Nerd Sesh - Top 10 Greatest Peaks in NBA History - The Volume

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. No, Oh my god, how could he do that?

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Want what Charles Darwin?

Speaker 1 (00:20):
The nerves is where it's at.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Welcome everybody back into Nerd Sash as always, I'm Carson
Breber and alongside me is Logan Camden and I am
extremely excited for today's show. This is something that we've
been talking about doing all year, frankly because Nikola Jokic
has been playing at such a ridiculously high level this
season that we've started to really talk about where does

(00:44):
his peak rank in some of these all time great conversations.
So today we are going to figure that out. And
we're not just gonna figure that out, We're gonna be
ranking our top ten peaks in NBA history. So to
set a little bit of a framework for what that means,
a peak, to me is multiple seasons of your absolute

(01:04):
highest level. It is not your prime, which might go
on for more than a decade if you're a Lebron
or a Kareem. It's not the entire duration at which
you are playing at like a superstar or a star level.
It is multiple seasons of you at your absolute best,
not using one season because some guys do have crazy
single outlier seasons, and that's how I'm viewing it. Logan,

(01:26):
is there anything that you want to add before we
get into the list.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
No, I think that sums it up pretty well. I mean,
for most of these guys, I'm looking at, you know,
a three to five year span wherever they were at
their absolute apex. Closer to three though, for most of
these guys, because I mean, that's what your prime is,
you know what I mean, It's a couple of years
sustained after one another, and.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Prime or peak, I think they're different. I think prime
is longer. I think prime is more. Just as long
as you are playing at a very high level, you're
within your prime. I think your peak is your peak,
your absolute best within that prime.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
I guess the only thing, and on top of this
is because we are talking about historic basketball players, I
think it's important that you judge them, for the most part,
within the context of their era. And I think that
you shouldn't point out that guys have flaws in their
game or stuff like that, but I think it should
be mostly viewed within the scope of their own era.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Super Glad that you added that, because that is a
major thing to emphasize, because that's the only way that
I think you can judge basketball players in these all
time conversations, you have to view them within the context
of their time. What was most impactful in that time.
You cannot expect anybody to be generations ahead of what
was the norm at their time. And so that's how
I view all of these players. How great were they

(02:38):
relative to their peers, How impactful were they within the
context of their era. We actually did an episode a
guest appearance on Mars Talks Sports show. Some of you
guys may have seen him from the Player's Choice podcast,
but we went on his podcast and we ranked the
top ten peaks since two thousand with him just last week.
So if you want just the more mad group, you

(03:00):
can go ahead and check that out. But as Logan said,
we are going to be exploring all eras in today's podcast.
The one caveat that I will say is pre Russell
I don't give as much credence to pre Russell Wilt
era if you're talking about Mike and I just think
the league was in such an infantile state at that
point that that's the one exception I'll make to judging

(03:22):
people relative to their era and to their peers before
we get into this logan, do we want to give
honorable mentions? I kind of think we save that for
the end because I don't want any spoilers on who
is left off your list. And there are some amazing
honorable mentions here, like dudes who it's hard to believe
aren't in the top ten, but there's just been such
incredibly high peaks. Do you agree with that saving honorable

(03:44):
mentions for they?

Speaker 1 (03:44):
Do? I think we should save them? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (03:46):
All right? So with that logan, who's in your tenth spot?
Who had the tenth highest peak in NBA history?

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Arguably the hardest guy I think to rank on this list,
and I would hear an argument for him all the
way up at number one, And I have Bill Russell
in the ten spot. And the reason I would say
I would hear an argument for him is he just won.
You know, Bill Russell always won, no matter this scenario.
It's specifically when you're looking at his peak from sixty
one to sixty three. He's a three time MVP. He

(04:15):
leads out the best defense on the planet every single season,
and he wins a championship every single year. I also
think it's staggering to look at how the Celtics performed
on and off the court with Bill. When Bill was
on the court, they won seventy five percent of their games.
He only misses seven games over that span. They go
one and six in those games. Right, Bill completely transformed

(04:38):
that team. And when you're looking at what he provided
in that era, it was elite rim protection, elite defense
at the most valuable position in the sport. And that's
why I think you have to respect what Bill Russell
did because he is consistently leading out the best defense
in basketball by really wide margin and it's not particularly close.
And in this era he was the best defender. I

(05:00):
think he's the best defender ever. When you're looking at
the scope of what he did in his era, ability wise,
i'd probably take a team. But again, like relative to era,
I think that's important emphasize. I think it's Bill and
his offensive game I think is a little overly criticized
by people. Bill was a good connecting piece. He was
an elite screen setter. Right, he was a good passer

(05:23):
within the flow of the offense. Right, he's not making
crazy reads right with the ball in his hands or
anything out but handoff stuff like that spotting cutters. Bill
was very capable of doing all of that. Over this peak, right,
He's averaging five assists a night in the playoffs. Really
valuable stuff, especially in Boston when you have that many
good scorers surrounding him. And I think that's important emphasize

(05:44):
about these Boston teams that Bill was on. That was
his role. Bill didn't need to score the basketball when
he stepped in here. His job was to protect the rim,
to play smart ball, to be positionally sound, and again
to play a connecting role. You know you've got Hondo
for that, You've got Sam Jones, I got a lot
of other guys that were reliably getting buckets. And that
wasn't Bill's job. The reason that he is at number

(06:05):
ten for me, Carson, I don't know if you viewed
this differently or if you hold this against him, And again,
it wasn't his role, but it is the limitations of
his offensive game. I think when we're looking at everybody
above him, Bill Russell is the most offensively limited player.
And like I said, if you don't want to include
that in your evaluation of Bill, I think I understand that,

(06:26):
and if you would argue him higher because it just
wasn't as important, and that wasn't the role on his team.
I understand that argument, but I think everybody else was
at a higher level as a scorer. Some guys were
more impactful as playmakers, some of the greatest offensive engines
of all time. And I think everybody else clearly has
a higher two way value than Bill. But like I said,

(06:47):
I understand if you don't hold that against him, because
it wasn't Bill's job, and he was the greatest defender ever,
and because of how successful he was for so long
and how great he was at his peak, I think
i'd hear an argument for Bill at one. I wouldn't
push back at that. I would hear any Bill for
any place on this list. For me, though, the offensive
limitations do put him at number.

Speaker 2 (07:07):
Ten, So I agree that Bill is the toughest player
to rank on this list. But what I will really
emphasize with Bill Russell, and this is the same thing
that I said when we ranked our top twenty five
players full stop, right over the entirety of their careers,
which we did last summer. You can go ahead and
check out that whole series. No modern standard can be
applied to Bill Russell because the value that he had

(07:30):
defensively was so much greater than anything that we've ever
seen in the history of the sport. There is not
any sort of legitimate debate to be had about who
the greatest defensive player of all time is. There are
people who will try to tell you it's a chem
olaju On because of the stock numbers and because he's
the greatest modern defender, and he was amazing. But the
impact that one singular, monstrous rim protector in deterrent and

(07:53):
interior defender could have in the nineteen sixties, before the
three point line, when everybody's objective was to get to
the rim and buckets were harder to come by in general,
the impact that Bill Russell had, We've never seen anything
remotely close to the stat that I always loved to
bring up when people talk about Russell's offense. The Celtics
were three times last in offensive rating when Bill Russell

(08:17):
was on the team. They won the NBA title every
single time. They were that much better than everybody else defensively.
It is by that far the greatest defense we've seen
inn NBA history, and Russell was so singularly responsible for
that defensive greatness. He joined a well below average defense,
and he made them by far the number one defense

(08:37):
in the NBA. In his final season, the Celtics were
comfortably the number one defensive basketball. He left and they
fell to a below average defense. Again. He was a
perfect defensive player. I mean, we don't have the stock numbers,
but estimates are that he was blocking eight to ten
shots a game. And on top of that, he was
incredibly agile and quick and a guy who could defend

(08:57):
on the perimeter, which wasn't as important back then. He
could do it. He had great hands in terms of
generating steals, he was a really good post defender, and
just an unprecedented intimidator and up there for the greatest
rebounder in the history of basketball. So that's what you
have to consider. The Celtics are winning the title every year.
The Celtics are winning the title because they are far

(09:19):
and away the number one defense every single year. And
they are far and away the number one defense because
Bill Russell is far and away the greatest defensive player
ever and in nineteen sixty one to nineteen sixty three,
I would agree with you that's his three year peak.
You get a better offensive version of Russell than we've
ever seen. And by the way, in nineteen sixty two

(09:40):
and nineteen sixty three, his absolute two best seasons, Boston's
defensive rating was six points better than the next best
defensive basketball Those are margins that we haven't seen since
the nineteen sixty Celtics, and they did that year after year,
and again that is all Russell, because look at what
they looked like without him defensively. But in sixty t two,

(10:00):
this is when he takes a leap as a passer.
This is when he becomes more assertive as a score
and he does that in a time period that coincides
with Bob Coosey's decline offensively, where he's not quite the
same player. But in the sixty one to sixty three playoffs,
Bill Russell is giving you twenty one twenty six to
five on two percent better than average true shooting percentage.

(10:22):
In the regular season, he's not quite as productive. He's
eighteen a night on below league average true shooting percentage,
and he is still clearly the weakest offensive player on
this list. But you got a version of him that
was a legitimately valuable, a legitimately good offensive player who
could contribute as a scorer with solid efficiency, who was
a very valuable fast breakstarter as a passer, and you

(10:44):
mentioned his ability to facilitate handoffs and whatnot, And again
is clearly the most impactful player in the sport because
what he's doing on defense is completely without any comparison.
So this was his peak offensively. I would argue that
this was his peak defensively, but his defensive impact was
just consistently unmatched throughout his entire time in the league.

(11:05):
And that's why I think if we're having a peak
versus prime conversation, Russell's prime, his all time ranking is
even higher than his peak to me, because he had
that unmatched defensive impact for all thirteen years. He had
it from the moment he stepped into the league to
the moment he left the league. That's why they won
eleven titles in thirteen years. So in terms of absolute peak, yes,

(11:28):
there is a clear peak for Russell, but the difference
isn't as big as it is versus other players. Where
Nikole Jukiz comes into the league, he's a second round pick, right,
He's not even a guy who's really expected to be playing,
and then he has this big ascent. Russell came into
the league as one of the absolute most impactful basketball players,
and he was that still when he left. So he's

(11:48):
higher than this in terms of all time ranking, But
in terms of absolute peak, there are some dudes who
I think have a slight edge because they were dominant
offensive players. But again, I just think Russell those offensive
concerns are so much less significant in his era because
of what he was doing defensively. I have him as
my number seven peak because I just don't think you

(12:08):
can really overstate how insane it was to have the
key to winning a title every single year and have
that coming all from one player who transformed one side
of the ball like we've never seen from anybody defensively
or offensively in history.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, and I'm glad that you bring up the peak
versus prime thing, because I think that applies to a
lot of players on this list. Is that that's what
makes it more difficult in my opinion, because I do
think Bill's greatness as a player all time. I think
he's higher than this because, like you said, and he's
not the last guy from start to finish in his career,
he had that defensive impact, and there are guys that
just came into the league and transformed one side of

(12:46):
the basketball or both immediately, and they did that for
a long time. But I'm not factoring in longevity here.
This is right at the peak of their powers. And
like I said, I mean, for what Bill did in
his era, I would hear an argument for number one.
I thought for a minute, I was like, again, like
I said, I think he is the hardest guy to
rank on this list, And I thought, could he be

(13:08):
there with the like you said, with the infancy that
the league was in, with how young the league was,
and what was the most important thing that you could
do in that era? Bill Russell did it, And so
that's what makes it so tough. But I just I
couldn't have a guy that it's this limited offensively any higher.

(13:30):
And that's where I fell down on that side of
the fence. But yeah, I think Bill's the toughest guy
to analyze, man, I think he is.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
I'll be interested to see who you have above him.
But I feel like we had this same conversation all
time when I had Russell higher than you. Right, it's
a weird thing, but like you just have to look
at the results you have to look at how the
Celtics won titles and the fact that they were able
to do it in spite of being bad offenses. And again,
they were singularly an all time great defense, the greatest
defense ever because Bill Russell was by so far the

(13:58):
race defensive player ever. It's not an impact on one
side of the ball that we could have ever seen
in another era, but we saw it with Russell in
that era. And that's how I'm judging these players.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
How do you factor in how great that Celtics team
was top to bottom outside of like Russell and his
individual impact.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
See here's where I think sometimes that gets overstated, right.
I think, more than anything, the profile of a lot
of those other players is elevated by Russell more than
vice versa, because some dudes just have to eat up
the volume, right. I mean, I love Hondo. I have
a ton of respect for Hondo, and he was an
awesome defensive player. I mean those really good places.

