Vote players into our alltime top 160, etc.

[Mike G]

Alright, 12 people viewed my latest post and nobody offered a suggestion or changed a vote. So I'm going with the amazing coincidence that 69+31=100, and establishing the precedent that one vote less than a majority is sufficient for promotion, and moving on.

Another first is that a write-in candidate -- Sidney Moncrief -- is promoted on first ballot. He got 3 votes from 7 voters.
As write-ins seem to be gaining in frequency, it may be inevitable that we have to drop the requirement for a majority vote.

This round's final tallies:
7 - Bellamy, Billups
6 - Johnston, Heinsohn, Marques Johnson, Nance, Marion
5 - Arizin, Sharman, Hagan, Walton, Sikma, Rodman
4 - Terry Porter, Divac, Kemp, Webber, Grant Hill, Brand
3 - Lovellette, Sam Jones, Beaty, DeBusschere, McGinnis, English, Dennis Johnson, Moncrief, Hornacek, Tim Hardaway, Rasheed Wallace, Bosh
2 - Bobby Jones, Gus Williams, Aguirre, Cummings, Horace Grant, Mark Jackson, Cassell, Baron Davis, Carlos Boozer, Amar'e Stoudemire, Carmelo Anthony
1 - Foust, Howell, Wilkens, Chet Walker, Dandridge, Archibald, Maurice Lucas, Alvan Adams, Walter Davis, Bernard King, Eddie Jones, Hamilton, Odom, Kirilenko
0 - Strickland, D Coleman, Antoine Walker

These 19 with 2 or fewer votes will now be posted along with 31 new names in the poll.

[Need To Argue]

The choices are getting tougher because I keep seeing players who may not deserve to be voted on for another few weeks, but that's ok because we're talking basketball which is better than the alternatives other than baseball. I have two write-ins who I think should have been in already: Gus Johnson and Pete Maravich.

Is there a list of guys who are already in?

[Mike G]

Excellent suggestion. The four rounds of voting are in 4 columns, each ranked by votes received.

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Bill Russell       Bob Pettit      Bob Lanier        Walt Bellamy
Kareem AbdulJabbar Artis Gilmore   Ray Allen         Chauncey Billups
Magic Johnson      Patrick Ewing   Adrian Dantley    Neil Johnston
Larry Bird         Rick Barry      Alonzo Mourning   Tom Heinsohn
Michael Jordan     Dave Cowens     Bob McAdoo        Marques Johnson
Shaquille O'Neal   Kevin McHale    Dominique Wilkins Larry Nance
Tim Duncan         Clyde Drexler   George Gervin     Shawn Marion 
LeBron James       Gary Payton     Jerry Lucas       Paul Arizin
Wilt Chamberlain   Jason Kidd      Manu Ginobili     Bill Sharman
Oscar Robertson    Dwight Howard   Nate Thurmond     Cliff Hagan
Kevin Garnett      Dolph Schayes   Reggie Miller     Bill Walton
Julius Erving      George Mikan    Wes Unseld        Jack Sikma
Hakeem Olajuwon    Walt Frazier    Billy Cunningham  Dennis Rodman
John Stockton      Elvin Hayes     Dikembe Mutombo   Terry Porter
Kobe Bryant        Isiah Thomas    Pau Gasol         Vlade Divac
Jerry West         Steve Nash      Tony Parker       Shawn Kemp
Karl Malone        Paul Pierce     Ben Wallace       Chris Webber
Dirk Nowitzki      Bob Cousy       Dan Issel         Grant Hill
Moses Malone       Robert Parish   James Worthy      Elton Brand
Scottie Pippen     Allen Iverson   Kevin Durant      Clyde Lovellette
David Robinson     Tracy McGrady   Kevin Johnson     Sam Jones
Charles Barkley    Chris Paul      Vince Carter      Zelmo Beaty
Elgin Baylor                                         Dave DeBusschere
Dwyane Wade                                          George McGinnis
John Havlicek                                        Alex English
.                                                    Dennis Johnson
.                                                    Sidney Moncrief
.                                                    Jeff Hornacek
.                                                    Tim Hardaway
.                                                    Rasheed Wallace
.                                                    Chris Bosh

Gus Johnson and Pete Maravich now have one vote.

[Need To Argue]

Thanks. Easier to see who's in so far. Are Westphal, Bing and Hawkins in the next round?
Did I miss McHale? Was he on yet?

[Need To Argue]

Never mind found him.

[mark kieffer]

Man, I don't get the voting logic by some of ya'll.

I put in Archibald, Casselll, Cheeks, Horace Grant, Greer, Howell, M. Jackson, E. Jones, Laimbeer, A. Miller, Oakley, Schrempf, R. Strickland, O. Thorpe, Chet Walker, and Wilkens.

