Better peak and prime- Moses or AD

[70sFan]

If AD was consensus best player other than the literal GOAT and Moses was consensus best player in an incredibly weak year, I don’t think that confers an advantage. It would be like comparing Cousy to Frazier or Arizin to Ewing. If they were ever the best player in the league at the time they played, it says more about their era than it does about their skill.

Yeah, throwing 1983 away due to lack of competition, while raving about 2020 with injured Curry and Durant isn't fair to me. 2020 was a down year, though it wasn't weak with LeBron and Giannis having elite seasons or course.

That is literally the only part which matters to the issue of whether a player was “#1” in a given year.

Or course, but:

- Giannis got injured in the playoffs and underperformed, got eliminated early,
- LeBron had a great, but not GOAT-level season,
- Davis still wasn't easily top 3 player in the league (Jokic, Kawhi, Butler).

If your argument is that 2020 wasn't bad for top tier season then I agree with you.
If your argument is that Davis faced absurd competition at the top and got unlucky with the timing of his peak, then I disagree. 2020 is probably in the weaker half of all NBA seasons in terms of top end talent.

Davis wasn't unlucky man who played in LeBron era.

[AEnigma]

Yeah, throwing 1983 away due to lack of competition, while raving about 2020 with injured Curry and Durant isn't fair to me. 2020 was a down year, though it wasn't weak with LeBron and Giannis having elite seasons or course.

That is literally the only part which matters to the issue of whether a player was “#1” in a given year.

Or course, but:

- Giannis got injured in the playoffs and underperformed, got eliminated early,

So 1983 Bird if he had an all-time regular season.

LeBron had a great, but not GOAT-level season,

I would say it was better than Moses’s though, and to whatever extent you disagree, that is more relevant than whether Moses happened to be #1 and Davis did not.

- Davis still wasn't easily top 3 player in the league (Jokic, Kawhi, Butler).

I would take those three over 1983 Kareem, 1983 Magic, and 1983 Erving (or whomever your choice is; King maybe).

If your argument is that 2020 wasn't bad for top tier season then I agree with you.
If your argument is that Davis faced absurd competition at the top and got unlucky with the timing of his peak, then I disagree. 2020 is probably in the weaker half of all NBA seasons in terms of top end talent.

Davis wasn't unlucky man who played in LeBron era.

In the context of “was he #1 or not”, yeah, he was “unlucky” in the same sense Moses was “lucky” to hit the sweet spot between Bird’s elevation and the end of Kareem’s sustained peak. It is a silly standard here when the debate is not about who was more deserving of the top Player of the Year ballot.

[MyUniBroDavis]

LeBron isn't the reason why Davis never really competed for the POY though, that's the point.

Technically would be in 2020 but AD probably isn’t in that position in 2020 in general without bron lol

I think you could argue ADs talent level could equal best in the league type impact in very specific situations but offensively speaking you need a lot more to optimize him than other guys and he can’t really carry a bad situation offensively that doesn’t fit around him at all like some other guys can

His defensive consistency is also lacking. I mean, if Davis was on his 2023 level defensively throughout his whole prime, he wouldn't need to be top tier offensive player to compete for the POY. Unfortunately, he wasn't on that level outside of the bubble.

Tbf 2018 was like that at the back end iirc, but yeah 2016 was pretty bad cuz he got way too fat and 2017 was a lot better but not top tier, and 2019 he just stopped trying for obvious reasons and since then he’s always hurt

On the earlier post, all things considered I do think after the bubble AD was very clearly the 2nd best in the league, but also it is contingent on the bubble which was pretty flukey. He was probably the best in the bubble untill the finals

In any case I don’t think AD would be the best player in the league consistently or in that conversation if bron didn’t exist, outside of 2020 and maybe 2018 if you really stretch it. I think there are situations that can boost him up offensively and him going to more post up type vs face up and off ball 2015 > 2016-2019 kind of killed his offense, we kinda saw how a healthy off ball AD in a good system would look earlier this year