Anthony Davis vs Patrick Ewing

[Narigo]

Who do have higher on your ATL and who do you peaked higher?

[penbeast0]

Career, the one who was consistently out there on the court. It may not be Davis's fault but he's too fragile to be counted on the way Ewing was. In 13 years of NBA play, Davis has never played 80 games, he's only played 70 3 times.

Ewing played 80 games or more 6 years in a row. The next 4 years his lowest game total was 76. Admittedly modern athletes are much more likely to sit out games, for whatever reason, but still, this is a ridiculously large disparity in two guys that are at least comparable.

[Cavsfansince84]

It was looking like AD might eventually get into that top 30 all time space after 2020(when he already had a rep for being kind of soft) but since then his body has just broken down even more. What's crazy is that AD is still only 31 so he could conceivably still add 4-5 more quality seasons to his career which prob is enough to get him above Ewing. That 2020 season will count for a lot when he gets compared to other guys who didn't win rings.

[penbeast0]

FWIW, I'd take ringless bigs Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, and maybe even Nate Thurmond (maybe not, I hate Thurmond's offense) over Davis too. If I believed Bob Lanier played good defense the way most other posters here have tried to convince me, he would be on that list as well. Probably one or two others I haven't thought of. 4 more seasons of 60 some games and no big playoff runs wouldn't make much of a difference.

I do have him over Bill Walton for career though.

[One_and_Done]

AD for sure.

[Matt15]

Anthony Davis has a case peak wise but all time I’d have to go Ewing. Ewing beats Davis primarily due to his better durability, longevity and more consistent elite production.

[penbeast0]

AD for sure.

If you have something to offer, please post. If this is all that you can come up with, please refrain.

[eminence]

Not big on either of those guys. Probably go Ewing mainly due to availability.

Ewings defensive results prior to Riley were pretty underwhelming despite playing with a fair amount of talent (you know how many ridiculous posts from Ohayo I've had to read blowing smoke up Oakleys ass defensively, but somehow he+Ewing from '89-'91 were pretty much an average defense?). With Riley we get plenty of +/- data and Ewing is not any kind of standout during the back half of his career (he's not horrendous either, he looks like a solid 3rd team type of guy on average from '94-'97).

Davis is horribly unreliable, though when he was on he was a strong #2 to a late/post-prime Bron. Didn't do much in NO, Jrue was the best player on the floor in their only PO win. Jrue may have just straight up been their best player. His defensive tools look 100th percentile but the results are not consistently there at all.

[xb3at band1tx]

Not big on either of those guys. Probably go Ewing mainly due to availability.

Ewings defensive results prior to Riley were pretty underwhelming despite playing with a fair amount of talent (you know how many ridiculous posts from Ohayo I've had to read blowing smoke up Oakleys ass defensively, but somehow he+Ewing from '89-'91 were pretty much an average defense?). With Riley we get plenty of +/- data and Ewing is not any kind of standout during the back half of his career (he's not horrendous either, he looks like a solid 3rd team type of guy on average from '94-'97).

Davis is horribly unreliable, though when he was on he was a strong #2 to a late/post-prime Bron. Didn't do much in NO, Jrue was the best player on the floor in their only PO win. Jrue may have just straight up been their best player. His defensive tools look 100th percentile but the results are not consistently there at all.

this is wild, I like jrue but he was never better than davis who consistently has only gotten better in the playoffs

like when’s he been able to make it, he’s been able to outdo his RS numbers in the post-season damn near every time

[One_and_Done]

AD for sure.

If you have something to offer, please post. If this is all that you can come up with, please refrain.

I’m happy to elaborate, though I assume my reasons are fairly obvious.

AD played in a much tougher era, and his skillset and talent is on another level to Ewing, who I feel is overrated even within his own era. AD has some longevity/durability issues, but he has enough healthy years that he meets the necessary threshold. Longevity should mostly be a tie-breaker for players in the same tier. That’s not the case here, as AD is a substantially better player. That’s because it’s the peak level play that wins you titles, not 12 years of middling play. Not that Ewing was middling, but you get my point. Unless you’re Bill Walton or to a lesser extent Kawhi, then durability/longevity concerns can only do so much.

AD’s 2020 peak is also way above anything Ewing ever did. Ewing’s Knicks averaged less than 37 wins a year over his first 6 seasons, and only became contenders once the team was loaded with talent, and that’s in a much weaker era. Honestly, if Ewing had played for the Kings instead of DeMarcus Cousins, the Kings would likely have done about the same. The guy didn’t give you a huge floor raise, nor significantly boost your ceiling. In today’s game I have serious concerns about his ability to guard the pick and roll and stay on the floor, especially as he got older (which happened quickly in terms of his mobility, due to early knee injuries). Conversely, AD is the ideal modern big defensively. AD has the KG ability to move around on the perimeter and switch, coupled with being an interior defender who blocks shots.

I also note that it’s quite usual for posters to offer a one-line initial response to thread questions, and if I’d posted “Ewing for sure, the man is a legend” I doubt there’d be any reaction from people (see for example the first page of the Bird vs KG thread).
viewtopic.php?t=1114357#p28073313
Conversely, if I had made a larger post rehashing all the era related reasons Ewing is overrated, that would be deemed by some to be “hijacking the thread”. People are going to be annoyed either way.

[Doctor MJ]

Who do have higher on your ATL and who do you peaked higher?

Ewing, but Davis. Not sure how to respond to poll.

Davis is the greater talent, but he's had a lot of injury issues and needs to do more to surpass Ewing's career.

[tsherkin]

AD played in a much tougher era,

How much do you factor in the ATG competition Ewing had to face in-era? Do you apply the same era-based considerations to Olajuwon and Robinson? To Shaq? Zo?

