How this ranking works

LeBron James has made making the NBA Finals an annual event. He's at eight years and counting. That means, as sure as the sun will set in the west, that countless hours every spring are spent on Facebook and Twitter on the GOAT (Greatest of All-Time Argument).

I've never been big on arguing opinions. Jordan's prime was my prime, and I see the unconscious bias in favor of how I looked not only at Jordan but Patrick Ewing, Reggie Miller and Charles Barkley as well.

My first favorite player was Julius Erving then Moses Malone. I couldn't understand how anyone could consider Kareem Abdul-Jabbar better than Malone. When I started watching basketball, Moses dominated Kareem. It wasn't until years later that I realized that by the time I'd started watching, Kareem was past his prime.

When I go through the Facebook GOAT arguments, I usually see the LeBron vs. Jordan dynamic and sometimes someone tosses in Kobe Bryant. Very rarely does anyone mention Jabbar or Wilt Chamberlain. And that's because most people doing the arguing never saw them play - at least in their prime. It's become an age group argument. People in their 40s and 50s backing Jordan because that was their time versus younger guys backing LeBron.

Using Advanced Analytics

No. I'd rather argue statistics and not the usual ones such as points, rebounds, assists, championships, etc. Modern analytics are changing sports in general. Analytics are why you see eight players positioned on the right side of second base against certain hitters in baseball and why the Houston Rockets would rather shoot 20 three-pointers versus one free-throw line jumper. And modern analytics do a much better job of measuring the greatness of players. The four rankings that I like are:

• Player Efficiency Rating (PER): The PER adds a player's positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player's performance.
• Win/Shares (WS): WS attempts to divvy up credit for team success to the individuals on the team. It is calculated using player, team and league-wide statistics and the sum of player win shares on a given team will be roughly equal to that team's win total for the season.
• Box Plus/Minus (BPM): This relies on a player's box score information and the team's overall performance to estimate a player's performance relative to league average and is calculated on a per-100-possession basis, meaning playing time is not factored in. 
• Value Over Replacement Player (VORP): This metric converts the BPM rate into an estimate of each player's overall contribution to the team versus what a theoretical "replacement player" would provide. The replacement player is defined as one on a minimum salary or not a normal member of the team's rotation.

These statistics take rate of play into account and helps you make accurate comparisons when looking at Chamberlain, who averaged 50 points a game one season, versus Shaquille O'Neal, who played in the slug-it-out times where teams struggled to score 100, and Anthony Davis in the 3-point-happy game of today.

Coaches today are much more in tune with player efficiency. They run offenses and defenses based on what data tells them is most effective. Players earn minutes based on how their teams perform on the floor and not so much based on counting stats. It means, over time, things such as PER have trended upward. I don't compare PER and WS and the other stats across years. I calculate dominance in the player's own time by calculating these stats versus the top five in the category in that season.

Calculating Seasons

Here's an example from 1979-1980. Larry Bird's rookie season.

Bird averaged 21.3 points on 47 percent field goal shooting with 10.4 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 1.7 steals, 0.6 blocks and he averaged 3.2 turnovers per game. That won him Rookie of the Year over Magic Johnson.

His key advanced stats for the year were:

PER - 20.5
WS - 11.2
BPM - 5.3
VORP - 5.4

In 1978-1979, Kareem led the league in PER with 25.47, Win Shares at 14.84, BPM at 7.75 and VORP with 7.78. For my purposes, the average of the top five in each category was:

PER - 24.62
WS - 12.61
BPM - 6.02
VORP - 5.82

Bird's total advanced score for 1979-1980 (PER + WS + BPM + VORP) was 42.4. The total for the top five in each category was 49.07. Bird's score for the regular season on my scale was 86.41 (42.4/49.07).

Calculating a player's advanced stats versus the average of the top five shows how dominant a player was in that season by allowing players to score above 100. While Bird's regular season checked in at 86.41, Abdul-Jabbar's score was 109.23. That's because Kareem's advanced stats added up to 53.6 versus the top five averages of 49.07. If a player is "off the charts" versus his competition, he earns a higher score.

