It tells me there are better basketball players in the world than than the ones that currently reside in the NBA. The skill level of todays NBA players is way above most of the "old time" players. The problem is their ability to think.
OK, if that is your barometer, how do you square this with the fact that American teams (containing old time collegiate players) were regularly beaten in the Basketball world championships in the 50's and 60's, by international teams thatweren't as good as the ones today? What about the fact that Earl "the Goat" Manigeault was by far the best streetball player back in the 60's, and beat teams w/Jabbar, et al - what does that mean? That the 60's players were no good? According to your "reasoning" it does, though I use that term loosely as it's so so swiss cheesy I'm in freaking Zurich, pops.
Garnett is well-rounded, yes. He's a truly great player. Heck, I MIGHT even consider him in my top 50. But people who say Garnett should be in over... oh... Kevin McHale? Bill Walton? Garnett has never been as dominant a force as either of those guys. McHale in particular was UNSTOPPABLE in the post. Garnett could never claim that.
Do you have any idea just exactly how good all of those guys you are wanting to take off are? What is really funny is that just about every person on the list you want removed was an absolute dominate player on an NBA power house champion. And just about no one on the list you are wanting to put on even has an NBA ring. Do you even know that a guy like Kevin McHale is still arguably the best power forward to ever play the game? He is easily in a class with guys like Karl Malone or Tim Duncan. Yes there are new players that are certainly deserving of being on that list. Tim Duncan, KG and Kobe are the only ones on your list that I would consider though. The problem is who are they better than. The only player on the top 50 that is not deserving of being on that list IMO is Scottie Pippen. Never, ever in a million years would I even consider taking off someone like Pete Marovich, James Worthy or Kevin McHale for someone like Allen Iverson.
And apparently KC was hella smart of a guy. Nique, at least is in the hall already. What about Adrian Dantley ? Averaged 30 ppg on like 60% FG, and was the leading scoring for championship teams to boot. Didn't even make the HOF.
now that was a weak comeback. yes espn told us lebron is good. just because life stopped in about 1973 for you and you think everything that has happened since has apparently been **** compared to then doesn't make it true.
Yeah, you have to remember the context. It was the 50 greatest players while the NBA was celebrating it's 50th birthday. Let's wait another 25 years at least and just have the top 75 at 75 and add 25 more players without removing a soul. Sorry if you can't make those 25, you are not worthy. Keep it special.
there is no way bill walton is a better all time nba player than garnett. no way. potential doesn't count. it sucks for walton that it happened like it did, but you have to have more than 3 good to great years to make the top 50. you just do. and while mchale has some serious fg% stats, his career high is 26 ppg and garnett's is 24, in a lower scoring era (though mchale had to defer to bird). how is mchale so unstoppable while garnett isn't? but i'll even give mchale the scoring edge (especially for the percentage), but mchale never went over 2.7 apg while garnett has surpassed 5 apg something like 6 times. mchale never went over 10 rpg (9.9 career high and 9.0 second highest) which isn't that great while garnett has topped it 8 times and has been over 13 three times. while mchale had lower blks/stls number (1.7 and .4 compared to 1.7 and 1.4), they both made about the same number of all-defensive teams so i'll even call them even on defense though i don't really see it. the biggest thing is mchale made one all-nba team, while garnett has made 7, in a pretty good power forward era. the numbers seem to suggest garnett is the better player and the all-nba's suggest he was better in his era. maybe you wanna still give the edge to mchale but lets not act like mchale is an untouchable top 50 player and that you might consider letting a league mvp with some of the best stats ever and some very good playoff stats into the top 50. as for iverson not being over maravich? what does pete have on him? fewer all-stars, fewer all-nba, less scoring, fewer apg, same turnovers and rebounds, fewer steals, similarly poor fg%, a total of 3 playoff appearances in his prime, none of which went past the first round. never was mvp. he seems to have significantly worse individual stats and accomplishments and has absolutely no team success to speak of. how can iverson take an obvious back seat to that?
Bill Walton was totally ridiculous in those few years. Certainly a bigger force than Garnett. You may think he should be punished for his injuries, but I don't. As for McHale, his stats would be noticably better than Garnett's if his team depended on him half as much as the Wolves depend on Garnett. What's more, he had a year where Larry Bird himself insisted that he should have been MVP, but that was never gonna happen when he was on the same team with Legend. The guy shot OVER 60% for two seasons, and he didn't do it with brute force! Come on, that's incredible!
18 ppg, 13.7 rpg, 4.3 apg, and 2.5 bpg on 50% shooting is not totally ridiculous. it's really good, but this wasn't hakeem or something. i know they won a title and he had that huge game in the finals so that's definitely worth something, but garnett has been league mvp and been at least as totally ridiculous at times. and you just can't reward 3 years versus a decade plus. well his team certainly wanted him to rebound i would think and he only even topped 9 twice. i'm sorry but that isn't out of this world production. neither is less than 3 apg almost every season. he scored similarly while assisting much less in a higher scoring era. while more of the offense goes through kg, bird wasn't averaging 40 or anything and the extra possessions back in the 80s would still help mchale. and i already agreed that his fg% was amazing. the biggest thing is 1 all-nba team. i don't care if bird was doing typical teammate-speak and said he should be mvp, you have to rack up more than 1 all-nba team selection to be head and shoulders above someone with 7 of them who also actually won the mvp. now i will give mchale huge credit for his appearances on Cheers. he clearly has kg beat in the sitcom category. his "must be laimbeer" line while looking at an adult male gorilla x-ray was friggin' hilarious.
In the NBA, I find it hard to believe that Walton was ever a consistent low post scoring threat on the level of Chamberlin, Malone, Olajuwon, Ewing...etc. I understand his tremendous all around skills, however brief they wree, but I don't know if I'm ready to concede that he would have scored 30 ppg had he wanted to.
walton also did some great pro-bono work on the side for the Dr. Julius Erving Poster Creating Company.
Wow! Great comeback! Larry Bird, Hakeem Olajuwon and Magic Johnson are 3 of the greatest players of all time. They played in the 60's, right?
Streetball player, excellent description of today's NBA players. No idea what language you are using here. Was pops an insult aimed at me?
Nate Archibald was the ONLY player to lead the NBA in scoring AND assists in a single season. Yet, there are people here who think he needs to be taken off this list for Grant Hill or Vince Carter.
But he wasn't today's player. He was yesterday's player. And he beat Wilt, Lew et al, over the course of one game in the offseason. Does that indict an entire generation of stars? You're arguing that the 2006 US team (none of which contain players from the 80's or 90's that people are talking about as being candidates for the top 50) having lost one game to Greece last week, is sufficient evidence to indict 15-20 years' worth of NBA players as being inferior. A stupid argument, but that's the one your making. But you're going to make it, why can't I indict an entire generation based on Kareem losing a summer league game at the Rucker league? You just decided to hang Kevin Garnett -- because a team he didn't even play on -- lost one game last friday. Surely I can say that Jerry West is trash because a contemporary of his once lost to a streetballer, right? Sort of, but it's your shoddy logic, in which you take two unrelated events and stitch them together with a healthy dose of "kids today!" which your average 4th grader wouldn't buy into, and that belies an individual of your eminence grise, which I have a problem with. Not your age.
