Yeah that's a good point. Best HW of all time IMO but not #1 p4p, that belongs to GSP IMO
Kevin Durant is a paper champion. Not even debatable.
Peyton Manning is a regular season legend. Post season he's a bum.
He's better than Scottie Pippen ever was.
Okay?
this was pretty interesting, from a mail bag from one of espn's stat guys Pelton mail: Greatest defensive players of modern era
"If you were to pick five players to make your all-time defensive team, who would it be?"
-- Midilan
I'm not going to do an all-time defensive team because it's difficult, if not impossible, for me to evaluate players before at least the mid-1970s. Before that, there were no meaningful individual defensive statistics, and obviously I never saw those players play. Instead, here is my defensive team since 1990, with a couple of ground rules:
1. We're talking about building a team for a season, not a single game or possession, so I'm not going to choose star players with high defensive peaks when motivated who weren't as valuable over the course of the season.
2. Since it's a team, players have to play their typical position.
3. We're importing the prime versions of these players to 2017, so they should be capable of playing a modern style of game. This naturally favors current players over those who peaked in the 1990s.
With those rules noted, my team:
Point guard: Chris Paul
Ideally, I'd probably like someone taller than 6-foot at point guard. But Paul is plenty capable of switching and defending bigger players -- he has defended Kevin Durant for extended periods in the playoffs -- and his quick hands, pattern recognition and relentless pursuit of a competitive advantage earn him the nod over Patrick Beverley, Jason Kidd and young Gary Payton.
Shooting guard: Tony Allen
Despite my first rule, Michael Jordan is very much a candidate for this spot. But if we're talking purely defensive value, I'm going with Allen, who is the only guard in the top 20 in career defensive box plus-minus. His relentless effort and energy make Allen first team on my team.
Small forward: Scottie Pippen
I'm giving Pippen a narrow edge over Kawhi Leonard, one of two small forwards (Metta World Peace is the other) to win Defensive Player of the Year in this timeframe. Pippen can defend all five positions for us and is ideal in a switch-heavy defense.
Power forward: Draymond Green
As much as anyone, Green benefits from the modern focus of my team. As good as Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett were at power forward in their prime, they're considered primarily as centers here. Green is more capable of defending smaller modern 4s who are comfortable beyond the arc.
Center: Ben Wallace
Naturally there's no shortage of candidates at center, including the aforementioned two combo big men (one of whom, Duncan, I once argued was the best defender in modern history in terms of career value), plus Dikembe Mutombo, Hakeem Olajuwon and many more. Yet it's Wallace who has the three greatest seasons in modern history by defensive box plus-minus and three of the top five by defensive RPM (the other two are outlier seasons by Shawn Bradley and Jason Collins). Wallace led perhaps the best defense I've ever seen, the 2003-04 Detroit Pistons, and though he's been retired for five years, his athleticism would fit perfectly in the modern game. So he anchors my all-defensive team.
Pelton is 17 years old and he's a racist pedophile who kills mail-order ladyboys.
this is an even worse take than the Scottie Pippen hottake, & that was a tough one to top.
He abandoned his team to win a title as an add on with someone else's.
Have you seen how bad Paul George & Carmelo are on the Thunder this year? There's no way that he'd win a title in OKC, Westbrook is a horrible teammate. Also, that has nothing to do with his playing ability
Does anyone call either of them the best player in the league? It has everything to do with his playing ability. Remember when Kobe, Jordan, Bird, Thomas, and Magic were all running to 70 win teams the first chance they got so that they could have their day in the sun? Yeah, me neither.
Paul George has been a top 15 player for several years, he's not top 50 playing with Westbrook. Anthony's offense has gotten even less efficient with Westbrook, & that's incredible on its own, Durant managed to be the 2nd best player in the league playing with him. He was also the best player on the floor, a floor that also had LeBron on it, in last season's finals. By any stat worth a damn he's continued to be the 2nd best player in the league over the regular season since joining a team with other high usage players. The only way you can overrate Durant is if you call him the GOAT
Did LeBron have 2 time MVP Steph Curry on his team?
no but he had 2 future hall of famers on his side
You mean in Miami?
Cleveland
Fucking, lol.
The other place the argument falls apart is that both Cleveland and GS won titles without KD being involved.
you're a bigger idiot than Mix. Take a look at what Love did before coming to Cleveland or what Irving is doing this year, the stats will suffer a bit when people play with the 2nd best player of all time, but luckily hall of fame voters know this & aren't retards. Their stats were/are still good in Cleveland, & Love has very efficient, a very good passer, all while averaging a double-double.
that doesn't cause the argument to fall apart at all, b/c they have these things called "stats" & "advanced metrics" that measure who made the most positive impact on the game for their team. Those stats & metrics say he's been the 2nd best player in the league over the last several seasons, & they also say he was the best player on his team & outplayed the best player in the league in the finals.
Remember when GS set the win record and won a title without KD? Yeah, they needed him real bad.
I can't believe you're trying to put Love and Irving in the same category as Steph Curry.
Ffs, even KD knows it:
That has nothing to do with how good of a player Durant is. At least throw some sort of stat or metric out there to back up your case b/c Skip Bayless would even be embarrassed with how you evaluate players
I didn't say they were equal to Curry, I said they were future hall of famers
When did I ever say or imply that Durant is a bad player? I said he's over rated and a paper champion. He's both of those things you're not even making a case against either of them. You're actually just talking about how good he is; which supports my original statement that he's overrated.
You said he's the most overrated player in the NBA. Well, he's the 2nd best player & if Lebron wasn't forced to be the entire Cavs offense & instead was having a typical year for him, a good case could be made Durant's the best this year with the leap his defense has made. So unless the popular consensus is he's the greatest of all time, it's just about impossible to make Durant the most overrated player in basketball. If you have anything to support your case besides dumbass, Skip Bayless-esque narratives, I'd like to see it
Remember when they won the title last season and people were calling him the best player in the league when it could argues he isn't even the best player on his team? Yeah, that.