Cohen: Comparing the Best
Related Images
By Josh Cohen
December 1, 2011
ORLANDO -- Aside from our obsession of sports franchise architecture – which suggests our unbounded imagination to visualize trades and/or free agent signings that significantly impact the landscape of a professional sport – we also adore arguments related to comparing the best of all-time.
While at a bus stop, next to an office water cooler, on a holiday-demented shopping line or at your desk during those seemingly inconsequential minutes of high school homeroom, the quarrel is destined to happen.
After arguing why Team A should trade Player X, Y and Z to Team B for Player J, K and L, expect flames and fireworks to spark the room.
Over the last few years, NBA fanatics have probably spent at least half their existence debating who is the better player, Kobe or LeBron? Then, some guy from left field enters the conversation and poses the query, who you got, Kobe, LeBron or Jordan?
The more personalities involved in the banter, the more likely it is the dispute will be more impassioned, intense and enduring.
You may even get some outlandish comments from extremists who claim complete opposites from the norm or simply defend their biases. Like, for instance, in football circles in Florida, you tend to collect all of the predisposed arguments from Miami Dolphin fanatics that Dan Marino is indisputably the greatest NFL quarterback of all-time.
Marino was spectacular, but can anyone honestly, definitively imply he is categorically and absolutely better than, for example, Joe Montana, John Elway, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, etc. etc.?
It’s essentially the same eternal argument in the NBA.
We tend to erroneously try to compare and contrast players from different generations in an effort to come to some kind of reasonable conclusion. It’s, unfortunately, an impossible feat.
However, there is one way to judge competition from dissimilar generations at least somewhat fairly.
For instance, if you want to compare Jordan and Kobe or Malone and Duncan or Magic and Rose, it’s imperative to evaluate each of them based on the type of competition they compete with.
I have grouped the best players at each position from two different eras, today’s cohort and the paramount from 1996.
My purpose comparing players from these two generations is to come to some type of conclusion which era included more talent.
It’s very subjective, but I tried to pick out the top five players at each position in 1996 and 2011. You be the judge on which set of five was collectively more talented.
POINT GUARDS
SHOOTING GUARDS
SMALL FORWARDS
POWER FORWARDS
CENTERS
Follow Josh Cohen on Twitter here
December 1, 2011
ORLANDO -- Aside from our obsession of sports franchise architecture – which suggests our unbounded imagination to visualize trades and/or free agent signings that significantly impact the landscape of a professional sport – we also adore arguments related to comparing the best of all-time.
While at a bus stop, next to an office water cooler, on a holiday-demented shopping line or at your desk during those seemingly inconsequential minutes of high school homeroom, the quarrel is destined to happen.
After arguing why Team A should trade Player X, Y and Z to Team B for Player J, K and L, expect flames and fireworks to spark the room.
Over the last few years, NBA fanatics have probably spent at least half their existence debating who is the better player, Kobe or LeBron? Then, some guy from left field enters the conversation and poses the query, who you got, Kobe, LeBron or Jordan?
The more personalities involved in the banter, the more likely it is the dispute will be more impassioned, intense and enduring.
You may even get some outlandish comments from extremists who claim complete opposites from the norm or simply defend their biases. Like, for instance, in football circles in Florida, you tend to collect all of the predisposed arguments from Miami Dolphin fanatics that Dan Marino is indisputably the greatest NFL quarterback of all-time.
Marino was spectacular, but can anyone honestly, definitively imply he is categorically and absolutely better than, for example, Joe Montana, John Elway, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, etc. etc.?
It’s essentially the same eternal argument in the NBA.
We tend to erroneously try to compare and contrast players from different generations in an effort to come to some kind of reasonable conclusion. It’s, unfortunately, an impossible feat.
However, there is one way to judge competition from dissimilar generations at least somewhat fairly.
For instance, if you want to compare Jordan and Kobe or Malone and Duncan or Magic and Rose, it’s imperative to evaluate each of them based on the type of competition they compete with.
I have grouped the best players at each position from two different eras, today’s cohort and the paramount from 1996.
My purpose comparing players from these two generations is to come to some type of conclusion which era included more talent.
It’s very subjective, but I tried to pick out the top five players at each position in 1996 and 2011. You be the judge on which set of five was collectively more talented.
 Paul |  Williams |  Rose |  Nash |  | |
 Stockton |  Payton |  |  Hardaway |  Kidd | |
Who you got?
Latest Opinions
|
 Bryant |  Wade |  Johnson |  |  | |
 Jordan |  Miller |  Houston |  Richmond |  Drexler | |
Who you got?
Latest Opinions
|
 James |  Anthony |  Pierce |  Durant |  | |
 Pippen |  Hill |  Rice |  Elliot |  Mullin | |
Who you got?
Latest Opinions
|
 |  Gasol |  Nowitzki |  Garnett |  Bosh | |
 Malone |  Kemp |  Barkley |  Baker |  Johnson | |
Who you got?
Latest Opinions
|
 Howard |  Bynum |  Chandler |  |  Noah | |
 Olajuwon |  Ewing |  Robinson |  O'Neal |  Sabonis | |
Who you got?
Latest Opinions
|
 |
Follow Josh Cohen on Twitter here
