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In fact, if the Spurs had Williams, I think the MSM would treat them as real title contenders instead of the obligatory "and let's not forget about the Spurs!" bs thrown in at the end of conversations in which they were clearly forgotten. I think their title chances range from 5-10%, so they're far from a favorite, but they're still really freaking good and I love watching them play, especially when Manu is healthy.
Robinson, in his prime (considered all playoff series except the last two) averaged 21.1/11.7, with a PER of 24.0 and .201 WS/48.
O'Neal was 25.6/12.2 (through the Miami championship), with a 26.7 PER and a .192 WS/48.
Hakeem was 27.0/11.6 (through the 35yo year), with 26.1 PER and a .193 WS/48.
That jives with my experience. They were better in the playoffs, but it wasn't that big. It was better offensively, but the Admiral was better defensively except for the one playoff series I'm sure you'll mention in your response.
I think Williams is a clear #3 in the active PG list. At worst, he's tied with Westbrook.
I think that Duncan is a center, too--especially later in his career, but he's probably worse than all of those guys you mention (including Shaq who dominated Duncan head to head when both were in their prime).
Not sure about that. Chicago is a bad, bad matchup for the Spurs. Assuming both teams are relatively healthy -- Noah is too quick in transition and on the glass for any of the Spurs' big men. Boozer doesn't have to guard anyone and he can score over Blair. Deng gets to "rest" on defense. Rose is one of the few PGs that is quick enough to stay relatively in front of Parker.
The Spurs have an advantage at SG, that's it. If Chicago meets them in the finals, assuming fair health for both teams, I don't see the Spurs winning more than 2 games. I'd peg them to lose in 5.
That said, Chicago is banged up and I'm not optimistic they'll beat Miami. Maybe the Spurs matchup better with the Heat.
________________
The whole "Duncan is the greatest PF of all time" meme seems to be something made up by Duncan fans. I love the guy, but he's a freaking center and as a center he's not as good as Hakeem, Shaq, Wilt, Russell, Kareem and arguably Ewing or the Admiral. Great player, not an inner circle HOFer.
Maybe. He'd go top 3. He was super hyped in his first game at Memphis.
I think Williams is a clear #3 in the active PG list. At worst, he's tied with Westbrook.
I agree with the previous list. At this point, I'm having a hard time putting Williams in the top 5.
I think it's a coin flip between the Spurs and OKC for the Conference title
Zach Lowe wrote a nice post about how OKC really really struggles against the Spurs. In much the same way San Antonio struggled against Memphis last year. If it's OKC vs. Spurs, I'm taking the Spurs.
If Manu is healthy, saying the Spurs have an advantage at SG is drastically underselling the gap. Manu is the best or second best SG in the league. The Bulls have a mediocre shooting guard. It's a bigger gap than Parker/Rose. The Spurs also have good shooters, and Chicago doesn't. I'd take Chicago, but I don't think it's a terrible matchup.
To be fair, he's been listed as a PF the whole time and usually played along side a true center (Robinson, Nesterovic, other randoms) until late in his career. But he's definitely better than Ewing.
AROM- Do you think Duncan would have won with the Avery, Elliott, VDN group? Alternately, do you think Robinson would have won with prime Manu and Parker? There is a kernel of an argument in there, but the way you presented it doesn't seem very persuasive to me. It's like saying that Hakeem never won until Horry got there, and Horry went on to win after he was with Hakeem.
Wow, they really misunderstood their need for a gunner off the bench. #firepower
I'm a big AK-47 fan, but I guess watching Kobe Bryant eat his lunch every May kind of distorts his perceived value.
A+.
The Horry comparison doesn't work, he was a role player (though a supremely clutch one). Robinson, Duncan, Shaq, and Hakeem are the best players on their teams - and Robinson is the only one of that group who did not win a championship when it was clearly his team.
I do think Duncan could have won early had he traded birthdates with Robinson. Those teams also had Terry Cummings as an excellent player at the beginning of the run, and added Dennis Rodman a bit later. From Robinson's rookie year to the last year before injury, Spurs average 55 wins per year. From his retirement to last season, Duncan's teams won 57 games. Duncan's got a better supporting cast but it's not a mismatch. Could Robinson have won with Parker/Manu? He might have. Impossible to answer a hypothetical. Basketball is the team game where one player can have the biggest impact, so I have to put some weight on the championships here. Robinson was a all-great player, but Duncan gets the edge in my book.
