I watched a video in which the guy who created NBA Jam talked about the challenges in making the original game. He said that he was a Pistons fan, but worked in Chicago and it was during the era of the big rivalry between the two teams. He put code into the game that if the Bulls are playing the Pistons, the Bulls can’t make a buzzer-beater.
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I saw this as well, but I had in my head the Pistons had even more of a baked-in advantage against the Bulls than that.
Curry/Durant/Bron all deserve to be in the top ten with some of those other guys falling back and Harden going in the Malone/Barkley tier.
Centers can’t dominate the top echelon when they’re also the only redundant position.
Top 10 is Jordan, Lebron, Kareem, Shaq, Russell, Duncan, Magic, Bird, Wilt, Hakeem.
Current players with any shot of cracking this are basically KD, Steph, and Giannis.
Damn Curry with the airball. Fuck man I’m sad :(. How do you go from GOAT shooter for what 12 seasons to complete trash. His looks aren’t even bad.
Couldn’t watch until the 4th but this GSW/MEM is obviously great
Memphis arena blasting whoop that trick 🤌
I don’t think Bird is auto and I also have Kareem above him.
So if we sub Kareem for Bird, we’ve got these guys for four spots
Bird, Curry, Duncan, Durant, Hakeem, Malone
I’ve got a really tough time putting Bird over any of those guys. I suppose Bird > Malone (no ring) & Hakeem is tenable.
The argument against Bird is career length, but if you ding Bird for that, you have to ding Magic for the same reason. Arguably, they are so close in value that either both are auto picks or neither is.
You’re missing Shaq who is auto top 10, and I have never seen anyone rate Malone anywhere near the top 10 all time.
The list I posted earlier is pretty much as close to consensus as you get on this.
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I think this is mostly just a RANGZ thing. If Utah had snagged a championship in Jordan’s list years instead of Hakeem then Malone would come up more. I don’t think I’d have him in my top 10, but he deserves consideration.
Only difference I occasionally see is Kobe (usually in place of Hakeem).
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It also has to do that he played in an era where he was rarely if ever considered to be one of the top 5 players in the league, his 2 MVPs are both considered to have been at least slightly fraudulent, and he was a career stats compiler.
You can point to all the times he made all-NBA 1st team but that was a function of the positional requirement, as for most of those years you would have had 2-3 Centers on 1st team instead if they could have.
Malone usually rates in the late teens or early 20s in these conversations. As eyebooger said, Kobe is really the only other name that ever enters the top 10.
I would say the next tier after the top 10 usually consists of Kobe, West, Oscar, Dr J among retired players and KD/Curry among current players.
Then you get into the guys like David Robinson, Malone, Garnett, Dirk, Barkley, maybe Wade, maybe Ewing.
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Another consideration with Malone is that its hard to separate the awesomeness of Malone+Stockton vs Malone vs Stockton. There will always be the uncertainty about how well either of them hypothetically does without the other. I think there’s no such doubt about Hakeem, who was a beast no matter who he played with.
Anyway Bill Laimbeer was better than all of them.
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Another plus for Olajuwon is that he’s in the conversation for greatest defensive player of all-time.
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Hot take: I can make a pretty strong argument for already putting Giannis ahead of Malone in terms of all-time greatness.
Luka have a chance? He’s still only 22.
I’d say too early to say he has a chance, but wouldn’t rule him completely out either. So I guess
all time lists are stupid and every list ever made is bad.
controversialyetsobrave.jpeg
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Lets do pound for pound like boxing/mma
Curry #1 pound for pound by miles! Everyone else on that list is 6’5’’+
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