Peaks project update: #16

[No-more-rings]

It was much easier for West to stand out amongst offensive players than it is today, it was him, Oscar and Wilt as far as all time offensive players. Today Harden regularly has had to compete with Curry, Lebron, Westbrook, Cp3, KD, Kawhi, AD, Lillard, etc.

How easy is it to stand out from the crowd against those guys?

1. The league was much more difficult for offensive players, particularly offensive perimeter players to excel. To show just how much West/Oscar were for outliers, Oscar and West were routinely the only guards in the top 10 in PER.

2. Defenses were much better due to rules and no 3-point line. This made life difficult for perimeter players and favored the giants over the smaller players; though West and Oscar both had impact in the same capacity as the Giants.

3. You dont even mention Bob Pettit, Elgin Baylor, Walt Bellamy, John Havlicek, Rick Barry, Earl Monroe, Jerry Lucas, Walt Frazier and Willis Reed.

You have a clear biases against early era's which is fine. It takes time and effort to research the era, more time than most of us have. It is not an excuse to downplay the era since you don't understand the era to any capacity worth discussing on this forum. It would be like me going onto a baseball forum and discussing the current game; Im not qualified thus I don't do it.

tl;dr don't downplay something you know nothing about

This seems needlessly combative, so i’m going to ignore the ad hominem attacks and focus on the actual rebuttals.

1. Oscar and West standing out is only strengthening my point here, the guard competition was weaker than it is today, so i mean they are all time great, yay? Never argued otherwise.

2. Defenses were not really tougher so much as offenses weren’t nearly as developed.

3. All those guys were fine players, but really none are offensive savants, and i was talking about West’s numbers in comparison to others. Using West’s production relative to peers is not a strong argument for him over Kobe or Wade. That’s giving him an unfair bonus because of less perimeter competition. Also, most of those guys’ primes didn’t even overlap with West’s anyhow.

Players get better over time, and the talent is growing, West being ahead of his time isn’t a reason to say assume he’s better than Wade and Kobe.

[Colbinii]

It was much easier for West to stand out amongst offensive players than it is today, it was him, Oscar and Wilt as far as all time offensive players. Today Harden regularly has had to compete with Curry, Lebron, Westbrook, Cp3, KD, Kawhi, AD, Lillard, etc.

How easy is it to stand out from the crowd against those guys?

1. The league was much more difficult for offensive players, particularly offensive perimeter players to excel. To show just how much West/Oscar were for outliers, Oscar and West were routinely the only guards in the top 10 in PER.

2. Defenses were much better due to rules and no 3-point line. This made life difficult for perimeter players and favored the giants over the smaller players; though West and Oscar both had impact in the same capacity as the Giants.

3. You dont even mention Bob Pettit, Elgin Baylor, Walt Bellamy, John Havlicek, Rick Barry, Earl Monroe, Jerry Lucas, Walt Frazier and Willis Reed.

You have a clear biases against early era's which is fine. It takes time and effort to research the era, more time than most of us have. It is not an excuse to downplay the era since you don't understand the era to any capacity worth discussing on this forum. It would be like me going onto a baseball forum and discussing the current game; Im not qualified thus I don't do it.

tl;dr don't downplay something you know nothing about

This seems needlessly combative, so i’m going to ignore the ad hominem attacks and focus on the actual rebuttals.

1. Oscar and West standing out is only strengthening my point here, the guard competition was weaker than it is today, so i mean they are all time great, yay? Never argued otherwise.

It doesn't strengthen your argument if you believe perimeter players were at a major disadvantage.

2. Defenses were not really tougher so much as offenses weren’t nearly as developed.

Defenses were tougher. Look up the rule changes from then and now. Players couldn't "travel" so isolation was much more difficult. Spacing was far more limited with teams packing the paint.

Even if you believe "offenses were less developed" it still puts offensive players at a major disadvantage; making guys like Oscar and West even MORE impressive. They didnt operate in efficient offensive systems like the triangle or 4 out schemes.

3. All those guys were fine players, but really none are offensive savants, and i was talking about West’s numbers in comparison to others. Using West’s production relative to peers is not a strong argument for him over Kobe or Wade. That’s giving him an unfair bonus because of less perimeter competition. Also, most of those guys’ primes didn’t even overlap with West’s anyhow.

Most of the primes overlapped for a few years; but thats not the point as this is 1 year peak.

