Barkley: I'm better than Malone [Archive] - Page 2 - Message Board Basketball Forum

Shep

09-02-2012, 12:05 AM

Ah, delusion at it's finest. The only thing you've done in this thread is make outrageous statements that can't be backed up by any reasonable arguments.
irony at its best right here ladies and gentlemen

Nope, you're just underrating Kobe as usual.
i actually rate everyone correctly

at Kidd being the best point guard in '07.
nash was close. nobody else was anywhere near.

He did have his best playoff series in '05, but unbelievable play throughout the '03 season makes it an easy choice. And he did nearly upset a very good Piston team with perhaps the worst supporting cast a star has had in the playoffs in the last 20 years or so. 2002 was a better season than 2001, but 2001 was a better playoff series.
yes, his only better years than 2007 were 2005, 2003, and 2001

No you can't. I watched him enough to assure you that 2003 is his peak, and it's not particularly close.
lol what is the argument here? points per game? :roll: he was better in 2005 in the regular season, and playoffs.

No, it's a real argument that comes from more than looking at basketball-reference. By the way +4.3 ppg and 2.8 TS% is a big difference for season averages.

And the difference between them as scorers that year in reality was at least as big as the statistical difference, if not bigger.
bryant got his in a uptempo, top 6 paced team, while lebron's cavs were in the bottom half in the league in pace. pretty much all he did was get up more shots.

What do you mean the Lakers never had a 7 game losing streak? Look at March 2nd to March 15th.
i'm sorry i was just going by memory, where are you getting this information?

The Lakers were lucky to not be a losing team themselves with such limited talent and all of those injuries. You can thank number 24 for that.
:roll: trash rebuttal

Well that is absolutely meaningless to me. There's so much more that goes into a team.
how convenient it is for that to be meaningless to you.

Maybe, but that's not really saying much. The other elite players didn't set the standard too high outside of Tim Duncan.
more convenient statements :roll: . being the second most impressive playoff performer in a particular year is absolutely an achievement, especially for a young man just 22 years old.

at trying to make it seem more insignificant by the per quarter nonsense. With how much you rely on stats, you should know that's not how season averages work. +3.7 rpg is excellent rebounding. Go check other teams to see.

Even Lebron in a subpar year obviously deserves a lot of credit for that success, but so is their defense and rebounding as well as the competition.

Lebron has no argument for being ranked any higher than 3rd that season, and even that's pushing it.
more filth :banghead: lebron was a huge part of that defense and rebounding. that team relied much more on 1 man than maybe any team in the history of the nba. besides, they may as well learn how to rebound when lebron was doing everything else imaginable.

at comparing Kobe's success as a 2nd option to his success as a first option. Kobe scored 0.2 ppg LESS in '08 than '01, and just 0.7 ppg more in the playoffs, so this obviously isn't what I'm basing my decisions on.
where are you getting this information

Of course you only point out the ppg when it's convenient for you. Nice attempt to discredit my argument, but you overlooked that I consider '08 to be arguably Kobe's best season.
i have no idea why you would rank '08 as his best season when the very next year he is quite clearly better.

I shouldn't even have to explain to you why comparing Kobe's team success in '01 when he played with the best player in the league to '06 and '07 is idiotic.
yeh he played with the best player in the league. so what? kobe was the secod best player in the league. playing with such a player who commands the ball like shaq did is expected to cause your production to fall off significantly. kobe's production did not drop off at all, and if you have seen the '01 playoffs you will understand why it is his peak, as he stepped up more than anyone else in the playoffs that year, including shaq in his second most peak season.

In '08, Kobe LED his team to the finals. He not only matched his all around game from the '01 playoffs, but he now had a more diverse scoring skill set in addition to it, and he maintained it for an entire season, not just a playoff run.
he had a nice regular season, but once again, the playoffs is where the difference is. if i was you i would do my best to pick up some footage of that 2001 playoff run.

Kobe's 2001 playoffs were up there with his best playoff runs, but he was simply not at his absolute best as a player yet. He also had great playoff runs in '08, '09 and '10. And in '06 and '07, he simply didn't have the same opportunity to match those playoff runs.
ofcourse he had great playoff runs, but unfortunately, they are nowhere near his 2001 run.

Doesn't make much sense considering Kareem was years away from his peak.
how is 1971 years away from 1971?

Yes, and it's not enough for me to label him a poor foul shooter. I'll look at the much bigger sample size, the 76 games he played in the regular season to judge his free throw shooting.
ok you can look at meaningless regular season games, i will look at important playoff games.

It didn't help him win more because he didn't have a team remotely comparable to the '71 Bucks in '77. Are you going to deny his team was MUCH worse in '77 than '71? The difference is night and day.
yes his team was better in 1971. but at the end of the day you play to win, kareem won a championship in '71, and he did not win a championship in '77 these are the cold hard truths.

the man won multiple championships and you want his peak to be remembered as one where he barely gets by the much inferior golden state warriors before getting swept out of the playoffs by bill walton? :hammerhead:

It's predictable, you'll start with your "excuses" garbage. You do it every time you're exposed for not applying context. And you'll dodge the question about Kareem's supporting cast in '77 vs '71. But hey, I don't expect anything less, it's your trademark.

What's the point in even ranking players if you don't use anything you learn from watching games to rank them?
i definately use things like supporting casts when rank players. but it doesn't hold alot of ground. things like winning games of basketball holds more ground than going on about if this guy had those guys then they would be winning this amount. its trash.

Shut down when? '77? No, however, he was able to be contained much more in the early 70's with Milwaukee.
i'm sorry, how successful was the 1977 los angeles lakers?

I'm stating facts, and applying context because I know basketball isn't as simple as you're trying to make it. If you're going to compare team success, you have to keep in mind their teams. And when rating players you should look at how the players performed to get the result, not just the result because there are other players and teams to influence the result, but the player's performance speaks for itself. Now these things are subjective, but basketball is subjective.
you can only use context to a certain extent. players play games to be successful, and to win championships, which is why championships are a big factor in determining who is best because whoever wants it more will more than likely determine the great players from the legends.

First of all, Russell was the greatest player of all-time at that point, and more importantly, Wilt was 34 and had the knee surgery the year before. He remained great until he retired, but it wasn't the Wilt Chamberlain of the mid/late 60's, and his team was just overmatched. But he did by all accounts play Kareem to a standstill in the series.
russell was the second best player of all tim at that point. chamberlain was the greatest. chamberlain was still a top 4 player in the league, and goodrich was a top 2 shooting guard who had an outstanding playoff

And if you knew your NBA history, you'd know that Willis Reed was injured in the '71 playoffs. I've read a lot about the golden age of the Knicks and this is considered a major factor.
if you knew your history the new york knicks boasted 4 future hall of famers, were the defending champions, and were the best team in the eastern conference during the regular season. reed played fine, as did frazier and bradley, and the knicks had the bonus of having huge playoffs from dick barnett, and dave debusschere.

Coming from the biggest stat whore on this site. A man whose basketball knowledge consists solely of what he's read on basketball-reference.
:roll: coming from a man who only ranks players after he has checked the daily ppg leaders on nba.com

ShaqAttack3234

09-02-2012, 07:15 PM

nash was close. nobody else was anywhere near.

Well, at least we're getting somewhere now, however, there's still a long way to go because the correct answer would be Nash was clearly better and both Gilbert Arenas and Baron Davis were also better than Kidd in '07.

yes, his only better years than 2007 were 2005, 2003, and 2001

All that's missing is 2002 and 2004.

lol what is the argument here? points per game? :roll: he was better in 2005 in the regular season, and playoffs.

He had a better playoff series in 2005, I'll give you that. But what's the argument against 2003? He was at his most dominant individually for a season, his most efficient, his most consistent and considering his pathetic roster, his team overachieved the most. Has a star ever gotten a worse team into the playoffs? If so, it's probably not been within the last 20 years. It seemed like T-Mac was having unbelievable games every night.

What didn't he have in his game then? He was in a bit more of a playmaker role in Houston, but he still had to do that and did it quite well in Orlando.

bryant got his in a uptempo, top 6 paced team, while lebron's cavs were in the bottom half in the league in pace. pretty much all he did was get up more shots.

His skill set allowed him to get more shots since he could create them in so many ways from so many spots. As I mentioned, Lebron didn't have the mid-range game or post game and he was a poor 3 point shooter. He also wasn't crafty with Kobe so you wouldn't see him create something out of nowhere with fakes.

Kobe wasn't even trying to score for most of the year and still averaged 32.

Pace is less relevant to me than ball-dominance. Kobe played in the triangle offense, while Lebron was in an extremely ball-dominant role.

i'm sorry i was just going by memory, where are you getting this information?

ESPN, basketball-reference, yahoo. Take your pick.

more filth :banghead: lebron was a huge part of that defense and rebounding. that team relied much more on 1 man than maybe any team in the history of the nba. besides, they may as well learn how to rebound when lebron was doing everything else imaginable.

Lebron was an average defender in '07. He wasn't why they were a great defensive team. His rebounding was fine too, but also not why they excelled in that area. His team complemented him well.

where are you getting this information

It's not hard to look up how much Kobe scored in '08 and'01.

i have no idea why you would rank '08 as his best season when the very next year he is quite clearly better.

:oldlol: He was clearly not as good in '09. His defense wasn't as consistent as '08, though he stepped up his defense in the playoffs. He was more impressive as a facilitator, he was more athletic and explosive, he attacked the basket more and the Laker leaned on him to carry him more.

yeh he played with the best player in the league. so what? kobe was the secod best player in the league. playing with such a player who commands the ball like shaq did is expected to cause your production to fall off significantly. kobe's production did not drop off at all, and if you have seen the '01 playoffs you will understand why it is his peak, as he stepped up more than anyone else in the playoffs that year, including shaq in his second most peak season.

It doesn't necessarily mean you're production will fall off because the Lakers did not have a 3rd scoring option. Fisher was essentially a catch and shoot guy and a role player, Fox was also a role player.

But you did get Shaq's 2nd best season correct.

he had a nice regular season, but once again, the playoffs is where the difference is. if i was you i would do my best to pick up some footage of that 2001 playoff run.

I've seen the entire '01 playoffs. He was great, I was impressed by how much he matured and he did an excellent job as a facilitator, while also making the most of being the 2nd option by picking his spots driving to the basket more and capitalizing on transition and semi-transition opportunities. I have nothing but positive things to say about Kobe's '01 playoff run.

But because I've seen Kobe in '01 and after, I know that he added more to his game. '08 is the best example of the all around play from the '01 playoffs except over an entire season, but with a more diverse skill set. You know for a fact that if Kobe has a finals equal to his '01 finals in the '08 finals he loses anyway. And Kobe's '08 finals would be good enough to win on his '01 team.

Not only that, but Kobe may have not even made the playoffs if he had his '01 regular season on the '08 team, but Kobe's '08 season on the '01 team is enough for them to easily top 60 wins.

By the way, I've uploaded some '01 playoff footage myself, so of course, I've seen it. The only reason I haven't uploaded more is because everything except games 2 and 3 of the Sacramento series have been uploaded.

Game 2- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6xfzc5YmMM

Game 3- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7wmI7thoJw&feature=relmfu

ofcourse he had great playoff runs, but unfortunately, they are nowhere near his 2001 run.

'09 was his most consistent run, '08 had the most great series(first 3) and '10 was like '01 in that he had 2 great series.

yes his team was better in 1971. but at the end of the day you play to win, kareem won a championship in '71, and he did not win a championship in '77 these are the cold hard truths.

Kareem did everything a reasonable person could expect him to do in '77. I respect champions, but Kareem played like a champion. I respect the fact that he had a great regular season that elevated his team to the best record, lost 2 of his 3 best players and then raised his game some more in the playoffs.

the man won multiple championships and you want his peak to be remembered as one where he barely gets by the much inferior golden state warriors before getting swept out of the playoffs by bill walton? :hammerhead:
'
Yes because the man did win multiple championships. Before and after this proving he was a champion, but a champion on a bad team while his individual game peaked and he was the one player playing like a champion on the '77 even though there wasn't much of a point in doing so.

The Golden State series was memorable. Game 6 is available, go check it out. He had 43 points, 20 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 blocks in an elimination game. Part of game 7 is also available, and in that game he had 36 points and 26 rebounds.

i definately use things like supporting casts when rank players. but it doesn't hold alot of ground. things like winning games of basketball holds more ground than going on about if this guy had those guys then they would be winning this amount. its trash.

I agree that it's tough to guess what a player would do with certain supporting casts, and it's subjective, but that's why I look at the player's performance. Sometimes things are out of a player's control, which is why you can't even just look at the cast on paper, but how they performed in the series the team lost.

I agree that championships are the primary goal and the one thing you should play for, but it's not unheard of for a player to be the best in the league and not be fortunate enough to be in a good position for a championship. We've both ranked Jordan and Lebron as the best in the league when he wasn't on a championship team, as well as other players that we'd both agree on.

i'm sorry, how successful was the 1977 los angeles lakers?

Quite successful for essentially a 1 man team. Best record in the NBA and a Western Conference Finals Appearance

you can only use context to a certain extent. players play games to be successful, and to win championships, which is why championships are a big factor in determining who is best because whoever wants it more will more than likely determine the great players from the legends.

I think context must always be included no matter what. Even when a player is the best on a championship such as Isiah in '89 and '90, he still wasn't up there with Magic or Jordan.

if you knew your history the new york knicks boasted 4 future hall of famers, were the defending champions, and were the best team in the eastern conference during the regular season. reed played fine, as did frazier and bradley, and the knicks had the bonus of having huge playoffs from dick barnett, and dave debusschere.

Yes, the Knicks had a great team. DeBuscherre was one of the great forwards and Frazier one of the great guards, but having a limited Willis Reed definitely hurt them, and it was a reported fact that he had multiple injuries throughout the playoffs and his production clearly suffered compared to the regular season and his '70 season and playoffs.

:roll: coming from a man who only ranks players after he has checked the daily ppg leaders on nba.com

Already proved how ridiculous this claim is. A man who ranks players after checking the scoring leaders would have ranked the scoring champ as the best player more than 3 times in the last 14 seasons. In fact, if your claim was true, it'd be 14 of the last 14 times.

One of the '82 Laker games I promised.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJQInRryTUo&feature=plcp

That's what I look at for ranking players.

Shep

09-05-2012, 09:18 AM

Well, at least we're getting somewhere now, however, there's still a long way to go because the correct answer would be Nash was clearly better and both Gilbert Arenas and Baron Davis were also better than Kidd in '07.
lol we are getting close? nash was always close to kidd in '07, nothing has changed. the correct, and only answer is kidd is the best point guard in the league, nash was second, davis third, parker fourth, and arenas fifth.

All that's missing is 2002 and 2004.
the reason they are missing is because he wasn't better in those years

He had a better playoff series in 2005, I'll give you that. But what's the argument against 2003? He was at his most dominant individually for a season, his most efficient, his most consistent and considering his pathetic roster, his team overachieved the most. Has a star ever gotten a worse team into the playoffs? If so, it's probably not been within the last 20 years. It seemed like T-Mac was having unbelievable games every night.

What didn't he have in his game then? He was in a bit more of a playmaker role in Houston, but he still had to do that and did it quite well in Orlando.
the magic had a great bunch of role players that year. they were also one of the best long range bombers in the league and had a plethora of shooters in the league including pat garrity, mike miller, and darrell armstrong. they also had a great playoff from drew gooden who stepped much more than mcgrady. putting up empty stats on a team that is barely over .500 won't get you ranked with the best in the league. mcgrady was ranked 8th.

His skill set allowed him to get more shots since he could create them in so many ways from so many spots. As I mentioned, Lebron didn't have the mid-range game or post game and he was a poor 3 point shooter. He also wasn't crafty with Kobe so you wouldn't see him create something out of nowhere with fakes.

Kobe wasn't even trying to score for most of the year and still averaged 32.

Pace is less relevant to me than ball-dominance. Kobe played in the triangle offense, while Lebron was in an extremely ball-dominant role.
allen iverson was also abe to create more shots than lebron :hammerhead:

being in a ball-dominant role is less relevant to me. the cavs needed the ball to be in lebron's hand to have the best chance to win games, so thats what happened.

ESPN, basketball-reference, yahoo. Take your pick.
but which one did you use?

Lebron was an average defender in '07. He wasn't why they were a great defensive team. His rebounding was fine too, but also not why they excelled in that area. His team complemented him well.
filth at its finest. lebron was top 2 at his position in terms of rebounds per game, and one of the best defenders at that spot too. his second best player from the regular season shot 35% in the playoffs.

It's not hard to look up how much Kobe scored in '08 and'01.
i am very interested

He was clearly not as good in '09. His defense wasn't as consistent as '08, though he stepped up his defense in the playoffs. He was more impressive as a facilitator, he was more athletic and explosive, he attacked the basket more and the Laker leaned on him to carry him more.
more impressive as a facilitator :roll: just say more apg you loser :facepalm

once again your argument seems to be stats, which is not surprising in the least. bryant took on a bigger role and led the lakers to 65 wins, and stepped up alot more in the playoffs. things that are important, not apg.

It doesn't necessarily mean you're production will fall off because the Lakers did not have a 3rd scoring option. Fisher was essentially a catch and shoot guy and a role player, Fox was also a role player.

But you did get Shaq's 2nd best season correct.
more excuses. i get everything i say correct.

I've seen the entire '01 playoffs. He was great, I was impressed by how much he matured and he did an excellent job as a facilitator, while also making the most of being the 2nd option by picking his spots driving to the basket more and capitalizing on transition and semi-transition opportunities. I have nothing but positive things to say about Kobe's '01 playoff run.

But because I've seen Kobe in '01 and after, I know that he added more to his game. '08 is the best example of the all around play from the '01 playoffs except over an entire season, but with a more diverse skill set. You know for a fact that if Kobe has a finals equal to his '01 finals in the '08 finals he loses anyway. And Kobe's '08 finals would be good enough to win on his '01 team.

Not only that, but Kobe may have not even made the playoffs if he had his '01 regular season on the '08 team, but Kobe's '08 season on the '01 team is enough for them to easily top 60 wins.

By the way, I've uploaded some '01 playoff footage myself, so of course, I've seen it. The only reason I haven't uploaded more is because everything except games 2 and 3 of the Sacramento series have been uploaded.
more hearsay bs. once again i deal with what actually happened, where as you like to dabble in things such as what ifs.

'09 was his most consistent run, '08 had the most great series(first 3) and '10 was like '01 in that he had 2 great series.
bryant stepping up like he did was the main reason the lakers romped to a 15-1 win loss record. bryant was the most impressive playoff performer out of everyone who participated in the 2001 playoffs, including teammate shaquille o'neal in his second most peak season. no other playoff run came close.

Kareem did everything a reasonable person could expect him to do in '77. I respect champions, but Kareem played like a champion. I respect the fact that he had a great regular season that elevated his team to the best record, lost 2 of his 3 best players and then raised his game some more in the playoffs.
i respect that too, and i have him as the best player in the league in 1977, but unfortunately for your argument, champions hold alot of weight when official rankings take place, and kareem leading the bucks to the '71 championship (while losing only 2 games throughout the playoffs), after a 66-16 regular season is far too much to overcome.

Yes because the man did win multiple championships. Before and after this proving he was a champion, but a champion on a bad team while his individual game peaked and he was the one player playing like a champion on the '77 even though there wasn't much of a point in doing so.

The Golden State series was memorable. Game 6 is available, go check it out. He had 43 points, 20 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 blocks in an elimination game. Part of game 7 is also available, and in that game he had 36 points and 26 rebounds.
lol so he proved that he could win championships in the past so he gets a pass for getting swept out of the playoffs just because he puts up some points? :roll: . yes it was nice series vs golden state, good enough to contribute to being ranked as the best player in the league.

I agree that it's tough to guess what a player would do with certain supporting casts, and it's subjective, but that's why I look at the player's performance. Sometimes things are out of a player's control, which is why you can't even just look at the cast on paper, but how they performed in the series the team lost.
player performance is very important. but if you struggle to lead your team anywhere in the playoffs, which is the true test of greatness, no matter what numbers you put up you will more than likely not be ranked as the best player in the league.

I agree that championships are the primary goal and the one thing you should play for, but it's not unheard of for a player to be the best in the league and not be fortunate enough to be in a good position for a championship. We've both ranked Jordan and Lebron as the best in the league when he wasn't on a championship team, as well as other players that we'd both agree on.
definately. picking the best player on the championship team and naming him the best player is just silly.

Quite successful for essentially a 1 man team. Best record in the NBA and a Western Conference Finals Appearance
but compared to the 1971 bucks, not very successful at all.

I think context must always be included no matter what. Even when a player is the best on a championship such as Isiah in '89 and '90, he still wasn't up there with Magic or Jordan.
this is correct. but winning a championship elevated him to 4th overall in '89, and 6th in '90.

Already proved how ridiculous this claim is. A man who ranks players after checking the scoring leaders would have ranked the scoring champ as the best player more than 3 times in the last 14 seasons. In fact, if your claim was true, it'd be 14 of the last 14 times.
i didn't say that that man ranked the scoring leaders as the best player, i just said he only ranked players after checking the leaders.

One of the '82 Laker games I promised.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJQInRryTUo&feature=plcp

That's what I look at for ranking players.
you look at youtube for ranking players?

Remix

09-05-2012, 01:04 PM

ShaqAttack >>> Shep

The things Shep has said are obviously just trying to discredit Barkley. If I'm picking who had the highest peak, the player I'd build my team around for one season is Barkley, not Malone.

ShaqAttack3234

09-05-2012, 10:05 PM

lol we are getting close? nash was always close to kidd in '07, nothing has changed. the correct, and only answer is kidd is the best point guard in the league, nash was second, davis third, parker fourth, and arenas fifth.

Kidd and Baron were close. Nash was far ahead of every point guard. I was never a fan of Arenas, but he was a really good player back then.

the magic had a great bunch of role players that year. they were also one of the best long range bombers in the league and had a plethora of shooters in the league including pat garrity, mike miller, and darrell armstrong. they also had a great playoff from drew gooden who stepped much more than mcgrady. putting up empty stats on a team that is barely over .500 won't get you ranked with the best in the league. mcgrady was ranked 8th.

He had Miller for the first half of the season, Orlando played their best ball after trading him.

They went 16-11 after the trade with a cast of Gordan Giricek, rookie Drew Gooden, Pat Garrity, 34 year old Darrell Armstrong and Shawn Kemp who gad given up blow in favor of an addiction to big macs and probably eaten half of his 2 dozen kids.

His cast was horrible, any perimeter player except for maybe prime Jordan would struggle to get them over .500. Doesn't matter if it was Kobe or Wade, the results would be no better.

But T-Mac's "empty" stats took that trash to a 7th game vs Detroit. This included a game where T-Mac scored 46 of Orlando's 77 points vs Detroit and he shot 62% while the rest of the team shot 26%. that's how bad that orlando team was. And that was right after his game 1 vs Detroit which remains one of my all-time favorite T-Mac games.

