The 25 best players to ever play in the NBA not named Michael Jordan (20-16)

As I make this list out, the differences between who's better between players 20 and 16 are minute, so you really have to nitpick their games and even though I may say some negative things about them, they are all great players and being in the top 25 in anything is amazing, now let's get it on:

20. Oh he was a ground breaker for sure, no one could fill up a stat sheet like Elgin Baylor, 27+ ppg, 13+ rpg. he scored 61 points in a championship game. Those numbers in essence are much like Karl malone, you can't really justify that he's not 1 of the top 25 to ever lace 'em up. From reading books and looking him up on the internet, I found he was the 1 guy every one feared the most in the league, much like Barry sanders, much like Allen Iverson...

Why he's not higher:
This is just my philosophy, if I could see anyone play in the NBA, Allen Iverson without question, would undoubtedly be in my top 5, but if I wanted to win a championship, no way Iverson evens sniff my list. I see Baylor as a better version of Iverson. If you are gonna score 30 points a game and shoot less than 43% from the field, I have a hard time believing that's an ingredient to winning a championship. Maybe you had the misfortune of going against an awesome Celtics Dynasty so did Malone, Barkley and Ewing when they went against Jordan and Pippen. Plus you had Jerry West who is top 15 all time AND when you retired your team won an NBA record 35 straight games. I can't except that Elgin Baylor couldn't get at least 1 championship. Yes I think 8 championship appearances is amazing and no i do not hold your GM duties with the Clippers against you.

19. And here's another reference to Allen Iverson; no he's not the 19th best player ever but he could have been, his agents, his homies, his momma, Steven A. Smith,  somebody should have sat that man down and made him watch every game Isaiah thomas played. Zeke could have easily been A. I. if he so chose. He could score in bunches, nobody could stay in front of him and he went to the rack with reckless abandon, but Thomas was different, he embraced being a point guard if someone else had the hot hand he fed them and fed them, his own  points be damned. He made everybody on his team better,led the Bad Boys to 2 'Chips and gave Magic and Bird fits while toughening up the Bulls so much that MJ refused to play with him on the Dream team (allegedly). Besides Magic is there any point guard you would rather have than Isaiah? Nope

Reason why he's not higher: Isaiah was really the beneficiary of having being assembled a great team and a great coach. Isaiah would have been great under any team or coach but i'm not sure he would have been championship great. That team was built on defense and they were nine deep, Isaiah was the catalyst no doubt, but he really had a great 4 year run and then kinda disappeared after his last championship, swept by the Bulls, robbed off the Olympic Team, ruptured achilles and then done. Let's not forget lastly how I feel about little guards, they really need to be strong at the other 4 positions to maximize their effectiveness, shooter at the wings to open up penetration lanes, solid big men to have a post presence and the ability to protect the lanes with bigger guards constantly posting the little fellas up. In essence if you are going to build your team around a small point guard you have to have a more complete  team unlike this next dude....

18. There were 4 times I went back and forth about where I rank players Elgin and Doc was one Isaiah, Kevin Garnett and #17 were 2, KG could arguably be higher if he weren't locked in a basement for most of his career (meaning being stuck playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves) consider this, whenever KG had good to great talent around him they played at a championship level. As soon as he got Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell (who are by no means hall of famers) they made it to the Western conference championship and gave a Shaq and Kobe led Laker team all it could handle until Cassell got hurt. When paired with Ray Allen and Paul Pierce he led his team to a ring, got hurt the next year and the Celtics lost in the second round, he returned the following year and they went back to the finals before losing in 7 games, two years later at the age of 37 he was pushing Lebron James to a game 7 in the Eastern Conference Finals. Defensively he's one of the 10 best to ever play and if KG had this kinda team in his prime he would've been sitting on 3 championships.

Why he's not higher: cause well he's number 18 and that's pretty high and the fact remains he only won one championship and that's a lot less than 6...

17. I love, love, love, this next guy. This is my man crush of all sport man crushes. I'm not gonna mention his name and I know a lot of peeps are gonna laugh that this pick as waayyy too high. Well here's my case:
Imagine if you played in some futuristic league where you were an assistant GM and the GM told you, 'hey we are putting together a championship team and we can have any player we want from the NBA, 17 players are already gone we need to take someone who should we take

Asst: What if I told you there's a guy out there that won 6 championships scored about 20 pts a game grabbed a grip of rebs, led his team in dimes and routinely guarded the best player on the other team?

GM: Intriguing, what position did he guard?

Asst: That's just it, these are the players that he guarded at one point or another, Grant Hill, Magic johnson, Dominique Wilkins, Charles Barkley, James Worthy, Mark Jackson, Karl Malone, Penny Hardaway, Greg Anthony and John Stockton, that's 4 different positions and he locked them all up. If defense win championships why not take the best perimeter defender the game has ever seen?

GM: I know who you're referring to but he never won anything without 'you know who'.

Asst: Well 'you know who' didn't win without him either. However I would like you to consider that the year 'you know who' retired the 1st time, they replaced him with Pete Myers arguably the worst starting 2 guard in the NBA at that time, their second best player Horace Grant sat out games in droves cause he didn't want to get hurt and ruin his chances to get a fat contract the next year, and our guy still led his team to a 55-27 team which is just 2 games worse than the previous year of 57-25 when they had 'you know who'. Also consider that If referee Hue Hollins didn't call one of the single worse calls in the the history of the NBA playoffs he very well could have one won without him.

GM: What else you got?

AssT: that 1st dream team, everyone knew that 'you know who" was the best player but after the games and practice he was generally consider the best or second best player along with Charles Barkley

GM: I'm starting to warm up to him, but I know he couldn't take games over late when his team needed baskets.

Asst: True, but if the guy took over during crunch time then we would be talking about one of the top 5 to ever play. That's the only real significant hole in his game and he wasn't awful at it he just wasn't a prime time scorer. You have to keep in mind that the team he took over was built for You Know Who, he maybe the only superstar who never had a team built around his specific skill set.

GM: What about that Portland Trail Blazer team he was on?

Asst: Once again true, but at the time he was 33 years old and played in more games than anyone had during the last 8 years and was also coming off of major ankle and major back surgery, that team was super talented but highly dysfunctional and lacked the kinda coach to reign them in and they still almost beat a team that had 2 of the 10 best players to ever play.

GM: OK, OK why isn't he ranked higher

Asst: Well you already pointed them out, he couldn't take over games very well offensively, so a really good defensive team would give him problems, especially in the 4th quarter where you generally like your superstars to shine, I think the biggest reason why is that he was a below average free throw shooter hovering around 70% and he lacked a go to move so those 2 things going along with being a second banana most of his career keeps him out of the top 15

GM: I'm sold, a couple of quality scorers on his team and guys willing to play defense should make us a very good team.

Asst: No, No,... Make us a great team!!!

16. "Elvis was a hero to most but he never meant shit to me, he was straight out racist, the sucka was simple and plain, mutha fuck him and Bob Pettit"... ? It may very well be true that Pettit did not want any black teammates but I'm not picking an all social team here, I gotta pick the best of the best, and he averaged 26 and 16, won a 'chip, twice voted MVP over players like Chamberlain, Cousy, Baylor, and Russell. Played 11 years, 1st team all NBA 10 years, 2nd team once. I don't care what era you play in those are impressive numbers.

Why he's not higher: Well maybe I care a little bit, back then the league was to small and clearly it didn't have enough diversity. Plus he only played 11 years that's not a lot and like I said earlier you gotta nitpick these cats and he was just nitpicked!

Coming up soon, #'s 15-11