Manu Ginobili vs. Ray Allen vs. Reggie Miller

[Capn'O]

To me, Reggie is clearly the best out of this group. For individual efficiency, consistently driving team offensive efficiency, and for maintaining his efficiency in the playoffs. He really was the shooting guard precursor to Curry, using his gravity on and off the ball to warp defenses. There are a bunch of numbers below, but by the eye test, having seen his whole college and pro careers, he was the most dominant. Although there is definitely a faction out there of Reggie Miller appreciators, I feel like a lot of people who didn't watch him don't appreciate how many different ways he had to score and inaccurately think of him as a one-dimensional player, and even people who did watch him often don't appreciate his overall impact on team offense.

6th all-time in career offensive rating (and 1st in career offensive rating among all retired players).

10th all-time in offensive win shares.

18th all-time in total win shares.

He was a great shooter from all ranges and the free throw line.
.614 TS% (15th all-time, 7th among retired players) and .601 in the playoffs (14th all-time, 8th all-time among retired players)

He was more than just a jumpshooter.
.402 Free throw rate and .411 in the playoffs (higher than Jordan and Kobe, for example, not to mention Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter). Reggie drew way more fouls than Ray and was about equal to Manu (Reggie had a slightly higher free throw rate, but slightly lower free throw attempts per 100).

22nd all-time in VORP

To me, Ray and Manu are very close overall, although their styles were very different. Ray was more similar to Reggie in that his biggest strengths were off-ball movement and shooting, whereas Manu's strength was wild on-ball creativity.

I love and appreciate all three guys. As a Knicks fan, Reggie was a feared and hated rival, Manu was one of my favorite players to watch and I was usually rooting for his team (when they weren't playing the Knicks), and as a UConn fan, I followed Ray's whole career and mostly rooted for his teams as well.

I think Miller's shot creation gets minimized because so much of his work happened off the ball and on the perimeter whereas Allen and Manu could dominate the ball and drive into the teeth of the defense with ease. A more traditional look for an offensive player. Miller was constantly in motion and that got him open. He also had a hairpin trigger that he could pull off of lateral movement and a master of the pump fake. Also, Miller was one of the best actors the game has ever seen and actually won an Oscar for Best Off Ball Performance in 1996. He got a lot of free throws for a guy that barely drove for embellishing contact coming around screens.

[ellobo]

To me, Reggie is clearly the best out of this group. For individual efficiency, consistently driving team offensive efficiency, and for maintaining his efficiency in the playoffs. He really was the shooting guard precursor to Curry, using his gravity on and off the ball to warp defenses. There are a bunch of numbers below, but by the eye test, having seen his whole college and pro careers, he was the most dominant. Although there is definitely a faction out there of Reggie Miller appreciators, I feel like a lot of people who didn't watch him don't appreciate how many different ways he had to score and inaccurately think of him as a one-dimensional player, and even people who did watch him often don't appreciate his overall impact on team offense.

6th all-time in career offensive rating (and 1st in career offensive rating among all retired players).

10th all-time in offensive win shares.

18th all-time in total win shares.

He was a great shooter from all ranges and the free throw line.
.614 TS% (15th all-time, 7th among retired players) and .601 in the playoffs (14th all-time, 8th all-time among retired players)

He was more than just a jumpshooter.
.402 Free throw rate and .411 in the playoffs (higher than Jordan and Kobe, for example, not to mention Tracy McGrady and Vince Carter). Reggie drew way more fouls than Ray and was about equal to Manu (Reggie had a slightly higher free throw rate, but slightly lower free throw attempts per 100).

22nd all-time in VORP

To me, Ray and Manu are very close overall, although their styles were very different. Ray was more similar to Reggie in that his biggest strengths were off-ball movement and shooting, whereas Manu's strength was wild on-ball creativity.

I love and appreciate all three guys. As a Knicks fan, Reggie was a feared and hated rival, Manu was one of my favorite players to watch and I was usually rooting for his team (when they weren't playing the Knicks), and as a UConn fan, I followed Ray's whole career and mostly rooted for his teams as well.

I think Miller's shot creation gets minimized because so much of his work happened off the ball and on the perimeter whereas Allen and Manu could dominate the ball and drive into the teeth of the defense with ease. A more traditional look for an offensive player. Miller was constantly in motion and that got him open. He also had a hairpin trigger that he could pull off of lateral movement and a master of the pump fake. Also, Miller was one of the best actors the game has ever seen and actually won an Oscar for Best Off Ball Performance in 1996. He got a lot of free throws for a guy that barely drove for embellishing contact coming around screens.

