Greatest Peaks series (Thinking Basketball/Ben Taylor)

[Goudelock]

I wonder how much better offensively McAdoo would have been with modern handles. He didn't have Durant's passing skills and I'd not call him as good shooter. His handles were insane though and it was without carrying and traveling all the time like Durant does.

Hmmmmm...........that's a really interesting question. Because part of me wonders if a more advanced handle would have really done much more for McAdoo, considering he was already getting to the rim (or his spots on the floor) whenever he wanted with the restrictive rulesets of the time. So if he was already unstoppable during the mid-70s, could he have been more unstoppable than that?

I also don't know if I'd say that Durant was an appreciably better shooter than McAdoo when we factor in the era Mac played in. You know better than anyone that McAdoo was considered a freakish talent for his time, and back then I'd say that having off-the-dribble range out to 20 feet as a bigman was mind-blowing in terms of skill.

[apophain]

It's clear the Mavs never reached the offensive heights that they had with Nash. They were still a good offensive team from 04-05 to 07-08 but nowhere near the offensive juggernaut they were with Nash.

Sure, the absence of Nash weakened the overall offensive power of the Mavs. But that‘s kind of trivial, isn‘t it? The problem without Nash was to compete in lineups with Nowitzki on the bench. Without Nash but with Nowitzki on the floor the Dallas offense was still able to produce spectacular offensive numbers.

05/06: 115.4 (106.2) = +9.2
06/07: 116.6 (106.5) = +10.1
07/08: 115.6 (107.5) = +8.1

The first number displays points per 100 possessions with Nowitzki on the court while the number in brackets is the average offensive rating. Dallas clearly was able to reach offensive heights without Nash, so your numbers just explain the Mavs‘ struggle to run a good offense without him. And btw, if you still think Nash did better without Nowitzki than vice versa, check Nashs offenses in Phoenix in the same time span:

05/06: 114.8 (106.2) = +8.6
06/07: 118.7 (106.5) = +12.2
07/08: 118.9 (107.5) = +11.4

A bit higher numbers however, Nashs teammates did much better without him on the floor, which indicates that they were offensively better than Nowitzkis. Offenses without Nash/Nowitzki:

05/06: 106.4 / 104.5
06/07: 106.3 / 101.9
07/08: 103.5 / 104.0


Generally, I disagree with the evaluation of Nowitzki‘s Peak in the series. While I can‘t make an honest statement about players pre80s (at least), I can compare it to those who supposedely are having higher peaks than him, like Bryant, Garnett, Robinson and most likely Durant.

While Taylor appreciates Nowitzki as one of the best scorers of all time (source: an early podcast episode), I definitely think he underestimates his impact off the ball. In another episode of his podcast he ranked Nowitzkis value (!) off ball behind players like Rip Hamilton and Anthony Davis. And while I feel he just lost himself in the aesthetic here. For example Rip was so good schooled in moving off the ball but also just needed to be that engaged here because he did not have the skills to create on ball. It speaks for Ben to notice such stuff, but I think he confused those details with real impact. Whole defensive concepts are organized around Nowitzkis gravity - especially in a such import scheme like pick and roll or pick and pop. In Nowitzkis prime the style of playing was still old fashioned and both PF and C defended near the zone. Therefore, guards had a much harder time attacking the basket with offensive Bigs who were not able to shoot. Nowadays we can definitely see the advantages of spacing big men, as the whole league develops into maximum space and the offensive numbers skyrocketing analogously. And Nowitzki played a pioniering role, because his impact was that huge. His defenderes were just allowed to help on pick and pops as they did when they guard a different player type. Even when teams already found out for years about his skillset and adjusted their defense accordingly, you can watch playoff highlights of 2011 and find wide open drives by Mavs guards because Nowitzkis defenders were reluctant to contain just a little bit. Barea made a career out of that play. The German had not such clever tricks like bird, bumping into defender to get better offensive rebound position or ran permanently around several screens. But without having statistical evidence, I can only claim that Nowitzkis general gravity and rather unflashy but effective screen setting has a much higher effect on the offensive performance.

