sikma42 wrote:dhsilv2 wrote:sikma42 wrote:
Dwight Howard was second in the league in MVP voting, DPOY and lead his team to the Finals. I'm a fan of Manu, but don't understand how you put him ahead of Dwight. Seems like people constantly disrespecting how impactful her was
If your ONLY issue is Howard should be higher than Manu, I don't see any reason to argue with you. I don't tend to agree but that's a perfectly reasonable take. But if you're trying to take Manu off this list, that's where I'd wonder what you were watching.
Just glancing at the list also think Anthony Davis should be moved down.
But back to Manu, I'm actually a huge fan but I don't think he should make this list. I can't give him credit for having a better peak than a guy like Pierce just because he played on a better team at his peak. I don't even really feel that comfortable putting Ginobil over guys like Amare or Pau (if we are talking peak years). Ginobili never had to deal with superstar attention and we won't know what he'd look like in that role. There are certain quirks in his game that work on low volume, that may become a lot less efficient when asked to be the man. For example, his shot form really wasn't able to reliably create shots off the dribble. He was good at passing out and not taking those step backs (which helped his percentage) but other teams you are forced to create more and take more shots. I'm just not sure how well his shot creating scales up in the halfcourt. He also didn't really have team defensive concepts schemed primarily against him (felt like teams schemed more against parkers speed for years - and at some point Parker surpassed him). Guys like Harden had entire teams trying to take away his left hand, I don't know how Ginobili deals with that kind of coverage.
Ginobili imo like KG is favored in these convos bc they are what-ifs..and some fans really like those scenarios for whatever reason. But just looking skill set wise and based on what they actually did, I don't see him as having a high enough peak for that ranking.
Agree with AD being oddly high here.
I just simply don't agree with Manu. He was the clear best offensive player for a long stretch on the Spurs.
Lets just take the 2005 playoffs as we all know, these lists tend to bias the playoffs.
20.8/5.8/4.2 65.2 TS%
He averaged 22.8, 20.5, 22.2, and 18.7 in each round of the playoffs. Shot near 50% outside of the second round where he shot 57%.
Now I get the first thought is that teams were focused on stopping Duncan. And that's fair. Duncan took 18.5 field goals vs 15.9 for Manu.
I would however point out the Spurs moved Manu to the bench allows him to play more minutes without Duncan. I feel it's just teams screwed up not realizing they needed to stop Manu. I don't feel it's reasonable to hold that against him. Just like I don't like it against Pierce that Doc was a moron and ran his offense in 2008 through KG and no Pierce...but there's the difference in a good and bad coach. Running the offense through the better player. I'd throw in, I know RAPM data is messy but 2005 xRAPM has Manu in the 96th percentile as defender. They have Battier in the 97th. Now that's early Battier but it just shows the level Manu was as a defender IMO. He was a great defender, just short of the all defensive level guys, but short of them.
As to your point that there's some level of "what if". Fully agree that's always a challenge here. The big what if to me however is durability. But if we're just looking at single years, I think Manu has the resume, stats, and to me the film to easily take on this list. I think Ben was conservative with Manu given all the things you pointed out. And that feels right to me. Leave him in the 20's because of minutes and durability issues. Because if this were a stats argument, obviously Manu would be top 4-8 and that seems even to me as a fan...a bit much.
