best nba players

The 50 Greatest Players in National Basketball Association History (also referred to as the NBA's 50th Anniversary All-Time Team) were chosen in 1996 on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The list comprises the fifty best and most influential players of the first half-century of the NBA, with respect not only to performance at the professional level but in consideration of sportsmanship, team leadership, and contributions to the growth of basketball. The list was selected irrespective of positions played; only players to have played at least a portion of their careers in the NBA were eligible for selection. Selected and announced in conjunction with the 50th anniversary team were a list of the ten best head coaches and ten best single season teams in NBA history.
The list was compiled based upon unranked voting completed by fifty selected panelists. Sixteen of the panelists were former players voting in their roles as players, thirteen were members of the print and broadcast news media, and twenty-one were team representatives: contemporary and former general managers, head coaches, and executives. Of the last group, seven were former players. Players were proscribed from voting for themselves, but only three voting players (Bill Bradley, Johnny Kerr, and Bob Lanier) were not selected to the team.
The announcement of the team, undertaken by commissioner David Stern in New York City, New York, United States on October 29, 1996, at the Grand Hyatt Hotel, which occupied the site of the former Commodore Hotel, where the original NBA charter was signed on June 6, 1946, began a season-long celebration of the league's anniversary. The players were assembled in Cleveland, Ohio, during the 1997 All-Star Game Weekend, and only three were absent. Pete Maravich, having died in 1988, aged just 40 years, was represented by his two sons, Joshua and Jaeson; Shaquille O'Neal was injured and could not attend; Jerry West was undergoing surgery.
At the time of the announcement of the team, ten of the fifty players were active. Only Shaquille O'Neal was still active upon the opening of the Players italicized were active during the 1996-97 season during which the team was announced. Players with an asterisk (*) had, as of April 2007, been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame as players; Bill Sharman and Lenny Wilkens were each inducted as a player and as a coach. Thus far every player from the list who is eligible for the Hall of Fame has been inducted.
On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the release of the fiftieth anniversary team, fourteen broadcasters employed by the American television network Turner Network Television, a broadcaster of NBA games and the network on which the programs The NBA on TNT and Inside the NBA air, released a list of the Next 10 Greatest Players. The panel, which included four former players and two panelists who voted on the initial NBA list, considered contemporary players who were unestablished in 1996 and historical players not already included on the original list. Released on February 18, 2006, the ranked list was presented in conjunction with the NBA's 2006 All-Star Weekend.
Players italicized were active during the 2005-06 season during which the team was announced. Players starred had, upon the close of the 2005-06 season, been inducted as players into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Alongside the selection of the greatest players was completed the unranked selection, undertaken exclusively by members of the print and broadcast media, of the Top 10 Coaches in NBA History. Four of the coaches—Phil Jackson, Don Nelson, Pat Riley, and Lenny Wilkens—were active at the time of the list's announcement. Only Jackson, Nelson, and Riley coached teams during the 2006-07 season. Wilkens was also the only member of the coaches list to have been a member of the players list; Nelson was the only member not to have won a championship.