Combining such a great efficiency, solid production and immense off ball impact on offense just sets him above someone like Durant and Kobe. I also wonder why Taylor uses primarily boxscore influenced metrics and somewhat ignores RAPM. BPM just tries to predict RAPM results and sure, that makes sense for peaks before 1996. But entirely not using RAPM just seems odd, and I think Nowitzki is one player who suffers from that.

[Djoker]

Yeah, I've probably been underrating his passing skills for years because he's not elite passer (but good overall for a volume scorer). I've been vocal about Durant's weaknesses as a ball-handler for years so this part didn't surprise me.

On the other hand, I don't agree with Ben's conclusion about his defense. I know that he improved a great deal since the early 2010s, but I still wouldn't call him a meaningful contributor on that end. His versatility is nice as a man defender, but it's overstated because he can't guard quick perimeter players and he struggles with true bigs. His off-ball defense is also mediocre, as he doesn't provide much rim protection at 4 and his rotations are not sound, but he can't play against perimeter players full time either, as he's weak screen defendee due to his size.

I think saying he's not a meaningful contributor on D is quite harsh. KD can do a lot to bother people with his size and his rim protection was actually very good for a SF which is the position he played most. He was just below All-Defensive level during his time in Golden State.

[Snakebites]

Somehow you "knew" Curry was gonna be the last one.

Wade and Dirk are probably the ones I most regret not seeing. Maybe Kawhi.

At 26 Giannis may not have peaked yet, which is probably why he didn’t get one.

[70sFan]

I wonder how much better offensively McAdoo would have been with modern handles. He didn't have Durant's passing skills and I'd not call him as good shooter. His handles were insane though and it was without carrying and traveling all the time like Durant does.

Hmmmmm...........that's a really interesting question. Because part of me wonders if a more advanced handle would have really done much more for McAdoo, considering he was already getting to the rim (or his spots on the floor) whenever he wanted with the restrictive rulesets of the time. So if he was already unstoppable during the mid-70s, could he have been more unstoppable than that?

I also don't know if I'd say that Durant was an appreciably better shooter than McAdoo when we factor in the era Mac played in. You know better than anyone that McAdoo was considered a freakish talent for his time, and back then I'd say that having off-the-dribble range out to 20 feet as a bigman was mind-blowing in terms of skill.

Good point about the handles, though I think looser rules would make him slightly less turnover prone.

I was thinking about his shooting touch compared to Durant mostly because of his FT shooting - he was 78% FT shooter at his best in Braves and he got worse as the time went on for whatever reasons. On the other hand, McAdoo shot almost 37% from three on almost 2 attempts per game in 1988-93 period in Italian league (38.4% on 2.0 3PA without counting the first season in Italy). He was 36-41 by then and he never practiced long range shooting, he had real range on his shot.

[70sFan]

Yeah, I've probably been underrating his passing skills for years because he's not elite passer (but good overall for a volume scorer). I've been vocal about Durant's weaknesses as a ball-handler for years so this part didn't surprise me.

On the other hand, I don't agree with Ben's conclusion about his defense. I know that he improved a great deal since the early 2010s, but I still wouldn't call him a meaningful contributor on that end. His versatility is nice as a man defender, but it's overstated because he can't guard quick perimeter players and he struggles with true bigs. His off-ball defense is also mediocre, as he doesn't provide much rim protection at 4 and his rotations are not sound, but he can't play against perimeter players full time either, as he's weak screen defendee due to his size.

I think saying he's not a meaningful contributor on D is quite harsh. KD can do a lot to bother people with his size and his rim protection was actually very good for a SF which is the position he played most. He was just below All-Defensive level during his time in Golden State.

In 2016-18 period Durant played mostly at PF on defense though.

[Djoker]

It's clear the Mavs never reached the offensive heights that they had with Nash. They were still a good offensive team from 04-05 to 07-08 but nowhere near the offensive juggernaut they were with Nash.

Sure, the absence of Nash weakened the overall offensive power of the Mavs. But that‘s kind of trivial, isn‘t it? The problem without Nash was to compete in lineups with Nowitzki on the bench. Without Nash but with Nowitzki on the floor the Dallas offense was still able to produce spectacular offensive numbers.

