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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
I don't agree, but he makes good arguments, October 20, 2006
Too many reviews here are low because they hate Shaq or are mad that Jordan is #3.
I didn't have high expectations for this book. Mark Twain said there are 3 types of lies: lies, d@mn lies, and statistics, so calling himself "Mr. Stats" was not a selling point. However, I was pleasantly surprised. I decided I wouldn't rate the book based on how the list agrees with mine. If I was that much of an egomaniac, I would write my own book and give it more than the maximum rating. What I wanted was a well-thought out list with convincing arguments for each man's place. Even if I didn't buy the argument, because I have a different method of rating the players, I wanted to see someone who could hold up his criteria with consistency and passion. He does so. To prove that I don't like the book because he confirms everything I believe, here is how far apart we are on ranking the top 8 players:
Elliott Kalb's rankings: My rankings:
Shaquille O'Neal Wilt Chamberlain
Wilt Chamberlain Oscar Robertson
Michael Jordan Larry Bird
Bill Russell Magic Johnson
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Michael Jordan
Larry Bird Bill Russell
Magic Johnson Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Oscar Robertson Shaquille O'Neal
He lists his methods for ranking players in the introduction, using measuring sticks such as MVPs, Championships, All-Star appearances, first and second-team All-NBA honors, outside opinions, and to break ties, he takes big over small, new over old, and winners over losers. He also places heavy value on how well a player peaked versus how he played over the long run (which gives the nod to a guy like Bill Walton over Robert Parish).
A few of the impressive qualities of the book is that he gives older players their due, such as Bob Pettit, Dolph Schayes, Bob Cousy, Sam Jones, George Mikan. He doesn't overlook their accomplishments and their contributions, going so far as to rate Pettit over every forward except Bird and Tim Duncan. In addition, while respect is given to the pioneers, youth is served, as players such as Kobe Bryant, Allen Iverson, Tracy McGrady, Tim Duncan, and Kevin Garnett are also featured.
The ultimate tribute to this book is that the Kalb convinced me to re-think a few of my own rankings. I still stick to my guns on Oscar Robertson being the greatest guard of all-time, but thanks to Kalb, I moved Bob Cousy ahead of Isiah Thomas and John Stockton among point guards, because he did dominate his era far more than the latter did in theirs. I have also reconsidered how I rate Rick Barry, Bill Walton, and a few other players.
As a breath of fresh air from most books and articles, he mentions things the mass media intentionally overlook: such as Karl Malone's big game chokes (he cites them one by one), Dennis Rodman's contribution to the 1996-98 Chicago Bulls; Michael Jordan's 3 consecutive losing seasons and his 1-9 playoff record before Scottie Pippen, and how Scottie Pippen put up his finest seasons in Jordan's absence. His statistical research is immense and impressive, listing such obscure stats as the oldest players to average 30 ppg, as well as the youngest.
Along with covering detailed statistical parts of their games, he will compare a given player to some contemporaries, asking people from a panel, so that you can get outside opinions. He also compares players to non-NBA contemporaries. Sometimes this works - Bill Russell and Joe DiMaggio was insightful - and sometimes it does not - Charles Barkley and Elvis was a bit cornball.
He also remembers things like Allen Iverson's incredible run in 2001 (whereas most writers forget the guy who finishes #2), and he takes into consideration how players didn't vote for Rick Barry due to personal dislikes, rather than on-court talent.
The only letdown comes with statistics. It's like jump shooting: you live by it and you die by it. They never tell the entire story. For instance, it is hard to gauge defense, before 1974, when blocks and steals were not recorded, and even when they were recorded, they never tell the entire story (Joe Dumars and Dennis Rodman didn't amass great totals in either category). With that in mind, it seems like when in doubt, offensive players were given more honor than defensive players, placing some questionable offensive-minded players to fill out the list, when the argument supporting them appears to fly in the face of his standards for comparing players. Let me expound.
