Nate Thurmond vs Alonzo Mourning vs Dwight Howard

[AStark1991]

Three interior players that I've always found to be quite similar in terms of their respective body types, playing styles, and overall levels of production on the court. All were runner-up for MVP at different points of their careers. How would you rank them from best to worst as all-around players? I'll go with Howard at 1, Mourning at 2, Thurmond at 3.

[One_and_Done]

Dwight
Zo

Thurmond

[tsherkin]

Thurmond lags pretty hard as an offensive player compared to the other two. Not that Mourning was especially stunning, of course, but Thurmond was fairly uninspiring on that end. Great defender and rebounder, though. Thurmond was mostly a pretty solidly negative TSAdd guy the bulk of his career, a weak FT shooter who produced low FG% and wasn't an overwhelming playmaker from the 5.

I'd go:

Dwight
Zo
Thurmond

[70sFan]

Are you asking about peaks or career-value?

[AStark1991]

Are you asking about peaks or career-value?

Peaks

[migya]

Thurmond lags pretty hard as an offensive player compared to the other two. Not that Mourning was especially stunning, of course, but Thurmond was fairly uninspiring on that end. Great defender and rebounder, though. Thurmond was mostly a pretty solidly negative TSAdd guy the bulk of his career, a weak FT shooter who produced low FG% and wasn't an overwhelming playmaker from the 5.

I'd go:

Dwight
Zo
Thurmond

Thurmond was inefficient sure but he was a good scorer and passer. Dwight was most limited offensively with no semblance of a jump shot and passing was not good either. Close but Mourning, in a tougher era, lead teams offense's and was a top 5 defender. Thurmond close second and then Dwight.

[tsherkin]

Thurmond was inefficient sure but he was a good scorer and passer.

I mean, he doesn't look like a good scorer to me at all. Good passer, for sure. Pretty good at drawing fouls, and generally quite bad at actually making shots. Definitely not a dude I'd want to funnel shots through.

Dwight was most limited offensively with no semblance of a jump shot and passing was not good either. Close but Mourning, in a tougher era, lead teams offense's and was a top 5 defender. Thurmond close second and then Dwight.

Dwight played better scoring basketball than the others at his peak, when he was listening to SVG. He wasn't an iso guy, but he exploited garbage points and PnR very, very well. I'd rather use him as a weapon than those other guys, no question about it.

[migya]

Thurmond was inefficient sure but he was a good scorer and passer.

I mean, he doesn't look like a good scorer to me at all. Good passer, for sure. Pretty good at drawing fouls, and generally quite bad at actually making shots. Definitely not a dude I'd want to funnel shots through.

Dwight was most limited offensively with no semblance of a jump shot and passing was not good either. Close but Mourning, in a tougher era, lead teams offense's and was a top 5 defender. Thurmond close second and then Dwight.

Dwight played better scoring basketball than the others at his peak, when he was listening to SVG. He wasn't an iso guy, but he exploited garbage points and PnR very, very well. I'd rather use him as a weapon than those other guys, no question about it.

Dwight was a pretty good and not very good scorer in his prime. He should have been a much better scorer, being the ONLY star type Center in the late 00s and early to mid 10s. He had shooters around him and wasn't a good iso scorer, as you said. I don't think he was that great and in the eras Thurmond and Mourning were in, he wouldn't be rated as highly, with many other great bigs during that time.

Thurmond was such a great athlete, all three were really but Thurmond was a chiseled specimen, a real site to behold. He might be the best defender among the three, and I think Mourning was a great alltime defender.

[tsherkin]

Dwight was a pretty good and not very good scorer in his prime. He should have been a much better scorer, being the ONLY star type Center in the late 00s and early to mid 10s. He had shooters around him and wasn't a good iso scorer, as you said. I don't think he was that great and in the eras Thurmond and Mourning were in, he wouldn't be rated as highly, with many other great bigs during that time.