Speaker 1 (14:33):
Where those guys are really inefficient though.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
Their offenses were almost always inefficient, And I think that
that gets lost because people look at the raw numbers
and they go, oh, Russell's only scoring sixteen a game,
or in these peak years. In the playoffs, he's scoring
twenty a game, which is definitely better, but again not overwhelming.
It's the weakest number we're going to see for any
of these guys we're talking about. But that's just because
we tend to focus on offensive numbers and scoring volume

(14:57):
in general. And you can't quantify Russell's defensive impact with
the individual counting statistics of this era because they didn't exist.
They didn't track steals in blocks. But look at the
team impact, look at why they won, and he was
far and away the driving force of all of it.
Shall I reveal my number ten logo? In my number ten,
I have, in some ways the guy who's most comparable

(15:19):
to Bill Russell in the modern era. I kind of
feel like I have Tim Duncan in my number ten spot.
Another guy who was impactful from the day he joined
the league to the day he left, who was the
anchor of a great dynasty that was sustained for a
long time, A big man whose dominance both individually and
as the team started on that defensive end. But I
think that oftentimes people do look at Duncan as being

(15:41):
really solely a longevity career case. When we're talking about
him in these all time great conversations, and I think
his peak gets underrated because I think the Duncan we
saw from about two thousand and one to two thousand
and four, but specifically two thousand and two to two
thousand and three. Duncan those two years I consider his
absolute peak was a dominant, dominant basketball player. I think

(16:03):
he was more agile than he gets credit for. I
think he was a better offensive player, a better scorer
than he gets credit for. And I think people don't
give full credit to how outstanding what he did was
with limited rosters. And we talk about this a lot,
but he goes back to back MVPs over these two seasons.
In the regular season, he's almost twenty five thirteen and

(16:25):
four with almost three blocks a game on plus five
percent relative true shooting. That's points above league average true shooting.
And he gets even better in the playoffs. He goes
twenty five and a half fifteen and five assists, three
point six blocks per game on plus five percent relative
true shooting percentage. Maintains that really impressive efficiency. And in

(16:46):
the regular season both these years he leads top three defenses.
That's what he did year after a year he also
leads back to back top nine offenses, and we have
on off numbers by this point, and he's improving the
team by over twelve points per one hundred possessions. And
if you look from one to three, the Spurs average
fifty nine wins per season, and they win the title

(17:06):
in two thousand and three, when Duncan does not have
anything close to an all star teammate. His second best
player in that three title run is very young Tony Parker,
who in the playoffs is under fifteen points per game
on worse than five percent true shooting, below league average.
In the playoffs, monug you nobly nine points per game

(17:27):
on average true shooting. He was super young. David Robinson
was super old. Still a good defender to have on
the floor, but giving you eight points per game, right,
wasn't a guy who could play heavy minutes. So I
continue to think that that run, it's appreciated adequately by
some people, but it's without a doubt one of the
five best playoff runs that we've seen in the history
of this sport from an individual, And when you're talking

(17:47):
about the all time carry jobs, it's that, and it's
a keem In nineteen ninety four. Those are the two
runs you look at and you go, how did this
roster win the title? And it's because they had their
best player playing at an unbelievably dominant two way levels.
So this is why I prefer Duncan's peak to say
Kevin Garnett. I think that that's an interesting debate to have.
But the distinction that I make is Duncan showed the

(18:10):
ability to anchor you as an offensive number one. I
think because he had the ability to impose himself physically
as a post hub and I do think he was
an underrated passer at this stage. He could just physically
get himself those high percentage, high quality shots more consistently,
whereas KG, skilled as he was, was going to live
on more of a mid range, heavy shot diet and

(18:31):
he just didn't hold up as well as an offensive
number one. And people will say, oh, well, the supporting
cast were so much better for Duncan. No, in this timeframe,
they really worked. Like were they better than Kg's Timberwolves? Sure,
but again, look at the dudes around him, right. The
thing that I always love to mention, Derek Anderson is
their second leading scorer in I believe two thousand and one,
and that's a team that's pushing for sixty wins, and

(18:52):
it's because Duncan is anchoring them on both sides of
the ball at an extremely high level. Now, compared to
the other players on this list outside of Russell, he's
gonna be the weakest offensive player. And the reason I
have Russell above him is, I mean, they're both all
time great defenders. I think Duncan's a top three defender,
but again, it's just a different level what Russell was
doing and what was possible in that era, and I

(19:14):
think that that definitely outweighs the offensive edge that Duncan
does have. But everybody around him is at a higher
offensive peak. Is a better offensive engine, a better offensive anchor,
and that ultimately, in most cases is what is going
to be most valuable to me. But Duncan's two way
case is so incredibly high. He gave you such an

(19:36):
incredibly high floor as a team throughout his prime, and
I don't think he gets full credit for that. I
think he belongs here. There are some dudes who had
flashier primes, but man, he was just an incredible two
way force at his best.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
I agree with a lot of what you said, and
I have Tim Duncan at number nine, and the only
reason that I have him above Bill Russell is because
when I really struggled with who I was debating between,
and again, maybe this isn't the most sound logic, but
to give you ofviw into what I was thinking was,
I'm starting a team. Who would I rather have. I'd
just rather have a guy with Duncan's offensive skill set.

(20:11):
And again that's probably not the best and easiest apples
to apples comp but that's why I went with Duncan.
And the other thing that I really agree with is
I do think he's underrated as an offensive player. You
talk about how he's not flashy. Tim Duncan might be
the least sexy basketball player ever. It's not sexy, but
it's very effective. And I think you make an important

(20:31):
distinction too with the Kevin Garnett. Kevin Garnett is working,
you know, primarily more out on the perimeter and more
near the elbow. Right for Duncan, he's starting on the
low block, and from there he's going to generate a
really good shot, elite footwork, elite touch, you know, great strength,
if it was a hook, if it was a fadeaway,

(20:52):
if it was a pull up, he could get to it.
And that's what his bread and butter was in the
playoffs and in this era. You know, I think everybody
thinks nowadays, right when you're working from isolation, you're starting
on the perimeter. No, Duncan's just going one on one
with the opposing teams, big man, and he's gonna serve
him a bucket, because that's what you did back then
and again he gave you one of the highest defensive

(21:13):
floors ever. Like Bill Russell, you make a great point.
I think when you factor in longevity in impact from
start of his career to end of it, I think
Duncan's way higher on this list because from the day
he walked in to the day he left, he was
a good defender and would make you know even old
asked tim Duncan was still effective, right.

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Still the rim protector for a number one defense, Still
a very effective rim protector. He couldn't move like he
could when he was younger, obviously, but that's part of
the reason I think his peak gets underrated. He was
so good for so long that it's almost a curse
because people who didn't watch that younger Duncan or just
watched an older version of Duncan for so long after
forget what an athlete and what an offensive post hobby was,

(21:56):
and how skilled he was, how he could attack off
the catch and drive, and he had a really nice
spin move, he had an awesome hook. Of course, he
had his bank shot, he could use jabs to create
space like the body control, his entire post bag and
offensive skill set. I think it's underrated because again he
was still productive for so long after, but in a
different role.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
And I agree with that too. The biggest thing about
his defense is, to me, Tim Duncan was producing some
of the greatest offense, excuse me, the greatest defenses of
all time in what is you know, a really tough
defensive era. Right He's out producing the Pistons of that era,
and I feel like that's the team that everybody points to.

(22:37):
Tim Duncan was, you know, obviously the most responsible for
producing that outcome. But he's out producing them, not single handedly.

Speaker 2 (22:44):
But well in two thousand and four, Spurs exactly, they
are a historically great defense, even more so than the Pistons.
And that's the year after Robinson retires. That's Duncan's first
year as the full on solo anchor.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
And yeah, and I don't want to understand, you know,
like he's got Bruce Bowen out there, right, and he's
got stab and some good personnel, but it's Duncan more
than anything else. And they were consistently great during his time.
And that's why Duncan's here to me is the totality
of his two way impact and he's gonna make me
a great defense at his apex. His athletic, his agile
can do everything and offensively brings you a lot. And

(23:18):
again in this era when a lot of games are
rock fights, this era was grimy, it was nasty, it
was clawged up. You got two big men on the
floor and one of them is probably really unskilled. He's
just being right, Tim, Duncan brought you stability that you needed. Again,
it's not sexy, but it's really damn effective. And it

(23:39):
translated to the playoffs year and Y're out. And I
think you made another great point, the thing about his
supporting cast. I feel like for so long when you
think about Parker in Genobli and the depth of those teams,
and then you know, you get Kawhi Leonard, and people
just kind of conflate that to say, oh, well Duncan
had a great supporting cast every single year, right, That

(24:00):
wasn't the case early. Duncan is making those teams great
single handedly, and he's got Robinson very early on. But
again even with Robinson, right, people will say, oh, well
he had the Twin Towers at the start. David Robinson
isn't anywhere close to his apex when Duncan steps in.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
And especially once we're looking at this two thousand and
two to two thousand and three range.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
And that's what I think really gets buried with Duncan
and shouldn't get confused.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, I do think that again here he's kind of
a victim of his own greatness, right because you look
at some of his peers of this era, and people
look at the Kobe years from five to h seven
and they're like, oh, man, how can you blame him?
He misses the playoffs, or he's winning in the mid forties, like,
look at the support it never had years exactly where
he misses the playoffs, or he's getting bounced first round

(24:45):
year after year, and people say, oh, look at the
supporting cast Duncan this period where he really had underwhelming
supporting casts just gets overlooked because he won a title.
The fact that he had the underwhelming supporting cast, i
should say, is what gets overlooked, because he's still made
you a fifty eight to sixty on in team and
was gonna have you in contending conversations, and in two
thousand and three, when he was at that truly superhuman level,

(25:06):
willed you to win a title. So again, it's just
other dudes who are still higher level offensive number ones,
be that they were more overwhelmingly efficient. Obviously, there's a
number of dudes who were more impactful playmakers. Although Duncan
was a good passing big dude to just have more
gravity because of a freakish trait like Duncan was gonna

(25:27):
rely on a little bit of that mid post self
created offense that wasn't super efficient. He didn't have crazy
overwhelming physical advantages, right, he wasn't collapsing the pain obviously
like a shack or what have you. But still a
guy who could lead you to be a top ten
offense in a top three defense every year, and that
was incredibly valuable. All right, I'll give my number nine.
Since you had Duncan in that spot. I have Larry

(25:49):
Bird here and I'm calling his peak for nineteen eighty
four to nineteen eighty seven, where he gives us a
very neat twenty seven ten and seven on plus four
percent relative true shooting in both the regular season and
the playoffs. And the reason that I have Larry Bird
here is I consider him one of those Tier one
offensive guys. Right, I consider Jokic the greatest offensive player ever,

(26:12):
and then the Tier one to me is him, Magic, Steph,
Braun Jordan and Larry Bird. And Larry may not have
the unfathomable efficiency of a Jokic or a Magic, and
he may not have like their monstrous assist numbers, but
he's probably my favorite plug and play all time great

(26:33):
offensive player ever because he's got probably the best feel
in basketball history, and he's on the short list for
the most versatile offensive players ever. He was an elite
jump shooter, and he weaponized that in a bunch of
different ways, posting up off movement, curling around screens out
of isolation. Lethal jump shooter, he was incredibly crafty right

(26:54):
the use of fakes and the footwork and the touch,
the difficult shot making outside standing and he was an
incredibly smart mover away from the ball, so as a scorer,
he could kill you in all these different ways. He
was a good offensive rebounder, he had great touch on tippins.
And then on top of that, he's probably a top
five passer of all time. He's at least a fringe
top five passer of all time. That's not going to

(27:15):
show up with ten assist a game seasons, but again
that's because of how he fit in offensively, and so
much of it was quick touch ball movement. He's the
best touch passer of all time. He was an amazing
transition passer, and he could do it in so many
different ways. As a passer, he could run, pick and
roll for you, he could spot cutters out of the post,

(27:36):
he could do everything. And he was so deceptive, he
was so creative. He saw everything as it was happening
quicker than the defense could. So that's where I think
he has this extreme offensive value. It's constant, multifaceted, versatile
impact offensively, and he's leading out some of the best
offenses we've seen. And at the same time, the Celtics
are consistently elite defensively, and that's where Larry separates him

(28:00):
self from a Magic Johnson in terms of a peak,
from a Steph Curry in terms of a peak. He
was a clear plus defender and in this period he's
averaging basically two steals in a block, and he's an
elite rebounder, super disruptive in passing. Lane's excellent hands, big body,
right had the size, brought some secondary rim protection because

(28:20):
of that, and again it was a really impactful rebounder
in a very smart defensive player. So that's why I
prefer him to a Magic Again, I think he's an
easier fit offensively, and he's a significantly more impactful defender
and versus Duncan. I mean this was close to me
because of the defensive impact from Duncan, but if I'm
getting a Larry Bird level of impact offensively right again,

(28:43):
to be one of the sixth greatest offensive players ever,
and at the same time, he's a great fit offensively.
I love his portability, his scalability alongside different types of personnel. Right.
I mean, you saw throughout his career right in that
era he could excel at the three, he could excel
at the four. That wasn't as as it is today.
Positions weren't interchangeable like that back in the day. That's

(29:05):
what I love about Larry and the dominance. You cannot
undersell as well, because look at that production, look at
that efficiency, and look at the team results. He wins
two titles in three years from eighty four to eighty six,
and he's MVP every year.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
Not only that, I mean I specifically look from eighty
four to eighty six, they win sixty two, sixty three,
and sixty seven in sayings like automatic sixty piece every year.
Can I ask you one question, though, so I don't
want to say your thunder on this one. Does that
mean that you don't have Magic Johnson on your list?

Speaker 2 (29:38):
Does mean that it does?

Speaker 1 (29:41):
That's that's interesting to me. So I have Larry at
my number seven spot, and I do prefer him to Magic.
Magic just happens to be in my number eight spot. Okay,
you know I agree with you on a lot of
the points you made, the defense, the scoring. I think
the passing is underrated by He's just so versatile. There

(30:02):
wasn't a hole in Larry's game, like he could just
do everything. And that's why I also want Larry. Is
I feel like I can get lost like Larry again, Man,
he doesn't have like that. He's not super athletic. Right.
It may not be the most sexy game, but it's
it's really effective and he could do everything on the floor.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
If I could add one more point in Larry's favor, sure,
just because you mentioned the winning thing, which I think
is such an important aspect of this, right. I mean,
Larry won seventy four percent of his career games, and
we're talking about his absolute peak, at which point it
was established that the Celtics were a dominant team. But
even before he was at his absolute peak his rookie season,

(30:43):
Larry took a twenty nine win team without significant personnel
changes around him and made them a sixty one win team. Like,
that's the sort of all around impact we're talking about
before he was at his best. And again we're talking
peak here, We're not talking prime, but the prime from Larry.
I mean the nine years before he wrecks his back.
He's top four in MVP voting every single year. He's

(31:04):
top to in MVP voting seven of those years. And
this was just the absolute best he ever was. But
this is why he's so highly regarded. I mean, for
a decade, he was automatically making you an elite basketball team.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
I'm glad that you brought that point up about his
rookie year, because that was one of the tougher things
that I had to do when gauging some of these
guys is weighing how much talent and how great their
teams were, right, Because when we're talking about Larry, Larry's
not only great, these are great all time teams. He
are some of the greatest teams ever assembled. Right, And
it's not just the starting five right where You've got

(31:39):
you know, Robert Parrish and Kevin McHale, and you've got
Dennis Johnson right down the lineups right, You've got Danny Ainge,
and you've got Bill Walton, super reliable and effective guys there.
So these teams are great top to bottom. And I
found that, you know, it's hard to gauge these guys
individually when they're wrong. Great teams like that. But I'm
glad you bring up the rookie year point because that is,

(32:01):
you know, almost solely Larry, And I'm just surprised. I'm
surprised that you don't have magic. Hear, I have magic
in the number eight spot. And I consider him a
part of the Tier one offensive engines as well, considering
what he did. Was he the toughest cut for you?

