Players that gave no sign of being virtually stoppable.

[Rocketswin2013]

And I mean this literally.

'00 Shaq, '91 Jordan, '94 Hakeem.


Those are the only three for me. 27 year old Jordan, 27 year old Shaq, 1994 Olajuwon. Hakeem was less athletic, but in his peak in terms of discipline on both ends, and mental toughness(HUGE big game performer).

You can even add a 28 year old Shaq and 1995 Hakeem. Just one year separated, and both got healthy in the playoffs, and just murdered everything in sight.

Jordan destroyed an elite defense in Detroit. My only knock is that his worst game was pretty bad. But he just slaughtered a great Detroit defense in the other games.

I think these 3 players were literally incapable of being significantly slowed down by any level if defense in a playoff series. Shaq and Hakeem made jokes out of all-time great defenders(Ewing in '94, Robinson in '95. Peak Mutumbo in 2001).

Add any other players that come to mind.

[FKAri]

I don't mean to be pedantic but it depends how you define unstoppable. All those guys were stoppable. They lost games and missed shots.

Also depends how short of a stint you're including. I'm assuming you mean over a season because there have been many players who had games, stretches, or even series of being as good as anybody.

[Young X]

How do you stop 1990 Magic? You can't put a little guy on him, you can't put a big guy on him, you can't really force him to shoot (38% 3 pt shot that year), you can't even come close to slowing him down in transition, what do you do? He's a matchup nightmare. And yes, I know the Lakers lost to the Suns but they didn't come close to stopping him.

[Westbrook0]

I know this is biased, AND much more recent, but how about Russell Westbrook this past year? When he wasn't hurt that is.

Not only was he picking up triple doubles at will, but he simply can't be stopped by any defender. If you back off of him, he's got that ultra quick pullup jumper. If you guard him close, he'll blow by you with ease.

[inclinerator]

lebron james

[WayOfWade]

Shaq in his 3-peat years was absolutely unstoppable; personally I don't think anyone tops that in terms of having to stop a single player.

[Chief Keef]

lebron james


I'd like my chances in the finals against LeBron actually.

[Marchesk]

lebron james

http://sports.cbsimg.net/images/visual/whatshot/111213_IguodalaLacob.jpg

[Marchesk]

How do you stop 1990 Magic? You can't put a little guy on him, you can't put a big guy on him, you can't really force him to shoot (38% 3 pt shot that year), you can't even come close to slowing him down in transition, what do you do? He's a matchup nightmare. And yes, I know the Lakers lost to the Suns but they didn't come close to stopping him.

Put Pippen on him.

[Hamtaro CP3KDKG]

11 Dirk is prolly the greatest most complete isolation scorer ever ITO mismatches, bigs, post, drives, shooting etc. No defense could stop him form getting a clean look and it opened up open drives, shots lanes etc for teammates too

77 Kareem as well, shtted on peak Walton head to head who is one of the GOAT maybe top 5 at his peak defenders ever

[warriorfan]

'15 Curry

Drew more defensive attention than any man in history over a Finals Series. There was no answer to Curry besides double teaming him as soon as he crossed half court.

[stalkerforlife]

Kobe most of his career.

[Young X]

Put Pippen on him.That will probably slow him down a little bit but that won't stop him, he's still gonna be Magic at the end of the day. It's not like he wasn't still solid in the finals despite Pippen and MJ hounding him.

[Cocaine80s]

'15 Curry

Drew more defensive attention than any man in history over a Finals Series. There was no answer to Curry besides double teaming him as soon as he crossed half court.
http://sports.cbsimg.net/images/visual/whatshot/111213_IguodalaLacob.jpg

[inclinerator]

chris paul

[Rocketswin2013]

11 Dirk is prolly the greatest most complete isolation scorer ever ITO mismatches, bigs, post, drives, shooting etc. No defense could stop him form getting a clean look and it opened up open drives, shots lanes etc for teammates too

77 Kareem as well, shtted on peak Walton head to head who is one of the GOAT maybe top 5 at his peak defenders ever
:biggums: Great choices. I actually considered these.


