#22 Highest Peak of All Time (Paul '08 wins)

[bastillon]

I would think Dwight would look like a monster in San Antonio 09-11 instead of Duncan.

Would he, though? He's a much worse passer.

I remember Dwight working out with Olajuwon in both 09 and 10 and every november I could see noticeable improvement in his scoring skills. after 09 sessions he added some basic spin moves and jump hooks. he was looking much more fluid than before. in 10 sessions he added some little midrange bank shots, more fluidity on his spins, improved his off hand, I remember him starting the 11 season with some crazy offensive performances...

But he doesn't use any of that stuff with real consistency. He always uses it for like two months and then goes back to what he was doing before except in rare bursts here and there, which is TERRIBLY frustrating. And he's still a weak, weak passer, especially against multiple coverage.

he wouldn't need to be a good passer to work well in San Antonio, he'd be a devastating defensive force under Popovich who would serve more as a finisher on offense thanks to Parker/Manu taking tons of offensive pressure off of him.

I agree with your comment about passing. I actually think he is a willing passer and he can make a simple pass out of the post. but when team start mixing it up and make some complicated defensive rotation from the other side, he's just very turnover prone. but note my argument is not that I would want him as my nr 1 guy on offense, so it doesn't really matter all that much since I'd rather use him as a #2 or even #3 offensively. certainly possible with many star wings in the league and it would take a lot of pressure off Dwight. he's still too easy to gameplan for as #1 but so was D-Rob, for example, and he has already been enshrined. I don't think D-Rob was much better offensive performer in the postseason.

[bastillon]

If Dwight is getting mentioned here, I think Yao should as well since I think their peaks were close. I know plenty of people argue that Yao was better at his peak than Dwight was at his. I probably would disagree but the argument can be made.

Yao's peak would be in 2007 by the way at least in terms of box-score stats. I think one could argue it was 2009 though because his impact was still there and he also had a good post-season performance until he got hurt.

healthy Yao was mentioned, yes, but Yao was never really healthy for an entire season. he was only relatively healthy in 05-07 and he was still missing many games those years. Yao played in 57 games in 06 and 48 games in 07. IMO his best year was clearly 07 (before the foot injury but matured enough) but his postseason performance left a lot to be desired.

I have huge issues against Yao's offense. always seemed like fronting made him useless. he's very efficient scorer, no doubt, but his passing is very weak, he's generally turnover prone and I don't like him at all as my #2 guy on offense, unless I really have an offensive superstar to pair him up with. he only gets his offense from the isolation, you can easily stop that with fronting/crowing/double teaming... so what good is he on offense if you can stop the only play he's really effective at ? this was very evident in the 09 Portland series. Aldridge was fronting him and Yao became useless. very frustrating if you can't get the ball to him because that's disrupting your entire offensive gameplan. I think he could have negative impact on his team's offense at times. Yao was clearly at the level of Dwight or better as far as impact. but I just don't see him staying healthy for an entire season so that's a huge problem.

05 vs 06 vs 07 Yao seems like a very good debate to me. he was the best in 07 but missed the most games, he still missed 25 games in 06 but Rockets missed the playoffs as well, Yao was healthy throughout 05 but he clearly wasn't at his best yet. interesting though how he performed better than in 07 playoffs.

[Lightning25]

I have huge issues against Yao's offense. always seemed like fronting made him useless.

Not true to be honest. It was only an issue in 2009 and it was because Aaron Brooks became his point guard, Rafer Alston was traded to Orlando mid-way through the season and Tracy McGrady was out for that season.

Brooks was practically a rookie at time, couldn't make a basic entry-pass even when Yao was dead open, and was a bit of a chucker. I remember back then I wanted Kyle Lowry to start and have Brooks come off the bench because I thought Lowry was a better fit and was going to be better in the future. It turns out that I was right.

It was never an issue when Rafer Alston and Tracy McGrady were in his backcourt which was why he was as productive as he was in in 2007.

I personally think that was why Dwight declined in 2010 statistically compared to his 2009 season because Jameer was similar to Brooks. Jameer was a score-first PG who didn't have great passing skills which was why Dwight wasn't utilized as much offensively in 2010 compared to how he was in 2009 when Alston was his PG.

this was very evident in the 09 Portland series. Aldridge was fronting him and Yao became useless. very frustrating if you can't get the ball to him because that's disrupting your entire offensive gameplan.

Well the thing is though when Yao was fronted in that series, he was also double teamed at the same time. It was never just a one man front like Lebron does when he guards bigs temporarily like the clip of Lebron guarding Gasol. It was a double team front, something that was illegal back in the 90s which is why plenty of people said that Yao would have been even better in the 90s when it was more of a big mans game.

