How have your takes changed over the last 6 months? (PC Board Edition)

[OhayoKD]

New season, new year... new opinions?

As a spiritual follow-up to the other "takes" thread, I'm wondering how people's positions/perspective on different topics have shifted. All takes are welcome here though I'd appreciate if this thread went light on all the debating that happens in other threads.

To kick things off

• I'm much lower on peak/prime Shaq, both overall and defensively. There simply doesn't seem to be anything beyond aesthetic impressions of "dominance" suggesting Shaq was the best in the league, and the argument for him ever being an elite defender seems to rely on heavy cherry-picking. I also think when we consider granular context(Kobe's minutes going up, the Lakers rim-protection collapsing, LA's shooting getting red-hot, Horace Grant being added in 2001), Shaq ends up looking like a post-season faller in the years where people try to excuse lackluster regular seasons with alleged playoff-elevation.

• Significantly higher on Hakeem in general. The criticism of his regular season impact doesn't seem to be applied evenly to his contemporaries, and I think we can safely assume the box-stuff he doesn't look stellar in systematically underrates bigger players(or overrates smaller ones) defensively.

• Significantly higher on Kobe in general. While he gets criticized a bunch for lacklustre impact metrics, I think he looks alot better if one accounts for the number of minutes/possessions he played, schematic context, and how he was deployed. Kobe's raw signals are also stronger than one might expect, I think his defense elevated in the postseason, and he was well ahead of his peers in efficiency on basically every type of play. He also managed all this playing in a very difficult conference and an unusually high amount of games and minutes. All in all, I think Kobe might be significantly better than his "non-box portfolio" would indicate.


How have some of your own positions shifted?

[70sFan]

I haven't changed my opinions about top 20 players that much. I guess I got even more appreaciation of modern looking offenses, but it's not really a drastic shift. Maybe I will come up with something later.

[jazzfan1971]

I haven't looked at a lot of stats about Shaq. But, my eyes tell a story of an almost unstoppable force in his prime. He bent defenses more than anyone I've ever seen. He'd routinely get double, triple teamed. And sometimes he'd just score anyway. I've seen the man dunk with two guys hanging on his arms. One time I tuned in to a random Blazers/Lakers game and the Blazers were trying to guard Shaq with as small forward. On closer inspection that small forward was Dale Davis. 6'11, 240lb Dale Davis that looked like a 6'7 215lb guy standing next to Shaq.

Horrible flaw to his game with FT%. That really kept him from GOAT discussions in my mind. But, I think if anything the man is underappreciated. I think Kobe is appreciated pretty accurately.

[No-more-rings]

• I'm much lower on peak/prime Shaq, both overall and defensively. There simply doesn't seem to be anything beyond aesthetic impressions of "dominance" suggesting Shaq was the best in the league, and the argument for him ever being an elite defender seems to rely on heavy cherry-picking.

You don’t think Shaq was the clear best in the league in 2000 or 2001? Or are you talking just defense?

[OhayoKD]

• I'm much lower on peak/prime Shaq, both overall and defensively. There simply doesn't seem to be anything beyond aesthetic impressions of "dominance" suggesting Shaq was the best in the league, and the argument for him ever being an elite defender seems to rely on heavy cherry-picking.

You don’t think Shaq was the clear best in the league in 2000 or 2001? Or are you talking just defense?

I was thinking the 2000's in general with a specific eye to Lebron, Duncan, and Garnett. Not really looking to debate that here though(feel free to respond in the Shaq thread if you want to take it further)

[Dutchball97]

Not too much has changed but I've gotten some more appreciation for a couple players I wasn't too knowledgable about before. This applies to the ABA (and the NBA transitions of ABA stars after the merger) and pre-shotclock NBA (including BAA and NBL). Among ABA guys it's mainly Bobby Jones, Artis Gilmore and George Gervin who I'll likely bump up a couple spots. For the pre-shotclock era I came away more impressed with early career Schayes than I was before, as well as actually consistently ranking Mikan now after years of not wanting to take up the task. I also didn't really know about Alex Groza and while he isn't in the conversation for top 100 careers due to only playing 2 seasons, I think he might deserve some more traction in peak discussions as probably the 2nd best pre-shotclock peak behind Mikan.

