Results 51 to 55 of 55
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06-10-2017, 04:58 PM #51
LeBron could easily lead the NBA in scoring every year if that was his goal ... but it's not. He also doesn't have the ability to just be a scorer as his teams have always needed him to be the primary facilitator, defender, 1st or 2nd rebounder ... and scorer.
LeBron is the "best basketball player" at least amongst non-centers the game has ever seen ... and it's not that close imho.
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06-10-2017, 09:01 PM #52
ELO Ranks Teams by Point Spread, and Wins, and wins vs Quality opponents is more heavily rated. Losses against easy teams is more heavily rated against you. I just want to talk about this for all you back in my day folks. ELO calculates how great you are and it compares against competition.
I'm 40 Years old and watched the 80's, 90's, and 2000's Please consider this.
There have been over 1600 NBA Team Seasons since the beginning. As of 2015 data there were only 20 Teams from the 80's to be counted in the top 100 seasons of all time. The greatest team of the decade was the 84-85 Celtics coming in with the 4 best ELO score of all time. Of the 20 teams the Lakers represent all 7 of the Western Conferences top 100 seasons for the decade. The other 13 teams from the east conf. are represented by the Bucks, Pistons, 76ers, and other Celtics teams.
In the 90's there were also 20 teams that made the top 100 ever. 8 of these teams were from the East 6 of them were the Bulls, with the top ranked team of the decade also being the top ranked team of all time the 95-96 Bulls. The other two East teams to show up were the Pistons from 89-90 (Champions) and the 92-93 Knicks finishing out the east as the 88th best ELO team of all time. The west had the 12 other teams Jazz, Spurs, Lakers, Sonics, TrailBlazers, Suns.
So in review of what folks say is the golden age of the NBA the 80's and 90's both gave the NBA 20 historically Great Teams. Remember to be in the top 100 puts you as one of the top 2% of NBA teams ever. 40 of the top 100 best ELO teams ever came from these two decades combined. Now lets take a look at the NBA from 99-00 through 08-09 This decade gave the NBA 26 of its greatest teams ever. 6 more than either of the previous two decades. Of the 26 only 6 of these historic teams came from the east (1 shy of the 80's west) they are CAVS, Celtics, Pistons, Magic, Heat. Now here is where things get Crazy. The other 20 Greatest teams of this decade (equal to both conferences in either of the previous decades in total) all played in the West. That is right 20 of the top 100 NBA teams in the history of the game all played at the same time in the same conference. Imagine what would have happened had Bird's Celtics and Magic's Lakers were in the same conference every year just trying to get to the finals. Imagine if the 90's Bulls played anyone before getting to the finals. The fact is the Bulls played only one top 100 team ever in the history of getting to the finals (talk about free ride) What if the Spurs, Lakers, Mavs, or Kings had been in the East for this decade would they have made it to 10 straight finals. I only say this because the competition has never been better than the 2000's. In if I move the 99-00 season out of this calculation and extend the decade on the back half to include 09-10 then there would be 30 all time great teams not 26 for the decade that is 1/3rd of the top 100 teams of all time playing in the same 10 year NBA stretch. Would Dirk and the Mavs had 8 finals appearances had they not had to go through Shaq and Kobe, Duncan & Robinson, every year. The 20 West teams go like this. Lakers 08-09 as the 5th best team of all time as the leader. They were on the list 5 times (remember Magic had 7 without playing anyone), Spurs 7 times, Mavs 3 times, Kings 2 times, Suns 2 times, & Trail Blazers one time. If we wanted to give credit for the 102nd best and 103rd best team of all time we would have to give the spurs 8 and add KG & Stephen Malbury's T-wolvs to the list.
