Marion vs Siakam vs Artest

durantbird · Post #1 » by **durantbird** » Mon Jan 2, 2023 10:35 am

How do you compare the three's primes? Who'd you rather have in your team?

Post #2 » by **penbeast0** » Mon Jan 2, 2023 3:45 pm

I have Marion out front of Siakam mainly for his defensive impact but Siakam with another 2-3 years at his peak could move ahead due to his superior playmaking and ability to create for himself and others. I have Artest behind the other two because he was such a disruptive personality and not terribly efficient as a scorer in his prime.

Post #3 » by **tsherkin** » Mon Jan 2, 2023 4:19 pm

penbeast0 wrote:I have Marion out front of Siakam mainly for his defensive impact but Siakam with another 2-3 years at his peak could move ahead due to his superior playmaking and ability to create for himself and others. I have Artest behind the other two because he was such a disruptive personality and not terribly efficient as a scorer in his prime.

Yeah, I like Pascal, but in his actual league environment, he's a volume scorer on or just under league-average efficiency, which isn't amazing. If you ported him backwards a decade, he'd be a lot more compelling because league average efficiency was risen considerably in recent years. This season, of course, his developing passing coupled to his outstanding ball protection has made up for that a lot, though. This year in particular, I think he's better than we ever really saw from Marion, but not before this season.

Marion wasn't a particularly good scorer prior to Nash, and he really wasn't a stunner in general on offense outside of 05-07. But he was a marvelously versatile defender, a good offensive rebounder for his size, hugely dangerous in transition and he also protected the ball pretty well. That was mostly because he rarely dribbled or posted much because isolation was the bane of his skill set, but he knew what he was for and he leaned into his role very much, which was good.

It's an interesting study in what do you want from your player, I suppose. Marion gets a little underrated because he is overshadowed by Nash and had one of the ugliest jumpers in existence, but he was a great hustle player who D'd up very well and knew how to use his athleticism in transition quite effectively.