LaMarcus Aldridge or Chris Webber?

[penbeast0]

With all due respect, when did 90s Webber ever have the right attitude? There's a reason Washington finally dumped him for an end of career Mitch Richmond and the bad contract of Otis Thorpe and it wasn't his talent.

With all respect due, I disagree. Have you ever worked in an office and decided your secretary Bob will never grow into something more? Webber was a young man who, like most people, has the capacity to change, and it's a failure of imagination to say otherwise. Webber just grew up in the wrong time. He was spoiled in AAU and booster run college programs, then went to terribly run NBA franchises who didn't know how to deal with him, and tended to play him out of position. Teams were also in the middle of the first player empowerment era. In some ways player empowernent is bad today, but in alot of ways it was worse back then. Webber was never held to account, and was told he had to play a certain way to get fame and money. In today's game attitudes like Ben Simmons aren't sustainable, and you get fame and money for playing the right way more than anything else.

In today's NBA he probably goes to G-League ignite, is taught how to.play right, and is brought along in a system that optimises what he does best once he gets to the NBA. Webber won't have to worry about getting beat up in the post in today's game nearly as much either.

I agree that Webber's game is more suited to today's league rather than back when power forwards were expected to bang in the post except for one small detail, he was never a good shooter with a career 3 pt % under .300 and a career FT % under 65%. He was always a great athlete and expected to be a superstar with his size/quickness/jumping numbers and his flashy passing game but he never took any aspect of his game, even playmaking, and really worked on it. He just lived off his natural talent for as long as the big checks came in.

I don't think Webber never changed, I think he did mature in Sacramento over his years in Washington. Yes, if you put him in an ideal system with an ideal coach he would be better; so would every player in NBA history, possibly even Tim Duncan, but the basics of his personality would still be the same. However, the greats have this burning desire to be their best, Webber didn't.

I think you overrate the Ignite system as well. Of their guys who were supposed to be potential stars, Jalen Green looks very good, Jaden Hardy looks like he might be good, Kuminga has not lived up to his potential, Dyson had a mediocre rookie year for a top 10 pick, and Todd and Nix were waived. About what you'd expect from a random sampling of guys with their HS reputations. I like the Ignite because it gets at least a few of the fake students who never planned to go to class and get a degree out of the college system and into the pros instead but it's been a pretty mediocre developmental base.

Oh, and if Ben Simmons isn't today's game, what game is he? I mean, really?

[pillwenney]

Webber in Washington didn't have elite talent around him or another strong passing big (Charles Jones? Georghe Muresan? Juwan Howard?) and yet underwhelmed as well with the team's best offensive season being 13th out of 27 and the worst being 24th.

Sounds like they should have run an offense that leaned more into his greatest outlier skill more in Washington.


Also, I'm not sure why you get hung up on his time there so much. It's clearly not where he was at his best, which is what is most relevant to these discussions. If one is discussing his peak, they're clearly talking about his years in Sac.

I talk about his Washington time because I was a Bullets/Wizards ticket holder at that time. I never lived in Sacramento.

But also you claimed that Webber was someone whose passing should create elite offenses but whose talents were disguised in Sacramento by having a strong deep team with another good passing big plus a third as a reserve for part of his time. Well, Washignton is the only other long term comp. And it didn't work out well.

Right. I'm just saying its apples and oranges. In one situation, he was very well situated for team success--so much so that it hid how elite and unique his skillset was. My point is simply that one could absolute base an elite offense off of his elite skill. I only bring up him playing with another elite passing big because it makes him look worse than he really was in terms of on/off stuff.

[tsherkin]

I agree that Webber's game is more suited to today's league rather than back when power forwards were expected to bang in the post except for one small detail, he was never a good shooter with a career 3 pt % under .300 and a career FT % under 65%. He was always a great athlete and expected to be a superstar with his size/quickness/jumping numbers and his flashy passing game but he never took any aspect of his game, even playmaking, and really worked on it. He just lived off his natural talent for as long as the big checks came in.

Yeah, 97 forward, Webber was something like a league-average shooter from 16ft out to the 3pt line over his career... but that's also heavily influenced by 04 and later. 97-03, he was actually a 43% shooter in that range on 26.9% of his shots, which is worth thinking about. In 2002, league average at that distance was 39.7% and he shot 43.7%. In general, 00-03, Webber was actually nailing that shot at a pretty good rate. He was pretty rough from 10-16 feet, nothing special from 3-10 and not particularly capable from 3 or from the FT line. He'd have some trouble trying to adjust to today's game with that weak a shot. 98 was one of 3 seasons with the full-distance 3pt line where he took 1+ 3PA/g, though, and the only one where he took 2+, so there's some issue with sample size and heaves and all that stuff in evaluating his 3pt shooting ability. In 96 and 97, he shot a pretty reasonable percentage from 3, including the shorter shots that had become 3s, so there's that to consider, as well as the fact that he basically never took 3s from the corner. 00-08, he was something like a 71% FT shooter. Not the guy I'd project to be a 40% 3pt shooter, but it isn't out of the realm of possibility that he might be a 34% guy on 2 or 3 per game to help give himself a little boost, maybe.

