Tuesday, December 01, 2015

All time basketball team

On drive-time sports talk radio today, they were debating whether Kobe is one of the top 10 players of all time.  I'd say yes, probably -- this is my list of the top 12.

hakeem olajuwon
kareem abdul-jabbar
bill russell
wilt chamberlain
shaquille o'neal
michael jordan
kobe bryant
larry bird
magic johnson
lebron james
dwyane wade
tim duncan

Criteria: (1) Huge alll-time numbers, (2) starred on more than one NBA title team, (3) score high on the advanced stats at basketball-reference.com -- Player Efficiency Rating and Win Shares -- even though I don't completely understand those. 

Bill Russell, I take on faith a little bit.  His offensive stats are not that great, of course, but he has the highest career Defensive Win Shares total, plus all those rings.