Kobe Bryant/David Robinson or Chris Paul/Hakeem Olajuwon
Posted: Mon Feb 22, 2021 10:20 am
Which duo would you rather build a team around?
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kio80 wrote:Why is Chris Paul’s name mentioned amongst these legends way above his league?
Are you Chris Paul?
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HeartBreakKid wrote:kio80 wrote:Why is Chris Paul’s name mentioned amongst these legends way above his league?
Are you Chris Paul?
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CP3 nearly won the only MVP Kobe Bryant ever got in his 3rd season - why are you acting like he was never a top player in the league lol. They played at the same time...
sansterre wrote:To my mind Kobe and Robinson are an extremely good fit. D-Rob is basically a way better version of Pau Gasol, a monster rebounding, good passing, decent midrange game, rim-running big who works off-ball and carries a massive load on the defense. I think this would work really well.
The second is really hard to imagine. Hakeem's ball-stopping ISO-post game doesn't necessarily compliment an outstanding point guard. If Hakeem optimized his game around having Paul then I think they'd be a stronger duo, but it requires some imagination to see. Where Kobe and D-Rob we've seen already work, with a worse version of Robinson.
HeartBreakKid wrote:sansterre wrote:To my mind Kobe and Robinson are an extremely good fit. D-Rob is basically a way better version of Pau Gasol, a monster rebounding, good passing, decent midrange game, rim-running big who works off-ball and carries a massive load on the defense. I think this would work really well.
The second is really hard to imagine. Hakeem's ball-stopping ISO-post game doesn't necessarily compliment an outstanding point guard. If Hakeem optimized his game around having Paul then I think they'd be a stronger duo, but it requires some imagination to see. Where Kobe and D-Rob we've seen already work, with a worse version of Robinson.
Kobe and David are both isolation players also, they stop being isolation players when they don't need to be.
Olajuwon needs someone to get him the ball when he is in the post - CP3 is good at doing that. Every time Hakeem gets good position he can expect an entry pass without risk of being a turnover. That helps fix up one of post offenses biggest weaknesses.
Not to mention they do not occupy the same place in the court.
Just because Hakeem is not a pick and roll monkey doesn't mean he cannot play with a pass first guy.
HeartBreakKid wrote:sansterre wrote:To my mind Kobe and Robinson are an extremely good fit. D-Rob is basically a way better version of Pau Gasol, a monster rebounding, good passing, decent midrange game, rim-running big who works off-ball and carries a massive load on the defense. I think this would work really well.
The second is really hard to imagine. Hakeem's ball-stopping ISO-post game doesn't necessarily compliment an outstanding point guard. If Hakeem optimized his game around having Paul then I think they'd be a stronger duo, but it requires some imagination to see. Where Kobe and D-Rob we've seen already work, with a worse version of Robinson.
Kobe and David are both isolation players also, they stop being isolation players when they don't need to be.
Olajuwon needs someone to get him the ball when he is in the post - CP3 is good at doing that. Every time Hakeem gets good position he can expect an entry pass without risk of being a turnover. That helps fix up one of post offenses biggest weaknesses.
Not to mention they do not occupy the same place in the court.
Just because Hakeem is not a pick and roll monkey doesn't mean he cannot play with a pass first guy.
dygaction wrote:The difference between Robinson and Hakeem is small. Kobe had shown the ability to win championships with Gasol level players.
sansterre wrote:D-Rob is basically a way better version of Pau Gasol, a monster rebounding, good passing, decent midrange game, rim-running big who works off-ball and carries a massive load on the defense.
limbo wrote:He amplifies the talent around him at a GOAT level. Kobe is elite in that aspect as well, but where he really separates himself from the pack is his ability to carry a large scoring load by himself... And this is becoming increasingly less and less important as, due to natural progression, the average NBA player gets more offensively skilled and competent of contributing either as a sovereign vessel, or a knock down sniper...
G35 wrote:HeartBreakKid wrote:sansterre wrote:To my mind Kobe and Robinson are an extremely good fit. D-Rob is basically a way better version of Pau Gasol, a monster rebounding, good passing, decent midrange game, rim-running big who works off-ball and carries a massive load on the defense. I think this would work really well.
The second is really hard to imagine. Hakeem's ball-stopping ISO-post game doesn't necessarily compliment an outstanding point guard. If Hakeem optimized his game around having Paul then I think they'd be a stronger duo, but it requires some imagination to see. Where Kobe and D-Rob we've seen already work, with a worse version of Robinson.
Kobe and David are both isolation players also, they stop being isolation players when they don't need to be.
Olajuwon needs someone to get him the ball when he is in the post - CP3 is good at doing that. Every time Hakeem gets good position he can expect an entry pass without risk of being a turnover. That helps fix up one of post offenses biggest weaknesses.
Not to mention they do not occupy the same place in the court.
Just because Hakeem is not a pick and roll monkey doesn't mean he cannot play with a pass first guy.
Kobe won five titles playing in the triangle.
DRob won two titles playing off of Tim Duncan.
They were isolation players because they had a lack of talent around them, what you would look at is how a player plays next to other great players.
Kobe with Shaq and Pau...how did Shaq and Pau perform?
DRob with Tim Duncan...how did Duncan perform?
That, imo is the testament of a players all around portability...how do you play next to other great players. You can always hypothesize a random pairing but with Kobe and DRob, you actually got to see it and win at the highest level.
CP3 paired with Blake Griffin, Deandre Jordan and a lot of side help i.e. Billups, Reddick, Jamal Crawford with the Clippers
Then he paired with James Harden and we saw how that turned out.
CP3 has had more opportunity to play with star players than a lot of other players, I like CP3 but imo, he did not cash out his chances. I know a lot of people want to point out that Houston almost beat the Warriors but imo, when CP3 lost to the Rockets in 2015 was a bigger loss.
The Clippers should have won, they blew a 15+ point lead, James Harden had a terrible game, and it was Josh Smith, Corey Brewer and Trevor Ariza that brought that Rockets team back. Harden was benched for that 4th quarter where the Clippers could not score.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201505140LAC.html
No-more-rings wrote:Small nitpick here, but I'd argue that's not really true that volume scorers are becoming less and less important. This season there's two guys scoring 30+ ppg and 7 players scoring 28 or more.
Last season there was 3 people scoring 30 ppg or more, and 6 averaging 28 or more.
In Kobe's last prime year presumably 2010 there was only one scoring 30 or more and only 3 averaging 28 or more.
It's simply not true that volume scores aren't still very important and prevalent today.
limbo wrote:
I'm failing to understand the relevancy of the numbers you provided within the context of my argument as raw ppg has always depended on factors like FGA, # of three's, pace etc. to a significant extent...
Probably, the stats you should have emphasized instead are league average shooting numbers, starting with league average TS% and eFG% which are at it's highest ever mark in NBA history... The difference between those numbers now and when Kobe was in the final years of his prime is about 3%, which you may find negligible, but i don't, especially considering how, eFG% for example, was constantly floating from 48-50% in a 25-year span starting from 1980 and has gone from 50% to 53.5% in a span of 5 years from 2016 to now...
There's simply more players around the league right now (as well as better general understanding of how to use said players from a coaching/strategic standpoint) that are capable of impacting the game through hitting shots and generally efficient scoring than they were 10 years ago... Not only that, but they are almost always found on the majority of Playoff teams too (as these teams will possess more high end talent, hence why they are in the Playoffs).
limbo wrote:Who is going to make better use of that, the supreme individual volume scorer or the pass-first floor general extraordinaire?