KG is a long and versatile defender in the mold of Scottie Pippen, who can guard multiple positions. However, he does not have the weight or body frame to keep the likes of Duncan, Hakeem, or Shaq off the blocks. Which is why he would be best served as a help defender when playing against these kind of guys. Chris Webber as a post defender? He was an average post defender. I dont think you had to be intimidated by his defense as a post player. Divac was the Kings best post defender/flopper. As for the other names you mentioned... Duncan struggled one on one against an over the hill Karl Malone on the Lakers. Duncan struggled against Rasheed Wallace and Ben Wallace. See Spurs-Pistons finals. None of those names are on the same level as Patrick Ewing, David Robinson, or Shaq when it comes to post defense. They are not on the level of Alonzo Mourning either. I would even say that Anthony Mason who Riley used against Hakeem in the finals, in addition to using Ewing, would give the names you mentioned a run for the money when it comes to defending a post player one on one (with the exception of Garnett who is a much superior defender but not really a post defender against the true big guys).
Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace combo is probably the greatest 1-2 big man defensive combo of all time. Actually statistically being a dominant offensive rebounder doesn't have a correlation to helping your team win. It's really weird.
A lot of teams in this era like the Spurs and Celtics completely sacrifice giong for offensive boards to improve their transition defense. So you can't really look at their offensive rebounding numbers.
Not really, IMO. I would take these combos over those two Hakeem-Sampson Hakeem-Thorpe Robinson-Duncan And I would think about McHale/Parish as well. The problem I have with Ben Wallace is that he was a defender and a flopper. When Shaq and Yao pushed him around in the post, he would resort to flopping around. Rasheed can have serious mental lapses on defense and generally as a player/human.
I dont understand how MJ is 1 and Kobe is 10. The list starts with the Dream Team 1. MJ 2. Magic 3. Bird 4. Ewing 5. Malone 6. Stockton 7. Drexler 8. Pippen 9. Mullin 10. Robinson 11. Barkley The locks on any list are: MJ, Magic, and Bird. That gives us 3. Contemporaries 1. Dream 2. Zeke 3. Nique Dream is better than the rest of Dream Team 1. He makes the list. Zeke isnt as good as Stockton so hes out. Nique is better than Mullin and Pippen. So he gets on the temporary list. Thats 5. pre-Dream Team 1. Moses 2. BKing 3. Dantley 4. English Kareem, Iceman and Dr J werent 80s enough. 2-4 are interchangable and arent any better than Nique. Moses Malone is on the list for now. Thats 6. So currently its in no order 1. MJ 2. Magic 3. Bird 4. Dream 5. Moses 6. Nique Post Dream Team 1. LBJ 2. Kobe 3. Dirk 4. Duncan 5. Shaq 6. Garnett 7. Wade 8. Nash Lets parse Post Dream Team with the rest of Dream Team 1's roster and eliminate the obvious. Ewing < Dream Malone Stockton Drexler Pippen < Nique Mullin < Nique Robinson < Dream Barkley < Garnett, Duncan and Malone LBJ is on the list (7) Kobe is on the list (8) Dirk Duncan is on the list (9) Shaq is on the list (10) Garnett Wade Nash < Stockton So the list is 1. MJ 2. Magic 3. Bird 4. Dream 5. Moses 6. Nique 7. LBJ 8. Kobe 9. Duncan 10. Shaq Garnett is identical to Duncan so he has to get on the list. Id put him ahead of Moses since Moses played part of his career in the 70s. Dirk could replace Nique, but not Garnett. That leaves Stockton, Malone, Drexler, and Wade vs Nique. If you want to elimiate Wade bc his career isnt over, fine. Of the 4 left Id take the Mailman. All of that was the long way of saying, Yes. I agree with your list, but not the order. 1. MJ 2. LBJ 3. Kobe 4. Magic 5. Bird 6. Dream 7. Shaq 8. Garnett 9. Duncan 10. Mailman
The comparison was DReb vs. OReb. Dream and Thorpe, Ewing and Oakley, Zo and PJ Brown. Just in the past 20 years.
Question regarding Duncan: How much of an impact do you guys think Popovich has had on Duncans career? Would Duncan be half as good if he had played for lets say D'antoni his hole career?
While Duncan has been blessed with great coaches, management, team his entire career, I think he would be great regardless. He would be great for any coach and any team. He probably would have had less wins/rings but his numbers would be great under any coach. Chances are D'antoni would be replaced with a better coach if the team was not having success.
