NBA Greats: No Ring.

@albusan: That's fine but I don't think any of the big men in the league right now other than maybe Davis and will go down as top 50 players of all time. Not counting Dirk and KG who are well past their primes. Cousins has the ability but he seems to still be a bit of a headcase and is on a horrible team.

@johnnyz256: I have.

I still think Stockton is better overall. But, Thomas could arguably be better, defensively. Besides that, Gary Payton said that Stockton was harder to guard than Michael Jordan, stating that while the both of them were more athletic, Stockton was more "fundamentally sound."

@static_shock: I don't think Isiah was as good as Stockton defensively. He was ok but nothing special on defense. Stockton was a hard nosed defender who made a ton of all defensive teams. The main thing Isiah has on Stockton is the two rings.

That's not the only thing. Thomas averaged more points over the course of his career, too. It's just that Thomas was one of the few players that could defend Michael Jordan effectively, which to me, is no small feat.

@static_shock: Isiah was a more talented scorer but it was Dumars who would guard Jordan. Dumars was a great defender. MJ would have completely dominated Isiah who is way smaller than him.

What's ringless suppose to mean?

@khael: NBA players receive a ring for winning the NBA finals, so a ringless player has never won the finals.

@static_shock: Gary says some crazy things lol, I wouldn't pay attention to that, he doesn't even put Jordan in his all time top 5 players...

I wouldn't say Isiah is better defensively, the stats would lean to Stockton, but I place Isiah above because I just think when it mattered the most in the playoffs, Isiah could will his team to win, more than Stockton could...

Son of a..... Might have to watch those games again.....

I doubt what Gary is saying is far-fetched, though. It's not like he's saying Jordan was better than Stockton, so I'm not sure how what he's saying is crazy. There was something about Stockton that made it difficult for Payton to guard him. That's all. Like he said, he played against both of them and backed up what he was saying, so what could anyone tell him? Whether or not Jordan is in his top five is a totally different discussion.

Other than that, Stockton had to deal with a much tougher team in NBA Finals, two seasons in a row.

Players have their own personal hated match-ups against some players for different reasons, but that doesn't mean it was a tougher match-up than someone better when the game is over. so I get that, but you used what Gary said to back up your argument for Stockton.... If Gary competed against Isiah alot and compared the two, then that would have been the best argument....

Isiah had to deal with much better play-off teams, to get to the finals.... besides, that 1998 Bulls team was evenly matched with the Jazz in the regular season, record-wise, the Jazz were good enough to win the championship that year but.....

Charles Barkley, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Steve Nash, CP3, Allen Iverson, Shawn Kemp, Vince Carter, Tracy Mcgrady, Elgin Baylor, Marc Gasol, and quite a few others.

PS: I was tempted to put Carlos Boozer as a joke xD

@strafe_prower: Boozer is trash lol

If Payton says Stockton was more difficult to guard than Jordan (and he played against both of them), I'm more inclined to believe him. But, to each his own. Yeah, my argument was a little flawed, I admit.

The Jazz were evenly matched with the Bulls. I can't argue against that. Either way, I still wouldn't put Isiah over John, who is the better overall point guard. Isiah was just a better scorer.

@static_shock: If you listen to what Payton had to say there I think it comes down to two things. One, he had to face Stockton in his career a lot more than he did MJ and so grew to respect him quite a bit. Two, Stockton prob made Payton work more with his running around and kept him running into picks and all that while with MJ it was more just the one on one defense where Payton could use his hands more to defend him. So Payton most likely preferred the 1 on 1 approach as opposed to chasing Stockton all around the court.

I understood this already. So, while I used this to show that Payton was better than Thomas (and failed to prove my point in the process), I wasn't trying to insinuate or interpret his comment to mean something other else. However, it appears as if everyone else in the video were taking that to mean that Stockton was better than Jordan, because they had a hard time believing that the former was harder to guard than the latter.

@static_shock: ya, they were just sort of refusing to understand what Payton was saying. I was just elaborating on the difference in defending the two. Payton's style just suited Jordan better I think. Payton prob gets underrated as a player really. I would say he is as good as Stockton in his prime or possibly even better due to his defense. Prob a top 5 defensive guard of all time and avged 20+ pts quite a few times to go with it. Jordan also had his worst finals when being guarded by Payton.

@spambot: Agreed on all points.

I think this video is perfect example of what Payton was trying to say.

