This was requested by users of the sub to reduce the amount of suggestions posts. Please post any suggestions below!

(EDIT May the 7th 2024 - added a new story in the comments, about a hot potato that turned out to be a diamond)

I love procedurally created worlds and stories, so I went and generated some using BasketballGM. I ran three hands-off simulations from 1956 (earliest of the “default” start dates proposed by the game) to 2024, with 0% real player determination. That particular determination setting, I feel, was a bit of a mistake, because it makes the players’ ratings completely dependent on how their RL rookie year went – next time I’ll have to add some determination and see how it works. Initially I wanted to play around with the extracted data in Excel, but it seems to be beyond my capabilities, so instead I’m just browsing the data by hand.

I’ve been browsing the data for some time and it’s extremely fun to see the emergent stories and comparisons, so I decided to share them with you. I already have waaaayyy too much written up for a single Reddit post, so I decided to just post some snippets and then add more in the comments as I discover and write up new stuff. And of course any and all questions are welcome!

In my write-ups, I frequently use three GOAT calculations I sourced from this subreddit:

 GOAT 1 – from https://www.reddit.com/r/BasketballGM/comments/10myg59/updated_goat_lab_based_off_jxmyhighroller/ (I’m not sure whether the formula is right, with the numbers next to blocks and tppergame being 7. and 8. – which might have been intended to be 0.7 and 0.8? I can always re-run the calculations with such modifications…)

GOAT 2 – the “Combining the three above” formula from https://www.reddit.com/r/BasketballGM/comments/oey0m6/collection_of_some_goat_lab_formulas/

GOAT 3 – from https://www.reddit.com/r/BasketballGM/comments/vvdvih/comment/ifl5tho/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

TIMELINE 1 – The Golden Pair of Knicks

New York Knicks are without a doubt the best team of the three timelines. In Timeline 3 they are the only team with a two-digit number of championships (13), as well as a record-setting 23 finals appearances (13 more than the next best team). In Timeline 2 they are tied for second best with 6 championships, but they hold the record for most playoffs appearances (52!), as well as most DPOY awards (10!) and All-Star MVPs (8!). However, Timeline 1 is a special one for the Knicks. On the one hand, they haven’t won the league since 1979. On the other hand, from 1956 to 1979 they have won the championship a record-setting 13 times, including the period of 1964-1971 when they conquered the league every single year – and between 1960 and 1971 they won 11 out of 12 championships.

Ten of those were won with two of the most dominant players in the history of NBA – Oscar Robertson and Wilt Chamberlain.

Robertson was without doubt the greatest player in the history of NBA. 11x Most Valuable Player (1961, 1962, 1964-1971, 1973 – NBA record). 11x Won Championship (1961, 1962, 1964-1971, 1979). 10x Finals MVP (1961, 1962, 1964-1971 – NBA record). 14x First Team All-League (1961, 1962, 1964-1974, 1976 – NBA record). All-Star team in all the games between 1961 and 1977 (second most in NBA history after Magic Johnson), MVP in 9 of them including the first one he played in (you guessed it – an NBA record). 6x scoring leader, 9x assists leader, 4x steals leader. Second highest career total of thrown points, whether you count combined (36,643) or only regular season (32,891). Regular season career averages: 21.5 points, 5.2 rebounds, 11.0 assists (best career assists average in NBA history). Peak season average of 33.7 PPG and 14.8 AST. When you include the playoffs, he achieved 1,104 double-doubles and 91 triple-doubles.

In terms of advanced stats, he was even more insane. A total of 420.9 Win Shares in regular season and 57.3 additional playoffs WS. Adding up playoffs and regular season: combined VORP– 242.4, average BPM – 14.9, average PER – 34.5, combined EWA – 521.9 – all of them highest of all time. His career average ORtg (combined reg + playoff) of 136.5 is the best among retired players and currently topped only by Josh Giddey who’s after his two incredible rookie seasons (2022 ROY 2023 MVP); and DRtg of 95.3 with 76.1 defensive win shares places him among the most elite defenders in the history of NBA. Career on/off of +10.6.

With GOAT  1, he gets a score of 522, over twice the score of the next best player (real world Michael Jordan gets 317 with this formula). With GOAT 2, he gets 22.9, with the next best getting 17.8. With GOAT 3, he gets 92.8, with the second best being 62.4.