A big reason Orlando shot a good % on 3s is that T-Mac took most of them taking 6.5 per game, making an amazing 2.3 at a phenomenal 39%. Not to mention T-Mac's excellent playmaking which set Orlando's shooters up.

allen iverson was also abe to create more shots than lebron :hammerhead:

Anywhere near as efficiently as Kobe did? Besides, peak Iverson was a better scorer than '07 Lebron, arguably a better or at least comparable player.

being in a ball-dominant role is less relevant to me. the cavs needed the ball to be in lebron's hand to have the best chance to win games, so thats what happened.

But it can still make stats misleading, despite this, Kobe's numbers were better than Lebron's and the Lakers offense was much better than Cleveland's offense.

but which one did you use?

ESPN, I think, it came up first on a google search for Kobe Bryant. Why?

filth at its finest. lebron was top 2 at his position in terms of rebounds per game, and one of the best defenders at that spot too. his second best player from the regular season shot 35% in the playoffs.

Lebron's rebounding was fine, but his numbers have often been misleading, look at how few offensive rebounds he's gotten. It'sonly been the past year or so that he's genuinely impressed me as a rebounder. 6.7 rpg for a SF playing 40 mpg is nothing special.

Lebron's defense was nothing special in '07. he wasn't a bad defender like his first 3 years, but he wasn't great year. Pretty average.

Lebron himself shot just 41.6% in those playoffs, so why are you bringing up %? Especially when lebron shot that same 35% in the finals with almost 6 TO per game.

more impressive as a facilitator :roll: just say more apg you loser :facepalm

That's only a small part of how I judge playmaking. Assists like all stats, are circumstantial. Watching Kobe's game management, when to get his teammates involved, when to take over ect was the best I've seen him. Rivaled only by the '01 playoffs.

once again your argument seems to be stats, which is not surprising in the least. bryant took on a bigger role and led the lakers to 65 wins, and stepped up alot more in the playoffs. things that are important, not apg.

:oldlol: So now my argument is apg when he's topped his '08 apg numerous times? Kobe didn't take a bigger role in '09, he had an improved Pau Gasol for a full season rather than 26-27 games, he had Bynum for 50 games, instead of 35, and unlike '08, he played with Gasol and Ariza was there for the entire season.

The only advantage for his playoffs in '09 is the finals, but anyone with a brain can see that it's because the '08 celtics were clearly better than the '09 Magic and Kobe's '09 team was clearly better than his '08 team. Kobe had played better through his first 3 rounds in the '08 playoffs, he was truly unbelievable, achieving his full potential as an all around player.

more hearsay bs. once again i deal with what actually happened, where as you like to dabble in things such as what ifs.

:oldlol: Do you even know what hearsay means? I'll give you a hint, it doesn't mean hypotheticals.And yes, I do look at more than just the result because it's necessary to properly credit them. I look at what happened and evaluate it the best I can.

bryant stepping up like he did was the main reason the lakers romped to a 15-1 win loss record. bryant was the most impressive playoff performer out of everyone who participated in the 2001 playoffs, including teammate shaquille o'neal in his second most peak season. no other playoff run came close.

:oldlol: Kobe was NOT the best player in the '01 playoffs, he was second best behind Shaq. You can say he stepped up more compared to his regular season and I might agree, but Shaq was their best and most valuable player of the '01 playoffs.

i respect that too, and i have him as the best player in the league in 1977, but unfortunately for your argument, champions hold alot of weight when official rankings take place, and kareem leading the bucks to the '71 championship (while losing only 2 games throughout the playoffs), after a 66-16 regular season is far too much to overcome.

For your rankings, not mine. Champions seem to be the best player more often than not, but there are exceptions as you acknowledged with '77 Kareem. As it is, we're both ranking Kareem over Bill Walton who won a title that year while sweeping Kareem's Lakers. tell me your thought process behind ranking Kareem 1st.

lol so he proved that he could win championships in the past so he gets a pass for getting swept out of the playoffs just because he puts up some points? :roll: . yes it was nice series vs golden state, good enough to contribute to being ranked as the best player in the league.

Considering he won championships before and after and showed no signs of slowing down in the '77 playoffs, yes, I don't doubt that he was at a championship level, typically, the best player in the league is.

player performance is very important. but if you struggle to lead your team anywhere in the playoffs, which is the true test of greatness, no matter what numbers you put up you will more than likely not be ranked as the best player in the league.

But that isn't the case with '77 Kareem since we both ranked him as the best in the league.

definately. picking the best player on the championship team and naming him the best player is just silly.

Exactly, anyone could do that.

but compared to the 1971 bucks, not very successful at all.

And that wasn't a 1 man team. They had Oscar, Bob Dandridge and Jon mcGlocklin.

this is correct. but winning a championship elevated him to 4th overall in '89, and 6th in '90.

Definitely couldn't put him that high myself, but you're not the first I've seen do it.

i didn't say that that man ranked the scoring leaders as the best player, i just said he only ranked players after checking the leaders.

What's the difference? And I don't know where every player I've ranked as the best finished among scoring leaders. Bird in '84 and '86 for example, Moses in '83, Duncan in '05...I have no idea where these players finished among the scoring leaders off the top of my head.

you look at youtube for ranking players?

I obviously didn't see that game on youtube since I uploaded it, but all games are what I base most of my rankings on.

LA Lakers

09-10-2012, 04:32 AM

Gotta go with Barkley on this one. Just all around more dynamic game than The Mailman. Barkley from 89-94, name me a more dominant power forward, ever? Tim Duncan? Thats it. No one remembers how mean Charles was, either. Just a tough, mean, explosive cat. Youll never see Malone do a 1 on 3 full court fastbreak and I mean, FAST break. The Mailman was efficient cuz he had Stockton feeding him off a high screen set for 8 or 9 years. Might as well have been gym practice for those two. Barkley was a one man freight train locomotive. And dont think he wouldnt bully guys twice his size on the boards either. The closest weve witnessed to Barkleys prime in terms of ferocity and physical power at the forward position in recent years is Lebron James.

Round Mound

09-10-2012, 04:48 AM

joeyjoejoe

09-10-2012, 05:26 AM

Malone and stockton worked well together coz they knew eachothers game so well its not like malone just stood in the corner waiting for the pass he set picks and they anticipated so well, did barkley magically become a star working with an excellent pg in kj both in their primes

Shep

09-10-2012, 06:48 AM

Kidd and Baron were close. Nash was far ahead of every point guard. I was never a fan of Arenas, but he was a really good player back then.
nash was a great player, top 7 in the league infact, overall he was the best player on the suns team, but in the regular season shawn marion was the suns best player, and in the playoffs amare stoudemire was the suns best player.

kidd on the other hand was the nets best player in the regular season, and easily their best player in the playoffs by a huge margin. kidd's play in the playoffs is enough to separate the two.

arenas was a good player, but still not better than parker and davis, let alone kidd.

He had Miller for the first half of the season, Orlando played their best ball after trading him.

They went 16-11 after the trade with a cast of Gordan Giricek, rookie Drew Gooden, Pat Garrity, 34 year old Darrell Armstrong and Shawn Kemp who gad given up blow in favor of an addiction to big macs and probably eaten half of his 2 dozen kids.

His cast was horrible, any perimeter player except for maybe prime Jordan would struggle to get them over .500. Doesn't matter if it was Kobe or Wade, the results would be no better.

But T-Mac's "empty" stats took that trash to a 7th game vs Detroit. This included a game where T-Mac scored 46 of Orlando's 77 points vs Detroit and he shot 62% while the rest of the team shot 26%. that's how bad that orlando team was. And that was right after his game 1 vs Detroit which remains one of my all-time favorite T-Mac games.

A big reason Orlando shot a good % on 3s is that T-Mac took most of them taking 6.5 per game, making an amazing 2.3 at a phenomenal 39%. Not to mention T-Mac's excellent playmaking which set Orlando's shooters up.
heh, that shawn kemp thing made me giggle.

there was only 8 games that separated the orlando magic from the detroit pistons, so taking that team to 7 games was seemed more amazing if you just look at it as a 1v8, but if you look at the games disparity then it becomes less stunning. on top of this only 1 team in th east managed to win more than 49 games and the best team won 50 games. a nice time to win some games an an eastern conference team.

mcgrady will take most of the blame for letting the magic lose a 3-1 lead in that pistons series. tmac went cold in the last 3 games, shooting a paltry 36%, including a laughable 7-24 effort in game 7, and turning the ball over almost 4 times per contest, meanwhile teammate drew gooden stepped up big with his 14 points and 13 rebounds per game and was the magic's best player in the final game.

any of the top 7 players with that sort of roster around them will win atleast as many games as tracy mcgrady did with the orlando magic that year.

Anywhere near as efficiently as Kobe did? Besides, peak Iverson was a better scorer than '07 Lebron, arguably a better or at least comparable player.
you were talking about creating shots. peak iverson wasn't as good as '07 lebron, but on the other hand he was easily better than '07 bryant.

But it can still make stats misleading, despite this, Kobe's numbers were better than Lebron's and the Lakers offense was much better than Cleveland's offense.
lebron had better numbers. and the lakers having a better offense means that lebron did much better to succeed in a trash system.

ESPN, I think, it came up first on a google search for Kobe Bryant. Why?
i dunno, just making conversation :confusedshrug:

Lebron's rebounding was fine, but his numbers have often been misleading, look at how few offensive rebounds he's gotten. It'sonly been the past year or so that he's genuinely impressed me as a rebounder. 6.7 rpg for a SF playing 40 mpg is nothing special.
nobody else is worthy or able to play 40mpg, so if nobody else does it there is a reason behind it.

lol so he has impressed you the last few years with his rebounds? 0.9 offensive rebounds per game in '10 impressed you, while his 1.1 offensive rebounds per game in '07 was nothing special :oldlol:

ebron's defense was nothing special in '07. he wasn't a bad defender like his first 3 years, but he wasn't great year. Pretty average.
he played a huge part in the cavs defensive schemes in '07, not only averaging almost 7 defensive rebounds per game and picking up almost 2 steals, but also showed evidence of great overall defense including great at transition defense, good post defense, and exceptional at stopping drives to the hoop and getting a hand in shooters faces.

Lebron himself shot just 41.6% in those playoffs, so why are you bringing up %? Especially when lebron shot that same 35% in the finals with almost 6 TO per game.
simple, 42% is better than 35%. and when that 35% is from your second best player and you still make it to the finals it is some achievement.

So now my argument is apg when he's topped his '08 apg numerous times? Kobe didn't take a bigger role in '09, he had an improved Pau Gasol for a full season rather than 26-27 games, he had Bynum for 50 games, instead of 35, and unlike '08, he played with Gasol and Ariza was there for the entire season.

The only advantage for his playoffs in '09 is the finals, but anyone with a brain can see that it's because the '08 celtics were clearly better than the '09 Magic and Kobe's '09 team was clearly better than his '08 team. Kobe had played better through his first 3 rounds in the '08 playoffs, he was truly unbelievable, achieving his full potential as an all around player.
bynum wasn't even as good as his '08 self and was a non factor in the playoffs, and the lakes had a lot more depth in '08.

bryant had a better regular season in '08, but was much better in the '09 playoffs. he led the lakers to the third most wins in their 60 year history, was the best and most impressive player out of all participants in the 2009 nba playoffs, led the lakers to a 16-7 record in the playoffs, and to top it off, was finals most valuable player with averges of 32.4ppg, 5.6rpg, 7.4apg, 1.4spg, and 1.4bpg after a 34/6/6 conference finals. it is just too easy to conclude that '09 bryant was better.

Do you even know what hearsay means? I'll give you a hint, it doesn't mean hypotheticals.And yes, I do look at more than just the result because it's necessary to properly credit them. I look at what happened and evaluate it the best I can.
:roll: do you even know what the letters nba stand for? you aren't doing a good job of evalating such things as the nba, infact maybe it is time, with your best interests at heart, to re-evaluate your evaluating skills.

Kobe was NOT the best player in the '01 playoffs, he was second best behind Shaq. You can say he stepped up more compared to his regular season and I might agree, but Shaq was their best and most valuable player of the '01 playoffs.
can you read? when did i say kobe was he best player in the '01 playoffs? he definately stepped up more than shaq and was more impressive.

For your rankings, not mine. Champions seem to be the best player more often than not, but there are exceptions as you acknowledged with '77 Kareem. As it is, we're both ranking Kareem over Bill Walton who won a title that year while sweeping Kareem's Lakers. tell me your thought process behind ranking Kareem 1st.
well kareem was the most valuable player by one of the largest margins known to man, and played great in the playoffs. kareem was quite clearly the best player in '77

Considering he won championships before and after and showed no signs of slowing down in the '77 playoffs, yes, I don't doubt that he was at a championship level, typically, the best player in the league is.
if you are at championship level you win a championship.

But that isn't the case with '77 Kareem since we both ranked him as the best in the league.
kareem atleast made some noise in the playoffs, where as in '71 he set records.

And that wasn't a 1 man team. They had Oscar, Bob Dandridge and Jon mcGlocklin.
you can't be a 1 man team if you finish with the best record in the league, like the lakers did in '77.

Dragonyeuw

09-10-2012, 08:09 AM

You two seriously need your own thread lol

D.J.

09-10-2012, 02:30 PM

You two seriously need your own thread lol

This thread could die if Shep would just admit he's wrong.

StateOfMind12

09-10-2012, 04:40 PM

Malone was better and I think Malone has a better argument over Barkley at their peaks than what most people think.

Barkley was probably a better box-score player but that doesn't mean he was necessarily the better player.

I hate how underrated Malone has been. You would think with the way most people talk about him around here that he couldn't even create his own shot which is completely false.

Round Mound

09-10-2012, 04:58 PM

Barkley was Better from 1985-86 to 1994-95. Even I Admit Malone Was Better after 1995 but In Barkley`s Prime and Health, There Was No Contest On Who Was The Best PF in the Legaue.

1- Barkley was a Better Pure Scorer: Post Player and Mid Range Scorer: He Shot Less and Was More Effective
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Season Career

Barkley shot 58.13% Two-Point FG at 21.6 PPG on 12.9...Two Point FGAs Pg (Season)

Malone shot 51.9% Two-Point FG FG at 24.7 PPG on 17.5...Two-Point FGAs PG PG (Season)

Play-Offs Career: "Malone Shot Over 50% For Only 3 Play-Off Runs":

Barkley shot 55.13% FG at 22.5 PPG on 14.5 ...Two-Point FGAs PG (Play-Offs)

Malone shot 46.6% Two-Point FG at 24.6 PPG on 19.3...Two-Point FGAs PG (Play-Offs)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

2- Barkley Was The Better Skilled Player and Ballhandler. Could Go Coast to Coast on His Own.

3- Barkley was the Better Offensive Creator

4- Barkley was the Better Rebonder

5- Barkley was the Better Passer and Assister

6- Barkley was The Better Team Defender and Stealer (Highest SPG Avg for a PF)

7- And In His Phily Days...He Was a Better Shot Blocker and Off Man Defender.

8- Most Doubled Player Prior to Shaq

9- Called the "Zone Buster"

10- Created More Ilegal Defenses in the NBA

11- Like Shaq...Needed More Defensive Rotations

12- Forced Rule Change "5 Second Back to the Basket Rule"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Malone was a Better FT Shooter and Post Defender. Thats About IT

Round Mound

09-10-2012, 05:05 PM

This thread could die if Shep would just admit he's wrong.

He is a "Barkley Hater"...Like all Jazz Fans. So Thats Not Possible.

ThunderStruk022

09-10-2012, 05:08 PM

Round Mound

09-10-2012, 05:29 PM

How About Including What Barkley Shot from the 3P Line in that Stretch? Are you Just Going to Conveniently Leave Out that he Shot 27% (403/1505) From 3P In that Stretch?

Why Should We Just Omit and Ignore a Part of His game That he Felt the Need to Inefficiently Include on a Heavy Basis?

The Point Is To Show Who Was a Better Post Player and Mid Range Scorer. Thats it...And its Barkley for Sure.

The Colors Are There So One Can See Faster the Point Im Trying to Prove.

Barkley was Bored of Dominating Inside that he Began Shooting 3s. Even I Hated It. Still Doesn`t Change the Fact that Inside Only Shaq Was Better In the Last 25-30 Years. So :bowdown:

BTW: Those Stats I Discovered ARE FOR HIS WHOLE CAREER. Not a Stretch

D.J.

09-10-2012, 05:44 PM

Legends66NBA7

09-10-2012, 06:15 PM

The Point Is To Show Who Was a Better Post Player and Mid Range Scorer. Thats it...And its Barkley for Sure.

How do you know Barkley is the better mid-range scorer when you don't list the numbers from mid-range ?

I don't even think that data is available and I doubt anybody saying that, but that stats you give are so arbitrary. The 2 point shots could be anything within the arc and Barkley was a much more of a post player than a mid-range scorer.

Plus you need to take into account how Barkley was defended for his jump shots/drives/post game.

Round Mound

09-10-2012, 06:26 PM

How do you know Barkley is the better mid-range scorer when you don't list the numbers from mid-range ?

I don't even think that data is available and I doubt anybody saying that, but that stats you give are so arbitrary. The 2 point shots could be anything within the arc and Barkley was a much more of a post player than a mid-range scorer.

Plus you need to take into account how Barkley was defended for his jump shots/drives/post game.

Cause I Saw Both of Them Play When Barkley was Healthy unlike Most of The Kiddos Here That Saw a Fat Overweight Back and Knee Injured Chuck in the Late 90s. :confusedshrug:

Its True Barkey was More of a Post Player but He Also Had a Great Mid Range Shot...He Worked With Dantley Alot (Malone developed a Good Post Game As He Got Older but Was Never as Effective as Chuck`s).

Barkley was Many Times Doubled In the Mid Range Region Unlike Malone Who Was Doubled in the Post as was Barkley even More...But Malone Was Not Doubled Far Range Like Chuck Was Doubled. See The Thing Is Barkley`s Skillset Presented More of a Problem because he Could Not Just Hit Post Game Shots or Mid Range Jumpers (within a Stand like Bird) but Also Drive Past You in a Second 1 on 1. He Could Also Go Coast to Coast and Rumble his Way Onto the Basket. He Was More Dangerous Offensively.

See if a Player Shoots that Well Inside 3-Point Line You Might Be Thinking It He was over 7`0 ft and 280 lbs and All Where Dunks or Putbacks Rebounds? :no: But Thats Not Just What He Did. To Have a High 2-Point FG% and Score Alot In It...You Must Be Versatile Enough Offensively.

Like This Video Shows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTMFTQFvO_8

If You Don`t Double Barkley 8-12 FT Away from the Rim...This Happened.

Round Mound

09-10-2012, 06:29 PM

Because Malone rarely shot three pointers, so you can't compare them. Malone attempted only 310 and oddly enough, shot a very close percentage to Barkley's over their careers(27.4% to 26.6% in favor of Malone).

Barkley Shot Way More Threes and Wasn`t a Specialist Thats Why is FG% Dropped BUT.... Compared To Karl He Still Was More Effective.

What Im Pointing Out is Mid Range and Post Play FG%. That is, Inside the 3-Point Line....Where Barkley`s 2-Point FG% and 2-Point FGs Made (over 21 and 22 PPG) WHERE MUCH HIGHER IN % AND EFFECTIVENSS Compared to Karl. Thats All.

BEAST Griffin

09-10-2012, 10:30 PM

Charles Barkley is right.

He's one of the 5 most dominant scorers of all time (Wilt, Shaq, Jordan, Kareem, Barkley), better rebounder, more doubles teams, etc.

Not a contest to me. Karl Malone gives you longevity. Charles Barkley gives you more dominance. I take dominance over longevity.

ShaqAttack3234

09-11-2012, 01:23 AM

nash was a great player, top 7 in the league infact, overall he was the best player on the suns team, but in the regular season shawn marion was the suns best player, and in the playoffs amare stoudemire was the suns best player.

Marion was not the Suns best player. Great complementary player, versatile and valuable at both ends, but not on Nash's level. Nash was the key to everything the Suns did. Obviously running the break and setting up finishers like Amare and Marion, or making their half court offense work in screen/rolls with Amare, probing and keeping his dribble to either find a slasher like Marion or a shooter in the corner, and the ability to score in multiple ways himself when he wanted made him that much more effective. He was up there with the best pure shooters, there was no one I had more confidence in when he took a shot, whether it was a pull up 3, shooting over a bigger player when a switch forced a mismatch, the ability to make off balance 15 footers and shoot with accuracy from almost everywhere.

Amare did step up more than Nash in the playoffs. Nash played well as usual, but not as noticeable compared to his usual level as Nash.

kidd on the other hand was the nets best player in the regular season, and easily their best player in the playoffs by a huge margin. kidd's play in the playoffs is enough to separate the two.

Carter was clearly the Nets best player during the regular season, though Kidd was easily better during the playoffs.

arenas was a good player, but still not better than parker and davis, let alone kidd.

He was definitely better than Parker, and similar to Davis. Arenas was bordering on superstar level at that time and simply a more dangerous player than Kidd was at 34 years old.

heh, that shawn kemp thing made me giggle.

It's sad remembering Kemp on the Sonics dunking over everyone, blocking shots and grabbing rebounds left and right and then in Orlando, waddling onto the court, taking a few 20 footers, getting out of breath and waddling back over to the bench.

there was only 8 games that separated the orlando magic from the detroit pistons, so taking that team to 7 games was seemed more amazing if you just look at it as a 1v8, but if you look at the games disparity then it becomes less stunning. on top of this only 1 team in th east managed to win more than 49 games and the best team won 50 games. a nice time to win some games an an eastern conference team.

Even so, Detroit was a much better team. They had Ben Wallace in addition to a well-rounded starting 5 and an excellent bench.

mcgrady will take most of the blame for letting the magic lose a 3-1 lead in that pistons series. tmac went cold in the last 3 games, shooting a paltry 36%, including a laughable 7-24 effort in game 7, and turning the ball over almost 4 times per contest, meanwhile teammate drew gooden stepped up big with his 14 points and 13 rebounds per game and was the magic's best player in the final game.

Fair enough, T-Mac's series certainly wasn't all good, but it wasn't just bad either. He had the unbelievable start to the series and then the disappointing finish after Detroit switched Tayshaun Prince onto him. T-Mac averaged 36/6/5, 2.3 spg, 1.3 bpg on 52 FG% and 40 3P% and 3 made threes to get Orlando up 3-1.

any of the top 7 players with that sort of roster around them will win atleast as many games as tracy mcgrady did with the orlando magic that year.

I seriously doubt it.

you were talking about creating shots. peak iverson wasn't as good as '07 lebron, but on the other hand he was easily better than '07 bryant.

:oldlol: '07 Kobe did what Iverson did the thing best better than Iverson did, and he was also a better playmaker. There's no real argument for Iverson here.

lebron had better numbers. and the lakers having a better offense means that lebron did much better to succeed in a trash system.

Lebron didn't have better numbers, he had small advantages in assists(+0.6) and rebounds(+1) which isn't enough to make up for Kobe's big scoring advantage(+4.3)

As far as their systems? It's questionable whether Lebron could succeed in the triangle. He hasn't shown much of an ability to play without the ball. Only this year did he seem to improve a bit.