I'm assuming you want retired players so here, in no particular order:

Charles Barkley

John Stockton

Shawn Kemp

Karl Malone

Steve Nash

Tracy McGrady

Shawn Kemp

Reggie Miller

Patrick Ewing

Pete Maravich

@spambot: True, but one can't forgot that Karl had John Stockton by his side for the vast majority of his career. While yes, Baylor had West, and Barkley had Kevin Johnson and what not, I'd argue that John Stockton's nature as a facilitator helped alot more in terms of Karl's scoring than West or KJ did Baylor or Barkley. Furthermore, what Baylor and Barkley were able to accomplish was rather insane. I'd argue that Bill Russell's greatest foe, possibly even moreso than Wilt, was Elgin Baylor and his Lakers. This is the guy who averaged 25-15 as a 6 foot 5 rookie in the NBA. the guy who averaged almost 40-20 while on military duty. The fact that his rebounding and scoring is as great as it is is too hard to ignore imho. And Barkley was a 6'4 Power Forward who had guard handles, excellent passing ability, supreme athleticism, incredible rebounding, etc. I simply feel that alot of Malone's longevity and scoring was enhanced by Stockton more than people care to believe. And Malone is universally noted as a choker, to boot.

@static_shock: I'd personally say that Magic, Jerry West, and Oscar Robertson are all better than John Stockton, tbh.

@xsupremeskillzx: I can see why someone would put Barkley over Malone but I tend to think that while it no doubt helped Malone to have a player like Stockton next to him for like 15 years that he was still the one making those baskets. All it basically took was giving him the ball in the post or giving it to him from 18 ft out where he would shoot his jumper from. The main difference I see between Barkley and Malone is that Barkley even admits he didn't really try on defense for most of his career because he put so much energy into offense. Malone was all nba defense on many occasions and known for being something of an enforcer. Baylor was great but some of those numbers were largely due to the era much like Wilt's. I wish they had per 100 possession data for that era but using win shares and per his stats don't really translate that well. Back in the 60's though teams were grabbing about 50-70% more rebounds per game as they do now due to pace and lower fg%. I think all 3 are pretty close though. I just give Malone credit for being virtually all nba for like 13 straight years. Barkley had great longevity too while Baylor's was shorter due to military duty and coming into the league at an older age.

@spambot: I'd be careful of using advanced statistics to judge players of the past, given the context. Efficiency wasn't really stressed in the 60's/70's, and in turn you have superstars like Baylor firing up a 49% true shooting percentage, hence the poor PER and win shares. Not to mention all the other poor conditions the players had to go through, (no chartered flights, not much weight lifting, lack of nutritional dieting, Baylor in particular had military service, etc.) While yes, technically speaking you can crunch a few numbers and say Malone's stats scale to Baylor's stats and what not, you have to factor in the poor conditions and inefficient style. Furthermore, they didn't really care about preserving/conserving stars back then, so in these poor conditions and run and gun pace, Baylor still had to show up and play over 40 minutes every night. And yeah, I agree that Malone was a better defender, but I feel Barkley was a more versatile and ultimately superior offensive player. He had the midrange jumper and the post game, but also had guard-like handles to boot. Hell, Barkley's Brocato Prime, (measured by wins produced,) is #2 all-time! Despite being between 6'4-6'6, he was also a better rebounder than Karl Malone. Lastly, the man just showed up to big games better than Karl did. Karl was and is historically known to choke in big moments, whereas Barkley was averaging 27-13-6 against the Bulls in the Finals. Karl definitely has an argument, but in terms of the greatest with no rings, I have to put Baylor and Barkley ahead.

Brocato Prime: http://wagesofwins.com/2011/08/04/the-top-25-nba-players-in-their-prime/

@xsupremeskillzx: A lot of metrics scale for things such as fg% though. They normalize it to the league average. I also don't give Barkley extra credit for being small for his position. On one hand it is impressive that he could bang and rebound the way he did but on another it actually helped I think as far as being quicker and a better ball handler than other guys at his position. So it has both its advantages and disadvantages with him being smaller(yet actually very strong) for a pf. He also has very long arms which helps to equalize his height. I agree that Barkley was better in the playoffs than Malone. I'm saying that you could put them in any order. I just give the edge to Malone due to his insane longevity, productivity and defense. Barkley was also prone to taking too many jump shots later in his career imo. He started hanging out more by the 3 pt line which wasn't really his strength. You can see this reflected in his fg% as he got older.

@spambot: Aight, you're entitled to your opinion, of course. Maybe I'm just biased against Karl, who knows. :)

That said, totally forgot to mention Chris Paul. Best point guard in the history of the game.

@xsupremeskillzx: Paul needs to stop his game up in the postseason. You really think he's better than Magic and Oscar? I put Paul at around 30th all time.

@spambot:...Yeah, he's better. Better facillitator than Oscar, better shooter and equivalent scorer than Magic, far better defender than either. far less turnover prone, just generally more efficient. Step it up in the postseason? 6th all time in post season WS/48 and 25.2 PER in the postseason screams overall playoff effectiveness. I mean, this dude's assault on the stat sheets outstrips that of any point guard in the history of the game. I'd argue it's Oscar Robertson syndrome, as opposed to choker syndrome, on Paul's part in the playoffs.

He's not greater, though. Magic is a top 5 player ever, tbh. Paul isn't top 25.

Giannis, Harden and Westbrook for this generation.

Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, Reggie Miller in the past.

Patrick Ewing