The most productive NBA careers

(Originally posted on Wednesday, 17 July 2019)

Soon I am going to update my post about the best NBA drafts and the GOAT values of NBA players (and modify the calculations a little), but first I decided to analyse “the most productive NBA careers”.

The present post is based on total statistics from whole careers, which in a perfect way shows that this is how the GOAT values should NOT be calculated, but the results are still very interesting on their own.

All the statistical data I used I found on this site:
http://www.basketball-reference.com/

I used the values of NBA statistics that I calculated here:
How to compare NBA players comprehensively

As always I ignored all the seasons prior to the season 1976-77 because after the NBA merged with the ABA the NBA players’ job became more difficult. I also ignored the season 1976-77 because in that season there were no individual turnovers recorded (only the team turnovers were recorded). So all the lists below were based on the seasons from 1977-78 to 2018-19.

Obviously the most productive careers have to include regular seasons as well as playoffs. Let's start with regular seasons, which will lead us to a kind of “iron-man” list. I took 500 players (an overkill) with most games played (5 sub-pages):
http://bkref.com/tiny/03i70

I simply calculated the overall value of total statistics from whole careers and sorted the list.

The most productive NBA careers in regular seasons from 1977-78 to 2018-19:

1. Karl Malone:    35883.1    (number of games: 1476)
2. LeBron James:    32680.6    (number of games: 1198)
3. Dirk Nowitzki:    31776.6    (number of games: 1522)
4. Kevin Garnett:    30420.3    (number of games: 1462)
5. Michael Jordan:    30013.8    (number of games: 1072)
6. Hakeem Olajuwon:    29818.4    (number of games: 1238)
7. Tim Duncan:    29707.4    (number of games: 1392)
8. Kobe Bryant:    29476.1    (number of games: 1346)
9. Shaquille O'Neal:    28149.7    (number of games: 1207)
10. John Stockton:    27667.1    (number of games: 1504)
11. Moses Malone:    26528.1    (number of games: 1247)
12. Charles Barkley:    26408.5    (number of games: 1073)
13. Robert Parish:    25349.7    (number of games: 1534)
14. Paul Pierce:    24884.9    (number of games: 1343)
15. Patrick Ewing:    24881.6    (number of games: 1183)
16. Jason Kidd:    24397.7    (number of games: 1391)
17. Larry Bird:    23946.6    (number of games: 897)
18. David Robinson:    23813.4    (number of games: 987)
19. Reggie Miller:    23684.8    (number of games: 1389)
20. Vince Carter:    23635.1    (number of games: 1481)

I was tempted to give you per-game values based on those total values, but that would be a waste of my time – we shouldn't compare averages from 1500 games with averages from 900 games. That would be ridiculous! This is why any GOAT values should be based on career peaks (with the same number of games).

Now let's analyse playoffs, which will lead us to a kind of “winner” list. I took 500 players (an overkill) with most games played (5 sub-pages):
http://bkref.com/tiny/Ne834

I simply calculated the overall value of total statistics from whole careers and sorted the list.

The most productive NBA careers in playoffs from 1978 to 2019:

1. LeBron James:    6979.0    (number of games: 239)
2. Tim Duncan:    5645.9    (number of games: 251)
3. Michael Jordan:    5406.2    (number of games: 179)
4. Magic Johnson:    4983.6    (number of games: 190)
5. Shaquille O'Neal:    4972.3    (number of games: 216)
6. Kobe Bryant:    4862.0    (number of games: 220)
7. Karl Malone:    4392.6    (number of games: 193)
8. Larry Bird:    4328.3    (number of games: 164)
9. Hakeem Olajuwon:    4040.9    (number of games: 145)
10. Scottie Pippen:    3920.4    (number of games: 208)
11. Kevin Durant:    3825.0    (number of games: 139)
12. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar:    3731.8    (number of games: 169)
13. Dirk Nowitzki:    3649.4    (number of games: 145)
14. Dwyane Wade:    3582.8    (number of games: 177)
15. Tony Parker:    3280.8    (number of games: 226)
16. John Stockton:    3259.8    (number of games: 182)
17. Kevin McHale:    3242.2    (number of games: 169)
18. Charles Barkley:    3152.0    (number of games: 123)
19. Manu Ginóbili:    3128.9    (number of games: 218)
20. Clyde Drexler:    3110.3    (number of games: 145)

On the list above there are two players that were VERY good, but nowhere near the GOAT status in any way – Tony Parker and Manu Ginóbili. This is another example that any GOAT values should be based on career peaks (with the same number of games).

Now let's combine regular seasons with playoffs, which will lead us to the final list.

The most productive NBA careers (regular seasons and playoffs combined) from 1977-78 to 2018-19:

1. Karl Malone:    40275.7    (number of games: 1669)
2. LeBron James:    39659.6    (number of games: 1437)
3. Dirk Nowitzki:    35426.0    (number of games: 1667)
4. Michael Jordan:    35420.0    (number of games: 1251)
5. Tim Duncan:    35353.4    (number of games: 1643)
6. Kobe Bryant:    34338.0    (number of games: 1566)
7. Hakeem Olajuwon:    33859.4    (number of games: 1383)
8. Kevin Garnett:    33329.5    (number of games: 1605)
9. Shaquille O'Neal:    33121.9    (number of games: 1423)
10. John Stockton:    30926.9    (number of games: 1686)
11. Charles Barkley:    29560.5    (number of games: 1196)
12. Moses Malone:    28448.4    (number of games: 1329)
13. Robert Parish:    28301.7    (number of games: 1708)
14. Larry Bird:    28274.9    (number of games: 1061)
15. Magic Johnson:    27876.2    (number of games: 1096)
16. Paul Pierce:    27867.3    (number of games: 1513)
17. Patrick Ewing:    27701.8    (number of games: 1322)
18. Jason Kidd:    27130.9    (number of games: 1549)
19. David Robinson:    26360.9    (number of games: 1110)
20. Reggie Miller:    26290.4    (number of games: 1533)

Karl Malone is still hanging on! He was insanely durable and at the same time he was of near GOAT level. However, in just one year LeBron James will be at the top of the list.

Please, notice that Michael Jordan is 4th with a much smaller number of games played than the rest of the top-10 players.

The newest GOAT values based on career peaks are in this post (already updated after the end of 2019 playoffs):
The best NBA drafts and the GOAT list