GOAT Herding

With nothing but old playoff games and "The Last Dance" as the only hoops on TV, conversations about the GOAT are bound to pop up to fill the void. But rather than talk about who takes the top spot, I wanted to consider some of the other players that make the up the rest of the list, up to the top 25 or so.

Of course it's impossible to compare players across eras, and the farther you go down the list the harder it is to find some separation in their career accomplishments. In order to wrap my head around a longer list, I've arranged my choices in groups of 5.

The Top 5

To help skip past the debates about the top couple of spots, I'm going to list most of these groups in alphabetical order (by last name):

• Kareem
• Wilt
• Lebron
• Jordan
• Bill Russell

As much as it pains me to include a Celtic in this group, the specific set of accomplishments of these 5 guys is on a tier above the rest. They all have at least the following:

- 4 regular season MVP awards (the only 5 players who have this)

- their name on at least one Finals MVP trophy

- 12 All-Star games

- 10 All NBA appearances, with at least 3 first team

- 1 All NBA Defensive first team

- #1 all time in at least one notable stat (points, rebounds, playoff points, PPG, championships)

6 through 10

This is the one group I'm going to list in order of my personal preference, since I see a clear hierarchy here:

• Magic
• Kobe
• Shaq
• Bird
• Duncan