05/06: 115.4 (106.2) = +9.2
06/07: 116.6 (106.5) = +10.1
07/08: 115.6 (107.5) = +8.1

The first number displays points per 100 possessions with Nowitzki on the court while the number in brackets is the average offensive rating. Dallas clearly was able to reach offensive heights without Nash, so your numbers just explain the Mavs‘ struggle to run a good offense without him. And btw, if you still think Nash did better without Nowitzki than vice versa, check Nashs offenses in Phoenix in the same time span:

05/06: 114.8 (106.2) = +8.6
06/07: 118.7 (106.5) = +12.2
07/08: 118.9 (107.5) = +11.4

A bit higher numbers however, Nashs teammates did much better without him on the floor, which indicates that they were offensively better than Nowitzkis. Offenses without Nash/Nowitzki:

05/06: 106.4 / 104.5
06/07: 106.3 / 101.9
07/08: 103.5 / 104.0


Generally, I disagree with the evaluation of Nowitzki‘s Peak in the series. While I can‘t make an honest statement about players pre80s (at least), I can compare it to those who supposedely are having higher peaks than him, like Bryant, Garnett, Robinson and most likely Durant.

While Taylor appreciates Nowitzki as one of the best scorers of all time (source: an early podcast episode), I definitely think he underestimates his impact off the ball. In another episode of his podcast he ranked Nowitzkis value (!) off ball behind players like Rip Hamilton and Anthony Davis. And while I feel he just lost himself in the aesthetic here. For example Rip was so good schooled in moving off the ball but also just needed to be that engaged here because he did not have the skills to create on ball. It speaks for Ben to notice such stuff, but I think he confused those details with real impact. Whole defensive concepts are organized around Nowitzkis gravity - especially in a such import scheme like pick and roll or pick and pop. In Nowitzkis prime the style of playing was still old fashioned and both PF and C defended near the zone. Therefore, guards had a much harder time attacking the basket with offensive Bigs who were not able to shoot. Nowadays we can definitely see the advantages of spacing big men, as the whole league develops into maximum space and the offensive numbers skyrocketing analogously. And Nowitzki played a pioniering role, because his impact was that huge. His defenderes were just allowed to help on pick and pops as they did when they guard a different player type. Even when teams already found out for years about his skillset and adjusted their defense accordingly, you can watch playoff highlights of 2011 and find wide open drives by Mavs guards because Nowitzkis defenders were reluctant to contain just a little bit. Barea made a career out of that play. The German had not such clever tricks like bird, bumping into defender to get better offensive rebound position or ran permanently around several screens. But without having statistical evidence, I can only claim that Nowitzkis general gravity and rather unflashy but effective screen setting has a much higher effect on the offensive performance.

Combining such a great efficiency, solid production and immense off ball impact on offense just sets him above someone like Durant and Kobe. I also wonder why Taylor uses primarily boxscore influenced metrics and somewhat ignores RAPM. BPM just tries to predict RAPM results and sure, that makes sense for peaks before 1996. But entirely not using RAPM just seems odd, and I think Nowitzki is one player who suffers from that.

I think the problem with the Mavs was that the lineups they played in 2003 and especially 2004 were too heavily geared towards offense that they gave up a lot of their gains on the defensive end. They used to play Dirk at C and someone like Jamison/Walker at PF. Yikes! That frontcourt offers literally zero rim protection. I find that to be a very good argument for why the Mavs were flawed. And well DIrk's injury in 2003 came at a bad time. Maybe Mavs are champs if the big German is healthy... His injury is one of the bigger what-ifs that rarely gets talked about.

Anyways...

We kind of went off tangent from discussing Nash's portability and impact to discussing Dirk's peak but I don't see Dirk's peak on the level of guys like KD and Kobe. Both score at a bit higher volume than Dirk and in Durant''s case there isn't even a drop in efficiency. In Kobe's case I'd say he's a significantly better passer than Dirk and Ben Taylor himself agrees with that. He gives Kobe a much higher passer rating and his box creation is a lot higher which I completely agree with. Kobe gave a ton of open shots to his teammates too probably more than Dirk. It definitely agrees with my eye test as well. Kobe even though he made some selections off of reputation was also a much better defender than Dirk. KD is also a better defender though the gap is smaller. And KG is also a better passer than Dirk.