The Playoffs

Of course, that just covers the regular season and a player's true reputation is earned in the playoffs. I use the same system for the playoffs and that tilts these rankings towards winners. Simply put, if you don't make the playoffs, you are shut out of half of the available points. That means so far in their careers, Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins are not making much of a dent because of their infrequent trips to the playoffs.

Let's look again at Bird's and Abdul-Jabbar's 1978-1979 season.

That year, Bird and the Celtics played nine playoff games before being ousted by Dr. J and the 76ers. His advanced stats were:

PER - 18.3
WS - 1.1
BPM - 5.0
VORP - 0.7

Bird's WS and VORP totals were hurt because the Celtics didn't make a run to the NBA Finals.

The averages of the top five in each category were:

PER - 23.87
WS - 2.50
BMP - 7.10
VORP - 1.32

Bird's playoff overall score (PER + WS + BPM + VORP) was 25.1 versus the league top five averages of 35.8. So Bird's playoff score was 72.13.

Abdul-Jabbar's Lakers won the NBA title. His playoff advanced stats were:

PER - 27.9
WS - 3.3
BPM - 7.7
VORP - 1.5

Adding those up, you get 40.4 versus the league top five average of 35.8 for a score of 116.11. Kareem dominated basketball in 1979-1980. The scores so far for Larry Bird and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1979-1980.

Larry Bird
Regular Season: 86.41
Playoffs: 72.13
Total: 158.54

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Regular Season: 109.23
Playoffs: 116.11
Total: 225.34

Adding In Winning

The ultimate goal in basketball - and in all sports - is to just win the game. Years ago, I played Sunday pickup basketball with a varying group of players. One year, a player about a dozen years younger than me started playing with our group. In high school, he was a big-time scorer, one of the top five in the largest conference in our area.

I was on his team one week and we lost every game. After one of them, he loudly chewed the rest of us out for not getting the ball "to the best player in the gym."

The next week, I was on the team opposite of the best player in the gym and my team didn't lose a game. I watched every week and kept track of about how his team was doing. I calculated that his teams won about 33 percent of the time (1 in 3). Maybe he cared more when there were actual refs, but the pickup version of this star player rarely drove the ball, didn't extend out on shooters, never set screens or went to the defensive glass. No, he mostly just stayed outside launching 25-foot three-pointers and running his mouth.

He wasn't a winning basketball player.

For my calculations, I give players credit simply whether or not their teams were winning teams by taking the winning percentage of the teams they played on and multiplying it by 100.

In 1979-1980, Bird played in all 82 games for Boston and the Celtics went 61-21, earning Bird 74.39 points ((61/82)*100). In the playoffs, Bird's Celtics went 5-4, earning him 55.56 points ((5/9)*100).

In 1979-1980, Abdul-Jabbar's Lakers went 60-22 and Kareem played in all of the games, earning him 73.17 points. In the playoffs, the Lakers went 11-4, earning Kareem 73.33 points.

Here are the updated Bird/Abdul-Jabbar totals.

Larry Bird
Regular Season: 86.41
Winning bonus: 74.39
Playoffs: 72.13
Winning bonus: 55.56
Total: 288.49

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Regular Season: 109.23
Winning bonus: 73.17
Playoffs: 116.11
Winning bonus: 73.33
Total: 371.84

Now you can see where players on winning teams begin to pull away in my rankings. In 2016-2017, Anthony Davis had another of his outstanding seasons for the New Orleans Pelicans. But Davis missed the playoffs, missing out on playoffs points and receiving no bonus points for playoff winning percentage. Draymond Green, the No. 4 option of the Golden State Warriors, received 94.11 bonus points because his Warriors went 16-1 in last year's playoffs. Green ranked higher in my system than Davis.

Is that fair? Perhaps not entirely. Eventually, Davis will be surrounded by better players and begin to make deep playoff runs. Despite the Warriors winning another title this year, Davis easily outscored Green in 2017-2018 because his Pelicans made the playoffs and went 5-4. But I also look at players such as Kevin Love and Chris Bosh. Both Love and Bosh were all-stars who finished near the top of the NBA in several stats while they were on bad or mediocre teams. When Love and Bosh were added to NBA title contenders, they settled into roles of No. 2 or No. 3 options. Their stats declined, but they were on winning teams. They weren't true No. 1's on NBA title teams.