I remember that Oscar. After getting snubbed for Malcolm X, Spike Lee was PISSED that Reggie won one before he did.

[Chinook]

I don't understand why people keep putting Manu last for career. It's pretty clear Manu had the most successful, accomplished career. It's also pretty obvious that if that 99 draft had happened today that Manu would've been a first-round pick who came over right away, if he even waited until he was 21 to make the jump. It's not like it took him until he was 25 to become a good player. There was just far more skepticism and far less scouting for overseas players back then.

One poster said Manu was "at best a third option". What sense does that make? Is there a chance he was the fourth option? No. And folks talking about players being "number ones" on far less successful teams getting an advantage doesn't make sense either. The only time we saw Manu as a clear number one was in international competition, where was an MVP and gold medalist. I think there's an argument for durability (but not longevity -- do you know how old Manu was when he retired?), but a lot of these other arguments don't make sense.

[Little Lupe]

Allen
Manu
Miller

Reggie Miller one of the most overrated players in the HOF imo. He was a lesser version of Klay Thompson. Not sure why people think he was a superstar. He ran around picks and shot 3s.

Probably biased as a life long pacer fan who lived through so many bad teams but, Reggie was much more than a guy who ran around picks and shot 3's. He played with a chip on his shoulder, got under the other guys skins and was clutch. Would be fun to watch him play in today's nba to see how many 3's he would drop. He was a bad ass mother ****

[dakomish23]

[LakersLegacy]

Manu for driving
Allen for moving without the ball
Manu for toughness
Miller and Allen for shooting
Allen for dunking

Defense is their weakness. Did any of them ever make an all-defensive team. Didn’t Kobe have 12 or so and none of these guy ever got to all-D

Manu for worldwide ambassador to the game and the epic beating of Duncan+LeBron+Wade+Iverson+Melo at the Olympics

[theforumblue]

see kids, you gotta learn to use both hands on defense too. bush likely doesn't get embarrassed if he went up with his offhand.

[JustBuzzin]

Allen
Manu
Miller

Reggie Miller one of the most overrated players in the HOF imo. He was a lesser version of Klay Thompson. Not sure why people think he was a superstar. He ran around picks and shot 3s.

Probably biased as a life long pacer fan who lived through so many bad teams but, Reggie was much more than a guy who ran around picks and shot 3's. He played with a chip on his shoulder, got under the other guys skins and was clutch. Would be fun to watch him play in today's nba to see how many 3's he would drop. He was a bad ass mother ****

Get under the other guys skin is not a skill. He was a clown.

It's a shame guys like Dwight/Tmac/VC aren't on the top 75 but this dude Reggie Miller is on it.

NBA is a joke and all politics.

[cupcakesnake]

Manu for driving
Allen for moving without the ball
Manu for toughness
Miller and Allen for shooting
Allen for dunking

Defense is their weakness. Did any of them ever make an all-defensive team. Didn’t Kobe have 12 or so and none of these guy ever got to all-D

Manu for worldwide ambassador to the game and the epic beating of Duncan+LeBron+Wade+Iverson+Melo at the Olympics

Manu was an excellent defender. Super high motor with fantastic hands.

[Bwelc679]

Allen
Manu
Miller

Reggie Miller one of the most overrated players in the HOF imo. He was a lesser version of Klay Thompson. Not sure why people think he was a superstar. He ran around picks and shot 3s.

First, as the all time "Bump old threads guy" because I'm always finding myself in rabbit holes of my favorite players from the past I would like to bring this debatback to light before the 2025-2026 season starts and we have actual current (relevant) basketball to discuss.
If someone is willing to reopen to this and start a new thread please MAKE A POLL.

I find RealGM polls to be exponentially more telling on how informed fans feel about former players because both YouTube and Reddit (at least the main NBA subs, NBAdiscussion isn't bad)are full of complete ass hats who don't know how to say anything other than "It's ____ and it's not even close" OR "It's ____. Theres levels to this ****". I also can't believe some of the terrible takes I find upvoted in the YouTube comments which brings me to the reason I replied to this particular take on the question.

Short reply. Your lack of understanding of Reggie Miller is baffling and a terrible, terrible take. To say that he's a "lesser version of Klay" is very telling of the way you understand NBA basketball and it's not a good thing. Klay is better than Reggie at one thing, defense. He's significantly better but from an impact perspective, it's still not THAT important compared to their differences on offense which are drastically different . Reggie is so much more impactful and was drastically better at offense. Did you even see Reggie play or are you just going off off 2k attributes? Seriously?