[AEnigma]

Since the peaks project, I have slightly cooled on Anthony Davis. I was mostly looking at assessing him at his best, and I do still think that has value, but I was probably excessive in skewing toward the briefly realised theory of him as a player rather than to the typical expected reality of him. So while for 21 games or so I saw a player I would rather have than someone like Durant or Dirk or the Malones, there is something to being able to play at your own top end consistently throughout a season and over multiple seasons and postseasons.

[Jaivl]

Lower on early LeBron, lower on 92, 93 Jordan, a bit lower on late Bird / higher on late Magic.

Higher on Ricard Rubio Vives.

[penbeast0]

Mainly the current guys for me. Jokic seems to have upped his level, Embiid as well, Giannis has maintained his MVP level performance. Luka is great but seems to have become a bit overrated, it feels like he's turning into James Harden rather than LeBron but he's young enough so there's still hope. Lots of lesser lights but those are the biggest and brightest currently shining.

[rk2023]

Higher on the archetype of bigs with ATG levels of scoring when evaluating player offense (eg. Shaq, Kareem, Dirk). I think all three for example are quite portable, and offer unique offensive impact that takes a deeper analysis to uncover more of / is past the box score.

[No-more-rings]

But since Shaq was brought up I want to say this. For me this has been something that's had me thinking for a while, but now accelerated in the past few months.

I still believe that Shaq at his best particularly in the playoffs in 2000 and 2001 was up there with anyone, maybe with the exception of Lebron and MJ, but I used to see clear separation over Duncan and Hakeem but that's not the case anymore. I think there's questions about his floor raising in comparison to those two and floor raising is important to me. Putting peak aside, I'm not so sure his overall prime compares all that favorably to most of the top 10 guys(accept for Bird). His consistency/dominance outside of the early 2000s is probably getting overstated, possibly significantly so relative to folk lore.

You can arguably put prime Shaq as I guess 94-2004 or 2005 I guess. He's had an either mediocre or downright bad series in all of 94, 97, 98, 99 and 2002. That seems like a pretty big chunk of his prime-ish seasons. This isn't even getting into his mediocre durability or how poorly he aged after 2006.

I would consider his series against the Jazz in 1997 poor by his standards, and the year after was mediocre at best he scored very well but averaged 1 assist for the series and the Jazz had a far higher ORTG against them than any other opponent and easily swept them.

He obviously played poorly against the Spurs in 99 and 2002. For a guy who's not having consistently elite defense, it gets hard to wave away that many series.

Shaq was swept 4 times between 94-99. That part may seem more nitpicky, but I think it's a little damning considering two of them were on 57 and 61 win teams respectively.

[f4p]

i'm lower on jordan's defense and higher on his offense.

[LukaTheGOAT]

My takes haven't changed because I was always right

Seriously though, I might be a bit lower on peak Shaq and a bit higher on peak Kareem and actually Kareem's career as a whole.

[Blame Rasho]

Lower on early LeBron, lower on 92, 93 Jordan, a bit lower on late Bird / higher on late Magic.

Higher on Ricard Rubio Vives.

[ronnymac2]

I've learned how totally uninterested I am for the most part in discussing the best players ever anymore. The most memorable threads recently in my eyes have been Rolando Blackman vs. Michael Finley and Jrue Holiday vs. Jeff Hornacek. I am currently eyeing the Rashard Lewis vs. Michael Redd thread as we speak. There are only so many times I can talk about Shaq and Kareem. I prefer to understand why the 2023 Chicago Bulls are good on defense.

[DonaldSanders]

Thanks to 70sfan I've developed a deeper appreciation of Kareem.