All Time IQ Tier List

[McBubbles]

Don't think KD should be on this list.

Think Kevin Garnett should be a tier higher. Dude was still a GOAT level defender on a per possession basis as very injury plagued 36 year old.

[Throwawaytheone]

I feel like IQ is such an intangible that its impossible to rank it. How to we distinguish between IQ and say, other traits?

Obviously, basketball IQ is stuff about the brain, right? We've seen mentions of Rondo memorizing a teams entire playbook and knowing that a certain playcall was fake, that seems brain-ish, but is that really IQ or is that memorization? Psychology classes differentiate between the two for a reason (oversimplified but you get the point.)

And how much of what we perceive as IQ is really just the result of other traits? We talk about Kobe's subpar shot selection as a negative on his IQ but we won't ever know if he truly believed that the midrange was the theoretical best shot there, it could be just as likely that he didn't have the first step to get by defenders consistently enough resulting in those midrangers. Or perhaps it was a motor issue, he defaulted to taking worse shots to conserve energy for later in the game and the season. Basic example obviously but it points to a more general idea.

Are we also counting court vision, the ability to see the entire floor, as IQ? I've honestly never done that, it seems like a very clearly different topic, there are plenty of talented passers that can make wowy passes the average person could never see that don't have high IQ. How much of what we percieve as IQ is just the result of a player having the prerequisite athleticism, body type and skillset to make those same plays, vs a player who is missing that and can't do so? I could go a lot deeper regarding some of the arguments I'm seeing here but I think the point is clear.

The real traits that make up IQ, processing/cognitive load/coachability/scheme adaptability (even that is iffy and relates to the skillset arguments) etc are all so vague that it's impossible to meaningfully rank them like this. Can you really bring forth a substantive argument for Dirk having an IQ 2 tiers worse than Wade?

[PistolPeteJR]

Hakeem in D tier is of the one of the dumbest things I've seen in a while. He invented a move that is pretty much Unstoppable. He's also considered to be one of the greatest defenders in league history. How can a guy that's top 10 in blocks and steals not have one of the highest basketball IQs. Jordan should be in by tier at a minimum

While Hakeem may deserve to be in a higher tier and certainly I have him as one of the more intelligent big men of all time, the arguments you made aren't particularly strong.
(a) God Shammgod created a move that is also pretty much unstoppable if it works. The dreamshake is a cool move, not necessarily a high IQ one.
(b) Your strongest argument. If defense is about intelligence, and that's clearly at least a part, then yes, it shows BBIQ. Of course that makes notable defenders like Metta World Peace and Vernon Maxwell presumably high IQ players as well.
(c) Again, neither blocks nor steals is necessarily a measure of IQ. Shaqtin the Fool GOAT Javale Mcgee is a high per minute shot blocker, Manute Bol is the GOAT of block %. Same goes for steals. Often players get higher block/steal totals early in their career before they learn not to gamble all the time. Again, this doesn't mean Hakeem's blocks and steals aren't intelligent ones.

I think it matters how you make your defensive impact and using your blocks and steals to further team goals rather than just to pump stats.

Well I guess I worded it wrong. He would use a plethora of moves not just the dream shake. His footwork in the paint is still some of the best I've seen. He would react to his opponent and have a counter for their counter. IMHO he's arguably the most skilled PF/C of all time. His timing was incredible and his game could fit any era up until today. IMHO he's a better Embiid without the injury history

I will also nominate Aryvdas Sabonis, Jason Williams and Vlade Divac as guys who had really high basket iqs

I hear what you're saying. I think what needs to be clarified are the two concepts of skill and IQ. Do they intersect? Perhaps, probably, but where and how, and where do they not?

Footwork is probably more skill than IQ? Something like defensive positioning (ie. knowing where to be, when to be there, etc) is more IQ. And then there's things like stock (block + steal) quality (ie. resulting more often in live ball turnovers and therefore more fast break opportunities and easy baskets or Hassan Whiteside showmanship-type blocks?).

[PistolPeteJR]

Hakeem in D tier is of the one of the dumbest things I've seen in a while. He invented a move that is pretty much Unstoppable. He's also considered to be one of the greatest defenders in league history. How can a guy that's top 10 in blocks and steals not have one of the highest basketball IQs. Jordan should be in by tier at a minimum

Mmmm... Athleticism was the basis of much of Olajuwon's defense. Fast hands, great reflexes. Incredible mobility at size. Excellent anticipation.

