Post your NBA Top Ten ATG and criteria

[FPL]

If the goal is to maximize a window then Shaq, Bird, Wilt need to be near the top of any draft, IMO.

I agree mostly, but here is my problem with a guy like Bird who is great right away (let me know if this makes sense, it's my thinking at least):

In real life, if you have a team that drafts him, he's going to go number one overall. In the modern lottery system, that means your team is likely really bad. So I'm not sure if there's any benefit to being good right away?

Like consider some players (not exhaustive) who were MVP-level from day one (excluding the 50s/60s guys because some of that stuff is era-dependent IMO):

Magic
Bird
Kareem
Robinson
Duncan
Shaq

If you're wasting great years right away, then for a guy with a short prime (like Bird or Robinson), that's an issue.

Obviously all things considered, you'd want a guy who is better right away. But say you have two guys with 8 year windows. Would you rather someone like Bird who you're going to waste those first couple years on a bad team (and possibly more)? Or would you rather a guy who will peak a few years later?

In general this is probably a dumb question, since these talents are so rare, there's going to be one or two in the league at a time. But if we're drafting all of these guys in the same pool, then it's something to consider.

[LNS]

If the goal is to maximize a window then Shaq, Bird, Wilt need to be near the top of any draft, IMO.

I agree mostly, but here is my problem with a guy like Bird who is great right away (let me know if this makes sense, it's my thinking at least):

In real life, if you have a team that drafts him, he's going to go number one overall. In the modern lottery system, that means your team is likely really bad. So I'm not sure if there's any benefit to being good right away?

Like consider some players (not exhaustive) who were MVP-level from day one (excluding the 50s/60s guys because some of that stuff is era-dependent IMO):

Magic
Bird
Kareem
Robinson
Duncan
Shaq

If you're wasting great years right away, then for a guy with a short prime (like Bird or Robinson), that's an issue.

Obviously all things considered, you'd want a guy who is better right away. But say you have two guys with 8 year windows. Would you rather someone like Bird who you're going to waste those first couple years on a bad team (and possibly more)? Or would you rather a guy who will peak a few years later?

In general this is probably a dumb question, since these talents are so rare, there's going to be one or two in the league at a time. But if we're drafting all of these guys in the same pool, then it's something to consider.

Under the circumstances you laid out then short primes would clearly be an issue. I was thinking more along the lines of the situations Bird and Magic and even Kobe were drafted in: they were brought into a scenario where there were already established pieces, veteran leadership, and their franchises have a history of spending money or pulling off high profile trades. But that is why I specified “if the goal is to maximize a window”, but I suppose that does create a paradox in today’s NBA: if you’re good enough to compete then odds are you won’t be in a position to draft a game changer. But there are exceptions, the current Celtics managed to strike a nice balance of trying to “win now” while also stockpiling draft picks, so it’s not unheard of, just very rare. So in an All Time draft I think there are way too many variables to factor in when determining which players should be drafted first, such as: is there a window to maximize? Is the team rebuilding from scratch? Are they a middling team with an already established star but a meager supporting cast? Coaching philosophies? Defensive and offensive rules depending on the era this hypothetical takes place in?

So IMO there’s no real concrete, absolute answer about which player should be drafted first.