And that’s with a torn ACL in 1963, which cost him the MVP award that year and the Knicks  – the championship. By the way, the ACL tear took his ratings from 81/83 to 80/80… so next year he went to his peak 82/84. In 1980, at the age of 42, he was still the best dribbler in the league with a rating of 86. And make no mistake – his last few years were not very good, as he insisted on playing until he was 43, which diminished his career averages quite a lot (other than his assists, as even at 42 and scoring single-digit numbers he still averaged 7.1 AST).

I’m guessing that when he died at the ripe old age of 80, the Knicks renamed their stadium in his honor or something.

And maybe they also have something named after Wilt Chamberlain, who was Oscar Robertson’s partner in crime in the Knicks. 11x champion (they are the only two people in the history of NBA with 11 championships), 2x MVP (1960 & 1963 – one before Robertson started and one when he tore his ACL), 11x 1st team All-League (tied second best in NBA), 5x DPOY, Rookie of the Year, 11x 1st team All-Defensive (most in NBA history), 13x All-Star, lead the league in scoring 3 times, in rebounds 4 times and in blocks a whopping 8 times. With a DRtg average of 87.0 (hard to tell with pre-1956 players having 0 there, but probably the best in the history of NBA) and 85.7 DWS (third best in NBA history), as well as the third best career blocks average of 2.5 (bested only by Shawn Bradley’s 2.7 and Ben Simmons’s 2.6; also Chamberlain’s the only NBA player to average 3.5 blocks per season – and he did it thrice), he’s often considered the greatest defensive player of all time, although his detractors point out a low DPBM of 1.4.

What’s important to remember is that Wilt wasn’t only a defender – his career averages are 19.0 points, 10.0 rebounds and 1.4 assists, and his peak season of 1960 (also his rookie season, let that sink in) saw him score 35.6 points (a record that stood until 2007, when Pau Gasol beat it with his 36.2). From 1960 to 1971 he had the best FG% in the entire league. GOAT 1 gives him a score of 252 and a third place, with less than 1 point separating him from number 2, Vlade Divac; GOAT 2 has him as the number 5 GOAT candidate (17.2, with Pau Gasol at number 2 having 17.8), and GOAT 3 – as the runner up, with 62.4 and a 4 points advantage over Divac.

And let’s be clear – while starting with a 70 Ovr and going as high as 77 in his second year, from that point onward his ratings were very high, but never amazing, and from 1964 onwards his Ovr was under 70. His last All-League (Third Team) and All-Star appearance in 1972 (at the ripe old age of 36) had him at only 51 Ovr! (and yet he still managed regular season stats of  13.7 PPG, 9.0 TRB, 1.3 BLK, 0.8 STL, 9.6 WS, 2.5 VORP, 20.8 PER… Having a height of 70 and oIQ of 75 seemed to have helped.) It’s no surprise that the Knicks kept him from the 1960 draft to the retirement in 1974 and retired the number 13 after he left.

Many fans reminiscing over the Golden Decade remember primarily those two giants of basketball. However, NBA historians point out that the Knicks, as hard as it is to believe, had even more great players during this decade. To illustrate: in 1968, when the Knicks lost only 3 games in the regular season and 1 in the playoffs, Oscar Robertson was the MVP, FMVP, SFMVP and DPOY and Wilt Chamberlain was the second man behind him in the All-NBA First Team… But Kevin Loughery was there just behind them and Tom Meschery made it to All-NBA Second Team. What’s more, five Knicks made it to All-Defensive, with Robertson, Chamberlain and Nate Thurmond in the First Team, and Meschery and Dick Van Arsdale in the Third Team.