IMO Cheeks, Grant, Greer, Howell, Jackson, Jones, Laimbeer, Miller, Thorpe, Walker, and Wilkens belong in the Top 100...

[Mike G]

Man, I don't get the voting logic by some of ya'll.

IMO Cheeks,... ... belong in the Top 100...

Have you actually counted your top 100 guys, or is it possible there are more than 100 in there?
You'll find a diversity of opinion here. That's a good thing. No 2 people think alike, nor even look at the facts in the same way.

For the curious, here's yet another breakdown, by era, of the 150 players thus far examined.

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.era    #
'50s   16
'60s   20
'70s   26
'80s   33
'90s   33
'00s   21

Again, by year of entry into the NBA or ABA. For the life of me, I can't see any bias except perhaps favoring
earlier decades.

[Mike G]

Dangnabbit! My spreadsheet was shuffled wrongly, and I got 5 guys in this poll who should have been 5 other guys. And 4 of them have received votes! All I can do now is replace Robert Horry with Rajon Rondo; the others will work themselves out later, we suppose.

NtA: Bing will likely turn up in the next round, Hawkins in the round after that, and Westphal after that. Westy is #217 on my list -- short career and not too impressive in playoffs.

Just 4 unanimous votes among the first 3 voters -- for Cheeks, Jackson, Howell, and Laimbeer.

[Need To Argue]

Man, I don't get the voting logic by some of ya'll.

I put in Archibald, Casselll, Cheeks, Horace Grant, Greer, Howell, M. Jackson, E. Jones, Laimbeer, A. Miller, Oakley, Schrempf, R. Strickland, O. Thorpe, Chet Walker, and Wilkens.

IMO Cheeks, Grant, Greer, Howell, Jackson, Jones, Laimbeer, Miller, Thorpe, Walker, and Wilkens belong in the Top 100...

Same sentiment here. I have Tiny, Greer, Reed and Wilkens as top 50 guys and they will struggle to make the top 125. It doesn't make sense. You have to include intangibles and not just statistics.
If people pick Jason Kidd so quick, how can they not pick Lenny Wilkens? Smartest guy on the floor and made all their teams better. Same guy. I am sure we will get statistics that say otherwise, but they are two of the most similar players we'll ever see.

What is funny is the four guys that are unanimous so far is that they are probably near the weakest guys we all voted for, but we all had them in the 25 of this list choice where we all would have guys over them that aren't there yet. It's not easy to do this with all the various backgrounds of our group.

[mark kieffer]

Man, I don't get the voting logic by some of ya'll.

IMO Cheeks,... ... belong in the Top 100...

Have you actually counted your top 100 guys, or is it possible there are more than 100 in there?
You'll find a diversity of opinion here. That's a good thing. No 2 people think alike, nor even look at the facts in the same way.

For the curious, here's yet another breakdown, by era, of the 150 players thus far examined.

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.era    #
'50s   16
'60s   20
'70s   26
'80s   33
'90s   33
'00s   21

Again, by year of entry into the NBA or ABA. For the life of me, I can't see any bias except perhaps favoring
earlier decades.

I have 100 in my Top 100. I will spare everybody the full list, but I do have it. I do think people need to remember the NBA hasn't always had a 3 point shot, stats such as assists are subjective, offensive rebounds weren't tracked until the 1970s, etc., etc., etc.

I am only 29, I wasn't around during the previous eras other than the 1990s and 2000s in terms of following basketball; but I do know history and think some people are neglecting it a little bit and favoring the now a bit. How can anybody put a guy who's been in the league for 10 years (Bosh), who averages 19 and 9 a game in the Top 100 of all time?

[Statman]

I am only 29, I wasn't around during the previous eras other than the 1990s and 2000s in terms of following basketball; but I do know history and think some people are neglecting it a little bit and favoring the now a bit. How can anybody put a guy who's been in the league for 10 years (Bosh), who averages 19 and 9 a game in the Top 100 of all time?

I believe a big part of it - in ALL sports - is the much larger number of playoff games to accumulate playoff stats. Guys 30 years ago or more played in smaller series, in less series (less teams made the playoffs). Doesn't help that their careers were shorter too (torn ACL, torn achilles, etc - pretty much career over).

Anyway - numbers get accumulated - people crunch reg season and playoffs - and the totals favor the modern guys with their playoff stats padded by 7 game first round series, with so many more players getting to accumulate those stats almost every year.

I plan on weighting my playoff WAR - to help make better sense of player careers across the decades. I too LOVE the history, and hope to do it justice when it's all said and done - who knows when I'll get it done....

[Mike G]

... the totals favor the modern guys with their playoff stats padded by 7 game first round series, with so many more players getting to accumulate those stats almost every year.