Folks it is cute when we say things like MJ is the best of all time. But when you look at who they beat it doesn't compare. When you take the Team ELO's for all the teams that Jordan led teams beat on the way to the finals and combine the 4 series. No Bulls run was historically harder than either of the MAVS finals appearances in 06 or 11. To put it plainly Jordan was great but played very little greatness. Dirk, Tim, and Kobe played greatness everyday everynight year after year. Dirk's two Final appearances the loss and the win were against harder opponents historically. And one last thing Dirk didn't have Scottie Pippen, or Dennis Rodman on either of those runs. He did it with Devin Harris, Josh Howard, Tyson Chandler, Old Jason Kidd.
So if you haven't played anyone to be named champion, and haven't had to play the greats of all time to win a championship how can you be the GOAT. To me You have to have done something against someone worth doing something against. MJ & King James get to the finals every year because there isn't anything to stop them in the East, just like I proved with Magic's Lakers. So which player is the best has to come down to Kobe or Dirk or Duncan if we are saying beating all time great teams is more talented then beating average NBA teams at best (look up 90 bulls playoff opponent ranks they are bad folks when compared against every teams ELO). I've got some crazy stats that suggest it's not Duncan and not Kobe. That leaves Dirk.
Now I know what your thinking here who in there right mind comes into a NBA forum and has the audacity to say that Dirk Nowitzki has a claim to Greatest NBA Player of ALL Time.
I hear you and I love you and because I care I'll back it up. When we look at the NBA from 2000-2015 which I just proved was the golden age of historically great teams. We have 5 players that we have to look at Dirk, Duncan, Kobe, KG, and Shaq.
What is a great NBA player suppose to do? Win! So to do this analysis I'll use Total win share, which is Off Win Share + Def Win Share = Total Win Share.
In the 15 years that I mentioned how many times was Shaq a top 20 win share player? Answer 5, how many times was he top 10? Answer 3, how many times was he ranked #1? Answer 1 time.
In the 15 years that I mentioned how many times was KG a top 20 win share player? Answer 8, how many times was he top 10? Answer 6, how many times was he ranked #1? Answer 2 time.
In the 15 years that I mentioned how many times was Kobe a top 20 win share player? Answer 10, how many times was he top 10? Answer 8, how many times was he ranked #1? Answer 0 times. In fact Kobe's highest win share was 4th which he did 3 times
In the 15 years that I mentioned how many times was Duncan a top 20 win share player? Answer 11, how many times was he top 10? Answer 6, how many times was he ranked #1? Answer 2 times.
In the 15 years that I mentioned how many times was Dirk a top 20 win share player? Answer 13, how many times was he top 10? Answer 11, how many times was he ranked #1? Answer 2 times. What is most interesting about Dirk has 3 seasons he was ranked #2, and one other # 3. So Dirk has 6 seasons ranked in the top 3 for Win Share while at the same time playing in the hardest Conf. in the hardest era of historically great teams.
So while Duncan was a top 10 player 6 times Dirk was a top 3 player 6 times.
So While Duncan KG and Dirk Each had 2 times in the top spot each, Shaq only got there once in that period and Kobe never got above 4th. Which also look at that 6 times in that 15 years Dirk had a better win share than Kobe's best finish of 4th.
Did Jordan and Kobe and Malone and Kareem have more points than Dirk yes. But none of them are as responsible for their team winning more than Dirk.
By the way only 4 teams in NBA history have won 50 games in a season 10 seasons in a row. Magic's Lakers, Bird's Celtics, Duncan's Spurs, and Dirk's Mavs. Lakers had three HOFers the entire time, Celtics had 3 HOFers the entire time, Duncan had 3 HOFers the entire time though David Robinson and Parker were on bookends, and Dirk's Mavs had Dirk &&&&&&&&&&&&& Dirk. Yes he had Steve Nash before he was Nash and he had Kidd when he was no longer Kidd. But neither of those are an entire 10 year run with two other HOFer's.
MVP & All-Star Appearances are nice but at the end of the day popularity goes into those superlatives as well. I'm just saying if we want to know who is the Best NBA player maybe we should look at who did what instead of what Nike, ESPN, and Addidas tell us.