Yao gave Luis Scola wide open mid-range jumpers all series due to his impact and offensive presence and that was the key to the series.

Also, Yao's defense gets underrated. He was similar to Shaq in the sense that he was a great post-defender, great at altering shots, but he was a bit of a problem in the pick and roll. I remember Aldridge at the end of the 09 series said that Yao's defensive presence bothered him which is why he struggled in the post-season and settled for so many jumpers.

[tsherkin]

he wouldn't need to be a good passer to work well in San Antonio, he'd be a devastating defensive force under Popovich who would serve more as a finisher on offense thanks to Parker/Manu taking tons of offensive pressure off of him.

Depends on what year you're talking about, and they'd have to rework the offense to account for his relatively weak passing. Duncan is a fantastic post passer, so there'd be a fairly major adjustment in the works there.

Willing, sure, I would never say Dwight is a selfish baller, I just think he's got crap recognition for help defense and his technical passing skills and timing suck. But as you indicate here, if he's not a primary offensive player, that's fine. Note, though, that Parker wasn't ready for any kind of serious offensive weight load until around 06 and he was basically poop-tastic in the playoffs until around 08. That's a long time to wait, and you know you can't ramp up Manu's minutes, so where does that leave you?

If you were to put a legit scoring wing next to Dwight to take the reigns, then that's something else but yeah, Dwight's passing is something of a serious problem in terms of legitimate contention for a title.

[bastillon]

Yao is a great defender, true. especially in the postseason his strengths defensively are even more pronounced.

[bastillon]

he wouldn't need to be a good passer to work well in San Antonio, he'd be a devastating defensive force under Popovich who would serve more as a finisher on offense thanks to Parker/Manu taking tons of offensive pressure off of him.

Depends on what year you're talking about, and they'd have to rework the offense to account for his relatively weak passing. Duncan is a fantastic post passer, so there'd be a fairly major adjustment in the works there.

Willing, sure, I would never say Dwight is a selfish baller, I just think he's got crap recognition for help defense and his technical passing skills and timing suck. But as you indicate here, if he's not a primary offensive player, that's fine. Note, though, that Parker wasn't ready for any kind of serious offensive weight load until around 06 and he was basically poop-tastic in the playoffs until around 08. That's a long time to wait, and you know you can't ramp up Manu's minutes, so where does that leave you?

If you were to put a legit scoring wing next to Dwight to take the reigns, then that's something else but yeah, Dwight's passing is something of a serious problem in terms of legitimate contention for a title.

I was talking about 09-11 Dwight and 09-11 Spurs. I don't think Dwight would be better on those early Spurs teams when Duncan was a huge facilitator for them. 05-08 though it wouldn't be that big of a deal because Parker/Manu were carrying most of the load on offense anyway and they were capable of taking even bigger load as well. Manu in particular seems like a guy who could step up at any time if he's just healthy.

[mysticbb]

don't you think you're assuming too much ?

If it is not some sort of chronic injury, but related to more specific circumstances, I don't think it is too much assumption on my part.

I'm not sure where you're coming from.

I was actually referring to the combination of production and efficiency, so, sorry for making a statement in which an important part is missing. And I look at the overall season, not just on the playoff runs.

Duncan better at basically everything ? how so ? I have Duncan as better passer and help defender but Ewing was imo more intimidating shotblocker, better post defender and actually yes, slightly better scorer (we're talking 90 Ewing only here).

Don't think that shotblocker and post defender is a win for Ewing, the higher scoring number is also related to the higher pace of the Knicks in comparison to the Spurs. So, no, I don't think that Ewing was better at anything than Duncan, in some areas maybe really close and I can understand the argument of being equal, but overall I see Duncan as the better player.

as a matter of fact 40-year old Malone was holding Duncan to some putrid games in a backdoor sweep in 04. Duncan had some bad playoff moments against strong post defenders.

Like everyone does have such things. And Duncan was not just defended 1on1 by Karl Malone either.

so you're arguing the actual playoff performance is less important because of sample size/variety issues ?

The actual playoff performance can be heavily influenced by the respective matchup or coaching strategy. The important thing to me is how a player performs in average against better teams. Heck, even during a playoff run a player can just play against average or below average teams, thus, the playoff performance might not be the best indicator of the player's strength.

I think looking at RS performances vs good teams is definitely a valuable information to know but at the end of the day players get cold in the postseason

Getting cold is just variance and might not have anything to do with opponents. We want to avoid such thing by looking at a bigger sample. I think the overall performance against better teams is a more sufficient thing to look at than just the playoff games.

well he did have the right spacing with Fisher/Vujacic/Radmanovic/Walton/Odom/Gasol and their offense was insane (well, until the finals.

