Who was a better player in their prime...Charles Barkley vs. Kevin Durant?

Pretty sure KD is easily a tier above Barkley. Dude's what a 6'11 wing? Add his spot up shooting and spacing he does a lot more for the team than Barkley.

 

To KD's credit, his 2 FMVP were great performances that should be recognized, as well as how seamlessly he can fit into any team/system and alongside any superstar.

 

Different types of players, but Durant is the greater all-around basketball player when you factor in how portable his game is to different situations and his defensive ability.

 

Barkley is an all time great in a way that few ever achieve. KD is an inner sanctum inner circle best of the best HOF. There’s a difference and it matters and it’s KD clear as day. Which does NOTHING to detract from Barkley. Prime KD is the greatest 3 of all time- if we consider LBJ a 4, which I do.

 

Another thing to consider is that KD was clearly the best player on those Warriors teams..... the guys on the Warriors like Curry and KT and Draymond don't want to admit it, but it was pretty clear who had the least limitations and played well against everyone, and that was KD.

 

If Durant is a level above prime Barkley, than he is on the same level as Michael Jordan and Hakeem Olajuwon.

That is false, imo. Barkley was a fraction of a hair worse than those guys in his prime.

 

Barkley's teams were only a fraction worse than the Bulls & Rockets but just because his production on his team was close from a numbers perspective doesn't mean that there is no space in between them talent wise for the entire history of the NBA.

I mean make the same argument that because Lebron and Harden are similar in production with their teams that they must be at the same level in a historical perspective.

 

Just a difference of opinion.

Kevin Durant averaged 28 points a game for his career and at 32 years old he is averaging 30 points a game. Durant has been consistently very good. He has won 4 scoring titles, won a couple of Finals MVP's as well.

Durant is close to averaging in his career 50/40/90 which is amazing.

If you like Barkley more, I am not going to tell you that you are wrong.

 

R u kinda asking who's a better bus driver?

 

Are we talking about their careers or their PRIMES?

 

The space between a prime Charles and anyone that reached a peak above that is a microscopic sliver, IMO.

Nothing to do with their teams, or their stats, everything to do with the eye-ball test.

Give Chuck a prime Scottie Pippen and the books might look a bit different.

 

Ha. Well, maybe not Scottie Pippen. Those two mixed like oil and water.

 

Especially when Snottie was an old douche, as opposed to a young one, and Chuck was a fatty. But yeah, point taken.

 

Yeah, unfortunately Scottie was a douche when he was young too. It’s just that he played with The Godfather, who always knew how to “make him an offer he couldn’t refuse”.

 

If we would have ran it back with Cassell and Horry, we would have won 40 something games like we did in 1995 and 1996. (We caught lightning in the bottle with the last great prime Olajuwon in 1995). We won 57 games with Barkley. We were a bad point guard decision away from another Finals appearance. Anybody but Brent Price would have pushed us over the top. Sometimes your regular season record is what it is. We weren’t an elite team anymore with the old cast.

 

We could have picked up a PF . .. I think Willis was available
and we would have been good.

We had no future to build on

Rocket River

 

Prime Scottie was also a top 50 player of all time or at least one of the best two way players of all time. Give Harden prime Kawhi or Giannis instead of Dwight and Chandler Parsons and maybe they go to the finals those few years.

Like I get that Durant is maybe overrated by some who are evaluating this generation but the guy is still a talent that is pretty damn unheard of in the history of the game and it’s not like he never achieved anything even if his two titles do have an asterisk by them. And I would say that Barkley is maybe a bit underrated now but to me it’s not really that close. Success + talent puts Durant over Barkley 7 days a week to me.

 

Both went against either a super team or a bball god.

KD OKC vs GSW
Barkley vs Jordan and the Bulls

KD is the better individual but Barkley is up there in terms of building blocks if you need rebounding ..... to me Barkley had a little of Draymond, a little of Malone and scoring undersized PFs.

 

Lol @ the dumbass posters who are dismissing KD’s championships and calling them meaningless just because they don’t like him or the Warriors or whatever BS reason. I’m sure you guys are the same MF’s that dismiss or put an asterisk next to Hakeem’s titles.

It’s incredibly hard to win a Championship. Let alone 2 of them back to back. If it weren’t for KD there’s a high probability Warriors only have 1 Championship last decade instead of 3. You don’t gotta like him but at least keep it real.

 

I think the Boston series just put some suspect on KD.
In the Barkey error that would be every game.

Kd does not rebound enough for his size.
Barkley was a board beast.

The only difference between Kd and people like Barkley and Harden is superior teammates for a couple of years.

Remember they changed rules to stop Barkley (and Dream)

Rocket River