The Lakers across the board were a much better offensive team than the Cavs. The Lakers were 5th in ppg, 6th in FG% and 7th in offensive rating while the Cavs were 18th in offensive rating, 19th in ppg and 24th in FG%.

nobody else is worthy or able to play 40mpg, so if nobody else does it there is a reason behind it.

lol so he has impressed you the last few years with his rebounds? 0.9 offensive rebounds per game in '10 impressed you, while his 1.1 offensive rebounds per game in '07 was nothing special :oldlol:

When did I say that? I've always said that Lebron's rebounding was the most overrated part of his game until this year. I noticed his rebounding a lot more, and not surprisingly, he averaged a phenomenal 9.7 rpg during the playoffs and 2.3 offensive boards.

he played a huge part in the cavs defensive schemes in '07, not only averaging almost 7 defensive rebounds per game and picking up almost 2 steals, but also showed evidence of great overall defense including great at transition defense, good post defense, and exceptional at stopping drives to the hoop and getting a hand in shooters faces.

It seems that you're describing Lebron the last few years, particularly in Miami.

And since you like small sample sizes(Odom without Kobe), how about the 4 games Cleveland played without Lebron when several players put up better numbers than usual, the team went 3-1 with a massive point differential, the Cavs had 5 players in double figures in all 4 games including 8 in their 124-97 win vs the Warriors?

simple, 42% is better than 35%. and when that 35% is from your second best player and you still make it to the finals it is some achievement.

It's an achievement, just one that doesn't impress me compared to other things I've seen from elite players, including Lebron himself.

bynum wasn't even as good as his '08 self and was a non factor in the playoffs, and the lakes had a lot more depth in '08.

Correct about Bynum, but as far as depth, they had pretty much the same roster, except improved versions of Gasol and Ariza for the whole season. The role players shooting so much better had a lot to do with Kobe doing the best job of his career as a playmaker.

bryant had a better regular season in '08, but was much better in the '09 playoffs. he led the lakers to the third most wins in their 60 year history, was the best and most impressive player out of all participants in the 2009 nba playoffs, led the lakers to a 16-7 record in the playoffs, and to top it off, was finals most valuable player with averges of 32.4ppg, 5.6rpg, 7.4apg, 1.4spg, and 1.4bpg after a 34/6/6 conference finals. it is just too easy to conclude that '09 bryant was better.

Ok, so you admit his '08 regular season was better, so that requires no further discussion.

Regarding the playoffs, I'll concede that his '09 run has a case for his best playoff run because of consistency through all 4 rounds, but his play through 3 rounds was clearly more impressive in 2008.

And there was a massive difference between the '08 and '09 finals. Not just Kobe's performance, but his opponent as well as the help he got.

:roll: do you even know what the letters nba stand for? you aren't doing a good job of evalating such things as the nba, infact maybe it is time, with your best interests at heart, to re-evaluate your evaluating skills.

:oldlol: Nice job changing the subject.

can you read? when did i say kobe was he best player in the '01 playoffs? he definately stepped up more than shaq and was more impressive.

Ok, my mistake, I interpreted more impressive as meaning better.

well kareem was the most valuable player by one of the largest margins known to man, and played great in the playoffs. kareem was quite clearly the best player in '77

No disagreement here.

if you are at championship level you win a championship.

So if you consider Kareem to have been clearly better than Walton who won a title then how was Kareem not at a championship level?

kareem atleast made some noise in the playoffs, where as in '71 he set records.

His team did, but his individual play was nothing special by his standards. His finals was pretty dominant, though.

you can't be a 1 man team if you finish with the best record in the league, like the lakers did in '77.

There's never literally been a 1 man team, it's a figure of speech. But he really didn't have quality teammates outside of Cazzie Russell, Lucius Allen and Kermit Washington, and he got the best record with Washington out for 29 games. Washington was his only help inside and on the boards.

It was a really flawed team and a team with limited talent to get the best record.

Shep

09-15-2012, 04:46 AM

Marion was not the Suns best player. Great complementary player, versatile and valuable at both ends, but not on Nash's level. Nash was the key to everything the Suns did. Obviously running the break and setting up finishers like Amare and Marion, or making their half court offense work in screen/rolls with Amare, probing and keeping his dribble to either find a slasher like Marion or a shooter in the corner, and the ability to score in multiple ways himself when he wanted made him that much more effective. He was up there with the best pure shooters, there was no one I had more confidence in when he took a shot, whether it was a pull up 3, shooting over a bigger player when a switch forced a mismatch, the ability to make off balance 15 footers and shoot with accuracy from almost everywhere.

Amare did step up more than Nash in the playoffs. Nash played well as usual, but not as noticeable compared to his usual level as Nash.
marion was the suns best player in the regular season. he would take the opposing teams best offensive threat on a nightly basis, defend bigs, defend smalls, fill holes, get in passing lanes, and block shots on the defensive end on top of displaying amazing defense on the inside, outside, and in transition. on the offensive end he still had the energy to score 18 points with zero plays run for him, without the ball he was one of the best players in the league and knew where to be at the right time better than almost anyone in the league, had a true shooting % of 59, and averaged 10 rebounds per contest.

Carter was clearly the Nets best player during the regular season, though Kidd was easily better during the playoffs.
it was closer in the regular season, but kidd is still clearly better, on top of them being worlds apart in the playoffs.

He was definitely better than Parker, and similar to Davis. Arenas was bordering on superstar level at that time and simply a more dangerous player than Kidd was at 34 years old.
i will admit that it was very close between the three point guards of davis, parker, and arenas. but that is the order of those three players, as tight as it is between them. as for kidd? well the only thing arenas was more dangerous than kidd in was the possibility of getting more turnovers than assists, and/or shooting 7-22 from the field.

Even so, Detroit was a much better team. They had Ben Wallace in addition to a well-rounded starting 5 and an excellent bench.
that much better team only managed 8 more wins

Fair enough, T-Mac's series certainly wasn't all good, but it wasn't just bad either. He had the unbelievable start to the series and then the disappointing finish after Detroit switched Tayshaun Prince onto him. T-Mac averaged 36/6/5, 2.3 spg, 1.3 bpg on 52 FG% and 40 3P% and 3 made threes to get Orlando up 3-1.
i agree, it was what would be expected of tracy mcgrady after the regular season that he had.

I seriously doubt it.
ok :confusedshrug:

'07 Kobe did what Iverson did the thing best better than Iverson did, and he was also a better playmaker. There's no real argument for Iverson here.
:roll: how many playoff games did bryant win again?

Lebron didn't have better numbers, he had small advantages in assists(+0.6) and rebounds(+1) which isn't enough to make up for Kobe's big scoring advantage(+4.3)
of course it isn't, but lebron had better numbers. on top of his more rebounds, and assists, he also had more steals, blocks, and less turnovers.

As far as their systems? It's questionable whether Lebron could succeed in the triangle. He hasn't shown much of an ability to play without the ball. Only this year did he seem to improve a bit.
no questions need to be asked, all that needs to be evaluated is what he did in his system.

The Lakers across the board were a much better offensive team than the Cavs. The Lakers were 5th in ppg, 6th in FG% and 7th in offensive rating while the Cavs were 18th in offensive rating, 19th in ppg and 24th in FG%.
more proof that the cavs had a trash offense.

When did I say that? I've always said that Lebron's rebounding was the most overrated part of his game until this year. I noticed his rebounding a lot more, and not surprisingly, he averaged a phenomenal 9.7 rpg during the playoffs and 2.3 offensive boards.
you said he has impressed you only the last few years.

It seems that you're describing Lebron the last few years, particularly in Miami.

And since you like small sample sizes(Odom without Kobe), how about the 4 games Cleveland played without Lebron when several players put up better numbers than usual, the team went 3-1 with a massive point differential, the Cavs had 5 players in double figures in all 4 games including 8 in their 124-97 win vs the Warriors?
i am describing lebron in the 2007 season.

all 4 games were against sub .500 teams.

It's an achievement, just one that doesn't impress me compared to other things I've seen from elite players, including Lebron himself.
it was an achievement that catapulted him into second best in the league.

Correct about Bynum, but as far as depth, they had pretty much the same roster, except improved versions of Gasol and Ariza for the whole season. The role players shooting so much better had a lot to do with Kobe doing the best job of his career as a playmaker.
kobe's play in the 2009 playoffs is the sealer here.

Ok, so you admit his '08 regular season was better, so that requires no further discussion.

Regarding the playoffs, I'll concede that his '09 run has a case for his best playoff run because of consistency through all 4 rounds, but his play through 3 rounds was clearly more impressive in 2008.

And there was a massive difference between the '08 and '09 finals. Not just Kobe's performance, but his opponent as well as the help he got.
i'm not going to go into individual rounds. that is like saying for the first 60 games of the regular season he was good, but for the last 20 he wasn't.

his playoff run as a whole was alot more impressive and you are clearly underrating the orlando magic who won 59 games, beat the defending champion boston celtics, beat the best player in the world in lebron james playing out of his skin to the tune of 39/8/8 and the 66-16 cleveland cavaliers. the magic boasted the best center and top 2 overall dwight howard, rashard lewis playing the best ball of his career who was a top 4 power forward, and a top 4 small forward in hedo turkoglu.

Nice job changing the subject.
no, i answered your question.

So if you consider Kareem to have been clearly better than Walton who won a title then how was Kareem not at a championship level?
because he didn't play at a level in which is team needed to win a championship

ShaqAttack3234

09-15-2012, 11:52 AM

marion was the suns best player in the regular season. he would take the opposing teams best offensive threat on a nightly basis, defend bigs, defend smalls, fill holes, get in passing lanes, and block shots on the defensive end on top of displaying amazing defense on the inside, outside, and in transition. on the offensive end he still had the energy to score 18 points with zero plays run for him, without the ball he was one of the best players in the league and knew where to be at the right time better than almost anyone in the league, had a true shooting % of 59, and averaged 10 rebounds per contest.

The Suns did actually run a play or 2 for Marion, often to get him a lob pass, but that's besides the point. I appreciate what he did without needing the ball, as a defensive player especially with the versatility you pointed out as well as his help defense and rebounding in addition to his ability as a finisher and shooter.

But Nash was the key to that team, it's quite obvious. He was the guy putting everyone in position to score both in their half court offense and transition. This team may not even make the playoffs without him, that's how much they relied on him. Marion is a great guy to have, but I'm sure the Suns would still find a way to stay at the top of the West as long as they had Nash. If you look at one guy to credit the most for Phoenix having such an amazing offense, it's obviously Nash.

i will admit that it was very close between the three point guards of davis, parker, and arenas. but that is the order of those three players, as tight as it is between them. as for kidd? well the only thing arenas was more dangerous than kidd in was the possibility of getting more turnovers than assists, and/or shooting 7-22 from the field.

Well, I'm not convinced Parker is in that class myself, but I won't dismiss the possibility. Parker was able to be a key contributor on a championship team, something that I'm not as sure of Davis and Arenas being able to do. And Parker was on a team that didn't look to run in a system where they looked inside to Duncan first, so he did sacrifice his game individually and made it work, something I'm not sure Davis or Arenas would be willing to do.

As for your comments about Arenas vs Kidd? Your criticizing his shooting % yet he shot better than Kidd(42% vs 40%) while making more 3s and getting to the line a lot more. If this was prime Kidd, I'd say get Gilbert's chucking ass out of here, I wouldn't insult prime Kidd like that. But this is 2007, and Kidd certainly wasn't the threat to penetrate that he once was, while Gilbert could take his man off the dribble at will. He had gotten to the level where many at the time were putting him among the league's superstars.

that much better team only managed 8 more wins

And you don't think that's a significant difference? We're talking about a team that was barely over .500 vs a 50 win team. 50 wins is often where people start talking about teams approaching contender status. Hell, the '04 and '05 Pistons only won 54 games and they won a championship and made it to game 7 of the finals, respectively.

Just compare the rosters. Detroit had legitimate quality starters at every position with the exception of Michael Curry in addition to a great bench that included the '02 sixth man of the year. They had an excellent 9 man rotation, a rarity, especially when it includes all-star talents, most notably Ben Wallace who had a major impact on games.

T-Mac's 2 best players were Drew Gooden and Gordan Giricek in their rookie seasons. Gooden had good athletic ability and a nice skill set for his position which made him a fine scorer and rebounder, but even at his best, he was never a great NBA player because he was never much of a passer or defender, and he was also a dumb player. His rookie year was no exception. Giricek was never more than a decent SG/SF, and after those 2, it gets much, much worse.

And Orlando didn't even make up for this lack of offensive support around McGrady with a good defensive team that rebounded and worked hard. They were a terrible defensive team. The fact that T-Mac made them a solid offensive team is a great to how great of a player he was at this time.

He was as complete of a shooting guard as I've seen outside Jordan, and maybe Kobe. He was arguably the best scorer in the league this season rivaled by only Shaq and Kobe, one of the best rebounders at his position(nearly matched the rebounding average you found impressive for '07 Lebron which he accomplished as a forward, while '03 T-Mac was playing mostly guard) and probably the best passer and playmaker that wasn't as a point guard at this time.

:roll: how many playoff games did bryant win again?

1, which is how much you'd expect facing a 61 win Suns team that featured Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion in their primes in addition to 6th man of the year Leandro Barbosa and fine group of role players in Raja Bell, Boris Diaw and Kurt Thomas. How many games did you expect Kobe to win surrounded by Lamar Odom(with a bad shoulder), Luke Walton, Kwame Brown, Jordan Farmar and Shammond Williams.

of course it isn't, but lebron had better numbers. on top of his more rebounds, and assists, he also had more steals, blocks, and less turnovers.

The difference in those categories were even smaller. Just 0.1 fewer turnovers, 0.2 more steals and 0.2 more blocks.

no questions need to be asked, all that needs to be evaluated is what he did in his system.

It is important to me because I've yet to see a player in a role as ball-dominant as Lebron's even in Cleveland win a championship.

more proof that the cavs had a trash offense.

Nah, more proof Kobe was a much better offensive player at this time, especially considering the massive disparity in their teams offenses, no matter what category you consider is the best for judging this. We can be realistic and acknowledge that neither player had particularly good offensive support, yet Kobe's Lakers were much, much better offensively.

I will acknowledge that some of this difference can be attributed to Phil Jackson being a great offensive coach, while the dumb expression Mike Brown always has on his face pretty much sums up his knowledge offensively.

you said he has impressed you only the last few years.

As a rebounder? Pretty much. I mean, he was always above average just based on how many of them he got, but it's only been very recently that I've started to notice his rebounding the way you'd think with the numbers he puts up.

all 4 games were against sub .500 teams.

The competition wasn't that much different than what Lamar Odom faced without Kobe.

it was an achievement that catapulted him into second best in the league.

Nah, but I'll reluctantly give him 3rd.

kobe's play in the 2009 playoffs is the sealer here.

Nope, this difference is purely circumstantial, it's a difference that was a result of a superior supporting cast and an inferior finals opponent.

i'm not going to go into individual rounds. that is like saying for the first 60 games of the regular season he was good, but for the last 20 he wasn't.

Consistency is part of how I judge a playoff run.

his playoff run as a whole was alot more impressive and you are clearly underrating the orlando magic who won 59 games, beat the defending champion boston celtics, beat the best player in the world in lebron james playing out of his skin to the tune of 39/8/8 and the 66-16 cleveland cavaliers. the magic boasted the best center and top 2 overall dwight howard, rashard lewis playing the best ball of his career who was a top 4 power forward, and a top 4 small forward in hedo turkoglu.

Orlando was a fine team, though Dwight was not top 2, more like top 4-5 and I wouldn't rate Lewis or Turkoglu as high as you did either. But the point is, Orlando was certainly not on par with the '08 Celtics, they barely beat the Celtics without KG in '09 and then lost to the 2010 Celtics the next year.

because he didn't play at a level in which is team needed to win a championship

That level would probably require the highest level a player has reached given the lack of support he had. I'm not sure 1994 Hakeem, 2000 Shaq, '67 Wilt, peak Jordan, '87 Magic, '86 Bird ect. would have won either. In fact, I doubt it.

StateOfMind12

09-15-2012, 02:46 PM

WockaVodka

09-15-2012, 05:59 PM

Charles is right, he was better than Malone.

Actually for a short period of time Jordan was the only player superior to Barkley.
The same could be said for Malone in 97 and 98. :confusedshrug:

joeyjoejoe

09-15-2012, 06:52 PM

Yea barkley definitely slowed the game down his main move which he was great at was gettin the ball in the post back up to within a few feet then shoot but when the dbl came he usually would kick it out, would of been unstoppable in a game of one on one but doesnt equate to good team ball movement, they were both great but both had their limitations amd cldnt score at will quite like mj

ShaqAttack3234

09-15-2012, 07:55 PM

It seems like Barkley's entire argument over Malone is superior box-score numbers and how dependent Malone was on Stockton.

The latter is false considering how some of Malone's greatest games were when Stockton was struggling or not even playing.

The former does not necessarily mean he was better. A lot of players can put up great box-score numbers and don't necessarily help their team win. We can look at Adrian Dantley for example. He put up great amount of ppg under amazing efficiency his entire career but most people know that he didn't help his team win much because of how he stopped the ball-movement and how long he took the score. Barkley could be argued the same.

It seems like it is becoming more and more revisionist that people are saying Barkley was better. Barkley put up better numbers, but he wasn't the better player.

Actually, Barkley did not have better numbers, Malone had an unreal statline of 31/11/3 on 56 FG% in '90, the one blemish being 3.7 TO, yet Barkley was clearly the better player at that time 25/12/4, 60 FG%. Actually, even though the rounded numbers make the difference seem bigger, Barkley's rebounding advantage statistically was negligible at 11.5 rpg vs Malone's 11.1 rpg.

It's not revisionist history at all to call Barkley better, I think it's apparent that he was the more dominant player, certainly during Barkley's own prime from about '88 or '89 to '93, there was no question who was better at that time. Granted, we have to remember that many believe Malone's best ball came later, and I'm one of those who thinks he was at his best from '94-'98, hell, Malone really didn't look to have declined by 2000 at 36, but that was a time when Barkley was slowing done like a player normally does at that age. So we can't necessarily just go by who was considered better during Barkley's own prime since Malone's prime was arguably during a different time, so it could be like saying, well, Malone was considered better in the mid 90's when Barkley was still elite, so he's better.

But it's clear that Malone wasn't viewed the same Barkley was when both were at their best. Barkley was a player with solid, but normal longevity for a star, while Malone had superhuman longevity, that's ultimately what has caused such a big debate.

Now, everyone has their own criteria, and that's fine, but personally, I'm going to look at which player was their best during their primes, and make a decision based on that, unless it was close enough to need a tiebreaker(which I don't think it is.) This is because looking at players prime vs prime is the most representative of who you'll see as the better player purely going after what you watched. Longevity is much harder to account for, looking at their primes, you can watch one period and easily determine who was more effective.

Looking at say '89-'93 Barkley(prime arguably started '88, but I want an even stretch to compare to Malone's) vs '94-'98 Malone, and I can say that this version of Barkley was a better scorer than Malone ever was, a better rebounder and a better passer(though Malone became an excellent passer.) Barkley's versatility was another bonus, not many players have been bigger threats to get their own rebounds and go coast to coast. And above anything else, Barkley just took control of games more and dominated. He was probably one of the 3 most doubled players of the last 20 or so years along with Hakeem and Shaq.

Malone did become a fantastic individual defender, and defense is a clear advantage over Chuck. It's very important at this position, but not enough to make up for the other advantages to me.

The same could be said for Malone in 97 and 98. :confusedshrug:

'97? Probably. '98? Nah, Shaq really seemed to be entering his prime and was the more dominant force by this point, imo. Plus, the version of Jordan Chuck was competing with for best player was prime Jordan. Chuck and Jordan saw their primes pretty much overlap exactly from '89-'93. You could argue Chuck's prime started a year earlier, and Jordan's really started in '90 when he adjusted his game when Phil came over, but the same period. Jordan was still great in '97 and '98, but he had clearly lost a bit compared to the early 90's. It showed more in Jordan's ability to give 100% at both ends like the early 90's, and also be a bigger playmaker, compared to the 2nd 3peat where MJ conserved energy by focusing on offense more, though he was still a good defender, Pippen picked up the slack and became the Bulls best and most important defender during the second 3peat, while that was Jordan during the first 3peat.

Shep

09-19-2012, 05:50 AM

The Suns did actually run a play or 2 for Marion, often to get him a lob pass, but that's besides the point. I appreciate what he did without needing the ball, as a defensive player especially with the versatility you pointed out as well as his help defense and rebounding in addition to his ability as a finisher and shooter.

But Nash was the key to that team, it's quite obvious. He was the guy putting everyone in position to score both in their half court offense and transition. This team may not even make the playoffs without him, that's how much they relied on him. Marion is a great guy to have, but I'm sure the Suns would still find a way to stay at the top of the West as long as they had Nash. If you look at one guy to credit the most for Phoenix having such an amazing offense, it's obviously Nash.
no point discussing what would happen if neither nash or marion were absent from the line up. i deal with what actually happened, and what was apparent was that during the regular season shawn marion was the better player.

As for your comments about Arenas vs Kidd? Your criticizing his shooting % yet he shot better than Kidd(42% vs 40%) while making more 3s and getting to the line a lot more. If this was prime Kidd, I'd say get Gilbert's chucking ass out of here, I wouldn't insult prime Kidd like that. But this is 2007, and Kidd certainly wasn't the threat to penetrate that he once was, while Gilbert could take his man off the dribble at will. He had gotten to the level where many at the time were putting him among the league's superstars.
who cares if he shot 2 percentage points more? to have a scoring point guard means will shoot you in the foot more times than not, especially when the same scoring point guard does not know when to stop shooting the ball, as you will see with arenas' habit of going 9-25, 8-26, 6-20, 6-23, 5-19, 1-12, 2-12..just pathetic percentages you do not want to see from your point guard, and thats in just the first month :roll: .

And you don't think that's a significant difference? We're talking about a team that was barely over .500 vs a 50 win team. 50 wins is often where people start talking about teams approaching contender status. Hell, the '04 and '05 Pistons only won 54 games and they won a championship and made it to game 7 of the finals, respectively.
yeh and the 1981 houston rockets went 40-42 and made the nba finals, so that means the '03 magic could have made the finals right?

Just compare the rosters. Detroit had legitimate quality starters at every position with the exception of Michael Curry in addition to a great bench that included the '02 sixth man of the year. They had an excellent 9 man rotation, a rarity, especially when it includes all-star talents, most notably Ben Wallace who had a major impact on games.
that excellent 9 man rotation only managed to win them 8 more games than the orlando magic

T-Mac's 2 best players were Drew Gooden and Gordan Giricek in their rookie seasons. Gooden had good athletic ability and a nice skill set for his position which made him a fine scorer and rebounder, but even at his best, he was never a great NBA player because he was never much of a passer or defender, and he was also a dumb player. His rookie year was no exception. Giricek was never more than a decent SG/SF, and after those 2, it gets much, much worse.
gooden was good enough to outplay tmac in the final game of the playoffs and step up alot more than him in that series overall. the magic also had darrell armstrong the 1999 6th man of the year and most improved player, who was a great overall defender, great free throw shooter, and a good driving ability.

