Ducan, 6 years in the league. Shaq, 11th. Hakeem 19 years. Robison, 14 years. Ewing, 19 years. Give Duncan some time. By the way, Ducan IS better than Robinson. That's already a given. Underachieving Ewing? Getting beat by a better player/team is "Underachieving?" Ewing played the best of his ablity, and got beat by a better team/player. The Lakers before Phil were Underachieving.
Yes, as far as productivity alone and their defined roles go. But "productivity" statistic does not define other parts of their game. That's the part that is hidden behind the numbers.
David, the ultimate point that I am trying to make is that it is not laughable to contend that Thorpe and Grant were of the same caliber. When you have to resort to "hidden" parts of their games to justify your speculative assertion, that underscores how foolish the distincition is that you are trying to make.
"Hidden" refers to reading between the lines (stats). Not some magical cloud in the sky. Grant could have easily played in Thorpes role on the 94 and 95 Rox team, and then some! Thorpe couldn not have played the same role that Grant was asked to on the Bulls. They would have had to regress down to Thorpe's level (essentially a poor mans Rodman).
You just eviscerated your credibilty. Yes, he only dunked. But he did it. A LOT. He freaking scored 20 ppg in his prime. What did Rodman do, 7-8? IS Shaq a poor man's rodman too? All he does is dunk. Speaking of Rodman, he certainly filled Grant's supposedly critical role on the bulls without too much trouble. I'll tell you why Horace didn't get as many dunks. Because he couldn't. Yeah, that's right, he didn't have the inherent skill set, (the big frame and aggression) it takes to bang down low like Thorpe. You think grant or his coach would prefer for him to take a fifteen foot jumper or to take a two foot dunk. Your delusional if you think otherwise. The myth of Horace Grant's greatness was disspelled when he went to Orlando to be the "missing piece" to put Shaq and Penny over the top. Quite obviously, he wasn't, as the 1995 Rockets showed.
What are you talking about? Ok, "He dunked (OT)" That's my point...But Grant dunked, layed up shots, shoot the ball from the outside....The reason that OT dunked more was because that's the only thing he could do. Grant could have dunked more if all he did was spend time in waiting under the basket. And no Shaq is not a "poor man's rodman." He's 350 lbs dominating beast! There you go again...being cut and dry...just like you always do, take "dunk" and run with it....sigh.... Never mind...
Oh, he could have? Then why didn't he? He chose to play outside and take lower percentage shots to show off his versatility and completeness as a player? You know as well as I do that Grant didn't have the bulk of Thorpe and would have been unable to play the same style. So he compromised for his shortcomings by developing his jumper. Of courese, he wasn't able to score as many points with it, but who cares about that, he's got the between the lines skills. I'm still waiting for you to tell me what happend to his between the lines skills when he went to Orlando, btw.
Thorpe was bigger, stronger, and (I think) ran the floor better. If you swap Thorpe and Grant, I don't see much difference in the outcome for the Bulls, but I don't think Grant could have done the dirty work as consistently and forcefully as Thorpe did in the Knicks series. The battles with the Knick thugs and OT on the weak side was epic and we don't win the series without his effort. I'd take prime OT over prime Grant any day.
How is saying the Bulls had a 72-10 regular season record proving their dominance over the Rockets when they only play 2 times a season? But OT's game was a perfect compliment to Hakeem. He got his rebounds and dunking opportunities because Hakeem could not be single covered, especially by the Bulls stiffs at center. Or that one yr in Chicago when MJ was gone. With just Pip, a Kukoc (as a rookie), it seems like Grant had all the opportunity to score around 20 a game....if he were able.
I'll tell you what happend, he scored 15 points a game in his career high, a number he never touched again. 15. OT's career high? 20.
Grant scored 15 ppg in 1993-94, but only took 878 attempts. OT took 1226 attemps in 1988 order to achive 20ppg. One year in Sac. Why, would Grant get that many more touches when Pippen and Kukoc were with the Bulls? I'm surpsied you even remember OT's post game? He had very little skill. He hovered around the baskets for putbacks (he did have a small jumphook). That's it. Why can't you understand that? Oh, and guess how many attemps Tim Duncan had last year? 1392!!! Pretty close to 1226 for OT, huh? Now I'm waiting for you to say, OT is better than Duncan just because OT scored 20 ppg in 1988.
"Show off?" How about play within his given skill set? Why waste his talent just sitting around the basket all the time. You have a strange logic. You're saying that if someone has a lot of talent, they should just waste that talent and just do simple tasks. OT has a simple skill set. He had no choice but to play in the post and get rebounds. He couldn't go out and shoot if he wanted to because he didn't have the talent to do so. He was a specialist. Grant could balance his game and do both. He just didn't spend ALL this time down there.
Once again, Kukoc was a rookie, and coming off the bench. I would think that Grant could have upped his ppg by more than 4 (if he were such a complete offensive player) with the departure of MJ, his 30 point average, and all his shot attempts.
Surprising how in 12 more games it takes around 400 more shots to score 640 more points isn't it? That's generally the way it works when you have PF's who both shoot around 50% Yeah, you're right, OT was just throwing them up like AI back then, he shot, what was then a career low 50% back then. That's just terrible, it makes Grant's 52% in his career year in 94 seem so awesome I can barely contain myself. Now you have retreated from your intangible argument and are posting misleading numbers intentionally, to prove a statistical point that you can't win, and have already written off as unimportant anyway. Why does one go to such lengths to discredit the 1994 Rockets? I don't understand, what did they ever do to you?
Because you were trying to make an issue out of total shots. So when you play 12 more games as OT did, you are going to have more shots. Is that so hard to discern? It's not, so why did you fudge the numbers?
