jbsays wrote:Wade vs. Thompson
Come on man.... Wade's best years were playing next to past his prime Jermaine O'Neal, Udonis Haslem, Mario Chalmers, and Michael Beasley. Thompson spent his entire prime playing next to Curry and Green.
Hell take their first 8-9 years in to account (i.e. Wade's time prior to Lebron joining Heat). If they swapped places do you think the Warriors would have had more or less success with Wade on the Warriors instead of Thompson? If they swapped places do you think the Heat would have had more or less success with Thompson on the Heat instead of Wade? Do you see the Heat winning Finals with Thompson next to Shaq?
Aside from Kobe prime Wade is the closest thing this league has ever seen to Jordan. People who don’t understand this just never watched him play then look at his box scores and think the Big 3 era where Wade was already in decline and playing through pain that would have ended a lesser players career was the height of his ability.
Wade basically had what happened to Derrick Rose happen to him, but he was so unbelievably skilled he was still able to drain those knees and keep playing at an all star level. Wade has a top 5 bag in league history.
Before the knees started going and he had all his burst that guy could score whenever he wanted on packed paints and true bigs while getting almost all the defensive attention. I haven’t seen player carry a team as much as 06 Wade did to a title since it happened. It was unbelievable just straight iso ball, and mid range supremacy. If he doesn’t have the abdominal injury in 05 the Heat likely go back to back those years and I just wonder what that would have done to his legacy.
Early in their careers especially after the 06 finals Wade was considered to be better than LeBron, and frankly he was all you need to look at is their first finals appearance together, where Wade put forth ANOTHER top 5 finals performance of all time in a losing effort. We were an injury and LeBron not being ready for the moment away from Wade here with 5 rings matching Kobe.
What always bothers me is how people treat a lesser player like Allen Iverson in comparison