Prime for Prime:

[mdonnelly1989]

Which combo would you rather have all during primes?

Team #1
Lebron
Dame Lillard

Team #2
Kareem
Scottie Pippen

Team #3
Shaq
Karl Malone

Team #4
Hakeem
T-Mac

Team #5
Duncan
Dirk

Team #6
Bird
CP3

Team #7
Kobe
Giannis

Team #8
Curry
D-Wade

Team #9
David Robinson
Kawhi

Team #10
KG
KD

[mdonnelly1989]

Surprised nobody went Kawhi/David Robinson given that they would be a hell of a defensive combination!

[trelos6]

I’ll go with CP3 and Bird or Pippen and Kareem.

I want someone who I can trust to run an offence, and someone who is not a liability. Lebron / Lillard was close, but Dame just sucks on D.

[LAL1947]

Assuming a salary cap, with each player in these duos getting a max contract...

1) Kobe + Giannis.

Why? Big-little combo where both are top level scorers, defenders and play-makers for their position, so they have the least amount of weaknesses. They will play hard for 40+ minutes in every game of the regular season and playoffs, can't say the same about any other listed duo. Thus, they are the easiest duo to build around with the highest ceiling IMO.

Frankly, I think that the Kobe-Giannis duo not even getting 1 vote until I made mine... while Duncan-Dirk had 4 of 15 votes... well, it's just another example of the bias a group on the PC board have towards Duncan.

2) Shaq + Karl Malone

Just too much dominance in the front-court for the duos below to handle.

3) Hakeem + T-Mac

I'd have put them higher for most of the same reasons as the #1 duo, but I'm just not sure if I can do that as T-Mac never had a deep playoff run. So they get bumped below Shaq-Karl. Comparing to the duos below... Hakeem > Duncan/Garnett. Prime T-Mac = Durant/Dirk.

4) Garnett + Durant

On the court (i.e., ignoring titles)... Garnett = Duncan. Durant >= Dirk.

5) Duncan + Dirk

[MyUniBroDavis]

Y’all did lebron dirty lol

(By giving him lillard)

[LAL1947]

Y’all did lebron dirty lol

(By giving him lillard)

Lol, that's true and he still got 2 votes while Kobe-Giannis had 0 before I voted, haha! LeStans and Timmy-lovers, man, I'm telling ya... they just blindly vote for their guys on here. Then when the KG-guys see that, of course, they vote for KG to bring him level with Timmy. So in this manner, all the polls here ultimately get skewed or screwed.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Y’all did lebron dirty lol

(By giving him lillard)

Lol, that's true and he still got 2 votes while Kobe-Giannis had 0 before I voted, haha! LeStans and Timmy-lovers, man, I'm telling ya... they just blindly vote for their guys on here. Then when the KG-guys see that, of course, they vote for KG to bring him level with Timmy. So in this manner, all the polls here ultimately get skewed or screwed.

Lebrons my GOAT by a distance but yeah him and lillard probably aren’t better than some of the duos on here.

Kobe and Giannis or Kg and Durant probably get my vote, Duncan and Dirk i see the argument for sure and understand why it’s first but that combo does strike me as a bit odd lol

[HeartBreakKid]

Y’all did lebron dirty lol

(By giving him lillard)

Lol, that's true and he still got 2 votes while Kobe-Giannis had 0 before I voted, haha! LeStans and Timmy-lovers, man, I'm telling ya... they just blindly vote for their guys on here. Then when the KG-guys see that, of course, they vote for KG to bring him level with Timmy. So in this manner, all the polls here ultimately get skewed or screwed.

I think it's hilarious that by pointing out Lebron only got 2 votes out of sheer irrationality and you're Bryant's sole vote that you do not realize you are calling yourself a stan

[LAL1947]

Y’all did lebron dirty lol

(By giving him lillard)

Lol, that's true and he still got 2 votes while Kobe-Giannis had 0 before I voted, haha! LeStans and Timmy-lovers, man, I'm telling ya... they just blindly vote for their guys on here. Then when the KG-guys see that, of course, they vote for KG to bring him level with Timmy. So in this manner, all the polls here ultimately get skewed or screwed.