First off, drawing fouls. You can go ahead and make the excuse that Klay didn't do the MANY things that Reggie does much better statistically than Klay because he doesn't need to with Steph but thats already been proven wrong and there was a statistical analysis of all the games Klay didn't play with Steph during his prime and he did worse statistically, not better at almost all categories. He didn't pick up the play making and because the gravity of Steph was gone he just lost efficiency.
I could sit here and type 1000 words explaining how insane your take on Reggie is but you'd get bored, mad and wouldn't even give it a thought out of spite. Instead just watch this. It's more interesting to watch a video and he did a better job than I would do:

https://youtu.be/jxO9KsZPelE?si=Rmu_fn0ZDNHzS8sd

Reggies playoff stats as a #1 multiple seasons are insane. Just peep bball ref.

But seriously, this guy is better than I am at explaining things:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4xdGXrrBVduoL9p7qHNcGT?si=rCEfCTQdSOOK2Q35kSP69w

To answer OPs question.

At their peak:
1. Manu
2. Reggie
3. Ray

I think Reggie and Ray are in the same tier and probably Manu but I like his defense and playmaking better.

For extended primes Reggie and Ray are a tie but I would lean Reggie because of his playoff performances. Manu third because of the lack of longevity.

[dhsilv2]

People putting manu over miller when he was at best the 3rd best option on his team at his prime lmao

At Manu's best he was likely the spur's first option. 2005 being a perfect example as he was likely in 2007 as well.

[dhsilv2]

People putting manu over miller when he was at best the 3rd best option on his team at his prime lmao

He sacrificed individual success for team success. Tony parker took more shots but manu was always more important to the spurs.

Even at his peak manu was only taking like 12 shot attempts a game in the playoffs, put him on a crappy team and give him 18-20 shots a game and his numbers would've looked better than Reggie/Ray in their primes. He was also a much better playmaker than either of them.

This is such a lazy take. Taking a 6th man with minimal responsibility to being the main guy and just assuming his production would just climb proportionally is laughable. Life is different when you don’t have a top 10 all time player and a HOF pg being the center of the opposing teams attention. Manu was never more important than Parker, jfc.

Ah, you never saw Manu at his peak. That explains the bad takes.

[dhsilv2]

Anyways the answer is Manu, Reggie, and then Allen as a distant third. Absolutely crazy to me how people are picking Allen first, he's worse than Reggie in every way.

Allen could handle the ball and play make like Manu and run around screens and shoot 3s like Miller. I think people forget how good Allen was on the 01 Bucks and 05 SuperSonics.

It worked out for Manu because he was surrounded by 3 point shooters with the Spurs and Reggie had a point guard to handle the floor in Marc Jackson. But if you have a roster without a lot of great 3 point shooters. Allen fits better than Manu. If you have a roster without a point guard, Allen fits better than Miller.

Allen was a great player. But he doesn't have 1/10th the passing talent or skill of Manu. Let alone the creativity when driving to the basket.

[ForeverTFC]

Feel like Allen is obvious number 1 though most probably never saw/remember his MIL/SEA days. It's important to note that Allen was able to exist in multiple systems, while we can't say the same for Reggie and Manu. I'm inclined to go Reggie 2 as, while he was amazing, Manu was never a first option.

[dhsilv2]

Allen could handle the ball and play make like Manu and run around screens and shoot 3s like Miller. I think people forget how good Allen was on the 01 Bucks and 05 SuperSonics.

It worked out for Manu because he was surrounded by 3 point shooters with the Spurs and Reggie had a point guard to handle the floor in Marc Jackson. But if you have a roster without a lot of great 3 point shooters. Allen fits better than Manu. If you have a roster without a point guard, Allen fits better than Miller.

Allen absolutely could not handle the ball and pass like Manu. Sure, he handled the ball more than Reggie, but he wasn't adding a ton of value there. His primary value was as a movement shooter and he was just worse at it than Reggie. Reggie was more efficient from the field, got to line more, and was a playoff riser in a way Ray was not.

And no, there's really no scenario where Ray makes your team better than Manu. Manu is one of the best two-way guards of all time and was a +/- monster throughout his career. If the Celtics had Manu instead of Ray they are winning more than one title.

Ray Allen had an assist% of 27.1% with the 01 Bucks. The only playoff run Manu had a higher assist% where he played as many games was 2013. Let’s compare the teammates they had.

Ray Allen:
Sam Cassell
Glenn Robinson
Tim Thomas
Ervin Johnson

Manu Ginobili:
Tony Parker
Kawhi
Duncan
Danny Green

Which roster is it easier to get assists with? Ray Allen would have thrived with that team.

And if you’re going by +/-, Ray Allen has a higher playoff career +/- than Reggie Miller or Manu Ginobili.

