Has Dirk Fallen Off That Much?

[sweet daddy]

good post, thats how i feel about Dirk, right at the end of my top 10..hes always had a great team, so i felt he got too much credit things were going right....just like hes getting too much blame now for whatever goes wrong.

He's always had a great team???!!!

Go to basketball-reference.com and look at the teams he's had to play with in the 10 years that he's been in the league. Look at the other starters, the bench, the centers. He led teams to the playoffs that ...

Here's the link:

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/DAL

Start looking in 98/99. His first year.

Be objective, now. In his 3rd year in the league the team went to the 2nd round and lost to the Spurs. 6 of the top 9 contributors that year? Juwan Howard, Howard Eisley, Calvin Booth, Christian Laettner (way past his prime), Hubert David and Shawn Bradley. Man, oh man. What a great team that was. With the exception of a couple of years when the team really did have talent, it's pretty much been like that throughout his career. A couple of good players and marginal or past-their-prime players making up the rest of the roster.

To say that he's always had great teams is revisionist history.

He's a big white German guy that doesn't play a power game. That means 90% of NBA fans will automatically discount his game. Well, that's OK.

But hey, thanks for putting him in the top 10. On this board, that's pretty much a compliment for him.

[DDansby123]

^ There's certainly a ton of revisionist history when it comes to Dirk and the quality of the teams around him. He's always had a fair level of talent around him, but it's never really been complementary talent.

For me, the bottom line is that the Mavs were about 4 years too late in building a traditional-type NBA team (with big, slow Cs) and trading for another star player. Huge failures of the front office, IMO.

[Dentor]

I don't think Dirk's "fallen off" it's just that the NBA (and the rest of the world) has figured him out.

Dirk for most of his career thrived on the mismatches he created; the whole concept of too tall and too quick. Some coaches experimented with the idea of putting a smaller defender on him like Adelman did with Turkoglu and had some moderate success but wasn't able to milk it too much because it also created another mismatch which is having your PF guard the SF.

Pat Riley eventually introduced the blueprint that many coaches would base their defensive scheme on: guard Dirk with a small, quick player (to contest his face-up game) and throw another defender on his blindside when he tries to create. Nellie even took it a step further by literally having another guy prepare to slide over to draw the charge as an insurance. Last season almost EVERY team used this tactic and in the FIBA Qualifiers, the Olympics -- he's been exposed.

This can be chalked up to the lack of perimeter shooting. If Dirk is surrounded by 2 or 3 guys who can knock down shots with a high degree of consistency, we'll probably see this less and less. But as long as he has Steffan Hamman, Demond Green, Jerry Stackhouse, Jason Kidd/Devin Harris, a streaky Josh Howard, etc. I would quadruple team the hell out of him.

Dirk has been exposed as a guy who can be slowed down with double and triple teams? If he had teammates who could at least keep him from being triple teamed, he'd still be considered a top 5 player.

[SaintofKillers]

Dirk has been exposed as a guy who can be slowed down with double and triple teams? If he had teammates who could at least keep him from being triple teamed, he'd still be considered a top 5 player.

That was precisely my point and wasn't meant to be a diss at all.

[Dentor]

I would also say that the coach has to put his star in the position to succeed and AJ did not do that. Nellie was able to put Dirk in places where he was successful, then Avery was so determined on making Dirk like Tim Duncan. I would argue that the Mavs got to the finals inspite of Avery, not because of; and you won't find too many Mavs fans who will disagree.

[lukeridenour]

i believe that dirk is still one of the best players in the league. but his team is just terrible.

[Alex_De_Large]

Still a top12 player and at the same level as Yao Ming imo.

[vado]

Lol I think you're a top 10 player when some teams have to consider throwing 4 guys at you.