lol, that game was SICK. i remember that. it's pretty neat how all the stars of the nba came to the great city of HOUSTON for a good cause.
Bird had a weak supporting cast. Olajuwon had a weak supporting cast. It wasn't star-studded? The Rockets didn't have a single star outside of Olajuwon. That's a big reason Olajuwon is widely considered a fringe top 10 GOAT player (in the modern era). You said Paul was in the same tier as Magic which is incorrect b/c Magic is in a tier that consists only of extraordinary athletes who became MVPs/champions. Sure, its a convenient narrative....but does that make it untrue? Pippen was 33 when he joined the Rockets. Since when is a 33 year old player past his prime? Yes, but do you think Pippen would've attained that level of effectiveness had he not played alongside Jordan for so many years?
Only in half-court sets, arguably. Magic is easily the best ever in the open court. Bird ran transition, too. Walton and Sabonis are in a different class. PGs and Bird can pass from all over the court, and with back to the basket and facing the basket with dribble and shooting threats that Walton and Sabonis can't match, although they did have an advantage by drawing the centers out of rim protection that no one else could do.
Basically I cant wait for the first Warriors vs Spurs game. Kawhi defense vs curry offense will be fun to see.
Judging from this video, bob Cousy would be great in any era. There's a play here at 6:15 I have never even seen used by anyone else: Cousy fakes a shot, but in fact the ball was already in his teammates hand, passed behind his back BEFORE that fake shot. #Magic.
I just watched all FGAs by Curry vs Spurs last year. Kawhi never guarded him. Not sure if Pops will do something different this year, but last year Spurs played GSW straight up with Kawhi on Iggy/Barnes and Parker on Curry.
I doubt they'd completely change their system, but they'd certainly tweak their system. It's far more likely that other teams would be at a disadvantage--teams today were partially prepared for this kind of play due to the 7SOL Suns, the Heat with Bosh as the center shooting from outside and the Spurs (who, while they didn't go full small ball, experimented with four-out basketball) and yet they're still completely unable to deal with the Warriors. Teams from the '80s and '90s would have no idea what was happening. It's also drastically overstated how much "hard fouls" would change things. People seem to have this concept of '80s basketball that it was one bodyslam after another. Yes, there was the occasional hard foul, just as there is now...the only difference is there wouldn't be a flagrant called, so no extra free throws, which hardly matters. The vast majority of '80s basketball was actually not very physical, which is why Jordan and other slashers went to the hoop with abandon--the "Bad Boys" Pistons were an anomaly (and response to those frequent rim runs) that spawned '90s grab-and-foul basketball. And even in the '90s, there's no common sense reason to believe that the Warriors would fold to hand checking. People seem to think that because Curry has a slight build, the Warriors are a bunch of weaklings. No one on the Warriors other than Curry (and maybe Livingston) has a slight build and Curry has shown that he can get ridiculous three-pointers off even when he's actively being fouled--more to the point, he can escape defenders with his handle and quickness and needs only a fraction of a second of daylight to shoot (well). Short of grabbing him (which has been a foul in every era), he's going to get away from any single defender, hand check or not. And if he's doubled, that's when the Warriors destroy teams.
Pop takes joy in taking the fun out of things. I think Curry would light up Parker. Parker is near the end.
I completely disagree about Bird and Olajuwon having weak supporting casts (and my comment about Olajuwon's team not being star-studded was SAYING there were no other stars...my point is that you don't need stars to have a strong supporting cast, if it's deep with good players). There's no way to prove it, obviously, but ascribing one player's Hall of Fame success to another player is pretty intellectually bankrupt. Hey, Chris Paul made Blake Griffin, so all of Griffin's success should actually be credited to Paul. Shaquille O'Neal made Kobe Bryant. Prove it wrong. Or, we could be sensible, and give players credit for their own successes. In Houston, he was essentially told to be a spot-up three-point shooter around Olajuwon and Barkley post-ups. That was obviously not his game and it had predictably poor results. He was tremendous in Portland, despite being on the downside of his career. Yes, because I prefer to evaluate Jordan for what he accomplished, rather than make up magical powers for him. He really should have made more Hall of Famers. Imagine if he had used his powers on John Paxson, Horace Grant, BJ Armstrong, etc. A whole team of Hall of Famers. Kind of lacked ambition just magicking up one Hall of Fame teammate.
Too lazy to follow the complete conversation, but perhaps "weak teammates" for Olajuwon is only relative to other greats.... which is true. Bird... not sure how his help could ever be considered weak. He won 3 titles, but not 3 FMVPs. No it isn't..... if people are honest. It doesn't have to be one or the other.... there is middle ground. So you're saying, players can make others worse, but not better Jordan's combination of stats/accomplishments/skills makes an easy argument for GOAT. Doesn't matter what HOFs he made.