And Orlando didn't even make up for this lack of offensive support around McGrady with a good defensive team that rebounded and worked hard. They were a terrible defensive team. The fact that T-Mac made them a solid offensive team is a great to how great of a player he was at this time.
ofcourse he was a great player, top 8 infact

He was as complete of a shooting guard as I've seen outside Jordan, and maybe Kobe. He was arguably the best scorer in the league this season rivaled by only Shaq and Kobe, one of the best rebounders at his position(nearly matched the rebounding average you found impressive for '07 Lebron which he accomplished as a forward, while '03 T-Mac was playing mostly guard) and probably the best passer and playmaker that wasn't as a point guard at this time.
definately. i respect what mcgrady was able to do out on the basketball court in 2003. but in 2005 he contributed to a winning cause, and played alot better in the playoffs.

1, which is how much you'd expect facing a 61 win Suns team that featured Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire and Shawn Marion in their primes in addition to 6th man of the year Leandro Barbosa and fine group of role players in Raja Bell, Boris Diaw and Kurt Thomas. How many games did you expect Kobe to win surrounded by Lamar Odom(with a bad shoulder), Luke Walton, Kwame Brown, Jordan Farmar and Shammond Williams.
lamar odom with a bad shoulder somehow managed to step up alot more than bryant, and almost outplay him. i expected alot more from bryant individually, considering what position his team was in, and playing against a top 3 paced team in the league.

The difference in those categories were even smaller. Just 0.1 fewer turnovers, 0.2 more steals and 0.2 more blocks.
so you are admitting there was a difference, and that the only advantage bryant had was ppg while lebron had rpg, apg, spg, bpg, and topg?

It is important to me because I've yet to see a player in a role as ball-dominant as Lebron's even in Cleveland win a championship.
lol trash statement. its important to me because i've never seen such trash make it to the nba finals.

Nah, more proof Kobe was a much better offensive player at this time, especially considering the massive disparity in their teams offenses, no matter what category you consider is the best for judging this. We can be realistic and acknowledge that neither player had particularly good offensive support, yet Kobe's Lakers were much, much better offensively.
only due to the offensive system

As a rebounder? Pretty much. I mean, he was always above average just based on how many of them he got, but it's only been very recently that I've started to notice his rebounding the way you'd think with the numbers he puts up.
yeh well he was putting up the same numbers in '07 as he was "a few" years ago, as i pointed out

The competition wasn't that much different than what Lamar Odom faced without Kobe.
maybe true, but i only bring up that argument when you do so it doesn't matter. too many other factors can be attributed to these missed games.

Nah, but I'll reluctantly give him 3rd.
lol nobody else is close. duncan, james, daylight, mcgrady, kidd, nowitzki.

Nope, this difference is purely circumstantial, it's a difference that was a result of a superior supporting cast and an inferior finals opponent.
trash statement once again. bill russell doesn't deserve to be top 100 due to superior supporting cast. :hammerhead:

Consistency is part of how I judge a playoff run.
'09 bryant was consistently better than '08 bryant.

Orlando was a fine team, though Dwight was not top 2, more like top 4-5 and I wouldn't rate Lewis or Turkoglu as high as you did either. But the point is, Orlando was certainly not on par with the '08 Celtics, they barely beat the Celtics without KG in '09 and then lost to the 2010 Celtics the next year.
howard was better in '09, lewis was barely recognisable compared to his '09 version, vince carter was nowhere near as good as turkoglu, and rafer alston was gone.

That level would probably require the highest level a player has reached given the lack of support he had. I'm not sure 1994 Hakeem, 2000 Shaq, '67 Wilt, peak Jordan, '87 Magic, '86 Bird ect. would have won either. In fact, I doubt it.
more what ifs :roll:

ShaqAttack3234

09-20-2012, 01:09 PM

no point discussing what would happen if neither nash or marion were absent from the line up. i deal with what actually happened, and what was apparent was that during the regular season shawn marion was the better player.

What actually happened was Nash playing at a level far beyond what Marion did even in Marion's best season('06), much less '07.

who cares if he shot 2 percentage points more? to have a scoring point guard means will shoot you in the foot more times than not, especially when the same scoring point guard does not know when to stop shooting the ball, as you will see with arenas' habit of going 9-25, 8-26, 6-20, 6-23, 5-19, 1-12, 2-12..just pathetic percentages you do not want to see from your point guard, and thats in just the first month :roll: .

I'm not a big fan of Arenas either, but he did have a very good season and led Washington to a better record when he was in the lineup than Kidd did. They both finished 41-41.

yeh and the 1981 houston rockets went 40-42 and made the nba finals, so that means the '03 magic could have made the finals right?

Houston had far better players around Moses than Orlando did around T-Mac. I'd take Calvin Murphy, Robert Reid, Rudy T, Mike Dunleavy, Allen Leavell and Billy Paultz over Drew Gooden and Gordan Giricek in their rookie years no less, 34 year old Darrell Armstrong, Jacque Vaughn, Pat Garrity, Andrew DeClercq and Shawn Kemp doing his best Oliver Miller impression.

Wow, when I say that Magic cast out loud it sounds even worse than I initially remembered, and that's saying something.

that excellent 9 man rotation only managed to win them 8 more games than the orlando magic

Thanks to an unbelievable season by T-Mac. He put them on his back and carried that type of garbage about as far as you can. And 8 wins is significant.

gooden was good enough to outplay tmac in the final game of the playoffs and step up alot more than him in that series overall. the magic also had darrell armstrong the 1999 6th man of the year and most improved player, who was a great overall defender, great free throw shooter, and a good driving ability.

Wow, Gooden could be better for 1 game? Give that man a 100 million dollar deal. Lets put it this way, if your second best player is Drew Gooden, much less as a rookie, you're in trouble.

Darrell Armstrong was 4 years removed from that 6th man award. He was quite old by NBA standards at 34, a pretty good role player, nothing more, and he was among Orlando's best players.

ofcourse he was a great player, top 8 infact

No worse than top 4. The only players who were better were Duncan, Garnett and Shaq, and T-Mac had a case for being top 2.

definately. i respect what mcgrady was able to do out on the basketball court in 2003. but in 2005 he contributed to a winning cause, and played alot better in the playoffs.

He had a much better team in '05. Doesn't mean he was better. Aside from Yao who was much better than any of his Orlando teammates, he still had a cast of role players that is easily on par with that Orlando team such as Mutombo, Bob Sura, David Wesley, Juwan Howard, Jon Barry and Mike James.

In fact, even that case of role players is better, much less Yao. Then consider he went from having one of the 10 worst defenses in '03 to the 4th best in '05 which alone could account for the difference in wins.

Not only that, his '05 Rocket team was 7th in 3P% at 36.1% while his '03 Magic were 9th at 35.7% this is despite T-Mac shooting 3s much better in '03 at 38.6% with 2.3 3PM vs 32.6% with 1.8 3PM in '05.

His '05 Rocket team also outrebounded opponents by 1.7 rpg while his '03 Magic team got outrebounded by 2.6 rpg.

So forget casts on paper, just look at the results. The vastly superior defense, the superior rebounding and superior shooters around him more than makes up for the 9 win difference, and ultimately he lost in the first round in 7 games in both seasons.

lamar odom with a bad shoulder somehow managed to step up alot more than bryant, and almost outplay him. i expected alot more from bryant individually, considering what position his team was in, and playing against a top 3 paced team in the league.

Odom didn't do anything particularly special, he was fine, but Kobe was clearly better.

so you are admitting there was a difference, and that the only advantage bryant had was ppg while lebron had rpg, apg, spg, bpg, and topg?

All of those differences are very minor as I stated while Kobe held a big scoring advantage, plus, stats come easier in a ball-dominant role like Lebron's, although I will say in fairness that Kobe was not as good in that type of role as Lebron, but Lebron clearly wasn't nearly as good of a player for a system like the triangle as Kobe.

lol trash statement. its important to me because i've never seen such trash make it to the nba finals.

They faced trash except for Detroit, and Lebron had an elite defensive team and rebounding team around him in addition to the role player stepping up huge in key games, it's not that remarkable other than game 5 if you watched how it happened.

only due to the offensive system

:oldlol: Lebron with that hideous jump shot and an inability to play without the ball couldn't have been nearly as successful in that system. He would have been a bad fit much like Gary Payton and Glen Rice, though he would have gotten by more than them on talent alone.

yeh well he was putting up the same numbers in '07 as he was "a few" years ago, as i pointed out

I didn't think Lebron was as impressive of a rebounder as the numbers suggest most of his career anyway. He's obviously above average for his position, but it was really during these past playoffs that he really impressed me in that area.

maybe true, but i only bring up that argument when you do so it doesn't matter. too many other factors can be attributed to these missed games.

Agreed, so then how about not jumping to conclusions such as Odom being better without Kobe based on numbers in 4 games?

lol nobody else is close. duncan, james, daylight, mcgrady, kidd, nowitzki.

:oldlol: at Kidd and T-Mac above Kobe, Dirk and Nash as well as Lebron being above Kobe.

trash statement once again. bill russell doesn't deserve to be top 100 due to superior supporting cast. :hammerhead:

Trash analogy.

'09 bryant was consistently better than '08 bryant.

Consistently worse.

howard was better in '09, lewis was barely recognisable compared to his '09 version, vince carter was nowhere near as good as turkoglu, and rafer alston was gone.

Regardless of the teams on paper, Orlando ended up winning 59 games, just like '09, and had the best point differential in the league, better than their '09 point differential.

And Boston wasn't the same team as they were in '08. KG went from one of the top 4 players in the game to a nice player, but top 15-20 range, Pierce fell off slightly, their defense wasn't as historically dominant, they didn't have James Posey, though Rondo did really improve becoming one of the top 15-20 players as opposed to just a solid point guard in '08, while Perkins also improved and Allen seemed more comfortable in '10 than '08.

D.J.

09-20-2012, 01:30 PM

ShaqAttack laying the smackdown. :oldlol: I'm loving this. :bowdown:

Shep

09-24-2012, 07:25 AM

What actually happened was Nash playing at a level far beyond what Marion did even in Marion's best season('06), much less '07.
only in the playoffs did nash outplay marion. marion was the suns best player in the regular season.

I'm not a big fan of Arenas either, but he did have a very good season and led Washington to a better record when he was in the lineup than Kidd did. They both finished 41-41.
he had a good season, as did kidd, but what separated the two was what happened in the playoffs.

Houston had far better players around Moses than Orlando did around T-Mac. I'd take Calvin Murphy, Robert Reid, Rudy T, Mike Dunleavy, Allen Leavell and Billy Paultz over Drew Gooden and Gordan Giricek in their rookie years no less, 34 year old Darrell Armstrong, Jacque Vaughn, Pat Garrity, Andrew DeClercq and Shawn Kemp doing his best Oliver Miller impression.

Wow, when I say that Magic cast out loud it sounds even worse than I initially remembered, and that's saying something.
and they still finished below .500 and made the finals.

Thanks to an unbelievable season by T-Mac. He put them on his back and carried that type of garbage about as far as you can. And 8 wins is significant.
you should expect a pretty close series in an 8 win difference, 1v8 is almost always separated by more than that. i respect what mcgrady achieved that season and ranked him accordingly, 8th. i will admit that alot of players had great seasons that year, and if tmac had done what he did in '03 in another year he might have been ranked higher.

Wow, Gooden could be better for 1 game? Give that man a 100 million dollar deal. Lets put it this way, if your second best player is Drew Gooden, much less as a rookie, you're in trouble
that 1 game was the most important game of the playoffs and you are dismissing it as nothing :roll:

Darrell Armstrong was 4 years removed from that 6th man award. He was quite old by NBA standards at 34, a pretty good role player, nothing more, and he was among Orlando's best players.
good locker room guy who was key to their success. in orlando's 3 postseason victories he averaged 16 points, 3 rebounds, and 6 assists.

No worse than top 4. The only players who were better were Duncan, Garnett and Shaq, and T-Mac had a case for being top 2.
you aren't top 2 on a .500 team, lets not get anymore ridiculous than you already are. so lets put that filth to bed. top 8 is worse than top 4, so yes he was worse than top 4. the better players than tmac were duncan, garnett, o'neal, kidd, bryant, nowitzki, and wallace.

He had a much better team in '05. Doesn't mean he was better. Aside from Yao who was much better than any of his Orlando teammates, he still had a cast of role players that is easily on par with that Orlando team such as Mutombo, Bob Sura, David Wesley, Juwan Howard, Jon Barry and Mike James.

In fact, even that case of role players is better, much less Yao. Then consider he went from having one of the 10 worst defenses in '03 to the 4th best in '05 which alone could account for the difference in wins.

Not only that, his '05 Rocket team was 7th in 3P% at 36.1% while his '03 Magic were 9th at 35.7% this is despite T-Mac shooting 3s much better in '03 at 38.6% with 2.3 3PM vs 32.6% with 1.8 3PM in '05.

His '05 Rocket team also outrebounded opponents by 1.7 rpg while his '03 Magic team got outrebounded by 2.6 rpg.

So forget casts on paper, just look at the results. The vastly superior defense, the superior rebounding and superior shooters around him more than makes up for the 9 win difference, and ultimately he lost in the first round in 7 games in both seasons.
forget results on paper. tmac performed much better in the first round, dispite losing in the first round.

all that has to be looked at is the western conference that year:
phoenix: 62 wins
san antonio: 59 wins
dallas: 58 wins
seattle: 52 wins
houston: 51 wins
sacramento: 50 wins
denver: 49 wins
memphis: 45 wins
minnesota: 44 wins

6 teams with over 50 wins, 3 teams with 58 or more wins.

in orlando, 2 years earlier, the eastern conference's best team detroit won 50 games.

Odom didn't do anything particularly special, he was fine, but Kobe was clearly better.
kobe was better, but only slightly. meanwhile odom clearly stepped up alot more. odom went from 15.9ppg, 9.8rpg, 4.8apg, 0.9spg, 0.6bpg, 2.9topg on 47%fg to 19.4ppg, 13.0rpg, 2.2apg, 0.4spg, 1.2bpg, 2.0topg on 48%fg.

All of those differences are very minor as I stated while Kobe held a big scoring advantage, plus, stats come easier in a ball-dominant role like Lebron's, although I will say in fairness that Kobe was not as good in that type of role as Lebron, but Lebron clearly wasn't nearly as good of a player for a system like the triangle as Kobe.
lebron had to be ball dominant for that team to succeed, i've already destroyed this trash. and kobe's advantage in ppg is made up by lebron's advantage in everything else.

They faced trash except for Detroit, and Lebron had an elite defensive team and rebounding team around him in addition to the role player stepping up huge in key games, it's not that remarkable other than game 5 if you watched how it happened.
lol a team that just comfortably defeated 47 win toronto featuring the best point guard in the league, 2 guard vince carter just coming off a 25/6/4 series, and exciting slasher small forward richard jefferson coming off a 22/5/3 series is not trash.

Lebron with that hideous jump shot and an inability to play without the ball couldn't have been nearly as successful in that system. He would have been a bad fit much like Gary Payton and Glen Rice, though he would have gotten by more than them on talent alone.
kobe with lebron's cast wouldn't have made the playoffs :roll:

I didn't think Lebron was as impressive of a rebounder as the numbers suggest most of his career anyway. He's obviously above average for his position, but it was really during these past playoffs that he really impressed me in that area.
lol how many rebounds does a small forward have to get to impress you?

Agreed, so then how about not jumping to conclusions such as Odom being better without Kobe based on numbers in 4 games?
only if you agree to never bring up how a player or a team performed while a player was out again.

at Kidd and T-Mac above Kobe, Dirk and Nash as well as Lebron being above Kobe.
:oldlol:

Trash analogy.
:(

Consistently worse
consistently better

Regardless of the teams on paper, Orlando ended up winning 59 games, just like '09, and had the best point differential in the league, better than their '09 point differential.

And Boston wasn't the same team as they were in '08. KG went from one of the top 4 players in the game to a nice player, but top 15-20 range, Pierce fell off slightly, their defense wasn't as historically dominant, they didn't have James Posey, though Rondo did really improve becoming one of the top 15-20 players as opposed to just a solid point guard in '08, while Perkins also improved and Allen seemed more comfortable in '10 than '08.
nobody expected the magic to beat the celtics, who won 62 games. the celtics were no longer just the big 3, with rajon rondo stepping up to be one of the best 7 players in the world. kendrick perkins also stepped up huge in the playoffs and played like one of the league's best centers.

ShaqAttack3234

09-24-2012, 08:12 AM

only in the playoffs did nash outplay marion. marion was the suns best player in the regular season.

:oldlol: Nash had the best regular season of his career and the best a point guard has had in the 2 plus decades since Magic's first retirement with the exception of maybe Chris Paul in '08 and '09.

he had a good season, as did kidd, but what separated the two was what happened in the playoffs.

Arenas didn't play in the playoffs due to an injury. If you want to drop him because of that then that's fine.

and they still finished below .500 and made the finals.

They faced another 40-42 team in the WCF and regardless of Houston's record, they had an elite player themselves like Orlando did, but unlike Orlando, they had some solid talent around him, remember Calvin Murphy dropped like 45 to eliminate the Spurs?

you should expect a pretty close series in an 8 win difference, 1v8 is almost always separated by more than that. i respect what mcgrady achieved that season and ranked him accordingly, 8th. i will admit that alot of players had great seasons that year, and if tmac had done what he did in '03 in another year he might have been ranked higher.

8th is just laughable considering the type of season T-Mac had that year, but you are right about a lot of players having great seasons. Duncan, Garnett, Shaq and Kobe especially, while Kidd had his best year and Dirk took his game to another level.

that 1 game was the most important game of the playoffs and you are dismissing it as nothing :roll:

It was important obviously, but it doesn't change who Gooden was as a player. Gooden was talented, but not a great player. I won't say he didn't belong on an NBA roster, but this is a rookie version of the same player who was part of the '07 Cavs team you called "trash" except Gooden was arguably the second best player on this team, while he was no more than 4th best on the '07 Cavs and that Cavs team was also the polar opposite of Orlando in defense and rebounding, they were elite in both categories while Orlando sucked in both categories.

So what do you think a cast that can't defend or rebound and has a rookie Drew Gooden as the 2nd best player is? Trash.

good locker room guy who was key to their success. in orlando's 3 postseason victories he averaged 16 points, 3 rebounds, and 6 assists.

Decent role player. but you don't want him to be one of your top 4 players unless your top 2 players are Shaq and Kobe. Or your top 3 are Lebron/Wade/Bosh and even then, they had a better 4th guy then '03 Armstrong.

He was really one of only 4 decent players Orlando had on their postseason roster along with T-Mac and Gooden and Giricek in their rookie years. That isn't going to get it done vs a Detroit team that dominates defensively and has far more quality players than that in Ben Wallace, Rip Hamilton, Cliff Robinson, Chauncey Billups, Corliss Williamson, Mehmet Okur, Chucky Atkins and Jon Barry.

Detroit had 3 bench players who would probably start on Orlando and 4 starters who certainly would.

you aren't top 2 on a .500 team, lets not get anymore ridiculous than you already are. so lets put that filth to bed. top 8 is worse than top 4, so yes he was worse than top 4. the better players than tmac were duncan, garnett, o'neal, kidd, bryant, nowitzki, and wallace.

Some players have been top 2 and plenty have at least been close to it on .500 teams.

Can't argue with Duncan, Garnett or Shaq, but I will destroy your other selections.

Kobe and T-Mac were very close, if you caught them on any random night, either could look better, but T-Mac wins due to a much more consistent season, better numbers even with nobody to take the pressure off of him and better team success considering the team he had.

Dirk wasn't the all around player T-Mac was. T-Mac did the thing that Dirk did best(scoring) better than Dirk did while also being probably the best passer and playmaker at his position. His defense was certainly no worse than Dirk's and the only advantage Dirk had was rebounding. And a power forward grabbing 3 more rebounds than a shooting guard isn't enough to make up for everything else.

Kidd is more difficult because it depends on your preference. He brought intangibles that T-Mac didn't and was a better passer and defender while also improving his shooting and scoring. But considering T-Mac was the best perimeter scorer in the league and the best playmaker at his own position, he was the more dominant player than Kidd, especially since he was much more efficient.

Ben Wallace? :roll: I like Wallace as much of the next guy, he made my top 15 for this year, iirc, but a guy whose exclusively a defender and rebounder isn't going to impact a game more than the game's best offensive player on the perimeter.

forget results on paper. tmac performed much better in the first round, dispite losing in the first round.

This is a fact, still not enough, though.

all that has to be looked at is the western conference that year:
phoenix: 62 wins
san antonio: 59 wins
dallas: 58 wins
seattle: 52 wins
houston: 51 wins
sacramento: 50 wins
denver: 49 wins
memphis: 45 wins
minnesota: 44 wins

6 teams with over 50 wins, 3 teams with 58 or more wins.

in orlando, 2 years earlier, the eastern conference's best team detroit won 50 games.

True, the conference was a lot better, but this difference in the support he had was immense.

kobe was better, but only slightly. meanwhile odom clearly stepped up alot more. odom went from 15.9ppg, 9.8rpg, 4.8apg, 0.9spg, 0.6bpg, 2.9topg on 47%fg to 19.4ppg, 13.0rpg, 2.2apg, 0.4spg, 1.2bpg, 2.0topg on 48%fg.

:oldlol: at Kobe being slightly better, and again with this "stepped up more" nonsense.

lebron had to be ball dominant for that team to succeed, i've already destroyed this trash. and kobe's advantage in ppg is made up by lebron's advantage in everything else.

Lebron had to be ball-dominant because he couldn't play off the ball, though a clueless offensive coach deserves some of the blame because the same thing happened in LA when he replaced Phil, though not to the same extent. However, Lebron's coach was more of a positive than a negative because Brown being an excellent defensive coach was essential to Cleveland's success.

Kobe's playmaking was much closer to Lebron's this year than Lebron's scoring was to Kobe's scoring. Lebron grabbing 1 more rpg as a forward than Kobe got as a guard is a non-factor to me, and defense is not much of an advantage for either player in this comparison.

lol a team that just comfortably defeated 47 win toronto featuring the best point guard in the league, 2 guard vince carter just coming off a 25/6/4 series, and exciting slasher small forward richard jefferson coming off a 22/5/3 series is not trash.

:oldlol: at best PG in the league, and that team is pretty much trash when they go .500 and their best big men are Mikki Moore, Jason Collins and Josh Boone.

kobe with lebron's cast wouldn't have made the playoffs :roll:

:roll: It's also funny how you point out the difference in conferences when it works for your T-Mac argument, but not now when it doesn't work for your Lebron/Kobe argument. Kobe probably wouldn't have trouble making the playoffs backed with a top 4 defense and a team that was +3.7 rpg because of how capable Kobe is of carrying an offense. I do think Lebron is more of a natural in a ball-dominant role so I'm not sure he has as much success in that role, but I prefer a player who can play off the ball better like Kobe and I have my doubts Lebron makes the playoffs with Kobe's cast in the West.

lol how many rebounds does a small forward have to get to impress you?