The thing that hurt Dirk's impact throughout his career is that he generally offers little outside of scoring. When his shot isn't falling his value frankly isn't very high. Spacing... yea he provides some. He's a good defensive rebounder. He's an average passer at best and a mediocre defender in general. Can't protect the rim and generally very stiff and upright on defense. He's around a neutral defender.

I quite frankly find him a bit overrated among most fans not underrated. His 2011 title propelled him from one extreme (useless choker) to another extreme (offensive GOAT). He's definitely not the first but he falls well short of the latter as well. There are 9 players in history who I'd definitely take over Dirk just offensively.

Magic
Curry
Jordan
Kobe
Durant
Lebron
Bird
Kareem
Shaq

All those guys I listed are since the merger too. One can definitely make a case for a few others like Wilt, Oscar, West, Barkley, Nash and Harden as well. And I don't think I'm hard on Dirk... When you're a #10-15 player all time on offense and you're a 7 footer who doesn't play defense you're probably not going to make a top 15 peaks list.

[LukaTheGOAT]

It's clear the Mavs never reached the offensive heights that they had with Nash. They were still a good offensive team from 04-05 to 07-08 but nowhere near the offensive juggernaut they were with Nash.

Sure, the absence of Nash weakened the overall offensive power of the Mavs. But that‘s kind of trivial, isn‘t it? The problem without Nash was to compete in lineups with Nowitzki on the bench. Without Nash but with Nowitzki on the floor the Dallas offense was still able to produce spectacular offensive numbers.

05/06: 115.4 (106.2) = +9.2
06/07: 116.6 (106.5) = +10.1
07/08: 115.6 (107.5) = +8.1

The first number displays points per 100 possessions with Nowitzki on the court while the number in brackets is the average offensive rating. Dallas clearly was able to reach offensive heights without Nash, so your numbers just explain the Mavs‘ struggle to run a good offense without him. And btw, if you still think Nash did better without Nowitzki than vice versa, check Nashs offenses in Phoenix in the same time span:

05/06: 114.8 (106.2) = +8.6
06/07: 118.7 (106.5) = +12.2
07/08: 118.9 (107.5) = +11.4

A bit higher numbers however, Nashs teammates did much better without him on the floor, which indicates that they were offensively better than Nowitzkis. Offenses without Nash/Nowitzki:

05/06: 106.4 / 104.5
06/07: 106.3 / 101.9
07/08: 103.5 / 104.0


Generally, I disagree with the evaluation of Nowitzki‘s Peak in the series. While I can‘t make an honest statement about players pre80s (at least), I can compare it to those who supposedely are having higher peaks than him, like Bryant, Garnett, Robinson and most likely Durant.

While Taylor appreciates Nowitzki as one of the best scorers of all time (source: an early podcast episode), I definitely think he underestimates his impact off the ball. In another episode of his podcast he ranked Nowitzkis value (!) off ball behind players like Rip Hamilton and Anthony Davis. And while I feel he just lost himself in the aesthetic here. For example Rip was so good schooled in moving off the ball but also just needed to be that engaged here because he did not have the skills to create on ball. It speaks for Ben to notice such stuff, but I think he confused those details with real impact. Whole defensive concepts are organized around Nowitzkis gravity - especially in a such import scheme like pick and roll or pick and pop. In Nowitzkis prime the style of playing was still old fashioned and both PF and C defended near the zone. Therefore, guards had a much harder time attacking the basket with offensive Bigs who were not able to shoot. Nowadays we can definitely see the advantages of spacing big men, as the whole league develops into maximum space and the offensive numbers skyrocketing analogously. And Nowitzki played a pioniering role, because his impact was that huge. His defenderes were just allowed to help on pick and pops as they did when they guard a different player type. Even when teams already found out for years about his skillset and adjusted their defense accordingly, you can watch playoff highlights of 2011 and find wide open drives by Mavs guards because Nowitzkis defenders were reluctant to contain just a little bit. Barea made a career out of that play. The German had not such clever tricks like bird, bumping into defender to get better offensive rebound position or ran permanently around several screens. But without having statistical evidence, I can only claim that Nowitzkis general gravity and rather unflashy but effective screen setting has a much higher effect on the offensive performance.