While some defensive players got their due (Bill Russell #3, Dennis Rodman #30), there were some questionable people who got on the list who were lousy defensive players, or fair, at best, such as Pete Maravich (#47), Dominique Wilkins (#49), and Bob McAdoo (#44) while guys like Dave Debusschere and Nate Thurmond were left off. There is a chapter in the back explaining while some players were left off, but I thought the explanations were lacking. In all fairness, though, if every argument - pro and con - were carried out to the fullest detail, this would be an encyclopedia, instead of a book, and who is going to pay for a 50-volume set of books? But I will cite what I thought were a few inconsistencies:
Kalb argues that Nate Thurmond never won a title and never made first or second team All-NBA, which is true. However, Reggie Miller never did, either, and the All-NBA team only selects one center, but two guards. Both players played in the finals, but didn't win. These similarities should have disqualified Miller, but Miller's playoff heroics let us know that these standards are not the end-all/ be all. Therefore, consider that Thurmond made first team all-defense twice, which Miller never came close to achieving. Furthermore, if the award would have been given back then, he probably would have won defensive player of the year in 1971 (Kalb does offer "what if arguments, such as 'What if the three-point shot had existed when Maravich and Schayes played?') The two greatest offensive centers in history, Chamberlain and Jabbar, both have said that Thurmond was the toughest defensive center they played against. This gives him a credible argument for being the greatest defensive center in history or at least #2 (behind Bill Russell), and when you combine that with the 20.5 ppg, 22.0 rpg, and 4.2 apg he posted in 1968 (remember, Kalb prefers looking at a player at his peak rather than his longevity), I think he should be an obvious choice over guys who didn't play much defense and shot a lot. To me, putting guys like Maravich, Miller, McAdoo, and Wilkins, who only played on one end of the court, makes as much sense as putting Mark Eaton on the list. Maravich couldn't defend and never played for a competitor, and McAdoo nearly destroyed the Boston Celtics, before he did destroy the Detroit Pistons and was responsible for giving the Celtics the greatest frontcourt in history and forcing Dick Vitale from the NBA into his job as the most annoying man in the world. The only time he won a title was when he became a poor man's James Edwards- type of role player who scored about 10 ppg.
Another inconsistency is that only one MVP is not in the top 50: Wes Unseld. He is listed as the guy who just missed the list. However, all of the arguments that kept Thurmond off the list should have put Unseld on the list. He was MVP. He played in 3 finals, made All-NBA, and won a championship, which gave him more credentials than Wilkins and Miller.
The only area for some improvement involved a small handful of outside opinions/analysis. For instance, asking Stephen A. Smith (who I hold in low regard) who is better between Oscar and Magic, he says Magic and adds "I'm only 35 years old, and I only remember seeing Magic". You can tell that he knows next to nothing about the Big O and that pretty much disqualifies him as a knowledgeable opinion. I'm slightly younger than he, but I've made it a point to research Robertson in order to make an informed opinion, as has Kalb. I think someone like Matt Guokas or Tommy Heinsoln would have better complimented the other two opinions listed in that comparison (Leonard Koppett and Nate Archibald). While I am not a Smith fan, he would be better suited to discuss Iverson versus Gary Payton. And while Boston Globe writer Bob Ryan makes many good points in the book, asking him to compare a Boston Celtic to any player is about as unbiased as asking the guys from Saturday Night Live to compare somebody to Mike Ditka ("Ditka versus Tiger Woods in a game of golf: Ditka!"). This is again nitpicking, as these instances were few and far between. I guess the book was so wonderful, that I wanted even more. I would have loved to see what everyone on the panel thought about each match-up, but again, that makes for a 50-volume set of books.
There is a small section in the back talking about some of the great teams: the best Russell team, the best Jordan team, as well as the best individual season. It wets the appetite to think about Kalb listing the greatest teams ever (how does the '67 Sixers stack up against the '73 Lakers, the '86 Celtics vs. the '87 Lakers, etc), or who the greatest defensive players are by position, who the greatest sixth men were, the greatest coaches, rookie seasons, etc. He's knowledgeable and interesting enough that you care what he thinks, even if you don't agree, which is a high compliment.
Overall, this book is an excellent read. If you don't know your basketball history, this is an excellent way to hop on board and learn about it. If you do know your basketball history, this is your way to compare your opinions to another educated historian and learn a few things. The book is an incredibly fast read, with each player having about 6 pages devoted to him. You get a big of career biography, some statistical analysis (but not too much, which becomes as dull as some baseball books), comparisons to other players, and commentary. It is also a unique book. I have an entire library, but none of them have the audacity to devote the entire topic to comparing and listing the players of history. The book is extremely well written and the research behind it is some of the most thorough research ever put into a basketball book.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Poor or nonexistent methodology, July 28, 2005
After finally getting a copy of and reading this book through for myself I want to join in the review discussion and declare that this book is totally weak in its analysis. The writer ranks the best players of all-time but does not identify the criteria which he uses to arrive at his conclusion. All he seems to do is interview past players and present some selected (biases) statistics to support his claims.
Look, anyone can present their opinion as to who they believe is the best player ever (even former players), but what we need is a methodology which objectively determines the top players, and this book does not do that. As such I am extremely disappointed in it. Even former players can be biased in favor of their former teammates, or players of their era (that they played with), or just based on those they actually saw. Because many people did not see George Mikan play for eg. does not make him an inferior player, or justify a lower ranking. He could very well be a man ahead of his time.
