Bob Pettit or Dirk Nowitzki

[Lebron23]

Who's the better player?? Both of them won 1 NBA title. Pettit was a 2x NBA MVP while Dirk is one of the GOAT Shooting Big men of all time.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/drp/nba/hawks/sites/default/files/legacy/photos/HWK_Classic_Pettit_4.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdeiZRW7gSo

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OVQ_H2r7Vus/Tanf9L0F4tI/AAAAAAAAACY/UuMdFMq1aIo/s1600/dirk-nowitzki-2011-2-2-22-20-31-1.jpg

[Fire Colangelo]

Im taking Dirk.

[Lebron23]

Im taking Dirk.


Pettit is so very underrated. He's a winning version of Kevin Love who played some good defense.

He beat Bill Russell's Celtics in the finals.

http://cache.nba.com/media/history/bob_pettit_350.jpg

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/Bob_Pettit.jpg

http://www.nba.com/media/history/bob_pettit_200.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQH6Z5oWugM

He averaged 29.3 ppg, 17.8 rpg, and 2.2 apg in the nba finals.

[Fire Colangelo]

I could be wrong but I believe Russell did not play game 5 and 6 in the finals due to injury?

Id take Dirk becasue:

Longevity
Consistency (was in contention pretty much every year of his prime)
Much better offensive player

[3ball]

pettit's is better than dirk would have been if dirk played in the 50's.

dirk benefits from seeing larry, magic, jordan, and all the other greats over the years and he also benefits from more relaxed rules that allow players to dribble more liberally and have better navigation efficiency.

but if pettit played today after having seen all the greats in the 70's, 80's and 90's like Dirk did, he would destroy dirk - from a sheer physical perspective, pettit is more naturally talented.

[Cone]

stop. there is no debate here :roll:

its dirk and its not even close. dirk would be the GOAT if he played in that shitty era

[Fire Colangelo]

^ lol

Yeah, dirk modeled his game after jordan im sure.

[CavaliersFTW]

I could be wrong but I believe Russell did not play game 5 and 6 in the finals due to injury?

Id take Dirk becasue:

Longevity
Consistency (was in contention pretty much every year of his prime)
Much better offensive player
He played. He just was injured, had broke ribs I think. Pettit actually almost got into an argument with Bill Simmons when Simmons tried to say "you won in '58 but (implying it was solely because) Russell was injured" and Pettit snapped back "You know I was injured in ___ ___ and ___ series I couldn't hardly hold the ball." and said injuries are a part of the game and are not an excuse for Russell :lol

[Akrazotile]

Petit's got some long ass arms, damn

[riseagainst]

Bob Pettit is a pretty decent player, top 100 all time for sure. But Dirk is the GOAT PF.

[3ball]

its dirk and its not even close. dirk would be the GOAT if he played in that shitty era


Dirk wouldn't be shit actually, because he wouldn't have ANY of the moves he has today, because those moves didn't exist back then.

Dirk would be looking up to Pettit and learning from his moves just like everyone else.
.

[Marchesk]

stop. there is no debate here :roll:

its dirk and its not even close. dirk would be the GOAT if he played in that shitty era

You mean if he time traveled, right?

Does that mean Petit gets to grow up in Dirk's place? Just to be fair?

:coleman:

[Marchesk]

Since we can't time travel players or have them grow up in different eras, the only objective criteria is how they performed. So if you can make a case that Dirk is a better player in this era than Pettit was in that era, then Dirk should be ranked ahead of him all-time.

But if Pettit was the better player in his time, then he's above Dirk.

It's that simple. You can't go time travel prime Pettit and have him play Dirk one on one or some shit.

Which is why Wade is not above West or Oscar career-wise in any real argument. For that matter, Hondo had a better career than Wade has (so far anyway).

[3ball]

Since we can't time travel players or have them grow up in different eras, the only objective criteria is how they performed. So if you can make a case that Dirk is a better player in this era than Pettit was in that era, then Dirk should be ranked ahead of him all-time.

But if Pettit was the better player in his time, then he's above Dirk.

It's that simple. You can't go time travel prime Pettit and have him play Dirk one on one or some shit.

Which is why Wade is not above West or Oscar career-wise in any real argument. For that matter, Hondo had a better career than Wade has (so far anyway)


agreed.

Dirk only has the moves we see him do today, because he learned those from Magic, Larry, and all the players that developed those moves over the decades.

But in the 50's, Petitt WAS that guy that everyone learned moves from..

Dirk's game is actually built on Pettit's game.

And it's a combination of rings AND domination - do you can't just say Player A is better than Player B due to more rings - the level of domination must be there too... but Pettit dominated more than Dirk, so that's not an issue.