Shaq: .277/.249
Kareem .259/.223
Wilt .260/.205
Russell .200/.192
Robinson .292/.215
Duncan .265/.254
Hakeem .229/.222
I was always of the opinion that DWill is what made that team go during those Lakers series, but that might have been based on the awfulness of the Laker's pg situation. The one thing that I did know for sure was that Boozer was vastly overrated. Gasol and Odom would just destroy him, and so I expected that he would struggle with CHI as he lost a little athleticism.
The one thing that I don't think Mike Brown took enough blame for was his poor development of Hickson, who showed a lot of talent early on. Obviously, most of it is on the player, but the way he shuffled him in and out of his doghouse was definitely to Hickson's detriment. I've seen the same thing up close with his usage of Mini-Mamba, Darius Morris and McRoberts. Unlike his mentor Pop, Brown doesn't seem to be the type of coach who trusts the young guys.
Brown remind me of Doug Collins in that they both feel the need to not just win every game, but every quarter of every game. Couple that with his distrust of young players, and it gets very rough. Remember that stat a few years ago, when Cleveland hit Boston in the ECF? James aside, Cleveland was actually fielding an older team than the Celtics, and it's probably because Ferry and Brown just don't trust anyone younger than 30 to play more than 8 minutes a game.
That's awesome, AROM. And wow, Felton Spencer is a name I hadn't thought of in fifteen years.
And yes Duncan is a center.
And this is why people some people think Duncan is underrated. To me he basically has the same career value as Shaq, Shaq was a little better at his peak, but was less consistent and durable; Shaq was a much better offensive player but Duncan was a much better defender, Duncan is in my opinion the best defensive player since Bill Russell. Hakeem and Duncan are about dead even for me as well, although I'd put Hakeem a little behind Duncan and Shaq. Robinson is pretty much their equal as well, but less proven in the post season due to the poor teams he was on. Kareem, Russell and Wilt are hard to judge because they played in a different era and it is really difficult to measure defensive value from that time period.
Ewing isn't anywhere near any of them, neither is someone like Kobe Bryant, a guy lot of people on the street would say is better than Duncan.
As for his position, he's both a power forward and center (Pau Gasol is also both) and there is value in that versatility, as it allows him to play with different configurations of teammates and cover different types of defensive assignments.
Thibs is the same way - I've lost track of how many time outs he's called up 20 in the 4th. Speaking of, wtf Orlando?
Edit: I do realize Rose has very good numbers by any measure this year... but he's played like 50% of the minutes available.
The '09 Jazz team just wasn't very good. They were much better in '10, but played that series w/o Memo, lost two close games (1 & 3) and I think AK was just coming back from an injury, too, IIRC.
Man, what a big win!
Looking at Hickson's 2009-10 game log, the ups and downs don't seem too out of the ordinary, and he did start virtually every game before the playoffs. I think saying Brown didn't trust him requires a lot of weight on the postseason.
To me, Hickson's non-development is more about not playing with LeBron James. Look at how dramatically his shot selection changed last season in a larger role without somebody to draw double-teams. That only got worse this year in Sacramento. Hickson was never contributing much defensively, so when he stopped scoring efficiently, he lost a lot of his luster.
I said about two years ago that Kobe was below the great big men, due to defensive value, so I agree to a point. Here are the career numbers:
WS/Career O/D ROUNDED TO INTEGERS
BRYANT 114/47 161
DUNCAN 86/87 173
WS/48
DUNCAN .210
BRYANT .185
PER
DUNCAN 24.7
BRYANT 23.5
TS% EFG%
DUNCAN .551 .507
BRYANT .555 .486
ORTG/DRTG
DUNCAN 110/95
BRYANT 112/105
The defensive value of the two-way big men gives them the edge over pretty much everybody except Jordan, James, Bird, Johnson and maybe Robertson. But "nowhere near" in terms of career value? Not buying it.
I actually don't agree. A lot of the difference in per game value is driven by Kobe's first three seasons, which Duncan spent in college. Kobe's first three years in PER: 14.4, 18.8, 18.9. Kobe's first three year's in WS/48*: 0.79, .147, .130.