You are also missing my point by stating "Unfair bonus due to lesser perimeter competition". My point isn't that there was less competition, it is that offensive perimeter players were at a major disadvantage compared to now so only the alltime greats could flourish. We are in an era where IT avergaed 30 PPG, Perimeter efficiency and box-score stats are shattering records at a blistering pace because this is what the viewers and fans want.

The game is so vastly different right now that looking at it without context of rules and era isn't fair or thorough analysis.

If you believe in analyzing players by transporting them to the current era without changing anything about their games then most older players become obsolete. Thats fine, but you need to be sure you are consistent in that; ie there are better perimeter players than Michael Jordan.

No offense but you listed players like
Players get better over time, and the talent is growing, West being ahead of his time isn’t a reason to say assume he’s better than Wade and Kobe.

Again, it depends on your approach to player evaluation. Do you look at them relative to their peers/era or do you view everything in a vacuum while ignoring contexts?

[70sFan]

You mention Westbrook, Lillard, CP3 and AD but mentioning Barry, Pettit, Baylor, Frazier and others is not comparable? Harden doesn't have to compete against prime Paul, West had to compete against prime Barry, Baylor and Frazier. Pettit was arguably at his peak as late as in 1963.

[No-more-rings]

Again, it depends on your approach to player evaluation. Do you look at them relative to their peers/era or do you view everything in a vacuum while ignoring contexts?

This is where the disconnect lies mostly. I think both have to be considered, in a vacuum West seems comparable to Wade/Kobe but i just don’t see enough confidence to consider him better let alone multiple seasons better.

Him being an outlier is probably why it’s even a debate in the first place, because them other guys like Barry, Hondo, etc certainly aren’t in the Wade/Kobe class.

One other thing, no the MJ thing isn’t a consistent example since he has clear statistical advantages over other non-goat perimeter players. Jordan’s perimeter competition was also weaker, but his prime also wasn’t so distant that we can’t be sure he wouldn’t be a very top guy today too.

[No-more-rings]

You mention Westbrook, Lillard, CP3 and AD but mentioning Barry, Pettit, Baylor, Frazier and others is not comparable? Harden doesn't have to compete against prime Paul, West had to compete against prime Barry, Baylor and Frazier. Pettit was arguably at his peak as late as in 1963.

Not exactly since Frazier’s best was in the 70s, and Barry had only 2 nba seasons in the 60s i believe, and a lot of Pettit’s prime seemed to occur before West.

I think of the thick of West’s prime being like from 62-70 or something like that. West, Oscar, Baylor, Wilt and Russell seemed to be the guys dominating the 1st teams, but the 2nd teams were kind of meh in an all time sense, i mean names like Hal Greer, Gus Johnson, Sam Jones etc. I mean they were influential players, but standing out from the secondary competition during that time..i just don’t see why he gets extra points over Wade/Kobe.

[70sFan]

You mention Westbrook, Lillard, CP3 and AD but mentioning Barry, Pettit, Baylor, Frazier and others is not comparable? Harden doesn't have to compete against prime Paul, West had to compete against prime Barry, Baylor and Frazier. Pettit was arguably at his peak as late as in 1963.

Not exactly since Frazier’s best was in the 70s, and Barry had only 2 nba seasons in the 60s i believe, and a lot of Pettit’s prime seemed to occur before West.

I think of the thick of West’s prime being like from 62-70 or something like that. West, Oscar, Baylor, Wilt and Russell seemed to be the guys dominating the 1st teams, but the 2nd teams were kind of meh in an all time sense, i mean names like Hal Greer, Gus Johnson, Sam Jones etc. I mean they were influential players, but standing out from the secondary competition during that time..i just don’t see why he gets extra points over Wade/Kobe.

Pettit was still MVP-caliber player in 1962 and 1963.

Walt Frazier, Hal Greer, Sam Jones, Richie Guerin, Dave Bing, Earl Monroe, Joe Caldwell, Archie Clark, Lenny Wilkens... This is not a weak competition at guard position.

These guys made all-nba teams in 2016-19 period:

Kemba Walker
Damian Lillard
Kyrie Irving
DeMar Derozan
Victor Oladipo
John Wall
Kyle Lowry
Klay Thompson

I'd take Greer, Jones, Guerin and Monroe over most of them, Frazier over all of them, Bing and Caldwell over some of them. They were damn good players, just because people don't know them today doesn't mean the competition was weak.

I pick West over Wade and Kobe because he was the best against the toughest playoffs competition. West never had such a weak performances as Kobe in 2004 or 2008 finals, even though he faced better defensive teams than that. Wade is tougher and in terms of peaks I have them close to each other.

