Truth is, there are so many variables and metrics to consider where a player ranks all-time, that one can, perhaps reasonably so, label the entire exercise as futile. Rather than accept defeat however, there are comprehensive ways to look at players and their on-court effectiveness.
Whether on cable sports programs, the playground, or barbershops, there has always been and will likely continue to be much discussion regarding the greatest NBA players of all time. And while there tends to be some agreement on who the truly great players, the narrower the list, and the more specific the conversation is around ranking, the more dissent exists.
A large part of disagreement from these conversations obviously stems from bias. Whether generational bias, bias towards specific metrics, or raw simplistic measures such as total championships accrued, there seems to be a natural human tendency to assign our pre-determined favorite as the player and cherry-pick data that supports this conclusion.
Truth is, there are so many variables and metrics to consider where a player ranks all-time, that one can, perhaps reasonably so, label the entire exercise as futile. Rather than accept defeat however, there are comprehensive ways to look at players and their on-court effectiveness.
For the purposes of this piece, traditional “counting stats”, were totally disregarded. Points per game, rebounds per game, assists per game, etc. – while they do serve a purpose and can be informative, require too much context to be truly useful in an all-time ranking of NBA players. As an example, if the average pace in the NBA is much higher in one era versus another era, much of those traditional counting stats will be relatively inflated as a result. This is not to diminish the accomplishments of players in any given era, but rather just speaks to the needed context that would need to be provided when merely ranking the highest scoring players of all time.
No single statistic is all-encompassing, and to be clear, some context is always needed. But to get a clearer picture of the greatest NBA players of all time (this does not include the ABA era), all-time rankings from 15 different advanced statistics were used. These included:
Offensive RatingÂ
Defensive RatingÂ
PERÂ
Win SharesÂ
Win Shares per 48Â
Offensive Win SharesÂ
Defensive Win SharesÂ
Box Plus/MinusÂ
True Shooting percentageÂ
Effective field goal percentageÂ
Total Rebound percentageÂ
Value Over Replacement PlayerÂ
Assist percentageÂ
Steal percentageÂ
Block percentage
To formulate what I will be calling the “GOAT score”, two factors were taken into consideration, how many of the above listed stats were a player ranked in the top 10, and their average rank in those categories. The former was divided by the latter, which generates a player’s GOAT score. For example, if player A ranks 4th all time in Win Shares, 8th all time in True Shooting percentage and 10th all time in Value over replacement player, they have a frequency of 3 in the advanced stats listed, and an average rank of 7.33, they therefore would have a GOAT score of .40.
Player Name | Number of top 10 appearances in pre-selected stats | Average rank in pre-selected advanced stats | GOAT Score |
LeBron James | 6 | 2.33 | 2.58 |
Michael Jordan | 6 | 2.5 | 2.4 |
Chris Paul | 8 | 5.75 | 1.39 |
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar | 4 | 3 | 1.3 |
John Stockton | 6 | 5.16 | 1.16 |
Magic Johnson | 4 | 4 | 1 |
Tim Duncan | 5 | 5.2 | .96 |
Wilt Chamberlain | 4 | 4.25 | .94 |
Karl Malone | 5 | 5.6 | .89 |
Kawhi Leonard | 4 | 5.75 | .69 |