MVP Bonus

Although I believe looking at the hard stats is more accurate than opinions, I don't want to entirely discount the view of the people who actually watched the players play. The best way to do that is to factor in MVP voting. Players could earn up to 75 bonus points in the regular season for receiving MVP votes and 25 points in the playoffs if they were named NBA Finals MVP (or ABA Playoff MVP). For the years that there was no Playoffs MVP named, I give the bonus points to the player on the winning team with the highest PER - which historically is how it has played out.

In 1979-1980, Bird received 15 points out of 221 total in the MVP voting, earning him 5.09 points ((15/221)*75). Kareem was named league MVP, but it wasn't unanimous. He received 147 out of 221 points, earning him an MVP bonus of 49.89 points ((147/221)*75).

Magic Johnson though was named NBA Finals MVP so neither Kareem nor Bird received the 25 points.

So the final 1979-1980 scores for Larry Bird and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar played out this way:

Larry Bird

Regular Season: 86.41
Winning bonus: 74.39
MVP bonus: 5.09
Playoffs: 72.13
Winning bonus: 55.56
Finals MVP: 0.00
Total: 293.58

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Regular Season: 109.23
Winning bonus: 73.17
MVP bonus: 49.89
Playoffs: 116.11
Winning bonus: 73.33
Finals MVP: 0.00
Total: 421.73

How good was Kareem in 1979-1980? In my system, a 400 score for a season has been reached only 39 times by 16 players. Bird's score of 293.58 is just below what turns out to be a "great" NBA season. That level is 300. There are scores of NBA All-Stars, even a few Hall of Fame players, as you'll see as the rankings are released, who never scored 300 points in my system in a single season.

Mays vs. Mantle

I've always been a stat nut and growing up in the 1970s, I was fascinated by the careers of Hank Aaron and Willie Mays versus Babe Ruth. I've eventually come to the belief that you can't compare Ruth with Aaron and Mays because blacks and darker-skinned Hispanics couldn't play in the Major Leagues until Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier.

Ruth never batted against Satchel Paige in a Major League Game or had potential doubles chased down in the gap by Oscar Charleston.

Instead, I looked at Aaron and Mays and how they compare with today's stars. But a few years ago, I read a good piece by Bill James about Mays versus Mickey Mantle. Mays ended up with 660 home runs and 1,903 RBI along with 338 stolen bases. Looking at his career stats, Mays easily is one of the five greatest players of all time.

Mickey Mantle also is one of baseball's greatest players. He hit 536 home runs, drove in 1,509 and stole 153 bases. He's an all-time great but not at Mays' level.

But Mickey Mantle hurt his knee early in his career and was an alcoholic. He was essentially done as an all-star player by the time he was 32.

At his peak, you can make the argument the Mantle was better than Mays. Mantle won baseball's triple crown in 1956. He hit more than 50 home runs in 1956 and 1961. His OPS (On-base + slugging) was above 1.000 eight times, including a high of 1.177 in 1957. Mays topped 1.000 in OPS only five times and never topped 1.100.

In basketball, you have several players who had great seasons only to suffer injuries that shortened their careers or took away their greatest gifts. How do you rank them? I've decided to rank them four times - and to treat each of them equally.

I created a 1-to-100 ranking for players based on:

• Their single best seasons - the absolute peak.
• Their five best seasons - short-term dominance.
• Their 10 best seasons - a decade of dominance.
• Their career - adding points up over the entire career.

Then I just add the points over the four rankings. The ultimate score would be four. If a player ranked No. 1 in all four rankings, he would have a total score of four. That didn't happen as you'll see.

It does allow for one-year wonders to crack the all-time 100. It also allows for outstanding players who may have never dominated a single year but who put in 20 years of solid winning ball to crack the top 100.

And you'll see role players who were solid contributors for multiple title contenders on this list instead of All-Stars who put up empty numbers on losing teams.

That's my system. Beginning June 26, after the NBA MVP voting is released, I'll release one or two players per day - depending on work schedules and other demands - over the next three months until we get to my GOAT.