Better Player During Prime: Manu or Tony Parker

[mdonnelly1989]

This board imo slightly overrates Manu.

He's a borderline top 10 SG of all time but nowhere near Top 5.

Tony Parker is also a Lock top 15 PG of all time, borderline top 10.

[Mean_Streets]

Give me Manu. More versatile & a better defender. Seems more liked by teammates aka better intangibles.

Parker was nice and could score in the paint like very few point guards did, but not much of a 3 point shooter and playmaking abilities are average at best for a point guard.

[Onlytimewilltel]

Manu ten times out of ten over the little weasel sexting his teammates wife’s LOL

[DirtyDez]

I know Tony Parker won a FMVP but 05’ playoff Manu was the peak between the two.

[Bucks4005]

Parker, though it’s pretty close since they had different roles. I just think the Spurs were able to spam 3s more so than other teams in that time frame because Parker had such an impact as an interior scorer, forced defenses to guard the paint against him more so, combination of that and Duncan, you let the SG, SF, PF just launch away from 3, players like Danny Green who excelled there, because your dedicating so much attention to those two just crushing you inside.

[RoyceDa59]

At his peak Manu was better, but over a career give me Parker every time.

[MrBigShot]

Manu at is his absolute best was better, easily.

Manu in the 05 playoffs: 21/6/4 on 51/44/80 shooting splits. This is in 2005 where the avg team put up 97ppg.

Manu did not have the durability to play big mins & shoulder a big offensive responsibility year in and year out the way some historically great shooting guards were able to, he could only sustain his best level of play in short stretches. But in terms of talent and impact at his best, he's right up there with most great SGs outside of a few special ones.

[metalinguss]

Manu was legit in the top SG conversation. TP was never there with PGs.

[Lalouie]

MANU

tp messed around with a teammate's wife and eva longoria divorced him

untrustworthy and french to boot

[Yank3525]

I think Manu is overrated. But he was better than Parker.

[Roger Murdock]

Pretty clearly Tony Parker but Manu was more fun and is a better person so hes remembered fonder

ALL NBA
4 > 2

ALL STAR
6 > 2

Parker is 12th in career playoff points, and Manu is 27th, despite the overlapping careers. Parker played more minutes and had a larger workload. He was viewed as the better player during their careers. Its just that Manu is unforgettable.

[MrGoat]

By player do you mean basketball player, or just player?

[Onlytimewilltel]

By player do you mean basketball player, or just player?

Yup, clarity needed here since the results would be different

[imagump1313]

Its close but Ginobli had more overall effect on games. Either positive or negative.

I dont think either of them would have been as good without the other.

[meekrab]

Manu is an international celebrity, you wear a Ginobli jersey in Hyderabad and they know what you're about, Parker is nobody.

[rand]

Manu and it's not remotely close.

Let's call prime Manu 2004-2011 and prime Parker 2005-2013 and look at their stats in that range. One can fiddle with the range but it wouldn't matter.

Regular Season BPM
Manu: +6.6
Parker: +2.5

Regular Season VORP
Manu: 35.6
Parker: 23.7

Regular Season On/Off
Manu: +9.6
Parker: +4.3

Playoff BPM
Manu: +6.3
Parker: +1.0

Playoff VORP
Manu: 6.6
Parker: 3.6

Playoff On/Off
Manu: +13.0
Parker: +1.4

The On/Off edge is even more impressive for Manu since he played more minutes with the second unit. Every RAPM set I've ever seen has Manu totally crushing Parker.

Prime Manu on a per-minute basis was a top-5 all-time SG. Prime Parker probably isn't in the top-20 of all-time PG primes.

[SK21209]

I always want to say Manu definitively when this question comes up every few years, but Parker’s 2012-2014 stretch with three straight All-NBA 2nd Teams and two Top 6 MVP finishes is super impressive. Manu was the better talent, but Parker has the better resume.

[mastermixer]

Manu was better but could never be relied to play 35+ min a night.

[Lalouie]

By player do you mean basketball player, or just player?

by just player do you mean just a player or a "player"

[rand]

This board imo slightly overrates Manu.

He's a borderline top 10 SG of all time but nowhere near Top 5.

Tony Parker is also a Lock top 15 PG of all time, borderline top 10.

During their primes, which of the following 15 PGs was Parker better than?

Magic
Curry
Luka
SGA
Oscar
CP3
Stockton
Nash
Kidd
Thomas
Payton
Westbrook
Billups
Lillard
Kyrie

Could make a case for quite a few more guys like Hardaway, Price, Baron, Lowry and others.

This doesn't even include the guards who played a lot of PG but may have played more prime minutes at the 2 like West, Harden and Iverson. It also doesn't include some PGs who had better accolades but are hard to evaluate due to their ancient era like Cousy, Frazier and Archibald. It also doesn't include PGs who definitely peaked higher than Parker but had very short primes like Rose, Arenas, Fat Lever and Deron Williams. It also doesn't include current PGs like Brunson, Haliburton and Trae who aren't clearly multiple tiers above Parker like SGA and Luka are but nonetheless are probably better.