How do you rank old-timers?

You have no doubt seen the arguments about who is the GOAT - Michael Jordan or Lebron. I always tell them that they haven't gone back far enough, that it was either Abdul-Jabbar or Wilt or Russell. And then there is the inevitable sneer: "Well, he might have been OK for those days, but if he played to day . . ."

The problem is that they do not play now, and neither did Jordan and James play back then. If Lebron James played back in the 1960s, then he would have had 1960's training techniques, 1960s nutrition, and played in the 1960s style. How good would he have been if all of those factors were true? Every player has to be judged within the context of his own era.

The problem is how you judge a player from one era and compare him with another era. You can say that we have better shooters today, but how good might the shooters have been from before the 3PT era if the only place they ever shot from was that one line on the court? Jerry West shot from all over the place. That question is not easy to answer. I suppose that the key is that each player is relative to his own era. How dominant was he against his peers?

But come on, fellows: do you really think anyone today could have stopped Jabbar's sky hook, or kept Wilt from dunking?