I didn't choose Kareem because:

I think it was an anomaly season. And I really hate saying something like that about a player that great, but I do think this. Albeit, Kareem was allegedly at 260 LBs that year, so he was probably at his, peak strength-wise, but that season is, just o....random. Literally a GOAT-caliber season that is criminally underrated and it isn't talked about enough, but look at Hakeem in '93 and in '95, the two years before and after. Even '90 Jordan and '92 Jordan, '99 Shaq and '01 Shaq... those guys were like, still killing the league. They proved that was legitimate. The sample size is plenty. People hype '93 Hakeem as his peak. '90 Jordan was practically as good as '91, '99 Shaq is pretty much his best non-three peat year. Kareem had been stopped in his prime by ATG defenders before and his prime playoff play is more sporadic than the other 3. Just tougher to bet on.

Dirk? Offensively prefect player. His low TOV was just amazing...But..I just don't think he was that good. Shut argument, I know, but I actually don't believe he was virtually unstoppable. Arguably the most portable player ever though.

[MJistheGOAT]

I will be the devil

[Marchesk]

Wilt Chamberlain

[Angel Face]

Wilt Chamberlain

Until the playoffs

[inclinerator]

Wilt Chamberlain
death

[Marchesk]

death

Death stops everyone, even Godbe, someday.

[MJistheGOAT]

Death stops everyone, even Godbe, someday.

Only if Godbe doesn

[imnew09]

Kobe. One of the few players get triples when ge has possession

[JimmyMcAdocious]

Was going through Magic's stats and what happened to his FTs around '89? First 9 seasons in the league he shot a sufficient 82%. Then in his final 3, before pretty much retirement, he shoots 90% on his 1st, 3rd, and 4th highest attempts of his career. It's not uncommon for players to get better at the line but I don't recall many going from average-good to elite. New technique or something?

[Hamtaro CP3KDKG]

'15 Curry

Drew more defensive attention than any man in history over a Finals Series. There was no answer to Curry besides double teaming him as soon as he crossed half court.
Lol nikkas like Kobe and dirk were seein triple teams and even quadruples a couple times against heat or celts. Stephs won't sniffing that or MJ, Hakeem, KAJ, Shaq, Chuck etc
http://i.imgur.com/vxoUjpZ.png

[Hamtaro CP3KDKG]

Late 80s early 90s Barkley as well. Nightmare to defend especially before rule change he caused. Just had to count on his garbage defense getting you enough cause he would get anything. Half court or transition

[warriorfan]

Lol nikkas like Kobe and dirk were seein triple teams and even quadruples a couple times against heat or celts. Stephs won't sniffing that or MJ, Hakeem, KAJ, Shaq, Chuck etc
http://i.imgur.com/vxoUjpZ.png

Wrong. None of those guys saw the attention of Curry.

[SHAQisGOAT]

Peak Shaq gotta be #1 when it comes to this, imo.

You got Jordan there but throw in peak Kareem at that level as well; go watch him in 1977 for example, ****in killer.

Peak Bernard King must definitely be mentioned here.

You got a dude like KD that when he catches fire it's game-over.

Iceman Gervin wouldn't log MAJOR minutes (especially when compared to other superstars) but for the time he was out there on the court he was most likely killing your team.

Prime Adrian Dantley was pretty much unstoppable 1on1, he could MURDER your team's best defender on any given night, small or big...
But he wasn't close to being known as a clutch player, using strategies to deny him of the ball would reduce his impact plenty (he was great without the ball only for himself), and throwing double/triple-teams at him proved to be very beneficial because he was a ball-hog/ball-stopper who could pass but wasn't even what you'd call a good passer.
Plus, he was a clear minus on the defensive end (due to not being able to care less there) and he wouldn't go much for defensive rebounds at all, while also being many times a bad teammate on and even off the court.
But yea, that man at his best could just ABSOLUTELY burn you at any given point.

Nobody can forget about Charles Barkley on this one.

Peak McHale was what you'd call unstoppable 1on1 in the post, shit sometimes even 1on2... Although you got some "but's" there like for AD...
He didn't have that alpha dog mentality, he was very long and mobile but not very strong or physical, he could knock down his share of open jumpers and hit FT's at high rate but wasn't known for his pick-n-pop/roll game, he turned into a blackhole plenty and needed space to do his thing or else he'd be turning it over a lot, plus he had passing skills but not all of that and needed to be "influenced" for it.
But yea, if you let that man in his peak with single coverage on the low-block? He'd be scoring more often than not, sometimes even against 2 players.

You got peak Bird and even peak Magic, who you just couldn't stop from being ridiculously impactful towards their teams' success, doing it in many different ways. It's beautiful watching them play.

