GOAT Shares (or GOAT Number)

[GOATcards]

First off, here's the ranking followed by number of GOAT Shares for that player:

Michael Jordan - 14.1
Bill Russell - 13.4
LeBron James - 12.8
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 9.2
Magic Johnson - 8.1
Larry Bird - 7.6
Shaquille O'Neal - 7.4
Tim Duncan - 7.3
Wilt Chamberlain - 6.9
Kobe Bryant - 6.1

That's the top 10, here's the next 5:

Kevin Durant - 5.2
Hakeem Olajuwon - 4.6
Karl Malone - 4.3
Moses Malone - 3.8
Giannis - 3.8 (as of end of '22 regular season)


So, what are "GOAT Shares"? It's my semi-arbitrary name for a number with two components: (1) Career NBA MVP Award Shares and (2) Number of NBA Finals MVPs won.

I modified this basic concept in the following two ways: (1) I made an effort to "normalize" pre-1980s MVP Shares to post-1980 points counting, assigning a .8 for 1st place finishes, .6 for 2nd place finishes, .4 for 3rd place finishes, etc. for Russell, Wilt, and Kareem. This moves these players' actual MVP shares to "normalized" MVP shares as follows: from 4.7 to 6.4 for Russell, from 4.1 to 4.9 for Wilt, and from 6.1 to 7.2 from Kareem. The other modification is: (2) Pre-1969 NBA Finals MVPs are estimates, such that Russell has 7 and Wilt has a total of 2 ('72 actual, '67 estimated). (Also, for Giannis, I am using a probably conservative estimate of .5 Award Shares for the official '22 MVP voting.)

These totals above do not adjust for what competition for Award Share a given player had for his prime MVP-contending seasons, and so it probably overstates Kareem's 1st component considerably given that he had no Wilt- or Russell-level player to take a lot of MVP share from him as they did with one another. Or how Larry's MVP seasons were before Jordan emerged whereas Magic had to compete against prime MJ and prime Larry in '87 and '88. I don't know how to properly adjust for that issue at this point.

Breaking down by 20-year era, the rankings are as follows:

'60-79:
Russell - 13.4
Kareem - 9.2
Wilt - 6.9

'80-99:
MJ - 14.1
Magic - 8.1
Larry - 7.6
Hakeem - 4.6
Karl - 4.3
Moses - 3.8

'00-19:
LeBron - 12.8
Shaq - 7.4
Tim - 7.3
Kobe - 6.2
KD - 5.2

I guess you could also refer to this as a player's GOAT Number. I might also make adjustments for GOAT Number per game, since MJ's number is limited by a couple or few points just because of less playing time and not because of not being that much more dominant. It's not hard to imagine a Jordan playing a fuller career ending up with 10 Award Shares and 1 or 2 more Finals MVPs which would push his GOAT Number past 18, etc. etc

[Retired hobbist]

Originally Posted by GOATcards

First off, here's the ranking followed by number of GOAT Shares for that player:

Michael Jordan - 14.1
Bill Russell - 13.4
LeBron James - 12.8
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 9.2
Magic Johnson - 8.1
Larry Bird - 7.6
Shaquille O'Neal - 7.4
Tim Duncan - 7.3
Wilt Chamberlain - 6.9
Kobe Bryant - 6.1

That's the top 10, here's the next 5:

Kevin Durant - 5.2
Hakeem Olajuwon - 4.6
Karl Malone - 4.3
Moses Malone - 3.8
Giannis - 3.8 (as of end of '22 regular season)


So, what are "GOAT Shares"? It's my semi-arbitrary name for a number with two components: (1) Career NBA MVP Award Shares and (2) Number of NBA Finals MVPs won.

I modified this basic concept in the following two ways: (1) I made an effort to "normalize" pre-1980s MVP Shares to post-1980 points counting, assigning a .8 for 1st place finishes, .6 for 2nd place finishes, .4 for 3rd place finishes, etc. for Russell, Wilt, and Kareem. This moves these players' actual MVP shares to "normalized" MVP shares as follows: from 4.7 to 6.4 for Russell, from 4.1 to 4.9 for Wilt, and from 6.1 to 7.2 from Kareem. The other modification is: (2) Pre-1969 NBA Finals MVPs are estimates, such that Russell has 7 and Wilt has a total of 2 ('72 actual, '67 estimated). (Also, for Giannis, I am using a probably conservative estimate of .5 Award Shares for the official '22 MVP voting.)