One last thing. Did you know that in the History of the NBA that player that knocked out the most 1st 2nd and 3rd team NBA players to date in a single playoff run was done by Dirk in 2011, He knocked out 1 in the Portland Series, Kobe and Gasul in the Lakers Series, Westbrook and Durrant in the OKC series (Harden was the 6th man on that team and wasn't a top 15 player in the NBA that season), and then in the finals he knocked out two from Miami Wade and King James (Bosh wasn't a top 15 player in the NBA that year either). So not only does Dirk's Competition the toughest at the team level he went through the most stars to win his championship than anyone in the history of the game. He knocked out half of the All NBA team -1 since he couldn't knockout himself.
Still others point to Jordan scoring 63 against the celtics in the first round of the playoffs. Folks it was overtime, they were the 8th seed, it was elimination game, and he was ball hogging. Big deal.
If we go to Dirk's best playoff game he got 50 against the SUNS in GAME 7 of the Western Conf. Finals. A little more on the line here folks. If he had taken the same amount of shots as Jordan did to get 63 at dirks shooting % the night he got 50 he would have ended the game with over 70 points. Now can you imagine what we would say about a guy who could get 70 points in a game 7. Jordan's extra 13 points came on 41 shots in 53 minutes. Dirk got his 50 on 26 shots in 43 minutes. Even when we look at the best games Dirk is better.
So how did we get MJ, Kobe, Shaq, Magic or Bird as the best ever????? Marketing, Story, Splash, Excitement, Winning every year deep into the playoffs. Which is hard to do when you play the 33% of the NBA's greatest teams ever during your prime, and 20% of the best teams of all time are in your conference. Did Duncan and Kobe win more Rings yes, but they had more help. The NBA now has 6'10 small forwards on almost every team. Those would have been centers in the 80's. Don't give me this hand check business. Jordan could't shoot jumpers until the second 3 peat. These guys today would have killed them.
Yea Jordan has a better scoring avg than Kobe and Dirk but Jordan wasn't even in the NBA at their young ages.
Also this Jordan being a winner stuff is crazy
Jordan wins when his team is stacked
Pippen wins when he's on the court
Stats to back this up.
Jordan won NCAA championship with future NBA center Sam Perkins and Future NBA top 50 player James Worthy
Jordan wins Gold in Olympics with Dream Team
Jordan wins 6 NBA championships in 6 tries with Pippen on team (Grant for the first 3 and Rodman for the second 3 both currently rank in the top 12 Power Forwards of all time look it up crazy)
Jordan best season without pippen on his team can't win 41 games. That's right at no point in Jordan's NBA career did he win half of his regular season games without pippen.
Pippen loses the "GOAT" to baseball replaces him with JoJo English at SG and wins 2 games less and gets to East Conf. Finals. While with Portland Pippen again gets to Conf. Finals in a much harder (read above) western conference. Jordan continues to not win half his games with Wizards.
One last thing I hear a bunch of folks knock Dirk for his D and say that KG is better because he was a better Defensive player. Just to let you know go check out Def win share. Did you know Dirk had multiple years as a top 20 Def win share player, and by the way a couple of those years he finished better than KG on KG's side of the ball. KG beat Dirk on Off Win share once in his life and Dirk was number 3 that year when KG was number 2.
No Dirk doesn't Dunk like Jordan, dribble like Lebron, or shoot 3's as far as Curry, but what he does is efficiently dominate NBA basketball. One last thing to leave you with. The 30 K club.
Nobody got to the 30k club on less shots per game.
Jordan took 22.9 shots per game
Wilt took 22.5 shots per game
Kobe took 19.5 shots per game
Kareem took 18.1 shots per game
Malone took 17.8
Dirk is at 16.1 and going down. Why is that number going down? Cause the older a player gets the less shots per game they take. If Jordan took the same amount of shots per game as Dirk per game it would have take Jordan 21 years to get to his total number of points. That is 6 years more than he played and it's 2 years more than what Dirk has played. When your talking the GOAT you have to be efficient, Has Jordan ever shot 90% from Free throw, 40% from 3, and 50% from the field in a single season. NOPE because he wasn't the complete offensive player everyone makes him out to be. That is hard to do. Anyone can ball hog. Not everyone can be the GOAT. Okay I'm excited to hear from all the haters on this post.