And if we’re just going by prime, then we shouldn’t talk about Ray Allen with the Celtics. He was past his prime by then, and he really should have made the finals in 01 if the series was called fairly, and his supporting cast wasn’t as good as the 2000 Pacers or any Spurs team Manu played on.

Assist percentage is pretty role and system driven. Should note Ray's next best was 22.7 (3 games), 19.5 (11) and then fell to 12.7 for his next highest.

Manu has 12 playoff runs over 20% and his role and the spur's offensive system changes numerous times over that decade plus.

[dhsilv2]

Miller is massively underrated here. People voting against him are just throwing out narratives and didn’t actually watch him play. He was the only true number one options on a finals team. The other two were number 3 options on their finals teams.

I agree Reggie is a bit underrated, but honestly I think most of us watching him in real time underrated him then. So I don't buy it's a watching issue. I used to think Ray was far better and now have completely flipped my views.

Also "true number one option" on a finals team? Rose and him both averaged 18 a game that season. Miller upped it to 24 vs Rose at 20.8 in the playoffs. Miller took 0.5 more shots per game in the playoffs than Rose. And they had a 25 vs 24.6 usage percentage. In the finals it was 24.3 vs 23.0 in terms of scoring.

I guess that makes him the first option but that's not all that much bigger a difference than Duncan and Manu in 2005 once you account for a few minutes with Duncan. Just saying the "true first option" isn't exactly a hill I'd die on there.

[dhsilv2]

Great comparison, because these are easily 3 of the most underrated guards ever (IMO).

Ray was way better all-around , and as a Kobe-esque lead-dog in every playoff series he played in his Bucks and Sonics days than most people know. As a Sonic fan in those 2005 playoffs I said to myself "Ray is Kobe in the playoffs." Absolute killer, who could hit pull-up threes, handle and play-make and dunk on opposing centers.

Reggie is one of those 1-stat guys (PPG) that people who take a glance at boxscores might think as overrated. But Reggie was truly (statistically supported) efficient AND clutch as hell. Could anchor a good offense around strong defensive players but without all the fan-fare and gaudy stats.

Meanwhile, Manu is one of the best per-minute performers this league has ever seen. A true superstar in the minutes he played. Offensive dynamo with incredible creativity, but a sneaky good defender and intangibles-guy too. Did he benefit from playing against second units and getting more rest than other star SGs? Sure. But can't discount just how profound his impact was.

So for me, this is actually really tough. Gun to my head, I'd go:

Ray, Manu, Reggie.

But I think they're real close to one another and no order bothers me.

Just want to point out. The question was peak and prime.

2005-2011 Manu started 296 of 487 regular season games and 47 of 88 playoff games. It's not the "norm" but he was a starter a small but real majority of that period.

[dhsilv2]

Manu for driving
Allen for moving without the ball
Manu for toughness
Miller and Allen for shooting
Allen for dunking

Defense is their weakness. Did any of them ever make an all-defensive team. Didn’t Kobe have 12 or so and none of these guy ever got to all-D

Manu for worldwide ambassador to the game and the epic beating of Duncan+LeBron+Wade+Iverson+Melo at the Olympics

Not sure how in the world Ray is a better mover than Miller. Miller basically created the off ball shooting wing and has one of the best TS%'s relative to league ever.

Also, you sure about peak Allen over peak Manu for dunks? Manu was a BEAST early career just dunking on guys like they weren't there and with zero regard for his body. Ray is the smoothest dunker...heck top 10 all time. But he didn't have even half the raw in your face nasty of Manu. I'm not sure who I'd take myself.

[SA37]

Manu is one of my favorite players of all-time, so this would be an easy one for me.

1. Manu
2. Reggie
3. Ray

[canada_dry]

Manu for driving
Allen for moving without the ball
Manu for toughness
Miller and Allen for shooting
Allen for dunking

Defense is their weakness. Did any of them ever make an all-defensive team. Didn’t Kobe have 12 or so and none of these guy ever got to all-D

Manu for worldwide ambassador to the game and the epic beating of Duncan+LeBron+Wade+Iverson+Melo at the Olympics

Not sure how in the world Ray is a better mover than Miller. Miller basically created the off ball shooting wing and has one of the best TS%'s relative to league ever.

Also, you sure about peak Allen over peak Manu for dunks? Manu was a BEAST early career just dunking on guys like they weren't there and with zero regard for his body. Ray is the smoothest dunker...heck top 10 all time. But he didn't have even half the raw in your face nasty of Manu. I'm not sure who I'd take myself.

Manu was also a real good defender...no "problems" there

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