These totals above do not adjust for what competition for Award Share a given player had for his prime MVP-contending seasons, and so it probably overstates Kareem's 1st component considerably given that he had no Wilt- or Russell-level player to take a lot of MVP share from him as they did with one another. Or how Larry's MVP seasons were before Jordan emerged whereas Magic had to compete against prime MJ and prime Larry in '87 and '88. I don't know how to properly adjust for that issue at this point.

Breaking down by 20-year era, the rankings are as follows:

'60-79:
Russell - 13.4
Kareem - 9.2
Wilt - 6.9

'80-99:
MJ - 14.1
Magic - 8.1
Larry - 7.6
Hakeem - 4.6
Karl - 4.3
Moses - 3.8

'00-19:
LeBron - 12.8
Shaq - 7.4
Tim - 7.3
Kobe - 6.2
KD - 5.2

I guess you could also refer to this as a player's GOAT Number. I might also make adjustments for GOAT Number per game, since MJ's number is limited by a couple or few points just because of less playing time and not because of not being that much more dominant. It's not hard to imagine a Jordan playing a fuller career ending up with 10 Award Shares and 1 or 2 more Finals MVPs which would push his GOAT Number past 18, etc. etc

No George Mikan?

He was the dominant player on the first league dynasty, that's one big flaw I see already with this list.

[GOATMJ]

Originally Posted by GOATcards

Michael Jordan - 14.1
Bill Russell - 13.4
LeBron James - 12.8
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - 9.2
Magic Johnson - 8.1
Larry Bird - 7.6
Shaquille O'Neal - 7.4
Tim Duncan - 7.3
Wilt Chamberlain - 6.9
Kobe Bryant - 6.1

That's actually a pretty damn good and accurate Top 10 All Time list right there.

[6celtics33]

The top 2 would be my top 2 all time as well

I think it's interesting that the Lakers have 2 pairs in the top 10. I wonder if they helped each other by producing wins that they otherwise wouldn't have got with lesser teammates OR did they hold each other back stat and award wise. I don't know the answer.

But it is impressive to be one of the other 6 that got there without a top 10 helper.

[6celtics33]

84-92 Bird, Magic, and MJ each won 3 mvps. I would estimate that's the greatest 9 year run in the history of basketball and they played to a draw. 3 each.

[Siberian13]

What’s their WAR numbers and their +/- That’s the real numbers

[tjforce]

Not a terrible way to look at things.

A few big takeways:

With more teams and more players in the NBA, Finals MVPs are tougher to come by. I think it's safe to say that Russell wouldn't have any many titles if he were playing in a league with more than 8 or 9 teams. That being said, he won them and I think that's what this is trying to capture.

Which is another reason why I'd be careful with that MJ adjustment you talked about. It's hard to assume things could happen if they didn't. Maybe MJ wins 2 more titles and wins 8 in a row, but maybe he tears his ACL, or Scottie wanted to leave after #4. We don't know so it probably makes sense to stick to what actually happened.

[grade]

If bird , magic , Jordan were in their prime. Jordan would not win 6. Like when Sugar Ray, Hearns , Duran and Hagler could not go undefeated cause they all fought each other in their primes. Mayweather would never go undefeated if he fought those 4 in their primes.

We can dream.

[Zedlaw]

So nuance with MVP win shares, then a blunt instrument with Finals MVP

[6celtics33]

There being more teams and players haven’t stopped Lebron and Brady in two different sports from playing for double digit championships. They just didn’t win them all. But the opportunity was there.

Russell had the opportunity just like the other players in his era. He won. They didn’t. His teams were 10-0 in game 7s so it’s odd to me that they were pushed to that many if they were so overwhelmingly loaded like people like to think. Shouldn’t have been in any game 7s if it was as easy as it sounds.

Everyone has the same chance in their era. What they accomplish is up to them mostly.

[Tallboy]

For those interested there's an ongoing project on another message board where each year an all-season Player of the Year is chosen analogously to the MVP but taking the playoffs into account to.

In this spreadsheet, you'll find that compiled into POY shares using the same weighting as the MVP.

It only goes back to the start of the Shot Clock era (and only includes the NBA & ABA), so no Mikan. Here's the top players on the leaderboard so that you don't have to click:

1. Bill Russell 10.956
2. LeBron James 10.892
3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 10.221
4. Michael Jordan 9.578
5. Wilt Chamberlain 7.818
6. Magic Johnson 7.114
7. Tim Duncan 6.409
8. Larry Bird 6.147
9. Shaquille O'Neal 5.974
10. Julius Erving 5.046

Incidentally, I've recently created my own individual rough draft version that goes back to World War II (which I think is actually a much more meaningful dividing line than the Shot Clock for a variety of reasons) and isn't just limited to NBA/ABA (though it still has something of an American supremacist perspective admittedly). Going to go through it again before I share my results, but I can comment on either that or the original group project if there are questions.

