Two-way players are overrated

[Iwasawitness]

Insightful observation that defies the tired stupidity of conventional wisdom.

What do you want me to do? Call the stupid things you're saying smart?

That would make me a liar.

[michaelm]

It's incredible to me that somebody could be watching these playoffs and these finals and have come to that conclusion. These are two lineups of straight 2-way players.

It's WarriorGM. What do you expect?

Insightful observation that defies the tired stupidity of conventional wisdom.

Very hard to hide an offensive specialist who gives no effort on defence in the play/offs.

However there have been players who were less elite defensively than offensively who have won multiple titles with appropriate teams built around them, Steph Curry and probably Magic and Jokic among them.

Should have looked at who the OP was, he always has an agenda.

I do take Curry’s best teams over pretty much any of the teams led by the two way players on NZB2323’s list. I agree with Warrior GM to the extent that you can obviously build a team around Curry which is defensively elite as all the Curry GSW title winning teams were and still have the benefit of his impact as an offensive player. He of course can’t do what Hakeem, Jordan, peak LeBron or peak Kobe could do and dominate a game defensively, but is not bad as a defender as far as PGs go, puts in effort defensively which ties into his general leadership and the team play of his teams and for most of his career has had highly elite endurance.

We have a thread going on about how SGA is a better player than Luka. We also have a finals where one of the stars Tyrese Haliburton was being compared to a player like Devin Vassell during their draft and was found wanting because he wasn't as much of a two-way player. But yes it's all about Curry.

How could anyone ever have formed an opinion that you are Curry-centric ?.

[NZB2323]

In the all time debate:

Dirk vs. KG
Nash vs. Stockton or Kidd
Curry vs. Hakeem
Jokic vs. Giannis

Who do you have?

As a Bulls fan, we’ve done better with 2 way players like Jordan, Pippen, Rose, Deng, Hinrich, Butler, and Noah than Eddy Curry, Tyson Chandler, Jamal Crawford, Ben Gordon, Chris Duhon, Khris Dunn, Zach Lavine, Vuc, Brewer, Bogans, ect.

SInce you named Tyson Chandler, most bigs that are primary defenders at least still have the value on offense that they can score around the basket by put backs/dunks. So you can get away with one player like this on the field and he can still even positively impact the offense like DeAndre Jordan in the Lob CIty days.

On the other side you can really see how bad the impact can be if you ever saw bigs with 0 offensive skills like Chris Dudley or DeSagana Diop. Dudley has the lowest scoring average of all players that played at least 800 games. Great hustle guy, great rebounder, solid defender, but besides boxing out absolutely useless on offense. Had multiple seasons where he simultaneously shot under 40% from the field AND from the free throw line.

As some other posters mentioned, it's almost impossible at this stage to get away in the NBA with something like that. It might still work in college and other pro leagues, but you won't be able to stay in the NBA long term if your skills in certain areas are just underwhelming.

There is a reason why players like Michael Beasley or Trey Burke constantly were in and out of the league, despite both being able to put up big numbers scoring wise. If you aren't professional enought, not athletic enough, too small, have the wrong physical build, or just bad in certain aspects of the game you will most likely not have a very long career.

Tyson Chandler wasn’t doing lob dunks on the Bulls. He averaged in between 5-8 ppg with us.

[turnaroundJ]

In the all time debate:

Dirk vs. KG
Nash vs. Stockton or Kidd
Curry vs. Hakeem
Jokic vs. Giannis

Who do you have?

As a Bulls fan, we’ve done better with 2 way players like Jordan, Pippen, Rose, Deng, Hinrich, Butler, and Noah than Eddy Curry, Tyson Chandler, Jamal Crawford, Ben Gordon, Chris Duhon, Khris Dunn, Zach Lavine, Vuc, Brewer, Bogans, ect.

interesting. i would rather have the following:
Dirk
Nash
Curry
Jokic

[basketballto]

I'm not sure of that last line. To a certain extent they may have a general foundation but you seem to imply those at the top of their field are primarily generalists and that would seem false. If you consider an ER doctor a doctor at the top of their field I guess but I don't think that would be the case if you consider a surgeon as a doctor at the top of their field.

They are generalists with a specialization.

A surgeon is a doctor that is trained to specialize in surgery. And within surgery, there are different types of surgery, which they know about and probably can perform but not at the level which someone that specializes in that particular brand on surgery.

