That's because you are far too young to be making comments like this. Clyde was so good it isn't fair. He was every bit Micheal's equal. If you don't think Clyde was better than Wade, you either never seen him play or you don't no basketball. One of the two. You pick. Clyde took a bunch of role players to the finals. Before Michael even got there. But, but, but Micheal is the greatest of all time. LOL, this thread is funny.
<iframe width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/oU-vSeXskRY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Signed, The Glide
He was really, REALLY damn close at one point in time... That said, Wade is a monster, that can easily compete with either of them...
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People really don't factor this in enough when judging how great of a player Kobe is. He takes a lot of shots but no more than Jordan, Nique, West, and Gervin were taking. His 81 pt game is the single most dominant scoring display in NBA history even counting Wilts 100 game.
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No it is not. Not even close... 81 against the Raptors, or 63 in a playoff game against the CELTICS.... Intelligence wins...
I think people really underestimate the impact the change in the hand-checking rule has had on the game. I'm not saying that one rule automatically means players of the 80's/early 90's have a "leg-up" per say... BUT I happen to think it does. I know from personal experience playing bball, it is much much easier to guard someone on the perimeter if I can hand-check them. So consider someone like Clyde, for example, who had to deal with that defense throughout his career. And then on top of that, he had to deal with much better interior defenders. MUCH BETTER. Fact is, it's just a guard/forward game now. The rules are skewed significantly in their favor, compared to years past. Clyde never shot more than 587 FT's in a season - which he did in a year he played 81 games. Wade shot 803 FT's in 75 games one year. He has 3 other years of greater than 700 FTs (all in years he played less than 80 games). This year, despite the addition of Lebron, Wade still shot 652 FTs in 76 games. In all, Dwayne shoots 9.1 ft per game to Clyde's 5.5. Wade has played slightly more mpg, but not enough of a difference to make the FT disparity insignificant. "But, Wade is much better at attacking the basket" you say? Um, are you crazy? Did you watch Drexler play... at all? Sure, part of it is Wade being great at attacking, fearless in drawing contact... but again, it's almost impossible to say Wade is more fearless than Clyde was.. at least to anyone who watched Clyde. I realize it's only focusing on 1 stat... but I think it is very very telling about the changes in the game. Also, consider that much of Clyde's career, though the 3 pointer was in place, it was not used like it is today. So there's an impact on stats there as well. Clyde failed to shoot over 30% on threes until his 8th year in the league. So that hurts his statistical comparison, and his PER, etc. But then, he only took 4 threes his entire rookie year, and never took more than 60 his first 5 years. Conversely, all the more credit to Wade and James defensively, where they are both considered great great perimeter defenders, which is much harder to do these days. Would I still place Wade above Clyde? Probably, when it is all said an done. But I think it is much closer than people think. Wade has higher PER's, but I contend that a lot of that is due to the changes in the game. just food for thought. I know for sure that MJ and Kobe are ahead of Wade, and at this point in his career, and given the way the Heat are now composed, there is little that Wade can plausibly do going forward to change that. After that, when his career is done, Wade is likely to be at or near #3 on the list, out of a group that includes him, West, Clyde, Earl Monroe, Havlicheck, George Gervin.
Kobe scored 81 shooting a higher percentage, taking much more difficult shots, and taking 12 less free throws. I would think intelligence would factor in things like that.
Sorry read your post too fast and thought you were still talking about Wilt. The Jordan game comes closer.
Kobe still has to get the nod though because Jordan scored 63 points in a double overtime game. Jordan basically had 5 quarters and Kobe only had 4 which is another factor intellingence might factor in.
It wasn't the worst defensive team in NBA history and nobody dropped 81 shooting 61% from the field and 53% from behind the arc against those other bad teams or the Raptors that year.
I like Wade and his skills and think that he's a great player but he resorts to this kind of thing too much.
because teams were blowing out the raptors through 3 quarters and didn't start stat padding in the 4th