[Tallboy]

Originally Posted by GOATcards

I guess you could also refer to this as a player's GOAT Number. I might also make adjustments for GOAT Number per game, since MJ's number is limited by a couple or few points just because of less playing time and not because of not being that much more dominant. It's not hard to imagine a Jordan playing a fuller career ending up with 10 Award Shares and 1 or 2 more Finals MVPs which would push his GOAT Number past 18, etc. etc

Very cool GOATcards!

[GOATcards]

Originally Posted by Tallboy

For those interested there's an ongoing project on another message board where each year an all-season Player of the Year is chosen analogously to the MVP but taking the playoffs into account to.

In this spreadsheet, you'll find that compiled into POY shares using the same weighting as the MVP.

It only goes back to the start of the Shot Clock era (and only includes the NBA & ABA), so no Mikan. Here's the top players on the leaderboard so that you don't have to click:

1. Bill Russell 10.956
2. LeBron James 10.892
3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 10.221
4. Michael Jordan 9.578
5. Wilt Chamberlain 7.818
6. Magic Johnson 7.114
7. Tim Duncan 6.409
8. Larry Bird 6.147
9. Shaquille O'Neal 5.974
10. Julius Erving 5.046

Incidentally, I've recently created my own individual rough draft version that goes back to World War II (which I think is actually a much more meaningful dividing line than the Shot Clock for a variety of reasons) and isn't just limited to NBA/ABA (though it still has something of an American supremacist perspective admittedly). Going to go through it again before I share my results, but I can comment on either that or the original group project if there are questions.

Nice system, so is there like a quick way of calculating the POY Shares for the top 10 seasons for each player? I'm thinking MJ comes out on top but on the other hand, due to era, Russell simply had a smaller number of top competitors to grab share from him. And for reasons stated earlier I think Kareem's raw Award Shares are likely inflated a point or two by lack of legendary rivals in his prime years. (MJ was beaten out for MVP by the likes of Magic, Karl and Chuck, all of them first-team Dream Teamers, and then Kareem's top competition for MVP were...Cowens, McAdoo, Walton...they don't all exactly show up in the elite ranks on The Athletic's list, say (although Walton might have with a reasonably healthy career).

I do think that the system you use gives better ranking to Wilt than mine does, which is part of why I'm asking to see comparisons of each player's totaled-up top 10 seasons. Still, I don't see an obvious/quick/easy fix to the whole Kareem's-"rivals" issue using either measure. (As I've also said recently, I put Kareem and Wilt on the same "HOF/GOAT tier" with Magic and Tim, so somewhere in the #4-7 range for each of those players.)

[GOATcards]

Originally Posted by Zedlaw

So nuance with MVP win shares, then a blunt instrument with Finals MVP

I'd say it tries to preserve simplicity in both cases, and so much of GOAT debate revolves around which players were the most key in winning the most championships, in which case Finals MVPs won is a crucial gauge.

As I also said there are shortcomings to the MVP Shares as far as era-dependent competition goes, and the same would go for the raw number of Finals MVPs won, which is why I also provided a breakdown by 20-year eras. It could be that Shaq and Timmy belong closer to top-5 discussions than they usually are?

[Tallboy]

Originally Posted by GOATcards

Nice system, so is there like a quick way of calculating the POY Shares for the top 10 seasons for each player? I'm thinking MJ comes out on top but on the other hand, due to era, Russell simply had a smaller number of top competitors to grab share from him. And for reasons stated earlier I think Kareem's raw Award Shares are likely inflated a point or two by lack of legendary rivals in his prime years. (MJ was beaten out for MVP by the likes of Magic, Karl and Chuck, all of them first-team Dream Teamers, and then Kareem's top competition for MVP were...Cowens, McAdoo, Walton...they don't all exactly show up in the elite ranks on The Athletic's list, say (although Walton might have with a reasonably healthy career).

I do think that the system you use gives better ranking to Wilt than mine does, which is part of why I'm asking to see comparisons of each player's totaled-up top 10 seasons. Still, I don't see an obvious/quick/easy fix to the whole Kareem's-"rivals" issue using either measure. (As I've also said recently, I put Kareem and Wilt on the same "HOF/GOAT tier" with Magic and Tim, so somewhere in the #4-7 range for each of those players.)

It could be done with Google Sheets logic as the shares were calculated, but it's not something that I've done.