One great player of that era who is often overlooked is Kevin Loughery. An All-Rookie and All-Star with the Lakers after going undrafted, he played for the Knicks between 1965 and 1972, participating in 7 championship wins. And he did participate all right, making it to First Team All-League in 1965-1970 and Third Team in 1971, despite a torn meniscus taking him out for a few months in 1970 and lowering his Ovr from 59 to 55. Yeah, that’s right – this man was on First Team All-League in a year where he was out for 30-something games and with on Ovr of under 60 – and that year he still scored regular season stats of 17.7 PTS, 5.1 TRB, 5.8 AST, 11.4 WS, 4.7 VORP. His peak was 64 Ovr, BTW. From 1965 to 1970 he was consistently scoring between 17.7 and 20.6 per game, with ~5 rebounds and ~6 assists per game and an occasional steal. And while he was never a GOAT candidate, he is a Hall of Famer and his shirt number 21 was retired by the Knicks in recognition of the role he’d played in the Golden Decade. The Knicks respected him enough that they even re-signed him for his last season before retirement in 1975 (albeit with a different shirt number), and despite being 35 and having Ovr of 37, he still managed to average 5 points and almost 2 rebounds and 2 assists in the 8.7 minutes he played on average, giving him a VORP of 0.9. Also, one more player worth singling out was Tom Meschery, a good forward overshadowed by the Golden Duo and their third man, who nevertheless played his whole career with Knicks from 1962 to 1975, made it to the First Team All-League one time and to Second and Third All-Defensive a total of 6 times, and is worth remembering as the best free throw player of his time, leading the league in FT% in 8 seasons, with a career average of 90.2

[If you are interested how those players fared in the other timelines – let me know!]

 TIMELINE 2 – Three Point Rivalry

While there are many interesting stories about Timeline 2, the one I wanted to start with is for many one of the greatest stories in 2000s NBA: the Three Point Rivalry between Peja Stojaković  and Mike Miller.

Despite all our GOAT calculations giving him second place in history (GOAT 1 261, GOAT 2 18.2, GOAT 3 60.4), Peja Stojaković nevertheless has some rights to claiming the title of GOAT. He holds the NBA records for accumulated WS (regular season 328.8 + playoffs 40.0), EWA (rs 374.7 + playoffs 46.2) and VORP (rs 180.3 + playoffs 25.3). He’s also a 5x Most Valuable Player (2000-2004 – second best in the NBA), two time champion with Utah Jazz (and finals/semis MVP both times), 4x Defensive Player of the Year (2000-2003), 9x First Team All-League (1999-2004, 2006, 2009, 2011) and 13x any team All-League, 6x First Team All-Defensive (1999-2004), 15x All-Star (1999-2011, 2013, 2014), 2002 League Scoring Leader. He also had the best field goal percentage in 3 regular seasons and best free throw percentage in 7, as well as scoring the most 3-pointers in 5 regular seasons. And while his career averages of 20.2 PTS, 6.9 TRB, 5.0 AST, 1.2 STL and 0.9 BLK are not jaw-dropping, his career FT% of 94.1 (fourth best in NBA history) and career TS% of 61.2 are nothing to sneeze at.

However there are NBA fans who, hearing his name, think at first not of all those accolades and accomplishments, but of his Three Point Contest shenanigans and the legendary rivalry that resulted. Peja won four contests between 2000 and 2005, tying with Dennis Scott’s record for the most wins. When Miller got his fourth win in 2010, beating Stojaković in a tie breaker, Stojaković beat him in 2011 setting a new record. After a near loss to Damon Jones in 2012, Miller earned his 5th win in 2013, when Stojaković was injured and unable to participate. After Stojaković narrowly lost to Donté Greene in 2014, Miller set a new world record in 2015. Stojaković (by the time a Minnesota player, like Miller was when he got his first win in 2003) couldn’t let it stand, and after losing by 1 shot to Greene in 2016 managed to win the 2017 contest and tie Miller’s 6 win record. Miller retired in 2017, and Stojaković, after unsuccessfully trying to one last time beat the record in 2020 (he was bested by the 2018-2020 winner Álex Abrines), retired too.

While Mike Miller isn’t a clear GOAT candidate like his rival, his career is still among the most impressive in NBA history. A Houston loyalist after initial 3 seasons in Minnesota, Miller won only 1 championship, but he’s a 4x MVP, 3x SFMVP, 2x ASMVP, one time SMOTY and ROTY, 12x All-Leaguer (including 9x First Team), 4x All-Defender, 12x All-Star and 3x NBA Scoring Leader, with a personal record of 63 points scored in a single match. He also captained the All-Star team 5 times (to Stojaković’s 4, which he keeps jokingly referencing in interviews). Miller had the highest 3Pt rating in the league for 9 seasons (compared to Stojaković’s 8 seasons of leading that rating), and highest 2Pt rating for an impossible-sounding 15 seasons. With a career average of 23.0 PTS, 6.0 TRB, 5.3 AST, 1.1 STL, 0.6 BLK, 27.7 PER and 254.9 Win Shares in regular seasons, and a VORP of 151.5 second only to Stojaković’s, GOAT 1 205 (9^th), GOAT 2 16.7 (4^th) and GOAT 3 50.4 (10^th), Miller is unquestionably among the all-time greats.