Speaker 2 (32:19):
He was the toughest cut for me, and he is
in a group with I guess I'll just say it
right now, Steph Curry. I mean those two were easily
the two toughest cuts for me. I love KG, I
considered him, but I think that both Magic and Steph
are clearly tougher cuts to me, and I wish I
could have them in my top ten. It just comes
down to although Magic is a Tier one offensive player,

(32:43):
absolutely and specifically if you're looking at nineteen eighty seven,
we're talking multiple year peaks, but that's one of the
greatest offensive seasons ever and he was almost a number
one offense automatically, right. I mean, yes, he had great
personnel alongside him, But that's just the reality. I want
to say, it's in nine years or something like that
for the Showtime Lakers that they were number one offenses.

(33:05):
It's them and the Nash run in the two thousands
across Dallas and Phoenix, just like unparalleled number one offense
year after year after year, and in nineteen eighty seven,
I mean, he is scoring twenty four a night in
the regular season on e lite efficiency and by raw
offensive rating, led the best regular season offense ever that
year at the time, and the best playoff offense ever.

(33:26):
And those are both records that would stand for like
thirty years for the regular season and the playoff one
I think was just broken by the Nuggets in twenty
twenty three. So that's incredible to have records stand that long.
It just comes down to when I'm comparing him to
these other great players, Magic is a cut below defensively,
and I think even compared to another offensive goat who

(33:50):
is limited defensively, like Anikole Jokic, I prefer Jokic's impact
because he's so much better as a rebounder. He's much
more active defensively, and Magic wasn't like a glaringly bad defender.
I actually prefer him defensively to a Steph just because
Steph at his peak as an overall player, was slighter. Right,

(34:11):
if you're looking at like twenty sixteen compared to where
he gets in like twenty twenty two, where he's a
little stronger, you could really attack Steph more than you
could attack a Magic. But then Also I prefer Yokic's
offensive peak to a Magic so that's kind of the thing.
I prefer his impact on both sides to both Magic
and Steph, honestly, but I just ended up thinking what
we saw from Duncan as a floor raiser when the

(34:34):
talent around him was not good, it's incredible and it
was on both sides of the ball, and Magic never
had to deal with adversity like that. But also I
don't think that he was necessarily capable of single handedly
saving an entire team like that. What he does in
the later years when Kareem has regressed is incredibly impressive offensively,

(34:55):
but that two way stuff from Duncan was special. And
then Larry again, it comes down to I think he
fits in more situations and he's a significantly more impactful defender.
That's the one thing with Magic Beyond the defenses, he
was such a ball dominant player. He was very much
going to dictate the style of play, and he wouldn't
scale alongside other great players like all the other offensive

(35:18):
goats who I just mentioned. If that's Steph, if that's Jokic,
if that's Bird, Magic is going to struggle more in
that regard. Than all those guys. It was super close.
I couldn't keep dunking off this list, though, with what
he was doing in two thousand and two two thousand
and three.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
I don't want to let the cat out of the bag.
But I did put Magic on the list and part
of the reason why I went with Magic was just
I was looking at I guess I'll say it. I
mean Jokic was my toughest cut. I have Jokic at
number eleven and Wow. The most significant reason, and this

(35:54):
is probably the biggest issue. I thought that Jokic is
probably a better or a more port score like I
think in any era, just because Jokic is so dominant
and so strong in his footwork, like you can just
dump it to him on the low block. You make
an interesting point with the rebounding. The reason I went
with Magic over Jokic was because I looked at them

(36:14):
positionally what they brought defensively, and I just thought Jokic
and his vertical you know, rim protection I looked at
is more of a positional liability defensively than Magic, because
with Magic he may not be he probably gets overrated
a little bit as a defender, but he is versatile.
He can play different positions and guard different groups. And

(36:36):
he's not.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Kind of a little bit Magic guarding a quick guard,
that's for sure. You kind of hide him on a
not so good offensive for.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
I looked at him as less of a liability, I
guess in terms of a team offense than Jokic, and
that's why I ultimately went with defensive.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
Yeah, that's interesting. I mean I can see the positional
value point right, because is the most important position. And look,
Magic's size defensively was still valuable on the glass because
he's one of the best rebounding guards we've seen. He
obviously wasn't built like a guard. He was six foot nine.
I just think Jokic does a lot more to positively

(37:14):
impact the defensive end. And even if he does have
a clear limitation at a very important position, I think
what you get with his defensive IQ, I honestly think
that he cares more about that side of the ball
than Magic ever did. And you don't see that every
single night maybe.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
With Jokic, can't. You know, he's the most important defensively,
so he doesn't really have an option.

Speaker 2 (37:36):
You know, he doesn't have an option, but he's doing it.
And I do think that he ends up being a
solid defensive player because outside of his glaring athletic limitations,
which are a big problem when it comes to rim protection,
he does a lot of good stuff for you defensively,
where I feel like Magic is just very mah through
and through. And then I do think that Jokic is

(37:58):
the better offensive player. I think that the scoring is
more unstoppable. I think the single most unstoppable action in
the history of this sport is a Jokic post up.
And I think of that combination of being the best
scorer alive, in the best passer alive, and being as
versatile and as efficient as he is, it's led to
one of the most impactful players we've ever seen in

(38:19):
the play by play era where we have this on
off data, like basically the most impactful player in terms
of how his team performs with him on can bear
to offit? And do you think he's more versatile offensively? Right?
He is the epitome of a guy who can play
so many different ways, right with what he does as
a screen, or with what he does curling off screens,
with what he does off the roll, with what he

(38:41):
does out of the post, and both these guys are
very selfless, but Jolkicic just doesn't dominate the ball in
the way that Magic did. And I do prefer that
when we're talking about obviously literal goat offensive players, I
think that that's something that fits more easily alongside other
really good players.

Speaker 1 (39:00):
That's a good argument. This was the toughest decision that
I had to make.

Speaker 2 (39:05):
F One more thing real quick about Magic, And we've
already said this about both Russell and Duncan. He's another
guy whose prime is greater than his absolute peak because
his prime was like Larry, and basically from the moment
that he entered the league right and all the way
from nineteen eighty to nineteen ninety one, his entire time
in the league before HIV twelve seasons. Magic is a

(39:28):
bona fide superstar and he and Larry are in very
very rare company in NBA history. And every single year
because they're that great, their teams are winning sixty games basically,
and Magic makes nine finals in those twelve years. So
that's why I would have Magic higher in my all
time rankings than than I do in my absolute peak rankings.

Speaker 1 (39:48):
Yeah, and like Larry, I mean they just had unalienable things,
things that you know just would never change. It was
the feel, it was the brilliance playmaker. I think he's
the greatest passer of all time. And you know, I mean,
if it's outlet passing in transition, man, if it's up
the floor getting creative like it's beautiful, it's beautiful stuff.

(40:09):
And Yokic is an all time passer. Two. This was
the toughest decision figuring out if Jokic made my list. Ultimately,
the deal breaker was Magic's one more on a bigger
scale and if Jokic comes away. And that's what's tough too,
is it's like the league is way more talented, I
think now than it was, and Jokic is the best

(40:32):
player on the planet and has been for the past
three years. Yokic and Bill Russell, I felt like we're
the toughest guys to rank on this list, and positional
value defensively is Ultimately what is the reason why I
left Jokic. Jokic Stephan one more guy that I'm not
going to bring up because I don't know if he's
on your list or not. We're the toughest omissions for me.

(40:54):
Jokic and Steph were among the two of the three
toughest cuts.

Speaker 2 (40:58):
There's one thing that I will take you with in
the spield that you just gave right now, and it's
the winning aspect, because like, I don't know if you
could find a much greater difference in supporting talent when
we're talking about all time, Like I love Magic Johnson, Logan,
I love Magic Johnson. I think he gets underrated as
a score. I think that his efficiency is a testament

(41:21):
to that. Right, he was a walking mismatch, one of
the greatest transition players, the greatest transition player ever. I
would say him and Lebron are the top two. But
a post problem, a pick and roll problem. I think
that aspect of his game gets underrated because the volume
isn't crazy. And again, I mean in the later years, right,
the keeam isn't a superstar force anymore, and the Lakers
are still a number one offense, an elite offense every

(41:44):
single year. But I don't know if you're finding a
more talented decade of team rosters than the nineteen eighties Lakers,
Like it is absolutely ridiculous. They had, for the longest
time the best duo in basketball history. I would probably
say right. I mean, I love Scottie and Jordan, but

(42:07):
the level that both Magic and Kareem were at in
the early eighties where they are both bonified MVP caliber,
I think Kobe and Shack probably peaked higher. Maybe that's
really close, But again, the difference is you get more
years of Magic and Kareem together than you do with
Kobe at a superstar level in Shack. So that's the

(42:28):
point I would make there. And again, if we're looking
at careers, well, it's still not close because Magic has
been at this superstar level for seven more years than
Yokicic's been at this MVP level, and still a handful
more years than Yokic has been at a real star level,
and of course they're the career winning does make a difference.

(42:48):
But if we're just going peak to peak, I mean,
in Jokicic's peak, he's got a title, and he has
led his team to have when he's on the floor
a point differential that would be the best in basket ball.
And he's done that missing two of his best supporting
cast mats for an entire season. And he's done that
with a roster that when he's off the floor has
produced a point differential that would be the worst in basketball. Right. So,

(43:13):
I don't think that the titles comparison works when we're
going peak to peak, because I think Jokic's impact on
winning right now is unbelievable and he's achieved elite, elite success,
team success when he's on the floor with talent that
isn't remotely comparable to what Magic had alongside him with
Wilkes and Kareem in the early years, and then you
have Worthy and Byron Scott, you have Norm Nixon in

(43:35):
those early years, Like those teams were truly amazing.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
Yeah, maybe it's a logical to think like that. Let
me ask you this, of the players on your list,
do you think that Jokic won with the the least
talented supporting cast.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
Of the dudes who made my list? While are we
talking about the title, I think that the most aggressive
title one in terms of supporting talent is nineteen ninety four,
a team followed by Duncan. But I think that jokicch
is right in that group there with them, And again,
just the impact numbers that we've seen in recent years,

(44:14):
there's no comparison. I mentioned that'stat about when he's on
the floor. This is all the way back to twenty
twenty two. This is four years. They are the best
team in the league. That's what their point differential is
an equivalent to, and when he's off the floor, it's
equivalent to the worst team in the league. He's on
pace to be the first player ever with a plus
twenty on off differential in three straight seasons. And the

(44:34):
swing from like a Luca it's like five points over
this time span, Giannis is like seven and beat his
like nine. Right, all the dudes who get compared to
him in terms of regular season success, he is more
than doubling that swing, and that holds up. People like
to talk about the starting lineup playing together. There's an
entire season where Jamal Murray doesn't play, right. I mean,
Jamal probably hasn't played in half of those games, and

(44:56):
we see it year over year. The numbers hold up.
You take any of those one players off the floor,
as long as Yokich is on the floor, you are
an amazing basketball team. And this year we've seen maybe
the craziest difference ever where the Nuggets have a one
to thirty offensive rating with him on the floor, which
would be by far the best ever in a ninety
seven offensive rating with him off the floor, which would

(45:18):
be by far the worst offense in basketball. Like, he's
doing completely unprecedented stuff on that end, and we now
have over the last five years Logan Jokic averaging twenty six,
twelve and nine on plus nine percent relative true shooting,
and he's gotten better in the playoffs, where he gives

(45:38):
you thirty thirteen to eight on plus five percent relative
true shooting. We've never seen that combination of raw production
and efficiency. While it's also leading to unprecedented impacts. When
we look at the difference between when he's on the
floor and off the ward and when you just watch
the games, this is a dysfunctional offense. Without Yolkic on
the floor, there are no advantage crew and that's been

(46:01):
the case for years. That's not what a Jamal Murray
does right. He doesn't beat you off the bounds consistently.
He doesn't play make at a high level. Everything is
centered around Jokic creating a great shot with every touch,
Jokic making perfect decisions, Jokic getting into the teeth of
the defense, being the best score alive, and then demanding
an overwhelming amount of defensive attention and being the best

(46:22):
passer alive to work off of that. I do think
he's a significantly better scorer than Magic. As much as
I love Magic scoring, and I'll say Magic is the
best passer of all time, I'll agree with you there.
I think Jokic is the second best passer of all time.
You could argue, Nash. I think that's clearly the top
three right there. So that's just an unprecedented duality to have.

(46:43):
And he's also the best rebounder in basketball. So that's
the thing. The impact at that size on the glass,
it's insane. He's the best passer, scorer, and rebounder in basketball.
We've never seen that in the history of this sport.
And he's putting up unprecedented impact numbers, unprecedented fish and
see numbers, unprecedented box score numbers, and he's taken it
up another level this year. So I have Yokichen number eight. Actually,

(47:08):
this is a nice little segue. I have him in
my next spot. And the reason that I do have
him down at number eight is he's the weakest defender
on my list. I think he is a more impactful
defender than Steph or Magic. As I talked about, I
think he's better than them on both ends because versus magic,
I think he does have the edge as a scorer,
and he does have the edge in terms of off
ball value, in screening, an offensive rebound, all these different

(47:29):
things that he can do better shooter of the basketball,
and versus Steph, he has the ability to directly impose
himself on the game and get you a great shot
at will in a way that prime Steph Curry doesn't,
where he could be overwhelmed by really physical defenders and
he just couldn't get to that range like Jokic can,

(47:49):
where he gets inside of ten feet twelve feet, And
as we've talked about time and again, he's literally sixty
five to seventy percent on hook shots and floaters and
touch shots. There's just no way to guard that when
that dude is also the best passer on the planet.
So I prefer him on both ends. And I just
think when you're literally the best offensive player ever and
you're the best scorer and passer and rebounder, you belong

(48:12):
this high on the list. I think everybody else has
the edge because of defense. But I couldn't keep Yokia
out of my top ten. I mean, I've never seen
a player impact the game offensively like this, and what
he has done for these Nuggets teams for five years
one of the greatest carry jobs, really, and that's not
to diminish the supporting cast, but it has been a

(48:34):
carry job. It has been an incredible, unprecedented offensive carry job.