Combining such a great efficiency, solid production and immense off ball impact on offense just sets him above someone like Durant and Kobe. I also wonder why Taylor uses primarily boxscore influenced metrics and somewhat ignores RAPM. BPM just tries to predict RAPM results and sure, that makes sense for peaks before 1996. But entirely not using RAPM just seems odd, and I think Nowitzki is one player who suffers from that.

He uses his version of BPM, not basketball reference's. I'm not certain if his BPM is based off RAPM (it might be I don't know).

[apophain]

He uses his version of BPM, not basketball reference's. I'm not certain if his BPM is based off RAPM (it might be I don't know).

In this article (https://fansided.com/2019/01/08/nylon-calculus-best-advanced-stat/) he describes his BPM as his own version of bbrefs BPM. He barely describes his metric but already uses it in his evaluation of Abdul-Jabbar, Walton and the other guys. That´s why I assumed his BPM to be a boxscore based metric.

I think the problem with the Mavs was that the lineups they played in 2003 and especially 2004 were too heavily geared towards offense that they gave up a lot of their gains on the defensive end. They used to play Dirk at C and someone like Jamison/Walker at PF. Yikes! That frontcourt offers literally zero rim protection. I find that to be a very good argument for why the Mavs were flawed. And well DIrk's injury in 2003 came at a bad time. Maybe Mavs are champs if the big German is healthy... His injury is one of the bigger what-ifs that rarely gets talked about.

Anyways...

We kind of went off tangent from discussing Nash's portability and impact to discussing Dirk's peak but I don't see Dirk's peak on the level of guys like KD and Kobe. Both score at a bit higher volume than Dirk and in Durant''s case there isn't even a drop in efficiency. In Kobe's case I'd say he's a significantly better passer than Dirk and Ben Taylor himself agrees with that. He gives Kobe a much higher passer rating and his box creation is a lot higher which I completely agree with. Kobe gave a ton of open shots to his teammates too probably more than Dirk. It definitely agrees with my eye test as well. Kobe even though he made some selections off of reputation was also a much better defender than Dirk. KD is also a better defender though the gap is smaller. And KG is also a better passer than Dirk.

The thing that hurt Dirk's impact throughout his career is that he generally offers little outside of scoring. When his shot isn't falling his value frankly isn't very high. Spacing... yea he provides some. He's a good defensive rebounder. He's an average passer at best and a mediocre defender in general. Can't protect the rim and generally very stiff and upright on defense. He's around a neutral defender.

I quite frankly find him a bit overrated among most fans not underrated. His 2011 title propelled him from one extreme (useless choker) to another extreme (offensive GOAT). He's definitely not the first but he falls well short of the latter as well. There are 9 players in history who I'd definitely take over Dirk just offensively.

Magic
Curry
Jordan
Kobe
Durant
Lebron
Bird
Kareem
Shaq

All those guys I listed are since the merger too. One can definitely make a case for a few others like Wilt, Oscar, West, Barkley, Nash and Harden as well. And I don't think I'm hard on Dirk... When you're a #10-15 player all time on offense and you're a 7 footer who doesn't play defense you're probably not going to make a top 15 peaks list.

I agree with your argument that the early Mavs gave up defense for offense, but it´s not like that weakened them heavily. The initial point I wanted to make was that Nowitzki can lead a team to offensive heights even without Nash and I think my posted numbers confirm that statement. If you want to argue that these are empty stats, because the Mavs suffered badly for the bad defense, I can disprove that as well. For 05/06 with Nowitzki on the court Dallas was at +10.9, for 06/07 it was +14.7 and for 07/08 we have +11.6. The Mavs with Nowitzki received 0.4 points more, 2.0 points less and 1.1 points less per 100 possessions respectively for those seasons.

