I ran a draft of Cyclone greats with ChatGPT

[GusMcCrae]

I dont really understand your list. No Niang?? and Haliburton is certainly talented but career wise at ISU there are many that should be higher.

What are you talking about? I don't think you understand it's a draft. Once a player is gone, the other person (in this case AI) can't pick them. Niang is on there. Very first player in this two squad draft. Does that make any sense? In other words ChatGPT and myself weren't making our own rankings top to bottom of Iowa State greats. We were fielding our teams of everyone who ever played.

 

[GusMcCrae]

Paul Shirley even if it is #20 is a good laugh. I have nothing against Paul but Homan, Vroman, probably Tyray Pearson and several others were better players than he was. Paul was nothing more than a good role player on a really good team and finished his college career with career averages of 7.5 ppg and 5.1 rpg

I'd leave any current player off the list as their ISU career has not ended yet so their legacy is still in progress and hard to compare against all-time greats just yet. Niang as #1 overall I don't agree with, Fizer is the most dominate player to wear the Cyclone uniform IMO but Niang definately is in the top 5-10 of all time greats. Not going to nitpick at draft order outside of the top few picks as you can argue

Ahh shoot. Yeah Pearson is one I didn't even think about. Def a solid argument to be in there.

 

[GusMcCrae]

Anytime anyone puts together one of these lists, the first question becomes, are you picking each player at their peak to win a single game? Or are you picking a team to carry your program? Peak has to have Fizer, White and Tinsley. Program has to include Niang, Hoiberg, Morris.

ps - also, if you are talking 'peak', is their peak at ISU, or do you include pros? Hali is way too high for ISU time, but he's overall #1 if you include NBA peak.

I had thought about all that but didn't put any parameters on it. I was thinking take all that in throw into a blender and see what happens. I think that's more or less what happened. Lists certainly come out way different by certain set of variables as the main selecting dynamic for sure.

 

[JohnnyAl]

Lovin' the fact that ChatGPT must be about my age.

But the old coot forgot Jackson Vroman. Either that or he doesn't hate Jake Sullivan the way I used to.

 

[JohnnyAl]

I ran a draft of Cyclone basketball players with ChatGPT. We did 20 rounds, two squads. I let the AI go first. I went second. Altogether I think this looks like a solid list of all time top 40.

Any glaring omissions? I can think of a dozen guys who can have been included. Homan, Vroman, Tyrus, Elmer Robinson, immediately come to mind being left out. I think I selected more legends than the AI did. I got some takeaways below, along with the picks, and the entire conversation I had with the AI.

Takeaways:

For #1 pick Chat went with Niang! Hey I think he’s my favorite Cyclone but don’t think I’d put him first in a draft. That said, maybe Hoiberg as my first pick is off, perhaps should have been Fizer, Halliburton, Tinsley, Hornacek, Grayer, or heck even the Roland Rocket. I think I could talk myself into any of those guys as the first pick.

The top 10, 5 vs 5 looks solid. I think a good argument could be made that it's the all time Cyclone top 10 right there. Though I think ChatGPT whiffed with its 5th pick of Willoughby and could have put my 6 pick Gary Thompson there or arguably three or four others. Might be splitting hairs at that point. Willoughby did have that 96 Big 8 tournament title.

I think beyond the 7-8th picks players look pretty interchangeable.

Looks like a good cross section of various eras of Cyclone hoops. Likely more guys from the past ten years in there, but obviously that’s been our most successful sustained period of success so it makes sense and not just recency bias.

For my 20th pick I really thought about Conrad Hawley or Greg Hester for the fun of it.

Is it too soon for to have put Milan on this list? (My 19th pick)

I was pretty impressed with ChatGPT’s little blurbs about each of its selections telling the importance of each player to Iowa State basketball.

ChatGPT’s 17th pick of Dean Uthoff is a steal. He totally slipped my mind.

Just a matter of operations ChatGPT really struggled once we got around pick 10 where it had troubles recalling its prior picks and wanted to double pick guys. At one point it tried picking 5 guys consecutively it already picked for one selection and needed to be redirected.

It also had issues keeping track at that point what round it was. At round 10 it thought we were done.

A few funny things. ChatGPT at one point picked Brock Purdy as a joke, even saying it was a joke and then made a real pick. Twice it picked some guys from the 1980s off LSU and Georgia Tech which was weird and I had to correct it.

Once done I had to manually transcribe it all and then correct the AI on the selections/order.

Team ChatGPT

1. Georges Niang
2. Jamaal Tinsley
3. Jeff Grayer
4. Victor Alexander
5. Dedrick Willoughby
6. Curtis Stinson
7. DeAndre Kane
8. Melvin Ejim
9. Kelvin Cato
10. Loren Meyer
11. Rashon Clark
12. Michael Nurse
13. Jake Sullivan
14. Royce White
15. Diante Garrett
16. Robert Jones
17. Dean Uthoff
18. Lindell Wigginton
19. Jacy Holloway
20. Paul Shirley

Team Me

1. Fred Hoiberg
2. Tyrese Haliburton
3. Marcus Fizer
4. Jeff Hornacek
5. Monte Morris
6. Gary Thompson
7. Barry Stevens
8. Tamin Lipsey
9. Craig Brackins
10. Will Clyburn
11. Zaid Abdul-Aziz
12. Chris Babb
13. Naz Mitrou-Long
14. Talen Horton-Tucker
15. Matt Thomas
16. Jameel McKay
17. Deonte Burton
18. Justus Thigpen
19. Milan Momcilovic
20. Lafester Rhodes

Here's my full conversation with ChatGPT if interested https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ahBx5Qjz5mqF_q4HW_D7-gBc0Q8Q5mz3oYahcT3hSbI/edit?usp=sharing

 

[TitanClone]

Haliburton will go down as the best when he's done, Hornacek is currently and its not really close. Hoiberg had a good 10 years, Tinsley had a great career but neither touch Hornaceks

 

[GusMcCrae]

Haliburton will go down as the best when he's done, Hornacek is currently and its not really close. Hoiberg had a good 10 years, Tinsley had a great career but neither touch Hornaceks

I think that's where I'm at too. Looking at everyone's insight on this it feels Hornacek isn't as appreciated as what he ought to be.

 

[TitanClone]

I think that's where I'm at too. Looking at everyone's insight on this it feels Hornacek isn't as appreciated as what he ought to be.

Easy to forget he was the 3rd of the big 3 with Stockton and Malone. Also a bit biased because my dad has stories of playing against him in intramural softball