[bizil]

I think GOAT wise, I would give the edge to Dirk. But for me, I prefer my PF's to be great scorers and great rebounders in one. And if possible have a great inside-outside scoring game to go with it. So Bob was more my style of PF than Dirk was. And for that matter guys like Duncan, Barkley, McHale, and Malone. However, Dirk is such a freak of nature and matchup nightmare that it supercedes other areas he's not as strong in.

In terms of Dirk's historical parallel in terms of playing style on offense, I think McAdoo is the guy. Both had the scoring skillsets of the elite SG's and SF's in the world. McAdoo was the guy who pioneered that in my opinion. But Mac was also a beast rebounder and a better defender than Dirk. I think a player who is underrated for being a great stretch PF in the 80's was Tom Chambers. To me, he took the torch from McAdoo in that sense.

[Fire Colangelo]

He played. He just was injured, had broke ribs I think. Pettit actually almost got into an argument with Bill Simmons when Simmons tried to say "you won in '58 but (implying it was solely because) Russell was injured" and Pettit snapped back "You know I was injured in ___ ___ and ___ series I couldn't hardly hold the ball." and said injuries are a part of the game and are not an excuse for Russell :lol

Well yeah, he's right. Injuries are part of the game and aren't excuses. I mainly wanted to point out that Pettit's teams were fairly inconsistent compared to Dirk's.

I hate comparing players across eras (so many eras in this case) because we don't even have much film on pettit let alone full games. It's hard to tell his on court impact from the little footage we have.

And 3balls arguments are incredibly stupid, using his stupid logic Dr J/George Gervin, etc would be better than Jordan, because Jordan wouldn't be shit had he not modelled his game after them.

oh wait, jordan created the dunk, layup, post moves, fadeaways.

[Height Freak]

Bob Petit no question.

[Moonbeam]

Good, close comparison. I have Dirk a little higher on my all-time list, but both are legends and are in my top 25.

[MiseryCityTexas]

Pettit is so very underrated. He's a winning version of Kevin Love who played some good defense.

He beat Bill Russell's Celtics in the finals.

http://cache.nba.com/media/history/bob_pettit_350.jpg

http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/dailyrft/Bob_Pettit.jpg

http://www.nba.com/media/history/bob_pettit_200.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQH6Z5oWugM

He averaged 29.3 ppg, 17.8 rpg, and 2.2 apg in the nba finals.

Hell No. Bob is nothing like Kevin Love outside of rebounding and shooting. Pettit actually has a nice post up game, and Bob could drive to the basket unlike Kevin Hate.

[MiseryCityTexas]

Well yeah, he's right. Injuries are part of the game and aren't excuses. I mainly wanted to point out that Pettit's teams were fairly inconsistent compared to Dirk's.

I hate comparing players across eras (so many eras in this case) because we don't even have much film on pettit let alone full games. It's hard to tell his on court impact from the little footage we have.

And 3balls arguments are incredibly stupid, using his stupid logic Dr J/George Gervin, etc would be better than Jordan, because Jordan wouldn't be shit had he not modelled his game after them.

oh wait, jordan created the dunk, layup, post moves, fadeaways.


People completely forget the fact that the refs were biased racists back then, and everyone including even some racist white basketball fans in Boston were tired of seeing black Russell's Celtics win all of the damned championships.

[MiseryCityTexas]

Well yeah, he's right. Injuries are part of the game and aren't excuses. I mainly wanted to point out that Pettit's teams were fairly inconsistent compared to Dirk's.

I hate comparing players across eras (so many eras in this case) because we don't even have much film on pettit let alone full games. It's hard to tell his on court impact from the little footage we have.

And 3balls arguments are incredibly stupid, using his stupid logic Dr J/George Gervin, etc would be better than Jordan, because Jordan wouldn't be shit had he not modelled his game after them.

oh wait, jordan created the dunk, layup, post moves, fadeaways.


People completely forget the fact that the refs were biased racists back then, and everyone including even some racist white basketball fans in Boston were tired of seeing black Russell's led Celtics win all of the damned championships.

[SugarHill]

pettit's is better than dirk would have been if dirk played in the 50's.

dirk benefits from seeing larry, magic, jordan, and all the other greats over the years and he also benefits from more relaxed rules that allow players to dribble more liberally and have better navigation efficiency.

but if pettit played today after having seen all the greats in the 70's, 80's and 90's like Dirk did, he would destroy dirk - from a sheer physical perspective, pettit is more naturally talented.
:rolleyes:

[CavaliersFTW]

People completely forget the fact that the refs were biased racists back then, and everyone including even some racist white basketball fans in Boston were tired of seeing black Russell's led Celtics win all of the damned championships.
The Celtics had only won once before they faced Pettit's Hawks so that wouldn't apply there. People may have grown tired of the Celtics but it doesn't make sense to assert that they were taking actions to rig calls against them and the Celtics won a title 11 of Russell's 13 seasons. If the refs were trying to make the Celtics lose, you'd think they would have done a better job at it, especially considering how many games/series the Celtics won by the absolute smallest of margins due to clutch plays/shots.

