Dr J vs Durant

[Black Feet]

Prime only, who was the better player?

[Quotatious]

I think that Erving was better, at least assuming we're talking about the ABA version of Doc. 1976 Erving was quite possibly the third best wing of all-time, after Jordan and LeBron (and he was also similar to MJ and LBJ - super athletic, great all-around player capable of carrying a team by himself), it's possibly a top 10 peak of all-time. It's fairly close because as great of a scorer as Erving was, Durant is even better (especially better long-range shooter).
However, if we use any NBA version of Dr. J, then KD is arguably just as good (at least 2013 and 2014 versions, but maybe even also 2012, considering how great KD was in the playoffs that year ). Doc was still great in the NBA (especially between 1980 and '82, when he was a top 3 player every year, arguably even the second best - it was Kareem, Moses and Doc - then Magic and Bird a little below, in my opinion), but I think that Doc peaked in the ABA.

[Dr Spaceman]

I was hoping to hear from MojoRisin'...

Anyway, are you talking peak? Because Duran't prime is obviously worse since he's 27. Anyway, I'll echo my concerns there: namely that I haven't done enough research to understand how to interpret Dr. J's ABA peak (76) and how to weigh it when considering the fact that his stats went way down in the NBA. Hurts that we don't have any footage.

And another concern of mine is how poorly his defense looked in the games I've seen from 77, especially Finals. He was getting beat backdoor James Harden/Wade in the 2014 Finals style, and running right into screens and dying during that series. I'd like to know if there's a reason this wasn't representative of his true abilities.

Here's tree's post form the last topic:

I agree.

wrt your comments on Erving's defense in '77 finals (more on his defense in general)......
I definitely cannot claim to be any sort of authority on Dr. J, and haven't seen what I would call A LOT of in-game footage of him. But what I note is that his man-to-man D is merely OK (neither bad nor special to my eye); where he makes up some difference, imo, is as a help defender. His length/reach, speed, and leaping made him an elite-level shot-blocker for the SF position, good at playing passing lanes, too.

Comparison to me looks as follows....
1) Based on the above, I definitely have to give Erving a defensive edge over Durant. How big is that edge? Well, that's certainly open for debate.
2) Rebounding is pretty much a wash. Gun to my head, I suppose I give the edge to Erving; but it's pretty negligible.
3) I'd have to give Durant the tiny edge as a passer/playmaker.
4) And then there's scoring, where I think Durant has the clear edge (and perhaps a substantial one). To me, it's perfectly reasonable to throw around '14 Durant in the discussion of greatest pure scorer seasons ever. The guy was phenomenal: 41.8 pts/100 at 63.5% ts (+9.4% to league average) while playing 38.5 mpg, and not turning the ball over too excessively either, particularly considering the amount of play-making he did. That's seriously in the "holy ****!" category of great scoring. And we can't lay too much credit at Westbrook's feet; he's a good playmaker, but not great. Not to mention there were a few instances (in the Thunder playoff games I saw, anyway), where I thought Westbrook was doing a bit too much hero-balling instead of getting it to Durant.
5) Intangibles. Based on reputation and anecdote, I may give the edge to Erving, though I don't think it can be by a big margin (Durant's certainly not a problematic teammate).


So where does that put us? idk, but I certainly agree it's open for debate.

It is interesting that you hold Durant as the superior playmaker, given that J was a 5+ assist guy during his ABA peak. Agree on Durant as a scorer, and I'm inclined to give him the edge until I hear more about Erving's defense.

[Quotatious]

And another concern of mine is how poorly his defense looked in the games I've seen from 77, especially Finals. He was getting beat backdoor James Harden/Wade in the 2014 Finals style, and running right into screens and dying during that series. I'd like to know if there's a reason this wasn't representative of his true abilities.

Based on what I've seen, Doc was generally a mediocre (about average or slightly below) 1 on 1 defender, but excellent help defender. His combined steals/blocks numbers are AK47/Marion-like. His teams were very good defensively for most of his career (for example his Nets teams were #1 in the ABA twice, and #2 once, when he played for them), he has really high career DWS and DBPM (obviously we don't have anything like RAPM for Erving, so really we can't hope for anything better than boxscore-related stats, which are far from ideal when it comes to measuring defense, obviously...). I'd say he was definitely a positive on D (and there are some indications that he was even very good as a Net).

As far as the '77 Sixers, that team was really dysfunctional during the playoffs, their teamwork was really bad during that series against Portland, and the Blazers were obviously an excellent offensive team that moved the ball and themselves very well, and was able to take advantage of any defensive shortcomings of their opponents. It made for a really bad combination for the Sixers.
Sixers were pretty good defensively during the '76-'77 regular season, though (4th of 22 teams).

All things considered, I'd put Erving over Durant pretty handily, as a defender.

[Johnlac1]

And another concern of mine is how poorly his defense looked in the games I've seen from 77, especially Finals. He was getting beat backdoor James Harden/Wade in the 2014 Finals style, and running right into screens and dying during that series. I'd like to know if there's a reason this wasn't representative of his true abilities.

Based on what I've seen, Doc was generally a mediocre (about average or slightly below) 1 on 1 defender, but excellent help defender. His combined steals/blocks numbers are AK47/Marion-like. His teams were very good defensively for most of his career (for example his Nets teams were #1 in the ABA twice, and #2 once, when he played for them), he has really high career DWS and DBPM (obviously we don't have anything like RAPM for Erving, so really we can't hope for anything better than boxscore-related stats, which are far from ideal when it comes to measuring defense, obviously...). I'd say he was definitely a positive on D (and there are some indications that he was even very good as a Net).

As far as the '77 Sixers, that team was really dysfunctional during the playoffs, their teamwork was really bad during that series against Portland, and the Blazers were obviously an excellent offensive team that moved the ball and themselves very well, and was able to take advantage of any defensive shortcomings of their opponents. It made for a really bad combination for the Sixers.
Sixers were pretty good defensively during the '76-'77 regular season, though (4th of 22 teams).

All things considered, I'd put Erving over Durant pretty handily, as a defender.

That's true, but the '77 Sixers also had in Henry Bibby, maybe the worst starting pg for any team that ever made the finals. It got so bad that Gene Shue actually had center Caldwell Jones bring the ball up the floor the latter games of the series.
Bibby was a small shooting guard miscast as a pg. Maurice Cheeks was a huge improvement when he was a rookie a few seasons later.
But even with their semi-disorganized offense, the Sixers almost took game six missing two real good shots in the last minute to go to OT. If they go back to Philly, anything could have happened.