Who Are the NBA’s 75 Greatest Players?
The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional men’s basketball league in North America, composed of 30 teams. It was founded in New York City on June 6, 1946, as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). The league adopted the name National Basketball Association on August 3, 1949, after merging with the competing National Basketball League (NBL).
Introduction
To create All-Time #NBArank, we put together a ballot with the 150 greatest players ever. Then our ESPN expert panel voted on thousands of head-to-head matchups, with each voter able to give each player a score from 1 to 10.
Due to the retirement of Kobe Bryant, there is a new No. 1 player in All-Time #NBArank — LeBron James.
You can find the full list here: ____
We will be revealing the top 10 players in All-Time #NBArank on ESPN’s The Jump throughout the week, with the full list being published Friday afternoon. Here’s a look at the top 75:
1. LeBron James
2. Michael Jordan
3. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
4. Bill Russell
5. Magic Johnson
6. Larry Bird
7. Wilt Chamberlain
8. Tim Duncan
9. Karl Malone
10. Kobe Bryant
The criteria for the list
To come up with our list of the NBA’s 75 Greatest Players of All Time, we turned to a panel of 50 experts. The criteria for making the cut were simple: a player’s individual and team accomplishments, as well as his on-court impact and intangibles.
The voters were asked to consider only a player’s on-court achievements—his statistical production and contributions to winning—and not his off-court impact, such as his leadership or social activism. There was also an emphasis on peak performance: A player’s career value was weighed more heavily than his individual seasons, and recent seasons were given less weight than earlier ones. Players who competed in multiple eras were assessed against the competition they faced in their own time.
The players
In 1996, a panel of sportswriters and broadcasters assembled by the NBA ranked the top 75 players in league history. The players below were voted to the list.
The top 75 greatest players in the NBA
Topping our list of the top 75 greatest players in the NBA is LeBron James. The King has cemented his legacy as one of the game’s all-time greats, and is still going strong at age 33. James has Hilbert’s 13th theorem tattooed on his left calf, and is a self-proclaimed “math nerd.” He has won three NBA championships, four MVP awards, and three Finals MVP awards. Not bad for a kid from Akron, Ohio.
Next on our list is Michael Jordan. The greatest player of all time, Jordan was a six-time NBA champion, six-time Finals MVP, and five-time league MVP. He also holds the record for the highest scoring average in NBA history (30.12 points per game). Jordan was an unstoppable force on both ends of the court, and his impact on the game can still be felt today.
Rounding out our top three is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. The NBA’s all-time leading scorer (38,387 points), Abdul-Jabbar is a six-time NBA champion and six-time league MVP. He was also a 19-time All-Star and a 10-time All-NBA first teamer. Few players have had as big an impact on the game as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