[SHAQisGOAT]

Was going through Magic's stats and what happened to his FTs around '89? First 9 seasons in the league he shot a sufficient 82%. Then in his final 3, before pretty much retirement, he shoots 90% on his 1st, 3rd, and 4th highest attempts of his career. It's not uncommon for players to get better at the line but I don't recall many going from average-good to elite. New technique or something?

Don't recall so (having a new technique) but he ALWAYS improved his shooting OVERALL, gotta praise that.

Everybody really started to play him loose because he was not a good shooter at 1st and you wanted to stop his passing, his post-game and his driving... Then at some point you couldn't do that anymore, then you saw him shooting over 50% from mid-range for the 1984 Finals because the C's chose to double Kareem and whatnot most of the time, at some point he was even doing it off the dribble.
Dude was a shitty 3pt-shooter then at some point he was hitting them at 38.4% with 3.5 attempts per game.
He was always a good FT shooter but then even got to lead the league in FT% while being 9th in attempts, at some point later on.

[NZStreetBaller]

2001 iverson prime kareem. Skyhook all day

[ImKobe]

2001-03 Kobe
2005-09 Kobe
2013 Kobe

[HylianNightmare]

Anthony Davis this upcoming season

[Lebron23]

2012 LeBron James

[Fallen Angel]

Durant during his MVP season was the most recent.

Carmelo has all the scoring tools, but lacks that killer mentality.
Curry could be if he attempted to score 30 a night.
Westbrook because he's a freak of nature.
Harden could if he didn't have the load of having to create for everyone else.

[branslowski]

Kobe during his streak of 9 games with 40+ pts.....Also Shaq was stoppable in 4th quarters vs good bigmen and Kobe had to take over to win for us (only reason we were able to get to the Finals)....But he killed the garbage the Nets, Pacers, and Sixers had to offer.:bowdown:

[HylianNightmare]

Orlando tmac

[Hamtaro CP3KDKG]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM9MYvoQn8M

this the only time Dirk saw single coverage all playoffs in 2011 (of course against Scott Brooks :facepalm :facepalm )
48pts 94TS% 185 ORTG, the GOAT filmed shooting performance in NBA history

[JohnMax]

Lebron 2012-2014 looked unstoppable when he wasn't facing the Spurs.

[OldSchoolBBall]

Dirk in the 2011 playoffs.

[LAZERUSS]

Until the playoffs

:roll: :roll: :roll:

A prime Chamberlain AVERAGED 30 ppg, 27 rpg, 5 apg, .515 FG% (in post-seasons that shot about .425 in the same span), and likely 8bpg, in his first 67 playoff games. Oh, and in those 67 playoff games, he was outscored by his opposing center in THREE of them.

He had post-season's against RUSSELL of 22 ppg, 28 ppg, 29 ppg, 30 ppg, 31 ppg and 34 ppg in that same span, which included games of 41, 42, 42, 46, and 50 points, with the 46 and 50 point games coming in "must-win" situations.

He outshot Russell from the field in those six series by margins of .468 to .399, .500 to .446, .509 to .423, .517 to .386, .555 to .447. and .556 to .358. Oh, and he outrebounded Russell in ALL of them, including margins of 30-26, 31-25, and 32-23 rpg.

A prime Chamberlain had post-season runs of 22 ppg, 28 ppg, 29 ppg, 33 ppg, 35 ppg, 35 ppg, and 37 ppg. Included were series of 37 ppg, 37 ppg, 39 ppg, and 39 ppg. And in 67 games, he had 12 games of 40+ points, with FOUR of 50+ point, including the ONLY THREE in "must win" games by a GOAT candidate.

Think about that...

a prime Chamberlain put up a 30-27-5-8 stat-lin, and outshooting the post-season league eFG% mark by nearly 10 percentage points...

EVERY time he stepped on the floor in a span of 67 straight games.

Now, go ahead and give us a list of other GOATs who put up even ONE SERIES with a 30-27-5-8 stat-line (and outshooting the league average by ten percentage points.) Hell, find me a GOAT who had ONE GAME with those numbers.

Next time do some real RESEARCH before you make a fool out of yourself.

[Angel Face]

:roll: :roll: :roll:

A prime Chamberlain AVERAGED 30 ppg, 27 rpg, 5 apg, .515 FG% (in post-seasons that shot about .425 in the same span), and likely 8bpg, in his first 67 playoff games. Oh, and in those 67 playoff games, he was outscored by his opposing center in THREE of them.