Take for example of a top brain surgeon.

Not only would they know foundational medical and surgerical practices but also neurology, neuroscience, and cognitive science.

When we talk about two way players, we are talking about players that have mastered the basics of being a high level NBA starter on both sides of the ball.

They can pass, shoot, defend and rebound at a starter level for their position. Then they have a specialization which puts them over the top.

That's the difference between Steve Kerr and Nembhard.Steve Kerr is a better pure shooter than Nembhard but he Nembhard can do so much more.

People take for granted what it actually takes to be the best in their field and assume the baseline skills is a given.

Most people at the bottom of a field are specialists. They only know how to do one thing and don't want to learn the foundations of related fields they are not actively engaged in.

A top software developer at Meta should be able to build distributed systems, UI and full-stack development on top of specializing in an area that complements a broad skill set for their role.

That's not what a top software developer at Meta does. They usually work in a specialist role and focus on one key area of a project. Someone writing a new programming language for internal use might have bad UI skills and no full stack knowledge/experience because they never needed it. 20 years ago maybe, at a smaller company today more likely.

Most people at the top of the funnel in terms of pay are specialist. The problem specialist have is things change and your skill may not be in demand.

In the nba you have to play two games. Being only able to play one side makes you unplayable unless they can find someone to cover up for you. It's not about being a generalist or specialist. It's your total impact on both sides. If you score everytime and let the ball go in on defense everytime you are a neutral player. A good coach will put you in when points are hard to come and take you out when defense is needed. I would rather have two players excellent on different sides and manage their time over two equally average players on both sides.

[TheGOATRises007]

Not surprising from the OP who thinks Curry is the GOAT.

[California Gold]

Hakeem > Curry

[LSWF]

Would you rather have a spouse who is a +3 in the kitchen and a +3 in the bedroom than one who is a +6 in one room but a 0 in the other?

[michaelm]

Would you rather have a spouse who is a +3 in the kitchen and a +3 in the bedroom than one who is a +6 in one room but a 0 in the other?

You can always eat out.

[threethehardway]

That's not what a top software developer at Meta does. They usually work in a specialist role and focus on one key area of a project. Someone writing a new programming language for internal use might have bad UI skills and no full stack knowledge/experience because they never needed it. 20 years ago maybe, at a smaller company today more likely.

Most people at the top of the funnel in terms of pay are specialist. The problem specialist have is things change and your skill may not be in demand.

In the nba you have to play two games. Being only able to play one side makes you unplayable unless they can find someone to cover up for you. It's not about being a generalist or specialist. It's your total impact on both sides. If you score everytime and let the ball go in on defense everytime you are a neutral player. A good coach will put you in when points are hard to come and take you out when defense is needed. I would rather have two players excellent on different sides and manage their time over two equally average players on both sides.

The key words are should and top.

Of course during the software engineering boom of the 2010-2020 people got away with being bootcamp grads
and only knowing how to do frontend or backend.

There are plenty of software developers walking around with top end salaries that don't know Rust or Golang or Python. Don't know how the back end works. Don't know how databases work. Don't know any secure coding practices. All they've done for the past 10 years is build web applications without actual computer science knowledge.

And they don't have jobs now and don't know how do anything else.

These people are not at the top of their field, they were just overpaid due to market conditions.

They are the equivalent of Steve Novak or Ryan Andersen. They were highly paid due to market conditions and expectations. They wouldn't see 20 minutes in an NBA game today.

And like I said, I never said you have to be the best everything and don't specialize, you have to know how to a decent amount of things in your field at an average level and specialize in something for your role on a team.

It's no different than a special forces team. They all know how to shoot, clear a room, survive outdoors but there's a comms guy, a scout, a sniper and a commander.

People rarely have a hard time conceiving how much they need to know to be truly good at something and let market conditions dictate how deep they go in a field.

We think the Jrue Holidays of the world are less viable because they are "a master of none" compared to a Ryan Anderson who a master one critically needed skill at a critical position and look at who went further in their career. Look at who contributed more to winning games. Look at who finds different ways to get better despite not having the ball in their hands anymore.

[JujitsuFlip]

Not surprising from the OP who thinks Curry is the GOAT.

Bahaha my exact thought. Right when i saw who OP was, i knew it was yet another Curry thread.