Your unpopular takes? (PC Board Edition)

[AEnigma]

Unpopular opinion: idolatry of aesthetics results in mistaken impressions at least as often as idolatry of certain players, and is substantially more common among sports fans who are not simply engaging in routine support of the players for their chosen team.

[penbeast0]

Yes we should if they were considerably ahead of their peers. We take the smaller group of potential competitive athletes and the like into account but otherwise you are basically implying that there were never any great athletes before today.

I could beat the best in the world from the 1920s with a top end modern formula one car v. their 1920s era automobiles. It does not make me a better driver than early greats.

[OhayoKD]

Unpopular opinion: idolatry of aesthetics results in mistaken impressions at least as often as idolatry of certain players, and is substantially more common among sports fans who are not simply engaging in routine support of the players for their chosen team.

Starts with the media

[ronnymac2]

I literally don't remember seeing Harden, Durant, or Curry ever grab an offensive rebound. I'm sure if I hop on bball-ref I'll see OREB with a number greater than 0, and if somebody ran in this thread to correct me, I'd believe them. I'm simply reporting that I don't recall any of them grabbing an offensive rebound. I recognize that this is partially a subjective style preference.

Watch on YouTube

Certified 3-level scorer.

I have seen and now I believe.

The one-handed o-board is tough. Rodman-like. Respect to Curry for the boxout.

[falcolombardi]

See I told you all that I had an unpopular opinion. Don’t oppose praise of LeBron as being being more praise than LeBron deserves. LeBron deserves a lot of praise but his fans take it to far.

When LeBron fans start exaggerated criticisms of LeBron’s teammates to promote LeBron as the GOAT you know something a little strange is going on with the hard core LeBron fans.

"I think MJ is better than LeBron and don't rate him as highly as some of the posters here" vs. what you posted is not the way to go. Trolling and then trying to play victim is not a good look.

Unpopular takes was the topic.
Maybe I was a bit trollish because of the use of the word “worship”. Sorry.
But I was on topic.

Back when I arrived at Realgm and the biggest most dominant topic was LeBron vs Kobe I sided with the LeBron fans because they were right about LeBron being better than Kobe. The Kobe fans were almost as bad as the LeBon fans became. Realgm is so dominated by LeBron fans. When you start inaccurately trashing LeBron’s teammates to elevate LeBron higher you have gone too far and maybe even deserve to be trolled.

LeBron has been plenty good and does not need to be overrated. He is the 2nd best non-center ever. Centers are lmost playing a different game. LeBron is only a little worse than Jordan. If am going to put a center above LeBron than I am putting that center above Jordan as well because LeBron and Jordan are that close to each other. I just have a problem comparing the centers to LeBron and Jorda. If I put Jordan 1st as I usually do I am putting LeBron 2nd but half of the LeBron hard core fans don’t seem to be able to handle LeBron being 2nd so they start trashing LeBron’s teammates and elevating Jordan’s teammates and accusing Jordan fans of being biassed.

I predate Jordan and was never putting Jordan on a pedestal. I was not one of the Jordan idolizing kids and had no resistance to LeBron being better than Jordan if LeBron was better than Jordan. I think the Jordan idolizers are closer to the truth than the LeBron idolizers.But idolizers can’t be objective and it is not trolling to admit that idolizing is something that warps the objectivity of sports fans. We are human. I have to watch my idolization and perhaps lack of objectivity about Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr because they were my childhood sports heroes. But I never had an urge to trash Orr’s teammates to support Orr’s case for being better than Gretzky.

Mucho texto

[OhayoKD]

"I think MJ is better than LeBron and don't rate him as highly as some of the posters here" vs. what you posted is not the way to go. Trolling and then trying to play victim is not a good look.

Unpopular takes was the topic.
Maybe I was a bit trollish because of the use of the word “worship”. Sorry.
But I was on topic.

Back when I arrived at Realgm and the biggest most dominant topic was LeBron vs Kobe I sided with the LeBron fans because they were right about LeBron being better than Kobe. The Kobe fans were almost as bad as the LeBon fans became. Realgm is so dominated by LeBron fans. When you start inaccurately trashing LeBron’s teammates to elevate LeBron higher you have gone too far and maybe even deserve to be trolled.

LeBron has been plenty good and does not need to be overrated. He is the 2nd best non-center ever. Centers are lmost playing a different game. LeBron is only a little worse than Jordan. If am going to put a center above LeBron than I am putting that center above Jordan as well because LeBron and Jordan are that close to each other. I just have a problem comparing the centers to LeBron and Jorda. If I put Jordan 1st as I usually do I am putting LeBron 2nd but half of the LeBron hard core fans don’t seem to be able to handle LeBron being 2nd so they start trashing LeBron’s teammates and elevating Jordan’s teammates and accusing Jordan fans of being biassed.

