What is your high end valuation of Giannis' peak?

[tsherkin]

Rules of the day. The Wiz board used to nickname LeBron, LeTravel for all the extra steps the refs let him get away with. While I get upset at the newbies that claim that older ballhandlers were much less skilled than the likes of Kyrie Irving, if the refs are letting you carry and travel with the ball, you'd have to have a low BBIQ not to take advantage.

I agree. Giannis is an especially egregious example of it, but if they're going to let him do it, why not? But given Robinson's level of efficacy with what he was allowed to do and his general physical tools and everything, I don't really think Giannis puts any significant amount of higher rim pressure than he did.

In the playoffs, Robinson was a clear notch below 2021 Giannis on offense.

I'm always comparing relative to their eras. Thus era differences are inherently accounted for.

Mmm, I dunno. I think he did what he was enabled to do by the era differences, personally. Be basically didn't shoot outside of 10 feet and enjoyed a different environment in terms of what the paint looked like compared to D-Rob, so I find it difficult to compare/evaluate a little.

[O_6]

Giannis utilizes stride length to a much greater degree than Robinson did. The way he moves is just different, he covers so much ground in one step. It allows him to attack the rim easier than Robinson could, even with era differences taken into account imo.

[Heej]

Robinson would have looked better if he could flagrantly carry all the time too

True but Giannis is an elite ballhandler for his size. He just looks less impressive cuz KD exists

I have to watch some more Robinson film to be sure but I also suspect Giannis has a functionally stronger lower body. I'd easily give Admiral the edge in upper body strength but he looked a bit lighter in the shorts than Freak

I think that Giannis is a better ball-handler than Durant.

I disagree because the ball security comes from his athletic advantage but I respect your take, honestly

I get why you feel that way from a functional standpoint and it makes me reassess my stance tbh

[Special_Puppy]

I think when it all said and done he will be a top 5 player of all time

In order to do that I imagine he will have to win like 1 more MVP and 2 more Finals MVPs at the bare minimum. That's a tall order

[OhayoKD]

So going by the data since ‘97, it goes Shaq/LeBron/Giannis as rim finishers by volume/efficiency. Giannis peaking higher than LeBron in that area since his volume was even higher.

He is a blunt force. Not the prettiest to watch but just attacks you with no hesitation. Dropped 50 to win an NBA Finals while averaging like 35/13/5 on a .658 TS%, won multiple MVPs and DPOY.

In the top 10 mix for sure, probably slightly outside of it for me because of the offensive limitations. But depending on what you value, he could be ranked even higher than I rank him. I mean 35/13/5 efficiently to win a Finals while dropping 50/14 in the clincher? In a Finals where his most memorable play was on defense? Legendary player.

If Giannis is a "blunt instrument", then nearly all of the greats are "blunt instruments"(duncan, jordan, hakeem, shaq, steph ect)

People just like pretending being a great jump-shooter makes you less of a blunt instrument than being a great versatile defender. A list that actually valued iq would look very different than current consensus ones, especially with peaks.

Giannis not getting to play with a steve kerr or phil jackson equivalent doesn't mean he's only capable of "brute forcing"

[Heej]

So going by the data since ‘97, it goes Shaq/LeBron/Giannis as rim finishers by volume/efficiency. Giannis peaking higher than LeBron in that area since his volume was even higher.

He is a blunt force. Not the prettiest to watch but just attacks you with no hesitation. Dropped 50 to win an NBA Finals while averaging like 35/13/5 on a .658 TS%, won multiple MVPs and DPOY.

In the top 10 mix for sure, probably slightly outside of it for me because of the offensive limitations. But depending on what you value, he could be ranked even higher than I rank him. I mean 35/13/5 efficiently to win a Finals while dropping 50/14 in the clincher? In a Finals where his most memorable play was on defense? Legendary player.

If Giannis is a "blunt instrument", then nearly all of the greats are "blunt instruments"(duncan, jordan, hakeem, shaq, steph ect)

People just like pretending being a great jump-shooter makes you less of a blunt instrument than being a great versatile defender. A list that actually valued iq would look very different than current consensus ones, especially with peaks.