I have to watch them and be impressed by their rebounding.

only if you agree to never bring up how a player or a team performed while a player was out again.

If it's a significant sample size(about 10 games or more) then I will, but I agree that a few games doesn't tell you much.

nobody expected the magic to beat the celtics, who won 62 games. the celtics were no longer just the big 3, with rajon rondo stepping up to be one of the best 7 players in the world. kendrick perkins also stepped up huge in the playoffs and played like one of the league's best centers.

I thought Orlando would beat Boston, and I thought Cleveland might as well(though what I mainly remember is rooting against Cleveland because I thought they might make Lebron leave and come to NY.....he left, but not to NY :facepalm )

Rondo was nowhere near a top 7 player, although you're right that they were no longer just a big 3 and both Rondo and Perkins did really step up, I'll give you that.

I still think the 2008 Celtics were much better, and the 2009 Celtics would have been as well if KG hadn't gone down.

Dragonyeuw

09-24-2012, 08:25 AM

You two really need your own thread lol

StateOfMind12

09-26-2012, 02:44 AM

Now, everyone has their own criteria, and that's fine, but personally, I'm going to look at which player was their best during their primes, and make a decision based on that, unless it was close enough to need a tiebreaker(which I don't think it is.) This is because looking at players prime vs prime is the most representative of who you'll see as the better player purely going after what you watched. Longevity is much harder to account for, looking at their primes, you can watch one period and easily determine who was more effective.
The thing is though is that Karl played at a high level for a very long period of time. He may not have peaked as high as Charles did but he surely sustained a heck of a lot longer than he did.

I personally think Malone and Barkley's peaks are close. I don't know why people keep acting like Barkley was clear cut better at his peak because he wasn't. Both of them were considered top 2-5 players in the league during their primes/peaks. It's not like Malone was outside of the top 5 while Barkley was in it, both of them were in it. They were viewed the same from what I see.

I can say that this version of Barkley was a better scorer than Malone ever was,
I disagree for several reasons. I'm going to guess that your argument is that Barkley didn't need a Stockton-like PG to score and excel. Truthfully, Cheeks, KJ, and all the other PGs he played with were really great PGs as well. Some would argue that KJ at his peak may have been better than Stockton at his.

The main reason why I disagree was that Karl could score within the flow of the offense better than Charles could.

As I said, I do think Barkley reminds me of Dantley a bit in a sense that he was incredibly ball-dominant and needed to be ball-dominant in order to score and score efficiently. They put up sexy numbers but it's not necessarily good for the team. I'm pretty sure you know all about Dantley and how he even though he put up sexy numbers, he wasn't really helping the team because of how long he took the score and how ball-dominant he was. I think Barkley was quite similar.

If we are just going to argue who is the better scorer based on ppg, FG%, TS%, are you also going to say that Adrian Dantley was a better scorer than Michael Jordan was? Because I think we all know the answer to that question...

Karl was also a better finisher and that's huge especially for bigs because bigs are finishers and suppose to be finishers.

a better rebounder
Barkley's rebounding is a bit overrated. If you look at Barkley's TRB% he really is not as impressive as many people think and say he is on that end. Barkley is still the better rebounder but I don't think it's some far away thing. It's not like Malone was like Sheed or something. Malone was a pretty good rebounder too.

Barkley's versatility was another bonus, not many players have been bigger threats to get their own rebounds and go coast to coast. And above anything else, Barkley just took control of games more and dominated. He was probably one of the 3 most doubled players of the last 20 or so years along with Hakeem and Shaq.

Malone did become a fantastic individual defender, and defense is a clear advantage over Chuck. It's very important at this position, but not enough to make up for the other advantages to me.
The main reason why I would go with Malone is his portability. Malone could fit in on any team as any option, 1st option, 2nd option, 3rd option, 4th option etc. it doesn't matter. The reason why Malone was so portable was because of his versatility. Malone can do just about everything out there. He can spot-up, rebound, defend, finish, etc.

Barkley on the other hand was more limited and he can't really play defense whether he tried or not, his size really limited him. Barkley also needed more time and ball-usage in order to score and succeed offensively.

Malone's portability/his ability to fit in on just about any team and with just about every player is the main reason why I would go with him.

I think Barkley needs a specific team built around him in order to succeed.

Barkley for most of his career did play with better teammates and on better teams than Malone did. Malone played on top heavy teams. The Jazz never had too much outside of Malone and Stockton and when they finally did they ran into Michael Jordan.

WockaVodka

09-26-2012, 11:12 PM

Everyone outside of ISH knows Malone was better than Barkley, period. This has never been much of a debate and never will be.

ShaqAttack3234

09-28-2012, 06:10 AM

The thing is though is that Karl played at a high level for a very long period of time. He may not have peaked as high as Charles did but he surely sustained a heck of a lot longer than he did.

If you choose Karl because of longevity, I'm fine with that. The difference is that Barkley had good longevity for an elite player since he was one for at least a decade or so, and a very normal length prime of 5-6 seasons, while Malone was just superhuman in that regard. Malone has a longevity advantage over just about anyone.

I personally think Malone and Barkley's peaks are close. I don't know why people keep acting like Barkley was clear cut better at his peak because he wasn't. Both of them were considered top 2-5 players in the league during their primes/peaks. It's not like Malone was outside of the top 5 while Barkley was in it, both of them were in it. They were viewed the same from what I see.

Both being top 5 doesn't mean they were the same.

Malone at his best simply wasn't quite as highly regarded as Barkley. Regul8r covered this earlier in the thread.

I disagree for several reasons. I'm going to guess that your argument is that Barkley didn't need a Stockton-like PG to score and excel. Truthfully, Cheeks, KJ, and all the other PGs he played with were really great PGs as well. Some would argue that KJ at his peak may have been better than Stockton at his.

I already stated why I think Barkley was a better player than Malone. He was the better scorer, better passer and better rebounder. Just more dominant, you had to double Barkley more than you had to double Malone, and he was more likely to get his own high percentage shot whenever he wanted.

This doesn't mean Malone was some scrub, Malone was great. Nobody is disputing that, I just think Barkley was better.

As far as the Stockton comment, well, I don't think Stockton "made" Malone. Karl would have been great no matter what. But I think it's clear that both Malone and Stockton benefited from each other as much as star players can and were both in the perfect system for their talents.

I am one of those who think peak KJ, or even prime KJ was better than Stockton, but Barkley didn't play with peak KJ, and more importantly, it's clear that it didn't change Barkley as an individual player.

2 of Barkley's 3 best years were '90 and '91, and he had a solid point guard in '90(Johnny Dawkins), but his point guard in '91 was Rickey Green.

The main reason why I disagree was that Karl could score within the flow of the offense better than Charles could.

This is a valid point. Malone didn't need the ball to be effective. In the late 80's and early 90's, defenders would front Malone and Stockton would throw the pass over the top for an easy lay up and of course everyone knows about the screen/rolls.

But while Malone was one of the great finishers, he did get more easy baskets in the regular season than the playoffs, and there aren't as many of those baskets available in the playoffs. So there was something about Malone's game that wasn't generally as effective in the playoffs and I can't say that about Barkley.

Though I will say that regardless of Stockton, Malone got great position, especially when he was young and played more of a power game. So when he'd get that position, he didn't need a great point guard to make the pass, Malone had done most of the work in those situations and just needed a simple pass. So while some may misinterpret that as Stockton spoon-feeding Malone, it was really one of the things that would be a constant for Malone wherever he played.

And Malone did also seem to hold the ball less than Barkley when either of them were posting up.

As I said, I do think Barkley reminds me of Dantley a bit in a sense that he was incredibly ball-dominant and needed to be ball-dominant in order to score and score efficiently. They put up sexy numbers but it's not necessarily good for the team. I'm pretty sure you know all about Dantley and how he even though he put up sexy numbers, he wasn't really helping the team because of how long he took the score and how ball-dominant he was. I think Barkley was quite similar.

Despite being a big Barkley fan, in the interest of objectivity, I have mentioned many times that Charles had a habit of holding the ball, and it could sometimes get him into trouble. Holding the ball is something people overlook. But Dantley is an extreme example, imo. Barkley's habit wasn't that bad, and unlike Dantley, Barkley was an excellent passer.

If we are just going to argue who is the better scorer based on ppg, FG%, TS%, are you also going to say that Adrian Dantley was a better scorer than Michael Jordan was? Because I think we all know the answer to that question...

Stats are not why I'm picking Barkley, especially since Malone's stats were at least as good as I mentioned. Besides, were Dantley's scoring stats even better than MJ since MJ easily topped him in ppg?

Barkley's rebounding is a bit overrated. If you look at Barkley's TRB% he really is not as impressive as many people think and say he is on that end. Barkley is still the better rebounder but I don't think it's some far away thing. It's not like Malone was like Sheed or something. Malone was a pretty good rebounder too.

I agree, Malone was a very solid rebounder himself. I don't really think Barkley's rebounding is overrated, though. Some may rank him as a better rebounder than they should because of his size, which is irrelevant to how effective of a basketball player you are.

But one thing that makes Barkley's rebounding numbers deceptive is that he had a few seasons when he was playing more small forward, and throughout his career, it wasn't uncommon for Barkley to be in lineups where he was more of a small forward, yet he still never fell below 10 rebounds.

Charles did have some phenomenal seasons in TRB%, look at '86 when he played with Moses, '87 and his years with Houston. Amazingly, Barkley's TRB% was 2nd in the league in '97 and '99 when he was 34 and 36 and playing with Hakeem both years who was getting 9-10 rpg himself.

The main reason why I would go with Malone is his portability. Malone could fit in on any team as any option, 1st option, 2nd option, 3rd option, 4th option etc. it doesn't matter. The reason why Malone was so portable was because of his versatility. Malone can do just about everything out there. He can spot-up, rebound, defend, finish, etc.

Interesting point, I did like how Malone fit in the triangle and he barely had any time to learn it, and part of that is because of his ability to shoot jumpers, his passing and ability without the ball. That's not an easy offense to learn, Phil praised Malone's willingness to learn the offense and you know this is genuine because Phil is more than willing to call out guys who didn't learn the offense such as Glen Rice and Gary Payton.

Hell, the flex offense that Utah ran was not an offense everywhere learns either.

But I think you're selling Barkley short here. He did adjust his game in Phoenix when he had more talent around him. I noticed him shooting more jumpers and I thought he held the ball less. He didn't have trouble fitting in on those teams.

Barkley also fit in with all of that talent on the '86 Sixers, including Moses who was not only a low post player like Barkley, but as big of a black hole as you'll find.

Barkley on the other hand was more limited and he can't really play defense whether he tried or not, his size really limited him. Barkley also needed more time and ball-usage in order to score and succeed offensively.

True, Malone being a much better defender is a valid argument to make for him. I do think having Barkley at power forward made it tough to have an elite defense since interior defense is so important.

Malone's portability/his ability to fit in on just about any team and with just about every player is the main reason why I would go with him.

For an elite player who will likely be the first option on a team, this isn't as important to me as Barkley being superior at getting his own shot whenever he got the ball unless he was doubled.

I think Barkley needs a specific team built around him in order to succeed.

I don't think there's much evidence to support this. He went to a Suns team that was already pretty much built in Phoenix and had great success. I think Malone is much more of a player who needs a specific situation to be at his best. As I mentioned, Barkley also fit in on the '86 Sixers, and broke out as an individual player, that team was also pretty much in place before they drafted him.

Barkley for most of his career did play with better teammates and on better teams than Malone did. Malone played on top heavy teams. The Jazz never had too much outside of Malone and Stockton and when they finally did they ran into Michael Jordan.

Malone clearly had better teams. Karl had contending teams year after year, while Barkley didn't get one until the last year of his prime at 30 years old, and made a great run at a title that year. Of course, Barkley was on a contending team in his rookie year, but that's a different situation.

Karl's teams were a bit top heavy, but you can win that way, and some of them had some quality players after Malone/Stockton. The teams were well built in the late 90's when they had their finals teams.

But you did explain your thinking with some valid arguments, so I have to give you credit even though I still disagree.

Shep

09-29-2012, 07:16 AM

Nash had the best regular season of his career and the best a point guard has had in the 2 plus decades since Magic's first retirement with the exception of maybe Chris Paul in '08 and '09.
filth statement. every year there has been atleast 1 point guard with a better regular season than steve nash in 2007.

Arenas didn't play in the playoffs due to an injury. If you want to drop him because of that then that's fine.
i didn't drop him, he stayed where he was. kidd, however, was promoted.

They faced another 40-42 team in the WCF and regardless of Houston's record, they had an elite player themselves like Orlando did, but unlike Orlando, they had some solid talent around him, remember Calvin Murphy dropped like 45 to eliminate the Spurs?
they also faced and beat defending champion los angeles lakers in the first round, then they faced and beat 2nd seed san antonio, on top of beating 62 win boston in the finals. the fact remains. it had happened in the past with a team with a worse record than the orlando magic.

8th is just laughable considering the type of season T-Mac had that year, but you are right about a lot of players having great seasons. Duncan, Garnett, Shaq and Kobe especially, while Kidd had his best year and Dirk took his game to another level.
he can't possibly be ranked any higher given the circumstances, unfortunately for tmac.

It was important obviously, but it doesn't change who Gooden was as a player. Gooden was talented, but not a great player. I won't say he didn't belong on an NBA roster, but this is a rookie version of the same player who was part of the '07 Cavs team you called "trash" except Gooden was arguably the second best player on this team, while he was no more than 4th best on the '07 Cavs and that Cavs team was also the polar opposite of Orlando in defense and rebounding, they were elite in both categories while Orlando sucked in both categories.

So what do you think a cast that can't defend or rebound and has a rookie Drew Gooden as the 2nd best player is? Trash.
ofcourse, but at the end of the day players are ranked on what they achieve and how they are able to perform. the players on the cavs roster that were better than gooden were only slightly better than him, and lebron led his trash team to the nba finals and was the second most impressive player out of every individual who participated in the playoffs, mcgrady on the other hand lost in the first round after going up 3-1 mostly due to his lack of showing up, and wasn't even the most impressive player on his own team.

Decent role player. but you don't want him to be one of your top 4 players unless your top 2 players are Shaq and Kobe. Or your top 3 are Lebron/Wade/Bosh and even then, they had a better 4th guy then '03 Armstrong.

He was really one of only 4 decent players Orlando had on their postseason roster along with T-Mac and Gooden and Giricek in their rookie years. That isn't going to get it done vs a Detroit team that dominates defensively and has far more quality players than that in Ben Wallace, Rip Hamilton, Cliff Robinson, Chauncey Billups, Corliss Williamson, Mehmet Okur, Chucky Atkins and Jon Barry.

Detroit had 3 bench players who would probably start on Orlando and 4 starters who certainly would.
the pistons only had 4 players that were better than armstrong: wallace, billups, hamilton, and robinson. i have no idea why you are mentioning guys like okur and atkins.

Some players have been top 2 and plenty have at least been close to it on .500 teams.
i'll give you moses malone for what he achieved in the 1981 playoffs. off the top of my head there isn't anyone else.

Can't argue with Duncan, Garnett or Shaq, but I will destroy your other selections.
:roll:

Kobe and T-Mac were very close, if you caught them on any random night, either could look better, but T-Mac wins due to a much more consistent season, better numbers even with nobody to take the pressure off of him and better team success considering the team he had.
i'll agree that they were very close. but bryant wins due being much more successful, contributing to a winning cause, kobe was actually the lakers best player in the regular season, better numbers even though he had to share the ball with shaquille o'neal and his 28ppg.

Dirk wasn't the all around player T-Mac was. T-Mac did the thing that Dirk did best(scoring) better than Dirk did while also being probably the best passer and playmaker at his position. His defense was certainly no worse than Dirk's and the only advantage Dirk had was rebounding. And a power forward grabbing 3 more rebounds than a shooting guard isn't enough to make up for everything else.
dirk was better in the regular season, and also in the playoffs. he was easily the best player on his 60-22 dallas mavericks who also made the conference finals, who lost to the eventual champion san antonio spurs, the same series in which he went down to an injury and was forced to miss the final 3 games of that series.

dirk averaged 29.9ppg, 8.9rpg, 1.6apg, 1.6spg, and 0.7bpg on 52%fg, 56%3p, and 90%ft against the portland trail blazers including a 46 point 10 rebound performance in game 1 on 16-27 from the field, 4-5 from downtown, and 10-11 from the free throw line.

after a grueling 7 game series against the powerful portland trail blazers outfit, next up was 59 win sacramento. dirk responded with 20.7ppg, 14.3rpg, 2.9apg, 0.9spg, and 1.3bpg including a huge game 7 in which he scored 30, and pulled down 19 rebounds.

Kidd is more difficult because it depends on your preference. He brought intangibles that T-Mac didn't and was a better passer and defender while also improving his shooting and scoring. But considering T-Mac was the best perimeter scorer in the league and the best playmaker at his own position, he was the more dominant player than Kidd, especially since he was much more efficient.
i will take kidd, who led his team to a 12-2 record en route to the nba finals, and was able to take 2 games off the san antonio spurs. kidd averaged 19/7/9/2 against the milwaukee bucks including a 22/11/11/3 triple double in the elimination game, 19/9/9/2 in the 4-0 sweep of the boston celtics including 29/10/8/2 in the elimination game, 24/10/6/3 in the 4-0 sweep of the detroit pistons including 26/12/7/2 in the elimination game, and 20/6/8/1 against the san antonio spurs in the finals.

easy choice here.

Ben Wallace? I like Wallace as much of the next guy, he made my top 15 for this year, iirc, but a guy whose exclusively a defender and rebounder isn't going to impact a game more than the game's best offensive player on the perimeter.
it is very close between wallace and mcgrady, some would almost say they were inseparable. i wouldn't though. and what separated these two players was how they performed in the playoffs. ben wallace was the best player on his team by the widest margin in the nba outside of tim duncan, tracy mcgrady, and kevin garnett, and was able to lead his cast to the eastern conference finals. wallace was one of the most dynamic nba players in the history of the game, and he took his game to another level in these playoffs.

against orlando he averaged 11.1ppg, 17.9rpg, 2.3apg, 3.1spg, and 3.3bpg. just crazy production right there, and if you haven't watched this series, i encourage you to do so and after you have watched the final game you will realise who was the better player between ben wallace and tracy mcgrady alone, you will need no further proof.

against philadelphia he averaged 6.2ppg, 13.8rpg, 1.2apg, 2.2spg, and 2.5bpg including a huge elimination game 6 on the sixers home court after both teams won all games on their home, wallace went to philadelphia and recorded 10 points, 18 rebounds, 5 steals, and 3 blocks.

he was back to his best against the nets, accumulating 9.0ppg, 17.3rpg, 1.3apg, 1.8spg, and 3.5bpg, but it wasn't enough to defeat the leagues 4th best player jason kidd and his new jersey nets.

Shep

09-29-2012, 07:17 AM

This is a fact, still not enough, though.
more than enough actually

True, the conference was a lot better, but this difference in the support he had was immense.
yao was barely even a top 5 center, and besides that they were the same.

at Kobe being slightly better, and again with this "stepped up more" nonsense.
bryant was only slightly better, and what don't you understand about this stepped up more "nonsense"? it is quite a clear concept.

Lebron had to be ball-dominant because he couldn't play off the ball, though a clueless offensive coach deserves some of the blame because the same thing happened in LA when he replaced Phil, though not to the same extent. However, Lebron's coach was more of a positive than a negative because Brown being an excellent defensive coach was essential to Cleveland's success.
he couldn't play off the ball because cleveland couldn't afford him to play off the ball, they needed the ball in his hands to give them the best chance to win games of basketball.

Kobe's playmaking was much closer to Lebron's this year than Lebron's scoring was to Kobe's scoring. Lebron grabbing 1 more rpg as a forward than Kobe got as a guard is a non-factor to me, and defense is not much of an advantage for either player in this comparison.
lebron having advantages in every other statistic makes up for his 4.3ppg scoring disadvantage.

at best PG in the league, and that team is pretty much trash when they go .500 and their best big men are Mikki Moore, Jason Collins and Josh Boone.
that team with the best point guard in the league is a very dangerous one, especially when he was playoff experience, and when you throw in guys like the ones i mention the nets team, fresh from defeating 47 win raptors (only 3 wins from being in championship conversation :lol ), it would not matter who you have as bigmen, you will be a tough team to beat.

It's also funny how you point out the difference in conferences when it works for your T-Mac argument, but not now when it doesn't work for your Lebron/Kobe argument. Kobe probably wouldn't have trouble making the playoffs backed with a top 4 defense and a team that was +3.7 rpg because of how capable Kobe is of carrying an offense. I do think Lebron is more of a natural in a ball-dominant role so I'm not sure he has as much success in that role, but I prefer a player who can play off the ball better like Kobe and I have my doubts Lebron makes the playoffs with Kobe's cast in the West.
you can use that argument if you want, i don't care. it won't make any difference due to them being so far apart its just laughable we are even talking about it.

I have to watch them and be impressed by their rebounding
me too. i was very impressed.

If it's a significant sample size(about 10 games or more) then I will, but I agree that a few games doesn't tell you much.
there is too many factors to consider in this case, so sample size doesn't matter.

I thought Orlando would beat Boston, and I thought Cleveland might as well
me too

Rondo was nowhere near a top 7 player, although you're right that they were no longer just a big 3 and both Rondo and Perkins did really step up, I'll give you that.
you rank rondo higher than 7th? i mean i know he averaged 17/10/10 along with 3 steals in the playoffs but despite that he is ranked no higher than 7th.

I still think the 2008 Celtics were much better, and the 2009 Celtics would have been as well if KG hadn't gone down.
they were better, but they weren't much better. rondo's improvement in '09 was a major factor, as was kendrick perkins.

Round Mound

09-29-2012, 08:22 AM

Everyone outside of ISH knows Malone was better than Barkley, period. This has never been much of a debate and never will be.

:facepalm :no: Everyone Over Age 30 Knows Barkley was Better in his Prime...Actually...:confusedshrug:

ShaqAttack3234

09-29-2012, 10:51 PM

filth statement. every year there has been atleast 1 point guard with a better regular season than steve nash in 2007

:oldlol: Ridiculous.

they also faced and beat defending champion los angeles lakers in the first round, then they faced and beat 2nd seed san antonio, on top of beating 62 win boston in the finals. the fact remains. it had happened in the past with a team with a worse record than the orlando magic.

They lost to the Celtics in the finals, and the bottom line is that Rocket team was much more talented than the '03 Magic.

he can't possibly be ranked any higher given the circumstances, unfortunately for tmac.

:oldlol:

ofcourse, but at the end of the day players are ranked on what they achieve and how they are able to perform. the players on the cavs roster that were better than gooden were only slightly better than him, and lebron led his trash team to the nba finals and was the second most impressive player out of every individual who participated in the playoffs, mcgrady on the other hand lost in the first round after going up 3-1 mostly due to his lack of showing up, and wasn't even the most impressive player on his own team.