Certainly systems like these overrate those who faced weaker competition and/or underrate those who faced stronger competition. This is one of several reasons why I don't consider a metric like this suitable for a GOAT list, but it can give a certain baseline, and of course when you actually go through year-by-year, you learn a lot about the players.

Additionally I want to make clear that while I did contribute to the vote, these total values represent a group's effort and I certainly think some players got overrated/underrated relative to their contemporaries based on my own opinions which naturally at times deviate from others.

[GOATcards]

Originally Posted by Tallboy

For those interested there's an ongoing project on another message board where each year an all-season Player of the Year is chosen analogously to the MVP but taking the playoffs into account to.

In this spreadsheet, you'll find that compiled into POY shares using the same weighting as the MVP.

It only goes back to the start of the Shot Clock era (and only includes the NBA & ABA), so no Mikan. Here's the top players on the leaderboard so that you don't have to click:

1. Bill Russell 10.956
2. LeBron James 10.892
3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 10.221
4. Michael Jordan 9.578
5. Wilt Chamberlain 7.818
6. Magic Johnson 7.114
7. Tim Duncan 6.409
8. Larry Bird 6.147
9. Shaquille O'Neal 5.974
10. Julius Erving 5.046

Incidentally, I've recently created my own individual rough draft version that goes back to World War II (which I think is actually a much more meaningful dividing line than the Shot Clock for a variety of reasons) and isn't just limited to NBA/ABA (though it still has something of an American supremacist perspective admittedly). Going to go through it again before I share my results, but I can comment on either that or the original group project if there are questions.

In terms of a player's ten best seasons by POY Shares, the three I'm most interested in come out as follows:

Jordan - 9.288
James - 9.016
Russell - 9.011

MJ:

[Nomad]

Originally Posted by GOATMJ

That's actually a pretty damn good and accurate Top 10 All Time list right there.

It's highly dependent on being in the NBA finals. That said, Jordan and Russell excepted you could reverse it and it would still work. Margins are thin and subjective.

[GOATcards]

The POY Award Shares leaders:

1 10.956 Bill Russell
2 10.919 LeBron James
3 10.221 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
4 9.578 Michael Jordan
5 7.818 Wilt Chamberlain
6 7.114 Magic Johnson
7 6.409 Tim Duncan
8 6.147 Larry Bird
9 5.794 Shaquille O'Neal
10 5.046 Julius Erving
11 4.649 Karl Malone
12 4.466 Bob Pettit
13 4.413 Oscar Robertson
14 4.380 Hakeem Olajuwon
15 4.322 Kobe Bryant
16 3.979 Steph Curry
17 3.795 Jerry West
18 3.512 Kevin Garnett
19 3.478 Moses Malone
20 3.345 Nikola Jokic
21 2.965 Kevin Durant
22 2.616 Giannis Antetokounmpo
23 2.601 Dwyane Wade
24 2.557 Chris Paul
25 2.441 Dirk Nowitzki
26 2.431 David Robinson
27 2.223 Elgin Baylor
28 2.176 Dolph Schayes
29 2.087 James Harden
30 2.061 Walt Frazier
31 2.029 Charles Barkley
32 1.582 George Gervin
33 1.402 Bob McAdoo
34 1.373 Bill Walton
35 1.315 Kawhi Leonard
36 1.313 Steve Nash
37 1.245 Anthony Davis
38 1.187 Rick Barry
39 1.115 Bob Cousy
40 1.104 Dwight Howard
41 1.095 Neil Johnston
42 1.087 Patrick Ewing
43 1.033 Paul Arizin
44 0.894 Joel Embiid
45 0.843 Alonzo Mourning
46 0.769 Tracy McGrady
47 0.751 Gary Payton
48 0.726 Russell Westbrook
49 0.705 Jayson Tatum
50 0.684 Willis Reed
51 0.682 Jimmy Butler

I'd say this is a good list - the main reason MJ doesn't top the list is "lack of longevity" including taking nearly 2 full seasons off in his prime.

The way to make this list better is to apply a timeline/difficulty adjustment of some kind. I propose a deduction for each number of years born prior to 1990. (This means Giannis and Jokic get a bit of a boost.) The key issue there is how much of a timeline adjustment to apply. For the time being I'll settle on 1 "point" deducted for every 20 years before 1990 a player was born. For Russell it means a 2.8 point deduction.