I think it's hilarious that by pointing out Lebron only got 2 votes out of sheer irrationality (which is a tiny % of the poll) and you're Bryant's sole vote that you do not realize you are calling yourself a stan

I'm usually voting based on fairness though (or trying to). A Kobe-Giannis duo has less weaknesses and more positives than any other that has been listed.

I will admit that on some occasions, I too am guilty of doing something similar to what the KG-guys do after seeing Lebron/Timmy get all the votes from their respective groups... i.e., I've made my post too Kobe-centric to balance the discussion. An example would be the post I just made in the thread asking if we didn't agree with any 21st century MVPs. Kobe was worthy of at least two MVPs, if not three... yet we have guys there trying to take away the one that he was finally given and add more for Lebron and Duncan.

[LAL1947]

Duncan and Dirk i see the argument for sure and understand why it’s first but that combo does strike me as a bit odd lol

Well, I don't see an argument for 1st... and they've now gone up to 5/19 votes.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Y’all did lebron dirty lol

(By giving him lillard)

Lol, that's true and he still got 2 votes while Kobe-Giannis had 0 before I voted, haha! LeStans and Timmy-lovers, man, I'm telling ya... they just blindly vote for their guys on here. Then when the KG-guys see that, of course, they vote for KG to bring him level with Timmy. So in this manner, all the polls here ultimately get skewed or screwed.

I think it's hilarious that by pointing out Lebron only got 2 votes out of sheer irrationality and you're Bryant's sole vote that you do not realize you are calling yourself a stan

Obv he likes Kobe a bunch but honestly I don’t think Kobe + Giannis is a bad combo at all

Defensively it’s quite good, the pick and roll combo between them depending on which Kobe makes good sense, and offensively Kobe being the halfcourt option in todays game with giannis as the full court one would be fantastic

[MyUniBroDavis]

Duncan and Dirk i see the argument for sure and understand why it’s first but that combo does strike me as a bit odd lol

Well, I don't see an argument for 1st... and they've now gone up to 5/19 votes.

I feel as if Duncan is probably a top 5 defender in his prime

(As in top 5 best ever prime defenses) so pairing that up with a mainly offensive guy like Dirk who also spaces the floor is good, and as a shooter he provides spacing for Duncan too, and the other way around I assume peak Duncan would be a great vertical spaced as well

[LAL1947]

Duncan and Dirk i see the argument for sure and understand why it’s first but that combo does strike me as a bit odd lol

Well, I don't see an argument for 1st... and they've now gone up to 5/19 votes.

I feel as if Duncan is probably a top 5 defender in his prime

(As in top 5 best ever prime defenses) so pairing that up with a mainly offensive guy like Dirk who also spaces the floor is good, and as a shooter he provides spacing for Duncan too, and the other way around I assume peak Duncan would be a great vertical spaced as well

I don't think Duncan was a Top 5 defender all-time.

If we're talking only post defense, then I'd probably agree. Well, I think he is top 5-6 in this, but others may have more bigs higher: like Hakeem, Russell, Wilt, Mutombo, D-Rob, KG, Dwight, Ben Wallace and Gobert is 9 players. The Duncan-Dirk duo defending the perimeter today is quite a funny thought TBH, as I feel one or the other would be getting their ankles broken in every game... and no, they can't have guys like Kawhi or Jrue to cover for them because of a hypothetical salary cap. They getting 3 league average players to round out the starting 5, same as every other duo.

Also, don't forget that his prime came when the Spurs had a number of defensive players playing in a highly defensive system... and there were rules changes that favored defense over offense more than at any other time since the 3-point line was introduced. In 2001-02, the NBA made these specific changes:

1) Defensive 3-second violation replacing all the other illegal defense guidelines that existed.
2) Increase leniency with incidental contact by defenders, provided it does not impede a player.
3) Allow teams to play any style of defense, including Zone defense. Some will say that allowing Zone defense is negated by the defensive 3-second violation, and they'd be right in most cases... except when a team has two centers like D-Rob and Duncan on either side of the lane behind a strong perimeter defense.

So, all of that while hand-checking was still allowed until 2004-05... making 2001 to 2004 the hardest era for offense and the best for defense... which is another reason why Kobe doing what he did in 2002-03 should be appreciated TBH, as a level of individual play most fans would happily pay to watch.

Anyway, I've voted in this poll keeping in mind who I think would translate best into today's game and rules. Duncan was a great defender when he played and one of the best... but these are different times. Since Duncan retired, the number of 3PA has gone up another 30%.