T-Mac didn't have a great rebounding team like Lebron(he had a terrible one), and he didn't have a top 4 defensive team(again,. he had a bad defensive team). T-Mac was also easily his team's best and most impressive player.

the pistons only had 4 players that were better than armstrong: wallace, billups, hamilton, and robinson. i have no idea why you are mentioning guys like okur and atkins.

Okur and Atkins were nice bench players, especially since they weren't Detroit's best bench player. That team had a lot of quality players.

i'll give you moses malone for what he achieved in the 1981 playoffs. off the top of my head there isn't anyone else.

Moses might make my top 2 that year, not sure, but he's definitely close. Kareem in '75 and '76, Kobe in '05 and '06, Wade in '09. Jordan would probably be top 3 in '87, doesn't have much of a case over Magic or Bird, so it depends on what you consider close.

i'll agree that they were very close. but bryant wins due being much more successful, contributing to a winning cause, kobe was actually the lakers best player in the regular season, better numbers even though he had to share the ball with shaquille o'neal and his 28ppg.

I agree that Kobe was the Lakers best player in the regular season, but his team was a disappointment given what they should have achieved. Kobe had a lot more to work with than T-Mac, and a 5-10 record without Shaq doesn't help his case considering his team in Shaq's absence was similar to what T-Mac had to work with, and he led them to a record above .500 for an entire year. Finally, Kobe was more of a disappointment in the Spurs series than T-Mac was in the Pistons series. Kobe did not have better numbers, though. T-Mac's numbers were better.

But I think they're very close, so I don't have any problem with you taking Kobe. I'm not changing my mind on my decision, though.

dirk was better in the regular season, and also in the playoffs. he was easily the best player on his 60-22 dallas mavericks who also made the conference finals, who lost to the eventual champion san antonio spurs, the same series in which he went down to an injury and was forced to miss the final 3 games of that series.

Dirk had the better playoff run, but he was not a better player. T-Mac was the better scorer, better passer and playmaker, and certainly no worse as a defender. That's all I need.

i will take kidd, who led his team to a 12-2 record en route to the nba finals, and was able to take 2 games off the san antonio spurs. kidd averaged 19/7/9/2 against the milwaukee bucks including a 22/11/11/3 triple double in the elimination game, 19/9/9/2 in the 4-0 sweep of the boston celtics including 29/10/8/2 in the elimination game, 24/10/6/3 in the 4-0 sweep of the detroit pistons including 26/12/7/2 in the elimination game, and 20/6/8/1 against the san antonio spurs in the finals.

Kidd was great in the playoffs, no argument here. Still not enough for me to take him over T-Mac, who was just a better player on a much worse team.

it is very close between wallace and mcgrady, some would almost say they were inseparable. i wouldn't though. and what separated these two players was how they performed in the playoffs. ben wallace was the best player on his team by the widest margin in the nba outside of tim duncan, tracy mcgrady, and kevin garnett, and was able to lead his cast to the eastern conference finals. wallace was one of the most dynamic nba players in the history of the game, and he took his game to another level in these playoffs.

Nobody would say Wallace and T-Mac were inseparable. He anchored a great defense and led his team to a nice season, but he had an excellent team stacked with quality players.

against orlando he averaged 11.1ppg, 17.9rpg, 2.3apg, 3.1spg, and 3.3bpg. just crazy production right there, and if you haven't watched this series, i encourage you to do so and after you have watched the final game you will realise who was the better player between ben wallace and tracy mcgrady alone, you will need no further proof.

I did watch this series, and I have realized who the better player was to the point where I need no further proof. It's T-Mac.

yao was barely even a top 5 center, and besides that they were the same.

If I count Amare as a center than Yao was top 4 behind Shaq, Amare and Ben Wallace. If I count Duncan than he was top 5, but a clear top 5. Regardless, T-Mac didn't have a teammate close to even '05 Yao on his '03 team. And no, the rest of the rosters weren't the same since the '05 Rockets were so much better defensively and on the boards and still had better shooting around him.

Even for arguments sake if they were the same outside Yao(which they weren't), that'd still mean his '05 cast was considerably better because of Yao.

he couldn't play off the ball because cleveland couldn't afford him to play off the ball, they needed the ball in his hands to give them the best chance to win games of basketball.

He couldn't play off the ball because it's something he didn't have a decent ability to do until the 2012 season. We saw this in 2011 when he was in a position where playing off the ball was certainly something he could have and should have done at times.

that team with the best point guard in the league is a very dangerous one, especially when he was playoff experience, and when you throw in guys like the ones i mention the nets team, fresh from defeating 47 win raptors (only 3 wins from being in championship conversation ), it would not matter who you have as bigmen, you will be a tough team to beat.

Big men are very important, and it's why a team with such a great backcourt only went .500.

me too. i was very impressed.

Then you have lower standards than I do.

Miller for 3

09-29-2012, 11:14 PM

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Morton_Ether_1846.jpg

Shep getting ethered by shaqattack

Shep

10-04-2012, 09:12 AM

Ridiculous.
:confusedshrug:

They lost to the Celtics in the finals, and the bottom line is that Rocket team was much more talented than the '03 Magic.
bottom line: proof that a 40 win team in the regular season can go far in the playoffs

:oldlol:
:lol

T-Mac didn't have a great rebounding team like Lebron(he had a terrible one), and he didn't have a top 4 defensive team(again,. he had a bad defensive team). T-Mac was also easily his team's best and most impressive player.
drew gooden was the most impressive magic player in the playoffs, while mcgrady was their best. lebron made that team who they were.

Okur and Atkins were nice bench players, especially since they weren't Detroit's best bench player. That team had a lot of quality players.
jacque vaughn was a nice player for orlando, as was pat garrity, shawn kemp, and gordan giricek

Moses might make my top 2 that year, not sure, but he's definitely close. Kareem in '75 and '76, Kobe in '05 and '06, Wade in '09. Jordan would probably be top 3 in '87, doesn't have much of a case over Magic or Bird, so it depends on what you consider close.
moses was top 2 in '81. you are right about kareem. kobe was nowhere near top 2 in those years. wade was top 4, as was jordan.

I agree that Kobe was the Lakers best player in the regular season, but his team was a disappointment given what they should have achieved. Kobe had a lot more to work with than T-Mac, and a 5-10 record without Shaq doesn't help his case considering his team in Shaq's absence was similar to what T-Mac had to work with, and he led them to a record above .500 for an entire year. Finally, Kobe was more of a disappointment in the Spurs series than T-Mac was in the Pistons series. Kobe did not have better numbers, though. T-Mac's numbers were better.

But I think they're very close, so I don't have any problem with you taking Kobe. I'm not changing my mind on my decision, though.
kobe's team was a disappointment during the regular season due to o'neal disrupting chemistry with a sore toe at the beginning of the season.

even in those losses in games that o'neal missed, 2 were against the nba champion san antonio spurs, also losses were against the 50 win trail blazers in portland, the celtics who made the conference semi finals in boston, and the 60 win conference finalist mavericks in dallas.

regardless, bryant did all he could in o'neals absence, averaging around 32/9/6 with over 2 steals per game.

Dirk had the better playoff run, but he was not a better player. T-Mac was the better scorer, better passer and playmaker, and certainly no worse as a defender. That's all I need.
all i need is more impact and winning games. contributing to a winning cause. winning games of basketball.

Kidd was great in the playoffs, no argument here. Still not enough for me to take him over T-Mac, who was just a better player on a much worse team.
kidd was the better player on the better team. what kidd did in the playoffs was more than enough evidence to suggest this.

Nobody would say Wallace and T-Mac were inseparable. He anchored a great defense and led his team to a nice season, but he had an excellent team stacked with quality players.
lol what a joke. his best players were career journeyman chauncey billups who had career averages of 11 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists, and 40%fg, unproven 2 guard richard hamilton they had just aquired for jerry stackhouse and his 21/4/5, and 65 year old clifford robinson.

I did watch this series, and I have realized who the better player was to the point where I need no further proof. It's T-Mac.
watch it again, you must have missed all parts where ben wallace was on the floor.

If I count Amare as a center than Yao was top 4 behind Shaq, Amare and Ben Wallace. If I count Duncan than he was top 5, but a clear top 5. Regardless, T-Mac didn't have a teammate close to even '05 Yao on his '03 team. And no, the rest of the rosters weren't the same since the '05 Rockets were so much better defensively and on the boards and still had better shooting around him.

Even for arguments sake if they were the same outside Yao(which they weren't), that'd still mean his '05 cast was considerably better because of Yao.
yao was barely top 5, not clear. marcus camby was very, very close. besides that the magic and rockets were very much the same, given the same system and coach. drew gooden almost was as good as yao in the playoffs.

He couldn't play off the ball because it's something he didn't have a decent ability to do until the 2012 season. We saw this in 2011 when he was in a position where playing off the ball was certainly something he could have and should have done at times.
he couldn't play off the ball because cleveland couldn't afford him to play off the ball, they needed the ball in his hands to give them the best chance to win games of basketball.

Big men are very important, and it's why a team with such a great backcourt only went .500.
but they still were strong enough to make it to the second round

Then you have lower standards than I do.
says someone who ranks players based on ppg :roll:

ShaqAttack3234

10-05-2012, 10:39 PM

bottom line: proof that a 40 win team in the regular season can go far in the playoffs

You have a real problem with context, don't you?

drew gooden was the most impressive magic player in the playoffs, while mcgrady was their best. lebron made that team who they were.

Lebron, along with their defense(most of the credit for that goes to Mike Brown), and their rebounding which you can give Ilgauskas, Gooden and Varejao most of the credit for.

jacque vaughn was a nice player for orlando, as was pat garrity, shawn kemp, and gordan giricek

Jacque Vaughn is decent in a limited role. A good defender, but offensively challenged. The problem, is Armstrong at that stage of his career was also better suited to a back up role.

:oldlol: at calling '03 Kemp a nice player. Garrity was a good 3 point shooting, but didn't really do anything else.

moses was top 2 in '81. you are right about kareem. kobe was nowhere near top 2 in those years. wade was top 4, as was jordan.

Kobe was best each season and Wade was top 2, or at worst top 3. There's no argument for Wade being lower than top 3.

kobe's team was a disappointment during the regular season due to o'neal disrupting chemistry with a sore toe at the beginning of the season.

Shaq does deserve some of the blame, I can't dispute that. But this isn't a Shaq vs Kobe thing, it's Kobe vs T-Mac. I pretty much agree with your assessment of Shaq vs Kobe in 2003.

even in those losses in games that o'neal missed, 2 were against the nba champion san antonio spurs, also losses were against the 50 win trail blazers in portland, the celtics who made the conference semi finals in boston, and the 60 win conference finalist mavericks in dallas.

Boston was a 44-38 East team, I'd call them an average team.

Their losses also included a horrendous 17-65 Cavs team, a 35-47 Hawk team, a 37-45 Knick team and a 37-45 Wizard team.

I'll give you credit for looking into it deeper, but you only presented one side, the losses overall is pretty much split between good and bad teams with a couple of average teams thrown in. I wouldn't call the competition too tough or bad.

regardless, bryant did all he could in o'neals absence, averaging around 32/9/6 with over 2 steals per game.

His all around ball was very good, though he was now the primary focus of opposing defenses every night with nobody to take pressure off him, T-Mac faced that for an entire season and averaged 32/7/6 on 46% and 24 FGA while getting his team above .500, Kobe did it for 15 games on 43% and 27 FGA and his team had twice as many losses as wins.

all i need is more impact and winning games. contributing to a winning cause. winning games of basketball.

:roll: I'd expect Dirk to win more games with a top 2 point guard/top 15 player and all-star/all-nba guard in Nash as well as another all-star caliber player in Finley and a 4th guy in Van Exel who came off the bench compared to the trash T-Mac had. Hell, even Raef LaFrentz would be among T-Mac's best teammates, much less Dirk's 4th best player who would easily be T-Mac's second best.

kidd was the better player on the better team. what kidd did in the playoffs was more than enough evidence to suggest this.

Kidd was on a better team, you're right about that.

lol what a joke. his best players were career journeyman chauncey billups who had career averages of 11 points, 2 rebounds, 4 assists, and 40%fg, unproven 2 guard richard hamilton they had just aquired for jerry stackhouse and his 21/4/5, and 65 year old clifford robinson.

Billups had started to play well in '02 with Minnesota and continued his improvement in '03. He was definitely a solid point guard. Knew how to use his size, could shoot, defend and was becoming pretty good at running a team. He was a score-first point guard, but fit well on that team and was a legitimate threat.

Rip was already a 20 ppg scorer who didn't need the ball and he fit perfectly with Billups. Robinson was an all-defensive second team forward just the year before and a player with size who could stretch the defense with his outside shooting. Then there was Corliss Williamson who had been voted sixth man of the year the previous season and was a physical player who used his size well and was a legitimate scorer in the post and mid-range area. And the team had several other solid role players which I believed I mentioned.

yao was barely top 5, not clear. marcus camby was very, very close. besides that the magic and rockets were very much the same, given the same system and coach. drew gooden almost was as good as yao in the playoffs.

:oldlol: at Camby being close. It's pretty simple, T-Mac's '05 team was an elite defense as opposed to a terrible defense like his '03 team, a good rebounding team as opposed to a bad one and he still had better shooters.

he couldn't play off the ball because cleveland couldn't afford him to play off the ball, they needed the ball in his hands to give them the best chance to win games of basketball.

There's some truth in that, but it still doesn't change the fact that this was a fundamental skill Lebron lacked, and this was exposed his first year in Miami when he was in a position to play without the ball a lot more, but just stood around and didn't move much.

but they still were strong enough to make it to the second round

Not saying much in that conference.

says someone who ranks players based on ppg :roll:

This really is a terrible attempt to discredit me. Nobody is falling for it, especially since I've destroyed this myth you've tried to spread.

Shep

10-10-2012, 09:27 AM

You have a real problem with context, don't you?
i have no problems

Lebron, along with their defense(most of the credit for that goes to Mike Brown), and their rebounding which you can give Ilgauskas, Gooden and Varejao most of the credit for.
yeh so if their success was 1 lebron gets 0.8, the other 0.2 was made up by a number of players. makes sense.

Jacque Vaughn is decent in a limited role. A good defender, but offensively challenged. The problem, is Armstrong at that stage of his career was also better suited to a back up role.

at calling '03 Kemp a nice player. Garrity was a good 3 point shooting, but didn't really do anything else.
all were better than filth like atkins and okur. atkins could only manage 65 games, and shot 36 percent. okur was only worth 19 minutes in his 72 games, shot 43% from the field and contributed only 6.9 points and 4.7 rebounds.

Kobe was best each season and Wade was top 2, or at worst top 3. There's no argument for Wade being lower than top 3.
:roll: bryant was 9th then 19th, and wade was 4th.

Shaq does deserve some of the blame, I can't dispute that. But this isn't a Shaq vs Kobe thing, it's Kobe vs T-Mac. I pretty much agree with your assessment of Shaq vs Kobe in 2003.
bryant gets the slight edge over tmac here

Boston was a 44-38 East team, I'd call them an average team.

Their losses also included a horrendous 17-65 Cavs team, a 35-47 Hawk team, a 37-45 Knick team and a 37-45 Wizard team.

I'll give you credit for looking into it deeper, but you only presented one side, the losses overall is pretty much split between good and bad teams with a couple of average teams thrown in. I wouldn't call the competition too tough or bad.
apart from 1 bad team, the rest of them were tough games to win, especially since 2 were against the league dominating san antonio spurs with peak tim duncan, and slava medvedenko being the second offensive option on his team. kobe did everything a top 5 player could possibly do.

His all around ball was very good, though he was now the primary focus of opposing defenses every night with nobody to take pressure off him, T-Mac faced that for an entire season and averaged 32/7/6 on 46% and 24 FGA while getting his team above .500, Kobe did it for 15 games on 43% and 27 FGA and his team had twice as many losses as wins.
15 games is not 82 games, so no comparison can be made here. bryant led his team to a 50-32 record.

I'd expect Dirk to win more games with a top 2 point guard/top 15 player and all-star/all-nba guard in Nash as well as another all-star caliber player in Finley and a 4th guy in Van Exel who came off the bench compared to the trash T-Mac had. Hell, even Raef LaFrentz would be among T-Mac's best teammates, much less Dirk's 4th best player who would easily be T-Mac's second best.
top 2 point guard? nash wasn't even a top 4 point guard, finley wasn't even top 22 in the league. nowitzki, however, was top 6, was easily dallas' best player in both the regular season and playoffs, led his mavs to the best record in the nba and conference finals, was top 3 most valuable, beat 50 win portland in the wcsf averaging 29.9ppg, 8.9rpg, 1.6apg, 1.6spg, and 0.6bpg on 52%fg, 56%3p, and 90%ft, and beat 59 win sacramento in the wcsf averaging 20.7ppg, 14.3rpg, 2.9apg, 0.9spg, and 1.3bpg on 45%fg, 41%3p, and 88%ft

Kidd was on a better team, you're right about that.
i am right about everything i type

Billups had started to play well in '02 with Minnesota and continued his improvement in '03. He was definitely a solid point guard. Knew how to use his size, could shoot, defend and was becoming pretty good at running a team. He was a score-first point guard, but fit well on that team and was a legitimate threat.
billups was a career journeyman who had barely started over half of his games at point guard and scored 12 points on 10 field goal attempts.

Rip was already a 20 ppg scorer who didn't need the ball and he fit perfectly with Billups. Robinson was an all-defensive second team forward just the year before and a player with size who could stretch the defense with his outside shooting. Then there was Corliss Williamson who had been voted sixth man of the year the previous season and was a physical player who used his size well and was a legitimate scorer in the post and mid-range area. And the team had several other solid role players which I believed I mentioned.
rip was nice, but a downgrade from stackhouse the previous year. robinson was 36 years old, averaged less than 4 rebounds per game, shot the ball 12 times to get his 12 points, and shot less than 40% from the field, and corliss williamson was nowhere near 6th man of the year the previous season.

at Camby being close. It's pretty simple, T-Mac's '05 team was an elite defense as opposed to a terrible defense like his '03 team, a good rebounding team as opposed to a bad one and he still had better shooters.
camby was very close, separated only by the smallest of margins. the magic and rockets were very much the same, given the same system and coach. drew gooden almost was as good as yao in the playoffs.

There's some truth in that, but it still doesn't change the fact that this was a fundamental skill Lebron lacked, and this was exposed his first year in Miami when he was in a position to play without the ball a lot more, but just stood around and didn't move much.
who cares what happened in his first year in miami (he was still the best player in the league by a huge margin). in '07 he showed enough to be the best player in the league outside of tim duncan, as i have already proven time and time again.

Not saying much in that conference.
better than losing in the first round.

This really is a terrible attempt to discredit me. Nobody is falling for it, especially since I've destroyed this myth you've tried to spread.
ppg + popular notions + excuses = shaqattacks reasonings for wrong rankings.

D.J.

10-10-2012, 11:04 PM

I love Shep claims he's right about everything, ShaqAttack is wrong about everything, yet he can't use proper grammar. :oldlol: Such an arrogant little fellow who can't admit he's wrong.

Round Mound

10-10-2012, 11:32 PM

I love Shep claims he's right about everything, ShaqAttack is wrong about everything, yet he can't use proper grammar. :oldlol: Such an arrogant little fellow who can't admit he's wrong.

[B]There are 2 Identified Barkley Haters on ISH...But Shep Is N

ShaqAttack3234

10-11-2012, 09:08 AM

yeh so if their success was 1 lebron gets 0.8, the other 0.2 was made up by a number of players. makes sense.

:oldlol: Cleveland were one of the 4 best defensive teams and 3 best rebounding teams, that's primarily how they won because they were a poor offensive team.

all were better than filth like atkins and okur. atkins could only manage 65 games, and shot 36 percent. okur was only worth 19 minutes in his 72 games, shot 43% from the field and contributed only 6.9 points and 4.7 rebounds.

:oldlol: at Garrity being better than Okur. it's an easy comparison since both are big men. Garrity was a one-dimensional 3 point shooting big man, while Okur could also shoot outside, but was a solid post defender and rebounder as well. He only played 19 mpg since Detroit was so deep.

Atkins did have a terrible shooting season, I'll give you that. But he was still a quality backup point guard, Definitely better than Jacque Vaughn. :oldlol: at the 65 game comment.

Detroit was the deepest and most talented team in the East.

:roll: bryant was 9th then 19th, and wade was 4th.

:roll: Kobe has never been as low as 19th as a starter, the only season he's started that it's even a reasonable statement is '99. He's only been 9th or lower as a starter in '99, '00 and '05.

Kobe was clearly the best player in the league in 2006. I don't see much of a case for anyone else. There's no way he should have won 45 games in the West with that cast, his only teammate that was good was Lamar Odom, and he was inconsistent, and didn't play that well until the second half.

After a season of carrying the team with his scoring as successfully as you could expect at his coaches request, he did the opposite and become a playmaker and even somewhat of a decoy in the 1st round vs Phoenix once it was best for the team. It almost resulted in an upset of the Suns, and Kobe's game-winner in game 4 as well as his 50 point game that would have closed them out if not for the 3 by Tim Thomas.

Aside from being the best scorer in the league, Kobe showed at times that he was a fine defensive player. He would often step up and take the challenge of guarding the opposing team's best perimeter player such as Wade, Carter, Allen or T-Mac, and had some memorable defensive games.

There's nobody else who could have done what Kobe did. He was clearly the most skilled player in the league, and put those skills to work. His individual play resulted in his team probably overachieving more than any other team relative to their talent level.

Name 1 other perimeter player who could have made the Lakers this good.

In 2007, there was one player who has a case over Kobe and it's Tim Duncan. But Kobe was still the consensus best player and for good reason. He was very close to the 2006 version, except worse defensively, and not as capable of carrying the team for an entire season. But that historic scoring ability returned, and he did it better than anyone in the league was capable of when his coach asked him. But spent much of the season excelling as a facilitator. With the Lakers injuries and talent, that team had no business making the playoffs.

As for Wade? The only player better than Wade in '09 was Lebron, and the only other player with a case was Kobe. No other player can be brought up vs Wade, who clearly peaked that year. He was still in his athletic prime, but had easily the best shooting season of his career, shooting mid-range jumpers more frequently and more accurately than ever, and becoming a legit 3 point threat for the first time. This improved shooting allowed Wade to mix up his game far more and be more under control. There wasn't as much as that falling down every play bullshit. Though Wade was still one of the league's most aggressive and athletic guards. As a follow up to Wade being more under control, we saw him cut down on his turnovers greatly, and this was one of only 2 full seasons when Wade had even a solid mid-range jumper(along with 2006). Plus, Wade had easily his best defensive season.

