder what Pippen would be. Inch taller. Same weight. Same wingspan. Much quicker. Much better passer. Identical rebounds. Kawhi is better 3% shooter, but Pippen is slightly better than Jordan for career.

They didn’t practice it. LeBron is way better than Jordan, but he’s not a better shooter. Had Jordan practiced 3’s, he’d be better most likely. LeBron is a heat check 3 shooter.

He shot like 33%. He’d shoot 36-37% most likely. In 3 and d league he’d be unreal.

The difference is Kawhi’s teams got older and needed his scoring before Pippen. He was such a better passer than Kawhi though that’s not close. Much better natural athlete than Kawhi. Not as strong. Kawhi has quick feet and is so strong.

Pippen would be like a 24/7/7 guy with the games current pace and in the conversation for defensive mvp every year. He never had a season he shot as much as Kawhi has lately. Jordan detracted from his legacy, not vice versa.

Jordan is regarded as goat. Pippen as a sidekick despite being the second best player in the league by analytics some of those years. They were a perfect combo. His offense will always be underrated because he played with the most prolific scorer of modern era during his prime. One of the great what ifs will always be the Sonics drafting and trading Pippen for Olden Polynice and how NBA history would be different.

You can’t compare him to Kawhi. Kawhi has put multiple teams on his back to win championships. Kawhi is the go to guy in crunch situations, even when Jordan wasn’t around Pippen still wasn’t that guy. Pippen was limited offensively, no where near the shooter Kawhi is. Defensively they’re close but that still probably goes to Kawhi. I mean he locked up Lebron in his prime in the finals. I think you’re overestimating how good he’d be today, almost every player in the league is a better shooter. 70% free throw shooter and 3 point percentage is barely above Russell Westbrook.

This is how dumb the league was back then. In all the years he played, he never shot over 200 3s. Most of the early years he shot like 80, which are mostly heaves at end of quarters. That’s why all those old time guys are lower. He’s higher than Jordan. Modern players have perfected shooting those right after the clock expires so it doesn’t count against his stats. Even if they get it off, it’s one of 500 attempts. If you’re shooting 78 a year and 20 are those, you get the idea.

All of a sudden he goes from never shooting any to shooting over 300-400 a year and shot .345, .368, and 374 on super high volume for those days. His last two years he shot over 400 were the highest two. Twice as many as he’d ever shot and efficiency through the roof. He got hurt next year, and was mid 30s before he got healthy and never shot over 200 again.

They basically figured out what he was at 30.

Today they’d immediately project him into that role. Not that he’d be exactly Kawhi. The league was diluted so it’s hard to know with less great wings. He wasn’t guarding Lebron and Wade. The best guy in the league was his teammate. He guarded Kobe late when they took that Shaq-Kobe team to seven games.

His game would be better suited for this era, but he’d likely have way less rings obviously. So much is timing. Like Kawhi is unreal. He was the best player on that last spurs championship but that was a great team. He doesn’t beat GS If not for unreal luck. He might not beat the sixers if not for the bounce of all time.

Pippen might not be Kawhi but Kawhi is probably best player in the world if he played enough. Kawhi would be a top 10 player ever if not for the injuries/load management. He’ll have the weirdest legacy ever playing 50 games a year. He’ll be the greatest player way down on scoring lists and everything else.

When you take every third night off, it’s a little hard to judge the gas in your tank vs everyone else. No great has done that.

I'm surprised more players haven't adopted this.

It fucking sucks for fans but you have to think that Kawhi and his camp know what's best, and he proved it last playoffs, despite looking visibly injured in the finals.

But to me his greatest feat remains neutralizing apex LeBron.

[BCR]

Yeah he’s the only guy who can really turn LeBron inefficient with regularity. When LeBron was a kid , Ron Artest had his number for a minute, but then he blew past that level and torched him after. You need to be big, quick, and strong as fuck. Iggy could chip at him, make it hard, but not stop him. He really put up freak numbers for the most part against the Warriors.

Not Kawhi. All these last years he has left with any shot that’s his biggest impediment. Can he get lucky and miss him? He’d rather face the Warriors sans Durant again fully healthy rather than run into Kawhi again. He can’t get past Kawhi at this age.

[Sloppy Joe]

Yeah he’s the only guy who can really turn LeBron inefficient with regularity. When LeBron was a kid , Ron Artest had his number for a minute, but then he blew past that level and torched him after. You need to be big, quick, and strong as fuck. Iggy could chip at him, make it hard, but not stop him. He really put up freak numbers for the most part against the Warriors.

Not Kawhi. All these last years he has left with any shot that’s his biggest impediment. Can he get lucky and miss him? He’d rather face the Warriors sans Durant again fully healthy rather than run into Kawhi again. He can’t get past Kawhi at this age.

Thwy did make a statement by taking about both the Bucks and Clippers before COVID, but yeah agree that Kawhi is biggest threat unless Giannis starts to shoot better.

[Daly]

One more quick point, Moses Malone whom I mentioned. I saw him on a golf course in the mid-2000s in Florida. I had zero interaction with him but I did have the opportunity to stand like 5 feet from him. He was the largest man I literally have ever seen in my life, and I got my picture taken with Hulk Hogan believe it or not when I was a kid and it was not even close.

Moses was a nice guy, gregarious from what I saw, I did not want to be a fan boy and walk up to him, but he was fucking huge and I always wondered how he did not average 40 points a game after I saw him up close. He took a lot of pictures with people but it was before cell phone pics and I did not have a camera. It would be nice to have that blown up on my wall now that I look back on it.

I went to a Bruins game one night and Kevin McHale stood next to me in line. I’m 6ft if I wear the right sneakers. I swear he was 9 Ft tall. And the whole McHale is 6”11 but has arms like he was 8”6 was dead true. He could dropped his wallet and not bend over to pick it up.

[tgull]

One more quick point, Moses Malone whom I mentioned. I saw him on a golf course in the mid-2000s in Florida. I had zero interaction with him but I did have the opportunity to stand like 5 feet from him. He was the largest man I literally have ever seen in my life, and I got my picture taken with Hulk Hogan believe it or not when I was a kid and it was not even close.

Moses was a nice guy, gregarious from what I saw, I did not want to be a fan boy and walk up to him, but he was fucking huge and I always wondered how he did not average 40 points a game after I saw him up close. He took a lot of pictures with people but it was before cell phone pics and I did not have a camera. It would be nice to have that blown up on my wall now that I look back on it.

I went to a Bruins game one night and Kevin McHale stood next to me in line. I’m 6ft if I wear the right sneakers. I swear he was 9 Ft tall. And the whole McHale is 6”11 but has arms like he was 8”6 was dead true. He could dropped his wallet and not bend over to pick it up.

Makes sense for McHale since he never did have an arc on his jumper. It was almost a line drive. One of the best shot style ever.

Another thing is amazing is no other big man ever perfected the sky hook like Kareem did. I am not sure why 7' footers have become so awkward in the NBA now. They are all like lumbering giants now.