Welcome to the discussions; now get up there and vote.
The above quote is actually a myth. While it's possible for a player to be in more playoff games now, it's also more likely he'll miss the playoffs entirely. When 6 of 8 teams made the playoffs, only 1/4 of players were left out in the cold. Now, almost half don't make it in a given year.

In my big list of 685 'significant' careers, not weighted by minutes, the average player has gotten .071 of his career minutes in playoffs.
Looking back at players who started their careers at various times, in 5 year intervals -- along with the avg start and finish times of these careers -- the avg fraction of minutes in playoffs:

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from  -  to   PO/T Min
1952	1960	.080
1957	1967	.078
1962	1973	.077
1967	1977	.074
1972	1982	.066
1977	1988	.064
1982	1994	.073
1987	2000	.072
1992	2004	.064
1997	2010	.072
2002	2013	.072
2007	2013	.066

After a few decades of decline in this ratio, there's a mid-80s bump-up when the format goes to 4 full rounds; and another bump in the current century, upon making the 1st round a full best-of-7.
Clearly there's no favoritism for modern times.
While you may get lucky like Horry (who never failed to see at least 2 rounds of playoffs), you are now more likely to be unlucky, like ...

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.004  Kenny Sears      1956 1964    .004  Doug West         1990 2001
.009  Terry Dischinger 1963 1973    .005  Pooh Richardson   1990 1999
.000  Tom Van Arsdale  1966 1977    .006  Lionel Simmons    1991 1997
.000  Bob Kauffman     1969 1975    .0095 Bimbo Coles       1991 2004
.000  Otto Moore       1969 1977    .002  Bob Sura          1996 2005
.007  Neal Walk        1970 1977    .005 Shareef AbdurRahim 1997 2007
.000  Geoff Petrie     1971 1975    .007  Earl Watson       2002 2013
.000  Nate Williams    1972 1979    .008  Mike Dunleavy     2002 2013
.006  Phil Hubbard     1980 1989    .0099 Emeka Okafor      2005 2013
.001  Scott Skiles     1987 1996    .003  David Lee         2006 2013

These are the 20 of 685 who have had less than 1% of their minutes in playoffs. Many played with expansion teams, thus are clustered around expansion periods: 1968-72, the '90s.

EDIT: Troy Murphy (2002-13) should also be in this group; making more than half of such playoff-starved careers from 1990 and later.

[Mike G]

..IMO Cheeks, Grant, Greer, Howell, Jackson, Jones, Laimbeer, Miller, Thorpe, Walker, and Wilkens belong in the Top 100...

Same sentiment here. I have Tiny, Greer, Reed and Wilkens as top 50 guys ..

IMO, all those guys are in or pretty close to the top 100, and they may end up there in our poll.
You guys almost agree on 2 of them, it looks like (Greer, Wilkens).

If people pick Jason Kidd so quick, how can they not pick Lenny Wilkens? Smartest guy on the floor and made all their teams better. Same guy. I am sure we will get statistics that say otherwise, but they are two of the most similar players we'll ever see.

I think what you are inferring is that Wilkens is the closest '60-70s equivalent to Kidd? But if Kidd was better, or played for longer, or did what Wilkens could do and then some -- then people might conclude he had the better career.
And maybe Kidd was all of those things. We'll see about his coaching career.

Every participant gets the same number of votes here, based on whatever reasons you feel are important; and you can change your votes at any time. You can submit a write-in candidate; but if you submit one way too early -- and he doesn't get sufficient votes in 2 consecutive rounds -- he's back in the mix and waiting his normal turn.

What we're seeing is an interesting mix of highly subjective votes and opinions, and those based on quantifiable facts. I may be the only one going on pure statistics, so it always seems funny to me how others may choose to ignore this and focus on that. But more votes is better, so far.

[Mike G]

I do know history and think some people are neglecting it a little bit and favoring the now a bit. How can anybody put a guy who's been in the league for 10 years (Bosh), who averages 19 and 9 a game in the Top 100 of all time?

Historically speaking, Bosh has scored 19.5 ppg in an era in which points are not as easy to come by as in most earlier times. Per 100 points per team, he's averaged 21 pts/36 min.

This actually puts his scoring rate in Oscar Robertson territory (21.9); Moses, McHale, Schayes, Drexler, Lanier, Issel, Heinsohn, Marques Johnson -- all were in the 20-22 range, after accounting for their scoring environment.
Now it's true these players had twilight years to settle their scoring rates some. But after 15 years, Bosh will have greater totals (obviously) that more than offset his inevitable decline in per-game or per-minute rates.

[mark kieffer]

I think maybe the difference of opinion is that some voters are apparently going off of PER, while others (such as myself) are using a blend of Win Shares, History, and Subjectivity.