No particular order MJ Magic Dream Duncan Malone Bird Stockton Kobe Lebron someone obvious who I forgot
Huh? I will take Olajuwon/Thorpe over that duo. Robinson/Rodman is also better.... I would argue that the McHale/Parrish duo was very good.... that does not even include duo's from the 60's and 70's... Ben Wallace struggled against bigs inside and Rasheed Wallace was a fine defender, but not like KG, TD, Dream, Mutombo and others...
The reason the 2 wallace was a really good combo was that rasheed was an excellent one on one dfender and ben was a great help defender. Thats why they made duncan life misserable on 2005 finals, besides the fact that the spurs had no other inside scorer.
It's on the shortlist at worst. I think Ben and Sheed were pretty much perfect down low next to each other. Ben was an insane help defender. He has basically the best defensive RAPM of all time. All advanced stats people argue that the Pistons had a superstar in the 04 Finals, Ben Wallace because he was that insanely good defensively. And Sheed was also an amazing defensive player. Ben Wallace was on the same level as KG, TD, Dream IMO in his prime in terms of overall defensive impact. And Sheed next to him is just ridiculous. The Rodman - Robinson combo is the one I would put on the same level and maybe ahead. The problem with the Rockets combos is none of hte defenses were that elite overall. No Rockets defense is ever talked about as even one of the greatest of all time.
Also if you look at 04 pistons after the sheed trade and then the pistons in the playoffs.... they have absolutely insane numbers. The difference between Miami's offense and the Phoenix Suns offense this year is 10.9 points per 100 possessions. Detroit in the playoffs held the other team to 10.7 points per 100 possessions under their season average. Absolutely ridiculous. They would turn Miami's offense to the same output as the 27th best offense in the NBA. They held 5 straight teams to under 70 points... and the 6th team broke 70 on a freaking buzzer beater.
^^ Two flaws in your argument: The main one being, you are picking frontcourt pairs but looking at overall team defense. The Spurs and Pistons had Bowen and Prince both of which were fantastic defenders and contributed heavily to their teams defense ratings. They both were some of the best perimeter defenders of their time (man to man defense as well as covering the 3 point line). Prince was a very good shot blocker for a guard as well. You are taking their contribution and the team defense success and crediting them entirely to the two front court players. The other being that the team defense rating also does not tell the whole story. What kind of competition they were up against? What was the quality of the opposing front court players? You are relying heavily on team defense numbers but all else is not equal especially when we are considering a 30+ year timeline.
yeah, that's why I was using defensive rating relative to the rest of the league rather than just raw defensive rating.... so i have no idea how the second flaw exists. The first one is fair, but Prince hasn't been thought of as an elite defender (nowhere close to Bowen) after those first 3 years with the Pistons. I think he was more a product of the environment he was playing in.
JOrdan, Shaq, LeBron, Duncan, Olajuwon, Barkley, Magic, Bird, Malone-ockton, Waiting list/just missed: Durant, Moses Malone (between decades), Nowitzki, Robinson, Kobe, Wade, Garnett, Pierce
The flaw is that the opponents were not the same cross the 30 year span and it is a team defensive rating, which you are crediting to only two players. You are creating a scenario where all else is not equal (there are too many other variables) AND there is no way of saying how much the rest of the team other than the two players contributed to that team number. Of course, it gets even worse when you try to credit just one player for the team defensive rating. Strongly disagree. Tayshaun Prince has always been known as a superb wing defender. While Bowen was a pesky and physical defender who got under your skin, Prince used his freakishly long arms effectively on many SGs eg. Kobe during the finals. He was an integral part of the Pistons defense when they were relevant ( 4 consecutive ALL NBA Defensive team and that is not including the 2004 season where he showed it during the championship season and especially against Kobe). The main point being however, we know that both Bowen and Prince, along with other players and their system were important to that team defensive rating but it is tough to say how much each contributed. Which is why it is erroneous to use team defensive rating to determine the best defensive front court line consisting of two players.
LeBron in people's Top 5's? Talent is obviously there, need the rings as well though. 1. MJ 2. Magic 3. Kareem 4. Shaq 5. Kareem 6. Duncan 7. Kobe 8. James 9. Isiah 10. KG
1) Kareem Abdul-jabbar 2) Michael Jordon 3) Karl Malone 4) Kobe Bryant 5) Shaquille O’Neal 6) Moses Malone 7) Hakeem Olajuwon 8) Alex English 9) Reggie Miller 10) Kevin Garnett