Speaker 1 (48:41):
It has been. And maybe looking back, if we revisit
this topic or something, maybe I'll look back and appreciate
that more. But you said what I said, and that's
why I would leave him off this list. I think
he's the least effective defender of anybody on my list,
or would be, and that's why he's number eleven. So
at number ten, I've got Bill. At number nine, I've

(49:02):
got Duncan, At number eight, I've got Magic, and at
number seven I've got Larry.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Real quick, before we move on, I just want to
quickly revisit the point about impact and supporting cast, because
I've read off the sad about the Nuggets being the
best team with Jokic on the floor and the worst
team with him off at over an extended stretch. Now,
we don't have the plus minus numbers with Magic Johnson, right,
we don't have it going back to then. But what

(49:28):
we do have is nevertheless record with a dude on
the floor compared to off it. For the Nuggets since
twenty twenty one, they win sixty seven percent of their
games with NIKOLEA. Jokic. That's unbelievable. That's an elite pace.
They win thirty seven percent without him. The Lakers won
seventy four percent of their games with Magic Johnson. It's incredible,
obviously one of the best numbers ever. But without him

(49:49):
over his career, because he didn't miss a ton of games,
so we're using a bit of a larger sample size,
they won fifty eight percent of their games without him.
Still a really good basketball team. So that's the thing.
That's the thing between these two all time great offensive engines.
I think we have to acknowledge the difference in help
is monumental, and the difference in terms of just organizational brilliance.

(50:11):
Because I'm not even someone who rags on the Nuggets organization.
It's just the Lakers again, were as talented as any
team we've ever seen. I think it's important we emphasize
that difference. The Nuggets really do fall apart without Yokic,
and the Lakers were still a very good team without Magic.
Obviously not close to the same, but still good. So
you read off your list so far, I have Dunk

(50:31):
in ten, bird nine, I have Jokic and I'm considering
his peak all the way from twenty one to twenty five,
even though I do think he's gotten even better within
that time frame. And then I have Russell at number seven.

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Speaker 2 (52:22):
Let's go to the top six w you have in
your six spot.

Speaker 1 (52:25):
In my sixth spot, I have Shaquille O'Neil. And the
reason that Shaq is up this high is because of
his two way value. Right when you look at guys
like Bird and Magic all time offensive engines and Bird
and Magic bring their own respective defensive value. Bird, I think,
brings more, but they play right on the wing and
on the perimeter right. Shack can have a different kind

(52:46):
of level of two way impact because he plays center
and at his apex was a pretty damn good rim
protector like rookie Shack coming into the league. When Shaq
was committed and had bounce and wanted to be good
on that end, he was, and at his prime was
a really good rim to turn. But the biggest reason
why he's up as high is because he's one of
the greatest offensive players of all time, one of the

(53:08):
most unstoppable ever, I think more so than Bird or
Magic at their absolute apex right, those guys could make
offenses great, but Shack was just unstoppable, and that's why
he's above a guy like Tim Duncan. I think I
prefer Duncan's defense in what he brings there, but Shack
is just on a different planet offensively. I'm looking specifically

(53:28):
from two thousand to two thousand and two is what
I consider Shack's peak. They won the finals every year,
he was the finals MVP every year, and he was
a one time MVP. But I think the best player
in the league, and just what he does in those
finals to the supposed best team in the other conference.
The two thousand finals, he gives you thirty eight points,
seventeen rebounds, and two assists on sixty one percent from

(53:51):
the field, and oh one, he gives you thirty three
points sixteen rebounds in five assists on fifty seven percent
from the field, and in two thousand and two he
gives you thirty six twelve and four on sixty percent
in the field. You just had no answer in the
playoffs over that time period thirty fifteen and three. He's
just unstoppable. There was no answer for Shack. And you know,

(54:15):
I think for his career, I think you can hold
Shack's longevity against him, right, the fact that Shack wasn't great,
you know, effectively by two thousand and six, Shack's done right.
His peak is over right. I'll even give him two
thousand and five, where he was pretty effective with my
it's not his peak, but you could still maybe consider
it his prime. Right, he's effective und exactly, but six

(54:37):
that's really where you see the fall off, and he
just wasn't the same. And so his you know, prime
is shorter than other guys, and I think that's why
you could make an argument for him being lower. But
it's one of the greatest peaks ever for everybody above him, though,
I like one guy's two way value more than Shacks,
and that's why he's above him, and I think he's

(55:00):
I think you can probably make that argument for two guys,
for three guys maybe above him, and I prefer their
offensive games. I guess a little bit more maybe okay,
But it's one of the highest offensive peaks ever, and
Shaq was all six of these guys, including Russell two.
I would hear an argument. I think I would hear

(55:20):
an argument for number one because of their impact and totality.
If somebody wanted to argue to me that Shaq was
had the greatest peak ever, I would hear an argument.
I think Shaq was that good, but I prefer other
guys's games to Shack, and that's why he's down at
number six.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
I feel pretty strongly about my top two, but I
will say everything in that three through eight range really
maybe even you could extend it. I don't know. Nine
and ten I think are also incredibly high peaks. Like
I had a lot of internal debates, I actually have
Shack all the way up at number three, though, and

(55:56):
I think when we did our all time rankings, I
probably had Shack too low because I think the peak
is that monumentally high. I also think the longevity I
mean you mentioned right, he's fallen off by five oh six,
but he came into the league in ninety two, so
I mean he was a superstar player that entire time.
That's good lunch. The fall was precipitous, h exactly. He's

(56:19):
one of those dudes who from the moment he came
into the league had that superstar impact. He didn't keep
it until the moment he left, but he also ended
up playing a really long time. I do think, though,
as great as Shack was in those Orlando years, you
definitely see a difference between two thousand and two thousand
and two Shack and every other version because I think
after this you start to see some of the negative

(56:41):
effects of weight gain. You also just see a lack
of focus defensively. I mean that to me is the
real thing. Where you look at, especially two thousand and
two thousand and one Shack and the level he was
at defensively throughout two thousand and the level he was
at defensively in the two thousand and one playoffs, that's
where you just get this complete unstoppable force. And I
think that also, I mean just the raw power that

(57:03):
he did have right this was clearly the best combination
of insane strength, being the most massive human being in
the league, but also still really being able to move,
which he lost as he did continue to gain weight.
But the production is almost unfathomable. I mean, two thousand
to two thousand and two win the playoffs, He's thirty
fourteen and a half and three on plus five percent

(57:24):
relative true shooting in the finals over those years, thirty
six fifteen and three and a half with three blocks
per game on nearly sixty percent from the field. It's
the greatest three year finals run that we've seen in
the history of this sport. And the on off impact
is monstrous. The Lakers over these years were about twelve
points born hundre posessions better. With him on the floor.

(57:45):
He was first and foremost a completely unstoppable offensive force,
and I think, outside of Jokic, the greatest offensive big
man at his peak that we've seen. I'll take Kareem's
career offensively over Shacks. But the impact goes beyond the
fact that it's like, you look at those raw scoring
numbers that he's putting up in the postseason and like, okay,

(58:07):
those are heights that very very few players have touched,
and he's doing it really efficiently. But it's also just
the fact that every single Shack post touch like you're
sinking and harder. You're probably just doubling out right because
there's no prayer that you're stopping him in single coverage.
And what that does for an offense as a whole,
it's a level of defensive attention that we've never seen

(58:29):
a player demand on the interior. He is far and
away the greatest rim force.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
Even more than Jokic and how he collapses defenses.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
Yeah, when you're talking specifically about drawing extra attention at
the rim, I do I think Jokic is just so
much more better from the perimeter and is so much
better as a passer that he surpasses him as an
all around offensive player. And the clutch is a difference
there because Jokic can be your takeover clutch shot maker
and Shack didn't have that level of offensive skill. But

(58:57):
in terms of just being an un unstoppable interior force,
specifically at the rim, Shaq is one of one all time.
He's number one all time, and that has such a
massive impact on a team offense. And Shaq was a
really good passer who could consistently make good decisions out
of that, and that's why you see I mean, in
these years, the Lakers are elite offensively consistently, and at

(59:21):
the same time he was a really high level defensive anchor.
You have some mobility issues with him, but they weren't
as significant at this time, and there were better defensive bigs. Right,
this is actually an era where defensive bigs were running
the league. You have to Kenbe. You have Zoe in
two thousand, you have Duncan, right, you still have Robinson.
We have to mention Logan, Theo Ratliff. This was an

(59:43):
era of shot blockers and it was a slow, grinded
out defensive, physical era. But Shaq was really really impactful
on that end, and he was in some of those
all defense conversations. That's what you get from him in
this period that you don't really get as much out
his career. So I think it's the second highest offensive

(01:00:04):
peak from any big ever, But then I think it's
a significantly higher defensive peak from Jokic. That offsets the
difference between the two of them. And it's just very
fitting that people call him the most unstoppable offensive player
ever or the most unstoppable player ever. People call him like,
it's pretty appropriate. Right. We were discussing him with Mars,

(01:00:24):
and Mars made the great point that the way that
everybody determined that they would stop Shack was with hack
of Shack. Right, But if you consider how brutal half
court offense was in that era. If you're putting a
fifty something percent free throw shooter on the line and
you're getting one to one point one points per possession
compared to like zero point eighty five points per possession,

(01:00:46):
Mars said was the half court average at this time,
that's good offense and that's the best answer that you
have to Shack is a full on gimmick. So like
he's not an elite, elite defensive big, so that'll hold
him back from being in my top two. I still
do prefer players who have some level of perimeter skill

(01:01:07):
because I think there are certain situations in which that's
really important. And as I mentioned, the clutch is a
prime example of that. Being able to initiate and create
from the perimeter, or having what Yokic has with his
just like undeniable touch shot making. Shack had good touch ready,
he had good touch on his hook, but it's not
at that level and he can't do it from as
far out as a Yokic can. But like, those are

(01:01:31):
really the only nitpicks that I have with Shaq. I
think the two way impact that his peak was absolutely monstrous,
and there's a reason that he ran through the playoff
field in a three year period in a way that
really nobody else has. And the only two dudes who
you can argue are the two dudes who I have
above him.

Speaker 1 (01:01:48):
It's a good case. I think Shaq was really hard
for me to rank as well, and I just I
actually have three big men above Shack. I would just
rather have them at the apex of their powers.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Okay, well, why well, let's get into whoever's next year?
Who's in your five spot?

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Is it? Another big in my five spot is a
Keem Malajuan And maybe very close for me? It was
very close, right because I think that Shaq has a
little edge offense, a lot of an edge offensively with
how dominant he was. But I also think Akeem has
a lot of an edge defensively, and maybe this is
personal bias, maybe one I'm holding the fact that Hakeem

(01:02:28):
beat Shaq head to head in the finals. They swept
Orlando in ninety five. I think it's important to contextualize
that and say that, you know, Shaq wasn't at apex
Shack at this point. He was not at the peak
of his powers. Yet this is still very much baby Shack.
And even though the Rockets sweep this finals, even though

(01:02:48):
Heem leads every single game in scoring, I think, you know,
Shaq held his own. It's not a great or dominant
performance like we see from Shack at his peak, But
Shack play okay. He's just going up against a much
better at you know, in his prime, at his peak,
veteran in Nikim Elajawan who dominated him. But I bring

(01:03:09):
up my personal bias. And the only reason I say
that that that could be potentially affecting me is because
I think a Keem might be my favorite player to
watch ever. It is poetry in motion. It is art
on a canvas. It is beautiful, It is so aesthetically
pleasing to me. It's awesome. He has the best footwork ever.

(01:03:30):
He has every fake in the world on the low block,
you know, Hakeem, I think can maybe sometimes get put
into this little box where you know, we think that
these big men are really rigid and they're not fluid athletes.
He was so quick, he was so agile, he was
so decisive. I don't know if there's ever been anyone
better at creating space on the block. And another misconception

(01:03:53):
I think that people may have about basketball players in
this time or previous to Hakeem, is that they couldn't shoot.
I think Akeem had impeccable touch. He's automatic fifteen feet
and in if it's fade away, if it's turnaround, baseline jays,
if it's hooks. Hakeem could make tough shots with guys
in his face, and he could do it against the

(01:04:14):
league's best defenders. You look at guys he's matched up
with in this time. He's given the business to ta Kembe.
Shaq was a good rim protector at this time. You know,
even though he may not have that veteran nuance and
feel and positioning, Shaq was an athlete and he could
give Shack the business. And he could do it through
double teams too. Right, you see Hakeem dominating some of
these games in the third quarter, in the fourth and

(01:04:36):
they are sending doubles at him and he is just
rising and firing, or he's dissecting the defense. I think
another misconception is that Akeem wasn't a playmaker. It's not
Jokic level stuff, but he could pass out of double teams.
He was a good outlet passer. I think Akeem was
the total package. I love Akeem's game and he's one

(01:04:56):
of my favorite players. I think he's the second best
defender ever. I think at his apex was the best
player in the league at this time. He had unprecedented
two way impact. And Hakeem is a guy that you know,
despite maybe him not having perimeter spacing out to three,
could dominate in any era. I think you could drop
Akeem any time, any era, and I think he would dominate.

(01:05:18):
I love his game, Carson the Keem is one of
my favorite players ever, man and I wish we had
the numbers where we could compare to like Wilter Bill,
because you know, he's given you one point five steals
per game and three point seven blocks per game in
the playoffs over this stretch. And like you've already brought
up on this show, the ninety four roster is not
super dominant.