He had post-season's against RUSSELL of 22 ppg, 28 ppg, 29 ppg, 30 ppg, 31 ppg and 34 ppg in that same span, which included games of 41, 42, 42, 46, and 50 points, with the 46 and 50 point games coming in "must-win" situations.

He outshot Russell from the field in those six series by margins of .468 to .399, .500 to .446, .509 to .423, .517 to .386, .555 to .447. and .556 to .358. Oh, and he outrebounded Russell in ALL of them, including margins of 30-26, 31-25, and 32-23 rpg.

A prime Chamberlain had post-season runs of 22 ppg, 28 ppg, 29 ppg, 33 ppg, 35 ppg, 35 ppg, and 37 ppg. Included were series of 37 ppg, 37 ppg, 39 ppg, and 39 ppg. And in 67 games, he had 12 games of 40+ points, with FOUR of 50+ point, including the ONLY THREE in "must win" games by a GOAT candidate.

Think about that...

a prime Chamberlain put up a 30-27-5-8 stat-lin, and outshooting the post-season league eFG% mark by nearly 10 percentage points...

EVERY time he stepped on the floor in a span of 67 straight games.

Now, go ahead and give us a list of other GOATs who put up even ONE SERIES with a 30-27-5-8 stat-line (and outshooting the league average by ten percentage points.) Hell, find me a GOAT who had ONE GAME with those numbers.

Next time do some real RESEARCH before you make a fool out of yourself.

30ppg season
22ppg playoffs
18ppg finals

Looks stoppable to me. :confusedshrug:

[AirFederer]

06 Dirk, Wade

[LAZERUSS]

30ppg season
22ppg playoffs
18ppg finals

Looks stoppable to me. :confusedshrug:

CONTEXT my friend. CONTEXT.

His roles changed after his '65-66 season (when he averaged 33-27-4 .505 in the post-season.) A "scoring" Chamberlain put up a 40+ point game in the playoffs in 21% of his games in that span.

After that he became more of a facilitator, and later in his career, a defensive force that initiated a devastating fast-break with his outlets.

Just ask a PEAK Kareem, who was statistically outplayed by Chamberlain in their '71 H2H in the WCF's, and then, by all accounts, was outplayed by Wilt in the their '72 WCF's H2H. Kareem shot .577 and .574 from the field against the NBA in those two seasons...and against Wilt in the post-season in those two years... .481 and .457 (and only .414 in the last four critical games of the '72 WCF's.)

[AirFederer]

So you're saying the big cliff drop in scoring was in fact a planned move?:roll:


CONTEXT my friend. CONTEXT.

His roles changed after his '65-66 season (when he averaged 33-27-4 .505 in the post-season.) A "scoring" Chamberlain put up a 40+ point game in the playoffs in 21% of his games in that span.

After that he became more of a facilitator, and later in his career, a defensive force that initiated a devastating fast-break with his outlets.

Just ask a PEAK Kareem, who was statistically outplayed by Chamberlain in their '71 H2H in the WCF's, and then, by all accounts, was outplayed by Wilt in the their '72 WCF's H2H. Kareem shot .577 and .574 from the field against the NBA in those two seasons...and against Wilt in the post-season in those two years... .481 and .457 (and only .414 in the last four critical games of the '72 WCF's.)

[Angel Face]

CONTEXT my friend. CONTEXT.

His roles changed after his '65-66 season (when he averaged 33-27-4 .505 in the post-season.) A "scoring" Chamberlain put up a 40+ point game in the playoffs in 21% of his games in that span.

After that he became more of a facilitator, and later in his career, a defensive force that initiated a devastating fast-break with his outlets.

Just ask a PEAK Kareem, who was statistically outplayed by Chamberlain in their '71 H2H in the WCF's, and then, by all accounts, was outplayed by Wilt in the their '72 WCF's H2H. Kareem shot .577 and .574 from the field against the NBA in those two seasons...and against Wilt in the post-season in those two years... .481 and .457 (and only .414 in the last four critical games of the '72 WCF's.)

