The List of Greatness - Updated

Well, I've finished updating the numbers on the List of Greatness through 1970 (it should go quicker from here, since the updated stats on basketball-reference only affect players who played before 1952) and here's how the updated List shakes out:

One minor change to the induction format, though. Instead of waiting ten years and then just doing two a year until the numbers caught up, I decided to just go ahead and give 1956 an inaugural class of 10 players. Why do it this way instead? First, the list of ten guys featured ten Hall of Famers, so I decided that would work pretty well. Secondly, I was only staggering it originally because I wanted to make sure enough players had had a chance to accumulate a full career's worth of numbers. That didn't really work when I only had 4 years of win shares prior to 1956 before. Now that it's 10 years of win shares, there's enough of a player pool that you don't end up with any flukey results. So here we go with the new List of Greatness:

1956 - George Mikan

1956 - Dolph Schayes

1956 - Bob Cousy

1956 - Vern Mikkelsen

1956 - Ed Macauley

1956 - Neil Johnston

1956 - Jim Pollard

1956 - Harry Gallatin

1956 - Bobby Wanzer

1956 - Bob Davies

1957 - Paul Arizin

1958 - Bill Sharman

1959 - Bob Pettit

1960 - Bill Russell

1961 - Slater Martin

1962 - Elgin Baylor

1963 - Wilt Chamberlain

1964 - Tom Heinsohn

1965 - Oscar Robertson

1966 - Jerry West

1967 - Sam Jones

1968 - Hal Greer

1969 - John Havlicek

1970 - Bailey Howell

So, what are the differences? 4 players made the cut that didn't the first time around.

Now In:

Jim Pollard

Harry Gallatin

Bob Davies

Bobby Wanzer

Now Out:

Larry Foust

Cliff Hagan

George Yardley

Willis Reed (will probably be 1971's inductee, so someone else down the line will eventually get replaced)

Overall, this seems like a pretty solid update to me. Nothing against Foust, Hagan, and Yardley, but I think most people would agree those four other guys are slightly ahead of them in terms of "greatness." I'll have a full breakdown on the updated numbers with the 1971 List and the follow-up recap to that post.