[One_and_Done]

AD played in a much tougher era,

How much do you factor in the ATG competition Ewing had to face in-era? Do you apply the same era-based considerations to Olajuwon and Robinson? To Shaq? Zo?

I don't see this as terribly relevant in Ewing's case. It's not like he was losing to these guys every year. For instance, the greatness of Duncan isn't defined by the quality of the power forward opponents he faced (though it was a stacked position during his prime), rather by the quality of results he produced (e.g. overcoming the Shaq/Kobe Lakers).

D.Rob and Hakeem would be better players than Ewing today because they were better than him.

[tsherkin]

I don't see this as terribly relevant in Ewing's case. It's not like he was losing to these guys every year. For instance, the greatness of Duncan isn't defined by the quality of the power forward opponents he faced (though it was a stacked position during his prime), rather by the quality of results he produced (e.g. overcoming the Shaq/Kobe Lakers).

Ewing was at the apex of one of the best historical defenses we've seen, though. And before he started to get injured, he was doing reasonably well on offense. Obviously, Pat wouldn't be used in the way as a scorer today, and would have to develop a 3 (though he'd be about as likely as anyone to be able to at least hit from the corners). But his D would remain useful and he'd probably be paired with a lead guard to initiate instead of forcing so much isolation on him with such an austere offensive environment as Ewing saw in New York.

It's worth remembering that the Knicks did NOOOOOOOTHING right in assembling offense around him during his athletic prime.

[One_and_Done]

I don't see this as terribly relevant in Ewing's case. It's not like he was losing to these guys every year. For instance, the greatness of Duncan isn't defined by the quality of the power forward opponents he faced (though it was a stacked position during his prime), rather by the quality of results he produced (e.g. overcoming the Shaq/Kobe Lakers).

Ewing was at the apex of one of the best historical defenses we've seen, though. And before he started to get injured, he was doing reasonably well on offense. Obviously, Pat wouldn't be used in the way as a scorer today, and would have to develop a 3 (though he'd be about as likely as anyone to be able to at least hit from the corners). But his D would remain useful and he'd probably be paired with a lead guard to initiate instead of forcing so much isolation on him with such an austere offensive environment as Ewing saw in New York.

It's worth remembering that the Knicks did NOOOOOOOTHING right in assembling offense around him during his athletic prime.

Ewing was a great defender… in the clogged toilet offense era of the NBA. In today’s defensive environment it would be very different for him. He’d need to be able to move around the court much more than then, and with the knee operations and injuries that he underwent from early in his career, I’m not at all convinced of his mobility for today’s game.

I’m not saying he’d be a bad player today, more like a poor mans Embiid, but I don’t think he’d be a top 20 player today.

I also take issue a little bit with the idea the Knicks didn’t put any offensive talent around him in his prime. Like, the offense around him wasn’t amazing in say 1992, but the defensive talent around him was absolutely elite. The offensive talent around him was also perfectly fine for the era he was in. It would be unreasonable to blame Ewing’s failures on the front office not giving him both elite offensive and defensive talent… like, as the star that’s supposed to be Ewing’s job. How much help is he supposed to get.

[homecourtloss]

Davis is horribly unreliable, though when he was on he was a strong #2 to a late/post-prime Bron. Didn't do much in NO, Jrue was the best player on the floor in their only PO win. Jrue may have just straight up been their best player. His defensive tools look 100th percentile but the results are not consistently there at all.

The bolded is quite true outside of one playoff run. There might not be a more negatively lopsided tools to impact metric.

[migya]

Davis carried largely his NO teams, with some good players, Ewing carried largely his team, with some good players mostly after 1991. Ewing's effect was more as his era was much played inside the three point line and he was the only real good defender until Oakley got there and he was the only shotblocker and one of the best ever. He carried his team big offensively, looks like more than Davis did.

[One_and_Done]

Davis carried largely his NO teams, with some good players, Ewing carried largely his team, with some good players mostly after 1991. Ewing's effect was more as his era was much played inside the three point line and he was the only real good defender until Oakley got there and he was the only shotblocker and one of the best ever. He carried his team big offensively, looks like more than Davis did.

Oakley got there in Ewing's 4th year in the NBA. That's not saying much, even if it was true (it's not, e.g Bill Cartright).

[70sFan]

Ewing’s Knicks averaged less than 37 wins a year over his first 6 seasons, and only became contenders once the team was loaded with talent, and that’s in a much weaker era.

Strange criticism in context of this comparison. David teams averaged less than 37 wins a year over his first 6 seasons as well and were never contenders without LeBron James on his roster.

Davis played with substantially more stacked teams (like 2020 Lakers) than Ewing ever did. It's not even a contest.

Honestly, if Ewing had played for the Kings instead of DeMarcus Cousins, the Kings would likely have done about the same.

I don't remember Cousins making the playoffs without one star on his team. Ewing made the finals without a single star.

In today’s game I have serious concerns about his ability to guard the pick and roll and stay on the floor, especially as he got older (which happened quickly in terms of his mobility, due to early knee injuries).

You don't have the same concerns about Duncan, who had very similar issues.

[migya]

Davis carried largely his NO teams, with some good players, Ewing carried largely his team, with some good players mostly after 1991. Ewing's effect was more as his era was much played inside the three point line and he was the only real good defender until Oakley got there and he was the only shotblocker and one of the best ever. He carried his team big offensively, looks like more than Davis did.

Oakley got there in Ewing's 4th year in the NBA. That's not saying much, even if it was true (it's not, e.g Bill Cartright).

Oakley was still young though pretty good and got better defensively but those Knicks teams were not good at all, granted Davis' were not much better.