It's also important to distinguish skill set from bball IQ. Dream cultivated a very good scoring arsenal, sure. He also gamed for some of the toughest, most contested shots in the game... which capped his efficiency but also made him more resilient in the playoffs because he was already guarding himself the way they intended to come the postseason.

But we also know that he was slow and somewhat weak at making reads for passes and wasn't a particularly good playmaker. We know that Rudy T had to dumb it down for him pretty significantly to get him moving the ball, making things clearer and more obvious. Dream also did his thing sort of regardless, right? That's not the kind of player who screams "basketball IQ" so much as the dude who cultivated his iso skills and was an all-time great athlete. He certainly wasn't a stupid player, but also certainly has no business on an ATG IQ list in terms of basketball mind.

Blocks and steals are about effort and athleticism more than they are about IQ.

Literally just finished sending a response that says the exact same thing, and then saw this. I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who's seeing a distinction there haha.

[Doctor MJ]

Interesting discussion I had on another forum prompted me to present this list. General idea for what constitutes IQ is processing speed, playmaking, and defensive rotations. This is meant to compare some of the most intelligent players of all time so even someone in the D tier is several orders of magnitude more intelligent on-court than run of the mill NBA guys, such that I'm splitting hairs in some of these comparisons. Figured I'd throw that in there before people get too butthurt over their guy getting shafted. Some guys that are generally in the same realm but different tiers because one guy has a clear advantage on defense or offense (think Kidd vs Nash or Oscar vs West).

So I've started to reply to this a couple times before only to find myself re-thinking how to approach the question.

The fundamental trickiness here is that what we call IQ is made up of sub-categories that aren't necessarily related to each other.

Sub-categories on my mind:

1. Skill Mastery vs Innovation
2. Offense vs Defense
3. On-ball vs Off-ball (thinking of offense here)
4. Communication
5. Tool selection (from bag)

I can elaborate on these if needed, but I think you can see a player can be strong in some areas and not others.

I do think it makes sense to put Bill Russell on a BBIQ Rushmore because of his combination of innovation and mastery on defense. He had the most successful career we'll probably ever see a guy have, and he did so after not being a high school star because of how he innovated and changed the basketball world.

If forced to pick on other guys, I might pick Jokic, with Bird, Magic & Nash as the other guys challenging him. Now with Jokic, we'll see how the career plays out, but him coming out of left field to become the top player in the world on the back of his BBIQ is really like nothing else I've seen.

[Mogspan]

Just wanted to mention him. I think it was Phil Jackson that said that nobody learned to play in the triangle quicker than Rodman. He was an incredibly smart player.

LeBron's BBIQ is overrated imo, Kobe (worst shoot selection of all NBA Greats) and KG shouldn't be on this list. Duncan is underrated.
Out of the guys not mentioned yet, Brian Shaw, Jacques Vaughn and Teodosic come to my mind.

KG was an incredibly smart player. Watch Ben Taylor’s video on his peak.

LeBron is an extremely smart player as well but I agree a bit overrated in that regard. What makes him special is a high IQ combined with world-class athleticism.

Is he?

Two-way floor-general who calls out and schemes vs opposing playbooks and substitution patterns should be pretty high. Bob Meyers also says he was deciding who to sub in and out during the finals.

LeBron without a doubt has an immense basketball IQ. I just think some people, like Draymond Green and media members, go a little overboard saying he’s maybe the greatest mind the game has seen.

Ostensibly there are quite a few players who rival his understanding of the game, but they’re not 6’ 9” with a 4.6 40.

I think they see the super rare combo of high IQ with freakish athleticism and overrate the former a bit, kind of like a hot girl who is rather articulate being thought of as “super smart.” I don’t know kind of a weird analogy, but you catch my drift.

[Mogspan]

Interesting discussion I had on another forum prompted me to present this list. General idea for what constitutes IQ is processing speed, playmaking, and defensive rotations. This is meant to compare some of the most intelligent players of all time so even someone in the D tier is several orders of magnitude more intelligent on-court than run of the mill NBA guys, such that I'm splitting hairs in some of these comparisons. Figured I'd throw that in there before people get too butthurt over their guy getting shafted. Some guys that are generally in the same realm but different tiers because one guy has a clear advantage on defense or offense (think Kidd vs Nash or Oscar vs West).

So I've started to reply to this a couple times before only to find myself re-thinking how to approach the question.

The fundamental trickiness here is that what we call IQ is made up of sub-categories that aren't necessarily related to each other.

