So-called "new breed" of PF position - chokers?

[Tirion]

All right, hear me out.

Back in the day, as they told me, power forwards were about one thing - power. They banged bodies down low, played gritty defense, chased boards, served as enforcers for their teams and scored very rarely. Back in the day, centers were the main scorers, PFs did all the dirty work. So history books almost never wrote about them. You can hear about guys like Oakley and Rodman now, cause they were dying breed even in their day and therefore stood out, but guys before them? Forgotten.

But then everything changed. Scoring centers became extinct and power forwards like Elvin Hayes, Kevin McHale, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Chris Webber, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Rasheed Wallace and Dirk Nowitzki took their scoring game on new levels and far away from the low post. You see this list and all you can think is: wow, all of them are GREAT scorers! And: wow, almost all of them are CHOKERS!

Before fans of San-Antonio start cursing at me, let's make one thing clear: TD plays center. He don't want to admit it, but if he was playing in 60-80s, he'd be called a C. Now you took his name off this list and... well let's say the have only five championships COMBINED! Three for McHale, one for Sheed and one for Hayes. Those are BEST POWER FORWARDS OF ALL-TIME, people! And they have only 5 rings to show? Compare them to best centers of all-time and gues what? One Bill Russel has more chips then all of them combined!

Okay, let's break it out:

1. Karl Malone - big time choker, dirty player and a pedo. Famously struggled in the '97 and '98 Finals against Jordan and the Bulls. No rings.
2. Charles Barkley - never played defense, never won a ring. A great TV-person though.
3. Kevin McHale - won three, playing alongside Bird, who was the most clutch player of his generation. Tough as nails (played on a broken leg for entire playoffs), but hardly clutch (missed two freethrows in the end of game 5 in '81 NBA Finals against LA). Also horrible GM.
4. Elvin Hayes - Big time offensive machine and a big time choker. In the '78 Finals against Seattle, Hayes scored 133 points in the first six games, but only 19 of those came in the fourth quarter, a statistic that became the key subplot of that Finals. In Game 7 in Seattle, Hayes scored just 12 points and fouled out with eight minutes remaining.
5. Chris Webber - Well, what can you say? Refs probably robbed him in Game 6 of the '02 WCF, but what about Game 7 of that series? And that time-out was bad idea too.
6. Rasheed Wallace - Never had it with Portland, won one playing in deep Detroit team with Billups and Big Ben, pulled a dissapearing act even since.
7. Dirk Nowitzki - Choked many times in the playoffs, capped with a lose to 8th seed after 60+ season.
8. Kevin Garnett - Look I'm a hige KG fan, but facts can't be ignored. And facts are telling me that he hasn't delivered in big times situations and Finals MVP title should go to Pierce.

Guys like Odom, Jamison, Gasol and many others are known for not getting it done late in the fourth too. So is it a trend? or not? What's up with this high scoring, perimeter-oriented, good passing power forwards? Is their game just not cut out for being clutch? Can you built a championship team around that kind of a player?

Discuss!

[Lazy Faizy]

Removed

[Rasheeed!!!]

this recent generation are a bunch of soft jump shooters.....shooting isn't going to get it done. If you lock up each of these guys in the post for most of their posessions then you'd be better off.

[celticfan42487]

I think you can make a pretty strong case for McHale as being clutch. Or at least indiffrent. All I know is that this aspect of the game can't be measured, but I've seen enough of Garnett to feel the numbers make him overrated. He's great and all, but he just doesn't come through offensively when it matters and offense is half of the game.

[Hard2dhole]

Well since about 1990 the NBA rules have favored a more guard oriented offense. So i would say the game has changed to make them seem less effective. Besides if you want to be fair all the names you dropped would have been called centers in the 60s-early 80s as well.
Malone, Webber, Dirk, and Barkley were/are regularly asked to go head to head with the opposing centers through out thier careers.

[kooldude]

1. Karl Malone - he lost to Jordan. Is that really a significant when someone loses to Jordan. Not to mention that he didn't have much help.
2. Charles Barkley - but still one of the greatest offensive force to played the game. which situation did he "choke" exactly? yea, it was his responsiblity to guard Steve Kerr....
3. Kevin McHale - he was 3 rings. chokers don't win 3 rings. you can't choke and still win.
4. Elvin Hayes - don't really care about him. (or know much about)
5. Chris Webber - ok fine. you got me there.
6. Rasheed Wallace - went to 2 straight Finals, winning one. Got denied by Wade and Lebron; hardly his fault, even though he could have tried more. Lost to possibly the champs this year.
7. Dirk Nowitzki - last year sucked for him. royally. But if you look at his playoffs, he was money for most of the time. people actually blamed him for this year's loss, haha.
8. Kevin Garnett - The facts are that his defense is dominant and made key defensive (and offensive) plays. His monster game against the Kings in Game 7 in 04 was evident of that.

[NothingButNet]

With some teams (05-06 Suns, 07-08 Magic) opting against even having a real PF, it's kind of becoming a dead position.

[doctaJ_92]

With some teams (05-06 Suns, 07-08 Magic) opting against even having a real PF, it's kind of becoming a dead position.