Regarding Dirks passing, I agree about the raw skill of it but really can´t determine a negative effect of it on the offensive outcome. How could one? Nowitzki is based on almost every impact metric one of the best offensive players. Not only is he one of the most efficient scorers, he also rarely turns the ball over himself and so were the overall lineups he played with. Since Nash left, the Mavs never really were able to get a high quality guard for shot creation. But even without those type of quality player, the lineups around Nowitzki excelled offensively. In large parts I would attribute this to the off-ball value the German created, which I described in my last posting.
And think about it this way: in the Chamberlain/Russell episode Taylor described the opportunity costs of high volume scorers. They take away shots from more efficient players and - and that´s a bad thing, especially if your volumescoring is inefficient. Analogously, Nowitzki knew about his limitations in throwing „threading the needle“ passes, and didn´t try them extensively. Hence the low turnover rate. But instead he was used in a way that his lead guards were able to use the space he created with his off-ball gravity. That just seems logically to me.

In the end, who really cares about him not being able to make homerun passes, when his impact of the offense was so huge. Both, as a passer (like Garnett) and off-ball hybrid (like Nowitzki) you are dependend on your teammates to execute. And I don´t really feel that Nowitzki was given elite quality around him to make that off-ball hybrid concept work. Maybe he just gave other players the opportunity to create (because he was not elite in creating for others) while he created space and was able to take over the possession in an isolation at the end, when the other players were not able to capitalize before. I personally don´t see why this kind of impact should be penalized for the impact of a stereotypical playmaker.
But I think we mostly disagree on what Nowitzki brings to the table. He is one of the most efficient scorers and has an immense off-ball value. And even if he would just contribute the scoring and still have such a big impact, I am not sure if that would really speak against him. While aestetically he definitely was not a great defender, he seemed to have a good impact here as well, with his solid positioning, good post defense and really good defensive rebounds.

[drza]

In the past, I've done a marathon post comparing Kobe and Dirk, and a different one comparing Kobe and Durant. I don't know that I've ever done a big one on DIrk vs Durant. I'd like to, but unfortunately the schedule conflicts. But if I did, I'm pretty sure it'd come out that I've got Dirk solidly higher/more impactful than Durant.

In the two previously mentioned posts, I came out with Kobe solidly higher than Durant, and was somewhat surprised when I dug into the first comp and had it come out essentially a draw with advantage Kobe. Dirk had historic impact in the regular season over the course of his career, but closer examination pointed out to me that in the first half of his career (despite his box score numbers being typically excellent), he didn't seem to have the impact in the postseason to match the regular season. I typically credit that, at least in part, to Dirk being defended as a big man in the regular season and often more like a wing in the postseason. That a good chunk of his non-boxscore value rested in his ability to create spacing and warp defenses by pulling opposing bigs into positions that didn't let them maximize their team defense/rebounding, and thus creating higher quality looks for the rest of his team on a consistent basis. That it wasn't until the Carlisle era toward the end of the decade, after the MVP year, that Dirk really developed his post game to a level that he could command that defenses collapse on him no matter how they chose to defend him...and that's a big reason why his impact translated more faithfully to the postseason during his later years, including the championship run in 2011.

Well, in an oversimplification to get at the point quicker, I feel like Durant's game as a 3/4 has been most similar to early-career Dirk. Durant may have even better boxscore numbers, particularly scoring and assist-based numbers, than Dirk had at his best in the regular or postseason. But I still have never seen Durant ever reach quite the level of impact on his team's results that Dirk had regularly over the course of his career. And I think it's for a similar reason...KD is an all-history finisher, at amazing efficiency, but (on the scale of the other all-history offensive players) he just didn't collapse defenses to the same level. It's on a similar spectrum with peers like Anthony Davis or Carmelo Anthony on offense...they're going to fill it up, create great volume, often on outstanding efficiency...for themselves. But they aren't collapsing the opposing defenses the way that players that are better combos of elite scoring AND strong passing/floor generalship are, and (in comparison to someone like Dirk) they aren't warping defenses to the same degree and allowing their teammates to operate against imbalanced coverages the way that a big (who was ELITE at the pick-and-roll/pop game) like Dirk could do.