Let's be honest, his role didn't really change, it was due to the fact that the league got better. Back in early 60s when he was putting up big scoring numbers, it was against white boy janitors whose side job was to play in the NBA. You'll notice that his stats dipped every consecutive season. Reason, good centers were actually coming to the game slowly. When he faced legit bigmen his stats dropped. It wasn't just role change, it was a product of the competion becoming good, no more pizza delivery boys playing as undersized centers. If he's really that good, his stats in the post season especially in the finals would look better. He's a choker who thrived in weak competion but was exposed after his compition got better. Every greats up their game in PO. Even a knownchoker like Lebron has better playoff stats than regular season. Wilt on the other hand, from 30ppg reg season, 22ppg playoffs, 18ppg finals... Damn!

Wilt would be a second tier center in the golden era of bigs. Shaq, Hakeem, Ewing, Robinson would aboslutely destroy him.

[Wade's Rings]

Let's be honest, his role didn't really change, it was due to the fact that the league got better. Back in early 60s when he was putting up big scoring numbers, it was against white boy janitors whose side job was to play in the NBA. You'll notice that his stats dipped every consecutive season. Reason, good centers were actually coming to the game slowly. When he faced legit bigmen his stats dropped. It wasn't just role change, it was a product of the competion becoming good, no more pizza delivery boys playing as undersized centers. If he's really that good, his stats in the post season especially in the finals would look better. He's a choker who thrived in weak competion but was exposed after his compition got better. Every greats up their game in PO. Even a knownchoker like Lebron has better playoff stats than regular season. Wilt on the other hand, from 30ppg reg season, 22ppg playoffs, 18ppg finals... Damn!

Wilt would be a second tier center in the golden era of bigs. Shaq, Hakeem, Ewing, Robinson would aboslutely destroy him.

:lebronamazed:

[LAZERUSS]

Let's be honest, his role didn't really change, it was due to the fact that the league got better. Back in early 60s when he was putting up big scoring numbers, it was against white boy janitors whose side job was to play in the NBA. You'll notice that his stats dipped every consecutive season. Reason, good centers were actually coming to the game slowly. When he faced legit bigmen his stats dropped. It wasn't just role change, it was a product of the competion becoming good, no more pizza delivery boys playing as undersized centers. If he's really that good, his stats in the post season especially in the finals would look better. He's a choker who thrived in weak competion but was exposed after his compition got better. Every greats up their game in PO. Even a knownchoker like Lebron has better playoff stats than regular season. Wilt on the other hand, from 30ppg reg season, 22ppg playoffs, 18ppg finals... Damn!

Wilt would be a second tier center in the golden era of bigs. Shaq, Hakeem, Ewing, Robinson would aboslutely destroy him.

:roll: :roll: :roll:

A past-his-prime Chamberlain was LEADING the league in scoring in his first nine games of his 69-70 season, at 32.2 ppg on a .579 FG% (with 20.6 rpg.) He was well on his way to his 8th scoring title, his 10th FG% title, and his 12th rebounding title. And in his only game against Kareem, before he shredded his knee, he badly outplayed Abdul-Jabbar in every facet of the game.

Oh, and in his 68-69 season, his incompetent coach had so restricted his offense, that he was averaging a then career low, 17.5 ppg at the mid-way point in the season. It was so bad that SI ran an article claiming that Wilt could no longer score, which hit the newstands on 1/27/69. Unfortunately for SI, Chamberlain hung a 60 point game on 1/26, and followed it up a few days later with a 66 point game. And in a span of 17 straight games, Chamberlain averaged 31 ppg. BTW, Kareem faced both those centers that Wilt hung 60+ games on, and his high game against each in his career H2H's with them... 41 points.

So, here was a Chamberlain, past-his-prime, putting up a 32.2 ppg (again, on a .579 FG%), in the same season that Kareem would average 28.8 ppg on a .518. And a couple of years later Kareem hit his peak with a 34.8 ppg on a .577. Some 15 years later a 39 year old Kareem was routinely hanging 40+ point games on Hakeem and Ewing.

Incidently, in his last two seasons, covering 11 straight H2H's with the 6-11 265 lb HOF Bob Lanier... 24 ppg on a .750 FG%. The same Lanier who would be a top center in the entire decade of the 70's.

[kuniva_dAMiGhTy]

The major knocks on Shaq is that he never won a rebounding title, he hardly gave a damn about his weight, and he only won 1 MVP. It's crazy to think just how dominant he'd be with Jordan or Kobe's mindset far as work ethic goes, and the game being their TRUE passion. What's also crazy is despite all of that, Shaq is widely regarded as the MDE (his 2000 season is anyway).