Kobe has also already played more games (and way more minutes) than Duncan. That stuff counts.
*side note: why are we using WS/48? Why not K-Pizzle's stat?
You're right I probably overstated it and the same could be said for Kevin Garnett as well, but I do think both of them (and Dirk Nowitzki) are together in a tier behind Duncan, while the general public probably likely considers Kobe the easily the biggest star of the group.
Because BaskRef is easier to Google than "K-Pizzle."
One of many things I agree with the KBros on is that Bryant's legacy is basically set in stone at this point, so where people want to put him on lists is not all that interesting to me on some level. But I do agree with you, in the sense that since it DOES seem to be an issue to a lot of people, those who want to talk about it need to make clear how much they are going on career and how much they are going on peak, since that does matter in ranking Bryant.
This is the andrewberg dog whistle.
Kobe actually is the biggest star of all those guys. He was just not the best two-way at-peak player among them.
And yes, Robinson had some notable struggles in the playoffs that have come to define his career, which seems entirely unfair. Moses Malone utterly dominated Kareem in 2 playoff series, but that didn't become part of the Kareem narrative.
Robinson also had Terry Cummings while he was still good, and when he declined the Spurs brought in Dennis Rodman.
I'm too subjective to give a good argument. My points have always been that it's not fair to compare their team success due to the enormous difference in teammates, and that the gap in their individual achievements is quite small.
I will be the first to admit that Duncan has aged better and probably has more career value. The peaks are closer than most people will admit, though, and I think it has to do with people not being comfortable with what KG is.
Top 5 WS/48, descending:
KG- .272. .265, .248, .242, .225
Duncan- .257, .249, .248, .245, .230
PER doesn't capture a lot of what these guys do, but KG's top PER seasons are better than Duncan's.
Yes, Duncan played for better teams. Yes, he had more overall success, and that probably means he had a better career. I just want people to remember that KG was an all-time great and not just the snarling, vengeful dick he became in his big market swan song.
ELO: Robinson 9, Duncan 11, KG 16.
Apparently, players on both teams were laughing on court during it.
Magic Johnson vs. Kobe Bryant
and
Vin Scully vs. Chick Hearn
http://espn.go.com/losangeles/bracket/mostbeloved
Easy there. The statement was never "TEH LAKERZ OUR TEH CHEATZ~!". It was that the officiating was questionable, at best, in game 5 (with a link demonstrating the claim) and that the series might have been different because of it. Mind you, this came up because you made the claim "how seemingly easy it was for the Lakers to brush aside Utah every year" and #1333 was just voicing a different view point. The Lakers STILL won the game, the series AND the NBA Championship. I promise, they won't take that away even if you agree that there was poor officiating in one game.
---------------------------------
As for DWill - put me in the not top 5 group, but definitely top 10. I rate players who I view as selfish lower than most, especially when they aren't Michael Jordan or Kobe when he was younger. DWill is talented, but he's no where near MJ or KB.
1 CP3
2 Rose
3 Westbrook
4 Rondo
5 Parker
6 Nash
Then (in no order): DWill, Kyrie, Wall, Rubio.
Selfish how? Because we're blaming him for Sloan retiring, even though Sloan furiously denies it? I think it's easier to build a team around DWill than Rondo or Parker, so that's the tiebreaker I have to put him ahead of them. Nash is better than all of them offensively, IMO, but worse defensively - and the defensive gap is greater than the offensive gap.
As the resident person who loves this thread, and loves basketball, but doesn't watch a ton of NBA, let me say this. I find it interesting - last year we all debated at pretty great lengths about how good Rose is. Is he even better than Westbrook (after FIBA many thought he wasn't)? There was just generally a lot of discussion of if he deserves a lot of the credit for Chicago turning it around, or if the whole team does and he's not truly a superstar. It seems like everyone's agreeing without question he's a top 5 player now, which seems surprising to me given he's missed a lot of time and generally not been 100% much of the season. But there the Bulls are, stomping on Orlando in Orlando and having a 38-10 record.
Edit: I do realize Rose has very good numbers by any measure this year... but he's played like 50% of the minutes available.