Speaker 2 (01:05:39):
That's one way to put it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:40):
Yeah, yeah, it's not great. It's not great. Stuff that
you're getting from the supporting cast, and Hakeem willed that
team to the title and the ninety five. That's an
interesting case study because mid season they make the Clyde
Drexler trade, and that is where I think Clyde Drexler
deserves an immense amount of credit for what he did
in that playoff run, the playmaking the score. Hakeem is

(01:06:01):
the engine, right, But Hakeem had a relatively inefficient run
compared to what he did in ninety four.

Speaker 2 (01:06:07):
Yeah, well, scoring thirty three at night.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
Still he's the best player in the league and he's
still dominating. Don't get me wrong. It's a little less efficient,
and he led every game in scoring in the finals.
I think Clyde deserves credit. I also think Mario Ellie
deserves credit for what he did in that run too.
Those guys really pulled their weight. But I just prefer
a Keem's two way value to Shack. And maybe it's
the aesthetics. I just prefer him, man, I don't know.

(01:06:31):
I feel like I could go to Hakeem in a
late game possession and let him create his own shot
on the low block, and I'd be a little more
confident Oh, the final stat This one blew my mind.
There's a lot of guys in the nineteen nineties that
didn't ever get in NBA finals because of Hakkeem and
Michael Jordan, right, Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller, Gary Payton, Sean Kemp,

(01:06:57):
Karl Malone, John Stockton. It's some of the greatest players
of all time, and it's some of the greatest teams
of all time that don't end up getting rings in
this era. Patrick Ewing is another one of those guys,
and he ran into Akeem in nineteen ninety four. In
the ninety four finals, Hakeem held Patrick Ewing to thirty
six percent from the field in thirty nine percent true shooting.

(01:07:17):
I think this is Patrick Ewing a couple of years
past his absolute peak, but this is still very good.
Patrick Ewing and a Keem dominated him on the biggest stage,
completely wrecked him in that finals. So I think he's
the second greatest defensive I think he's the second greatest
defender ever. I don't think he has the offensive limitations

(01:07:37):
that a Bill Russell has, and that's why he's above
billing me. Yep, And again, maybe I'm unfairly holding that
against him and then with Shaq. I think there is
a gap defensively, and that's why I prefer a Keem Man.
I love Hakeem, and to be honest, I consider Jakeem
as my greatest big man ever. I ultimately went with
two guys above him, but I did think about it,

(01:07:58):
and that's why teams number five for me.

Speaker 2 (01:08:01):
I love Acheme even more than you do, buddy, because
I have Acheme at number four and I did that.
FIRES consider him above Shack. Dude, I have a team
from nineteen ninety three to nineteen ninety five. It's not
just the two title years. I think actually ninety three
is when he takes two simultaneous leaps. I think he
takes a leap. As a score, he goes from twenty

(01:08:24):
one point six points per game on fifty five percent
tru shooting to twenty seven points per game on fifty
eight percent true shooting. I think this is when he
peaked as a post score, and he also takes a
leap as a passer. He goes from two point two
assists to three and a half assists per game and
was a very good passing big at his apex. I
think like Shack both those guys can get underrated in

(01:08:46):
that respect, and he became a much more legitimate, actual
offensive number one because that was kind of the limitation
for much of his prime, not his peak, but his prime,
which starts damn near from when he enters the league,
because he was such an impactful player, but it was

(01:09:06):
that he wasn't a real offensive number one on a
title caliber offense because early in his career he wasn't
as good a passer. And I mean you compliment obviously,
he's the most beautiful post scorer to ever watch. Shout
out Kevin McHale. But I don't really know if it's
all that debatable, Honestly, I think yolkic just in that conversation.
But the footwork, the creativity, the diversity of shot making

(01:09:30):
and just the pure skill as a shot maker, the balance,
it's all absolutely incredible.

Speaker 1 (01:09:35):
It would just make you feel helpless. I feel like
on the low block, man. I mean you're saying, and
you can throw two guys at him, and you can
can test the hell out of the shot. It doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 (01:09:45):
I'm sure somebody has said this before, and that might
even be the reason I'm saying it. But in a
lot of ways, he's like the Kobe of Biggs, right,
where these are dudes who are unbelievable to watch. They're
the greatest difficult shot makers ever for their respective groups,
and they live on these tough shot diets, which actually

(01:10:06):
in a playoff environment means that basically, no matter what
you're throwing at defensively, they can get to the same
shots they're used to, and they can ramp up their volume,
and they can do it against really good defenses and
they can still basically maintain the same efficiency. But also
the efficiency maybe isn't as great as a baseline and
in the regular season in a team early in his career,

(01:10:26):
I think before he took this leap, wasn't a dude
who was going to elevate a team offense as much
because of his playmaking limitations and because he wasn't a
super efficient score right. I mean, it's not close to
a shack where it's like, okay, cool, I'm just going
to get to the rim every single time. A team
is living off of a diet of a lot of
these tougher mid range shots, working out of the mid post,

(01:10:46):
fadeaways and turnarounds and whatnot. But once you get to
nineteen ninety three, the Rockets go from the number twenty
offense the year before to the number six offense. This
is the stretch ninety three to ninety five when he
was that true offensive number one who could carry you
to a title. And obviously that's what he did. And
on top of this, he's a top two defender of

(01:11:08):
all time. Again, I don't think it's debatable that he's
number one because of the impact that Russell has within
his era. But I do think A Keem is the
greatest modern defender ever and has the best hands of
any big man ever and was a massive disruptor because
of that, and he's two fifty five pounds, he could
battle physically in the post with the powerful bigs. He

(01:11:28):
was a really good post defender, but just like the
greatest modern stock machine that we have seen. And that's
because he's this monstrous rim protector, but it's also because
of his hands, in his agility and his ability to
cover ground and recover quickly in just a race space
with that length and that athleticism, and that's what he did.
I mean, he just was the second best defensive player

(01:11:50):
that we've ever seen. But when he pairs that with
this peak offense. That's where I think you're looking at
a top five peak of all time, because it's arguably
the greatest back to back playoff runs that we've ever seen.
You have Shaq in two thousand and two thousand and one,
you have Jordan honestly all the way ninety one to
ninety three, and then you have a team in ninety
four and ninety five. Over those two postseasons, he's thirty one,

(01:12:13):
eleven and four and a half with five stocks per
game on plus three percent true shooting. And as we've
talked about, ninety four wins it all with one of
the weakest supporting casts ever on a title team, if
not the weakest. And then ninety five, yes he has Clyde,
but he also overcomes maybe the toughest path ever to
win a title. He has to beat that year, the

(01:12:34):
sixty win Jazz, the fifty nine wins Suns, the sixty
two wins Spurs in the fifty seven win Magic. We're
talking about a Malone and Stockton led team. We're talking
about a Barkley and Kevin Johnson led team. We're talking
about a peak David Robinson led team. And then we're
talking about a Shack and Penny led team. It's unbelievable.
His team was unquestionably less talented than all of those teams,

(01:12:55):
and what does he do. He beats them all. He
leads the playoffs in points per game both of these
years with good efficiency, not great efficiency, but good efficiency
as the best defender on the planet, and he was
a really good passer at this stage in his career.
And the regular season impact is also insane. You don't
have a big sample size of the Rockets playing without
a team in the ninety four and ninety five seasons alone,

(01:13:16):
but they went four and eight without him, and they
were one hundred and one and fifty one with him,
and all the way from eighty five through ninety seven,
his All Star seasons, they won sixty one percent of
their games with him and forty one percent without him.
But again, I think even that number sell short the
impact he had at his absolute peak, which is ninety
three to ninety five, And I do think there's a

(01:13:36):
big difference between that version of a team and the
previous versions. As great as he was, because he got
to a level where he was, without a doubt, the
best scorer and the best defender in the game, and
he got better in the playoffs, and all of those
things I don't think anybody else in NBA history has
been able to claim simultaneously. So I absolutely love a team.
I mean to me, the offensive gap between him and

(01:13:59):
Shack is a little greater than the defensive gap. I
think that it's sizable going both ways. But I do
think that I mean Shack again, the efficiency he was
able to generate offensively for himself and his team, it's
something we've never seen from a big So I'll take
Shack because of that. And if it comes down to
a tiebreaker, I tend to choose offense over defense, but

(01:14:20):
I can't argue with a Keem because of everything I
just laid.

Speaker 1 (01:14:24):
Out, I think that sound. I prefer Hakeem's defense and
just the fact that he is the second greatest defender ever.
I just I really value that highly. And that's why
I gave him the edge. So you gave him the
what I gave him the edge?

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
Man? Oh dear god, it's a family program, Logan. You
want me to get to my number six.

Speaker 1 (01:14:43):
I don't assume things, but.

Speaker 2 (01:14:45):
Don't you'll make an ass out of you and me.

Speaker 1 (01:14:47):
I'm gonna guess that we flipped on the big men here.

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
I think we did. I think we did, and I
think if they're super close, so I think it's really interesting.
I would actually argue, I said all the way three
through eight, I think you could argue, But really three
through six is where I think we are talking about
incredibly small margins. In my number six spot, I have
Kareem Abdul Jabbar, and I think he's inarguably all time

(01:15:12):
a top three player, but that's because his longevity is
only surpassed by Lebron James. He's the guy with the
longest prime outside of Lebron, and I personally have his
peak at nineteen seventy one. In nineteen seventy two, I
considered going with seventy six to seventy eight for Kareem

(01:15:33):
because then I think that he was a better offensive player.
I think he had truly truly mastered the skyhook, and
I think he was a little bit better as a passer,
and he was more efficient in the playoffs. So there's
definitely a case to be made for that older version
of Kareem in his first Lakers years. But to me,
the defensive gap that goes in favor of early bucks

(01:15:56):
Kareem in seventy one and seventy two offsets that I
think that people can underrate how dominant a force he
was defensively at this time in his career. He anchored
back to back number one defenses in these years and
back to back top two offenses, a number one offense
in one of those seasons, and was just such a

(01:16:16):
physical outlier at this point and was so athletic as well,
I mean his agility at his size when he was
consistently engaged defensively as he was early in his career,
and that was not something that remained the case throughout
his prime. Even he was probably the most impactful defensive
player on the planet. I think you would have to
say him and Wilt at this time, but another worldly rebounder,

(01:16:39):
another worldly rim protector, shop blocker, not necessarily the smartest
defensive player, but again, the physical tools were so crazy.
He's still anchoring these number one defenses and then offensively
the most skilled big at this time, I mean regular
season these two years logan he averaged thirty three, six,

(01:17:00):
sixteen and four on plus ten percent true shooting. That
is like unfathomable production and efficiency and he just had
such an incredible blend of size, again towering over everybody
in the league, but also being crazy agile for that size,
and being athletic, really athletic in these younger years, and
also having this great touch and also being a good passer.

(01:17:22):
He was such an offensive freak. The only reason that
I don't have him higher is because it didn't scale
as well as the playoffs at the time where he
was at his defensive peak. In the postseason, over these
couple of years, he's twenty eight, eighteen and four on
even true shooting percentage, really really big drop off inefficiency,

(01:17:45):
and so his offense didn't translate as seamlessly to the
postseason as Shacks. Nor do I think he had that
sort of insane, one of a kind gravity that Shack did.
Because of what he was as a rim pressurer didn't
even translate quite as well as a Keeams, who was
also the greater defensive players. So a tem I think

(01:18:06):
outperformed him on both ends in the postseason. Kareem these
two regular seasons, I mean, it's absolutely ridiculous. And if
you look at how great the Bucks were in nineteen
seventy one, In nineteen seventy two. The seventy one team
has one of the highest point differentials ever in the
seventy two team then goes right back and wins sixty

(01:18:26):
three games again. So it's just that little bit of
postseason drop off and just some overwhelmingly dominant factors from
an Akeem and from a Shack that put them above Kareem.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
To me, yeah, and I think you made the right
call going with that version of Kareem too, because I
think Kareem's best version of himself. If you could take
his best peak defense in his best peak offense, I
think hasn't I think could be higher because what he's
doing from seventy seven to seventy nine he's given you

(01:19:00):
already won fifteen to four in the playoffs on sixty
three percent true shooting with one point three steels per
game and three point eight blocks per game. But I
think he was more of a two way force when
you consider what he was doing earlier in his career
defensively with Milwaukee, and he's still a really good defender,
he just doesn't have, you know, the same athletic traits.

(01:19:20):
And I also think you see it reflected in win total.
Granted he misses a little bit more time. I think
it's not a lot. It's like twenty games over these
few seasons, but he does miss a little bit of time.
But those teams weren't as great as the early Bucks
teams were, and I don't think those teams were exceptionally talented,
which is why I think it's an interesting debate if
you want, you know, offensively oriented or defensively oriented Kareem.

(01:19:43):
But I'd rather have Kareem. And that's where I sided
with with Why I went with him over Shack. Why
I went with him over a team. I just think
i'd rather have him. I think I'd rather have Kareem
as my center. That was I guess my.

Speaker 2 (01:19:58):
My, Justine, Well, why, I'm gonna ask why, because that's
a little vague.

Speaker 1 (01:20:04):
I think he's got more skill than a Shack, right,
and I just value that a little bit more, and
he is really impactful defensively. I don't know, maybe it's
a legacy thing, maybe it's the name value. I'd rather
have Kareem. That's what I ended up going with. That
was the tiebreaker to me.

Speaker 2 (01:20:25):
Okay, I think that the offensive gap to me is
bigger than the defensive gap. When you look at postseason performance,
I mean, if we're comparing him to Shack Shack literally
having as dominant as three year run as we've ever
seen in Kareem not quite playing up to his regular season.

Speaker 1 (01:20:40):
What do you think about the supporting cast on those
early Bucks teams.