[GimmeThat]

I think you would have to go with Pettit. Because besides the comparison between career accomplishment. Russell was not a great scorer, which makes Pettit all that more special, during his playing day.

[navy]

pettit's is better than dirk would have been if dirk played in the 50's.

dirk benefits from seeing larry, magic, jordan, and all the other greats over the years and he also benefits from more relaxed rules that allow players to dribble more liberally and have better navigation efficiency.

but if pettit played today after having seen all the greats in the 70's, 80's and 90's like Dirk did, he would destroy dirk - from a sheer physical perspective, pettit is more naturally talented.
:coleman:

[kshutts1]

I've long said that I don't know enough about Pettit, and a couple other players, to rank them properly, but that I always rank them as LOW as I can envision them going.

I rank players, as much as possible, relative to peers, just like Marchesk suggests. I do this because the era and position differences can be so great at times that it's difficult to get a clear picture. So rather I see how good they were in their era, and rate that way.

And with Pettit, the lowest I see him going is Dirk's tier. So at worst he's as good as Dirk in my rankings.

I turned to wiki to help make my case for Pettit..
"Pettit was an NBA All-Star in each of his 11 seasons, was named to the All-NBA First Team ten times, and was named to the All-NBA Second Team once. Pettit still holds the top two NBA All-Star Game rebounding performances with 26 in 1958 and 27 in 1962, and has the second highest All-Star Game points per game average with 20.4 (behind only Oscar Robertson). Pettit averaged at least 20 points per game and at least 12 rebounds per game in each of his 11 NBA seasons. He never finished below seventh in the NBA scoring race[6] and no other retired player in NBA history other than Pettit and Alex Groza (who played only two seasons) has averaged more than 20 points per game in every season they've played (note: Michael Jordan averaged exactly 20 points per game in his final season)."

I would also like to add, from the same wiki page, that Pettit won two MVPs, and for those that care he also won 4 ASG MVPs.

[senelcoolidge]

Pettit played only 11 seasons. He accomplished a whole lot in just 11 seasons. He walked away from the game not because he was washed up or he had a career ending injury. Yes, in his last season he did miss 30 or so games from injuries, but he was still really good, just beginning to decline a little. He put up 12.4rpg and 22.6ppg in that last season. He scored nearly 30% of his points on the free throw line. Goes to show that he could draw fouls and hit free throws at a good percentage. He is 3rd in rebounds per game behind Wilt and Bill Russell in NBA history. He just decided it was time to go. He could have played longer.

Dirk is a all time great, but Pettit is the PF that all modern PF's model their game after. He was a player that could bang inside and rebound like no other not named Wilt and Russell. He had a jump shot that was respected. He played with a tenacity like few have had. Good passer for a big man.

I'd take Bob.

[L.Kizzle]

Pettit for the fact that he'd never let something like what happened to Dirk in 07 vs Warriors happen to him.

Pettit would never let someone like Dick Barnett or Terry Dischinger manhandle him in the playoff.

[swagga]

Pettit for the fact that he'd never let something like what happened to Dirk in 07 vs Warriors happen to him.

Pettit would never let someone like Dick Barnett or Terry Dischinger manhandle him in the playoff.

on the other hand pettit would of never beaten the 11 heat, so like everybody with half a mind im taking dirk

[masonanddixon]

Both are better than Lebron.

[CavaliersFTW]

on the other hand pettit would of never beaten the 11 heat, so like everybody with half a mind im taking dirk
Pettit drop 50 ****ing points in the last game of his title run against the 11 titles in 13 season dynasty Celtics with Bill Russell in the middle.

F outta here suggesting he couldn't rise up to the occasion like Dirk in '11.

[magic chiongson]

lotsa people act like they've watched pettit play :lol

[L.Kizzle]

lotsa people act like they've watched pettit play :lol
I never watched Jim Brown, but I'm pretty sure he was a good football player.

[bizil]

Pettit drop 50 ****ing points in the last game of his title run against the 11 titles in 13 season dynasty Celtics with Bill Russell in the middle.

F outta here suggesting he couldn't rise up to the occasion like Dirk in '11.

