Prime: Chris Webber vs. Elton Brand

[RJM]

Battle of the 20-10 juggernauts. Who was/is better in their prime?

[OhMyBosh]

I'll take Webber because his passing game made him even more unique.

[Hunter]

I love Brand, but I'd definitely take a prime CWebb.

[Point forward]

Webber's passing skills were utterly sick. Too bad he has no knees left today.

[Relentless88]

What about Brand's defense? Far better defender than C-Webb.

[shawngoat23]

I'll take Webber's superior scoring and playmaking ability over Brand's defense.

[Relentless88]

I'd take C-Webb in his prime too.

[Icefire10304]

This is disrespecting Webber man....come on

[tsherkin]

Tough call.

Offensively, it's Webber, no hesitation; he was a more consistently dangerous scoring threat and obviously a much better passer. The two were comparable rebounders.

The big difference here is that Elton Brand wasn't a sissy girl on defense and in fact remains one of the better defenders in the league. He's also MUCH better on the offensive glass (did anyone here realize that Brand is averaging 3.9 orpg on his career and once averaged 5.0 orpg over an 80-game season?).

Webber: 2.7 orpg, career-best 4.0 (as a rookie). In fact, Webber went 4.0, 3.7, 2.5, 3.3, 2.5, 3.5 and then never got higher than 2.8 for the rest of his career. Brand thus far has gone 4.3, 3.9, 5.0, 4.6, 3.9, 3.7, 3.0, 3.4, 2.6 (this past season where he played 8 games).

Webber's passing ability is really compelling but defense, offensive rebounding, comparable scoring and rebounding, significantly greater scoring efficiency...

I think I'd take Elton Brand, personally.

[SA37]

I'll take Webber because you can run your offense through him effectively and he is such a smart basketball player, especially seen in the way he sees the floor and passes the ball.

Elton Brand is a good individual player, but he doesn't really make his teammates any better and defensively he is good, but not a game-changing defender. Webber isn't/wasn't as good of a defender, but he was certainly not a liability on the defensive end.

Normally, I think versatility is overrated (for example, when people say Garnett can play PG. He never has and never will play PG. Period. It's just a way to hype a guy.), but in this case I think Webber's versatility is a big factor in choosing him over Brand.

[penbeast0]

Offensively Webber would seem to be the better player but their PERs are about the same. Why? Their FG%s are similar but Brand's True Shooting % is almost .50 higher. Webber is one of the poorest high scoring big men ever at drawing fouls so his shooting percentage is deceptive. His passing is still outstanding but that makes the offensive abilities much more even. His versatility is also his weakness, he likes hanging around the 3 point line instead of banging in the paint. Webber has only a slight offensive edge.

Defensively, of course, it isn't close as Brand is a very good defender and Webber was only average. However, Webber does have an additional disadvantage. Until the last year (and we are talking primes), Webber missed more time than Brand in an average year. Brand before last year average almost 80 games a year. Webber averaged less than 59 games a season (excluding his final year) . . . he wasn't a guy you could count on staying healthy.

Then you add intangibles . . . and I'd much rather have Brand.

[Malinhion]

I'll take Webber. I love Brand, but I feel like Webber was more individually dynamic and had more team success. Those Sacto teams were basically sold off wholesale. First Jason Williams, who got replace by Bibby. But then they just started dumping players every season. Had that team not collapsed in the WCF, they might have a couple titles by now.

[Patterns]

Webber.

[Hard2dhole]

Webber for all the intangibles he adds to a team.

[RJM]

Webber for all the intangibles he adds to a team.

Like choking under pressure?

[shawngoat23]

Also, I think the fact that Brand has been playing on losing teams for essentially his whole career should work against him. I love him, and he's a consistent 20/10 guy on good percentages with excellent defense, but I believe that stats accumulated are more meaningful on good teams. I'm aware that Brand has never had much help, so I won't punish him for being on bad teams in itself--just questioning whether the stats accumulated on those team might be more inflated.

[tsherkin]

Also, I think the fact that Brand has been playing on losing teams for essentially his whole career should work against him. I love him, and he's a consistent 20/10 guy on good percentages with excellent defense, but I believe that stats accumulated are more meaningful on good teams. I'm aware that Brand has never had much help, so I won't punish him for being on bad teams in itself--just questioning whether the stats accumulated on those team might be more inflated.

I'm inclined to disagree; if he were putting up big numbers on high percentages, I should think that it would be a viable argument but on that playoff Clippers team, he didn't look significantly worse, now did he? His rebounding hasn't been a product of poor teams (he's played next so some solid rebounders for most of his career) and his scoring didn't go down when he was playing alongside other good scorers, nor is it the result of high-volume shot attempts. You're talking about a guy who scores on 15 shots a game and gets a number of those from his big-time offensive rebounding. He draws fouls reasonably well and he's in the mid-70s from the line.

That's not the makeup of a guy who's scoring because he plays on a bad team. And again, enough cannot be said of the '06 Clippers, who made the second round and won 47 games with Brand looking as good as he ever has instead of regressing while the Clippers played well.

There is nothing to suggest inflated stats.

[BrooklynBulls]

I'd take Webber. His passing opened up avenues of scoring that Elton Brand could not dream of; playmaking is an underrated skill in today's NBA, in my opinion. Brand may be the better defender, and the more efficient scorer, but the placement of strong defensive roleplayers, and good spot-up shooters and slashers negate Webber's deficiencies to a degree, but not Brand's. Brand requires playmaking from other positions; a skill that's rarer than helpside defense and efficient bit-scoring.

[Joseph17]

I'll take Elton Brand, but it's very close. Brand is extremely underrated on the offensive end. People see that he scores 20 ppg and they say that he's not an excellent scorer. He's a lot better than people think. You can say that Brand has always been on a losing team, but he elevated his game in the playoffs and averaged 25 ppg. That's higher than any of his regular season averages.

[Hunter]

I think CWebbs defense (or lack there of) gets seriously overstated. He certainly wasn't a great defender and he definitely had lapses, but he wasn't this giant sieve everybody seems to think either.

IMO he was average or maybe slightly below, but at times when he really locked in he was serviceable. He actually played some decent defense against Shaq and the Lakers....the problem was nobody was going to stop Shaq, but was able to get down low on him and at least battle him.

People forget the Kings actually lead the league in defensive fg% one year. A lot of people seem to equate them to those early '00s Mavs teams, but in truth the reason the Kings always got the better of them was because the Kings *could* play some defense. Guys like BJax, Christie & Vlade had a lot to do with that, but CWebb was part of it too. It's just that their high powered offense got all the attention.