It's one of those rare seasons when a player is literally at their best at both ends and in every aspect of the game. This rarely happens, and one of the few other examples is Shaq in 2000.

bryant gets the slight edge over tmac here

I think it's the other way around, but since it is a slight edge, I take no issue with you choosing Kobe.

apart from 1 bad team, the rest of them were tough games to win, especially since 2 were against the league dominating san antonio spurs with peak tim duncan, and slava medvedenko being the second offensive option on his team. kobe did everything a top 5 player could possibly do.

The schedule overall was pretty average. A mix of good, bad and average teams.

15 games is not 82 games, so no comparison can be made here. bryant led his team to a 50-32 record.

Which is an underwhelming record considering he played with Shaq who was still in his late prime, or close to it, and the other key players from a championship team.

top 2 point guard? nash wasn't even a top 4 point guard, finley wasn't even top 22 in the league. nowitzki, however, was top 6, was easily dallas' best player in both the regular season and playoffs, led his mavs to the best record in the nba and conference finals, was top 3 most valuable, beat 50 win portland in the wcsf averaging 29.9ppg, 8.9rpg, 1.6apg, 1.6spg, and 0.6bpg on 52%fg, 56%3p, and 90%ft, and beat 59 win sacramento in the wcsf averaging 20.7ppg, 14.3rpg, 2.9apg, 0.9spg, and 1.3bpg on 45%fg, 41%3p, and 88%ft

:oldlol: at Nash not being a top 4 point guard. Who said Finley was top 22? He's a damn good 3rd best player.

Dirk was a great player with a great season and playoff run, but nothing on paper changes the fact that he wasn't as good as T-Mac at this time. Nobody thought so.

Look at it this way. T-Mac was clearly the better scorer at this time, in fact, arguably the best scorer in the league rivaled by only Shaq and perhaps Kobe. T-mac was also the best passer who wasn't a point guard, and no worse of a defender, in fact, I'd say better than Dirk at this stage. You can't tell me Dirk's rebounding was enough to make up for this. 3 more rebounds per game from a power forward vs a guard simply isn't enough.

billups was a career journeyman who had barely started over half of his games at point guard and scored 12 points on 10 field goal attempts.

In this season, he averaged over 16 points on less than 12 field goal attempts.

rip was nice, but a downgrade from stackhouse the previous year. robinson was 36 years old, averaged less than 4 rebounds per game, shot the ball 12 times to get his 12 points, and shot less than 40% from the field, and corliss williamson was nowhere near 6th man of the year the previous season.

Stackhouse was more skilled and talented than Rip individually, but Rip was a better guy to fit in with other talent. He did most of his damage without the ball, took smart shots, wasn't selfish, and certainly didn't have any of the chucking tendencies that Stackhouse did.

Robinson was a good all around player, he did still have scoring and shooting ability and he was a good defender. He was never a great rebounder.

Corliss Williamson was still a very solid scorer.

camby was very close, separated only by the smallest of margins. the magic and rockets were very much the same, given the same system and coach. drew gooden almost was as good as yao in the playoffs.

Gooden was nowhere near Yao in the playoffs. That, along with your overrating of Camby is a perfect example of why you have to put down the stat-sheet for a minute.

who cares what happened in his first year in miami (he was still the best player in the league by a huge margin). in '07 he showed enough to be the best player in the league outside of tim duncan, as i have already proven time and time again.

He wasn't the best in the league by a huge margin in 2011. I'd probably rank him as the best player in 2011 as well, but Dwight Howard was definitely up there.

You have never come close to proving Lebron was the 2nd best player in '07. You haven't come close because it's flat out wrong. I've proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he's absolutely no better than 3rd.

And the reason I brought up Lebron's weakness playing off the ball in 2011 because you excused his ball-dominance in 2007 as a necessity, I brought up 2011 because he was now in a position where playing without the ball was best for the team at times with the most talented trio in years, and his inability to do so was exposed.

better than losing in the first round.

Not if you play worse than the player who loses in the 1st round.

ppg + popular notions + excuses = shaqattacks reasonings for wrong rankings.

:oldlol: Try again. Your rankings have proven to be far more ridiculous. You often end up with an insane variation between players from year to year, even when they play at a pretty comparable level.

I have yet to do anything as ridiculous as rank 2000 Kobe 2nd best. And you don't even show any consistency with this overrating of championship 2nd options when you have 2006 Shaq, a superior impact player to 2000 Kobe 15th or some shit in 2006. And, 2002 Kobe, who was vastly superior to the 2000 version ends up 3rd on your list(which was correct), but somehow 2000 Kobe is 2nd?

Shep

10-20-2012, 08:34 AM

Cleveland were one of the 4 best defensive teams and 3 best rebounding teams, that's primarily how they won because they were a poor offensive team.
actually the primary reason they won was that they were lucky enough to have had an all-time great level player amongst a team full of fringe level players, and who's second best player wasn't among the top 10 players at his position in the league.

at Garrity being better than Okur. it's an easy comparison since both are big men. Garrity was a one-dimensional 3 point shooting big man, while Okur could also shoot outside, but was a solid post defender and rebounder as well. He only played 19 mpg since Detroit was so deep.
he only played 19 minutes because thats all he was worth. okur shot a disgusting 34% from downtown. garrity was automatic, averaged 11 points, 2 assists, 1 steal, and 2 3 pointers per contest. garrity also shot 83% from the free throw line. he scored over 20 points 7 times in the regular season.

Atkins did have a terrible shooting season, I'll give you that. But he was still a quality backup point guard, Definitely better than Jacque Vaughn. :oldlol: at the 65 game comment.
:oldlol: at all your comments. vaughn was easily better than atkins, who shot the ball more times than he scored points.

Detroit was the deepest and most talented team in the East.
yet it didn't result in many more wins than the other teams. 1 more win than second seed new jersey, 2 more wins than indiana and philadelphia, and only 3 more wins than fifth seed new orleans.

Kobe has never been as low as 19th as a starter, the only season he's started that it's even a reasonable statement is '99. He's only been 9th or lower as a starter in '99, '00 and '05.
in '99 he was 17th, 2 spots higher than he was '07

Kobe was clearly the best player in the league in 2006. I don't see much of a case for anyone else. There's no way he should have won 45 games in the West with that cast, his only teammate that was good was Lamar Odom, and he was inconsistent, and didn't play that well until the second half.
he wasn't anywhere near the best player in the league, dwyane wade was clearly in another stratosphere. guys like lebron james, dirk nowitzki, elton brand, and dirk nowitzki were better by a huge margin. and then there were shawn marion, allen iverson, and andrei kirilenko who were still clearly better.

After a season of carrying the team with his scoring as successfully as you could expect at his coaches request, he did the opposite and become a playmaker and even somewhat of a decoy in the 1st round vs Phoenix once it was best for the team. It almost resulted in an upset of the Suns, and Kobe's game-winner in game 4 as well as his 50 point game that would have closed them out if not for the 3 by Tim Thomas.
lol the best scorer in the league does not become a "decoy" in the playoffs. he was almost outplayed by his second best player, in lamar odom, who stepped up alot more than he did. all he could manage in the highest paced environment he could possibly wish for in the playoffs was a disgusting dropoff of 8 points per game along with almost 5 turnovers per game.

Aside from being the best scorer in the league, Kobe showed at times that he was a fine defensive player. He would often step up and take the challenge of guarding the opposing team's best perimeter player such as Wade, Carter, Allen or T-Mac, and had some memorable defensive games.
bryant was an ok defender, slightly above average, nothing special. he had better defensive seasons.

There's nobody else who could have done what Kobe did. He was clearly the most skilled player in the league, and put those skills to work. His individual play resulted in his team probably overachieving more than any other team relative to their talent level.

Name 1 other perimeter player who could have made the Lakers this good.
i can name 2. dwyane wade, allen iverson.

In 2007, there was one player who has a case over Kobe and it's Tim Duncan. But Kobe was still the consensus best player and for good reason. He was very close to the 2006 version, except worse defensively, and not as capable of carrying the team for an entire season. But that historic scoring ability returned, and he did it better than anyone in the league was capable of when his coach asked him. But spent much of the season excelling as a facilitator. With the Lakers injuries and talent, that team had no business making the playoffs.
there is no argument for putting bryant anywhere near the top 10, let alone top 2 in 2007. he had a worse regular season, and an even worse playoff series in which once again, was almost outplayed by lamar odom who stepped up alot more. the lakers had a much higher pace than they did the previous year, and he simply could not capitalize.

As for Wade? The only player better than Wade in '09 was Lebron, and the only other player with a case was Kobe. No other player can be brought up vs Wade, who clearly peaked that year. He was still in his athletic prime, but had easily the best shooting season of his career, shooting mid-range jumpers more frequently and more accurately than ever, and becoming a legit 3 point threat for the first time. This improved shooting allowed Wade to mix up his game far more and be more under control. There wasn't as much as that falling down every play bullshit. Though Wade was still one of the league's most aggressive and athletic guards. As a follow up to Wade being more under control, we saw him cut down on his turnovers greatly, and this was one of only 2 full seasons when Wade had even a solid mid-range jumper(along with 2006). Plus, Wade had easily his best defensive season.
yeh lebron was better in '09, as was kobe. the other better player was dwight howard. dwight led his orlando magic to 59 regular season wins, was the defensive player of the year, was second only to lebron james as the most valuable player in the league, 1st team all-nba, led his team to the nba finals, including victories against the 62 win celtics, and the 66 win cleveland cavaliers. in the first round against philadelphia, dwight averaged 24.0ppg, 15.8rpg, 1.0apg, 0.6spg, and 2.8bpg on 68% from the field. in the upset win over the 62 win celtics howard monstered his way to 16.4ppg, 17.1rpg, 1.4apg, 0.6spg, and 2.7bpg on 55% from the field. in the surprise series victory over the cleveland cavaliers he averaged 25.8ppg, 13.0rpg, 2.8apg, 0.8spg, and 1.2bpg on 65% from the field, including a 40 point, 14 rebound demolishing in series deciding game 6. in the finals he wasn't as effective from the field, but he still was able to put up 15.4ppg, 15.2rpg, 2.2apg, 1.6spg, and 4.0bpg.

The schedule overall was pretty average. A mix of good, bad and average teams.
tough schedule

Which is an underwhelming record considering he played with Shaq who was still in his late prime, or close to it, and the other key players from a championship team.
o'neal was unmotivated, bryant played fine. o'neal's play and attitude, was the only reason they lost that many games.

at Nash not being a top 4 point guard. Who said Finley was top 22? He's a damn good 3rd best player.
finley was top 23, nash was top 19, and fifth best point guard.

Dirk was a great player with a great season and playoff run, but nothing on paper changes the fact that he wasn't as good as T-Mac at this time. Nobody thought so.
who cares about paper? i'm talking about eyes.

Shep

10-20-2012, 08:35 AM

Look at it this way. T-Mac was clearly the better scorer at this time, in fact, arguably the best scorer in the league rivaled by only Shaq and perhaps Kobe. T-mac was also the best passer who wasn't a point guard, and no worse of a defender, in fact, I'd say better than Dirk at this stage. You can't tell me Dirk's rebounding was enough to make up for this. 3 more rebounds per game from a power forward vs a guard simply isn't enough.
what about dirk having a better regular season, and then a better playoff. these facts clearly point out that dirk was the better player.

In this season, he averaged over 16 points on less than 12 field goal attempts.
..and they won just as many games as they did with chucky atkins running the point the year earlier.

Stackhouse was more skilled and talented than Rip individually, but Rip was a better guy to fit in with other talent. He did most of his damage without the ball, took smart shots, wasn't selfish, and certainly didn't have any of the chucking tendencies that Stackhouse did.

Robinson was a good all around player, he did still have scoring and shooting ability and he was a good defender. He was never a great rebounder.

Corliss Williamson was still a very solid scorer.
stackhouse contributed much more and won just as many games with less talent the previous season.

robinson was no more than a body, and williamson was a big man who could not rebound to save his life, was pathetic without the ball, and a black hole with it.

Gooden was nowhere near Yao in the playoffs. That, along with your overrating of Camby is a perfect example of why you have to put down the stat-sheet for a minute.
yao played like trash, gooden stepped up huge. no need for stat sheets, go watch the games and you will find these things out.

He wasn't the best in the league by a huge margin in 2011. I'd probably rank him as the best player in 2011 as well, but Dwight Howard was definitely up there.
howard wasn't even in the top 5, and nowhere near lebron james.

You have never come close to proving Lebron was the 2nd best player in '07. You haven't come close because it's flat out wrong. I've proven beyond a reasonable doubt that he's absolutely no better than 3rd.
where have you proven this? it must have been in another thread somewhere because in this one all of your arguments have been destroyed.

And the reason I brought up Lebron's weakness playing off the ball in 2011 because you excused his ball-dominance in 2007 as a necessity, I brought up 2011 because he was now in a position where playing without the ball was best for the team at times with the most talented trio in years, and his inability to do so was exposed.
he has always had the ability to do so, 2011 was no exception. he just played timid in 2011, when he had the ball he was timid and when he didn't have the ball he was timid, thats what it came down to.

Not if you play worse than the player who loses in the 1st round.
not sure why you are mentioning this considering he played easily better.

Try again. Your rankings have proven to be far more ridiculous. You often end up with an insane variation between players from year to year, even when they play at a pretty comparable level.
who cares if they put up the same stats, its not all about stats, which is why variations occur from year to year.

I have yet to do anything as ridiculous as rank 2000 Kobe 2nd best. And you don't even show any consistency with this overrating of championship 2nd options when you have 2006 Shaq, a superior impact player to 2000 Kobe 15th or some shit in 2006. And, 2002 Kobe, who was vastly superior to the 2000 version ends up 3rd on your list(which was correct), but somehow 2000 Kobe is 2nd?
this is just plain filth logic. kobe is 2nd in 2000, this is fact. every year there are different players who step up and play big. see 2002 kobe was better than 2000 kobe, yet he is ranked 3rd because tim duncan stepped up and was better than him, yet in 2000 nobody stepped up to the level that duncan showed in 2002. make sense? 2006 shaq was infact the 16th best player in the league and didn't have anywhere near the impact 2000 kobe had.

L.A. Jazz

10-20-2012, 10:12 AM

Karl was on NBA.tv last week and talked/showed something about the pick'n'roll. Interessting was him talking about how much fun it was to play pick'n'roll against Shaq and Chuck, because they hated it and "were the worst at defending it" quote Karl.

jlitt

10-22-2012, 09:43 AM

L.A. Jazz

10-22-2012, 11:58 AM

...Steve nash who never once played defense in his life is better than ai one of the most unstopable scoring forces ever. Who single handedly prevented the lakers dynasty from a perfect sweep in the playoffs...

Not disrespecting AI, but there are a lot of great scorers in NBA history and when they get hot they could win you one game against everyone (even the best championship teams in history). AI was assisted by lazy Lakers who won all games before and knew the Sixers had no chance to win 4 out of 7. After this loss they got serious and finished them. AI or not.

jlitt

10-22-2012, 12:04 PM

Not disrespecting AI, but there are a lot of great scorers in NBA history and when they get hot they could win you one game against everyone (even the best championship teams in history). AI was assisted by lazy Lakers who won all games before and knew the Sixers had no chance to win 4 out of 7. After this loss they got serious and finished them. AI or not.

Right, what im saying is that one 6 foot guard was all that stood between the lakers and the greatest playoff run ever. and no , not a lot of great scorers could win games all by themselves the way ai did that year with the worst supporting cast a finals team has ever seen.

Round Mound

10-22-2012, 05:13 PM

Its easy to look back on stats and history and judge a player .

But if you lived in that era and saw those two match up there would be no hesitation when asked this question. Barkley was so much better than Malone it was funny. In fact malone never guarded barkley 1 on 1, it was a mismatch all day.

It brings me to another point, you look at ISH's top players of all time and they have nash over iverson.....Really?

Steve nash who never once played defense in his life is better than ai one of the most unstopable scoring forces ever. Who single handedly prevented the lakers dynasty from a perfect sweep in the playoffs.

History does funny things, but if you lived in that era and watch the games you know.

:applause: Everyone who saw the NBA from 1985 to 1995 Knew Barkley Was Better Untill His Back Injuries. Its Only the Kiddos the Watched the NBA from 1995-96 Onwards and Jazz Fans Who Think Malone Was Better as a Total Player...Which is Wrong because they Did Not See a Healthy Barkley. Infact, Many of Those Fans Even Claim Stockton as Better Tham Magic Johnson. :facepalm

Sarcastic

10-22-2012, 05:19 PM

:applause: Everyone who saw the NBA from 1985 to 1995 Knew Barkley Was Better Untill His Back Injuries. Its Only the Kiddos the Watched the NBA from 1995-96 Onwards and Jazz Fans Who Think Malone Was Better as a Total Player...Which is Wrong because they Did Not See a Healthy Barkley. Infact, Many of Those Fans Even Claim Stockton as Better Tham Magic Johnson. :facepalm

Didn't you once say Stockton was better than Isiah Thomas?

Round Mound

10-22-2012, 05:43 PM

Didn't you once say Stockton was better than Isiah Thomas?

Which he Was

But he Was :no: Magic who Was a Triple Double Walking Machine. The Only Think Isiah Was Better than Stockton at Was at Driving to The Basket.

As Far as:

-Creating
-Passing
-Shooting
-Defense

etc

Stockton Was Better than Isiah at.

D.J.

10-22-2012, 05:52 PM

Regular season- Stockton > Isiah
Playoffs- Isiah >>> Stockton

Round Mound

10-22-2012, 06:03 PM

Regular season- Stockton > Isiah
Playoffs- Isiah >>> Stockton

Could Be...But U Must Remember Stockton Played Only 1 One Great Offensive Player in Malone, a Versatile Bailey and a Great Shot Blocker Paint Defender in Eaton (88 Jazz > 97 or 98 Jazz)

While...Isiah Played With a Total Stocked Team: 2 Great Scorers in Dantley and Aguirre. 1 Good Scorer in Dumars ( Best Back Court of the 80s). 2 Great Rebounders in Laimbeer and Rodman and 5 Great Defenders in Dumars, Rodman, Salley, Laimbeer and Mahorn.

Isiah Had It Easier than John.

ShaqAttack3234

10-24-2012, 02:47 PM

actually the primary reason they won was that they were lucky enough to have had an all-time great level player amongst a team full of fringe level players, and who's second best player wasn't among the top 10 players at his position in the league.

His cast was far better than you're giving them credit for. But we don't even need to go over subjective crap about how they look on paper. Just remember that they were a top 2 rebounding team and a top 4 defensive team. Are you going to pretend that doesn't matter?

he only played 19 minutes because thats all he was worth. okur shot a disgusting 34% from downtown. garrity was automatic, averaged 11 points, 2 assists, 1 steal, and 2 3 pointers per contest

He only played 19 minutes because Detroit was very deep. Garrity could shoot 3s, but would I take that at the expense of defense and rebounding at the power forward position? Absolutely not as evidenced by Orlando's terrible defense and rebounding.

:oldlol: at all your comments. vaughn was easily better than atkins, who shot the ball more times than he scored points.

Atkins had a terrible shooting season, but Vaughn could never shoot anyway. Atkins started quite a bit during his career, including the previous year on a 50 win Piston team. Vaughn was lucky to crack a team's rotation even as a back up.

in '99 he was 17th, 2 spots higher than he was '07

17th is reasonable for '99, but I'll always be laughing at this ridiculous horseshit for '07. The funniest thing is you can't completely hide behind team success without context because you have Wade, Brand and Garnett over Kobe in 2007. Then you have a bunch of other names that are downright comical beginning with Billups,

he wasn't anywhere near the best player in the league, dwyane wade was clearly in another stratosphere.

What a joke. Kobe was in a different stratosphere than Wade if anything. It was obvious to myself and pretty much everyone else including some of Wade's veteran teammates that Kobe was better. He was much more skilled and his game was much more well rounded than Wade. Wade was the better slasher and more relentless going to the basket, but that's about it. Kobe was a much better shooter and much better in the post, and all of this made Kobe a much better scorer. Kobe outscored Wade 35 ppg to 27 ppg, and while Wade held a nice FG% advantage of 49.5% to 45%, Kobe made 2 more threes per game, so Wade's TS% edge was only 58.3% to 55.9%. Plus, Kobe did this without anyone to take pressure off of them, while Wade clearly seemed to benefit from Shaq's presence since he shot 51.7% with him and just 44.7% without him in a significant sample size of 21 games.

lol the best scorer in the league does not become a "decoy" in the playoffs.

:oldlol: at this trash. Kobe wasn't going to outscore the Suns by himself, both Kobe and Phil knew this. He had averaged 42.5 ppg vs them during the season, but the Lakers had gone 1-3 in those games. Changing Kobe's role and approach made sense and nearly resulted in the upset. He still put up 28/6/5, 50 FG%, but his teammates were playing to their full potential as well.

bryant was an ok defender, slightly above average, nothing special. he had better defensive seasons.

He did have better defensive seasons, but he was still better than almost any star perimeter player.

i can name 2. dwyane wade, allen iverson.

:oldlol: Based on what? Wade's Heat went just 10-11 when he played and Shaq didn't. And he still had a better cast than Kobe.

All the evidence suggest that '06 Wade couldn't have come close to 45 wins with the '06 Lakers. Probably finishes under .500 and misses the playoffs.

Iverson? :oldlol: His team went 38-44 in the East and missed the playoffs. That's the best case scenario in the West, but probably a bit worse. Kobe did what Iverson did better than he did, which was volume scorer, while being the more efficient, versatile and consistent scorer, and a more well rounded player.

there is no argument for putting bryant anywhere near the top 10, let alone top 2 in 2007. he had a worse regular season, and an even worse playoff series in which once again, was almost outplayed by lamar odom who stepped up alot more. the lakers had a much higher pace than they did the previous year, and he simply could not capitalize.

There is no argument for Kobe being any less than top 2, and he's the correct choice for best player.

yeh lebron was better in '09, as was kobe. the other better player was dwight howard.

Kobe had a legitimate case over Wade in '09, so I can't take issue with you choosing Kobe.

As far as Dwight, he did have a great year, I've pointed out that playoff run in a similar way when some have tried to exclude Dwight from the top 5 players that year. But he was raw offensively, and we saw how he could be contained vs Boston and LA. That held him back from the level of Lebron, Wade and Kobe who were on a different level than everyone else.

finley was top 23, nash was top 19, and fifth best point guard.

I have Finley lower and Nash higher at top 14. Marbury, Francis and Payton are all right behind him, but I don't see any as having a good case since Nash was clearly the best offensive player of the 4, and none were good enough defensively at that point to make up for it.

what about dirk having a better regular season, and then a better playoff. these facts clearly point out that dirk was the better player.

:oldlol: at this. Do you deny that T-Mac was a better scorer than Dirk and more of an all around player in '03?

stackhouse contributed much more and won just as many games with less talent the previous season.

And lost in the second round. Stackhouse was more skilled and talented overall, but Rip was more efficient, smarter and more of a team player. Stackhouse shot a terrible 32% in the '02 playoffs.

robinson was no more than a body, and williamson was a big man who could not rebound to save his life, was pathetic without the ball, and a black hole with it.