[No-more-rings]

You mention Westbrook, Lillard, CP3 and AD but mentioning Barry, Pettit, Baylor, Frazier and others is not comparable? Harden doesn't have to compete against prime Paul, West had to compete against prime Barry, Baylor and Frazier. Pettit was arguably at his peak as late as in 1963.

Not exactly since Frazier’s best was in the 70s, and Barry had only 2 nba seasons in the 60s i believe, and a lot of Pettit’s prime seemed to occur before West.

I think of the thick of West’s prime being like from 62-70 or something like that. West, Oscar, Baylor, Wilt and Russell seemed to be the guys dominating the 1st teams, but the 2nd teams were kind of meh in an all time sense, i mean names like Hal Greer, Gus Johnson, Sam Jones etc. I mean they were influential players, but standing out from the secondary competition during that time..i just don’t see why he gets extra points over Wade/Kobe.

Pettit was still MVP-caliber player in 1962 and 1963.

Walt Frazier, Hal Greer, Sam Jones, Richie Guerin, Dave Bing, Earl Monroe, Joe Caldwell, Archie Clark, Lenny Wilkens... This is not a weak competition at guard position.

These guys made all-nba teams in 2016-19 period:

Kemba Walker
Damian Lillard
Kyrie Irving
DeMar Derozan
Victor Oladipo
John Wall
Kyle Lowry
Klay Thompson

I'd take Greer, Jones, Guerin and Monroe over most of them, Frazier over all of them, Bing and Caldwell over some of them. They were damn good players, just because people don't know them today doesn't mean the competition was weak.

I pick West over Wade and Kobe because he was the best against the toughest playoffs competition. West never had such a weak performances as Kobe in 2004 or 2008 finals, even though he faced better defensive teams than that. Wade is tougher and in terms of peaks I have them close to each other.

If you see the competition as comparable i think we’ll have to agree to disagree with that and move on.

As to West vs playoff competition yeah, he was consistently great but as far as Kobe’s series vs the 08 Celtics you’re talking about the arguably goat defense. And I can’t seem to find West’s series stats for when he was always losing to Boston, so i’m curious on not only his numbers but the level of defense being played, because it seemed rather high scoring.

[euroleague]

Kemba Walker
Damian Lillard
Kyrie Irving
DeMar Derozan
Victor Oladipo
John Wall
Kyle Lowry
Klay Thompson

I don't think Klay, Lillard, and Oladipo belong on that list. They were legitimate all-NBA players. I also don't think comparing them to Walt Frazier is legitimate, as Frazier was a perennial first-team all-nba player.

My rankings here:
1. David Robinson 94 - A complete year, he dominated on both ends. Carried a very weak team every game, and had one of the regular seasons since the merger. While his playoffs were lacking, his level of play on both ends was definitively higher than almost any candidate left.
2. Moses Malone 81 - One of the best playoff runs of all time. He took a bunch of weak role-players and even some players on their way out of the league to the finals. Probably the best playoff run remaining.
3. David Robinson 96 - Not quite on the level of 94, but still an elite 2-way year where he carried his team. Despite losing Dennis Rodman, the Spurs stayed elite defensively and shut opponents down behind DRob. His defense, combined with a great year offensively, puts this year over 83 Malone for my vote.

Under Consideration: Barkley 90
Kevin Durant 14
Jerry West 66, 70
Kobe 08
Wade 09
Chris Paul 08
Dirk Nowitzki 11
Karl Malone 98

[70sFan]

Not exactly since Frazier’s best was in the 70s, and Barry had only 2 nba seasons in the 60s i believe, and a lot of Pettit’s prime seemed to occur before West.

I think of the thick of West’s prime being like from 62-70 or something like that. West, Oscar, Baylor, Wilt and Russell seemed to be the guys dominating the 1st teams, but the 2nd teams were kind of meh in an all time sense, i mean names like Hal Greer, Gus Johnson, Sam Jones etc. I mean they were influential players, but standing out from the secondary competition during that time..i just don’t see why he gets extra points over Wade/Kobe.

Pettit was still MVP-caliber player in 1962 and 1963.

Walt Frazier, Hal Greer, Sam Jones, Richie Guerin, Dave Bing, Earl Monroe, Joe Caldwell, Archie Clark, Lenny Wilkens... This is not a weak competition at guard position.