Food for thought.

[cupcakesnake]

When I think back to the Kings, I wonder what might have been if they'd had Divac & Miller from the beginning and never acquired Webber. I think it's very possible they get a ring.

I think there's the defensive side of the ball to consider though. Not that Webber is a massively better defender than Miller in a vacuum, but his defensive profile is a lot more workable in that lineup than Miller's was. Miller meant the Kings had a backline of 2 slower-footed bigs without much verticality. Webber wasn't an inspiring defender, but he was an athletic playmaker that wasn't a footspeed liability. Webber wasn't great at his defensive role, but he was capable of playing that role.

The Kings were a strong defensive team in the Webber era. After his injury the Kings offense got a boost but the defense fell off the edge of the map. I'm not comfortable crediting Webber for Sacramento's defense, so I'm wondering if anyone else has theories about why the Kings went from a -4.5 rDrtg team in 2003 to a +2 in 2004. Christie and (especially) Vlade age. They do lose some defensive role player bigs (Scot Pollard, Keon Clark) and replace them with offensive bigs (Songaila), but that's a pretty big swing to blame on pretty low minute players.

[penbeast0]

Fair enough, but there are other guys that people consider 'good' defenders who were 'soft' or non-physical.

Who would you describe that way that actually played good post defense? Defending there is explicitly about physicality and effort, areas where Webber was always deficient.

Just off the top of my head, Webber teammate Vlade Divac.

Divac had a different issue, he was the master flopper of his era. He would flail backwards and fall down and it worked often enough to frustrate opponents and get them in foul trouble. In fact, our nickname for him was "The Euroflopper."

[SHAQ32]

Who would you describe that way that actually played good post defense? Defending there is explicitly about physicality and effort, areas where Webber was always deficient.

Just off the top of my head, Webber teammate Vlade Divac.

Divac had a different issue, he was the master flopper of his era. He would flail backwards and fall down and it worked often enough to frustrate opponents and get them in foul trouble. In fact, our nickname for him was "The Euroflopper."

Sort of sounds revisionist

[AEnigma]

Just off the top of my head, Webber teammate Vlade Divac.

Divac had a different issue, he was the master flopper of his era. He would flail backwards and fall down and it worked often enough to frustrate opponents and get them in foul trouble. In fact, our nickname for him was "The Euroflopper."

Sort of sounds revisionist

How, he did that in the 1990s too.

Not criticising it. There is an art to taking a charge or baiting referees, and it is a meaningful way players can try to make up for disadvantages elsewhere. But it is not revisionist: he earned that reputation.

[SNPA]

When I think back to the Kings, I wonder what might have been if they'd had Divac & Miller from the beginning and never acquired Webber. I think it's very possible they get a ring.

I think there's the defensive side of the ball to consider though. Not that Webber is a massively better defender than Miller in a vacuum, but his defensive profile is a lot more workable in that lineup than Miller's was. Miller meant the Kings had a backline of 2 slower-footed bigs without much verticality. Webber wasn't an inspiring defender, but he was an athletic playmaker that wasn't a footspeed liability. Webber wasn't great at his defensive role, but he was capable of playing that role.

The Kings were a strong defensive team in the Webber era. After his injury the Kings offense got a boost but the defense fell off the edge of the map. I'm not comfortable crediting Webber for Sacramento's defense, so I'm wondering if anyone else has theories about why the Kings went from a -4.5 rDrtg team in 2003 to a +2 in 2004. Christie and (especially) Vlade age. They do lose some defensive role player bigs (Scot Pollard, Keon Clark) and replace them with offensive bigs (Songaila), but that's a pretty big swing to blame on pretty low minute players.

You mostly answered your own question. Doug and Vlade age, Miller is worse than Webber (especially at PF), backups changed and Peja decided offense was all he needed to focus on. That’s 4 of 5 starters -plus key bench- with the lone holdout being a terrible defender in Bibby.

[tsherkin]

Just off the top of my head, Webber teammate Vlade Divac.

Divac had a different issue, he was the master flopper of his era. He would flail backwards and fall down and it worked often enough to frustrate opponents and get them in foul trouble. In fact, our nickname for him was "The Euroflopper."

Sort of sounds revisionist

In what way? People were kvetching about Vlade while Magic was still playing, lol.

[penbeast0]

The other complaint about Vlade and the other eastern European bigs back in the day was they didn't use deodorant so they would lean on you in the post with their arms up and supposedly the smell was enough to put you off your game.

[Doctor MJ]

The other complaint about Vlade and the other eastern European bigs back in the day was they didn't use deodorant so they would lean on you in the post with their arms up and supposedly the smell was enough to put you off your game.

I'd have thought the layers of caked cigarette smoke would cover that up, but maybe it just combined into something nauseating.

[tsherkin]

The other complaint about Vlade and the other eastern European bigs back in the day was they didn't use deodorant so they would lean on you in the post with their arms up and supposedly the smell was enough to put you off your game.

I knew guys like this when I still played, haha.

[Pharmacist]

This one is tough but I guess I'll go with Webber