The Emmanuel "Acho (And Stathole) Legacy Formula" Removes Feelings And Yields FACTS In Ranking NBA Legacies
(don't worry - we'll expand the lists soon)
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Well. We did it. Emmanuel Acho and I cracked the code in figuring out the undisputable ultimate NBA legacy formula. The true metric of a player's pro hoops story. After hearing Acho's initial legacy score proposal I couldn't help but test it out on the full data set (522 qualifying players who won at least one ring) and as you can see we workshopped a bit to pare things down from there. Let's take a look at where we're at now!
Obviously, Michael Jordan screws things up here. But trust me, we made progress in the fact that he is no longer on the same NBA legacy scale as Udonis Haslem. Maybe in the next version of this inarguable formula we'll consider not penalizing players for changing teams when they already won six championships and play for the team they currently own.
Mike aside - let's audit this top-50 list a little more. Here are my notes:
- What's that? Where's Bill Russell? Ahhh forget him
- Hakeem Olajuwon / Horace Grant (1.0) - Both played Center in the 90s and their names start with "H" so all good there
- Ron Harper just shy of LeBron James - Bron fans might not like it, but your ring chasing boy who also thinks rings don't matter now is a mere .08 (legacies??) above Ron Harper. I can't prove this, but deep down in my heart I think the model gave Harper a boost for his performance in The Last Dance when talking about Craig Ehlo guarding Jordon over him. "Yeah. OK. Whatever. Fuck that bullshit".
- Joe Dumars better thank his lucky stars the model does not include front office legacies
- Like you - when I think Nikola Jokic, Dennis Johnson is the first name that comes to mind
Here are the rest of the 88 qualifying players from 1980 on that won a ring and averaged 30+ minutes per game.
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Notes:
- As you can see Shai Gilgeous-Alexander got hosed here from being traded for Paul George after his rookie year which prevented him from attaining a more respected legacy level at the likes of Andre Iguodala.
- There's Kevin Durant at #48 just a touch out legacied by Sean Elliott
- Kyle (Kuzma) >>>>> Kyrie
- Rasheed Wallace got done wrong here. We need a bonus for ejections and flagrant fouls
- Otis Thorpe kinda screwed over here as my data doesn't know the Kansas City Kings changed to the Sacramento Kings after his rookie year so it counts this as a move. So put some respect to his name at the likes of Chauncy Billups but not quite the likes of P.J. Brown
I hope we all learned a lesson here with this exercise. Maurice Cheeks >>>> Gary Payton. Take it from a stats guy here, but sometimes when your formula is like five words long and you need the entire Good Will Hunting chalkboard to fill up with the exceptions it might not be the best formula in the world. But I do agree players like Durant and LeBron that go off chasing rings instead of being the gravity that pulls rings to them hurts their legacies. I'm just not sure how to package a word salad to convince people Kyle Kuzma and Khris Middleton over Paul Pierce and Kyrie Irving. Maybe that's on me.