Outside wrote:Fundamentals21 wrote:It almost feels like we've been watching different players. You think it's no slight, but you're placing him 2 tiers lower than he really is.
- His defensive impact measures to be above average. A guard like Oscar Robertson would have to be roughly a Jason Kidd level defender to equal Dirk's impact on that end. He can certainly be an important piece to a good defense, even if he's not an anchor.
- Dirk is #8 all time in RS Defensive Rebounds.
- #15 all time in Defensive Rebounding % in Playoffs - Right between Tim Duncan and David Robinson. I think your assessment on his rebounding is off by a good amount.
I can't reconcile those rebounding stats with actual rebounding numbers that aren't that great. Here's a comparison with the players you mentioned:
Dirk -- career 7.8 TRB average, averaged double-figures in TRBs 0 times
Duncan -- career 10.8 TRB average, averaged double-figures in TRBs 13 times
Robinson -- career 10.6 TRB average, averaged double figures in TRBs 9 times
Dirk was a better rebounder in the playoffs, with a career 10.0 TRB playoff average, compared to Duncan at 11.4 and Robinson at 10.6. But we shouldn't disregard the regular season numbers or focus solely on the defensive end where Dirk did well and ignore the offensive end where Dirk didn't do well.
As for defense, he benefits by being part of a good defensive unit and having very good defenders around him. Like you said, it almost feels like we've been watching different players, because when I've watched Dirk (not just recently but over his career), I've seen a guy who is good at team position defense but not a good individual defender and not good at blocks (0.9 per game RS and PS compared to 2.2/2.3 for Duncan and 3.0/2.5 for Robinson). The year the Mavs won the title, Dirk was 11th on the team in defensive box +/-. On his most successful teams, he was always surrounded by great defenders. I'm not saying he's James Harden bad, just that he's a below average defender.
Fundamentals21 wrote:- I think your post implies that it's somewhat of a soft game that limits the offense. He seems to have the agility to take bigmen off the dribble and take it straight to the basket. What here limits my offense from being great?- Pick and Roll/High Post - One of the best in any era.
He is excellent in the high post PnR, but that's not because he takes it straight to the basket. He either uses the screen for an outside shot or, if he rolls, most often drives partway and does his patented step-back. A 7-footer who takes only 14.4% of his shots inside 3 feet isn't a finisher. Compare that to Duncan, who took 30.9% of his shots inside 3 feet, and Duncan is a guy well known for his outside shot.
I never characterized it as soft. Dirk has competitive fire, and I'd never characterize him as soft. I'm just discussing what he does well and what he doesn't.
Fundamentals21 wrote:- Playmaking - How much is this hurting my offense? I give him the ball, what is going wrong for the rest of my team due to his lack of assist totals? What limited the teams he worked with? At most you need an Old Jason Kidd to provide additional playmaking? I don't feel my team's lacking anything because of this critique - it's certainly not a hole you will have a difficult time overcoming. Dirk plays the type of game that DOES allow teammates to have good years in Dallas - namely centers and even average to mediocre guards like Monta Ellis. He benefits his teammates immensely.
Of course Dirk is helping when he scores, and no, I'm not expecting him to be Jason Kidd. But there are numerous all-time greats who were very good in multiple areas, and there are numerous all-time bigs who were far better playmakers than Dirk. Karl Malone, despite playing with John Stockton the vast majority of his career, still averaged 3.6 assists. Tim Duncan averaged 3.0. David Robinson averaged 2.5, the same as Dirk. Kevin McHale, known as "the black hole" because once the ball went into him, it never came out, averaged 1.7 assists. Dirk's not a black hole, but he's not great in that area, either.
I'm just trying to fairly assess the guy, and that requires looking at all areas, not disregarding the ones he doesn't shine in because he's so good at what he does well.
Fundamentals21 wrote:- I actually think overall you're massively underrating his Midrange ability as a scorer. I don't know if allergic to the paint really makes sense here. It appears like you're criticizing him for his play style more than anything else. Dirk can take it to the paint, but the Midrange has to be where most of his shots come from, as the spacing opens up the entire offense. The center benefits, the open man in the corner benefits, a guard with a good drive game benefits, etc. What is my offense missing?
No, mid-range is what Dirk does best, so I'm not underrating that at all. By "allergic to the paint," I meant the extremely low percentage of shots he took within 10 feet -- 14.4% from 0-3 feet, 8.4% from 3-10 feet, which means a whopping 77.2% of his shots came outside of 10 feet. That is what it is. You can spin that to say that he creates spacing that opens up opportunities for others, which it does and I agree with, but spacing is not a benefit that trumps everything else, and you can't claim that he finishes well at the rim or draws free throws at an elite level or stuff like that when he doesn't.
It seems to me that those promoting Dirk as a candidate at this level are disregarding his weaknesses or using one view of the stats prism to overstate his impact in certain areas. To me, a fair assessment requires looking at everything.
It's not that people are ignoring Dirk's weaknesses (his defense isn't at the level you'd expect from an ATG big man, that's no secret, and he isn't as good as the high-level guards in terms of creating off the dribble for others...again, no secret)...it's that you're using some really outdated and somewhat cherry-picked stats to draw these conclusions that have been proven to be pretty false about him.
-Not a good rebounder: again, this comes down to offensive strategy and how much Dirk commits to getting the offensive rebound vs getting back on defense...I have serious questions about how valuable offensive rebounds even are...to me, the most important rebounding numbers are defensive rebounds. And again, it's also important to note how Dirk improves on this and is actually better than quite a few players in the PS that you wouldn't normally think he was better than...but of course, you also have to look at prime Dirk, instead of post-prime Dirk, who did see a significant drop-off in his rebounding
01-11 Dirk DRB%, RS: 22.8%
90-00 K. Malone DRB%, RS: 24.5%
79-87 M. Malone DRB%, RS: 23.8%
01-11 Dirk DRB%, PS: 24.8%
90-00 K. Malone DRB%, PS: 24.4%
79-87 M. Malone DRB%, PS: 23.8%
Dirk is actually the best defensive rebounder of the group when it mattered most, prime vs prime.
-Allergic to the paint, doesn't draw a lot of FTs:
01-11 Dirk FTr, RS: .393
90-00 K. Malone FTr, RS: .519
79-87 M. Malone FTr, RS: .570
01-11 Dirk FTr, PS: .478
90-00 K. Malone FTr, PS: .476
79-87 M. Malone FTr, PS: .446
Dirk is again, actually the best at drawing FTs when it mattered most, prime vs prime, although it's a negligible difference between him and Karl.
It seems to be a consistent pattern here where Dirk steps up in the playoffs, the other two go down in the playoffs, and Dirk actually ends up being better come playoff time...which is really what matters at the end of the day.
-Assists: Dirk does average less assists than a lot of players, but this is kind of misleading, because he's featured much more off-ball than a lot of other stars, and while Dirk doesn't actually do the playmaking in the sense that he's creating for others, his shooting ability allows others to create for him. He makes life so much easier for guys like Terry and Barea, and they experienced a ton of success with the Dirk PnP. So at the end of the day, Dirk is still enabling great passing and easy baskets, he's just doing it in a different way than most people do.
I honestly don't see any of these things as weaknesses for Dirk. There are players that were better at them, but he was solidly above average at all of them.
And just to touch on the defense again, we have years of numbers for Dirk, and nothing really suggests that he was a bad defender. He was certainly at least average.
