Well, the heretic who proclaims such is none other than Elliott Kalb. Kalb has been the premier statistician for ABC and ESPN, and has been working the sidelines of NBA television coverages for over two decades. His job has been to prepare statistical data, comparisons, individual highlights and performances, team stats, and other information to some of the world’s most respected sports broadcasters like Bob Costas, Marv Albert, Doug Collins, Bill Walton, and dozens of others. And they all speak of him in glowing terms.
In his new book "Who’s Better, Who’s Best in Basketball?" Kalb essentially went back over the list of the NBA’s 50 greatest players, released in 1996. He dug up statistics from throughout basketball’s history, even before the NBA itself was born. He discovered when and for how long certain statistics have been kept (like steals, blocked shots and dunks), and reviewed the personal individual and career numbers of all the top players. And I do mean all.
What was the basis for Kalb’s conclusions? He starts with the number of Most Valuable Player citations and championships a player has won. He breaks down the number of times the player was in the top 10 in MVP voting, number of inclusions in the All-NBA first and second teams, and Defensive Player citations. Championship also count a lot. But it’s not all numbers. Los Angeles Laker guard Jerry West, for example, ranks very high, even though he’s never won a Most Valuable Player award. Kalb also consulted a panel of over 30 veteran coaches, announcers and former players, many of them inductees into the basketball Hall of Fame.
But he goes deeper. In ranking the players, Kalb also takes note of why their stats are that way. He takes into account a coach’s relationship with his players. In the case of Tracy McGrady (whom Kalb includes in his own list of 50 greatest), he notes how Darrell Walker benched the high schooler when he first came to Toronto. These circumstances are factored into his computations, and he extracts extenuating factors like these pretty much the way an Olympic swimming judge would take out the highest and lowest scores in determining medal standings. McGrady was held down to a little over seven points per game in his rookie season, but suddenly exploded for 26 a game when he moved to Orlando. Kalb even compares T-Mac’s sudden upswing with other players who were the same age. McGrady was tops in his class. A similar scenario prevailed with Wilt Chamberlain. The Big Dipper played under so many coaches, his stats were always different, albeit monstrous.
Another example would still be Chamberlain, whom Kalb ranks ahead of Jordan — an insult to legions of MJ fans. Chamberlain, he noted, won only two NBA championships, but they could have easily been five if his teams had won the three Game 7’s that they had been involved in. In other cases, Kalb even notes how teammates played in crucial contests, so as not to diminish the individual’s greatness.
Although longevity and consistency also play a great part in establishing the ranking, "Mr. Stats" isn’t so easily swayed. Karl Malone, for example, was consistent and stayed around longest. But Kalb calls The Mailman "The Compiler," and notes his poor performances in very important games. This was one criteria that separated Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, and place the great Celtic forward ahead of the popular Laker guard a notch higher in the top 10.
And when stats weren’t available (as in the case with players who saw action in the 1950’s to early ‘70’s), he either extrapolated them conservatively, or found a way to factor them in. Julius Erving, for example (a personal favorite of mine), played his first five years in the American Basketball Association against supposedly inferior competition. So Kalb found a way to compute Erving’s numbers without prejudice to the champion 76er. He also did the same forward, as in the case with Kevin Garnett, who is just scratching the surface of his greatness.
Kalb also notes the eras that the players saw action in. And when statistics weren’t available, he consulted players and coaches who were active in the old days. Nate Archibald, for example, played with both John Havlicek and Larry Bird, so his opinion on the great Boston players of different time periods was invaluable. Kalb incorporates all these insightful thoughts into his dissertations on every player.
As a result, there were some casualties. James Worthy, for example, was in the original 50 greatest, but doesn’t make the grade with Kalb. Kalb reasons that Big Game James did not compare favorably with other forwards included, and was not really the reason why the Lakers won five titles in the 1980’s. Come to think of it, Kalb notes that Magic Johnson, the Finals MVP in his rookie year in 1980, still holds the record for most turnovers in a Finals series, but won the trophy when he started at center for the injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Jabbar, he reveals, averaged 33 points per game in the series, and should have been named MVP instead.
There were also new recruits. Dennis Rodman, snubbed for all his eccentricities, makes the list. Kalb shows us how teams all won championships after The Worm joined them, and he never took shots or rebounds away from his teammates, regardless of where he played. Some experts knocked the inclusion, saying that Rodman only played one end of the floor. Kalb counters that other players became great only playing one end of the court, too: the offensive end.
So, after all his research and interviewing and decades of experience, whom does the premier basketball statistician in the world name the greatest player in the history of the game? Who comes out on top, ahead of even Wilt Chamberlain and Michael Jordan?
Find out on Saturday.