I think my only question is whether the post bubble season is an anomaly and whether Giannis got figured out a season later with "The Wall". On its face that season is undisputed top 10. But does it "feel" top 10? IDT so

[OhayoKD]

So going by the data since ‘97, it goes Shaq/LeBron/Giannis as rim finishers by volume/efficiency. Giannis peaking higher than LeBron in that area since his volume was even higher.

He is a blunt force. Not the prettiest to watch but just attacks you with no hesitation. Dropped 50 to win an NBA Finals while averaging like 35/13/5 on a .658 TS%, won multiple MVPs and DPOY.

In the top 10 mix for sure, probably slightly outside of it for me because of the offensive limitations. But depending on what you value, he could be ranked even higher than I rank him. I mean 35/13/5 efficiently to win a Finals while dropping 50/14 in the clincher? In a Finals where his most memorable play was on defense? Legendary player.

If Giannis is a "blunt instrument", then nearly all of the greats are "blunt instruments"(duncan, jordan, hakeem, shaq, steph ect)

People just like pretending being a great jump-shooter makes you less of a blunt instrument than being a great versatile defender. A list that actually valued iq would look very different than current consensus ones, especially with peaks.

I think my only question is whether the post bubble season is an anomaly and whether Giannis got figured out a season later with "The Wall". On its face that season is undisputed top 10. But does it "feel" top 10? IDT so

I think "the wall" is alot harder to actually apply than people think it is(giannis would probably feel alot less "stoppable" if he played in the west) and people conflate certain things. In 2020 Giannis was better offensively than he was in 2019 but the bucks defense collapsed with Giannis's injury hampered mobility as an arguable factor. In 2023 we have a pretty similar story.

In 2019 for all the talk of Giannis being "stopped", a worse outright offensive performance still left a loaded raptors side just about-surviving the Bucks -9 playoff defense. And, by raw performance, the Bucks defensive improvement outpaced the offensive drop in 2019...just as it did in 2021 and 2022.

I'd also say it's hard to put that to teammates considering that playoff-lineups quite clearly show Giannis being the one who was turning meh to good rs defense into all-time playoff defenses post bubble when he ramped things up.

Giannis "feels" more stoppable because we fixate on offensive "production" i think. But I'd say the raw results suggest your best bet of stopping Giannis in the playoffs is injury. His teams have improved in the playoffs statistically for 5 of his 7 super-star years. Even with middleton out and giannis's numbers down Boston didn't exactly have it easy.

Now consider we're talking about someone who seemingly can elevate okay casts to +9 srs in the regular-season without expansion, has had to deal with generally bad playoff-coaching, and almost always getting outshot from 3(even in series he "blunt instruments" his teams to having more open looks like he did vs the celtics and the raptors in 2019), I think he's definitely worthy of top 10 convos.

Especially if you pay any mind to him playing in by far the most talented period in league-history(forget the international talent pool, could you imagine kd being a clear 2nd best player today?).

Every non-giannis/bucks fan should be grateful the Bucks didn't get Nick Nurse. League would be ****.

[ShotCreator]

High end? At best slightly worse than Kevin Garnett.

Giannis has only ever showed flashes of truly dominant defense IMO. He's never sustained it.

Offensively, even if I was high on him his resilience is objectively at question.

But I'm not high on him. There's gonna be anywhere from 5 to 10 better offensive players than peak Giannis every year. The Mitchell's and Tatum's of the world are right on his tail, if not surpassing him.

He's a huge spacing negative that needs the ball to have gravity and forces dynamic offensive players into worse offensive roles where they can't thrive fully.

I've been saying this for years. Now look at how clunky he and Lillard are together and how one explodes without the other.


viewtopic.php?p=82832076#p82832076

Lillard scores 37, Bucks overcome Antetokounmpo's absence to beat Raptors 128-112
— Damian Lillard had 37 points and a season-high 13 assists, Malik Beasley scored a season-high 30 points and the Milwaukee Bucks overcame Giannis Antetokounmpo’s absence to beat the Toronto Raptors 128-112 on Wednesday night.

https://www.espn.com/nba/recap/_/gameId/401584823


This is, years, and years and Giannis clearly putting a cap on his teammates ceilings offensively. Never fails.

[Gregoire]

Peak I think around top-8-10.

MJ
Lebron/Shaq
Wilt
Kareem
Hakeem
Bird

other than that I cant see clearly better peak... Russell, Garnett, Magic, Duncan, Joker,Curry - all have a case