Notes on the Top-200 list, and further ramblings

Since I'm new to blogging (and generally not very diligent about cleaning up my correspondences), I'll quickly try to patch up the missing explanatory info. In my first posted list (lists seem to be my 'thing'), after the player name is their first and last NBA (or ABA) season. A single number represents a season. For brevity, I only list the 2nd half of the '77-78 season, as "78". My solution to the y2k trauma was to list 21st-century seasons as "100", etc. Just add 1900 to any year, if you must.

The full explanation of my 'system' will require many, many posts. I may or may not try to explain everything at once. More likely, you will have to pick it up piecemeal, if at all. Maybe you'll just accept the results (or reject them). Notice some short, brilliant careers outrank some long, unspectacular ones. Some players who tended to be on winning teams outrank bigger-stat guys on non-contenders. Such things are clues to my system.

What I Don't consider in a player's rankings are awards, citations, popularity, electability, and how many people saw him come out of the tunnel in dramatic circumstances. Winning is rewarded; but no one is permanently top-10 or even top-100. No player-worship here. It's a statistically-generated list.

I'm not big on assigning position. Was Dan Issel a center? Is Duncan a forward? I don't care. So I don't try to assign 10 centers, 10 point guards, etc., to the Top 50. Good is good, and better is better.

Not-caring may be as important as caring, in attempting to be objective. Numbers don't lie; words do. You heard it here.

Some say I 'specialize' in historic rankings. Not true. It's just something I do that others seem not to do. Catering to the kids among the readership, more people seem to project highshoolers than to evaluate the alltime greats. That's cool.