By the way I didn't include Lebron or KD into this discussion because they can both do a lot more with their time in the NBA. Also this decade is not over yet but with 6 years complete data this decade already has 18 of the 100 best NBA teams of all time. And that is not including last year or this year. With that said of the 18 teams in the first 6 years of this decade, 12 are from the western, Warriors, Lakers, Spurs, Thunder, Clippers and Dirks Mavs. In the East you have Heat, Magic, Cavs & Bulls. The Lebron Teams make up 4 of the 6 East teams. But it does show you that to a two to one margin every one historic east team is seen by to historically great west teams. Lebron gets to the finals a bunch but once there they just can't win.
One last question helps me to answer who is the best player of all time. Assuming that the player being replaced is the same age as the player doing the replacing. So not rookie Kobe vs rookie MJ. MJ wasn't good enough to be in the NBA as a HS Sr. So I shouldn't dock Kobe for being greater. I need to do this question assuming 24 year old vs 24 year old to get it right.
If I replace Magic Johnson with Lebron in the 1980's Do I think those Lakers would be worse. Answer Nope.
If I replace Larry Bird with Dirk Nowitzki in the 1980's Do I think those Celtics would be worse. Answer Nope.
If I replace MJ with Kobe in the 1990's do I think those Bulls would be worse. Answer Nope
Now If I replace Lebron in the 2010's with Magic do the Cavs and Heat end up worse. Answer I think so. The athletic ability of Lebron is needed in today's NBA. Magic while great doesn't do what Lebron can do.
If I replace Dirk with Bird on the 2000's Mavs would the Mavs had done better. The answer here again is no way. Bird's speed would have been abused even more than it was then. His shot would have been more challenged than ever shooting against taller more athletic shot blockers. and then he wouldn't have had as many chances to shoot because his PF and C were not HOFers, so less offensive possessions.
If I replace Kobe with MJ would the 2000 Lakers do better. I don't know. I think both are great on offense and defense. Kobe had a better jumber and better ball handling earlier in the career, while Jordan only really developed the jumpshot in the second 3 peat. I think Kobe is the better talent, I think Jordan would have played with Shaq better. So I think those Lakers could have been better with MJ when it comes to winning. And that was in a harder NBA.
Heck I believe if we replaced MJ with Drexler, Drexler would have 6 championships right now having played the entire time with Pippen and that Bulls squad.
Do I think that the Jazz could replace Karl Malone with Dirk and be better off. Yes. Dirk and Stockton would have been SICK
Do I think the Mavs would have a championship with Malone and Josh Howard, or Malone and Kidd. Nope cause For Dirk and Kidd to win Dirk had to go Epic and as good as Malone was he never went Epic even with Stockton with him for every game.
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06-10-2017, 09:07 PM #53
Scoring is about skill rebounds is about want to. I'll take the 4 guys with the skill and want to when the other teams play Def. Not regular season MVP stuff when nobody plays D for 3 quarters.
"The numbers, however, don’t lie. Nowitzki is one of only four players in NBA history with career playoff averages of at least 25 points and 10 rebounds, joining Bob Pettit, Elgin Baylor and Hakeem Olajuwon"
http://www.espn.com/blog/dallas/mave...rs-in-playoffs
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06-11-2017, 04:30 PM #54
Congrats on a great post; this is fantastic stuff!
Folks it is cute when we say things like MJ is the best of all time. But when you look at who they beat it doesn't compare.
I agree.
When you take the Team ELO's for all the teams that Jordan led teams beat on the way to the finals and combine the 4 series. No Bulls run was historically harder than either of the MAVS finals appearances in 06 or 11. To put it plainly Jordan was great but played very little greatness. Dirk, Tim, and Kobe played greatness everyday everynight year after year. Dirk's two Final appearances the loss and the win were against harder opponents historically. And one last thing Dirk didn't have Scottie Pippen, or Dennis Rodman on either of those runs. He did it with Devin Harris, Josh Howard, Tyson Chandler, Old Jason Kidd.
