OK, I'll bite ...
1.) Magic Johnson
2.) Oscar Robertson
3.) Jerry West (if you're counting him as a point guard)
...
maybe Clyde Frazier? Bob Cousy?
Other than that, I (and quite a few others) would put Isiah Thomas among the top five all time.
I think you could definitely put any of the following ahead of Isiah:
Magic Johnson
Oscar Roberston
Jerry West
John Stockton
Bob Cousy
Clyde Frazier
Gary Payton
Steve Nash
Chris Paul
Jason Kidd
I think it wouldn't even be that crazy to put Kevin Johnson, Allen Iverson, and Tony Parker ahead of Isiah.
I would say Nate Archibald, Tim Hardaway, and Mark Price are close, but fairly clearly below Isiah.
I also think that Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, and Stephen Curry are not yet ahead of Isiah, but have a good chance of passing him by over the course of their careers, since I think all three have already had seasons equal to or better than Isiah's best.
OK, now I get it. Apparently, you've never seen Isiah Thomas play IRL. Other than the fact that Isiah is a much better scorer and defender than Steve Nash, is at worst an equal distributor and a dominant enough player that he would be the cornerstone of a team's offense. There was no doubt who is the better team leader and rallying point for a team. Nash has better shooting percentages, but that is it.
Nash is simply a better version of Mark Price -- except when he was out of Phoenix's system that inflated his assists stats, he basically WAS Mark Price. But if you want a point guard whose defense is so bad his coach once substituted him out on defensive possessions in the playoffs in the fourth quarter, go right ahead.
No. Nash is WAY better than you give him credit for.
http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/2011/04/12/statscube-the-end-of-the-nash-streak/
From 2002 to 2010, Nash's teams were
#1 in offensive efficiency EVERY season. No player, not even Magic Johnson, has come close to that feat. While Nash played with some offensively gifted players, many other superstars did as well (i.e. Magic played with Kareem and Worthy).
http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=6205
Furthermore, those seasons were not merely the best offense by small margins. They were notably dominant. The above link essentially shows that Nash's offenses were amongst the most dominant teams in history relative to their respective year. When all teams in history are ranked based on how many standard deviations above the mean their offensive efficiency was, Nash's teams rank 1st, 2nd, 4th, 6th, 10th, and 11th ever. Kareem is the only player whose teams appear twice in the top 11, and he appears only twice.
http://www.basketball-reference.com...&c3val=&c4stat=&c4comp=ge&c4val=&order_by=pts
Basketball-reference has play-by-play stats since 2001. That link shows a search for the top seasons measured by the team's offensive efficiency when the player is actually on the court. The top places are essentially ALL Nash's Suns, and his offenses do better with him on the floor than any other superstar's offenses did with them on the floor. Nash's Suns scored 120.3 points per possession when he was on the floor in 2005, 118.6 in 2007, 118.2 in 2008, 117.7 in 2010, and 116.7 in 2009. The best seasons for ANY other superstar since these stats were kept were 116.5 by LeBron and Chris Paul in 2013 and 116.1 by Kobe in 2009. So Nash's offenses were REPEATEDLY more efficient with him on the court than any other recent superstar's teams have ever been with them on the court.
A point guard's job is to run the offense efficiently. And Nash has run the
#1 offense in the league more than any other player, those offenses were more dominant than any other player's teams have been, and the teams run ludicrously efficiently when he is actually on the court.
Meanwhile, Isiah's teams were only even in the top 5 offenses in the league one time in his entire career (admittedly, they were #1 that year, albeit by a super slim margin).
It is abundantly clear from this that Nash runs an offense far better than Isiah did. You may say Nash played with good offensive talent (i.e. Amare, Dirk). However, Nash's team was
#1 in 2006 even without Amare, and Isiah played with his share of very good offensive players anyways (i.e. Adrian Dantley, Mark Aguirre).
Of course, the advanced metrics of today don't necessarily translate from previous eras, when there was comparatively more incomplete data kept. It also does not take into account fundamental changes in offensive approaches (for instance, the 3-point shot was nowhere near the commonplace weapon it is today, the games were more full-court oriented and players concentrated scoring closer to the basket, etc.).
Comparing Isiah to Allen Iverson is a joke, by the way. Isiah was basically Chris Paul with more of a take-over mentality. Iverson was a small shooting guard who domineered the ball to the point he hindered the effectiveness of offensive-minded teammates.
The only metric I was talking about was True Shooting %. First off all, ALL data necessary for TS% was available in Isiah's era, so it is really unclear what "incomplete data" you are referring to. Second, League TS% was actually at its HIGHEST in the 1980s, and yet Isiah still had terrible TS%.
And I was not comparing Isiah to Iverson. I was just responding to PauloCatarino saying that players with bad TS%s have won the MVP (I assumed he was referring to Iverson).