Adding to that the author has some very questionable rankings which he probably made to stir up some controversy like ranking Shaq ahead of Wilt Chamberlain. Consider this, Wilt Chamberlain has a higher scoring average than Shaq (30.1 vs 26.7), a higher rebounding average (22.9 vs 12.0) and he played his entire career book-ended between two of the greatest centers to ever play the game Bill Russell and Kareem while putting up those Herculean numbers. Where is Shaq's biggest challenges coming from these days. Since Hakeem retired there's no other center even close to challenging his dominance in the paint and still his career averages are going down. What's up with that?
And consider this other anomaly. Tim Duncan is ranked much, much higher than David Robinson despite the fact that Timmy does not compare with the Admiral's stats at the same juncture of their careers. Timmy has now played eight seasons in the NBA and his career averages are 22.5 points per game, and 12.2 rebounds per game. During the Admiral's first eight years his career numbers were 25.5 points per game and 11.8 rebounds per game. Very comparable, if not slightly better than Duncan's. And consider this additional fact, the Admiral played his entire career surrounded by the two of the top centers in history, Hakeem and Shaq. Tim Duncan, who's natural position is a center, is raking up all his career numbers at power forward where there are fewer dominant players to defend him. Had he played his career at center, and matched up more against the likes of Shaq, et al then it is more than likely that his career numbers (especially scoring numbers) would be lower. I am not saying here that the Admiral is necessarily better than Timmy D. Frankly San Antonio did not win their first title until Tim Duncan came along the scene, and he proved in 2005 that he could win the big one without the Admiral. So it is possible that he is better than David Robinson, but probably not by eleven spots (#9 vs #20) in this books rankings.
All in all, this book needs to better develop its methodology if it wants to have any credibility as a truly great sports book. In the end, pay more attention to the statistics, don't just speak to the former players of the game. Their opinions are important, but they should not be the only thing to go on.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Give Me A Break!, March 3, 2009
Shaquille O'Neal ahead of Wilt Chamberlain? Give Me A Break! Most Points in a game: Chamberlain, 100. Most Rebounds in a game: Chamberlain, 55 (against Russell). Chamberlain even led the league in assists one year just to prove he could! So much more skilled in so many more areas, so much more gifted, and yet Kalb defends his claim for Shaq as number one with a stat for most dunks (but doesn't have stats on Wilt's dunks which probably doubled O'Neal's). It's a joke. You could hack a shaq and at the end of the game, Fisher, Kobe, Horry and D Wade always had to come up big because he was useless. Wilt couldn't shoot free throws either, but he could rebound, block, steal, pass, defend, just totally dominate even against Russell and Jabbar. Shaq had no competition and still barely won several of his championships on a choke by Portland and last second heroics by Horry and Fisher. Give Wilt Kobe or D Wade and he would have had 5 or 6 rings to go with his prolific stats. Wilt was the greatest center ever, if you actually look at statistics which this statistician totally ignored. Shaq isn't dominating against even a young Andrew Bynum. If Moses Malone, Hakeem Olajuwon, Bill Walton, or Kareem played Shaq in their primes, they would have played just as well inside but MADE free throws on top of that. Placing Magic Johnson, the best point guard ever by a long shot, below a lot of other players just because Jordan was a better "guard" doesn't account for the fact that Jordan was a 2 guard. As the best point man ever, he deserves a slot in the top 5. And to put Bird, who had a great run of about 4 seasons before his back gave out and who really couldn't defend or run in the open lane for all around play, ahead of Julius Dr. J Erving who dominated the ABA and won championships in two leagues 10 years apart, who played an all around game with defense, steals, scoring, rebounding, blocks, and so athletically helpful to his team for so many years, give me a break. Bird was the second best forward ever, behind Dr. J. Dr. J IN HIS PRIME in 1976 would have annihilated Bird. The top 5 of all time are: Wilt Chamberlain (1), Michael Jordan (2), Magic Johnson (3), Julius Erving (4) and Larry Bird (5). That's a complete basketball team with the top players at each position, which if they played together in their respective primes would have destroyed anyone. Shaq is probably in the top 10 but behind Kareem who had more championships by far, had better shooting, inside and outside, better all around play, smarter player, better team attitude, and won early in his career as well as late. And Kobe when it's all said and done will go down as the second best two guard ever behind Jordan and is already a better player than O'Neal ever was. So put Kareem at 6, Kobe at 7, Bill Russell at 8, Shaquille O'Neal at 9 and Hakeem Olajuwon at 10, because let's face it, Hakeem had more all around game, blocks, scoring ability, dominance, he could dunk and hit threes and pass and steal and dribble, he had more total game than any other big man, so put him at 10.
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