I argued last year, when their PER numbers were virtually identical, that Rose was better then. By the end of the year, I believe most everyone else agreed. It's not just about credit for their success, although he is the driver for their offense. Most people had him top 5 last year, even while admitting he wasn't the MVP.
And the 50% of minutes is overstated. He's missed 14 games now, but is still 5th on the team in minutes played, only 300 behind the leader (Deng, who's also missed 9 games). They're a different offensive team without him - they pulled out the win over Miami and Orlando last night (only 85 points last night, that's not enough to win most games), but they've also lost at home to NJ and Portland without him. They're 10-4 without him, but 28-6 with him.
I agree Garnett is an all-time great. I think Duncan is a little ahead, because he was a bit better at creating his own shot and scoring the post and better in the playoffs (similar to why many people rate Olajuwon over Robinson, although in that case Robinson was clearly a better regular season player). For me Shaq and Duncan (Lebron will be with them soon enough) are the top tier post Jordan, with Kobe, Nowitzki and Garnett just behind them (guys like Wade, Paul and Howard could end up in this group, but don't have the longevity yet) and for the most part you can't go wrong with any of them. There wasn't a singular superstar post-Jordan or consistency rivalry like Magic/Bird or Wilt/Russell to attach legendary storylines, but the depth of top line talent probably was and is at an all-time high.
I knew my fellow W's fans were passionate, but I didn't realize they were also ####### morons until last night. This team was going nowhere, had been going nowhere for years, and was going to go nowhere next year as well. I'd say this was a normal case of a home fan base overrating its own players, but wow.
And the fans shouldn't boo the owner, because ... ?
Tom Thibodeau is a god damn genius, that's how Chicago is winning without Rose. That and Rose is a great leader himself. Last night Chris Webber did a nice segment on Chicago where they showed a play were Boozer played OK defense but committed a stupid reach in foul at the end. Boozer immediately looks over at Thibs and Rose and Boozer nods and acknowledges he shouldn't have reached.
When you have a coach like Thibs and a superstar like Rose who preach accountability, and are accountable to themselves and their team, I think it makes "buying in", even for a guy like Boozer, who's never really gave a damn on defense, incredibly easy and it leads to things like beating Orlando 85-59 without one of the 5 best players in the game.
Having great players other than Rose helps of course. But Chicago's defense is more than the sum of its parts, and that's credit to mostly Thibs.
He became the fastest coach to 100 wins, doing it in 130 games. Passed the Little General by one game.
_________________________
My view of Duncan is a biased because I stopped following the NBA for a period during his heyday. He's an excellent player and one of the best of all time. NS where he ranks on the pantheon of big men.
In 42 games Robinson's team was 30-12, with David averaging 19.6 and 11.2, on .488 shooting. Hakeem scored 21.6 and 11.2 boards, but only shot .441. Turnovers, blocks, assists, and steals were about even.
They only faced each other in one playoff series, but it was a big and memorable one, the 1995 western conference finals. Olajuwon had 35 points and 12 rebounds (56% shooting) and Robinson only 24 and 11 with only 45% shooting. Olajuwon had twice as many assists and blocks. The Spurs had home court advantage as the #1 seed playing a #6 seed.
I don't apologize for characterizing those playoff meetings so lightly, though:
2008: Lakers 4-2 over Utah
2009: Lakers 4-1 over Utah
2010: Lakers 4-0 over Utah
You can point to one particular game here or there where perhaps, if a questionable call went the other way, the Jazz might have won that game, but 12-3 over three seasons is beatdown territory.
Duncan scored 25.6 on .485 shooting, with 13 Reb, Shaq had 22.4 and 12.8 on .526 shooting.
Chick's beating Vin, 57% to 43%. I loved me some Chicky-baby, but that's ridiculous. I guess L.A.'s more a Laker town than I realized.
Kobe's beating Magic right now 51% to 49%. That's like when Kung-Fu Fighting was voted as the greatest song of all time in 1975.
That's not Heinsohn calling Stiemsma's shot blocking Russellian, but it's in the neighborhood.