Dwight was generally far better at things related to scoring than Thurmond was. Mourning is much closer, but even he had issues, mainly because he wasn't a particularly good passer. And yeah, Thurmond was the worst scorer of the 3.

Thurmond was such a great athlete, all three were really but Thurmond was a chiseled specimen, a real site to behold. He might be the best defender among the three, and I think Mourning was a great alltime defender.

I'd buy Thurmond as the best post defender of the bunch for sure. Very good shotblocker as well. Neither he nor Mourning were as mobile as Dwight, but PnR defense was less of an issue for Thurmond and it's not like Mourning was jumping out much on Stockton, so yeah.

All three guys were awesome players overall, though.

[TT8198]

I think I'm higher on Thurmond than most. I just think he's the best defender of the bunch. Wilt and Kareem said he was the greatest defensive player they faced more so than Russell according to Wilt. He's easily the best passer of the 3 and I get he's probably the worst scorer out of them but Dwight and Nate both averaged basically 15 ppg and Mourning is at 17 ppg so they're not worlds better scorers. If we're going peak I think it goes

1 Dwight
2. Mourning
3. Thurmond

But just who is the better Center and who I'd rather have it's

1 Thurmond
2 Dwight
3 Mourning

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[kcktiny]

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[TrueLAfan]

Mmm. Dwight Howard’s offense. I remember commenting on this years ago. It’s easy to say that Howard was limited and list the reasons why. But that ignores the clear, obvious reality. He may not have done a lot of things, but you couldn’t really stop the things he was able to do. At all.

Figure it like this. Between 2007-2011—that’s a nice five year peak—Howard averaged 20 points per game with a TS% of .617. The only guy that scored more efficiently than him that played at least 10000 minutes in that span was a guy named Steve Nash. It is my understanding that Nash was considered to be a good, efficient offensive player.

Of course, Nash was *better* on offense than Dwight. He could do more. He could run your team. He was a truly dominant player on offense. But that doesn’t make what Dwight Howard could do and did less valuable. You knew what he couldn’t do. And it didn’t matter. He got a very efficient 20 points a game on the side of the court that wasn’t his specialty. He was in the top 5 of MVP voting 4 out of 5 years in that stretch. His lack of overall skills on the offensive end doesn’t negate his value at what he was able to do. It is what it is.

And, yes, Thurmond was the weakest on that end. Nowhere close to Howard, tho’ he had more range. Doesn’t make him any less of a great player, as tsherkin noted. On D though—I’ll go with Nate the Great. And I get a chance to again post one of my favorite interview segments, where Kareem says just how good Thurmond was on D. One Warrior to another.

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[tsherkin]

Mmm. Dwight Howard’s offense. I remember commenting on this years ago. It’s easy to say that Howard was limited and list the reasons why. But that ignores the clear, obvious reality. He may not have done a lot of things, but you couldn’t really stop the things he was able to do. At all.

Figure it like this. Between 2007-2011—that’s a nice five year peak—Howard averaged 20 points per game with a TS% of .617. The only guy that scored more efficiently than him that played at least 10000 minutes in that span was a guy named Steve Nash. It is my understanding that Nash was considered to be a good, efficient offensive player.

When he was listening to SVG, he was great. He dropped off some after 2012, but like... He was a nasty dunker, he knew how to move around the post. As long as you didn't get him to iso post too much, he was basically banging high-efficiency stuff all game long. Putbacks, cuts, transition opportunities, rolling off screens. When he got on his beef with Shaq, that started some problems but he was very effective when he stayed inside the parameters of his basic role. And before the injury, hoo eeeee... dominant physical presence.

Less able to impact the rest of the team because of his limited passing/playmaking, but he was a huge defensive force and a great rebounder at either end, which helped overcome that when he had decent players around him. He worked out quite well, for example with Hedo and Jameer and Sheed, and wasn't bad as a bench big for the 2020 Lakers.

[Jaivl]

Howard, Thurmond, Mourning, IMO.