I am talking to you, you’re a Wolves fan. I’m not talking about the Kings either so not sure why you are taking other unsuccesful franchises into the conversation.
He did a bit more than that, calling him a fecking bum.
You love to see it, they flapping their gums with nothing behind to back it up, good for Klay. Also, some players are really weirdAnd no one told you that they will definitely compete for a ring in the next five years. That's the strange thing about your point, no one made that claim, no one supported it. The point was about a rivalry between two teams which you turned into the Wolves are shit and will mess things up.
Even though I did my top 10 alphabetically, when I thought about it I have Curry 9th. I left Wilt out because although he was one of the most dominant players ever, from everything you read he was a terrible team mate and and a bit of an ass. Hakeem was on the outside for me because although he was an all time great, in the same way that KD joining the Dubs or Kyrie and Kevin Love being out in 2015 gets held against Steph and the Warriors, Hakeem's greatest years ('94 and '95) were both when Jordan was out playing baseball. Probably not fair for either Hakeem or Steph but when you get to such rarefied air as top 10 all time these things matter. Steph (for me) has just validated his legacy with this year's win and removed any so called asterisks and so I moved him ahead of Hakeem as well.
He signed for the Warriors. It's a bummer that he went there because it made the league lop-sided and meant we didn't get to see Steph Curry be the obvious main guy for several years but also because it doesn't seem like Durant's relationship with the Warriors is that great these days and he didn't get all that he was looking for from that move (minus the championships of course).
Gonna be impossible, who can give a fair assessment of the old players?
Unless you are 95 or more you are not going to have had the opportunity to have seen every eligible player and be able to make an informed value judgment about them. What it seems people do is that they use lists generated by people who did see these older players to help them.
Totally forgot about Oscar Robertson, absolutely as good as anyone who ever played.
So how you gonna make a rivalry if you don’t wanna say they’re gonna compete for a ring? First round series don’t create rivalries.
Which is where the caveat I started the sentence with comes into play. Otherwise I don't see any rivalry.
I said a king, not the king
In what world do we live in where Melo is king of the league?!
You do realise Kobe was in the league before Melo right?
The lowest scoring champion since Melo came into the league was KD who averaged 27.7
And the last time the NBA scoring champ averaged closer to 20 than 30 was in the 1950s.
I'm not sure the NBA intentionally altered the game to increase scoring. Stephen Curry showed up and players started hitting 3s instead of 2s.I said a king, not the king
I guess my memory is crap, I should have looked the scoring charts up first. Scoring was significantly lower, anyway, they intentionally altered the game to make it higher scoring. It was harder to score 25/g in the days of Carmelo hanging out among the top scorers.
The players who exceled in that era are generally overlooked, like Duncan and Carmelo.
That's what I've read.
It's largely due to pace but one has to wonder. The average pace decreased between 1995 and 2005, interestingly people don't consider that this period is the anomaly when statistically it is, the pace decreased and slowly went back to pre-95 numbers.
Pace was definitely an important factor, but the Curry factor is also pretty big. Prior to Steph, players didn't take as many 3s because it was thought that they couldn't make them at a high enough percentage to incentivize the 3 vs the 2. Once Steph came along and not only made them at a high percentage but at a significant volume other players/teams began to notice and started to replicate what he started. The league has never looked back.
Taking an early 3 was a betrayal of the basics of basketball, ask Phil Jackson and he'll tell you the essence of basketball is passing. Taking a 3 without feeding the post was like giving up. And taking a lot of 3s was just not done, and while Nash had success trying to change that, he didn't succeed in the playoffs, and I think this slowed the transition.
I mean, it is also weird to be thinking about something someone said in the regular season, on twitter, after you've won a title, despite playing worse than Wiggins...
Are you sure you're thinking of Melo? He played his entire career when they changed the hand-checking rules to make it easier to score and that was the biggest change in the league's offense till Steph came around.I said a king, not the king
I guess my memory is crap, I should have looked the scoring charts up first. Scoring was significantly lower, anyway, they intentionally altered the game to make it higher scoring. It was harder to score 25/g in the days of Carmelo hanging out among the top scorers.
The players who exceled in that era are generally overlooked, like Duncan and Carmelo.
I think they changed the hand checking rules in 04/05 which made it easier for offenses to score as well.
That would be the case if the current pace and scoring was unseen pre 95 but it's not. Total scoring is linked to pace, you can look at basketball reference and you will see it, similar pace ranges put teams in similar scoring ranges. And the 1995-2005 happens to be a low pace era.
No, I definitely agree. It's pretty self evident when you think about it. The higher the pace, the more shots you're going to put up the more points you're going to score. What is not being considered though is how much defenses have improved in recent times. They are way more sophisticated than in days gone by, yet the scoring numbers are still high. The 3 vs the 2 is a big reason for that and Curry is the poster child for the 3.
The problem is that paint and post defense hasn't improved. And it was the bread and butter of pre 90s basketball. There isn't much to support any superiority when it comes to defense, the NBA was different and played differently but with the same results at the exception of the 95-05 period which to me is interesting and I don't really know why that period is different. Why the pace went down that drastically?
The backcourt in the era were filled with players who were iso ball and obsessed with trying to score in the paint over the larger guy.
You are likely onto something because superficially it seems that it's based on a particular generation of players. I wonder what created that focus on iso and presumably half court offense with less fast transition.
I'm not sure I could say for sure whether paint and post defense has regressed in any way. You certainly don't see players posting up like they used to. The general consensus (and somewhat lazy argument) seems to be "well, the game has changed." While that is true, the question should be "why has the game changed?" Could it be that defenses have figured out how to defend players in the post? If that is not the case (and IMLTHO, I don't think it is) why don't they post up as much as they used to? My answer goes back to my previous argument - in the paint you still only get 2 points. Hence the 3 ball is king.
I said that it hasn't improved not that it's better, I also wouldn't say that it has regressed because teams are able to defend the paint and post when they don't play small lineups. Regarding your last point when it comes 2s vs 3s, it's not exactly a paint vs 3s question but long mid range shots vs 3s. The shooting charts encouraged by teams is 3s or paints points whether they come from post ups, pick and roll, layups or drives.
Watching MJ highlights and wanting to be the next MJ.
Or that's just where most bigs get their shots off nowadays because they try to avoid contact.
I would say and instead of or. But that's a valid point.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
There's the 5 seconds closely guarded rule now, called the Mark Jackson rule, you can no longer grind in the post, it greatly changed the game.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
What a sad story. He was drafted just 4 years ago too.
