THE GOAT MACHINE

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Credits & Sources

The GOAT Machine is an independent fan project made to celebrate basketball and the arguments it starts. Everything here comes from openly-licensed or publicly-available sources. Here they all are.

Photography

Player photos

Every player photo comes from Wikimedia Commons contributors and is used under the license listed beside it. Some photos have been cropped or adjusted(black & white, contrast) to fit the layout.

Michael Jordan

  • portrait: Steve Lipofsky www.Basketballphoto.com, CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
  • moment: Steve Lipofsky Basketballphoto.com, CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

LeBron James

  • portrait: Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0 · source
  • moment: Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0 · source

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

  • portrait: copyright Steve lipofsky www.Basketballphoto.com, CC BY 3.0 · source
  • moment: Frank Bryan, Public domain · source

Bill Russell

  • portrait: Unknown authorUnknown author, Public domain · source
  • moment: New York World-Telegram and the Sun staff photographer, Public domain · source

Wilt Chamberlain

  • portrait: Bill Allen, Public domain · source
  • moment: Paul Vathis, Public domain · source

Magic Johnson

  • portrait: Jayne Kamin, Los Angeles Times, CC BY 4.0 · source
  • moment: [copyright held by Steve Lipofsky], CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Larry Bird

  • portrait: Steve Lipofsky www.Basketballphoto.com, CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
  • moment: Steve Lipofsky www.Basketballphoto.com, CC BY-SA 3.0 · source

Tim Duncan

  • portrait: Geoff Livingston, CC BY 2.0 · source
  • moment: Paul Morse, Public domain · source

Shaquille O'Neal

  • portrait: Keith Allison from Baltimore, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 · source
  • moment: Bigmoe797, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Kobe Bryant

  • portrait: Keith Allison, CC BY-SA 2.0 · source
  • moment: Kobe_Bryant_7144.jpg: Sgt. Joseph A. Lee derivative work: JoeJohnson2 , Public domain · source

Hakeem Olajuwon

  • portrait: University of Houston Digital Library, Public domain · source
  • moment: United Press International, Public domain · source

Stephen Curry

  • portrait: Cyrus Saatsaz, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
  • moment: Keith Allison from Hanover, MD, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 · source

Nikola Jokić

  • portrait: All-Pro Reels, CC BY-SA 2.0 · source
  • moment: Pbritti, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source

Data

Stats & championships

Career statistics and championship counts are public-record facts, current through the 2024-25 season. The championship roll call draws on Wikipedia's List of NBA players with most championships (text licensed CC BY-SA). The seven GOAT-dimension ratings are our own editorial opinion. That's the whole point of the machine.

Video

Clips & highlights

Signature-moment and debate clips are embedded from YouTube via the privacy-enhanced youtube-nocookie.com player. All rights remain with the video owners. Most clips come from official channels (NBA, Golden State Warriors, Denver Nuggets, ESPN, FOX Sports, The Skip Bayless Show, Club Shay Shay), and a few vintage highlights are community uploads. Nothing is hosted here; if a video is removed by its owner, the embed simply stops working.

Audio

Jukebox

The Jukebox is a set of arena and hoops anthems, each embedded from YouTube. Song titles and artists are credited in the player; all rights remain with the rights holders.

Type

Typefaces

Display type is Bebas Neue, body is Archivo, and labels are Geist Mono, all open source under the SIL Open Font License, self-hosted via Google Fonts.

Legal

Trademarks & affiliation

The GOAT Machine is an independent fan project and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the NBA, its teams, or any player. “NBA,” team names, and all related marks and logos are the property of their respective owners and are used here only to refer to the real teams and players. See our Privacy Policy for how the site handles data.