Ewing *never* had a truly great teammate, and I think that changes our perception of him. If Ewing had Mitch Richmond as his running buddy instead of John Starks, 1994 probably turns out differently and we're looking at Ewing as something other than a poster child for a great player without a ring. The Rockets picked up Drexler in 95 and that propelled them to a ring. Robinson got to rely on a young Duncan in his age. Ewing never really had a great offensive player to pick up his slack until he was too old and injured to take advantage of it.
In his prime (89-97?), Patrick Ewing was very, very durable as dominant a defensive center as there was in the game. He led the league in defensive win shares thrice. He averaged 23.5 PPG, 10.5 RPG, and 2.8 BPG (and considerably more than that in his 20's when he was mired on mediocre teams.)
I'm not arguing that Ewing belongs alongside Kareem or Wilt. I do think it's folly to mark him as clearly below the rest of his generation's great big men.
The Sloan thing didn't even come into my decision making. Selfish like Melo. MJ and Kobe could/can be selfish because they're amazing, DWill is no where near their class. I don't know him personally, so I can only go from observation and stats - he seems to be pouting (I don't know if that's the right word but it's the first that comes to mind) out there. I understand that his teammates aren't great. I'm just explaining why I rank him lower than others do. I acknowledge it's more of a feeling than a fact. I used to hate this type of analysis, but my views have changed over the years. When it comes to a sport that is based so much on teamwork as basketball is, attitude and demeanor are important factors to me. I would rather build around someone who's a team player - which I view Parker/Rondo/Nash to be - than a selfish one of reasonably similar ability. I'm more of the George Karl opinion of team building, that was mentioned earlier in this thread.
All that said, I can understand why anyone else would rank him anywhere from 3rd to 10th.
Drexler didn't join the Rockets until 95 when they played the Magic. The Hakeem-Ewing series was as evenly matched as you can get for supporting casts. Ewing had only John Starks as the second option? I'll see that and raise you Vernon "Mad Max" Maxwell.
Olajuwon was a better player by the metrics in regular season and post season. Ewing was a great defender, but so was Hakeem. In their head to head NBA finals, Olajuwon outscored Ewing 27-19 per game, shooting .500 to Patrick's .363. Ewing did outrebound him 12-9, but more than half of that is probably due to grabbing his own numerous missed shots (4.6-1.9 difference on offensive boards).
I just can't see any possible argument that Ewing has over Olajuwon.
Edit: coke to AROM
To be fair, everybody was Kung Fu Fighting.
True. And it was a little bit frightening.
And yes, the Lakers did sweep in 2010, but as I said above, Okur missed the series entirely and AK missed the first two games & was limited to 17 & 12 mins, respectively, in Games 3 & 4. Despite the injuries, the Jazz were within a possession in the last 2 mins in both Games 1 & 3. Matthews missed a tap in for either the tie or the win as time expired in Gm 3. So it was a sweep, but it wasn't exactly the Magic dispatching the Hawks in 4 this same year.
Re: DWill. I don't think he's a selfish player at all. My friends who went to college with him say he's ultracompetitve and can be kind of a dick. Like, he'd yell at people playing pickup if they messed up and had no problem telling random kids who came up to him @ the bar to leave him alone. Whether or not that carries over to his interactions with his teammates, I have no idea.
Then again, didn't Parker #### his teammate's wife or was that debunked?
According to those of us who live in LA, Magic Johnson is an all-purpose celebrity nowadays. People probably don't even know what sport he used to play.
"Magic Johnson was on the Lakers? I must be confusing him with Todd Bridges."
Well, Abbott deserves it. He went from legitimately analyzing him to trolling about a year and a half ago.
So that ended up being a great trade for the Lakers.
Wow, I'm surprised you guys still believe this stuff. I guess you haven't heard.
Abbott is basically the guy for whom I coined the term "HaterBoy", which means a guy who is just as biased
about Kobe and spends just as much time thinking about him as the subset of Lakers fans over whom he claims superiority and objectivity. Dealt with a lot of them over the last ten years.
Abbott is just as "myopic" as the most ardent Kobe supporter, and just as biased. The evidence to that effect is abundant--a guy has even created a blog about it. The only question at this point is to what extent Abbott is trolling, as Jimmy suggests, and to what extent Abbott actually thinks he is providing even-handed analysis in the face of abuse from crazed "myopic Kobe fanboys."
