Kidd is a first ballot Hall of Famer without question and Nowitzki is as well. Saying Garnett has been the best player in the league since Pippen retired is a completely absurd and ludicrous statement. He's never even been close to the best player at his position.
KG has easily been one of the top 2 PFs in the NBA for the last decade. The only player that I'd take over him at his position is Duncan, and even then, it's almost a coin flip. Almost. However, there's this guy out in LA named Kobe Bryant. I would venture to say that he's been the best player in the NBA for the last 4 or 5 years. He single-handedly took two poor Laker teams to the playoffs and almost pulled off an upset of the Suns in one of those years.
Shaq, Duncan, Kobe, Garnett, Kidd, Nash, Iverson are in and the only thing stopping LeBron would be an injury that causes him to lose the use of his legs. If the Celtics repeat, Pearce has a shot. That's about it.
I won't list the same guys you all did again because most of them are obvious. Here are two names that haven't been thrown around yet: Robert Horry (I know, he retired a short while ago but he still counts) Manu Ginobili (international+titles+clutch play...long shot, though)
It's no where close to a coin flip. Duncan has always been heads and shoulders better than Garnett. At no point in Kevin Garnett's career has he ever been the best player at his position, let alone the best player in the NBA, which is why Denny's statement is one of the most ludicrous things ever posted.
Garnett could do all the things that Duncan could do, played better defense, had an outside shot, was able to guard SGs, and is a better passer. Garnett led the league in rebounding four straight seasons, and two of those averaged over 5 APG. He averaged 5+ APG six straight seasons, which is phenomenal for a ~7'er. 7 time all defensive first team, while playing 4 positions. Duncan never led the league in rebounding, nor did he average 4+ APG in a single season. 9 time all defensive first team while playing PF and a little C.
4 for Duncan, 1 for Garnett. It sucked for Garnett to have played for a lousy franchise for most of his career; he's got a better shot than Duncan, IMO, to get at least one more ring.
So was Pippen. This illustrates he was more versatile. Don't get me wrong, I think extremely highly of Duncan.
I've read an article before and says that Dominque Wilkins and Vince Carter are basically the same player, and Nique got into the hall of fame and VC should as hell. I kind of agree, I mean, Vince is the greatest dunker of all time and a consistent 20 point scorer every season. He was one of the most electrifying players to ever play the game.
Wilkins was a better player and his injuries didn't kill his athleticism. He also dominated in Europe with Panathinaikos (won the Euroleague, Greek Cup, and the A1 Ethniki championship and was MVP of the Final Four).
Vince Carter http://www.basketballreference.com/players/playerpage.htm?ilkid=CarteVi01 HOF Monitor: 117 (Likely HOFer > 135) [SIZE=-1]About HOF Monitor scores http://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/hof_prob_active.html [/SIZE]<table class="leaders_table"><tbody><tr><th align="right">Rank</th><th align="left">Player</th><th align="right">HoF Prob</th></tr> <tr style="" onmouseover="hl(this);" onmouseout="uhl(this);"><td align="right">1.</td><td class="bold_text">Shaquille O'Neal</td><td align="right">1.0000</td></tr> <tr style="" onmouseover="hl(this);" onmouseout="uhl(this);"><td align="right">2.</td><td class="bold_text">Tim Duncan</td><td align="right">1.0000</td></tr> <tr style="" onmouseover="hl(this);" onmouseout="uhl(this);"><td align="right">3.</td><td class="bold_text">Kobe Bryant</td><td align="right">1.0000</td></tr> <tr style="" onmouseover="hl(this);" onmouseout="uhl(this);"><td align="right">4.</td><td class="bold_text">Allen Iverson</td><td align="right">1.0000</td></tr> <tr style="" onmouseover="hl(this);" onmouseout="uhl(this);"><td align="right">5.</td><td class="bold_text">Kevin Garnett</td><td align="right">1.0000</td></tr> <tr style="" onmouseover="hl(this);" onmouseout="uhl(this);"><td align="right">6.</td><td class="bold_text">Dirk Nowitzki</td><td align="right">0.9993</td></tr> <tr style="" onmouseover="hl(this);" onmouseout="uhl(this);"><td align="right">7.</td><td class="bold_text">Steve Nash</td><td align="right">0.9991</td></tr> <tr style="" onmouseover="hl(this);" onmouseout="uhl(this);"><td align="right">8.</td><td class="bold_text">Vince Carter</td><td align="right">0.9528</td></tr></tbody></table>
<table class="leaders_table"><tbody><tr style="" onmouseover="hl(this);" onmouseout="uhl(this);"><td align="right">12.</td><td class="bold_text">Jason Kidd</td><td align="right">0.8702</td></tr></tbody></table>
Just another example of why knowing the game of basketball will always trump looking at numbers online, Denny.
The numbers eliminate the homerism element. Of the 78 players in the Hall of Fame, 61 were correctly classified (78.2%) and 17 were not (21.8%). Of the 590 players not in the Hall of Fame, 579 were correctly classified (98.1%) and 11 were not (1.9%). Overall, 640 of the 668 players (95.8%) were correctly classified by the model using the jackknife method.