This pretty much ends the conversation here. You evidently were not alive (much less following the NBA) when Isiah played. He clearly was the leader of the Bad Boys, similar to how Michael Jordan was the dominant force on the 1990s Bulls.The Pistons were built around Thomas' talents, his offensive game was the focal point, he was the rallying point for the team. He was the one to whom management conferred on personnel decisions.
Bill Laimbeer was pretty much the on-the-floor bully on the team. He was the one who instigated fights, whined to the referees and got the opposing team's fans to become irritated by his antics. I have no idea on which this sad attempt of revisionism is based where The Bad Boys was "Laimbeer's team."
I actually WAS alive when Isiah played. Admittedly, I lived in Chicago back then, so I was not exactly a Pistons fan. Anyways, you can be alive and watch basketball and not know who is the leader of a team, since only players and those close to the team truly know who is the heart of the team off the court. While, on the court, Isiah seemed to be the leader, I remember reading/hearing that Laimbeer was the team's leader off the court/during timeouts/etc. The reason I say I am not sure is because I obviously have no first hand knowledge of how the Pistons worked in private situations. And neither do you. I would not be surprised if Isiah was the team's leader off the court, but you are giving him all the credit for the team's chemistry, assuming that the team's good chemistry was all his doing. I think that's real presumptuous.
The Pistons had one truly great player (Thomas) and several other players who became hall of famers (Joe Dumars, Adrian Dantley before he was traded for Mark Aguirre and Dennis Rodman). In addition, the Pistons had several other solid players, such as Laimbeer and Vinnie Johnson.
What's your point? When I said "great player," I meant the type of player who instantly makes any team he is on a title contender. Most championship teams have one or two of those guys (i.e. LeBron, Duncan, Shaq, Kobe, Jordan, Magic, Bird, etc.). So usually the best player on a championship team is one of these transcendent players. Despite being the best player on a championship team, Isiah was not one of those guys. That was my point. Instead, Isiah was on teams with a bunch of very very good players (i.e. him, Dumars, Aguirre, Rodman, and a great bench), but no transcendent one. Do you disagree with that?
You evidently have no idea what a "transcendent" player is.
Isiah was a perennial all-NBA caliber player who was an All-Star in 12 of his 13 NBA seasons. Chauncey Billups was a player who struggled in the NBA initially, became a sold contributor to a championship team and had his best individual seasons after Detroit's title championship run (similar to a poor man's Gary Payton).
Like I said, take Chris Paul, add more of a take-charge personality and you have Isiah Thomas. A 20-point-per-game scorer who also can set the table for teammates, contribute on the defensive end and serve as a rallying point for the team. Like Paul in Game 1 vs. Oklahoma City in the 2014 Western Conference semifinals, if Thomas decided go into a scoring mode he would explode and score in bunches (see Game 6, 1988 NBA Finals when he scored 25 points in the fourth quarter). Not to mention Thomas was an intense and feisty competitor, along the lines of a Michael Jordan.
Sometimes, it's best to let people assume you don't know what you're talking about rather than post something and confirm what people suspect.
Again, when I said "transcendent player," I meant a player who instantly makes any team he is on a title contender. I find it difficult to believe that you think Isiah Thomas is one such player. He only finished in the top 5 in MVP voting one time (and it was
#5 ). He only finished in the top 10 in the league in Win Shares once (at it was
#7 ) and the top 10 in PER twice (and it was
#7 and
#1 0). Advanced stats like Win Shares and PER can be misleading, but they are a decent shorthand, and when a player doesn't look great in any of them, then his is likely not that great.
I do agree that Isiah is better than Billups. I was making the comparison because PauloCatarino's argument for Isiah rested on the "he was the best player on a championship team" argument, but Billups would have the same argument. Billups isn't THAT far below Isiah though. He too was top 5 in MVP voting once (at
#5 ). He was the best player on a championship team with a bunch of very good players that won due to defense. Both won a Finals MVP. Both were good defenders (if anything, Billups was better). They have very similar PERs for their career (Billups being slightly higher despite taking a few seasons to get going). Billups was top 10 in PER once, while Isiah was twice. Both were clutch playoff performers. I rate Isiah higher simply because he was capable of taking over a game in a way that Billups wasn't, since he was a better scorer, but it is hard to find an objective metric that shows Isiah to be much better.
I would also object to your implication that Isiah is better than Chris Paul. Paul is just much better. Paul scores way more efficiently, gets more assists (when you take into account pace), is a better rebounder, and a better defender. Paul also turns the ball over a freakishly low amount of the time for someone who gets so many assists. All of that is borne out by the fact that advanced statistical measures like PER and Win Shares place Paul WAY ahead of Isiah. He has already been top 5 in MVP voting four times. And while Paul's teams have never gone far in the playoffs, Paul has actually performed well in the playoffs (the end of Game 5 this season aside haha), so you can't REALLY argue that Paul's playoffs failures overcome his obvious superiority otherwise. EDIT: I will also point out that Paul has actually never lost in the playoffs to a team that won fewer games in the regular season than his team. So it is not like his teams are choking series' they definitely should be winning.