I predate Jordan and was never putting Jordan on a pedestal. I was not one of the Jordan idolizing kids and had no resistance to LeBron being better than Jordan if LeBron was better than Jordan. I think the Jordan idolizers are closer to the truth than the LeBron idolizers.But idolizers can’t be objective and it is not trolling to admit that idolizing is something that warps the objectivity of sports fans. We are human. I have to watch my idolization and perhaps lack of objectivity about Phil Esposito and Bobby Orr because they were my childhood sports heroes. But I never had an urge to trash Orr’s teammates to support Orr’s case for being better than Gretzky.

Mucho texto

Very Mucho texto

[letskissbro]

My opinion is that if a player is the clear driver of their teams' success and has recorded enough minutes in a diverse enough sample of contexts we can generally get a pretty great feel on how good they are with long term RAPM. I think you can make minor mental adjustments here and there for lineup quirks but often times there's very little reason for our opinions to deviate significantly from what the numbers tell us, i.e. being extremely kind in our evaluations of Kobe and Anthony Davis or negging Kevin Garnett and Chris Paul because it doesn't "feel right" to have them as peers to Duncan/Curry.

With that said:

1. Draymond Green at his best is an MVP level player and about 90% as good as Steph Curry.

2. Kevin Garnett post-injury was still an MVP caliber player.

3. Embiid might just be the best player of this current gen. I don't really know why he's ignored in these conversations. He's a floor spacing center who's capable of scoring like MJ and is a damn good defender. Even when his box numbers have fallen off in the playoffs he has maintained monster impact. Going to need a larger sample of him and Giannis in the playoffs to say for sure but Jokic feels like a firm 3rd place to me for his defensive issues.

4. Current LeBron when healthy and going full throttle is roughly as good as he was 3 years ago. That stretch we saw from him in January was the same guy we saw in the 2016-2020 playoffs. Problem is staying in rhythm at 38 is a bitch and his team isn't exactly doing him any favors keeping him fresh.

5. I'm not super impressed by Luka. I don't know if a player has ever been as utterly lacking in intangibles as he is.

6. The conversation in player rankings revolves almost entirely around per possession impact and people need to do a better job of crediting players who play more possessions than their peers.

7. I don't know how unpopular this is but bigger players do a much better job of maintaining their impact than their box numbers suggest. If you're a floor spacing big for example you've got a lot of room for error as a scorer since simply pulling your man out of the paint is an enormous value add for any team.

[OhayoKD]

My opinion is that if a player is the clear driver of their teams' success and has recorded enough minutes in a diverse enough sample of contexts we can generally get a pretty great feel on how good they are with long term RAPM. I think you can make minor mental adjustments here and there for lineup quirks but often times there's very little reason for our opinions to deviate significantly from what the numbers tell us, i.e. being extremely kind in our evaluations of Kobe and Anthony Davis or negging Kevin Garnett and Chris Paul because it doesn't "feel right" to have them as peers to Duncan/Curry.

With that said:

1. Draymond Green at his best is an MVP level player and about 90% as good as Steph Curry.

2. Kevin Garnett post-injury was still an MVP caliber player.

3. Embiid might just be the best player of this current gen. I don't really know why he's ignored in these conversations. He's a floor spacing center who's capable of scoring like MJ and is a damn good defender. Even when his box numbers have fallen off in the playoffs he has maintained monster impact. Going to need a larger sample of him and Giannis in the playoffs to say for sure but Jokic feels like a firm 3rd place to me for his defensive issues.

4. Current LeBron when healthy and going full throttle is roughly as good as he was 3 years ago. That stretch we saw from him in January was the same guy we saw in the 2016-2020 playoffs. Problem is staying in rhythm at 38 is a bitch and his team isn't exactly doing him any favors keeping him fresh.

5. I'm not super impressed by Luka. I don't know if a player has ever been as utterly lacking in intangibles as he is.

6. The conversation in player rankings revolves almost entirely around per possession impact and people need to do a better job of crediting players who play more possessions than their peers.

[letskissbro]

My opinion is that if a player is the clear driver of their teams' success and has recorded enough minutes in a diverse enough sample of contexts we can generally get a pretty great feel on how good they are with long term RAPM. I think you can make minor mental adjustments here and there for lineup quirks but often times there's very little reason for our opinions to deviate significantly from what the numbers tell us, i.e. being extremely kind in our evaluations of Kobe and Anthony Davis or negging Kevin Garnett and Chris Paul because it doesn't "feel right" to have them as peers to Duncan/Curry.