I agree ... I have also always said "not all rings are equal" ... Dirk's one ring carries much, much, much more weight than any ring Steph Curry or Durant has or will ever win on such a stacked team.
So if you haven't played anyone to be named champion, and haven't had to play the greats of all time to win a championship how can you be the GOAT. To me You have to have done something against someone worth doing something against.
I agree to a point ... and it actually irks me when people say "Jordan beat Magic" ... that Lakers team that Jordan beat was junk compared to the Showtime Lakers with Kareem teams
MJ & King James get to the finals every year because there isn't anything to stop them in the East, just like I proved with Magic's Lakers. So which player is the best has to come down to Kobe or Dirk or Duncan if we are saying beating all time great teams is more talented then beating average NBA teams at best (look up 90 bulls playoff opponent ranks they are bad folks when compared against every teams ELO). I've got some crazy stats that suggest it's not Duncan and not Kobe. That leaves Dirk.
Now you are crossing that thin line betwee genius and insanity and heading directly to the insanity side. If you want to say that Dirk's one and only ring is more weighty or was more impressive than any singular ring Kobe or Duncan won, I think you could make a solid case ... but ... if you're saying a one-way player like Dirk was a better player or had the better career when compared to Kobe and Duncan, you need to be fit for a straigh-jacket and helmet. I love Dirk but he was a one-way player that doesn't even deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Duncan, let alone Kobe. He doesn't even belong in the same conversation as Kevin Garnett if I'm being honest.
Now I know what your thinking here who in there right mind comes into a NBA forum and has the audacity to say that Dirk Nowitzki has a claim to Greatest NBA Player of ALL Time.
I hear you and I love you and because I care I'll back it up. When we look at the NBA from 2000-2015 which I just proved was the golden age of historically great teams. We have 5 players that we have to look at Dirk, Duncan, Kobe, KG, and Shaq.
No, we have four players that stood head and shoulders above everyone else: Kobe, LeBron, Shaq and Duncan.
Dirk and Garnett do not belong in the same conversation as the above four players. KG would be in a second tier with a guy like Dwyane Wade ... Dirk would be in a 3rd tier below those two.
What is a great NBA player suppose to do? Win! So to do this analysis I'll use Total win share, which is Off Win Share + Def Win Share = Total Win Share.
In the 15 years that I mentioned how many times was Shaq a top 20 win share player? Answer 5, how many times was he top 10? Answer 3, how many times was he ranked #1? Answer 1 time.
In the 15 years that I mentioned how many times was KG a top 20 win share player? Answer 8, how many times was he top 10? Answer 6, how many times was he ranked #1? Answer 2 time.
In the 15 years that I mentioned how many times was Kobe a top 20 win share player? Answer 10, how many times was he top 10? Answer 8, how many times was he ranked #1? Answer 0 times. In fact Kobe's highest win share was 4th which he did 3 times
In the 15 years that I mentioned how many times was Duncan a top 20 win share player? Answer 11, how many times was he top 10? Answer 6, how many times was he ranked #1? Answer 2 times.
In the 15 years that I mentioned how many times was Dirk a top 20 win share player? Answer 13, how many times was he top 10? Answer 11, how many times was he ranked #1? Answer 2 times. What is most interesting about Dirk has 3 seasons he was ranked #2, and one other # 3. So Dirk has 6 seasons ranked in the top 3 for Win Share while at the same time playing in the hardest Conf. in the hardest era of historically great teams.
So while Duncan was a top 10 player 6 times Dirk was a top 3 player 6 times.
So While Duncan KG and Dirk Each had 2 times in the top spot each, Shaq only got there once in that period and Kobe never got above 4th. Which also look at that 6 times in that 15 years Dirk had a better win share than Kobe's best finish of 4th.