Sub-categories on my mind:

1. Skill Mastery vs Innovation
2. Offense vs Defense
3. On-ball vs Off-ball (thinking of offense here)
4. Communication
5. Tool selection (from bag)

I can elaborate on these if needed, but I think you can see a player can be strong in some areas and not others.

I do think it makes sense to put Bill Russell on a BBIQ Rushmore because of his combination of innovation and mastery on defense. He had the most successful career we'll probably ever see a guy have, and he did so after not being a high school star because of how he innovated and changed the basketball world.

If forced to pick on other guys, I might pick Jokic, with Bird, Magic & Nash as the other guys challenging him. Now with Jokic, we'll see how the career plays out, but him coming out of left field to become the top player in the world on the back of his BBIQ is really like nothing else I've seen.

The whole point of IQ is that the subcategories are related to each other. It’s largely what gives traditional IQ its validity as a construct. You’ll find people who are good with language and bad at math, but people who are cognitively good at x tend to be good at y and z as well. It’s meant to be a representation of general ability. BBIQ is a general ability to turn situations to your team’s advantage. I’d say the subcategories you listed don’t always go hand-in-hand, but they’re definitely not orthogonal.

A big component of “real intelligence” that gets overlooked is the ability to identify what’s worthwhile and what isn’t, which isn’t always tapped by traditional measures. This is why you’ll have high-IQ “genius” “losers” sitting around navel-gazing and memorizing pi and average-IQ people starting businesses and writing incredibly insightful books. Or why some otherwise extremely intelligent people will have crazy beliefs. Perhaps the most important part of being smart is knowing what to focus on. Is a player who understands the game as well as anyone but whose goal is not for his team to win, but for him to get as much credit possible, really as effectively “intelligent” as someone with less horsepower but whose goals are pointed in the “right” direction? Kobe I think of as a guy with extremely high basketball IQ who often used it unproductively.

The whole “multiple intelligences” thing is largely bunk, but I wholeheartedly believe in “kinesthetic intelligence.” You’ll find a lot of people, without necessarily being super gifted in a physical sense, are just good at a lot of sports. They can just see a jiu-jitsu move once and perfectly replicate it and beat the snot out of people much bigger than them who has been doing it for much longer. It’s kind of hard to formally test this, but I’ve just seen so much anecdotal evidence that some people just “get” sports more than others.

[Doctor MJ]

Interesting discussion I had on another forum prompted me to present this list. General idea for what constitutes IQ is processing speed, playmaking, and defensive rotations. This is meant to compare some of the most intelligent players of all time so even someone in the D tier is several orders of magnitude more intelligent on-court than run of the mill NBA guys, such that I'm splitting hairs in some of these comparisons. Figured I'd throw that in there before people get too butthurt over their guy getting shafted. Some guys that are generally in the same realm but different tiers because one guy has a clear advantage on defense or offense (think Kidd vs Nash or Oscar vs West).

So I've started to reply to this a couple times before only to find myself re-thinking how to approach the question.

The fundamental trickiness here is that what we call IQ is made up of sub-categories that aren't necessarily related to each other.

Sub-categories on my mind:

1. Skill Mastery vs Innovation
2. Offense vs Defense
3. On-ball vs Off-ball (thinking of offense here)
4. Communication
5. Tool selection (from bag)

I can elaborate on these if needed, but I think you can see a player can be strong in some areas and not others.

I do think it makes sense to put Bill Russell on a BBIQ Rushmore because of his combination of innovation and mastery on defense. He had the most successful career we'll probably ever see a guy have, and he did so after not being a high school star because of how he innovated and changed the basketball world.

If forced to pick on other guys, I might pick Jokic, with Bird, Magic & Nash as the other guys challenging him. Now with Jokic, we'll see how the career plays out, but him coming out of left field to become the top player in the world on the back of his BBIQ is really like nothing else I've seen.

The whole point of IQ is that the subcategories are related to each other. It’s largely what gives traditional IQ its validity as a construct. .

So, you and I are going to have a lot of disagreements here, to just get that clear up front.

IQ is an extremely problematic tool when used ever, and it's particularly egregious when it is thought to measure holistic intelligence.

People need to understand that what IQ tests are built on are toy questions that are easily graded, but what causes us to venerate people as geniuses is their ability to do things no one else can. They are two extremely different things, and this is something I emphasize to my students, who have basically exclusively have high IQs, because they need to test to get into the school.

