Rank These Ultra Athletic Power Forwards

[AStark1991]

Larry Nance
Shawn Kemp
Larry Johnson
Amare Stoudemire
Blake Griffin

In terms of all-around value, how would you rank these high flying Power Forwards when they were all in their respective primes?

[penbeast0]

I like Kemp and Nance defensively a lot more than Grandmama or Blake and A'mare is way behind in that conversation. Kemp is riskier but gives you more than Nance so I'll take him 1st, then Nance for his consistency, then Blake, then Amare. I loved Larry Johnson but he really only had one peak year before the injuries limited him.

[trelos6]

Peaks:

Kemp, Nance, Blake, Amar’e, LJ

Career

Nance, Kemp, Blake, Amar’e, LJ

Primes: (5 years)

Kemp '93-'97
Nance '88-'93
Blake '10-'15
Amar'e '06-'11
LJ '91-'96

[penbeast0]

Peaks:

Kemp, Nance, Blake, Amar’e, LJ

Career

Nance, Kemp, Blake, Amar’e, LJ

Think OP asked for prime though.

[Owly]

Peaks:

Kemp, Nance, Blake, Amar’e, LJ

Career

Nance, Kemp, Blake, Amar’e, LJ

Think OP asked for prime though.

A tangent but a generic "prime" is probably less clear, specific and therefore less useful than career or peak (though career may have some of these issues depending on interpretation, but also may not).

- without a time marker ... are we talking average or value accumulated. The former biases pro-short primes, I would argue unfairly.
- if "prime" a relative or absolute standard. LeBron James has always been absolute terms good. I'd argue we should neither (a) bring down his average prime to punish him versus shorter primes, nor (b) pretend his lesser years are without value in accumulative terms even if they'll make less of a difference in a big "pile" of accumulated long-term value.

I think you need something like cumulative value, best 5 (or whatever number) years (not necessarily consecutive) prime - or best in-prime total accumulated value (though for that I'm not entirely sure I see the virtue in cutting out non-prime years) to get a fair playing field.


I'd also marginally argue with the LJ timeline you offered at least as oversimplified, we get two years of explosive LJ, two (or one) years of diminished and adjusting LJ, '96 as a comeback and arguably his most productive in '96 as more skilled in terms of passing, shooting the shortened 3, savvy with drawing fouls. And then a combination of further disintegration of the body, bad fit, reduced primacy or whatever we may think mean he's not so significant in NY. That is to say ... the injuries did limit him ... and maybe change his career arc (though probably always overrated as a high pick, big minutes so high boxscore, would-be franchise player but not really, somewhat iconic team ...) but I'd argue they limited him before his peak (though I assume they got worse and did so after as well).

[penbeast0]

Fair enough. I think of prime as being roughly 5 year stretch personally.

I hadn't looked up Larry Johnson's numbers but he indeed did come back to roughly peak level after the knee injury which gives him a 5 year stretch with 1 injury season and his rookie season before moving to NY.