Joe Dumars or Ray Allen?

[DocHoops]

The difference between their scoring ability is a significant feather in Ray's cap here.

That's a really small feather than, because as I showed, Dumars one season in the primary scoring role was nearly as good as Allen's best.

Your main arguments now center around the fact that Dumars didn't play in an era with 3-pointers so en vogue and that Dumars expended more energy on defense, which impacted his offense.

Not really, those are just examples of why the slight statistical difference matters even less.

Regarding the 3's: Dumars doesn't get a pass here. In his greatest scoring season (essentially in his prime), he never distinguished himself above his peers as a 3-point shooter the way Allen did. It's way too much of a stretch to reasonably assume that Dumars would benefit so much in this era from the 3-point shot that he'd somehow close the scoring gap between himself and Allen. He never hit Allen's percentages when he faced a similar amount of defensive attention (or scored as much in volume). You can reasonably give a Larry Bird credit for his 3-point shooting translating into this era because of his volume and the fact that he hit 3's at a high clip with defenses focusing in on him. You can't do the same for Dumars.

I said Allen was a better three-point shooter regardless. You can't tell me though that Dumars playing high school and college basketball with no three-point line didn't shape his game differently than Allen, who always had that line to work into his arsenal.

Joe's one season doesn't really stack up to Ray's peak seasons

Yes it does, I showed you that already.

Dumars 1992-93 - 24 ppg 4 apg - 47/38/86
Allen 2005-06 - 25 ppg 4 apg - 45/41/90
Allen 2006-07 - 26 ppg 4 apg 44/37/90

Where is this huge difference?

Dumars likely did expend more energy on the defensive end; he was the better defensive player after all. But what does that mean? Does that mean that if he gave up using energy on defense, he'd become a better offensive player than peak Allen? How can anybody possibly know that? If he didn't use energy on defense, then wouldn't he - in your mind, at least- simply turn into a one-dimensional player similar to peak Ray Allen?

All I am trying to express is that their roles were different and it's no more sensible to assume Allen would have to play Dumars level defense as it is to assume Dumars should score at the rate Allen did.

At least with Ray, we saw a concrete example of how Ray responds when put into a situation similar to Joe's.

Yeah, and we didn't get a concrete example of how Dumars would do in a primary scorers role in the 1989 Finals? 27 ppg on nearly 60% shooting?

In 2008, he was put onto a team where he didn't have to carry the scoring load. He ends up playing very good defense. In two NBA Finals, he does a respectable job as the primary defender on Kobe Bryant. Dumars was the primary defender on Michael Jordan when the Bad Boys would do a decent job of limiting MJ. Now, peak MJ>>>old Kobe, and Joe's defense was still better than '08-'10 Allen's, but in a vacuum, an older Allen did a respectable job on an all-time great post-season scorer. We saw that. It was reality.

I could be wrong, but I remember Paul Pierce guarding him a lot more in crunch time than Allen.

Bu again, Dumars in the '89 Finals wasn't reality? I understand you were in diapers or not born yet, but those videos and stats are available on-line.

It's too much of a stretch to assume Dumars could replicate what Allen could do in Allen's role as a primary option. It's actually less of a stretch to assume that Allen could somewhat replicate what Dumars brought to the table as an ultimate support/glue player (though I probably wouldn't actually say that ). That makes Allen better.

100% disagree. Not only did Dumars show over various periods of his career that he could be the primary or 1B option on a balanced title contender (whereas Allen was the third option on a title contender) He was, as often as Allen, regarded as a top four guard in the league. Allen was never counted amongst the top four defensive guards in the league.(No all-defensive team votes in his career, not selections,. no votes) He never showed himself to be a standout defensively the way Dumars did offensively. You have to see that, no?

Never mind how Allen did in the post-season in a couple of runs as a primary option pre-Boston. Dumars never sniffed Allen's individual post-season success when Dumars was his team's primary option (he won a finals MVP on a team that didn't have such a defined primary option as most champs). Allen had some awesome runs individually; Dumars, not so much.

So Dumars would rate higher for you if he left the Pistons in 1994 to be the primary option on an average to bad team?

Dumars team went 40-42 with his as the primary option and won two titles with him in a 1A/1B role. Allen won 42, 41 and 52 games as the 1A to Glenn Robinson and Sam Cassell's 1B and 1C. In Seattle as the #1 his teams won 37, 35, 31 and 52 games. He was awesome in the 2001 and 2005 playoffs, no doubt, but that's not as significant as Dumars run in 1989 or 1990 in my opinion.

Overall, it was a good discussion, I agree. Perhaps Allen could have done what Dumars did, perhaps Dumars could have done what Allen did. Who knows? I love both players and while we may not agree on which player we like better, I think we can acknowledge that they are both the kind of players we'd love to have on our team.