With that said:

1. Draymond Green at his best is an MVP level player and about 90% as good as Steph Curry.

2. Kevin Garnett post-injury was still an MVP caliber player.

3. Embiid might just be the best player of this current gen. I don't really know why he's ignored in these conversations. He's a floor spacing center who's capable of scoring like MJ and is a damn good defender. Even when his box numbers have fallen off in the playoffs he has maintained monster impact. Going to need a larger sample of him and Giannis in the playoffs to say for sure but Jokic feels like a firm 3rd place to me for his defensive issues.

4. Current LeBron when healthy and going full throttle is roughly as good as he was 3 years ago. That stretch we saw from him in January was the same guy we saw in the 2016-2020 playoffs. Problem is staying in rhythm at 38 is a bitch and his team isn't exactly doing him any favors keeping him fresh.

5. I'm not super impressed by Luka. I don't know if a player has ever been as utterly lacking in intangibles as he is.

6. The conversation in player rankings revolves almost entirely around per possession impact and people need to do a better job of crediting players who play more possessions than their peers.

Averaged 37 minutes per game in the playoffs in 2011 and 2012

[yoyoboy]

My opinion is that if a player is the clear driver of their teams' success and has recorded enough minutes in a diverse enough sample of contexts we can generally get a pretty great feel on how good they are with long term RAPM. I think you can make minor mental adjustments here and there for lineup quirks but often times there's very little reason for our opinions to deviate significantly from what the numbers tell us, i.e. being extremely kind in our evaluations of Kobe and Anthony Davis or negging Kevin Garnett and Chris Paul because it doesn't "feel right" to have them as peers to Duncan/Curry.

With that said:

1. Draymond Green at his best is an MVP level player and about 90% as good as Steph Curry.

2. Kevin Garnett post-injury was still an MVP caliber player.

3. Embiid might just be the best player of this current gen. I don't really know why he's ignored in these conversations. He's a floor spacing center who's capable of scoring like MJ and is a damn good defender. Even when his box numbers have fallen off in the playoffs he has maintained monster impact. Going to need a larger sample of him and Giannis in the playoffs to say for sure but Jokic feels like a firm 3rd place to me for his defensive issues.

4. Current LeBron when healthy and going full throttle is roughly as good as he was 3 years ago. That stretch we saw from him in January was the same guy we saw in the 2016-2020 playoffs. Problem is staying in rhythm at 38 is a bitch and his team isn't exactly doing him any favors keeping him fresh.

5. I'm not super impressed by Luka. I don't know if a player has ever been as utterly lacking in intangibles as he is.

6. The conversation in player rankings revolves almost entirely around per possession impact and people need to do a better job of crediting players who play more possessions than their peers.

Pretty much agree with all of these, except maybe #4, as I think LeBron even at his best now can't break down a set defense as well as he could even a few years ago. His feet are also a little heavier on defense and he's pretty much a zero protecting the rim these days whereas in 2020 I thought he could be at least a minor deterrent. Against Houston in the playoffs that season he was really good on defense, and I don't think he has anything like that in him anymore.

Luka needs to take his physical shape seriously, and I'm starting to get concerned he never will. I think plus-minus related metrics underrate him a little bit (and I feel this way in general when it comes to a lot of heliocentric stars). Him ranking between 12 and 64th in the league in O-RAPM his five seasons so far just doesn't smell right to me. But his defense is legitimately a problem. I do think come playoffs, he becomes more valuable than in the regular season, where he really doesn't deserve to be in people's top 5 for MVP voting this year.

The last point I love and I really just don't get why so many people aren't more on board with this. Cumulative value is what matters and additionally, it's much harder to sustain the same level of play over more possessions in a given game or more broadly over a whole season when you're not able to sit out those tough b2bs, when you have to play through nagging injuries here and there, or just when you have the grind of the regular season slowing you down. It's why I don't think JJJ deserves DPOY this season, having played less than 60% of the minutes Mobley has, but that's another conversation.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Another take I have is that I think I the longevity of some of today's guys are not as impressive. In other words, it is going to take a lot for me to be moved by today's players and elevate them based on longevity. Guys in their 30s, such as KD, Jimmy Butler, and Damian Lillard are arguably having the best seasons of their careers, at least offensively.

