Top 50 and much more...

Firstly...
The finals are over, my boy Kobe is the man, sitting high with his new status as NBA Champion. Ring no. 4 couldn't have been sweeter, I loved every minute of it. The past seven years have been hard for him but oh how this must feel sweet. What a player, what a season. Congrats Lakers.

Secondly...
Just bought the new Slam Mag, in it they have released their new NBA top 50 of all time, a rankings that I love but loathe to a certain degree. I love them because as a basketball fan part of the fun is comparing players, who's better?, who's MVP? etc...it's great to see what others think and it's great conversation talk. But for some reason I hate these lists, my problem with them is that I have a hard time seeing a Bill Russell of the 60's being a better player than a LeBron or Kobe of today. Am I wrong in thinking this? I mean the game evolves everyday, players get better and better and I feel to some degree that we do a huge diservice to the games current crop of players in ranking their values due to the "we don't want to disrespect the games past greats" pedigree. I mean take tennis for instance, most have no problem saying that Roger Federer is by far the greatest tennis player ever, even though Pete Sampras technically has better numbers than the great Federer. What I mean by this is that most agree that today's players learn from the past and grow to become better, it's just evolution. When you hear talk of Jordan saying that he learnt his game from Elgin and Dr. J we immediately agree that Jordan took parts of their games to make his better, thus making him better. So then why is it so hard to understand that Kobe and LeBron technically should be pretty damn high on our lists of the greatest ever. How is a player like Russell higher than Shaq?, a player we all know would destroy all competition if he had played 30 years ago. Anywho, here's my list.

1. Jordan - He's the best for now, his numbers and titles speak for themselves.
2. Kobe - The games best now and a Jordan clone.
3. Shaq - The most dominant force ever in the NBA. Could've been no.1 if he'd had more desire.
4. Magic - I still think he'd have been just as dominant now as he was 20 years ago
5. Duncan - Pure dominance, pure fundamentals and the greatest defensive big man ever.
6. Bird - Revolutionary shooter and competitor, could do it all
7. Kareem - Mr. Sky Hook and Mr. Longevity could do it all.
8. Russell - He may have won big, but there were only 9 teams in the league at the time, this spot looks appropriate to me.
9. Wilt - The Big Dipper could do it all, his records prove it.
10. West - I'm picking West over Hakeem because Jerry went to way more finals.

My rankings as you can see are dominated by two things. 1. Players who won. 2. Players that led their teams to titles. If you look back at all the major championships/dynasties in league history, this top 10 has a hand in 47 of them. They were the cornerstones to their teams championships. They're remembered for winning and nothing else. The other 40 are irrelevant, this top 10 are the only ones worth writing about.

later.