Is this a serious question or a rhetorical jab? They booed the (still pretty new) owner (who replaced Cohen after his 15-year reign of terror as second only to Jeffrey Loria for the "Worst Owner in Professional Sports" title) because the team made a trade that was "giving up on this year" despite the fact that this year is already over for the Warriors, and that this identical team has spent the last three years proving that it doesn't work. The fan base wanted to hang on to Ellis and "go for it" this year. Which is flat out delusional. They're 13th in the West with five better teams above them for the final playoff spot, they were bad last year and abysmal the year before. The current ownership group didn't create this problem. But the fanbase is mad because they traded an overrated gunner who has been the centerpiece of several consecutive terrible teams for a center who might actually help them win something sometime in the future. It's insane.
Squash, I assume part of it was triggered by the fact that IIRC Milwaukee played in Oakland and kicked the Warriors' butts right after the deal, correct? I can see how that + Bogut's being unavailable would piss people off, but that has nothing to do with remembering Mullin's great GS career.
The reason I'm not too offended by the booing is that a new owner, having just traded the fan favorite star away and thereby tanked the season, should at the very least have the grace to not insert himself (or turn down the offer, if it wasn't his idea), to speak after Mullin at Mullin's jersey retirement. No matter how benignly he meant his words to be, that seems like a ham-fisted spotlight grab at an event that wasn't about him, and didn't have anything directly to do with his tenure as owner.
I should have clarified: the 94 Knicks were beat fair and square by the Rockets. What I meant was more that Olajuwon's second ring (and his late Rockets period) were buoyed by Drexler (and later Barkley.) I'll spare you the rest of the read with the tl;dr: I stand corrected wrt Ewing/Olajuwon in 94.
---
It is worth looking at that Knicks/Rockets final:
C: Ewing v. Olajuwon. Olajuwon outplayed Ewing for the most part.
PF: Oakley v. Thorpe. Before looking over the boxes, I was sure that Otis Thorpe had badly outscored Oakley. This wasn't the case. Oak gets a slight offensive advantage and they were similarly excellent on the glass + defensively. Call it a wash?
SF: C. Smith v. Horry. Horry outplayed Smith, though not by much. Neither was very good in the series, though I couldn't find quarter-by-quarter breakdowns. It comes down to Horry having a very good Game 3 (16-8), whereas Smith just sucked all series. (Slight) Adv: Rockets.
SG: Starks v. Maxwell. Starks was 3-18 in Game 1, but Maxwell was 4-18. Starks was horrid in game 7, but otherwise Starks outplayed Maxwell through the rest of the series. I honestly don't know how I'd call that one. Adv: ?
PG: Harper v. K. Smith. Harp really outplayed Smith until game 7, but Cassell played very well off the bench and that should count for something. Adv: Knicks
The Rockets rotation was rounded out by Cassell, Herrerra and Mario Elie (with some run for Chris Jent.) The Knicks bench was Mason, Greg Anthony, Herb Williams, Anthony Bonner and Hubert Davis. Cassell + Herrerra outplayed anybody on the Knicks bench over the course of the series. Adv: Rockets.
The only clear positional win for the Knicks is point guard play. That has to count for something, yes? Generally, Olajuwon *did* get somewhat better help from his teammates than Ewing did. Moreover, the Knicks didn't make any major upgrades for the 95 season.
Looking at it over the course of the season, Ewing's Knicks were badly banged up all year (Starks only played 54G.) However, I'll admit I stand corrected wrt to Maxwell/Starks: Starks was better than Maxwell that season when he was on the court. And generally, the '94 Rockets were more reliant on Hakeem then I gave them credit for. However, I think my original point still stands: Ewing never really had a great second, and consequently he never got his ring. It's not all his fault. He really was saddled with teams that were very, very heavily reliant on him and he took those teams as far as they could possibly go. A Mitch Richmond (or simply keeping Mark Jackson) would have made a huge difference to Ewing's career in terms of how we view him historically.
If it's not a championship celebration, or the owner isn't a long-term and loved owner, then I think owners should be really cautious. Especially if a team isn't winning and routinely sells the arena out. There's going to be lots of angst.
Most fans just want the owner to sign the checks and stay out of the way.