Lillard is 32

Durant is 34

Butler is 33

Steph before his first significant injury of the season, was arguably having his best offensive season ever outside of 16. He turned 35 on March 14.

This isn't normal. But that is kind of the point. Whether it is the league's offensive environment making this more of a possibility or sports-medicine finally getting to that point, this stuff is happening and people are acting as if this is normal. I remember just a couple years ago, there were people who though KD would be cooked after his achilles...turns out he's the one cooking others.

Steph before his first significant injury of the season, was arguably having his best offensive season ever outside of 16.

[ardee]

1. At this point, I don't even consider LeBron/Jordan much of a debate, LeBron simply has too much of a longevity edge, better defender, better passer, better rebounder, better teammate.

2. LeBron passed Jordan all time after the 2017 Playoffs.

3. Placing Kobe outside your top 10 all time is egregious.

4. Dirk is the second best PF of all time and top 12-13 all time.

5. Curry is significantly better than Durant, who is overrated by most casual fans.

6. Duncan and Hakeem are not top 5 all time guys.

7. Garnett has no case for top 10 all time.

8. Lamar Odom is a significant what-if, he had the talent to be a top 15 player in the league if he maximized his potential.

[Dutchball97]

Unpopular opinion: idolatry of aesthetics results in mistaken impressions at least as often as idolatry of certain players, and is substantially more common among sports fans who are not simply engaging in routine support of the players for their chosen team.

Are you talking about the mainstream media's hyping up of wings, this board's obsession with 2-way bigs or both?

[LA Bird]

1. Careers past the top say 20 are close enough that I think there should be much greater variability across all time lists. The fact that there usually isn't suggests we are too influenced by groupthink (even if it is a completely different one from mainstream lists)
2. The early 80s is weaker in top end talent than the early 70s
3. The offensive impact of many two way bigs are overrated
4. 09/10 LeBron is underrated compared to his other seasons
5. Pau Gasol is overrated and longevity aside, is close to Marc
6. Schayes has a stronger argument over Pettit than Pettit over Mikan

Might add more later...

[Jaivl]

My opinion is that if a player is the clear driver of their teams' success and has recorded enough minutes in a diverse enough sample of contexts we can generally get a pretty great feel on how good they are with long term RAPM. I think you can make minor mental adjustments here and there for lineup quirks but often times there's very little reason for our opinions to deviate significantly from what the numbers tell us, i.e. being extremely kind in our evaluations of Kobe and Anthony Davis or negging Kevin Garnett and Chris Paul because it doesn't "feel right" to have them as peers to Duncan/Curry.

With that said:

1. Draymond Green at his best is an MVP level player and about 90% as good as Steph Curry.

2. Kevin Garnett post-injury was still an MVP caliber player.

3. Embiid might just be the best player of this current gen. I don't really know why he's ignored in these conversations. He's a floor spacing center who's capable of scoring like MJ and is a damn good defender. Even when his box numbers have fallen off in the playoffs he has maintained monster impact. Going to need a larger sample of him and Giannis in the playoffs to say for sure but Jokic feels like a firm 3rd place to me for his defensive issues.

4. Current LeBron when healthy and going full throttle is roughly as good as he was 3 years ago. That stretch we saw from him in January was the same guy we saw in the 2016-2020 playoffs. Problem is staying in rhythm at 38 is a bitch and his team isn't exactly doing him any favors keeping him fresh.

5. I'm not super impressed by Luka. I don't know if a player has ever been as utterly lacking in intangibles as he is.

6. The conversation in player rankings revolves almost entirely around per possession impact and people need to do a better job of crediting players who play more possessions than their peers.

I was just gonna say, lol.

[McBubbles]

1. Moses Malone would outplay every big man ever in a playoff series except perhaps Bill Russell. Malone might outplay everybody period regardless of position.

2. Jason Kidd is a top 5 passer/playmaker of all-time, on the level of Magic, Bird, and Nash. To add more unpopularity/controversy, Kidd was a great offensive player.

3. From number 1 to number 450, the 2023 NBA has the greatest collection of talent the league - the sport - has ever seen, but that talent gets wasted to an extent and molded poorly in part due to a misuse of analytics in the Optimization Era. This mainly affects the NBA's middle and lower class, who are mostly interchangeable mediocrities at this point. There are less team constructs with a unique flavor. This isn't a good thing in my opinion from a competitive standpoint, and it's not good for popularity of the league. Which brings me to opinion number 4...