So, yeah. I believe Dirk peaked higher than KD did. Doesn't mean necessarily that Durant doesn't belong in this discussion, but if he's here I'd have liked to see Dirk in here as well. Just my 2 pennies

[limbo]

Yeah, i wish ElGee did a similar breakdown video for Dirk, because he truly was one of the most unique offensive players in NBA history.

I think Dirk was a lot better than Durant at leveraging his threat as a shooter/driver. He was just a smarter player without the ball.
Durant's game was always more iso-centric. He did a lot of dribbling that ended up in pull up jumpers or drives (where he wasn't a good enough passer to punish teams consistently, especially in the 1st half of his prime). Dirk didn't really dribble a lot. He just screened for players and them moved into the open space for the ball and then took advantage of that space better than almost any scorer ever because he could beat any matchup with his ability to shoot, drive or post.

Watch on YouTube

You can see from this video how Dirk & Terry ran the two man game and that was basically the entire basis of Dallas offensive system during the 2006/2007 seasons... OKC had Durant ran through some screens and stuff, but it was always just for a couple possessions. Eventually, sooner rather than later they just scrapped everything and went to iso-mode. Which i don't know if it's Scott Brooks fault, Westbrook's fault or Durant's fault... Admittedly, i'm personally not high on Scott Brooks as an offensive coach, and while Westbrook is an elite passer, he has no gravity on the perimeter, so he really doesn't demand a hard hedge or double like Jason Terry could.

Skill-wise, Durant certainly had the tools to play more off-ball and leverage his triple threat ability (he probably should have played more PF in OKC than he did, tbh, instead of OKC playing Perkins/Kanter/Adams, on a team that already lacked outside gravity), but ultimately he didn't do, and i think there are many factors that could be emphasized here as to 'why'. Like i already mentioned, some of it is definitely on Brooks, some on Westbrook inability to shoot or make high level decisions, lack of playmaking/shooting on the roster after Harden left and Westbrook was injured or on the bench certainly didn't help, and of course Durant's playstyle was just more iso-centric, and i don't know if he had the wide frame Dirk had to be setting screens effectively as a Big man and then use his brain to fill in the open gaps.

[70sFan]

Yeah, Dirk's video would be really nice to watch. Then again, I'd love to see Julius, Moses and Barkley videos as well. We simply can't expect too much, 15 episodes is already a lot.

[Max123]

Any thoughts on the most notable cut from this series? Maybe Wade?

[LukaTheGOAT]

Any thoughts on the most notable cut from this series? Maybe Wade?

Dirk, Wade, Kawhi, Nash to me are the most notable cuts. I recognize I might be higher on some of those guys, especially Kawhi then Ben and consensus on here. Particularly Kawhi, I feel like might be the most peculiar inclusion there but I really love his floor-raising.

[limbo]

Any thoughts on the most notable cut from this series? Maybe Wade?

Dirk, Wade, Kawhi, Nash to me are the most notable cuts. I recognize I might be higher on some of those guys, especially Kawhi then Ben and consensus on here. Particularly Kawhi, I feel like might be the most peculiar inclusion there but I really love his floor-raising.

You can add CP3 and Harden to that list. The only reason they aren't being mentioned more loudly is because of their lack of titles or deep Playoff runs in general. Despite the fact that Paul posted some of the best PS (mini) runs from 2008 to 2018 in NBA history... And Harden outside had a couple of series wasn't all too bad either, considering he was an underdog to pretty much any team he lost against.

[70sFan]

Any thoughts on the most notable cut from this series? Maybe Wade?

Dirk, Wade, Kawhi, Nash to me are the most notable cuts. I recognize I might be higher on some of those guys, especially Kawhi then Ben and consensus on here. Particularly Kawhi, I feel like might be the most peculiar inclusion there but I really love his floor-raising.

You can add CP3 and Harden to that list. The only reason they aren't being mentioned more loudly is because of their lack of titles or deep Playoff runs in general. Despite the fact that Paul posted some of the best PS (mini) runs from 2008 to 2018 in NBA history... And Harden outside had a couple of series wasn't all too bad either, considering he was an underdog to pretty much any team he lost against.