Speaker 2 (01:20:45):
I think that the supporting cast when we're talking about
the seventy one and seventy two Bucks, it's pretty good.
I mean, I think we can't really undersell how good
Oscar still was. Now. It's interesting because I feel like
sometimes some people can kind of overrate seventy one to
seventy two Oscar, like he was not the same force

(01:21:07):
that he was at the peak, especially once you get
to like seventy two, then he has a rough scoring postseason.
But if we're talking seventy one, I mean, this was
still a dude who had been an automatic number one
offense throughout the sixties and was still the best playmaker
in the league at the time, and Bobby Dandrich was
a really really good two way player or a star
level two way wing. And then after that, I mean,

(01:21:28):
the depth was fine, but there weren't a lot of
rosters that were incredibly deep at this time, So I
think they're very good rosters. I mean, I absolutely think
that Kareem is the reason that these teams are great.
And I think you can look at before they bring
in Oscar, you can look at what he did with
the Bucks in their second year of existence, right, I mean,

(01:21:50):
they were an expansion franchise when they got him, so
they won twenty seven games. Then they add Kareem, they
win fifty six games. So I absolutely think this was
one the most impactful two way peaks we've seen in
the history of the sport. And if we're just going
regular season to regular season, I'll take him over Shaq
in a team. I will. The difference is, I think
those guys had historically great postseasons, and they didn't just

(01:22:13):
do it for one year, right, They didn't just do
it for fifteen games. They did it for multiple consecutive seasons.
And Kareem obviously wins the seventy one title, but he's
not even as dominant in that run as he was
in the regular season. And then he struggles in seventy two,
and he actually struggles in seventy three in the postseason offensively.
So I don't have a problem with you having him,

(01:22:34):
because I think it's really close between these guys, but
I think Shaq was more overwhelmingly dominant offensively. I think
a Keem was more overwhelmingly dominant as a two way player.
But again, what sets Kareem apart is he was barn
on the best player in the league for a decade.
And that's why in all time conversations, I don't think
that there's really much of an argument that you could

(01:22:54):
have a team or shack over those guys unless you
are like a literal peak purist. And also, I mean
you mentioned the supporting cast. Kareem doesn't really miss games
in these years when he does have this a very
good supporting cast. But then once you get to seventy five,
when famously Kareem misses the playoffs, actually in back to
back years. He does it first with the Bucks and

(01:23:16):
then with the Lakers. But that seventy five season, the
Bucks were thirty five and thirty with him, and then
they went three and fourteen without him. So I do
think that's a testament to how incredibly impactful he was.
So I guess I'll get into my number five because
we have this little hodge podge of bigs here I've
got Wilt Chamberlain at number five, and I've got Wilt

(01:23:38):
in sixty seven and sixty eight. If you want a
three year peak, you can throw sixty six in there.
But we saw a distinct change in sixty seven. And
so that's the reason that I am choosing these two
years specifically, because he was great in sixty six and
he won MVP that year, But sixty seven is really
when we see an incredible version of Wilt Chamberlain, and

(01:24:00):
we were just going with single seasons. I think there's
a real argument to be made nineteen sixty seven Wilt
had a better season than anybody else in NBA history.
This is a completely different player than Warriors Wilt, who
was this super high volume score I mean, especially in
the first few years of his career, and a black

(01:24:20):
hole in many ways, didn't pass the ball, and so
he wasn't nearly as impactful on team offense as his
volume numbers would suggest. Lakers Wilt, completely different player, right,
That's an older Wilt, especially when you're looking at seventy two.
His last couple years just really wasn't scoring with much
volume at all. This is a Wilt who maxed out

(01:24:42):
his ability and his ability was basically as great as
any player we've seen in NBA history. Sixty seven, he
averaged twenty four to twenty four and eight on sixty
eight percent shooting from the field. He led the league
in true shooting percentage plus fourteen relative true shooting percentage
that season while he was anchoring an elite defense and

(01:25:03):
the number one offense in basketball in a sixty eight
win team. I actually think Wilt is the player on
this list with the most distinct but also the most
brief absolute peak, right because we can talk about a
team from ninety three to ninety five was a different player,
Shack from two thousand and oh two was a different player,
And that's true in all those cases. But this was

(01:25:24):
like the most dramatic difference of a dude had all
the ability in the world just fully getting it and
fully getting it while he still had that peak ability
for a couple of years. That's the version of Wilt
you're getting with the Sixers in sixty seven sixty eight,
he became extremely efficient, scaled down his volume as a score,
but scaled up his volume as a playmaker, became an

(01:25:46):
excellent playmaking hub who they were running so much offense
through and he was amplifying everybody around him right spotting
cutters and running handoffs and weaponizing the attention he draw
he drew. And also this was when he locked in
most defensively, and I would say became the second best
defender on the planet behind Jus Russell. Shout out to
Nate Thurman, he is in these conversations too, But I

(01:26:06):
mean Wilt was just an unparalleled freak. Like we talk
about with Kareem at his best athletically in seventy one
and seventy two. Neither of these guys were the smartest defenders,
neither of them were the most consistent defenders throughout their career.
They both had some motor issues, some focus issues, but
when you got them fully locked in for their best
couple of seasons, I mean, they were two of the

(01:26:27):
greatest defensive anchors that we've seen, just because physically, I mean,
the combination of agility and just the height in the length,
the shot blocking ability from Wilt, there was nobody like
that in the league at this time. So sixty seven
is just this glorious season where he maxes out his
ability in all these different ways, and then sixty eight
still leads a sixty two win team and led the

(01:26:51):
number one defense, the only defense in Bill Russell's entire
career to supplant his Celtics as the number one group
in the league that matters. I think that is an
incredible achievement on the defensive end from Wilt. He didn't
match the previous year's efficiency this season, but he was
still six percent above league average true shooting percentage. The

(01:27:13):
only real knock on Wilt at this time is his
free throw shooting was so so horrible. I think he
was thirty eight percent from the line across these two postseasons.
That made it so his playoff efficiency really wasn't all
that good. I mean it was good. He was three
percent above league average, but real, real, major step down

(01:27:34):
from the regular season. And I guess you could argue
he didn't really have to take over as a number
one scorer in the way a lot of these other
guys did. But I don't hold that part against him,
because he was the best offensive engine in basketball right
He was just doing it with more playmaking than scoring.
And he had some really good players on this team.
He has Hal Greer, he has Chet Walker, he has

(01:27:56):
Billy Cunningham. Let those guys cook make them better through selflessness.
That's all I ever would have wanted from Wilt throughout
the early years of his career. So I'm incredibly high
on this version of Wilt. I guess the reason I
have him at five would be I do think sixty
eight is a bit of a step down from sixty seven.
It's a great season, but we are judging multiple year peaks.

(01:28:20):
And also, I mean, just what Akeem in Shack did
was so remarkable, and I think a Keem was an
even better defensive player and was the best scorer on
the planet. And I do think Shaq wasn't even greater
offensive player, although that's close. All these guys are very close.
But I have Wilt at five.

Speaker 1 (01:28:36):
I've got Wilt at number three, and I just think
he was head and shoulders as the best player in
the league. And I highlighted sixty six from sixty eight.
He was the MVP every single year, As you mentioned,
sixty seven their number one in offensive rating, they win
the NBA Championship in that playoff run. Individually, Wilt has

(01:28:56):
given you twenty two points, twenty nine boards, and nine
assists on fifty eight percent from the field. It's by
far the most efficient Wilt ever was in his playoff
career where he fully put it together. Again, I just
want to emphasize what he was at this era. This
guy's seven foot one, two hundred and seventy plus pounds

(01:29:16):
with a seven foot eight wingspan. He's basically unstoppable in transition.
He's a monster of fadeaways. He had a butterfinger roll,
and I think he's an underrated passing big man. I mean,
it's again some of the stuff you see today with
d O's but he was spotting cutters, a really good
transition outlet, and he's a monstrous shot blocker as the

(01:29:39):
primary defender on the weak side. A couple of things
that I think get taken for granted with Wilt at
this time. This is a guy who ran his body
into the ground, and a lot of players did that.
Wilt is playing routinely near forty eight minutes a night,
playing in every single game. You know, it's pretty commonplace

(01:30:00):
for and it's a different game, right, it's just naturally faster.
I think it's more physically taxing playing in today's NBA.
But over this span he missed one game. It's routine
for guys nowadays. You know, you missed ten games a year,
you missed twenty against He's not coming off of the
floor and he's playing in every single game. I think

(01:30:23):
that can sometimes get taken for granted. And Bill Russell
says that Wilt was the smartest player he ever played
against on offense, on defense. Bill always talks about how
brilliant Wilt was.

Speaker 2 (01:30:33):
And on defense that's a little generous. Well, like to
chase his stats. He liked to chase his blocks, even
though they were unofficially. He liked to chase his highlights.
But he lost him for a couple year.

Speaker 1 (01:30:44):
I think at this apex, I just don't think there
were any holes in his game. And he had a
really high two w A impact, and I think he
showed it. That's why Wilts number three for.

Speaker 2 (01:30:53):
Me, I can't take much issue with it. One more
thing that I will point out, though these Sixers were
so good and Wilt was obviously their best player on
both sides of the ball, but the year after Wilt
left nineteen sixty nine, the Sixers won fifty five games.
I mean, they had Archie Clark that year, but it's
a lot of the same guys, right, it's Billy Cunningham.

(01:31:15):
It's how great, it's Cheh Walker. Respect Archie Clark. Listen,
I'm not discounting Archie Clark. Okay, I like me a
little Archie Clark. But this was a really good team,
and I think sometimes that gets underrated because people do
the whole Oh, Russell played with all these Hall of
famers and Wilt played with who, and it's like, well,

(01:31:36):
the reason you guys know who all of Russell's teammates
are is largely because he won them eleven titles, whereas
Wilt bounced around some more and just not a lot
of people really have that deep of knowledge of sixties
basketball players. So I do feel strongly that over the
scope of their careers, Russell's the better player because I
think every single year, every second he was on the floor,

(01:32:00):
he squeezed every possible percentage of winning value he had
as a basketball player out of himself, whereas I think
Wilt left a lot of meat on the bone at
some points in his career. But when we're talking absolute peak,
Russell couldn't have done what Wilt did in sixty seven
and sixty eight. He just didn't have that level of
offensive ability, and when Wilt was that committed to the

(01:32:22):
defensive end and playing at this level offensively. I don't
think you can really argue that Russell peaked higher. I
think he's higher all time, but that will peak was
something else. So Logan, let's just go back through those
four bigs who we had all jumbled up. I had
Kareem six from seventy one to seventy two. I had

(01:32:44):
Wilt five and sixty seven and sixty eight. I had
a Chem four, and I had Shack three.

Speaker 1 (01:32:50):
All right, So at number six, I had Shack. At
number five, I had a team. At number four, I
had Kareem, and number three I had Wilt.

Speaker 2 (01:32:58):
All right. So now let's get into the great debate.
I think it was pretty clear that we were gonna
have these two as our top two. Who do you
have in the two spot?

Speaker 1 (01:33:09):
First of all, I have Lebron?

Speaker 2 (01:33:12):
Okay specifically the second question, yeah, I was just gonna
ask which version of Lebron?

Speaker 1 (01:33:17):
Specifically, I have Lebron from twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen.
And I know we dipped our toes into this on
Mars's show, and it is interesting, right because there's three
different versions of Lebron to choose from original Cleveland Lebron,
Miami Lebron, and second stint Cleveland Lebron and first then

(01:33:39):
is interesting because it's Lebron that is absolute, you know,
athletic peak, and that team. I mean, he is dragging
that team to be competitive every single year. He has
no talent around him. They go from a sixty one
win team when he leaves to a nineteen win team
the year after Miami. Right, he's got a ton of head.

(01:34:00):
That's probably defensive peak Lebron. He's shooting the cover off
of the basketball, but his role looks a lot different. Right,
and then I preferred twenty sixteen to twenty eighteen because
I think that's when Lebron had the most control over
the basketball game and just how he dictated every single
position of every single possession Offensively, he just felt like

(01:34:24):
he controlled every single game he played in at a
different level. And what sucks about this is he obviously
doesn't have the hardware to come away with it. That
I don't hold against him. I don't hold it against
him whatsoever. I don't know if any team in the
history of basketball could have knocked off the twenty seventeen
or the twenty eighteen Golden State Warriors, Like that's the
greatest basketball team ever. It is the greatest basketball ever

(01:34:48):
played in my opinion. You know, I don't know what
it would have taken to beat those teams, and so
I don't hold that against him, but Lebron and what
he could do every single possession with the ball in
his hands, if it was running pick and roll, if
it was just straight up get it downhill, if it
was him turning to a post touch, and it's just
the most brilliant I think Lebron ever and how he

(01:35:08):
saw the game like. And it was hard for me
to put anybody above Lebron. Obviously we know who it is.
But Lebron in the regular season at this time is
giving you twenty six points, eight rebounds, eight assists on
sixty one percent true shooting, with over a stealer game
and nearly a block a game. In the playoffs in
this span, he's giving you thirty one points, nine rebounds

(01:35:31):
and eight assists on sixty two percent true shooting, with
nearly two steals a game in over a block a
game twice. He leads out a top three offense in
all three of these years, he leads out a top
five offense. Over this time, the Cavs have a one
percentage of sixty eight percent with Lebron. Lebron misses fourteen

(01:35:54):
games out of the span. They go one to fourteen
without Lebron during this span. I think he's the greatest
rim pressure of all time. Again, I think he's one
of the best half court players of all time. This
version of Lebron and the way he was able to
control the game on both sides of the ball, and
the only areas that I think work against him picking
against his peak is the level of defense that he

(01:36:17):
was consistently at and athletically he wasn't at the peak
of his powers. But I take that trade off. I
take that trade off for the absolute brilliance I think
you get, and I think this is the best offensive
version of Lebron ever, and that's why I want him.
I guess you could argue that the heat version of
Lebron is better offensively just because he's shooting better and

(01:36:39):
he's better athletically, But I just think this is the
Lebron who had the most control over the game, possession
to possession, and that's why I want him.