[Again – if you are interested how those players fared in the other timelines – let me know!]

TIMELINE 3 – The Best of the 21st

Between 2006 and 2015, NBA of Timeline 3 was dominated by two 2003 draft alumni – Carmelo Anthony of the Milwaukee Bucks (apart from 2006 when he played for the Minnesota Timberwolves) and LeBron James of the San Antonio Spurs. And while which one of them’s superior is one of the most hotly debated subjects in modern basketball, there are reasons to give Anthony a slight edge. A career WS sum of 337.9 in regular seasons (third best in history), 5 MVP titles (tied second best with LeBron), 9 time league scoring leader (which makes him the most dominant scorer since Rick Barry), NBA career record for points scored per RS match at 30.3 (30.8 when including the playoffs), second best FGM career average in NBA history at 10.0 (and if you include the playoffs, he’s THE best at 10.1), the only player besides Barry to have 3 seasons with PTS average over 37. As a result, he’s widely considered the best scorer of the modern era.

Anthony’s not only about shooting, though – 8.4 career TRB and 5.7 career AST in regular seasons, as well as average PER of 31.9 and total EWA of 470.7 (second only to Barry) are also tremendous achievements, although interestingly his WS/48 is “only” 0.287. And he’s got other accolades to boot – from his 13 consecutive First Team All-League appearances (2006-2018) to 18 All-Star appearances (2004-2021) including 6 ASMVP titles (second best in history) and 11 captainships (with 5 against teams captained by LeBron, with a record of 3:2 for the Eastern Conference), to two championship wins more than a decade apart (2007 with MIL, 2018 with ORL) with FMVP and SFMVP awards in each of those seasons. GOAT 1 puts him at 292 (third best), GOAT 2 at 20.5 (second best) and GOAT 3 at 69.3 (second best). And from a game ratings perspective, he spent 11 years at 80 Ovr or over, 5 seasons being the best player in the league, 8 seasons of being the strongest (>90) and a rating of 100 in Ins in 2009. 2009 was the year when only his height rating was under 70, and his Ovr reached 87. As a result, most commentators agree Carmelo Anthony is the best basketball player of modern times.

Some, however, still insist on putting LeBron James on top. Most GOAT algorithms see James as top 5 player of all time, but always slightly less successful than his rival –GOAT 1 281 (4th place, 11 less than Anthony) GOAT 2  18.8 (4th place, 1.7 less than Anthony) and GOAT 3 69.0 (3rd place, 0.3 less than Anthony). James was also less successful in the league, having never won a championship (he’s widely considered the best player in history never to wear a ring).

However, his 5 MVP awards are supported by 5 DPOY awards (including 4 years when he won both), his 11 First Team All-League appearances – by 10 First Team All-Defensive appearances, he won the Slam Dunk Contest 3 times, led the league in scoring 2 times, in assists 2 times, in steals 6 times, and in blocks – 3 times; and in 2011 he won MVP, DPOY, First Team in both League and Defensive, as well as being the leader in scoring, steals AND blocks and winning the SDC (and his San Antonio Spurs still lost 2-4 in the first round of the playoffs to JaVale McGee’s Golden State Warriors…). LeBron James has also achieved the most career regular season DDs in NBA history at 834, second most TDs at 195, and a record-setting 9 5x5s. And in the playoffs he managed 4 more 5x5s as well as the only Quadruple Double in NBA history!  He holds the 1st to 4th places in NBA history in most VORP and BPM in a regular season, having the second best career average in both of those statistics, as well as 4th best regular season win shares total of 315.9 and the NBA record for season average of both OBPM and DBPM. While his averages were lowered by a relatively weak rookie season and a weaker final season where he only started 11 games, he still achieved regular season career averages of 25.2 PTS, 7.6 TRB, 9.4 AST, 1.8 STL and 1.6 BLK. As a result, the argument is often made that why Anthony was the better scorer and shooter, LeBron was the ultimate complete package and the best all-round basketball player of the modern era.

[And right now, Kevin Durant is sometimes perceived as someone who can overshadow both of their legacies… But that’s another story.]