What? If anything its probably the position with the most franchise guys or 1a's. Boozer, West, KG, Dirk, Bosh, Smith, Jamison, Duncan, Jefferson, Brand, Gasol, Odom, Amare. Center is the dead position, where back in the day PFs did all the dirty work, now centers have taken over that role and the PF's are the ones that have to score.

[Smoke[MaxX]]

You listed what? 10 guys that you consider chokers because they can't win a ring? Well, then for like 20 years, there were 29 (or however many teams in the league minus 1) "traditional power forward" chokers in the league. Not everyone can win a ring and it's regardless of what position you play or how you play it. If everybody is a quality player and if every player complemented each other, then we wouldn't be having this discussion.

[BROWN]

Well then you can say the same thing about every position?
PG, you have allen iverson, sg you have tmac, ... the list goes on,
these guys are all great players, but if ur gonna mention chokers yu have to mention
all other positions.

[HarlemHeat37]

this is obviously an attempt to criticize KG after last night..

[Rocky5000]

Tim Duncan only chokes on even years.

[LakerFanMan]

This thread is a joke.

[Ballings7]

The only times I'd say Dirk "choked" was in the Warriors series, playing a notable part, and to a lesser degree in the Heat series. Collectively over time, though, the kind of defense a team can play on Dirk + the lacking impact when not scoring well for what he can do + the offensive drop off to the rest of the Mavs teams, have been the main sustained reasons for his failures.

That isn't really "choking", Dirk ultimately isn't a consistently effective #1 option.

He played great in the 06 playoffs until the finals, where he was slowed down well by the Heat, Haslem/Posey on the mid-post and out, and Shaq/Zo on the interior. Also he has played strong in some other series other years.

In 06 against Phoenix, who definitely did not have the team to guard him, Dirk went off for 50 pts and 12 rebounds in G5. If Miami was a lesser defensive team, I'd say things go a lot different in general.

Dirk needs a top-level scorer next to him who is a factor in the paint. Dallas hasn't really had an offensive player like that with Dirk.

Dallas needs to get their above-average interior defense back, as well.

[pillwenney]

All right, hear me out.

Back in the day, as they told me, power forwards were about one thing - power. They banged bodies down low, played gritty defense, chased boards, served as enforcers for their teams and scored very rarely. Back in the day, centers were the main scorers, PFs did all the dirty work. So history books almost never wrote about them. You can hear about guys like Oakley and Rodman now, cause they were dying breed even in their day and therefore stood out, but guys before them? Forgotten.

But then everything changed. Scoring centers became extinct and power forwards like Elvin Hayes, Kevin McHale, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Chris Webber, Tim Duncan, Kevin Garnett, Rasheed Wallace and Dirk Nowitzki took their scoring game on new levels and far away from the low post. You see this list and all you can think is: wow, all of them are GREAT scorers! And: wow, almost all of them are CHOKERS!

Before fans of San-Antonio start cursing at me, let's make one thing clear: TD plays center. He don't want to admit it, but if he was playing in 60-80s, he'd be called a C. Now you took his name off this list and... well let's say the have only five championships COMBINED! Three for McHale, one for Sheed and one for Hayes. Those are BEST POWER FORWARDS OF ALL-TIME, people! And they have only 5 rings to show? Compare them to best centers of all-time and gues what? One Bill Russel has more chips then all of them combined!

Okay, let's break it out:

1. Karl Malone - big time choker, dirty player and a pedo. Famously struggled in the '97 and '98 Finals against Jordan and the Bulls. No rings.
2. Charles Barkley - never played defense, never won a ring. A great TV-person though.
3. Kevin McHale - won three, playing alongside Bird, who was the most clutch player of his generation. Tough as nails (played on a broken leg for entire playoffs), but hardly clutch (missed two freethrows in the end of game 5 in '81 NBA Finals against LA). Also horrible GM.
4. Elvin Hayes - Big time offensive machine and a big time choker. In the '78 Finals against Seattle, Hayes scored 133 points in the first six games, but only 19 of those came in the fourth quarter, a statistic that became the key subplot of that Finals. In Game 7 in Seattle, Hayes scored just 12 points and fouled out with eight minutes remaining.
5. Chris Webber - Well, what can you say? Refs probably robbed him in Game 6 of the '02 WCF, but what about Game 7 of that series? And that time-out was bad idea too.
6. Rasheed Wallace - Never had it with Portland, won one playing in deep Detroit team with Billups and Big Ben, pulled a dissapearing act even since.
7. Dirk Nowitzki - Choked many times in the playoffs, capped with a lose to 8th seed after 60+ season.
8. Kevin Garnett - Look I'm a hige KG fan, but facts can't be ignored. And facts are telling me that he hasn't delivered in big times situations and Finals MVP title should go to Pierce.

Guys like Odom, Jamison, Gasol and many others are known for not getting it done late in the fourth too. So is it a trend? or not? What's up with this high scoring, perimeter-oriented, good passing power forwards? Is their game just not cut out for being clutch? Can you built a championship team around that kind of a player?

Discuss!

You mean the same game 7 where Chris was 2 rebounds away from a triple double? Oh yeah, someone give him the Heimlich.

And really, it astounds me how often people point to a play Chris made in college to determine his play for the rest of his career when it doesn't represent it at all.