Speaker 2 (01:36:47):
Well, I definitely think this is the best offensive Lebron.
I think that this is the most surgical Lebron. You
use the term control of the game. That's what he
had just mastered at this stage, right. The playmaking was
the best it ever was. Just the sheer bully ball,
the relentless mismatch attacking, the pick and roll mastery, all
that stuff is at its peak at this point. And

(01:37:09):
I think twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen are the best
offensive postseasons that Lebron ever had. But this is not
the Lebron that I would choose, And the reason for
that is it's clearly the weakest Lebron of any of
the peak iterations that you're talking about, twenty sixteen in

(01:37:29):
the playoffs specifically being the one point at which he
did get to a really high level defensively. And that's
why I prefer twenty sixteen Lebron to twenty eighteen Lebron,
because I do think he was so much better defensively
in that run, whereas in twenty eighteen he was really
very average defensively, and in both twenty seventeen and twenty
eighteen was part of some pretty catastrophic team defenses. Two

(01:37:50):
of the worst team defenses to ever make the NBA Finals.
He obviously more than made up for it with his
all time great offense. But I prefer twenty thirteen and
twenty four team Lebron. I just think this is the
best ceiling raising Lebron. This is the most completely dominant
Lebron in all phases. This is the most versatile Lebron,

(01:38:10):
this is the most deficient Lebron. And this is absolutely
the best he was defensively. I mean, I don't think
that that's a conversation. He's ninety five percent of the
athlete he was in the first Cleveland Stint twenty nine
to twenty ten in terms of explosiveness. But I do
think this is the best he was overall athletically because

(01:38:31):
he was much stronger, and that made him a better
player on both sides of the ball. It made him
a better post player. Offensively, it made him a better finisher.
I mean, you look at his numbers around the rim.
He's shooting like eighty percent inside of three feet in
twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen. And it made him a better
defensive player where you could switch him on to fives
for stretches and he was also just a smarter defensive player.

(01:38:54):
He was more locked in as a helper. I think
he had a better mastery of what opposing offenses were
trying to do at this stage. And then this is
the best off ball Lebron ever as a cutter. This
is a time at which he was thriving in transition
right the heat. Loved to play with pace, and he
was dominant there, one of the best transition forces we've

(01:39:14):
ever seen. This was the best he ever was as
a three point shooter before the renaissance that he had
last year. But he was over thirty nine percent from
deep across these two seasons, both regular season and playoffs.
So like, it was very consistent the three point shooting
from him in a way that it wasn't before this,
and it wasn't often after this. So that's another part

(01:39:35):
of the reason that this was his off ball peak,
and this was his career best efficiency. He was sixty
four and a half percent true shooting in the regular
season over these two years and over sixty two percent
in the playoffs. So yeah, you have a better offensive
version of Lebron after this, and I think before this,
you have a better offensive floor raising version. I think

(01:39:57):
twenty nine to twenty ten, Lebron is probably the best
this floor raiser we've ever seen in the regular season,
taking those teams to win sixty six and sixty one games.
You look at those rosters, some people downplay the rosters
to just fuel Lebron agendas, like let's not disrespect the fellas,
But it was a pretty average roster that he had

(01:40:18):
playing elite basketball. But I do think that there was
a different level of savvy with this version of Lebron.
There was a different level of versatility and again just
being the most well rounded Lebron who could dominate in
so many roles, so many different phases. That's what he
epitomizes at this point, and that's ultimately what I value most.

(01:40:38):
This is the Lebron who I feel like I could
most easily plug into any team with pretty good talent,
which I think is what you need if you're trying
to win the title, and he's just gonna elevate the
team in all its facets and he's gonna take us
from good to absolutely great. And I think that's what
he did at this stage in his career. So we
picked two different versions of Lebron. I can see the

(01:40:59):
case for both. I'm going with late heat Lebron twenty
thirteen and twenty fourteen. But number one, logan, who do
you got?

Speaker 1 (01:41:09):
Just to confirm though, so you do have Lebron too?

Speaker 2 (01:41:11):
I have Lebron too.

Speaker 1 (01:41:12):
Yeah, I've got number one. What yeah, shocker shocker. Man.

Speaker 2 (01:41:19):
You don't have Bobby Pettit. You don't have Robert E.
Lee Pettit.

Speaker 1 (01:41:23):
I don't have George Mikeen on my list either.

Speaker 2 (01:41:25):
I'm sorry, guys, Oh my god, you got no idea
what Slate of Modern was doing back in the fifties.

Speaker 1 (01:41:33):
Your Transatlantic accent's pretty good.

Speaker 2 (01:41:35):
Brother, No, my Transatlantic accent would be a little more
like this, Honey. I think you left the turkey in
the oven for too long. Jimmy Stewart's coming for Thanksgiving
dinnery he disappeared, Honey, I shrunk the kids. They're all
small now, and they crawled into the name of his ass. Anyways,

(01:41:55):
m J I.

Speaker 1 (01:41:57):
Got Jordan's Spaci.

Speaker 2 (01:41:58):
That happened in the movie that happened in the movie three?

Speaker 1 (01:42:01):
Is that the same time period you went with.

Speaker 2 (01:42:04):
Ninety one and ninety three. I think you can definitely
argue it's all the way from eighty nine to ninety three,
but I think he made some improvements in ninety one
that I'll get into in my spiel.

Speaker 1 (01:42:15):
I think that Michael Jordan is the greatest scorer of
all time. I think he is the greatest inside the
arc scorer of all time. Like, you just get the
ball to MJ at the elbow, inside the arc, He's
going to make it happen. He had everything man the
post game, the finishing at the rim. Like MJ's just
on a different planet as a scorer to me than Lebron,

(01:42:36):
and I really value that. And I think there's this
misconception right about the Jordan wasn't a playmaker, and a
lot of people point to that as to why Lebron
is better. And I want to be clear about something.
I think Lebron is better at enhancing the talent around him,
amplifying their abilities. I think there are some other guys
right like Jokic, I think is probably better at amplifying

(01:42:57):
players around him, just because of his ability to collapse
a defense to get to the rim. And they're just
different levels of passers. But Michael Jordan was a good
passer and a good playmaker. He just happens to be
the greatest scorer of all time over this run. In
the regular season, MJ is giving you thirty one, six

(01:43:17):
and six on fifty eight percent true shooting, with two
and a half steals per game and nearly a block
a night. And in the playoffs he ups to scoring
the thirty four a night, six boards, seven assists on
fifty seven percent true shooting. Over this time period, the
Bulls win seventy seven percent of their games with MJ.
He misses six games over this time period. They go

(01:43:37):
one to five in those games, and he's so clearly
the best player in the regular season, but he's also
so clearly the best player in all of these playoffs
and in the finals. I mean, this is all time
stuff that he's doing the finals. We talk about Shaq
in his three year run, Akeem in his two years.
This is just utter dominance on the biggest stage. In

(01:44:00):
ninety one, the Lakers are a little bit short at hand,
shorthanded admittedly, but he goes thirty one, seven and eleven
on fifty six percent from the field, fifty percent from
deep small sample size, eighty five percent from the line.
Ninety two, he gives you thirty six points a night,
five boards and seven assists on fifty three forty three
eighty nine splits, and in the ninety three finals he

(01:44:21):
gives you forty one a night with nine rebounds and
six assists on fifty one forty sixty nine splits. Nobody
had an answer for him. And the reason that I
go with MJ over Lebron. I prefer that dominance and
unstoppability scoring the basketball. I want that. I want the
best scorer on the planet, and I think MJ's the
greatest scorer ever. I think he's the greatest inside the

(01:44:44):
arc scorer. I want that, and I value that more
in the playoffs than I do anything that Lebron can
give me. I want that takeover scoring ability and MJ's
the goat. Yeah, that's why he's number one to me.

Speaker 2 (01:44:57):
He's not just the best scorer ever. I mean, it's
really not debate, and I feel like some people don't
even have a full grasp on how truly insane the
numbers are. You read off a lot of them. I'll
give you the numbers all the way from eighty nine
to ninety three, because I do think you can argue
the peak starts in eighty nine regular season thirty two
seven and six on plus six percent relative true shooting,

(01:45:18):
playoffs thirty four and a half seven and seven on
plus four and a half percent relative true shooting. I
mean to have that volume thirty two almost thirty five
points per game in the playoffs for five years with
three title runs and two more deep Eastern Conference Finals
runs in there. To have that volume, we've never seen it,
and to have that efficiency along with it, it's unfathomable, like

(01:45:41):
it actually is. And the reason I say you can
argue his peak starts in eighty nine is even though
he wins MVP in eighty eight, eighty nine is when
he takes an initial leap as a playmaker and as
a jump shooter as well, and he's got that peak athleticism,
the most athletic guard we've ever seen relative to his peers,
that peak defense all defense caliber. Arguably, well, he wins

(01:46:04):
Defensive Player of the Year in nineteen eighty eight, but
I don't think he was ever a Defensive Player of
the Year caliber defender. But he was a really really
good defender. But then starting with nineteen ninety one, I
think you get another leap in terms of basketball IQ
in terms of the ability to play off ball to
fit into a system. You start getting those crazy low

(01:46:25):
turnover numbers from MJ, which I think are underrated. Right
the fact this dude is giving you thirty plus points
per game year after year and he's giving you two
and a half turnovers a game. You haven't seen that
from anybody else in NBA history. And you have a
stronger Michael Jordan, who is still an absolute freak athlete.
Quite similar to the tradeoff that Lebron made, where you're
ninety five percent as explosive, but you're significantly stronger. I

(01:46:48):
think that's a worthwhile trade off when you get to
these more physical playoff environments, it helps you as a finisher,
and obviously famously it helped MJ get through the Bad
Boy Pistons. Now, I do think there's some misconception about
the eighty nine and ninety series against Detroit because MJ
was actually still really great in those series. He gave
you thirty one, six and a half and six and
a half on plus three percent relative true shooting. It

(01:47:11):
was an all time great defense. It was just a
better team. Like I think MJ got better in ninety one,
but he was great against the Pistons. It's just Craig
Hodges was the Bulls second leading scorer in eighty nine,
and then all of his teammates in nineteen ninety shot
thirty eight percent overall, and they shot under twenty four
percent in Game seven of that series, when MJ was

(01:47:31):
still incredible. But I do think he got even better
in ninety one, and at that point you had the
best rim finishing guard of all time. You called Lebron
the best rim pressure ever. I don't fully agree with that.
I mean, I think he's top tier, but I think
if we're including Biggs, then it's Shack no doubt. But
even if we're talking about guys who initiate more from
the perimeter, I think Giannis.

Speaker 1 (01:47:52):
When I said that, I guess I just meant, maybe
he's the greatest weaponizing.

Speaker 2 (01:47:56):
It, like, okay, including playmaking.

Speaker 1 (01:47:59):
I guess I included playmaking when I was saying that.

Speaker 2 (01:48:01):
If you're talking downhill force, maybe is the term I
would use. Yeah, Okay, well that's fair. But I think
in terms of a downhill guard, rim finishing guard, MJ
is the best we've ever seen. He was the best
athlete in the sport. He was an extremely efficient off
ball weapon who at this point had added an excellent
mid range game on top of that, unrivaled downhill pressure

(01:48:22):
from guards and just unequivocally the best score of all time,
who only got better in the playoffs. The volume, the
efficiency only got crazier on the biggest stage. It's just
a totally untouchable resume as a score. And he was
such a good playmaker at this point, and I really
think that that gets underrated with Michael Jordan. The nineteen
ninety one finals was a masterful display of playmaking, and

(01:48:45):
he was capable of that. I mean, it was just
a question of what did the team need from him.
Did they need him to be more of that on
ball pick and roll decision maker, facilitator or did they
need him to be an assassin score. Did they need
him to play away from the ball more. At this
point in his career, he was capable of doing all
of that at an extraordinarily high level. And he was
a strong plus defender. He was an elite defensive playmaker,

(01:49:07):
one of the best defensive playmaking guards we've ever seen
in terms of generating steels and blocks. He really was
the goat and put Alvin Robertson in that conversation. But
he was the best shot blocking guard ever, and he
was a steels machine and he was an awesome rebounding
guard as well, And so the impact on team success here,
I mean, the Bulls were just unstoppable, and they were
unstoppable above all else because Michael Jordan was by so

(01:49:30):
far the best player on the planet. He leads number
one offenses in ninety one and ninety two, and he
leads a number two offense in nineteen ninety three. So
I look at this version of Michael Jordan, I think
that's the most perfect basketball player there ever was. I mean,
I don't think nineteen ninety one is really touchable as
a season. I said earlier sixty seven, Wilt you could

(01:49:50):
argue had the best season ever, and you could argue it,
but ninety one Jordan, to me, is clearly the best
basketball player to ever exist. In the surrounding years, you
go two years before that, you go to years after that,
We've just never seen a basketball player like that. And
I do think this was the greatest ceiling raiser we
ever saw on a basketball floor. And you picked the
version of Lebron that I think as an offensive floor

(01:50:12):
raiser was greater than MJ because of how he could
make every decision for an offense as a super ball
dominant player. But as we've talked about before, I think
ceiling raising is more valuable because the goal is to
win a title, and to win a title you have
to scale alongside other good players. So how do you

(01:50:32):
fit with them? How many different ways can you impact
the game, both on and off ball? And that's where
I just think this version of MJ takes the cake.
And with the version of Lebron, I'm comparing him to
the heat Lebron twenty thirteen and twenty fourteen. That version
of Lebron was a better defensive player, but I think
Lebron is very clearly the inferior offensive player. I just

(01:50:53):
think this version of MJ. Again, I mean, when you're
talking about thirty five a night on insane efficiency leading
to the number one offense doing it on and off
ball like this, I just don't think you can touch that.

Speaker 1 (01:51:04):
With the plane pressing too. How impressive do you think
it was that he was putting up these scoring numbers
in this era?

