SportingNews Best Player.

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/nba/news/nba-best-player-wemby-age-goat-contender-80-seasons/c5ef3b95023434b9da1623ac

Cool list.

Some notable great players are missing, but that's the way it happens.

Steve Nash, Karl Malone, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Joel Embiid, Charles Barkley, Allen Iverson are missing.

Cool to see Kawhi Leonard make the list.

Cool to see Hakeem Olajuwon still make the list.

Cool to see Bill Walton make the list.

Hmm, no point guards on the list? No Oscar Robertson, John Stockton, Gary Payton?

Ok Magic Johnson and LeBron James are point guards. They are also tall ones. A normal sized PG didn't make the list.

Well Oscar Robertson was 6'5", so even he wouldn't have been normal sized.

It blows me away how much Wilt gets avoided when talking about greatest players of all time. He only gets the best player award once in this list and rarely gets mentioned in the goat conversation despite having stats that blow just about everyone else away

John Stockton and Gary Payton were great but I don't think there was ever a year where either of them could be considered the best in that given year whereas Walton and Hakeem won MVP awards so that basically goes along with best player

Agree, Wilt should have been on there more.

Something just seems wrong when not a single normal sized point guard made the list.

Like their skills are devalued.

Chris Paul, statistically, could have made the case.

Had a PER of 30 in 2008 - 2009.

Broke the record for games with a consecutive steal (Alvin Robertson - 105), and finished with 108.

No other player has averaged 20 points (22.8), 11 assists (11.0), and 2.5 steals (2.8). And Paul actually did it twice.

Also became the first player since Stockton to lead the league in assists and steals in consecutive years.

And he was even better in 2007-2008. Fun player to watch as well. The case could be made for him but I just don't see it for Stockton or Payton. Both guys had their best seasons when Jordan was putting up MVP numbers and winning titles

PER has him higher in 2008 - 2009, 28.3 to 30.0.

He averaged more assists per game in 2007 - 2008, but had a better assist percentage in 2008 - 2009 (52.2 in 2007 - 2008 to 54.5 in 2008 - 2009).

I'll say it's probably easier to beat Kobe Bryant in 2007 - 2008, than LeBron James in 2008 - 2009.

Regardless, when looking at this list, it just seemed that if the best player was never a normal sized PG, then there has to be a way to include one of the five positions on the court.

I wonder if Isiah Thomas and Kevin Johnson were close.

I also don't know Michael Adams, but he was very good in 1990 - 1991.

1990-91 was the year that Paul Westhead, not to be confused with Paul Westphal, coached the Nuggets. He was coming off that amazing 3 year run with LMU where he coached the highest scoring team in the nation. He brought that system over to the NBA so Adams had the greenlight to shoot a ton and probably racked up assists in the open court. I'd hate to see his defensive numbers though

I guess Isaiah was close in 1987-88 but I don't think there was ever a year where you could make a full blown argument for him being the best player in the league

Good info on that Denver team.

Wow that season my Adams looks like an outlier, nothing close to it any other year.

He also shot 39% from the field.

Also appears to be his worst defensive season too. His career average was a 110 DRTG, but that season was 115.

In comparison, if I look at some other PGs mentioned, and their DRTG:

Isiah Thomas (1985): 107

Isiah Thomas (1988): 106

Kevin Johnson (1989 - 1994): 107 - 109

Chris Paul (2007 - 2009): 103

Lower is better.

So yeah, Adams was probably one of the worst defensive players, and his offensive shooting didn't help either. Still credit for doing something that's rarely done, which is 20 points, 10 assists, 2 steals. But it wasn't as good as the kind Isiah Thomas or Chris Paul or Kevin Johnson did.