Robinson's ability to shoot 3s as a 6'10" power forward as well as his defense made him valuable. Corliss Williamson wasn't a big man, he was playing small forward and a very nice scorer to have as a complementary player.

yao played like trash, gooden stepped up huge. no need for stat sheets, go watch the games and you will find these things out.

Yao played well, though he struggled with foul trouble. Gooden played well, but still didn't have the impact Yao did. Aside from Yao producing much more offensively, you also had to put a lot more effort into defending him than Gooden, and he was much more of a presence and made a much bigger impact defensively.

howard wasn't even in the top 5, and nowhere near lebron james.

What a joke. Howard made a group of poor defenders a top 3 defensive team, averaged 14 rpg and still put up 23 ppg on 59%. He had no peers defensively, and had developed a very nice skill set and become comfortable with his back to the basket to complement his athleticism.

who cares if they put up the same stats, its not all about stats, which is why variations occur from year to year.

I said nothing about stats. I said PLAY at a comparable level, of course, that means stats to you, but the game is much more than that to me.

this is just plain filth logic. kobe is 2nd in 2000, this is fact. every year there are different players who step up and play big. see 2002 kobe was better than 2000 kobe, yet he is ranked 3rd because tim duncan stepped up and was better than him, yet in 2000 nobody stepped up to the level that duncan showed in 2002. make sense? 2006 shaq was infact the 16th best player in the league and didn't have anywhere near the impact 2000 kobe had.

You're correct that both Duncan and Kobe were better in 2002 than their 2000 selves, but the gap for Kobe was much bigger. Duncan in 2000 was as good as he was in almost any other year. Kobe wasn't even in the same tier as him yet.

As for 2006 Shaq vs 2000 Kobe, your claim that Kobe made a bigger impact is laughable, especially since we conveniently have solid sample sizes that strongly suggest otherwise. The 2000 Lakers went 12-4 without Kobe, and 12-3 when Shaq played in those games. The 2006 Heat went just 10-13 without Shaq, and 10-11 when Wade played in those games.

Not that the backup excuse would make up for such a massive disparity in the first place, but even that helps Shaq's argument. The Heat had that poor record despite having an excellent backup in Alonzo Mourning who was still one of the best defensive players in the game and averaged 12/9 on 58% with 4 bpg as a starter. The Lakers only had Derek Fisher to fill in as a starting guard, and this was before Fisher was even a good shooter. Fisher shot under 35% for the entire 2000 season.

2006 Shaq was a much more savvy and team-oriented player. He was also still probably the biggest mismatch in the game and received far more defensive attention than Kobe. We saw what happened when even a great frontcourt like the Pistons guarded him 1 on 1, he averaged 22/11 with 2.3 bpg on 66%, which may have influenced the Mavs to make him the focus of their defense until game 5. For the season, he still put up 20/9/2/2 on 60% in just 31 mpg.

ThaRegul8r

10-24-2012, 05:33 PM

Right, what im saying is that one 6 foot guard was all that stood between the lakers and the greatest playoff run ever. and no , not a lot of great scorers could win games all by themselves the way ai did that year with the worst supporting cast a finals team has ever seen.

Not like Mutombo played any role whatsoever in the Sixers getting to the Finals, right? Not like he averaged 15.6 rebounds and 6.4 offensive rebounds a game in the ECF when Iverson was shooting 34% or anything. Or that he had performances like 21 points on 6/11 FG, 9/9 FT and 13 rebounds to lead the team to a 1-point win and 3-2 series lead when Iverson shot 5-for-27 or anything. Or that he had 23 points, 19 rebounds and seven blocks in the deciding Game 7 to help get them into the Finals or anything. Or that he was "a monster in all of the series," as Sixers coach Larry Brown said, or that he "took us to another level," as teammate Tyrone Hill said. No, he was just some scrub who Iverson had to carry as he did it all by himself.

DatAsh

10-24-2012, 06:09 PM

Not like Mutombo played any role whatsoever in the Sixers getting to the Finals, right? Not like he averaged 15.6 rebounds and 6.4 offensive rebounds a game in the ECF when Iverson was shooting 34% or anything. Or that he had performances like 21 points on 6/11 FG, 9/9 FT and 13 rebounds to lead the team to a 1-point win and 3-2 series lead when Iverson shot 5-for-27 or anything. Or that he had 23 points, 19 rebounds and seven blocks in the deciding Game 7 to help get them into the Finals or anything. Or that he was "a monster in all of the series," as Sixers coach Larry Brown said, or that he "took us to another level," as teammate Tyrone Hill said. No, he was just some scrub who Iverson had to carry as he did it all by himself.

Post of the day

Shep

10-30-2012, 09:29 AM

His cast was far better than you're giving them credit for. But we don't even need to go over subjective crap about how they look on paper. Just remember that they were a top 2 rebounding team and a top 4 defensive team. Are you going to pretend that doesn't matter?
ofcourse that is important. not as important as having a superstar talent level player putting up performances that lebron did that season though.

He only played 19 minutes because Detroit was very deep. Garrity could shoot 3s, but would I take that at the expense of defense and rebounding at the power forward position? Absolutely not as evidenced by Orlando's terrible defense and rebounding.
lol at these excuses why someone didn't play more minutes. give me a non black hole team player who is capable of draining multiple 3s per game anyday.

Atkins had a terrible shooting season, but Vaughn could never shoot anyway. Atkins started quite a bit during his career, including the previous year on a 50 win Piston team. Vaughn was lucky to crack a team's rotation even as a back up.
are we talking about career's here? no, we are talking about the 2003 season, in which atkins was clearly the worse player.

17th is reasonable for '99, but I'll always be laughing at this ridiculous horseshit for '07. The funniest thing is you can't completely hide behind team success without context because you have Wade, Brand and Garnett over Kobe in 2007. Then you have a bunch of other names that are downright comical beginning with Billups,
lol @ horseshit. wade was worlds better in the regular season, making up for his poor showing in the playoffs. bryant was better in the regular season than brand, but his poor showing in the playoffs demoted him behind brand, as was the case for garnett's place over bryant. as for billups? well he was better due to leading the pistons to the best record in the east, and a conference finals appearance.

What a joke. Kobe was in a different stratosphere than Wade if anything. It was obvious to myself and pretty much everyone else including some of Wade's veteran teammates that Kobe was better. He was much more skilled and his game was much more well rounded than Wade. Wade was the better slasher and more relentless going to the basket, but that's about it. Kobe was a much better shooter and much better in the post, and all of this made Kobe a much better scorer. Kobe outscored Wade 35 ppg to 27 ppg, and while Wade held a nice FG% advantage of 49.5% to 45%, Kobe made 2 more threes per game, so Wade's TS% edge was only 58.3% to 55.9%. Plus, Kobe did this without anyone to take pressure off of them, while Wade clearly seemed to benefit from Shaq's presence since he shot 51.7% with him and just 44.7% without him in a significant sample size of 21 games.
the only reason kobe outscored wade 35ppg to 27ppg was the fact that he shot the ball almost 9 more times per game than wade did :hammerhead: .

wade was better in the regular season..and well we know what happened in the playoffs: bryant lost in the first round after going up 3-1, becoming only the 8th team in nba history to lose a series in such a manner. bryant seemed to be in cry baby mode in game 7 of this series, often pouting, showing quitting tendencies, scoring 1 solitary point in the second half.

wade on the other hand had one of the greatest playoff runs in nba history. wade led the bulls past the tough and talented chicago bulls, destroyed the 49 win nets in the second round, past number 1 seed and defending eastern conference champion detroit in the conference finals, and finally defeating the 60 win dallas mavericks in the nba finals.

wade put up 24.7ppg, 4.5rpg, 7.2apg, 2.0spg, and 1.3bpg against chicago, 27.6ppg, 6.0rpg, 6.6apg, 2.4spg, and 0.6bpg against new jersey, 26.7ppg, 5.2rpg, 5.5apg, 1.8spg, 1.5bpg against detroit, and then against the best he played incredible: 34.7ppg, 7.8rpg, 3.8apg, 2.7spg, and 1.0bpg in the finals against dallas, while his second best player was embarrassing himself.

at this trash. Kobe wasn't going to outscore the Suns by himself, both Kobe and Phil knew this. He had averaged 42.5 ppg vs them during the season, but the Lakers had gone 1-3 in those games. Changing Kobe's role and approach made sense and nearly resulted in the upset. He still put up 28/6/5, 50 FG%, but his teammates were playing to their full potential as well.
still put up 7 less points than he did in the regular season in a high pace environment. lamar odom on the other hand played huge and stepped up his game, unlike bryant. odom increased his ppg from 14.8ppg to 19.1ppg, and increased his rpg from 9.2rpg to 11.0rpg.

Based on what? Wade's Heat went just 10-11 when he played and Shaq didn't. And he still had a better cast than Kobe.

All the evidence suggest that '06 Wade couldn't have come close to 45 wins with the '06 Lakers. Probably finishes under .500 and misses the playoffs.
what is this 21 games bullshit? last time i checked an nba season goes for 82 games in length.

it is purely based on the fact that wade was much, much better. i don't play this "probably this would happen if this happened" or "this will happen if a certain player plays somewhere" i deal with facts. sure kobe had a nice regular season, but wade was still better, contributing more to a winning cause. then there were the playoffs, where wade put up a legendary playoff and finals, bryant was busy losing in the first round after being up 3-1, and scoring almost 8 less points than he did in the regular season in more minutes per game, in a higher paced environment.

Iverson? His team went 38-44 in the East and missed the playoffs. That's the best case scenario in the West, but probably a bit worse. Kobe did what Iverson did better than he did, which was volume scorer, while being the more efficient, versatile and consistent scorer, and a more well rounded player.
bryant was better than iverson after the regular season. but because of his disgusting performance, was demoted below iverson as a result. iverson also scored more than bryant per shot attempt, and also managed to average 7.4apg.

There is no argument for Kobe being any less than top 2, and he's the correct choice for best player.
:roll: this is like arguing serge ibaka is the best player in the league of today.

As far as Dwight, he did have a great year, I've pointed out that playoff run in a similar way when some have tried to exclude Dwight from the top 5 players that year. But he was raw offensively, and we saw how he could be contained vs Boston and LA. That held him back from the level of Lebron, Wade and Kobe who were on a different level than everyone else.
dwight was still good enough to lead the orlando magic to the nba finals. we also saw how wade could be contained in the first round losing to the atlanta hawks and not even managing to shoot 44 percent from the field, only managing to break the 50% mark once that series.

I have Finley lower and Nash higher at top 14. Marbury, Francis and Payton are all right behind him, but I don't see any as having a good case since Nash was clearly the best offensive player of the 4, and none were good enough defensively at that point to make up for it.[QUOTE]
marbury is right behind him. this is the only correct statement of your paragraph. francis, payton, and baron davis are all better than him (along with the obvious jason kidd).
[QUOTE]at this. Do you deny that T-Mac was a better scorer than Dirk and more of an all around player in '03?
:lol more statsheet filth. congrats on being able to put up points when your team is constantly going to you on offense. give me dirk's ability to contribute to a winning cause and better point per shot ratio over this .500 ball anyday.

And lost in the second round. Stackhouse was more skilled and talented overall, but Rip was more efficient, smarter and more of a team player. Stackhouse shot a terrible 32% in the '02 playoffs.
stackhouse was disappointing in the playoffs no doubt. however, over 82 games he just provided the pistons with alot more all round firepower.

Shep

10-30-2012, 09:30 AM

Robinson's ability to shoot 3s as a 6'10" power forward as well as his defense made him valuable. Corliss Williamson wasn't a big man, he was playing small forward and a very nice scorer to have as a complementary player.
robinson was trash, he had no ability to shoot 3s as was obvious by his three point percent under league average. he was much more closer to average the previous year, but in '03 he dropped off in almost every facet of the game. williamson was much closer to a big man than a small man, played in the post, and defended big guys. all he could manage was just over 4 rebounds per game and shot a paultry 45% from the field.

Yao played well, though he struggled with foul trouble. Gooden played well, but still didn't have the impact Yao did. Aside from Yao producing much more offensively, you also had to put a lot more effort into defending him than Gooden, and he was much more of a presence and made a much bigger impact defensively.
yao was trash. yao was the reason the rockets lost in the first round. mcgrady stepped up, yao did not. he could only manage to put up 12 shots per game, averaged under 8 rebounds, and turned the ball over as many times as he blocked shots, and ofcourse there was the foul trouble as you have mentioned. houston was just as effective with mutombo on the court than they were with yao. gooden on the other hand was a pleasant surprise. he improved in every facet of the game. put up 14 points, 12.7 rebounds, and only put up only 1.7 turnovers per contest as a rookie. including coming up huge in the elimination game 7 with 20 points and 17 rebounds.

What a joke. Howard made a group of poor defenders a top 3 defensive team, averaged 14 rpg and still put up 23 ppg on 59%. He had no peers defensively, and had developed a very nice skill set and become comfortable with his back to the basket to complement his athleticism.
how far did all these meaningless stats get his orlando magic? how did he perform in the playoffs?

I said nothing about stats. I said PLAY at a comparable level, of course, that means stats to you, but the game is much more than that to me.
ahh ofcourse it does, yet all you mention is numbers when comparing players

You're correct that both Duncan and Kobe were better in 2002 than their 2000 selves, but the gap for Kobe was much bigger. Duncan in 2000 was as good as he was in almost any other year. Kobe wasn't even in the same tier as him yet.
actually the difference between kobe is very minimal, however the difference in duncan was huge. duncan in '00 was worse than he was in any year of his prime.

As for 2006 Shaq vs 2000 Kobe, your claim that Kobe made a bigger impact is laughable, especially since we conveniently have solid sample sizes that strongly suggest otherwise. The 2000 Lakers went 12-4 without Kobe, and 12-3 when Shaq played in those games. The 2006 Heat went just 10-13 without Shaq, and 10-11 when Wade played in those games.
this filth again :roll: too many factors can come into play when dealing with "sample sizes" of an 82 game regular season.

Not that the backup excuse would make up for such a massive disparity in the first place, but even that helps Shaq's argument. The Heat had that poor record despite having an excellent backup in Alonzo Mourning who was still one of the best defensive players in the game and averaged 12/9 on 58% with 4 bpg as a starter. The Lakers only had Derek Fisher to fill in as a starting guard, and this was before Fisher was even a good shooter. Fisher shot under 35% for the entire 2000 season.
again, too many factors. the '00 lakers had peak shaq, a much better option to fall back on than '06 dwyane wade.

2006 Shaq was a much more savvy and team-oriented player. He was also still probably the biggest mismatch in the game and received far more defensive attention than Kobe. We saw what happened when even a great frontcourt like the Pistons guarded him 1 on 1, he averaged 22/11 with 2.3 bpg on 66%, which may have influenced the Mavs to make him the focus of their defense until game 5. For the season, he still put up 20/9/2/2 on 60% in just 31 mpg.
he looked like he was making up the numbers in the finals, i felt embarassed for him watching the trash he put up in that series, it was cringe-worthy. bryant on the other hand came up huge when it mattered most. in a tough 3-2 series victory over the kings he put up 28/4/4/1/1 including outscoring peak o'neal in 3 out of the 5 games in the first round. putting up 20/5/6/2/2 against the trail blazers in the conference finals including a game 7 in which he was the best player. and against the pacers in the finals, well we all know how that series went if not i recommend you watching pivitol game 4 in indianapolis.

ShaqAttack3234

11-13-2012, 09:39 PM

ofcourse that is important. not as important as having a superstar talent level player putting up performances that lebron did that season though.

You're probably right about that, I'm just saying that most teams would love to be elite defensive teams and rebounding teams.

lol at these excuses why someone didn't play more minutes. give me a non black hole team player who is capable of draining multiple 3s per game anyday.

I'll take the guy who can also shoot, and do other things, most importantly, the things you expect from a big man, unlike the one-dimensional Pat Garrity.

are we talking about career's here? no, we are talking about the 2003 season, in which atkins was clearly the worse player.

Atkins had a poor year, but teams still respected his ability to shoot a lot more than Vaughn.

lol @ horseshit. wade was worlds better in the regular season, making up for his poor showing in the playoffs. bryant was better in the regular season than brand, but his poor showing in the playoffs demoted him behind brand, as was the case for garnett's place over bryant. as for billups? well he was better due to leading the pistons to the best record in the east, and a conference finals appearance.

Wade was close to Kobe before his injuries, but after the injuries, and as a result, his terrible playoff series, Kobe is the obvious choice. Brand and Garnett weren't even in the playoffs so those are ridiculous points. Garnett's Wolves finished 10 wins behind Kobe's Lakers, and Garnett had his worst season from '00-'08. Regarding Billups, it was common knowledge how much Detroit relied on their big 4. Billups was a nice, second-tier all-star PG, but it's ridiculous to compare his situation to the superstars mentioned. His play simply doesn't warrant it.

the only reason kobe outscored wade 35ppg to 27ppg was the fact that he shot the ball almost 9 more times per game than wade did :hammerhead: .

Wade didn't have nearly as diverse of a skill set as Kobe, so it's foolish to suggest he could have gotten the same shot attempts, much less with nobody to take pressure off him. In fact, in 21 games without Shaq, Wade's FG% plummeted to under 45%.

wade was better in the regular season..and well we know what happened in the playoffs: bryant lost in the first round after going up 3-1, becoming only the 8th team in nba history to lose a series in such a manner. bryant seemed to be in cry baby mode in game 7 of this series, often pouting, showing quitting tendencies, scoring 1 solitary point in the second half.

Wade was better in the playoffs, but he wasn't even close in the regular season. Despite a much better team, he only won 7 more games in a weaker conference. Wade's cast even with Shaq out was still probably better than Kobe's Lakers, yet he couldn't even play .500 ball in a stretch that was 1/4 of the season. Meanwhile, Kobe not only was better and played better, but was far more impressive carrying his team during the regular season.

still put up 7 less points than he did in the regular season in a high pace environment. lamar odom on the other hand played huge and stepped up his game, unlike bryant. odom increased his ppg from 14.8ppg to 19.1ppg, and increased his rpg from 9.2rpg to 11.0rpg.

Odom did step up, but I just explained Kobe's drop in scoring. His rebounds and assists were both up, though and his FG% rose from 45% to almost 50%.

what is this 21 games bullshit? last time i checked an nba season goes for 82 games in length.

It's over a 1/4 of the season, and gives us a good idea of how Wade would have fared with a team like Kobe's team. You claimed he could have matched Kobe's success with that Laker team, but the evidence contradicts your statement.

it is purely based on the fact that wade was much, much better. i don't play this "probably this would happen if this happened" or "this will happen if a certain player plays somewhere" i deal with facts. sure kobe had a nice regular season, but wade was still better, contributing more to a winning cause. then there were the playoffs, where wade put up a legendary playoff and finals, bryant was busy losing in the first round after being up 3-1, and scoring almost 8 less points than he did in the regular season in more minutes per game, in a higher paced environment.

It's based on nothing. If you want to make an argument for Wade being better, you better stick to those playoffs and nothing else. But the idea that Wade would have led those Lakers to a record above .500, much less 45 wins, is laughable.

bryant was better than iverson after the regular season. but because of his disgusting performance, was demoted below iverson as a result. iverson also scored more than bryant per shot attempt, and also managed to average 7.4apg.

Iverson didn't even play in the playoffs after a 38-44 season in the East. Kobe's FG% and TS% were both better than Iverson while outscoring him by 2+ ppg, and playing better defense. The gap in assists is made bigger by Iverson's excessive ball-dominance.

dwight was still good enough to lead the orlando magic to the nba finals. we also saw how wade could be contained in the first round losing to the atlanta hawks and not even managing to shoot 44 percent from the field, only managing to break the 50% mark once that series.

Dwight's impact was enormous, and Wade's series vs Atlanta was disappointing, even with the nagging injuries. But Wade's all around play, and individual dominance were too much. Only Lebron could compare to that type of all around play and individual dominance.

marbury is right behind him. this is the only correct statement of your paragraph. francis, payton, and baron davis are all better than him (along with the obvious jason kidd).

Kidd goes without saying, but Baron isn't even in the discussion. Payton and Francis are pretty close to Nash, but since none of the 3 brought much defensively at that point, and Nash isn't far behind as a scorer, while being easily the best passer and shooter, it's a clear choice. Especially since Nash was an all-star on a 60 win conference finals team, while I have a much tougher time seeing Francis or Payton accomplishing that in 2003.

stackhouse was disappointing in the playoffs no doubt. however, over 82 games he just provided the pistons with alot more all round firepower.

Debatable. Stackhouse was more talented, but you can make a case for Rip because he's arguably a better fit alongside talent.

robinson was trash, he had no ability to shoot 3s as was obvious by his three point percent under league average. he was much more closer to average the previous year, but in '03 he dropped off in almost every facet of the game. williamson was much closer to a big man than a small man, played in the post, and defended big guys. all he could manage was just over 4 rebounds per game and shot a paultry 45% from the field.

1.1 3s at 34% is solid for a big man, and Robinson was also a fine defender. Williamson could flat out score. Neither were stars, but not bad at all for your 4th and 5th best players.

yao was trash. yao was the reason the rockets lost in the first round. mcgrady stepped up, yao did not. he could only manage to put up 12 shots per game, averaged under 8 rebounds, and turned the ball over as many times as he blocked shots, and ofcourse there was the foul trouble as you have mentioned. houston was just as effective with mutombo on the court than they were with yao. gooden on the other hand was a pleasant surprise. he improved in every facet of the game. put up 14 points, 12.7 rebounds, and only put up only 1.7 turnovers per contest as a rookie. including coming up huge in the elimination game 7 with 20 points and 17 rebounds.

Yao struggled with foul trouble, but he was still very good offensively, and a major presence. There's no way I'd rather have Gooden.

how far did all these meaningless stats get his orlando magic? how did he perform in the playoffs?

An impressive 52 wins and as far as you could expect with his teammates playing like a D-League team vs Atlanta.

ahh ofcourse it does, yet all you mention is numbers when comparing players

You're not fooling anyone with blatant lies.

again, too many factors. the '00 lakers had peak shaq, a much better option to fall back on than '06 dwyane wade.

You can look at the difference in winning % when '06 Shaq played with Wade vs without and '00 Kobe with and without Shaq. You'll see the team's winning % pretty consistent with and without kobe in '00, but an enormous difference with and without Shaq in '06.

he looked like he was making up the numbers in the finals, i felt embarassed for him watching the trash he put up in that series, it was cringe-worthy. bryant on the other hand came up huge when it mattered most. in a tough 3-2 series victory over the kings he put up 28/4/4/1/1 including outscoring peak o'neal in 3 out of the 5 games in the first round. putting up 20/5/6/2/2 against the trail blazers in the conference finals including a game 7 in which he was the best player. and against the pacers in the finals, well we all know how that series went if not i recommend you watching pivitol game 4 in indianapolis.

If we're looking at entire playoff runs, then look at Shaq's first round vs Chicago when Wade had a subpar series by his standard and Shaq closed out Chicago with a 30/20 game, or Shaq's monstrous ECF as I mentioned. Kobe's game 4 vs Indiana was a classic, but other than that, he had a very poor series.