a slightly better resume than Barkley, because having watched them both a ton in their prime, I always thought Barkley was the better player. As a Jazz fan who grew up in the 80's and 90's I looooooved Karl Malone - but when the Jazz went head to head with the Suns, I was always terrified of Barkley. The big difference between the two players was that you knew that every night, Karl Malone was going to score 26 points and pull down 10 rebounds. Maybe he might score 32, and he almost certainly wasn't going to score less than 18.

You didn't know what you were going to get out of Barkley, he might lay an egg on a given night, but there was also a chance that he would explode for 45 points and 20 rebounds. When he wanted to, he could take over a game like very few other players in NBA history - the only guys that I would really put on that level from "my era" would be Magic, Bird, MJ, LeBron, Shaq and Kobe.

I agree with Duncan as #1 (again, if you ignore the fact that he was really a Center)