These guys made all-nba teams in 2016-19 period:

Kemba Walker
Damian Lillard
Kyrie Irving
DeMar Derozan
Victor Oladipo
John Wall
Kyle Lowry
Klay Thompson

I'd take Greer, Jones, Guerin and Monroe over most of them, Frazier over all of them, Bing and Caldwell over some of them. They were damn good players, just because people don't know them today doesn't mean the competition was weak.

I pick West over Wade and Kobe because he was the best against the toughest playoffs competition. West never had such a weak performances as Kobe in 2004 or 2008 finals, even though he faced better defensive teams than that. Wade is tougher and in terms of peaks I have them close to each other.

If you see the competition as comparable i think we’ll have to agree to disagree with that and move on.

As to West vs playoff competition yeah, he was consistently great but as far as Kobe’s series vs the 08 Celtics you’re talking about the arguably goat defense. And I can’t seem to find West’s series stats for when he was always losing to Boston, so i’m curious on not only his numbers but the level of defense being played, because it seemed rather high scoring.

West faced unarguably GOAT defensive team many times in the finals.

It was high scoring because the pace was faster, not because the level of defense was weak. Besides, 1969 finals wasn't high scoring and West still averaged 38 ppg.

[70sFan]

Kemba Walker
Damian Lillard
Kyrie Irving
DeMar Derozan
Victor Oladipo
John Wall
Kyle Lowry
Klay Thompson

I don't think Klay, Lillard, and Oladipo belong on that list. They were legitimate all-NBA players. I also don't think comparing them to Walt Frazier is legitimate, as Frazier was a perennial first-team all-nba player.

They were, as the guys from 1960s I mentioned.

[No-more-rings]

Pettit was still MVP-caliber player in 1962 and 1963.

Walt Frazier, Hal Greer, Sam Jones, Richie Guerin, Dave Bing, Earl Monroe, Joe Caldwell, Archie Clark, Lenny Wilkens... This is not a weak competition at guard position.

These guys made all-nba teams in 2016-19 period:

Kemba Walker
Damian Lillard
Kyrie Irving
DeMar Derozan
Victor Oladipo
John Wall
Kyle Lowry
Klay Thompson

I'd take Greer, Jones, Guerin and Monroe over most of them, Frazier over all of them, Bing and Caldwell over some of them. They were damn good players, just because people don't know them today doesn't mean the competition was weak.

I pick West over Wade and Kobe because he was the best against the toughest playoffs competition. West never had such a weak performances as Kobe in 2004 or 2008 finals, even though he faced better defensive teams than that. Wade is tougher and in terms of peaks I have them close to each other.

If you see the competition as comparable i think we’ll have to agree to disagree with that and move on.

As to West vs playoff competition yeah, he was consistently great but as far as Kobe’s series vs the 08 Celtics you’re talking about the arguably goat defense. And I can’t seem to find West’s series stats for when he was always losing to Boston, so i’m curious on not only his numbers but the level of defense being played, because it seemed rather high scoring.

West faced unarguably GOAT defensive team many times in the finals.

It was high scoring because the pace was faster, not because the level of defense was weak. Besides, 1969 finals wasn't high scoring and West still averaged 38 ppg.

I didn’t say the defense was weak, but I don’t feel like it’s apples to apples to compare the defensive schemes used back then to 2008. Their defense stood out historically, but the league was way too different for a direct comparison.

[E-Balla]

I’m curious to why you have 09 Wade over 75 McAdoo.

McAdoo led just as poor of a supporting cast to more wins, higher SRS, better rel offense and had a better playoff series against a much better defense. All while playing an imo significant amount of higher minutes.

The bolded is completely false. He had a bad supporting cast but no one on this list had one as bad as Wade in 09, with 03 T-Mac being the only other person close.

And Wade has a whole postseason career where he's led a team to a ring, had other ATG Finals performances, and destroyed amazing defenses. You can only play who's in front of you and I have no reason to believe Wade wouldn't have destroyed an amazing defense if given the chance because he did perform against Atlanta.

[E-Balla]

1. 83 Moses Malone - The short version is that Moses was the best player in the league, on an historically great team, with great +/- estimates, and a gamebreaking ability on the offensive boards (averaged 6.5 offensive rebounds a game from 79 to 83). The gap between him and Curry who has that same argument (replace rebounding with 3 point shooting) is that outside of that one amazing ability Moses was still well above average at everything else. His jumper, defense (in 83 at least), and post game was already solid. His one weakness was his weak passing ability but it didn't hinder his chance to lead great or mediocre teams so I don't know how much it concerns me.