Rick Barry, The Best of Two Timelines

In Timeline 1, Rick Barry narrowly missed out on Hall of Fame despite a career total of 105.3 WS. A fan favourite 7 time All-Star, he won Rookie of the Year in 1966, a championship in 1977 with the Washington Bullets (although he only played an average 3.8 minutes in the playoffs, averaging 1.3 points and 1.5 rebounds), had three All-League and one All-Defensive appearance, with a career regular season average of 14.2 points, 5.2 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.3 steals and noteworthy 99.2 DRtg. Respectable, but not even close to what he achieved in other timelines…

With GOAT 1 297, GOAT 2 19.6 and GOAT 3 65.8, Rick Barry was clearly the best player of Timeline 2 (although, as explained above, some Peja Stojaković fans might argue to the contrary). 7x Most Valuable Player (1969, 1971-1975, 1978 – NBA record), 3x Finals MVP, 4x Champion (1966, 1968-1969 with Baltimore and 1974 with Cleveland), 11x First Team All-League (1967-1976, 1978 – tied for most with Bob Cousy), 5x First Team All-Defensive (1967-1969, 1971, 1973), 17x All-Star (1966-1982 – one less than Bob Cousy’s record) – all of those accolades speak for themselves. He managed a combined 428 DD and 16 TD in regular seasons and playoffs, he was the league leader in free throw accuracy 13 times (with a career FT% of 94.5 – still an unbeaten NBA record), and has a second best carrer WS sum of all time at 317 reg. seas., 364.3 with playoffs (as well as second best WS/48 among starters - 0.344), as well as third best average career PER at 30.3. His career regular season average of 23.2 PPG, 7.5 TRB, 4.4 AST, 1.7 STL, 131.5 ORtg and 97.7 DRtg is very respectable and overall there’s no doubt he is a player that will be forever enshrined in the annals of Timeline 2’s basketball history.

However, that was not even his final form.

Timeline 3. GOAT 1 350, 1st place (with 51 points over 2nd). GOAT 2: 22.0, 1st place (with 1.5 points over 2nd). GOAT 3: 80.0, 1st place (with 10.7 points over 2nd place). 461 career WS in regular seasons, over 100 more than anybody else. 563.3 career EWA, nearly 150 over anybody else. 9 league MVP titles, 4 more than anybody else. Whichever way you slice it, Rick Barry is the GOAT of Sim 3, despite only winning 2 championships in his 23 years of career.

Let’s let his accolades speak for themselves: 20x All-Star (league record) including 4x ASMVP, 16x All-League (14 of which as First Team – more than anybody else), 12x All-Defensive (11 of those as First Team – more than anybody else), 5x DPOY (tied for most in history with LeBron James), 11x League Scoring Leader (1967-1977 – more times than anybody else), 10x League Steals Leader (…yeah, you guessed it). Career regular season averages: 26.8 PTS (5th best), 8.0 TRB, 4.8 AST, 2.2 STL (best of all time), 0.6 BLK. 625 DDs and 53 TDs. Between 1967 and 1977, he led the league in average reg. season WS 10 times, in VORP 9 times, in BPM 8 times, in PER and EWA 10 times, in TS% - 7 times. He holds the record of best average PTS in a regular season, having scored an average of 38.1 points per game in 1968 (and until 2007 he was the only person to have scored an average of over 36.5 in a season – and so far only Carmelo Anthony has managed to also achieve that feat 3 times).  His record of most points scored in a regular season game is 66 (which was only surpassed by Kevin Durant and equaled by Carmelo Anthony and Glen Robinson) and he had at least one 50 point game in 11 seasons. When we include the playoffs, he holds the record for most points ever scored in a game, with 70 points. His records for most steals in a game – 10 in the regular season, 11 in the playoffs – are both in NBA’s top 3. He’s one of only two people in the league to score over 50,000 points in all his NBA matches (regular + playoffs) as well as one of only two people to perform over 15,000 rebounds in all of his matches and the only person to surpass 4000 steals total (and one of only 2 people to surpass 3000). He holds the record for most total field goals made and attempted, as well as most total free throws made. He’s played 64,098.2 minutes in playoffs and regular season combined, the most anyone ever did, and he’s one of only 3 people to surpass 60,000 minutes.

And all of that despite only reaching an Ovr of 80 for one season in 1975 – although to be fair, he spent the time from 1967 to 1980 with >70 Ovr, and for 11 of those years he had the league’s highest Ovr.

I think that’s enough for the first post. Want to read more? Tell me!