Z's Top 100 NBA Players of All Time

[zjcvols]

Why doing these types of lists is really hard.

I barely had heard of Chet Walker, look up his resume after I saw his passing and thought “Damn that was a hell of a career!”

 

[zjcvols]

In the 62’ Finals, 2-2 going into Game 5 Elgin Baylor puts up 61/22.

Here’s a quote from Bob Cousy about that game: “When we held Elgin to 61, I remember going up to Satch Sanders and telling him sincerely that he’d done a helluva job defensively. And he had. He made Elgin work for every basket. But that’s how good Elgin was.”

 

[zjcvols]

Will update in a couple days but not a lot of movement this year

 

[zjcvols]

Updated list

My Top 100 NBA Players

Z’s Top 100 NBA Players Since 1956 1 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 2 Michael Jordan 3 LeBron James 4 Bill Russell 5 Tim Ducan 6 Wilt Chamberlain 7 Magic Johnson 8 Larry Bird 9 Hakeem Olajuwon 10 Shaquille O"Neal 11 Jerry West 12 Oscar Robertson 13 Moses Malone 14 ...

docs.google.com

 

[zjcvols]

Jokic entered #25

Luka vaulted to #45 and I'll be shocked if he's not top 20 at the end of it all

Tatum went up to #65

I dropped Billy Cunningham down a little bit but still in the top 60. His NBA career was too short to be top 50.

I bumped up Julius Erving to #16 ahead of Baylor, Dirk, KG, Isiah and Malone. I underrated Julius because his prime was ABA and forgot how incredibly good he was pre-Moses. After doing some digging I am correcting that.

Because Bill Simmons' "The Book of Basketball" has such a heavy influence on this list, there were some Celtics that I had put on the list higher than they should be due to Bill's homerism. So I dropped Cowens, Parish and Bailey Howell somewhere around 7 spots each. All in the top 100, but there was some slight adjustments after I did some more digging into their careers.

 

[n_huffhines]

I might be out of my mind, but I feel worse about Tatum after this playoff. He did better as a playmaker, but the scoring was his worst since 2019 and the competition was weak. He's a fkn awful scorer/shooter.

 

[zjcvols]

I might be out of my mind, but I feel worse about Tatum after this playoff. He did better as a playmaker, but the scoring was his worst since 2019 and the competition was weak. He's a fkn awful scorer/shooter.

Three straight 1st team all NBA, two finalists, another game 7 conference Final.

It’s why I kept him out top 60. I could be wrong but I think he’s the lowest “best player on a Champ” except for the 1977 Blazers, 1979 Sonics, and 2004 Pistons on my list

 

[zjcvols]

Russell
Pettit
Wilt
Reed
Kareem
Frazier
Havlicek
Barry
Cowens
*Walton
Hayes
*Gus Williams or Dennis Johnson
Bird
Moses
Magic
Isiah
Jordan
Hakeem
Duncan
Shaq
*Billups or Ben
Wade
KG
Kobe
Nowitzki
LeBron
Curry
Durant
Kawhi
Giannis
Jokic
Tatum

No 2004 Pistons made my list. I had Bill Walton #100, Dennis Johnson ranks #80. So Tatum is the lowest after those two guys

Edit: Shout out to George Milan (1950, 1952, 1953, 1954 Minneapolis Lakers) Arnie Risen (1951 Rochester Royals), Dolph Schayes (1955 Syracuse Nationals) and Paul Arizin (1956 Philadelphia Warriors) for the pre-Russell era