And that changes nothing about how it isn't a badge of honor to have a crap shooting percentage with volume scoring. (Twice he was the leading scorer for the Mavs with a FG% under 40)
He was the leader of a team that managed to beat a team with three max players, two of which are considered top 5 in the league. I still maintain that yes, he didn't shoot well in the finals (data somewhat skewed by his horrible shooting in the last game), but I wouldn't call that bad.
Dirk was the best player on the floor in the finals, he deserves all the praise he is getting. Him winning at 32 reminds me of Hakeem finally getting there in his 30s...both great players who put their teams on their respective backs and just did the job. I doubt Dirk gives two craps where he is ranked on any all time list, whereas Lebron cares about that stuff....which is probably why Dirk is the champion and LeBron is not. DD
Although I agree with others that you are putting too much of an emphasis on shooting percentage, I agree that he did not have a good Finals. If your star is taking that many shots and missing them, it'll certainly hurt the offense, as evident by the game being really close despite some insane performances by JJ Barea and Jason Terry. On the otherhand, it was big that Dirk was able to hit so many key shots at the end of games. For me, it's more important to step it up when it counts than have a good finals overall. The Mavs don't win without Dirk's late game heroics, despite how they dug the hole in the first place.
Is this the guy? Spoiler No I don't think he was the 2nd best player on the court yesterday. Don't give Dirk too much credit. Miami's coach deserves all the credit.
In the context of this discussion about "greatest of all time" players, I look at his Finals performance as a negative for his career (Other than the whole winning it thing, which is undoubtedly going to help in the eyes of most)... hence the "pretty bad" comment. But on an individual level, he just didn't excel like I figured he would. So, now I'm tempering my expectations for him. And I don't put him in the top 5 because of it. Maybe he'll get another crack at it and go bonkers though. This finals reminded me of the 05 pistons-lakers series somewhat. A good team beats unorganized superstars any day. The Heat will be back, and they'll be better. They looked like noobs out there at times, and I'm sure some more time together will do their chemistry well. Mavs repeating is going to be really, really hard. But that will be as good of a chance as any for Dirk to force his way into the top 5 with more hardware.
Sorry, it was 03-04, not 04-05. My bad. You win all the preceding arguments because I f**ked up something by one year. Grats bro, well played.
Dirk was the best player in the finals and if he had a bad finals then wade and company had a TERRIBLE finals
Dirk spent most of his time guarding either Anthony (no offense) or Haslem (not a primary offensive player). Chandler was usually matched up against Bosh and Marion usually guarded Lebron. Let's imagine Mike Bibby guarded Jason Kidd the whole time he was on the court and Wade guarded Jason Terry. Would you call Bibby the better defender because his man scored less? Would you credit Bibby's defense if Wade shut down Terry? That's essentially what you're doing by using Chandler's and Marion's great defense as proof that Dirk's isn't that bad.
Why do you think Lebron cares about that stuff? Isn't he the guy that tarnished his legacy forever by joining two top players in Miami so that he could have fun playing with his best friends, or be the sidekick, or whatever else people want to say? Did Dirk choke in the Finals in 2006 (like Lebron did this year) because he did care about his all-time ranking back then? Or did both guys just really pick a bad time to play like ****?
well a lot of ppl are handing this guy the GOAT title. as far as Dirk. He was Finals MVP. Maybe you're one of those guys who wanted to give it to DWade? As if he had a Jerry West-like performance? yeah right...
Some of us have agreed with you that his shooting was below par (for him certainly) for the series, but pretty much all agree you're taking it too far. There's got to be a reason that regardless of what sportsradio station I listen to today, pretty much EVERYBODY is lauding Dirk for doing what he did, which was continue to shoot even though his rythm wasn't there for some games like it was earlier in the playoffs. Meanwhile Lebron, 9-15 last night, 2-5 on threes... except for the FT misses, a supremely efficient game, is being continually dissed and ridiculed. Everybody recognizes he didn't shoot well. It doesn't mean he didn't have a good series. He did. The fact of the matter is the games were close in the 4th quarter. Moreover, there doesn't seem to be much correlation between his shooting and when the games were close. His best game, statistically, was Game 3... which they lost...?? But according to you they should have run away with that one because he was hitting his shots early? Whatever the math says, we all saw Dirk dominate fourth quarters pretty much every freaking game. Whether it was his fault for not blowing the game out earlier or not, who knows... who cares? we all place a different emphasis on 4th quarters - that's why there are so many questions about who's the best closer, who'se Miami's closer, is Lebron a closer, etc., etc. Dirk beasted in this category, and that makes up for average shooting, imo.
dude.. you cant look at stats for everything. One of the reasons why Terry was able to do what he did out there was cause the D of miami was so focussed on stopping Dirk. Dirk is that anchor of that team and you take him out the Mavs get swept and Terry will be locked down. That is why he won MVP. He was clearly the MVP of the series, playoffs, finals
Houston sports radio is probably the one thing you don't want to reference in order to make your point. (barf) I guess I can give him props for continuing to shoot despite being slumpy, but I can also criticize him for missing them. So? How? He was statistically worse in nearly every category compared to either his playoff averages and his regular season averages. He had teammates who did much better than their averages, while he did worse. And this changes Dirk's poor shooting, how? Dirk is not the whole team. And Dirk hitting shots doesn't force Miami to miss theirs. In game 3, the rest of the Mavs played like dogcrap. According to me, the games they were close in (game 2 and 4, in particular), they would've won handily had Dirk shot better before the 4th. And there's the heart of argument again. Someone placing more importance on points in the 4th quarter vs. points at any other point during the game. The simple fact remains, if you hit your shots before the 4th quarter, the buzzer beater is irrelevant. Hitting a buzzer beater doesn't automatically mean you had a good game regardless of how poorly you shot from the field.
You can make that argument all you want, and it's the only real legitimate one I've heard, but it's pretty hard to prove. And either way, it still doesn't excuse somebody shooting so poorly. If you're being doubled, don't jack up a bad shot... find the open man. If Dirk had a good series with the Miami D all over him, wouldn't his point total be down, but his FG% remain relatively the same, while his assist and rebound numbers going up?