Win shares is nice and all but some consider it a rather irrelevant stat ... the simple fact is that Dirk was a one-way player and a guy that needed help to even get his shots on the offensive end unlike guys like Kobe and LeBron. And while Dirk's offensive repetoire was more deadly than Duncan's or even KG's, their defense, especially KG who could guard alll 5 positions if need be, put them far ahead of Dirk as individual talents and franchise-carrying stars.
Did Jordan and Kobe and Malone and Kareem have more points than Dirk yes. But none of them are as responsible for their team winning more than Dirk.
Dirk may have been more responsible for his Mavs team's wins than those guys were for their team's wins as they played with other great players but if any of those guys were on a team with Dirk, they would be the face of that team and the go-to star, not Dirk. That means a lot to me. I think you can make a case that Dirk could be listed as high as #5 on all-time PF list behind Duncan, KG, Pettit and Malone ... and just ahead of Barkley (who I would rank ahead of Dirk) but there is no way he'd even be in the top 20 on a GOAT list imho.
By the way only 4 teams in NBA history have won 50 games in a season 10 seasons in a row. Magic's Lakers, Bird's Celtics, Duncan's Spurs, and Dirk's Mavs. Lakers had three HOFers the entire time, Celtics had 3 HOFers the entire time, Duncan had 3 HOFers the entire time though David Robinson and Parker were on bookends, and Dirk's Mavs had Dirk &&&&&&&&&&&&& Dirk. Yes he had Steve Nash before he was Nash and he had Kidd when he was no longer Kidd. But neither of those are an entire 10 year run with two other HOFer's.
That is true ... but rather meaningless imho.
MVP & All-Star Appearances are nice but at the end of the day popularity goes into those superlatives as well. I'm just saying if we want to know who is the Best NBA player maybe we should look at who did what instead of what Nike, ESPN, and Addidas tell us.
I agree ... but again, a one-way player like Dirk simply doesn't compare to guys like KG and Duncan, let alone guys like Kobe, LeBron and Jordan who were not only two-way superstars but could get their own shot whenever they wanted and facilitate an offense as well.
And, please, for the sake of all that is holy, don't even think for one second that Dirk should even be mentioned in the same sentence as Shaq ... a prime Shaq was the most dominant force in the history of the game and no one, incuding MJ even comes close.
One last thing. Did you know that in the History of the NBA that player that knocked out the most 1st 2nd and 3rd team NBA players to date in a single playoff run was done by Dirk in 2011, He knocked out 1 in the Portland Series, Kobe and Gasul in the Lakers Series, Westbrook and Durrant in the OKC series (Harden was the 6th man on that team and wasn't a top 15 player in the NBA that season), and then in the finals he knocked out two from Miami Wade and King James (Bosh wasn't a top 15 player in the NBA that year either). So not only does Dirk's Competition the toughest at the team level he went through the most stars to win his championship than anyone in the history of the game. He knocked out half of the All NBA team -1 since he couldn't knockout himself.
I love the above factoid ... great stuff! And, like I said above, I believe you can definitely make a case that Dirk's ring is the most weighty ring a superstar ever won ... but not that Dirk was a better player or had a greater career than many all-time greats.
Still others point to Jordan scoring 63 against the celtics in the first round of the playoffs. Folks it was overtime, they were the 8th seed, it was elimination game, and he was ball hogging. Big deal.
I agree ... though it is still the highest scoring playoff game ever so it's cool ...
If we go to Dirk's best playoff game he got 50 against the SUNS in GAME 7 of the Western Conf. Finals. A little more on the line here folks. If he had taken the same amount of shots as Jordan did to get 63 at dirks shooting % the night he got 50 he would have ended the game with over 70 points. Now can you imagine what we would say about a guy who could get 70 points in a game 7. Jordan's extra 13 points came on 41 shots in 53 minutes. Dirk got his 50 on 26 shots in 43 minutes. Even when we look at the best games Dirk is better.
Yes, but that's just one game .. Jordan has 6 rings, Dirk has 1...