2. 17 Russell Westbrook - I'm on record since 2017 saying next to 09 LeBron this is the best season I've seen since I've watched basketball religiously. The short version here is that he averaged a 30 point triple double, made 200 three pointers, was the most clutch player ever (sidebar but this is one of my favorite posts in RealGM history, and it perfectly encapsulates exactly how clutch he was), and averaged 37/12/11 in the playoffs while destroying Houston, only losing because his team was the worst team I've ever seen in the playoffs without him on the floor. Unlike many here he had to also overcome horrible fitting teammates (they had the worst 3 point percentage in the league outside of him) and the worst coach in the league. Now those are things we can all agree on, the main argument against Westbrook is that he couldn't perform on a better team/contender. To that I say look at the year prior.

In 2016 Westbrook played next to KD and had a great squad around him. He was arguably the best player on the team averaging 24/8/10 for a team that was +7 in the regular season, but beat a +10 team in the second round, and went to 7 with a +11 team in the WCF. Overall in the playoffs the 2016 Thunder are the best team outside of the 09 Nuggets to miss the Finals, the 15th best team ever, and they played at a +13.4 level. Westbrook was the clear best player in their postseason run averaging 26/7/11 on 52 TS% to KD's 28/7/3 on 54 TS% and having clearly better +/- numbers than KD. Right there I'm coming to the conclusion that 2016 Westbrook is worthy of being on this list, but not this high.

The biggest gap in the game of Westbrook from 2016 to 2017 was his shooting. I think outside of that he didn't do anything he couldn't do otherwise. Westbrook's 200 3s made in 2017 was almost twice as much as his career high prior (101 in 2016), and his percentage (34%) was better than in ever (in 2016 he was 29.6%). Adding to that his improvement in 3 point shooting didn't seem like random chance. His FT% was also at a career high, and looking at his month to month shooting splits he was between 31.5% and 37.7% in each full month (so excluding April and October). That's compared to his 29.6% 3 point percentage in 2016. If Westbrook was as good a shooter in 2016 as in 2017 I think the 2016 Thunder are NBA Champions and one of the best ever so the argument that he wasn't capable of leading a team to a ring in 2017 is bogus to me.

3. 09 Dwyane Wade - I'll post more on this later as needed but the short version of his argument here is that he carried a team of nothing to great heights, put up amazing individual production, and we already know from other seasons he's good enough to lead a champion, be a sidekick, and absolutely dominate the very best defenses in league history. He's a floor raiser the level of the top 5ish guys here, just not a ceiling raiser on their level.

Any questions and I'm 100% down to answer.

What do you say to the fact that adding Moses to the Sixers only resulted in a +3 SRS jump?

I don't think they were going 100% in the regular season. Their postseason level of play was just well over what they did in the regular season. They damn near swept the playoffs and played at a +11 level, I think that's their real level of play.

[freethedevil]

Any questions and I'm 100% down to answer.

What do you say to the fact that adding Moses to the Sixers only resulted in a +3 SRS jump?

I don't think they were going 100% in the regular season. Their postseason level of play was just well over what they did in the regular season. They damn near swept the playoffs and played at a +11 level, I think that's their real level of play.

Moses joined a team that made two of the last three finals. Are we going to ignore that?

[E-Balla]

For the love of 95 D Rob, somebody make this right

If you want him in argue for him. Don't just pray he'll pick up enough voters, actually discuss why we should vote him in.

Now I'm not flipping on him because I don't care about regular season wins, but if there's no good arguments for him here why would anyone vote for him?

[HHera187]

N.1 JERRY WEST 1969
First year of his career with scoring and playmaking at the same level (or just below), best offensive player pre 1979 by far. All time level playoffs and goat level finals Vs Boston.

N.2 DAVID ROBINSON 1995
Unbelievable regular season: solid scoring (60 ts%), he leads the league in BPM and usual all time level defense en route for his MVP. Strong postseason, leading San Antonio to the WCF VS a superteam Houston.

N.3 JERRY WEST 1970
Simply the best skillset version of the best offensive player pre 3 point era.

Sent from my CLT-L09 using RealGM mobile app

[Colbinii]

1. 2015 Chris Paul - Best offensive player left and a great defender

2. 1995 David Robinson - Best defender left and a better offensive player than Ewing.

3. 1969 Jerry West - Best of the next bunch of SG who I have next along with Ewing.