Speaker 2 (01:51:11):
I mean, very impressive. I also think sometimes people sort
of can conflate the late eighties early nineties with the
later nineties, and I think it's important to note that
offenses were thriving in the mid late eighties, and it's
only in the mid late nineties when they start really

(01:51:32):
struggling more. And then once you get to the early
two thousands, I mean late nineties, early two thousands was
the low point for offense. But nevertheless, I remember doing
like some sort of equation, probably some super advanced mathematic
equation that you guys can't even wrap your head around.
And basically, if you account for today's offensive production, if

(01:51:56):
you adjust MJ's numbers to today's offensive production, he averaged
like thirty eight a game in the finals across his career.
But I think there's more of a difference in the
later years ninety six to ninety eight, when the pace
really had started to slow down and offense was a
little bit harder to come by. But nevertheless, it is
the greatest scoring stretch we've ever seen, and it's really
not close. And I do think this version of MJ

(01:52:19):
is to me the second best offensive player ever after
only Yelkic. You know, I think it's really close between
a few of the guys who we mentioned. But I
just think it was such an incredible scoring value you
were getting from a dude who was a really good
playmaker and again who could really do it all by
the standards of this time. It's such a ridiculously high level.

(01:52:40):
I don't want to hear anybody mentioned MJ's three point shooting. Brother,
it didn't matter. It wasn't a thing that was expected
of you. In nineteen ninety teams took ten threes a game, like,
that's not a thing. Don't do that. Don't do any
bad faith arguments. Lebron is the goat.

Speaker 1 (01:52:52):
We just had this conversation just about to say, I
have also come around to the fact I just think
Lebron's longevity precedes everything. I agree, but MJ's peak is higher,
and I'll stand by that too. I mean, I just yeah,
unparalleled dominance real quick.

Speaker 2 (01:53:10):
I agree with that fundamentally. I mean the fact that
we can really debate these two peaks, right, and that
I think that there's like a two percent difference between
the respective peaks, but then the difference in longevity is
like seventy five percent. I mean, it's just a huge
longevity difference. And even though I have somebody who said,

(01:53:31):
I value ceiling raising more than floor raising, I value
peak more than longevity, and MJ checks those two boxes
for me more than Lebron does. Longevity matters, right, Longevity
is obviously part of those all time ranking conversations. Not today, baby, today,
we're just talking peak. But it's just too much. It's
too much to deny the raw impact that Lebron has

(01:53:53):
had over more than twenty years of playing at such
a high level. It's something we've never seen and to me,
that's why he's had the greatest career and he is
overall the greatest basketball player ever.

Speaker 1 (01:54:04):
Yeah. And I think that's when if you were doing
like a league wide redraft with like every great player
and they were starting, say from their rookie version, so
you know you're gonna get sixteen years or you know
whatever of Mike and his peak is going to be x.
That's why I would hear an argument. But it's like
I can get twenty two year, twenty three years potentially
of Lebron just being one of the five best players

(01:54:27):
on the planet for twenty of them, and the best
player on the planet for probably fifteen. Yeah, I'm taking
that guy. And that's why he's the go to me.

Speaker 2 (01:54:36):
Yeah, and it's really only eleven healthy seasons you get
from MJ in Chicago, I mean eighty six. He misses
most of the year, and then ninety five. You get
him back late in the year and he's a little rusty.
And maybe you think that, oh, he did play well
in the playoffs. He did?

Speaker 1 (01:54:51):
He did? I think that kind of gets lost. Yeah,
and maybe you think that MJ's peak overrides that. I
just disagree.

Speaker 2 (01:54:58):
But it's hard. It's hard to argue at this point
in my opinion, as somebody who argued it for a while,
it's hard to argue. It's just I think it is
so overwhelming the totality of what Lebron has done. But
enough about that. Shall we move on to some honorable mentions.

Speaker 1 (01:55:13):
The toughest cut for me was Jokic and what he's
doing right now, and just in terms of modern basketball
and everything you could ask for from an offensive engine,
he's got it. The size, the strength, the unstoppability. Right,
You've seen in the playoffs, they got to send two
guys at Jokic almost every possession when he's eating and

(01:55:35):
there's there's not a good answer for Jokic, He's an
unsolvable problem. Jokic was my toughest cut. We mentioned him earlier.
The toughest cut for me outside of him was Oscar
Robertson and what he was doing. I just think, you know,
when you're looking at the early early basketball right with
like Wilt and Bill and those guys, Oscar's doing historic stuff.

(01:55:58):
From sixty four to sixty six, he gives you two
number one offenses and all of them were top three
in offensive rating. He was so methodical and so smart.
You know, he would just work to get to his spots.
He was an elite jump shooter. He's an all time passer.
And I don't think Oscar Robertson's supporting cast were that great.

(01:56:19):
And that's what makes it hard to figure out where
he ranks, because I would hear an argument for top ten.
He didn't really have great teams around him in Cincinnati,
when he was in Broadchester, when he was at his
absolute apex, right, And that's what made Oscar really hard
to rank. And then after Oscar, it was Steph and
those were my top three hardest guys to leave off.

(01:56:39):
For Oscar, I guess the fact that he just didn't
get it done at his apex, and that there are
other guys from his era that you can argue as
being better players at his apex works against him. And
then Steph, it's a two way value. You know, I
think there's he would be by far the weakest defensive
player on my board. Those are the three toughest cuts

(01:57:01):
to me, though.

Speaker 2 (01:57:02):
I love the Oscar shout. I mean, I think that
Oscar is incredible. You know, he didn't have great teams
in terms of team success, but that's because their defense
has really struggled. And as a floor raiser, he's one
of the best we've seen. Especially offensively, he's in the
top tier. The Royals in his time there won fifty

(01:57:24):
four percent of their games with him twenty four percent without.
He joined the worst team in the league, he immediately
turned them into the number one offense. And you know,
I said earlier, there's two runs of dudes just generating
number one offenses year after year that stand above the
rest in nation. Magic. No, no, no, there's two runs post merger.
I should not sell short what Oscar did, where he

(01:57:45):
led five straight number one offenses to start his career,
Like it's just absolutely incredible. He was absurdly efficient. He
was a brilliant playmaker, he was a dominant scorer. He's
one of the best offensive players ever, but not as
impactful defensively. So yeah, I mean, if I'm not going
to have Magic on my list, I don't think there's
an argument to have Oscar on my list. I think
that they have actually a lot of the same strengths

(01:58:07):
and weaknesses as candidates.

Speaker 1 (01:58:10):
Steph would be your second guy off though.

Speaker 2 (01:58:12):
Yeah, I would have Steph. I mean, Steph is when
we talk about ceiling raising offensively, if you put great
skill around Steph as we saw I believe it or not,
he actually in twenty seventeen and twenty eighteen had some
of the best skill ever put alongside him. There's not
somebody who is more effortlessly going to elevate everybody around him. Right,
it doesn't have to be I have the ball in

(01:58:34):
my hands, I'm making the decision. It's every second I'm
on the floor, I'm stressing the defense with my movement,
with the threat of my shooting, and I am going
to let everybody else eat. And if we have a
connecting playmaker like Draymond, and we have shooting like Clay
and Kevin Durant, and an isolation score like Katie alongside me,
everybody is going to be at their absolute best. That's
what Steph has. And then also, you know, he obviously

(01:58:56):
didn't need a Katie, right, He had two title teams
without Kevin Durant, without that sort of overwhelming talent. He
is a top tier offensive player. But again, I think
Jokic has a different level of control and ability to
impose himself with that unbelievable efficiency just getting a great
shot at will, having a completely unstoppable a plus plus

(01:59:17):
outcome like he does out of the post. I prefer
that to Steph, especially twenty sixteen. Steph as ahead of
the time as he was, he was slighter, he could
be more bothered by physical defense. He was banged up
in twenty sixteen, but he didn't play up to his
standards in that playoff run. And defensively, I mean, he
could just really be hunted. I absolutely think that he

(01:59:38):
was a weaker defender at this time in his career
than Jokic, who I think again makes a positive impact
in much more different category. So those were easily my
two toughest. I like Oscar he'd be on my short list.
The third dude who I had was Kevin Garnett because
I think so highly of KG. Well, actually, I think

(01:59:59):
Yanni too. I think both of these guys would be
a couple of my first two off. Ultimately, it comes
down to offensive limitations with both of them as a
number one in a playoff setting. I think Jannis. We
had this whole debate on Mars's show for a while,
but I think Yannis is a little more capable of
that in the playoffs, and we saw that in twenty
twenty one, and we saw that in twenty twenty two,

(02:00:21):
just because of how he imposes himself on the game. Physically,
Kg's obviously a better defensive player, but I slightly prefer
that offensive edge that goes in Giannis's favor. But KG
is one of the most impactful players ever, especially in
the regular season. Like the on off stuff that Jokic
is doing, well, KG did it first. He had back

(02:00:41):
to back years with a plus twenty on off at least,
one of the most versatile defenders ever, one of the
smartest defenders ever, and a hugely impactful offensive player. With
his versatility is playmaking, it's just in the playoffs two
thousand to two thousand and four. You look at that range,
he gives you twenty three points five assists a game
on below league average true shooting. He's doing it in

(02:01:03):
tough circumstances. But he just didn't have that ability to
will himself to quality offense that even a Tim Duncan does.
Because obviously I'm not holding KG to the offensive standard
of these other guys because he's such a special defensive player.
The offense is just second. But what you can do
as an offensive number one really matters to me in
these all time great conversations, and I just think Kg's

(02:01:25):
more limited there. Obviously Russell is the exception to this
because of everything we talked about, but that was just
a different time for defense, and he was a different
kind of defensive force than anyone else.

Speaker 1 (02:01:35):
I think KG would be my fifth guy off. I
think my fourth guy off would be Doctor J.

Speaker 2 (02:01:40):
And I like Doctor J as a shout.

Speaker 1 (02:01:42):
The reason that I don't think Doctor J could be
on this list is just because I think his prime
was in the ABA, and so you just don't ever
get to see him like I mean, don't get me wrong,
he comes into Philadelphia, but I think his absolute apex
is in the ABA when he is MVP every year.
I'm pretty sure from seventy four to seventy six they
come away with two finals. And I think he's got

(02:02:05):
really rare two way impact from a guy on the
wing when you're talking about what he could do defensive
playmaking wise, on the perimeter, on the interior. They're one
of the league's best defenses all three years, and I
don't think he has those scoring limitations when it comes
to the playoffs, and he's an underrated playmaker too. I

(02:02:25):
just don't think Doctor J had a hole in his game,
and he'd be I think my fourth toughest cut. I
think Doctor J was the total package.

Speaker 2 (02:02:33):
Great shout. I'm gonna shout out one more dude and
then we can move on because there's so many great players.
But I actually would have this dude slightly above KG
because we did have this whole debate on Mars. I
would go Jannis, then I would go KD, then I
would go KG. I just think Katie's peak was so
monumentally high, and to me, that is in the Golden

(02:02:56):
State years, even though he wasn't quite the same athlete
he was in oklahom City. Wasn't quite the same rim pressurer,
just the improvement defensively, his ability to thrive in that
role is more of a rim protector, and I do
think he was a little bit better as a playmaker
and offensively he was in a phenomenal situation to thrive.

(02:03:16):
But just to me, the second best scorer we've ever
seen after MJ and I think you would say the
most complete scorer we've ever seen. Part of that is
just the nature of the game and the value of
the three point shot today, but the efficiency, the effortlessness
with which he could kill you from all three levels,
and the ability to thrive offensively in so many different

(02:03:36):
situations and also have a positive impact defensively. Katie obviously
doesn't have that one run that stands out where he
willed a team to the title. Because although he's amazing
in the finals and in the playoffs in twenty seventeen
and twenty eighteen, and he was amazing in the playoffs
in twenty nineteen before he got hurt he was out
of his mind, all of that is clouded by the

(02:03:57):
fact that he's just playing on the most talented team
ever and like Steph led those teams to be twenty
seven and four over those years in games that Kevin
Durant didn't play in the regular season. But nevertheless, I mean,
I think the ability is undeniable. And do I think
he could have led a team to win the title
less talented team? Absolutely at his peak he was certainly

(02:04:17):
playing at that level. So I give him the slight
edge over KG just because I think the offensive gap
is obviously very big there, and That's what I'm gonna
lean on when it comes to one of those tiebreaker situations.
I mean, we could shout out dudes all day. We
could shout out Jerry West, we could shout out Kobe
I mean, the list goes on.

Speaker 1 (02:04:36):
John, Yeah, we could.

Speaker 2 (02:04:38):
But again, if you want more of our thoughts on
just some of these modern guys, go check out the
episode that we did with Mars. That was a lot
of fun. But today we covered all the bases logan,
We cover all the ground, all the way from the
Bill Russell days to the Nicol Jokic days that we
have right now. And by the way, just for full transparency,

(02:04:59):
we're record this Monday. It's gonna go up Friday. So
if Nikola Jokic falls off in the next three days.

Speaker 1 (02:05:05):
Then recently fell off, so you never know.

Speaker 2 (02:05:08):
I'm seeing everybody freak out about whatever game he's having
right now. I gotta go watch that and rewatch that.
Maybe we'll talk about that tomorrow, which for you guys
will actually be in the past. But I hope you enjoy
this one. This was a ton of fun. Really love
diving into historical stuff like this and hope that you
guys enjoy it as well. If you want more of
our content, well there's plenty more of it. Check out

(02:05:30):
the Nerd sash YouTube channel. This is where we have
all our full shows, NBA and NFL, and we also
have our video essays, our video breakdowns where we go
more in depth on one specific topic. You can also
listen to the show across all audio platforms, and you
can follow uscross social TikTok and Instagram at nerd sessh,
Twitter at nerd Underscore Sessh. You can see all of
the clips from the show, their graphics from the show,

(02:05:51):
and we do a ranking like this. We love getting
a graphic out there and making everybody angry. And you
can also see all of our trivia content, our short
form trivia contents, which we also love. You can also
check out our merch The link to that is at
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at Breakingtea dot com as well, and you can join
our discord if you want to chat with the gang.

(02:06:12):
Always a nice community to be a part of. I
like to think at the very least and just talk
some sports. So with that as always appreciate you guys.
I've been Carson Braber

Speaker 1 (02:06:21):
I have been Logan Camden and this was nerds enough

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Nerd Sesh - Top 10 Greatest Peaks in NBA History

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Nerd Sesh - Top 10 Greatest Peaks in NBA History