---
The Sloan thing didn't even come into my decision making. Selfish like Melo. MJ and Kobe could/can be selfish because they're amazing, DWill is no where near their class. I don't know him personally, so I can only go from observation and stats - he seems to be pouting (I don't know if that's the right word but it's the first that comes to mind) out there. I understand that his teammates aren't great. I'm just explaining why I rank him lower than others do. I acknowledge it's more of a feeling than a fact. I used to hate this type of analysis, but my views have changed over the years. When it comes to a sport that is based so much on teamwork as basketball is, attitude and demeanor are important factors to me. I would rather build around someone who's a team player - which I view Parker/Rondo/Nash to be - than a selfish one of reasonably similar ability. I'm more of the George Karl opinion of team building, that was mentioned earlier in this thread.
How is he selfish like Melo? He was traded without any fanfare or discussion about his next team. There was no talk about his destination this trading deadline, even though he's in the exact same situation as Howard. Before the season, he openly said he'd opt out because it's in his interest to do so, even if he resigns in NJ. I haven't seen him a ton this year, so I can't say whether or not he's moping or is just a bad loser, but I fail to see anything selfish in what you've said about him so far. Much less selfish enough to prefer someone like Rondo over him (Rondo has had plenty of stuff written about him over the years, but less lately).
They booed the (still pretty new) owner (who replaced Cohen after his 15-year reign of terror as second only to Jeffrey Loria for the "Worst Owner in Professional Sports" title)
I'm pretty sure no one can touch Bill Wirtz for the overall tile, and Cohen may not have even been the worst basketball owner in the state of California.
I remember a TrueHoop post wherein he gave a sort of mission statement vis. Kobe: that the loud mythologizing of Kobe sort of precluded nuanced analysis of one of the most interesting and great basketball players ever; that, as Kobe's reputation is, say, 130% of what his play has earned, a certain amount of criticism was necessary as a counterbalance to the public discussion; that because of those, he was taking a calculated rhetorical position of deflating the hype some; and that despite all that, he thought Kobe was a legitimate all-time great and that he wasn't, well, a genuine hater. That all seems plausible to me, and since I don't know him, I give him the benefit of the doubt. I totally get interpreting it as trolling, though.
EDIT: Plus, as before, if I became the preeminent target for Kobe-hater-hatred, the hate mail would make me pretty snarky pretty fast. Anyway, I don't actually think he's done a particularly good job discussing Kobe, but I think there's plenty of room to play devil's advocate here.
One of my all-time faves. I saw him play one year in college. So underrated, even then. He never got the attention, but he was clearly the best player on the team. The amount of free throws he would earn per game was unreal.
Not talking about that either. I lumped him with Melo, because they both fit the mold of a ball hog that I wouldn't want to build my team around, despite how "talented" they are.
Barkley came after the championships. So did Scottie Pippen. They were desperately trying to get one more shot at the ring, but at that point all of those guys were breaking down. You look at those late 90's Rocket teams and think "too bad we didn't put this group together 3 years earlier".
Moreover, I don't think "hero ball" is that big a problem. Teams that have believe they have a guy who can create shots off the dribble should want that guy to have the ball at the end of a game, and do. Teams that don't have that guy will want to call time out and set up a play. And even when they do set up a play, if they're burning time for the last shot, what's the play? PnR near the top of the key, and if they have a shooter, screens off the ball to free him up. It's not rocket science. Abbott's characterization of himself as Moses come down from the mount with a tablet that says "team play is good" is just stupid, sometimes offensively so.
Edited for grammar.
Also one of my favorites. When I was in college, my headband/beard combo plus my pass-first high post play got me called Brad Miller by pretty much everyone at the gym. I felt a kinship with him then and started to actively try to mimic his game. I also liked that time he baited Shaq into a fight, just because that was an era where it seemed like most of the league was genuinely scared of Shaq in the low post. Later, I heard about how he has a drunken redneck olympics with his high school friends every offseason and I grew to like him even more. I am glad he is finishing his career with the Wolves and I'd be delighted if he became some sort of assistant after his career.
I don't quite see him as a ballhog either. He shoots more than some other point guards, but he's also a better shooter than many other point guards.
My sister-in-law grew up in the town next to his. (Yes, it's small town Indiana, people talk and know each other) To say that Brad likes beer would be an understatement.
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