Yes sir! Bob was the prototype alpha dog scoring and great rebounding PF! The guys that followed like Hayes, McHale, and Karl Malone were basically bigger versions of Petitt. Not saying they played exactly like Bob. But for what they represented in their eras AND domination of scoring and glass, they were of the cloth of Bob. Those guys could get u 35 points AND 20 rebounds in a game MUCH EASIER than Dirk could.

People need to realize as great as Dirk is, he is somewhat more one dimensional than many of the GOAT PF's. Most of the GOAT PF's were alpha dog scorers AND beast rebounders in one! Or were dominant defenders or great inside players. But I'm not saying Dirk sucked at rebounding by any means.

[L.Kizzle]

Pettit, I believe was considered the greatest power forward ever until probably the 1990s when Malone and Barkley took over (if that.) And then a decade later Duncan shut that down.

That might be the longest ever title for best ever at a position.

[houston]

pettite

[bizil]

Pettit, I believe was considered the greatest power forward ever until probably the 1990s when Malone and Barkley took over (if that.) And then a decade later Duncan shut that down.

That might be the longest ever title for best ever at a position.

Yep he had a long ass reign at the top of the PF charts! Now I know many will say what about Russ or Wilt at center? Well with Russ and Wilt, there was ALWAYS a debate GOAT wise, even though peak wise Wilt was CLEARLY SUPERIOR! With Bob (who played in the same era), THERE WAS NO DEBATE GOAT wise at PF until the 90's. I would say his closest competition before that was probably Hayes and McHale.

And I'm not gonna lie, I used to put Hayes and McHale ahead of Bob a few years ago. But over time, I got Bob just behind Timmy, Mailman, Dirk, KG, and Barkley at PF GOAT wise.

[L.Kizzle]

Yep he had a long ass reign at the top of the PF charts! Now I know many will say what about Russ or Wilt at center? Well with Russ and Wilt, there was ALWAYS a debate GOAT wise, even though peak wise Wilt was CLEARLY SUPERIOR! With Bob (who played in the same era), THERE WAS NO DEBATE GOAT wise at PF until the 90's. I would say his closest competition before that was probably Hayes and McHale.

And I'm not gonna lie, I used to put Hayes and McHale ahead of Bob a few years ago. But over time, I got Bob just behind Timmy, Mailman, Dirk, KG, and Barkley at PF GOAT wise.
Cousy - Robertson - Magic
Sharman - West - Jordan
Baylor - Doc - Bird - ?
Schayes - Pettit - Barkley/Malone - Duncan
Mikan - Russell/Wilt - Kareem - Shaq

[kshutts1]

Cousy - Robertson - Magic
Sharman - West - Jordan
Baylor - Doc - Bird - ?
Schayes - Pettit - Barkley/Malone - Duncan
Mikan - Russell/Wilt - Kareem - Shaq
Seems odd that you would leave a question mark after Bird, but note Shaq as the best C ever.

The only clear-cut, no question about it, is MJ for best SG. With every other position, an argument could be made, I'm sure.

[hawkfan]

Who's the better player?? Both of them won 1 NBA title. Pettit was a 2x NBA MVP while Dirk is one of the GOAT Shooting Big men of all time.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/drp/nba/hawks/sites/default/files/legacy/photos/HWK_Classic_Pettit_4.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdeiZRW7gSo

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OVQ_H2r7Vus/Tanf9L0F4tI/AAAAAAAAACY/UuMdFMq1aIo/s1600/dirk-nowitzki-2011-2-2-22-20-31-1.jpg

Gotta love Pettit's jersey.
Thanks LBJ23.
:applause:

[TheBigVeto]

Dirk. 2nd GOAT PF.

[L.Kizzle]

Seems odd that you would leave a question mark after Bird, but note Shaq as the best C ever.

The only clear-cut, no question about it, is MJ for best SG. With every other position, an argument could be made, I'm sure.
I don't think Durant should be there yet.

[feyki]

Pettit was Dirk with great hustle . Pettit had solid defence , great rebounding . Dirk had better shooting and more balanced offensive player . Peak,prime and career wise , all goes to Pettit in my mind . But career wise , it's very close .

[pastis]

Dirk. 2nd GOAT PF.


:bowdown: :bowdown: :applause: :applause:


better debate would have been malone/barkley/KG vs Pettit

[feyki]

:bowdown: :bowdown: :applause: :applause:


better debate would have been malone/barkley/KG vs Pettit


I think Elgin(yes he was power forward , mr.inside ) and Pettit a tier above than Karl,Dirk,Barkley and Garnett group .

I know what means Dirk in nba history , specially Dirk cause i grown with him . But i know Pettit's and Elgin's greatness too .