I'd prefer videos about lesser known players from different eras - making 13 videos about the best players of the 21st century doesn't make much sense. We already have Shaq, Duncan, Garnett, Kobe, James, Durant and Curry from that period - you want to add Dirk, Wade, Nash, Kawhi, Paul and Harden which would give us 13 players from last 20 years (2000-19) vs only 7 from 1977-99 period.

If you want to have all these players from 2000s and 2010s, then Ben would have to make videos about Julius, Moses, Ewing, Barkley and Malone. That gives us already 2 times more players than he actually did.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

In the two previously mentioned posts, I came out with Kobe solidly higher than Durant, and was somewhat surprised when I dug into the first comp and had it come out essentially a draw with advantage Kobe. Dirk had historic impact in the regular season over the course of his career, but closer examination pointed out to me that in the first half of his career (despite his box score numbers being typically excellent), he didn't seem to have the impact in the postseason to match the regular season. I typically credit that, at least in part, to Dirk being defended as a big man in the regular season and often more like a wing in the postseason. That a good chunk of his non-boxscore value rested in his ability to create spacing and warp defenses by pulling opposing bigs into positions that didn't let them maximize their team defense/rebounding, and thus creating higher quality looks for the rest of his team on a consistent basis. That it wasn't until the Carlisle era toward the end of the decade, after the MVP year, that Dirk really developed his post game to a level that he could command that defenses collapse on him no matter how they chose to defend him...and that's a big reason why his impact translated more faithfully to the postseason during his later years, including the championship run in 2011.

The issue I have is that the sample size of non Dirk minutes in his early playoff career is really too small.
He was playing like 43min/game, not sure what to take out of the on/off

[LukaTheGOAT]

Dirk, Wade, Kawhi, Nash to me are the most notable cuts. I recognize I might be higher on some of those guys, especially Kawhi then Ben and consensus on here. Particularly Kawhi, I feel like might be the most peculiar inclusion there but I really love his floor-raising.

You can add CP3 and Harden to that list. The only reason they aren't being mentioned more loudly is because of their lack of titles or deep Playoff runs in general. Despite the fact that Paul posted some of the best PS (mini) runs from 2008 to 2018 in NBA history... And Harden outside had a couple of series wasn't all too bad either, considering he was an underdog to pretty much any team he lost against.

I'd prefer videos about lesser known players from different eras - making 13 videos about the best players of the 21st century doesn't make much sense. We already have Shaq, Duncan, Garnett, Kobe, James, Durant and Curry from that period - you want to add Dirk, Wade, Nash, Kawhi, Paul and Harden which would give us 13 players from last 20 years (2000-19) vs only 7 from 1977-99 period.

If you want to have all these players from 2000s and 2010s, then Ben would have to make videos about Julius, Moses, Ewing, Barkley and Malone. That gives us already 2 times more players than he actually did.

That's fair, but I was thinking in terms of peak people who fit the criteria he set up. Dr. J, Jerry West, and Oscar Robertson would be people I think deserve a peak vid now that I think about it- but I have heard people argued Dr. J peaked before the NBA. And honestly, the guys I mention, I personally hold in higher esteem for peak play than the names you have mentioned. Like I said, I believe I might be higher on their peaks than some of the consensus here.

[limbo]

Not enough footage & data in the 1960/70

I'm just throwing names i think are worthy of a deep dive. Aside from footage/data, i think the problem with some of the older ATG's is that they are simply worse versions of current players in many ways. ElGee already hinted at this in a roundabout way in the KD video, when he said Gervin was basically a proto version of Durant... So what's the point of breaking down a guy like Gervin when Durant does everything he did but better. Same could be said for someone like Cousy in comparison to Nash or something. Still, i'm not opposed to it, if not anything else, it would still be good material to see how ATGs played within their own league's environment.

In that case, some names to look at would obviously be Pettit, Frazier, Rick Berry, Dr.J, Moses, Barkley, Reggie Miller - at least that's my personal preference.

[70sFan]

I don't even talk about 1960s and 1970s players - Ben wouldn't make videos about them because there was not enough footage available. I'm just saying that there's no point of making 15 videos about 2000s and 2010s players, but only 5 from 1980s and 1990s. We have more than enough footage to make video about Julius, Moses, Ewing or Barkley. We don't have modern, better version of them in modern era.