[CharityStripe34]

I wanted to pick Hakeem/T-Mac for the possibilities but to me it's a coinflip between the Admiral/Kawhi duo and Kobe/Gianni duo. Big/Little mesh for both, excellent two-way play and just intense toughness all around.

Then again Big Ticket/Durant is pretty insane as well.

[f4p]

really good job balancing the duos considering how many of them there are (Jerry West with Lebron might really balance it out). i ultimately went Admiral/Kawhi. The thing Admiral couldn't give you, high volume/high efficiency playoff scoring is what prime Kawhi gives you all day and now you have 2 absolute lockdown defenders and even perimeter/inside balance. Dirk/Timmy is probably my next duo because you have an all-time defender with an all time offense value add at the PF position. perimeter D is a little worrying in this era, not that much in their own era. If KD were a little more resilient on offense, i might have gone KG/KD, but as it is I feel I would be too worried about playoff offense with neither of them being great at high volume, high efficiency playoff scoring (at least relative to the regular season). Giannis/Kobe definitely has a lot of well-roundedness while having different offensive strengths so it could be pretty scary, especially in this era where i think Giannis looks better while Kobe would be pretty equal then or now.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Well, I don't see an argument for 1st... and they've now gone up to 5/19 votes.

I feel as if Duncan is probably a top 5 defender in his prime

(As in top 5 best ever prime defenses) so pairing that up with a mainly offensive guy like Dirk who also spaces the floor is good, and as a shooter he provides spacing for Duncan too, and the other way around I assume peak Duncan would be a great vertical spaced as well

I don't think Duncan was a Top 5 defender all-time.

If we're talking only post/paint defense, then I'd probably agree. Well, I think he is top 5 in this, but some others may have more higher: like Hakeem, Russell, Wilt, Mutombo, D-Rob, KG and Gobert. The Duncan-Dirk duo defending the perimeter today is quite a funny thought TBH, as I feel one or the other would be getting their ankles broken in every game... and no, they can't have guys like Kawhi or Jrue to cover for them because of a hypothetical salary cap. They getting 3 league average players to round out the starting 5, same as every other duo.

Also, don't forget that his prime came when the Spurs had a number of defensive players playing in a highly defensive system... and there were rules changes that favored defense over offense more than at any other time since the 3-point line was introduced.

In 2001-02, the NBA made these specific changes:
1) Defensive 3-second violation replacing all the other illegal defense guidelines that existed.
2) Increase leniency with incidental contact by defenders, provided it does not impede a player.
3) Allow teams to play any style of defense, including Zone defense. Some will say that allowing Zone defense is negated by the defensive 3-second violation, and they'd be right in most cases... except when a team has two centers like D-Rob and Duncan on either side of the lane behind a strong perimeter defense.

So, all of that while hand-checking was still allowed until 2004-05... making 2001 to 2004 the hardest era for offense and the best for defense... which is another reason why Kobe doing what he did in 2002-03 should be appreciated TBH, as a level of individual play most fans would happily pay to watch.

Anyway, I've voted in this poll keeping in mind who I think would translate best into today's game and rules. Duncan was a great defender when he played and one of the best... but these are different times. Since Duncan retired, the number of 3PA has gone up another 30%.

There may be a few (emphasis on few) guys I take in the modern game, but in era impact he’s absolutely up there with his prime I think, especially vs his peak

Some of those guys are debatable overall but he’s a tier one defender. Also he may not have been switchy like KG but Duncan was quite athletic, and I recall he was decent switching in to wings and stuff, he’s not slow and plodding like a brook Lopez or anything, but I do agree it maybe lowers his overall defensive impact in certain matchups, but isn’t that expected, that’s the case with almost any ATG big? Switchy bigs mitigate this drop they don’t increase if that makes sense, at least imo.

Overall I’d say there are a few all times historic defenders, I don’t think anyone other than russell (because of era of course) was vastly ahead of the other in that category and Duncan is in that tier.

Dirk might be an issue though

I’m not really against your point on Kobe in era either, I think 2000s were the worst time as a high value iso scorer so Kobe having the value he did in that respect puts him up higher for me, I do think he would have been a absolute top tier guy. Kobes probably 5-7 for me all time because of what he did in an era that wasn’t conducive to him for me (and rings lol)