So how did we get MJ, Kobe, Shaq, Magic or Bird as the best ever????? Marketing, Story, Splash, Excitement, Winning every year deep into the playoffs. Which is hard to do when you play the 33% of the NBA's greatest teams ever during your prime, and 20% of the best teams of all time are in your conference. Did Duncan and Kobe win more Rings yes, but they had more help. The NBA now has 6'10 small forwards on almost every team. Those would have been centers in the 80's. Don't give me this hand check business. Jordan could't shoot jumpers until the second 3 peat. These guys today would have killed them.
Dirk simply doesn't cmpare to true 2-way stars like Duncan and KG, let alone true two-way stars that could also facilitate and get their shot without help like Kobe, LeBron and Jordan.
Also this Jordan being a winner stuff is crazy
Jordan wins when his team is stacked
Pippen wins when he's on the court
Stats to back this up.
Jordan won NCAA championship with future NBA center Sam Perkins and Future NBA top 50 player James Worthy
Jordan wins Gold in Olympics with Dream Team
Jordan wins 6 NBA championships in 6 tries with Pippen on team (Grant for the first 3 and Rodman for the second 3 both currently rank in the top 12 Power Forwards of all time look it up crazy)
Jordan best season without pippen on his team can't win 41 games. That's right at no point in Jordan's NBA career did he win half of his regular season games without pippen.
Pippen loses the "GOAT" to baseball replaces him with JoJo English at SG and wins 2 games less and gets to East Conf. Finals. While with Portland Pippen again gets to Conf. Finals in a much harder (read above) western conference. Jordan continues to not win half his games with Wizards.
THAT IS WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! You sir are on my list of all-time favorite forum posters ever and I'd be happy to debate with you and read your posts anytime as you can obviously think for yourself, don't buy into lazy media narratives and have a keen mind ... I LOVE IT! GREAT JOB!
One last thing I hear a bunch of folks knock Dirk for his D and say that KG is better because he was a better Defensive player. Just to let you know go check out Def win share. Did you know Dirk had multiple years as a top 20 Def win share player, and by the way a couple of those years he finished better than KG on KG's side of the ball. KG beat Dirk on Off Win share once in his life and Dirk was number 3 that year when KG was number 2.
Don't get silly ... you know KG wasn't just the far better defender, he was the guy who could guard all 5 positions ... KG could also run an offense when called up ... KG was the better player.
No Dirk doesn't Dunk like Jordan, dribble like Lebron, or shoot 3's as far as Curry, but what he does is efficiently dominate NBA basketball. One last thing to leave you with. The 30 K club.
Nobody got to the 30k club on less shots per game.
Jordan took 22.9 shots per game
Wilt took 22.5 shots per game
Kobe took 19.5 shots per game
Kareem took 18.1 shots per game
Malone took 17.8
Dirk is at 16.1 and going down. Why is that number going down? Cause the older a player gets the less shots per game they take. If Jordan took the same amount of shots per game as Dirk per game it would have take Jordan 21 years to get to his total number of points. That is 6 years more than he played and it's 2 years more than what Dirk has played. When your talking the GOAT you have to be efficient, Has Jordan ever shot 90% from Free throw, 40% from 3, and 50% from the field in a single season. NOPE because he wasn't the complete offensive player everyone makes him out to be. That is hard to do. Anyone can ball hog. Not everyone can be the GOAT. Okay I'm excited to hear from all the haters on this post.
I agree with you to an extent. However NBA players will tell you it's incredibly difficult to even put up 30 shots as you have to be able to crate your own offense which Dirk couldn't do. I agree was Jordan was a ball hog and chucker, far more than Kobe, but Dirk's efficiency can also be credited to the fact he didn't have to create his own offense ... it's a lot easier to catch and shoot than it is to create a shot for yourself.