[E-Balla]

What do you say to the fact that adding Moses to the Sixers only resulted in a +3 SRS jump?

I don't think they were going 100% in the regular season. Their postseason level of play was just well over what they did in the regular season. They damn near swept the playoffs and played at a +11 level, I think that's their real level of play.

Moses joined a team that made two of the last three finals. Are we going to ignore that?

Have we? He joined a team that made 2 of the last 3 Finals and 3 straight CF appearances. He turned them from a team that performed at a +6 level in the playoffs dating back to 78 (they were between +5 and +7 each year in the playoffs from 78 to 82) into one that was a +11 team in the playoffs. I've mentioned this already, and it's been mentioned dozens of times so far, how is it being ignored? Do you have something to add here? Is there something you're trying to say?

[No-more-rings]

Participation here is really slowing down. People should at least be casting votes even if they aren’t putting much in otherwise.

[No-more-rings]

1. 83 Moses Malone - The short version is that Moses was the best player in the league, on an historically great team, with great +/- estimates, and a gamebreaking ability on the offensive boards (averaged 6.5 offensive rebounds a game from 79 to 83). The gap between him and Curry who has that same argument (replace rebounding with 3 point shooting) is that outside of that one amazing ability Moses was still well above average at everything else. His jumper, defense (in 83 at least), and post game was already solid. His one weakness was his weak passing ability but it didn't hinder his chance to lead great or mediocre teams so I don't know how much it concerns me.

2. 17 Russell Westbrook - I'm on record since 2017 saying next to 09 LeBron this is the best season I've seen since I've watched basketball religiously. The short version here is that he averaged a 30 point triple double, made 200 three pointers, was the most clutch player ever (sidebar but this is one of my favorite posts in RealGM history, and it perfectly encapsulates exactly how clutch he was), and averaged 37/12/11 in the playoffs while destroying Houston, only losing because his team was the worst team I've ever seen in the playoffs without him on the floor. Unlike many here he had to also overcome horrible fitting teammates (they had the worst 3 point percentage in the league outside of him) and the worst coach in the league. Now those are things we can all agree on, the main argument against Westbrook is that he couldn't perform on a better team/contender. To that I say look at the year prior.

In 2016 Westbrook played next to KD and had a great squad around him. He was arguably the best player on the team averaging 24/8/10 for a team that was +7 in the regular season, but beat a +10 team in the second round, and went to 7 with a +11 team in the WCF. Overall in the playoffs the 2016 Thunder are the best team outside of the 09 Nuggets to miss the Finals, the 15th best team ever, and they played at a +13.4 level. Westbrook was the clear best player in their postseason run averaging 26/7/11 on 52 TS% to KD's 28/7/3 on 54 TS% and having clearly better +/- numbers than KD. Right there I'm coming to the conclusion that 2016 Westbrook is worthy of being on this list, but not this high.

The biggest gap in the game of Westbrook from 2016 to 2017 was his shooting. I think outside of that he didn't do anything he couldn't do otherwise. Westbrook's 200 3s made in 2017 was almost twice as much as his career high prior (101 in 2016), and his percentage (34%) was better than in ever (in 2016 he was 29.6%). Adding to that his improvement in 3 point shooting didn't seem like random chance. His FT% was also at a career high, and looking at his month to month shooting splits he was between 31.5% and 37.7% in each full month (so excluding April and October). That's compared to his 29.6% 3 point percentage in 2016. If Westbrook was as good a shooter in 2016 as in 2017 I think the 2016 Thunder are NBA Champions and one of the best ever so the argument that he wasn't capable of leading a team to a ring in 2017 is bogus to me.

3. 09 Dwyane Wade - I'll post more on this later as needed but the short version of his argument here is that he carried a team of nothing to great heights, put up amazing individual production, and we already know from other seasons he's good enough to lead a champion, be a sidekick, and absolutely dominate the very best defenses in league history. He's a floor raiser the level of the top 5ish guys here, just not a ceiling raiser on their level.

Any questions and I'm 100% down to answer.

I got one.

In regards to Westbrook, i’m curious to why you take his peak this high if you put high weight on ability to lead a team to the championship.

I think he was the best player on the 16 Thunder, but he was still kind of bad in those last 2-3 games against the Warriors leading to their demise and a blown 3-1 lead. Like Westbrook in no fathomable way has been a better playoff performer than Wade, Kobe, West, or Dirk. Maybe he’s not far off, but certainly not better.