The adjusted score/shares for the top players:

LeBron - 10.619
Mike - 8.228
Mr. Russell - 8.156
Kareem - 8.071
Timmy - 5.709
Magic - 5.564
Wilt - 5.118
Shaq - 4.894
Larry - 4.447
Steph - 3.969
Joker - 3.595
Karl - 3.299
Kobe - 3.122
Doctor - 3.046
Hakeem - 3.030
KD - 2.955
Giannis - 2.816
KG - 2.812
CP3 - 2.307
Wade - 2.201
Beard - 2.037
Dirk - 1.841
Oscar - 1.813
Moses - 1.728
Pettit - 1.566
AD - 1.395
Kawhi - 1.365
Logo - 1.195
Admiral - 1.181
Jayson - 1.105
Troel - 1.094
Dwight - .854
Chuck - .679
Jimmy - .632
Russ - .626
Steve - .513
TMac - .219

The rest are negative-territory losers and/or the timeline adjustment makes things weirder among those with lesser POY shares
(Given that weirdness the better adjustment might be some percentage of the shares based on birth year.)

[PLB9eight]

How many more or these threads do we need?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[GOATcards]

POY shares adjusted by 10% for every 20 years before 1990 the player is born (.5% per year). Note the considerable drop-off after Chuck at #31 in the original POY shares ranking. No one else in the ranking below is over 1.5 adjusted POY shares.

Given the size of the player pool/top talent competing for "award" shares, the timeline adjustment here should probably be even larger. All else equal, a player pool size of 1/2 another player pool size should result in adjusted POY shares halved. (I think.) Mr. Russell has his shares reduced by only 28% with the adjustment I applied.

LeBron - 10.591
Mike - 8.285
Kareem - 8.023
Mr. Russell - 7.888
Magic - 6.603
Timmy - 5.960
Wilt - 5.707
Shaq - 5.273
Larry - 5.102
Kobe - 4.063
Doc - 4.037
Karl - 4.021
Chef - 3.939
Hakeem - 3.789
Joker - 3.429
KG - 3.266
Oscar - 3.266
Pettit - 3.216
KD - 2.935
Moses - 2.869
Jerry - 2.808
Giannis - 2.668
Wade - 2.497
CP3 - 2.493
Dirk - 2.295
Admiral - 2.127
Beard - 2.077
Chuck - 1.755
Elgin - 1.601
Walt - 1.597
Dolph - 1.501


With a more aggressive 1%-per-year adjustment, this is the result:

Bron - 10.264
Mike - 6.992
Kareem - 5.826
Timmy - 5.512
Magic - 4.909
Mr. Russell - 4.821
Shaq - 4.751
Larry - 4.057
Chef - 3.899
Kobe - 3.803
Wilt - 3.596
Joker - 3.512
Karl - 3.394
Hakeem - 3.197
Doc - 3.028
KG - 3.020
KD - 2.906
Giannis - 2.721

I'd say this ranking looks more properly distributed across eras. There should also be some way to adjust for the caliber of competition for award/POY shares given that Kareem's next-best competition for POY share is Doc, while, e.g., Timmy is competing with Shaq, Kobe and KG.

(I think Timmy is probably a top-3 player all-time after the proper adjustments....)

[hermanotarjeta]

I admire the time and work you put into this.

One suggestion - add a negative point factor for finals series losses.

[GOATcards]

Originally Posted by hermanotarjeta

I admire the time and work you put into this.

One suggestion - add a negative point factor for finals series losses.

right on cue

also adjustments for Shaqtin' highlights and flops and number of teams hopped around to. we'll get Bron ranked lower yet

[hermanotarjeta]

Originally Posted by GOATcards

right on cue

also adjustments for Shaqtin' highlights and flops and number of teams hopped around to. we'll get Bron ranked lower yet

That’s how we evolve.

[rats60]

Originally Posted by 6celtics33

Russell had the opportunity just like the other players in his era. He won. They didn’t. His teams were 10-0 in game 7s so it’s odd to me that they were pushed to that many if they were so overwhelmingly loaded like people like to think. Shouldn’t have been in any game 7s if it was as easy as it sounds.

Everyone has the same chance in their era. What they accomplish is up to them mostly.

Russell had the talent advantage every series his team played. His teams were stacked with HOFers yet still lost twice. Even in 1969 the Celtics had 5 HOFers, Russell, Havlicek, Sam Jones, Bailey Howell and Satch Sanders to the Lakers 3. The Celtics were always the more talented, deeper team.

They also won titles by winning 2 series instead of the modern day 4. It is a lot easier to 7 or 8 games instead of 15 or 16. The most wins it took for them to win a ring was 12.

[Hellcat]

What a waste of a thread! Now do a list off of pure basketball skill and talent it will be Jordan 1a and Kobe 1b then fill in the rest! These nerd formulas are so funny. Guys who never picked up a basketball much less can shoot one always compose these lists!