Best ball handling team of all time

[LakerLegend]

Jamal Crawford or Iverson
Kobe
McGrady or Hill
LeBron
Shaq

[GANGSTERDOG]

Unless you think about flashy moves, James has vastly superior handles than Durant. That's one of the reasons why he's so dangerous as a playmaker. There are very few players in NBA history over 6'7 who are comparable to James as ballhandlers. Grant Hill, Magic Johnson - they are comparable, not KD

Nonsense.

This is Hilarious. The OP thinks that it's so impressive that a 20ish year old KD can out maneuver a 50 year old VC, KG and Matt Barnes lol.

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[3Diamantidis]

Penny Hardaway
Pete Maravich
Grant Hill
Kevin Garnett
Arvydas Sabonis

[penbeast0]

List the best ball handlers 1-5 of all time, in your opinion, to create the best ball handling team.

Something like:

PG: Kyrie Irving
SG: Pete Maravich
SF: Kevin Durant
PF: Shawn Marion
C: DeMarcus Cousins

How would they do in today's NBA?

If you are talking And1 abilities, you can justify Irving and Maravich as your backcourt (I don't think you can justify Marion, his handles were one of the weaknesses of his game). If you are talking ability to get where you want on the court at will without turning the ball over, there are clearly better PG's (Chris Paul for example, or Muggsy Bogues) and probably a few hundred better than the flashy but mistake prone Maravich whose handles were often spectacular but loose (Iverson if you want to go by listed position; Magic if you want to go by defensive assignments; even though Magic's turnover rates are high, that's mainly because he tried to do so much with his passes rather than loose handles).

[Witzig-Okashi]

Durant has a tendency to carry practically every time he performs a crossover, and though his handle for a guy his height is intriguing to watch at times, I can't make an argument that he is better than Grant Hill or LeBron for the 3.

Penny Hardaway would get serious consideration for the one outside of the typical names generally thought of here, as I don't think I saw his name (I could've overlooked)

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[Ballings7]

Kawhi Leonard in terms of ball control on scoring moves, is actually elite, due to his very large hands.

He makes shots that are quite difficult generally that you don't think will go in on a regular basis due to this. The shots are actually good shots for him because of his ability to hold onto the ball while in scoring motion like almost no one else I've seen since MJ. Some of the shots he's made around the rim are similar in nature to MJ (who also had big hands for a wing player).

Watch on YouTube

Kawhi's hands are barely smaller than Shaq's

Watch on YouTube

How did he finish on that dunking angle? Due to his hand controlling the ball like it was glued to it. Watch at 0:42 for the replay - the extension is remarkable.

Watch on YouTube

More examples. Incredible, especially if watch closely. The ball is like a rubber toy-basketball for Leonard.

Unless you think about flashy moves, James has vastly superior handles than Durant. That's one of the reasons why he's so dangerous as a playmaker. There are very few players in NBA history over 6'7 who are comparable to James as ballhandlers. Grant Hill, Magic Johnson - they are comparable, not KD

Nonsense.

When one thinks of point-forwards and impressive dribble drives with handles, Durant just isn't someone people think of.

Durant is not an elite ballhandler like LeBron, Pippen, Hill, Joe Johnson, Turkoglu, Bird were/are. Durant is good and certainly capable, but not that close to any of those guys.

[NormanDale]

Jamal Crawford or Iverson
Kobe
McGrady or Hill
LeBron
Shaq

Glad you mentioned Iverson, but he was a 2-guard for most of his career, so that's where I'm putting him. He's easily the best ball-handling 2-guard of all time. Also glad you mentioned Hill, who gets forgotten. McGrady was a 2-guard in his prime, though.

Isiah Thomas (Detroit)
Iverson
Hill
LeBron (4 is his best position these days, and has been for at least 5 years)
Draymond

If LeBron and Draymond are considered cheating, I'm going with Blake Griffin and Karl Towns in those two spots.

[KobesScarf]

Paul
Maravich
T-Mac
Webber
Wilt

[dhsilv2]

Unless you think about flashy moves, James has vastly superior handles than Durant. That's one of the reasons why he's so dangerous as a playmaker. There are very few players in NBA history over 6'7 who are comparable to James as ballhandlers. Grant Hill, Magic Johnson - they are comparable, not KD

What if you qualify Durant as a PF/C? How many 6'11-ish guys (which is supposedly his height barefoot) can handle the ball like Durant? Maybe Bob McAdoo? Giannis? The list is pretty short.

I dunno a lot of guys could do it if they were allowed to take 4-5 steps and palm the ball at will. A lot of people are focused on the ability of a player to move vs just ball handling. Sabonis for example had great ball handling. But in the nba he was pretty slow. Hakeem had great ball handling. Tim Duncan I saw way way too often bringing the ball up. Shaq had sick handles as well. Neither were guys I'd want to take the ball off the dribble, but that's a different topic.

[Baski]

Paul
Frobe
McGrady( I'm inclined to say Hill but i never saw him in his day)
Blake
Cousins for sure. Never seen any center dribble like him, past or present.

[ardee]

Kyrie
Kobe
LeBron
Griffin
Pau

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[Lou Fan]

PG Bogues
SG Iverson
SF McGrady
PF Webber
C Cousins
That's my team what do you think?

[penbeast0]

Are you talking about just handles, passing ability, or playmaking in the open court? Lists could be very different depending on what you are talking about and if you are talking about ability relative to others in league since the handling rules have changed as or more dramatically than any other part of the game.

[Lou Fan]

Are you talking about just handles, passing ability, or playmaking in the open court? Lists could be very different depending on what you are talking about and if you are talking about ability relative to others in league since the handling rules have changed as or more dramatically than any other part of the game.

Just handles and probably relative to the competition.

[SHAQ32]

I like Danny Manning at power forward.

You could go with Odom too but he played the 3 a few seasons.

[LakerLegend]

We just had a thread on this:

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1599116#start_here

[euroleague]

AI
MJ
KD
KG
DMC

ok, fine. not them - but they are my all-time best handles acronym team.

[penbeast0]

In terms of actual team, I'd go with the Sacramento Kings of:
Mike Bibby -- solid PG handles
Christie -- excellent handles for a wing
Peja -- good handles for a 3/4, average for a wing
Webber -- excellent handles for a 4/5
Vlade -- handles weren't great but for a guy over 7' tall were solid and excellent court vision

In terms of 5 deep team, they were to me the GOAT handling/passing team because both their bigs were well above average