4. Popularity matters. Drawing fans in and making people care about what you do outside of the 48 minutes of competition matters. Every "Real GM" and front office would agree, but I doubt most on this board would. And I get it, because at heart, I enjoy being a purist and analyzing simply who's better, who's best. But if we like and enjoy the game, we should want to see if grow. That's why I actually like narrative-driven awards and a Hall of Fame that is not super strict about who it inducts.

5. Being a 3-level scorer isn't about leveraging an elite jumper to get into the mid-range or the paint. Being a 3-level scorer involves offensive rebounding and a post game being included in your repertoire. I like James Harden and think that from 2010-2020, only a GSW or LeBron was better from the standpoint of health, consistency, quality of on-court play, drawing power, etc, so this isn't me just putting Harden down. But Harden has no post game, and it has hurt his resiliency in the playoffs.

I literally don't remember seeing Harden, Durant, or Curry ever grab an offensive rebound. I'm sure if I hop on bball-ref I'll see OREB with a number greater than 0, and if somebody ran in this thread to correct me, I'd believe them. I'm simply reporting that I don't recall any of them grabbing an offensive rebound. I recognize that this is partially a subjective style preference.

Can you expand on number 2? I **** despise Jason Kidd and think he's one of the most overrated players of all time (especially offensively) so I'd be interested to hear this.

In regards to point number 4, I can't speak for everyone but I don't think people's problem is that we don't think popularity or narrative driven stuff is important for the game. We don't want everyone to be Kawhi Leonard. It's just annoying that increasing popularity all too often is synonymous with appealling to the lowest common denominator. Having 80% of all basketball discussion being dominated with Jordan v Lebron is plain sad.

Pundits saying "I don't care how Westbrook plays or how much he wins, I'll give him an MVP if he averages a triple double" is ridiculous.
Having a popular pundit on the most popular sports show in history say that Nash, Dirk and Jokic only won MVP's because they're white is absolutely **** pathetic, like jesus Christ, are they no lows they're willing to sink to?

Whereas the NFL, the more popular sport, doesn't seem to sink to the lows that NBA discussion does. They hype up ALL their players instead of bringing them down and saying 80's & 90's Uber Alles. They talk about contracts, they talk about coaching a lot , they talk about plays a lot , concept's non existent in NBA discussion. Just wish they'd go about it differently.

[McBubbles]

Another hot takes galore:

1. Sidney Moncrief isn't a candidate for the best SG defender ever.
2. Shaq wasn't elite defender in 2000.
3. Jerry West with better durability would be a top 10 player ever and he's close to Jordan peak-wise.
4. Bill Russell would be a superstar today.
5. Offensive rebounding is still extremely valuable today.
6. Moses Malone was a better offensive player than Hakeem.
7. Defense still wins titles.

Willing to expand on the bolded?

[AEnigma]

Unpopular opinion: idolatry of aesthetics results in mistaken impressions at least as often as idolatry of certain players, and is substantially more common among sports fans who are not simply engaging in routine support of the players for their chosen team.

Are you talking about the mainstream media's hyping up of wings, this board's obsession with 2-way bigs or both?

It can be both, although I am not sure either are the best examples. The latter in particular is not really a big-specific concept either, but if someone high on Russell made that argument, sure, I would be sympathetic.

I think the much bigger issue is offensive superstars being seen as “good enough” on defence. No one thinks Duncan or Hakeem or Garnett are all-time offensive players — the highest evaluation I have seen of any is that specifically peak playoff Hakeem could have been providing high tier offensive value to his team in that era — but I do see someone like Shaq consistently put above them just based on a short-lived regular season stretch where his defence qualified as “good enough”. Which seems to me to be the much more common and more purely “aesthetic” argument.

[No-more-rings]

I’ve seen a few people say that Duncan not having a goat case is unpopular, but i’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone argue that he is the goat. 90-95% of the board I think acknowledges he isn’t better than Lebron, Jordan or Kareem.

[McBubbles]

5. I'm not super impressed by Luka. I don't know if a player has ever been as utterly lacking in intangibles as he is.

6. The conversation in player rankings revolves almost entirely around per possession impact and people need to do a better job of crediting players who play more possessions than their peers.

7. I don't know how unpopular this is but bigger players do a much better job of maintaining their impact than their box numbers suggest. If you're a floor spacing big for example you've got a lot of room for error as a scorer since simply pulling your man out of the paint is an enormous value add for any team.

What intangibles do you think Luka is lacking?

And in regards to 7, height is the only athletic trait that doesn't decrease with time and the only athletic trait that can't be meaningfully game planned against. I don't think it's a coincidence that there's only one point guard in everyone's top 10 and that point guard just so happens to be 6'9 lol.