I've got such a sweet money picked lined up. I can think of a couple of guys who might beat me to it

Hmmmmm. I def have someone in mind that fits this description. I'm going to laugh when he gets picked in the 1st round.

Man this thread is fascinating to me. I am interested to see where these players go: Shawn Kemp, Rik Smits, Detlef, Mullin, heck maybe Drazen Petrovich.

You really think that overall the league was just as strong in the 90-98 year's as it is now? Just look at the ridiculous amount of stars in the league compared to then. It's basacally called it the "Jordan effect" so many people who watched up idolizing Jordan, playing tons of basketball, and therefore making it so that now there are tons of stars/really good players in the league compared to back then.

Pointing out how many visible STARS there are in the game NOW is a combination of perception and just the overall status of the NBA in todays time. This could be related to all the advertising, the hype, the history...MJ definitely helped this whole: NBA Player= New Age Rock Star.

There is a whole lot of money being thrown around in todays game - and that could def be one of the leading reasons you (and many others) percieve it to be this way.

edit: but then again - maybe perception is reality (in this case)...regarding the "Stars"

There are def more stars now than there was back then. There is not much difference from say the 10th best player today and the 40th best player, the league is insanley deep with stars. Back in the 90's, there was a huge difference from say the 10th best player and the 40th.

Note: I'd call people like Jamison or Tony Parker stars.

There were a ****ing lot of great players in the 90's with Jordan. We have Robinson, Hakeem, Jordan already taken. I don't think that even scratches the surface of great players in the 90's. Of course, there are also a lot of great players now. But I can only think of 5-6 really elite players out there (whereas in the early to mid 90's, you probably had 7-8).

Well the problem is you are only thinking of one year compared to a decade.

So to be fair, we would have to compare 90-98 to like say 2000-2008 for it really to be fair, so someone like Shaq who is really not elite right now, should qualify since he was elite in 2000.

Anyway the elite players are roughly the same, although I think it might be a slight edge to 2000-2008, but the really good players are so much more now than back in 90-98.

this is just simply not true.

It def is not nearly as big a gap as it was in the 90's, and def is pretty true.

Who would u say the 10th best player in the league is now? Amare/Nash/Bosh maybe?


Are they really that much better than someone like Jamison/Kaman/Ginboli/Parker/David West/Rip who are probably around the 40th best player in the league?

Ok so I did it out, this is in no real order but:

Kobe
Lebron
Duncan
KG
Chris Paul
Dwight Howard
Wade
Arenas
Bosh
Deron Williams
Nash
Amare
Dirk
Elton Brand
Yao
Tmac
Allen Iverson
Carmelo
Butler
Gasol
Pierce
Billups
Andre Iggy
Joe Johnson
Kevin Martin
Baron Davis
Carlos Boozer
Brandon Roy
Ginoboli
Tony Parker
Jamison
Chris Kaman
Al Jefferson
Rip
Josh Howard
Michael Redd
Danny Granger
Monta Ellis
David West
Rashard Lewis
Bynum
Tyson Chandler
Marcus Camby
Andrew Bogut
Loul Deng

I would say roughly that the Granger/Ellis/David West/Rashard Lewis crowd is where the 40th best player in the league is. And that's not including up and coming stars like Kevin Durant, Greg Oden etc. Seriously look how deep the league is.

There are also former very good/great players who are on the decline:

Shaq
Rasheed Wallace
Ray Allen
Vince Carter
Ben Wallace
Jason Kidd
Ron Artest
Peja
Mike Bibby
Cwebb

I'm also sure I missed some players along the way since I did this pretty quickly.

10 guys in the order i thought of them -- lbj, kobe, cp3, duncan, garnett, dwight howard, dirk, amare, nash, wade (could swap some people out for guys like yao, bosh)

the guys you listed are higher than 40th for sure (except for kaman maybe) b/c they are all stars-- even if you are a low tier all star you are probably a top 30 player and even then the worst 3 players in my list are much better than the 6 you have listed.

edit: rip prob isn't higher either

ok u prob posted this before u saw my list, but hopefully u see how ridiculously deep this league is right now. And like I said, this is only for 1 year, that's not even including players who were great just a few years ago like Jason Kidd.

Ginobili, 40th best player in the league.

Right....

10th best is probably Amare/Bosh/Chauncey/Boozer (guys like that).

40th best looks ok besides G-Nobe I think.

now who's thinking of 1 year vs. a decade? of course we can cherry pick years such that one year from the this decade > the 90's in terms of depth and vice versa. the league has been deep the last couple of years but it wasn't all that deep at the start of the decade. you can't pull two years and shout greatest decade ever

I said it was ridiculously deep right now and that list is the 40-50 best players in the game right now (1 year not counting injuries this year) and I didn't include the players who I said were very good/great but had declined just mentioned them.

Also the league will only continue to get deeper. Just look at the drafts, they are always saying they are really deep and they basacally keep getting deeper generally speaking, because more kids are playing basketball than ever before and kids from the Jordan era are still coming.

Now I dare u to name say the best players in any year from say 1990 to 1998 (although I think 1990 was pretty strong if I can remember then it dropped off at maybe 91 or 92) and tell me if the gap is bigger from #10 to #40 than it is now.

Kobe was a great pick at 10, I was hoping he somehow slipped to me at 12.

In Assani's words, I hate Kobe and I hate the Lakers.

Who's going to step up and take Sabonis?

Yes I can't believe he slipped that far as I was trying to desperatly trade up and get him. Imo he was easily a top 4 player imo (Jordan, Shaq, Lebron, Kobe) with probably Magic at 5, and honestly could be the best, even better than Jordan by the time his career is over although i'd still take Jordan, and even if Kobe is considered the best by the time his career is over, he will likley be passed by Lebron.

godamnit wizard keep quiet modz plz del33t

lol kobeoveratedaments

Not that I can't see the argument for it, but I was surprised Kobe went after David Robinson and Hakeem. I can see a good argument for Kobe at 4 or 5 (behind MJ, Magic, Shaq, and maybe LeBron).

lol takingbirdoverkobeaments

I'm not. I think Kobe's a pretty meh pick there. I mean, it's not bad, but D-Rob had a higher peak and probably aged better than Kobe's going to. Probably the same with Hakeem.

Starting at age 24 hurts him quite a bit here, IMO too. Because his peak is probably going to be 21-32, whereas D-Rob has a 24-35 peak.

fail