By the way I didn't include Lebron or KD into this discussion because they can both do a lot more with their time in the NBA. Also this decade is not over yet but with 6 years complete data this decade already has 18 of the 100 best NBA teams of all time. And that is not including last year or this year. With that said of the 18 teams in the first 6 years of this decade, 12 are from the western, Warriors, Lakers, Spurs, Thunder, Clippers and Dirks Mavs. In the East you have Heat, Magic, Cavs & Bulls. The Lebron Teams make up 4 of the 6 East teams. But it does show you that to a two to one margin every one historic east team is seen by to historically great west teams. Lebron gets to the finals a bunch but once there they just can't win.
LeBron is the best player that has ever lived and there isn't a close second ... he's not the GOAT yet as people count rings but rings are team accomplishments rather than individual accomplishments ...
One last question helps me to answer who is the best player of all time. Assuming that the player being replaced is the same age as the player doing the replacing. So not rookie Kobe vs rookie MJ. MJ wasn't good enough to be in the NBA as a HS Sr. So I shouldn't dock Kobe for being greater. I need to do this question assuming 24 year old vs 24 year old to get it right.
If I replace Magic Johnson with Lebron in the 1980's Do I think those Lakers would be worse. Answer Nope.
If I replace Larry Bird with Dirk Nowitzki in the 1980's Do I think those Celtics would be worse. Answer Nope.
If I replace MJ with Kobe in the 1990's do I think those Bulls would be worse. Answer Nope
I thnk the Celtics would be worse ... Bird was a better passer and could create his shot better than Dirk ... most also consider him a better rebounder and defender ...
Now If I replace Lebron in the 2010's with Magic do the Cavs and Heat end up worse. Answer I think so. The athletic ability of Lebron is needed in today's NBA. Magic while great doesn't do what Lebron can do.
I agree ... Magic is not on the same level as LeBron as an all-around player
If I replace Dirk with Bird on the 2000's Mavs would the Mavs had done better. The answer here again is no way. Bird's speed would have been abused even more than it was then. His shot would have been more challenged than ever shooting against taller more athletic shot blockers. and then he wouldn't have had as many chances to shoot because his PF and C were not HOFers, so less offensive possessions.
I don't agree.
If I replace Kobe with MJ would the 2000 Lakers do better. I don't know. I think both are great on offense and defense. Kobe had a better jumber and better ball handling earlier in the career, while Jordan only really developed the jumpshot in the second 3 peat. I think Kobe is the better talent, I think Jordan would have played with Shaq better. So I think those Lakers could have been better with MJ when it comes to winning. And that was in a harder NBA.
I thin you have it backward ... I think Jordan could have won on Kobe's last two Lakers ring teams but definitely not on Kobe's first Laker team as te age Kobe was then was the age Jordan was as an NBA rookie ... and he was NOT ready to win a title as a rookie ... he may not have won any of those firs 3 titles but won one instead against the Pistons team that beat the Lakers. Kobe was far superior to MJ at a younger age ... MJ was more of a late bloomer.
Heck I believe if we replaced MJ with Drexler, Drexler would have 6 championships right now having played the entire time with Pippen and that Bulls squad.
Lay off the sauce ... Drexler wasn't in MJ's class
Do I think that the Jazz could replace Karl Malone with Dirk and be better off. Yes. Dirk and Stockton would have been SICK
No way can I agree with you here ... Malone was a far, far, far better defender than Dirk and was a better rebounder as well ...
Do I think the Mavs would have a championship with Malone and Josh Howard, or Malone and Kidd. Nope cause For Dirk and Kidd to win Dirk had to go Epic and as good as Malone was he never went Epic even with Stockton with him for every game.
I can agree with this.
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06-13-2017, 01:49 AM #55
MJ's 32 yr old yr Finals 27.3/5.3/4.2 on .415
LBJ 32 yr old Finals 33.6/11.6/10.0 on .564
TEAMS win rings
LBJ > MJ by far!
LBJ has been the best player in SIX STRAIGHT Finals & went to first 2 losses at age MJ hadn't even reached Finals
LBJ = GOAT
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Originally Posted by Rdaveigajr 
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