ardee wrote:I value defense just fine. It's a part of total impact, and that's what I use to judge players by.
I didn't mean to imply that you don't care about defense, but I found out that very few people value defense as high as me on this board.
I think Dirk was actually a positive on that end, very underrated post defender at that point of his career. I remember he made Pau's life pretty miserable on that end.
I think Dirk was a bit above average defensively as well, but Dallas did a well job hiding his weaknesses - slow feet on perimeter and lack of rim protection. He was a very solid post defender and had underrated hands, his rebounding was also top notch, but he's not a high value player on that end.
Walton was a decent scorer but made a lot of his impact on that end with his passing. I think the offensive gap is bigger than the defensive one.
Yeah, Walton wasn't historically great scorer but Blazers built excellent system around his post game. His passing was historically great and even with his scoring limitations, I'd say that Walton was elite offensive player. Not close to Dirk of course, but still great.
Meanwhile Walton is one of the best defenders ever and I don't find them remotely close on that end.
If you care about WOWY, Dallas was 55-21 with Dirk and 2-7 without him.
The Blazers were 44-21 with Walton and 5-12 without him.
ardee wrote:70sFan wrote:
Actually, looking at the larger sample size of Walton's impact from the subsequent season, I think he edges it. Would take him over Dirk slightly, but they're in the same ballpark.
Walton's WOWY numbers might overrate him a little bit, because Portland team was heavily reliant on him on both ends of the floor (a bit like Robinson or Garnett, though with better teammates) but I think that even taking that into account, Walton looks a little bit more impressive than Dirk for peaks.
