USA Today's GOAT ranking system

[Deuce Bigalow]

and a player with 4x NBA MVP, and 2x Finals MVP will always be better than a player with only 2x NBA Finals MVP, and 1x MVP. That player also have better overall stats in the regular season, playoffs, and in the finals.

Not if that guy is a 5x champion, been to 7 finals, 2x scoring champion, Lakers alltime leading scorer, 4th on the alltime scoring list, 3rd on the alltime playoff scoring list, 11x all-nba first team, 15x allstar, 9x all-defensive first team, top 5 in mvp voting 11x, top 3 in mvp voting 5x, has the 3rd most 40 point games alltime, 3rd most 50 point games alltime, and the 3rd most 30 point playoff games alltime.

[Lebron23]

Not if that guy is a 5x champion, been to 7 finals, 2x scoring champion, Lakers alltime leading scorer, 4th on the alltime scoring list, 3rd on the alltime playoff scoring list, 11x all-nba first team, 15x allstar, 9x all-defensive first team, top 5 in mvp voting 11x, top 3 in mvp voting 5x, has the 3rd most 40 point games alltime, 3rd most 50 point games alltime, and the 3rd most 30 point playoff games alltime.

Lebron with 3 NBA Finals MVP will be rank higher than Kobe. Only four or five NBA players have more than 2 NBA Finals MVP Trophy. (Jordan (6), Russell ( 6 or 7 if the awards exist during his era), Magic, Duncan and shaq (3 NBA Finals MVP).

[Mr Feeny]

It's hard to go wrong because pretty much everyone has the same players in their top 12-14 lists, albiet in different orders. But im with Lebron23 here. I just can't objectively rank Kobe Bryant ahead of Lebron James, even though a considerable bunch might genuinely believe that to be the case.
I know that Lebron comes across as a juvenile irreverent pr'ick but the fact that he has 6 total mvps (including finals mvp's) at the age of 29 is remarkable. I believe that he is tied for third most all time with Magic, beind only Kareem (8) and Jordan (11)

[Lebron23]

Where would you rank 8x NBA Champion John Havlicek and Bob Cousy, and 6x NBA Champion Scottie Pippen???

[BoutPractice]

There are no objective GOATs. The best you can come up with is some sort of consensus ranking that most people would consider "reasonable", even as they might disagree about the order.

My preferred system would be to gather as much data as possible on who were considered the top 3/5 best players in the league each given year, taking into account both regular season and playoffs... then render it in the form of a point system such that both longevity and peak are rewarded (longevity because it's season by season, and peak because the more evidence in your favour for each particular season, the more points you'd get in that season).
This would probably yield a list most would agree with that would be based on more than subjective opinions. There would still be a few problems, such as how to weigh the ABA vs the NBA, and you would have the hardcore "weak era" proponents complaining that the earlier eras need some kind of discount, but I suspect this would be a minority opinion and the goal would be consensus, not unanimity which is impossible.

Edit: In fact the problem with such a ranking is that, if anything, earlier eras would be at a disadvantage if you put too much data into the system, because certain stats weren't being kept track of, there were less awards, less surveys etc. So the system would need to account for that.

[stanlove1111]

Finals MVP should be worth 5
All Star MVP should be worth 0

Why would finals MVP be worth 5 points. The obsession with finals MVP on this board is about the dumbest thing I have come across on the internet.

[Deuce Bigalow]

Where would you rank 8x NBA Champion John Havlicek and Bob Cousy, and 6x NBA Champion Scottie Pippen???

Cousy is a 6x champ btw. I don't know exactly where I'd rank them but they would not make my top 20. Havlicek and Cousy have a good case for top 25 though.

[Deuce Bigalow]

There are no objective GOATs. The best you can come up with is some sort of consensus ranking that most people would consider "reasonable", even as they might disagree about the order.

My preferred system would be to gather as much data as possible on who were considered the top 3/5 best players in the league each given year, taking into account both regular season and playoffs... then render it in the form of a point system such that both longevity and peak are rewarded (longevity because it's season by season, and peak because the more evidence in your favour for each particular season, the more points you'd get in that season).
This would probably yield a list most would agree with that would be based on more than subjective opinions. There would still be a few problems, such as how to weigh the ABA vs the NBA, and you would have the hardcore "weak era" proponents complaining that the earlier eras need some kind of discount, but I suspect this would be a minority opinion and the goal would be consensus, not unanimity which is impossible.

Edit: In fact the problem with such a ranking is that, if anything, earlier eras would be at a disadvantage if you put too much data into the system, because certain stats weren't being kept track of, there were less awards, less surveys etc. So the system would need to account for that.

The newest ranking that I did factored in top 5 in MVP voting. MVP is 5 pts, 2nd place is 4, 3rd is 3, 4th is 2, and 5th is 1 point. MVP doesn't mean best player obviously but I think using the top 5 MVP players each year includes the top 3/5 players for that given year.

I found this from another thread by Alan Ogg. Makes calculating top 5 MVP points very easy.







You need to look up '73-'79 and '01 on bball reference. I could not find the top 5 in ABA MVP voting, they only have the winner it seems.

[BoutPractice]

The problem is that MVP voting doesn't necessarily equate to "best player" voting, as you can see in the case of Nash and Rose. It's probably better than some alternatives, but it would have been so much simpler if there had been a survey on who the best player in the league was, conducted after the end of a season (regular season + playoffs, but not right after the Finals in order to avoid overreaction) among say, players, coaches, execs, and fans, which you could then average.

Instead I'd rather settle for a retrospective evaluation of who the best player in the league was any given year, but the problem is who's doing the evaluating. It needs to be somewhat knowledgeable people otherwise they'll just look for stats awards and titles, disregarding the other subtle evidence. There was a good year by year "best player" topic on ISH but I forgot who did it. Maybe if you take a topic like that, and add era-translatable stats to distinguish the extent of dominance from the best player, converting the two into a point system, you'd have a nice looking list.

[Deuce Bigalow]

The problem is that MVP voting doesn't necessarily equate to "best player" voting, as you can see in the case of Nash and Rose. It's probably better than some alternatives, but it would have been so much simpler if there had been a survey on who the best player in the league was, conducted after the end of a season (regular season + playoffs, but not right after the Finals in order to avoid overreaction) among say, players, coaches, execs, and fans, which you could then average.

Instead I'd rather settle for a retrospective evaluation of who the best player in the league was any given year, but the problem is who's doing the evaluating. It needs to be somewhat knowledgeable people otherwise they'll just look for stats awards and titles, disregarding the other subtle evidence. There was a good year by year "best player" topic on ISH but I forgot who did it. Maybe if you take a topic like that, and add era-translatable stats to distinguish the extent of dominance from the best player, converting the two into a point system, you'd have a nice looking list.

You can't really find that list though. We can only go by what we have. I think the ranking turned out pretty good though. 9 of what we know as "consensus" top 10 players made the top 10. The only real outlier was Bob Cousy.

MJ-190
Wilt-159
Kareem-149
Russell-153
Magic-130
Cousy-111
Kobe-108
Shaq-104
Duncan-92
Bird-90

[Dr.J4ever]

Finally, a ranking system where Erving>Bird. Yes! If you include ABA stats, Doc is really better than Bird.