RealGM 2017 Top 100 List: #22

[Doctor MJ]

A lot of good stuff there, but 2 things I wanted to say:

1) Shaq got swept in the playoffs like crazy. People tend to forget about that when they talk about him as a killer. What he was was a guy who did one thing. If that one thing wasn't enough, he was trivial to defeat. A killer is supposed to be someone who fights like hell and makes you pay for each victory you take. That wasn't Shaq.

2) Wade vs Paul, it's not just about who you prefer at peak. Wade had a grand total of 5 years with 10+ Win Shares and didn't have a single one in his 30s. Paul has already done it 11 times. As mentioned I agree Paul is overrated by this stat a bit (though more relative to pass-first point guards rather than other players), but the fact is Wade at his best could easily get 10+ WS, and the reality his body was only able to do that a handful of times, whereas a guy with a more intellectual game like Paul can keep going a lot longer.

[Senior]

A lot of good stuff there, but 2 things I wanted to say:

1) Shaq got swept in the playoffs like crazy. People tend to forget about that when they talk about him as a killer. What he was was a guy who did one thing. If that one thing wasn't enough, he was trivial to defeat. A killer is supposed to be someone who fights like hell and makes you pay for each victory you take. That wasn't Shaq.

I would say that for all RS coasting and team underperformance in the playoffs, Shaq's strengths (namely his offense) almost never went away in the playoffs. He had clear defensive weaknesses that were taken advantage of, but the stuff Shaq was good at in the RS, he stayed good at. I do believe Shaq himself played a bigger part than we tend to think in those early sweeps, but it sure as heck wasn't because of Shaq's offense - his defense was generally what was letting his teams underperform so badly. You could argue that Shaq's laziness implies that he wasn't destroyed by defeat and I probably wouldn't fight you on it, though.

I'm not really sure how much defeat affected him personally, but considering that Shaq was greatly affected by criticism in general, I can't imagine he'd have brushed it off so easily. Wilt was kind of similar - he definitely had other interests and seemed to not mind losing, but we also know that the constant criticisms stung him personally, especially compared to Russell.

2) Wade vs Paul, it's not just about who you prefer at peak. Wade had a grand total of 5 years with 10+ Win Shares and didn't have a single one in his 30s. Paul has already done it 11 times. As mentioned I agree Paul is overrated by this stat a bit (though more relative to pass-first point guards rather than other players), but the fact is Wade at his best could easily get 10+ WS, and the reality his body was only able to do that a handful of times, whereas a guy with a more intellectual game like Paul can keep going a lot longer.

This is 100% true. Wade's effectiveness sunk when his athleticism faded and he really didn't adjust well after that. That's why his longevity is so weak compared to someone like Kobe.

However, the four prime years Wade WAS healthy, he came away with a title and lost in the Finals in another. 2 other years his cast was awful. Not many chances at all, but he took advantage of one of them. I believe that title windows are always shorter than teams think they are, so the ability to take those chances when they come by is particularly impressive.

Would I rather have a guy who stays consistently good-great for 11 years but has a lower ceiling compared to a guy with 6-7 similar-level years but who's more willing and able to go supernova in the playoffs? Hard to say. Generally I side with the higher ceiling/lower longevity guy because you just need one year to win, and there is no guarantee that the lower ceiling guy will get the breaks (health in this case) his team needs to win. The Clippers and Hornets were never the best team in the conference, and they needed some luck to go their way to win. They didn't get it.

It's kind of like the 90s Jazz- longevity means you have more chances, not that your chances are better. For all the Jazz's consistency in the 90s, they couldn't ever win the title despite outlasting everyone because they would run into teams that were better suited to the tougher defensive environment of the playoffs. When the Sonics and Rockets faded, the Blazers and Bulls stood in their way. You could argue that greater longevity provides a greater total value to CP3's teams vs Wade's, but a title really just makes that "value" gap irrelevant - both as a player and as a franchise. No one can take away from what Wade did in 2006 to win the title. Walton is really the only exception because he has like 2.5 relevant seasons and 1.5 as a starter.

A more intellectual/diverse game would've extended Wade's career for sure, but he already reached the pinnacle of the league - winning the title in dominant fashion. That 2006 run crushes anything CP3's done in the playoffs and considering CP3's age and new team, he's likely to not ever pull off something like that run, especially with the Warriors in his way. In this case, CP3's own injuries take away some of those 11 years (guessing it's 07-17) and out of those 11, he loses 2010 and 2016 and plays through injury in 2009, 2013, and 2015.