PhilBlackson wrote:MEDIC wrote:Pippen dragging that team to 55 wins was pretty impressive. Having said that KG dragged a similar level team to 58 wins (although I believe Sprewell & Cassell were better than what Pippen had around him)
At the end of.the day, KG & Pippen were similar level.players in regards to winning/ impact.
I think Pippens best position was SF, whereas I believe Barnes best position seems to be PF. Maybe that's where I see the KG comparison.
Dragging?! That was the same championship team minus MJ in a MUCH weaker East with an all-star Horace Grant, Toni Kukoc & BJ Armstrong and he was not battling the Shaq/Kobe Lakers or Tim Duncan Spurs nvm Amare/Nash, Dirk, CWebb etc lol. What Pippen did was not too dissimilar to the 20' Raptors w/out Kawhi where Pascal (who also ironically averaged 22ppg) led the team to a 53W and the same 2nd round elimination...it's actually crazy how similar the dynamics were of those teams tbh but of course Pippen was still the better player than Pascal.
Yeah, "dragging" is a little bit interesting.
First of all, they had Ho and BJ playing the best ball of their entire careers, filling at least a little bit of the void. Secondly, it wasn't the same team as the year prior just minus Jordan; they'd made additions: Kerr, Kukoc, Longley, Wennington, Pete Myers. They had an infusion of many different players and AS seasons from Grant and Armstrong. And they got to play a purer version of the triangle, which worked out with their lower overall level of offensive ability, but good shooting and willing passing.
Pippen was still good, and particularly so on the defensive end, which was a strength for them. They fell off a cliff offensively relative to where they'd been with MJ, but that's no surprise. But the defense without Jordan remained strong and they had a far better frontcourt rotation. They tied with the Spurs for the 6th-best record in the league, which was impressive, but they had excellent distribution of talent.
A year later, they were 34-31 until Jordan returned, having lost Ho Grant but gained Ron Harper. I think that speaks pretty strongly to what was happening in 94. Pippen was good, but people always want to reach with him for some reason. And the 04 Wolves were in a more difficult conference than the 94 Bulls, and yeah, that was the best year of Sam Cassell's career, Sprewell was pretty good, Garnett went bonkers and played better than any season Scottie Pippen ever had, and they did it all with a lot of injuries undermining depth and offensive support.
But point is what KG had to do was FAR more difficult and the individual numbers & accolades (MVP) show KG was a superior individual talent to Pippen and certainly Scottie (KG finished SECOND in MVP voting at THIS age that Barnes is now for reference), I know you're weren't really saying he's his level but this really isn't a good comparison at all because KG was a vastly superior player that was a lot more talented and played a different style of bball from Scottie. If he were comparable to KG at the same age, we'd be in contending conversations at worst right now.
Ultimately, I think there are too many issues with the comparison. In the most rudimentary sense of the player offering points, assists and defense at a forward position, they have some superficial similarity. But it breaks down and becomes devoid of meaning once you go beyond that. They aren't physically the same, they didn't play the same style, there are huge skill gaps and massive differences in their approach to even the parts of the game which were strengths for both, etc. And again, Garnett was a GOOD scorer in the RS that year, not a disaster-clown like Scottie has been. 24.2 ppg on 54.7% TS was 106 TS+, +3.1% rTS. And KG was banging 44.8% on the 28.2% of his shots which came from 16-23 feet, making of himself a legitimate, if era-relative, spacing/perimeter threat. And he led the league in rebounding that year, and was quite capable of getting out of the way for Cassell and Spree to do their thing from the perimeter, whereas Scottie's best work comes when he's occupying spaces which would be better used by Quick and Shead and RJ.
So there's just no meat to a comparison of the two. Too many differences.
Pippen's a fanciful one, a little higher-order than I'd expect from Scottie. But prime Paul Pressey isn't an awful thought. Andre Iguodala isn't a bad thought. I think the issue a lot of people are having right now is the same ol' yarn where they see 19 ppg and think that's a positive, when for us, that's been a fairly large problem. We need him shooting less, because so far, getting more efficient hasn't been his thing, even at lower volume. SO we need to mitigate the large problem he presents to a modern offense with his scoring efficiency.
*INGRAM*ALLSTARSEASON* Wemby is HIM - Top 5 Player this year