You’ll find people who are good with language and bad at math, but people who are cognitively good at x tend to be good at y and z as well. It’s meant to be a representation of general ability. BBIQ is a general ability to turn situations to your team’s advantage. I’d say the subcategories you listed don’t always go hand-in-hand, but they’re definitely not orthogonal.

The lack of perfect orthogonality doesn't mean we're better off clumping them all together when doing a detailed analysis. By all means we should be interested in the confounding variable which may hold deeper causes, but that means we should be going into greater depth, not be satisfied with the superficial.

A big component of “real intelligence” that gets overlooked is the ability to identify what’s worthwhile and what isn’t, which isn’t always tapped by traditional measures. This is why you’ll have high-IQ “genius” “losers” sitting around navel-gazing and memorizing pi and average-IQ people starting businesses and writing incredibly insightful books. Or why some otherwise extremely intelligent people will have crazy beliefs. Perhaps the most important part of being smart is knowing what to focus on. Is a player who understands the game as well as anyone but whose goal is not for his team to win, but for him to get as much credit possible, really as effectively “intelligent” as someone with less horsepower but whose goals are pointed in the “right” direction? Kobe I think of as a guy with extremely high basketball IQ who often used it unproductively.

I would say that basically everything in this paragraph speaks to why a one-number metric for intelligence is simple-minded.

You seem to be trying to keep the one-metric-to-rule-them-all approach of IQ, while knocking IQ itself and not supplying any objective alternative, and I would say you should instead recognize that your take down of IQ applies to all one-dimensional notions of intelligence.

In the case of two people where one person is super-high IQ, but the other is the person with superior metacognitive decision making, fine if you want to be more impressed by the latter, but the constructive thing is that they can help each other.

In my department/school, I'm the one everyone will tend to point to as "smartest", but every other member of the team has strengths that I lack that go beyond subject knowledge. I know from experience that it's easy for people to be impressed by my intellect and then overrate the rest of the package I bring because of the tendency to think of intelligence as one-dimensional, and middle age I now understand better what my weaknesses are and where I can use help.

By contrast when I was younger, there was frustration - both from others and myself - when I would struggle on a task that "didn't seem that hard" - stuff they assumed I'd be able to do at least as well as everyone else...but I couldn't.

I'll also say that with the student clubs I run, I've come to realize that the students tend to overrate what high IQ folks can do and tend to effectively propel high IQ folks into leadership positions they don't have the wherewithal to do well if we're not careful. I remember one such scenario where we had to remove a student from his position not because of any kind of laziness, but because he literally could not "read the room" and it was shooting us in the foot as we tried to get donations. He could read academic papers adroitly, but not people.

And of course this is becoming a more common issues with rise of neurodivergent concerns such as autistic and attention constellations of disorders. (Disclosure: As an adult I'm now diagnoses with ADHD and thus neurodivergent myself. Wasn't an issue when I was young growing up pre-internet, but as an adult trying to learn on the internet, focus is an issue.)

The whole “multiple intelligences” thing is largely bunk, but I wholeheartedly believe in “kinesthetic intelligence.” You’ll find a lot of people, without necessarily being super gifted in a physical sense, are just good at a lot of sports. They can just see a jiu-jitsu move once and perfectly replicate it and beat the snot out of people much bigger than them who has been doing it for much longer. It’s kind of hard to formally test this, but I’ve just seen so much anecdotal evidence that some people just “get” sports more than others.

I frankly think you need a dose of epistemic humility when you try to the notion of multiple intelligences as "largely bunk".

Now, I'm certainly not looking to embrace as ground truth model that says intelligence is fundamentally based on X types of intelligence, let alone that these intelligences are truly orthogonal, but the idea that any of this stuff can get reduced meaningfully down to the equivalent of one number is silly in my assessment.

[penbeast0]

I took IQ in this sense as BBIQ rather than traditional pattern recognition though there's certainly an element of pattern recognition in things like ability to see where a man is going to come open or where defensive help needs to be applied. From the other posts, I don't think there was a lot of looking at "book smarts" type IQ v. "on-court smarts" or BBIQ going on.

[tsherkin]

The whole point of IQ is that the subcategories are related to each other. It’s largely what gives traditional IQ its validity as a construct.

So, this is badly wrong. Doctor MJ has touched on this, but man... you're waaaay off-base. IQ is like a crappier version of PER, applied to the human mind.

The whole “multiple intelligences” thing is largely bunk,

This is also demonstrably inaccurate. Not sure why you're even making an attempt to advance this argument...