True it wasn't WWE out there but it was a much tougher league little guys did not go down low. The hand check would have been a bigger deal for curry imo. Sure he would get free but having w big defender being able to put his hand on you would have severely slowed him down. He's not Isaiah Thomas and elite athlete with quick first step and massive verticle. Curry is like anti that he gets free with his handles and more so his head fakes, He has some of the best iv ever seen. Maybe the best. You can't teach that part of the game I only new one player growing up when I played ball in high school that incorporated head fakes with his dribble like curry does now it's special. Prob the most under appreciated aspect of his game.
My point is Curry's ability to create space by attracting defenders other than his own man is hard to capture but undoubtedly "assists" in his teammates scoring
Point is well taken, you can't have Lebron without MJ, Kidd without Magic, etc... But as much as you can extrapolate from 50-60 year old information, Cousy never had the dominant impact of Magic, Bird, etc.... Yet he shows up on top 5 all time PG lists all the time. I'm not saying he isn't top 10 or 15, and I overstated when I said Curry makes him look mediocre, but pretty much every one of those franchise caliber PG's has had more of an impact on his team than Cousy. Chris Paul, for example. Anyway, even through 20 games (and last season), what Curry is doing to defenses is completely unprecedented. If he keeps this up even for a few years, what he's doing will go down as one of the greatest stretches in NBA history. We are watching something special and the only thing limiting him is health.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Steph Curry has shot 354 3s since the last one was blocked. It was back in March, by DeMarre Carroll, at the end of the shot clock</p>— Ethan Strauss (@SherwoodStrauss) <a href="https://twitter.com/SherwoodStrauss/status/672810920230461440">December 4, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Yeah, forgot about Walton. Of course, big men have different roles. They don't handle the ball in transition. But Walton's outlet passing was a beauty.
You're definitely wrong about Olajuwon. The 1994 Rockets had a weak supporting cast. How often does a championship team have only 1 all-star? I can only remember 3 (2003 Spurs, 1994 Rockets, 2011 Mavs). And 2 of those guys are considered top 10 GOATS. Regarding Bird, look at the Celtics during his rookie season and the year before his rookie season. Without Bird, they were a 29 win team. With Bird, a 61 win team. The following year, they traded for Parish, added a rookie McHale, and won the title. Sure thing. A lot of Griffin's early success CAN be credited to Chris Paul. But his recent development of shooting, post up game, and ball-handling skills is all his own. There's no way that CP3 could reasonably improve those facets of Griffin's game since they have completely different body structures and playing styles. The same thing can be said about Kobe/Shaq. On the other hand, Pippen and Jordan played SF and SG which are interchangeable with each other. Do you really think Pippen would've evolved into such a defensive force if he didn't have the luxury of competing against Jordan every day in practice? Seriously? He was shooting 3's at around 34% at the time. Why would we pay him the max if we were only going to use him as a 3 point shooter? Does not compute. We acquired him to be the same all-around player he was in Chicago. It's not surprising he flourished in Portland. At the time, they were widely considered the deepest team in the league. As a result, Pippen was asked to do less. You can only mold and mentor a player who is physically/athletically comparable to yourself. That's why Jordan was such an effective mentor to Pippen. And that's why Olajuwon was an ineffective teacher for Dwight but was able to improve Kobe's turnaround fadeaway.
The Warriors would have more problems on defense and rebounding in the old rules than they would on offense. As good as Green is, Dream would eat him alive 1:1, and the Warriors wouldn't be able to rebound by committee when everyone is forced to play man.
why do people bring up the 90s when trying to downplay Curry? Curry was a kid in the 90s. It's 2015. Who actually liked hand check rules? Who actually likes players getting clotheslined when driving to the hoop? I'm glad the NBA went away from 88-77 games we saw from 95-2004. It was ugly as all hell. I like ball movement. I like people being able to shoot without getting assaulted. This isn't football. You know what I don't like? Iverson dribbling for 22 seconds and then jacking up a shot. That era sucked. Today's NBA requires players to be more intelligent than in years past and I think it's great. I'm sure in 1985 there were people complaining that Jordan and Bird would have sucked in the 50s back when players had to fly coach and fans could smoke in the arenas. I'm sure in the 70s people were saying George Mikan would average 50 a game if he played by 70s rules. It's 2015. 1995 is long gone. Just like hand check rules, jnco jeans, Super Nintendo, and caveman basketball. Curry is great. End of story. He's fun to watch. Anything that makes non basketball fans want to watch the NBA is a good thing.
