better peak: james worthy vs david thompson

[falcolombardi]

these players have always been interesting to me,

worthy as a guy with somewhat of a superstar hype coming into the league who took a sidekick role his whole prime (more than succesfully)

david thompson as this uber athlete and outlier scoring talent whose career seems to have been less succesful than expected

how good were these two players and how do they conpare with each other?

[Jaivl]

Worthy by a million. Without Magic he upped his numbers to superstar territory, and was obviously a much better defender to boot.

[Owly]

Worthy by a million. Without Magic he upped his numbers to superstar territory, and was obviously a much better defender to boot.

Do you have details, sample (size, when) etc. Thanks.

[DQuinn1575]

Worthy by a million. Without Magic he upped his numbers to superstar territory, and was obviously a much better defender to boot.

Do you have details, sample (size, when) etc. Thanks.

Thompson by a million - he probably peaked as 3rd-4th best player in league along with Gervin in 78 -
Worthy was never a Top 10 player.
Thompson was a much better scorer, a better passer, defense was fairly close. Worthy doesn't really have a case for being better except he played on a better team.

[70sFan]

I'm not that sure, Worthy looks like a great option to play bigger role even without Magic, but I don't think he proved enough to be so certain about it. His defense, although decent, wasn't anything to rave about either.

Thompson was very good in his brief peak. A bit too turnover prone for my taste and not that good defensively, but he gave you a lot of things to like on offensive end - great slasher, strong shooter, good off-ball player.

[70sFan]

Worthy by a million. Without Magic he upped his numbers to superstar territory, and was obviously a much better defender to boot.

Are you that high on Worthy or that low on Thompson?

[asindc]

Best career? Worthy. Best peak? Thompson, no doubt.

[Jaivl]

Worthy by a million. Without Magic he upped his numbers to superstar territory, and was obviously a much better defender to boot.

Are you that high on Worthy or that low on Thompson?

Both. And I do think Worthy's defense, while nowhere near a guy like, for example, Paul George, is a decent positive and a very significant advantage here.

Worthy by a million. Without Magic he upped his numbers to superstar territory, and was obviously a much better defender to boot.

Do you have details, sample (size, when) etc. Thanks.

(compared to full season)
Pre-prime Worthy:
1984 - 13 games without Magic: 17.0 ppg (+2.5) 2.2 apg (-0.3), 60.1 TS% (+1%)

Prime Worthy:
1986 - 5 games without Magic: 20.2 ppg (+0.2) 4.3 apg (+1.6), 61.1 TS% (=)
1988 - 10 games without Magic: 21.3 ppg (+1.6) 4.8 apg (+0.9), 60.0 TS% (+3%)

Add his history of massively overperforming on the postseason while Thompson was the complete opposite and yeah, I think he was much more than a simple slasher who depended on Magic. I'm thinking around Marques Johnson level offense (prolly a bit worse), which is close enough on offense to the point I feel very confident taking him overall.

[tsherkin]

(compared to full season)
Pre-prime Worthy:
1984 - 13 games without Magic: 17.0 ppg (+2.5) 2.2 apg (-0.3), 60.1 TS% (+1%)

Prime Worthy:
1986 - 5 games without Magic: 20.2 ppg (+0.2) 4.3 apg (+1.6), 61.1 TS% (=)
1988 - 10 games without Magic: 21.3 ppg (+1.6) 4.8 apg (+0.9), 60.0 TS% (+3%)

28 games isn't much of a sample.


100%, he was more than just a product of Magic, of course. Dude was hella athletic, nasty in transition, had some faceup game, had a post game and he could pass well enough. Wasn't a creator, and his J wasn't the greatest thing in the world. I wouldn't want him as a primary first option on a team in a volume role, but he was clearly a player with the tools to do more than what a lot of people try to paint him as, for sure.

[Jaivl]

(compared to full season)
Pre-prime Worthy:
1984 - 13 games without Magic: 17.0 ppg (+2.5) 2.2 apg (-0.3), 60.1 TS% (+1%)

Prime Worthy:
1986 - 5 games without Magic: 20.2 ppg (+0.2) 4.3 apg (+1.6), 61.1 TS% (=)
1988 - 10 games without Magic: 21.3 ppg (+1.6) 4.8 apg (+0.9), 60.0 TS% (+3%)

28 games isn't much of a sample.

It isn't indeed.

The further we go back and the less data we have, the margin of error of our (in this case, my) analysis becomes much higher (although we do have quite a decent amount of film of the Showtime Lakers). That's to be expected whenever we make these kind of comparisons.

[tsherkin]

The further we go back and the less data we have, the margin of error of our (in this case, my) analysis becomes much higher (although we do have quite a decent amount of film of the Showtime Lakers). That's to be expected whenever we make these kind of comparisons.

I don't think Worthy was the scorer Thompson was, personally. I don't see Worthy as a dude who could sniff 70, not that there are many of those in league history. He DID drop off a cliff in terms of efficacy without Magic, though he also turned 30 and had the injury from 91 still hanging over him, then didn't even start every game he played in 93, and was fully a bench guy in his last year. Very difficult to evaluate, but yeah. He seemed to do exactly what he was supposed to: be a great second/third option, hustling all over the place and looking great from a team POV while doing it. A star-level glue guy. I think probably a more valuable player to a winning team than someone like Thompson, who didn't have huge value outside of scoring. Big year in 78, of course, so it's an interesting conversation all around.

I think people crap on Worthy a lot because they like to crap on anyone who doesn't fit their model of what a great player looks like. Don't play like Jordan/Kobe? You're inferior, instantly, even though there are many routes to the same goal (titles), etc. Lots of that flying around, and it's to the detriment of a guy like Worthy, for sure.

EDIT: Same same, like if you aren't the #1 guy, you can't be a great player. Pippen is the classic example of this. He's kind of a fair analog. Worthy was a noticeably better scoring threat, whereas Scottie derived his value from setting the table in the triangle and his defense, but same idea. They had a huge megastar in front of them, so their utility and value get lost.

[70sFan]

Worthy by a million. Without Magic he upped his numbers to superstar territory, and was obviously a much better defender to boot.

Are you that high on Worthy or that low on Thompson?

Both. And I do think Worthy's defense, while nowhere near a guy like, for example, Paul George, is a decent positive and a very significant advantage here.

Why are you low on Thompson, if you don't mind?