The high offensive efficiency was triggered more by Radmanovic than by Bryant. The spacing effect of Radmanovic especially in combination with either Gasol or Odom was the insane thing here. The Lakers in the minutes with Radmanovic and without Bryant had 120 ORtg during the 2008 season (including playoffs), with Bryant and without Radmanovic it was 112 Ortg, with both 118 Ortg.

[tsherkin]

I was talking about 09-11 Dwight and 09-11 Spurs.

Ah, brain fart on my part then, I missed which edition of the Spurs you were discussing. That said, with THAT Parker and THAT Manu, yes, Dwight would fit in rather capably. It does bear mention that Duncan has rocked 3.8, 3.6, 3.4 and 2.9 AST36 since 09, though; they are still using him as a passing weapon to hit cutters in the lane and spot-up shooters. He's still hovering around 14-17 AST% and is usually a good 4-8% better than Dwight in terms of TOV%.

They'd still have to rework the team's offensive structure, but given the success he'd have on iso post-ups, offensive boards and in transition, as well as the defensive impact he'd exert, they'd be better overall as a result for sure.

05-08 though it wouldn't be that big of a deal because Parker/Manu were carrying most of the load on offense anyway and they were capable of taking even bigger load as well. Manu in particular seems like a guy who could step up at any time if he's just healthy.

That seems to clash with reality, since Parker typically sucked come the post season and has never shown the ability to carry more than the offensive load that he has done in the RS, while Manu has consistently proven unable to stay terribly healthy if his minutes are pushed too hard, which is precisely WHY Pops has been limiting them all these years.

[fatal9]

I have Malone's peak at any season between '96-'98. I'd vote for any of these three years but will have trouble getting behind early/mid 90s Malone. A dark horse year might be '92.

94-95: 27.9 ppg 12.6 rpg (9.4 DRB!) 3.5 ast 1.4 stls 0.7 blk @ 53.6% TS and 113 ORTG
96-98: 26.2 ppg 10.9 rpg (8.2 DRB) 3.5 ast, 1.4 stls 0.8 blk @ 51.1% TS and 105 ORTG

right away what jumps out at you is mins and efficiency. mid 90s Malone was just playing more mins (about 3 more or so) which is definitely a tie-breaker when a player is so consistent with his performance. also his efficiency is better in the 94-95. as I said, I think it's because of his more assertive offensive game, whereas old Malone settled for jumpshots more and more. you can actually see a pattern in Malone's postseason career, with his mins going down and efficiency going way down, even under 50% TS. less energy, more willingness to settle for a jumpshot instead of battling hard inside, especially after getting tired, more inconsistent impact offensively, less efficient scoring.

I don't know, maybe it's just an arbitrary cut off and you could see different results with different cutoffs. but I feel pretty strongly about Malone 95+ that he was just not as good offensively. exactly what you talked about in another thread - too many jumpshots. the younger Malone, the less jumpshots he took. why wouldn't you want him taking less jumpshots if you consider this a flaw ?

Those are playoff game numbers. Still doesn't touch on my big issue with '94 season standing out as a down year for Malone. I would say '96-'98 raw playoff numbers are also impacted by a) Jazz (and rest of the league) slowing down the pace even more in '96-'98, b) deep playoff runs against a lot of good teams (this is kind of an issue with taking '95 playoff numbers at face value, it's only one 5 game series...would he put up 30/13/4 on 55 TS% over a 20 game playoff run? given what we've seen from him, I'd say highly unlikely). I mean even if we assume what he did in '94 playoffs was better than '96-'98 (it wasn't imo), is it enough to make up for what was clearly a weaker regular season? '95 is an interesting year, but I don't think it's going to get support because he only played one round, though not really his fault, Hakeem just shat on his team and wasn't going to be stopped by anyone.

The point about stamina is good in general but '96-'98 Malone still averaged over 37 mpg combined for those regular seasons (about 1-2 minutes less than previous years) and over 40 mpg in the playoffs (2-3 minutes less than previous years) but statistically he was more productive in those minutes and '96-'98 Jazz were also higher SRS teams than '93-'95 (more likely to blow teams out). Stamina and conditioning with Malone isn't really as much of an issue, he took phenomenal care of himself.

Too many jumpshots for Malone is a flaw when I compared him to other players. But compared to himself? He was never this guy who gave you great one on one scoring by mixing up his offense. The later years were his peak offensively to me and as a one on one scorer because it's when his midrange game was at its best (combined with his experience, peak as a passer and at reading defenses too). And he still could do all the other off ball things that I've mentioned, just at a lesser rate than he was doing before because he depended on Stockton less. He's an overrated scorer based on his averages and when compared to guys who can just flat out do a better job at getting you (or teammates) good shots on call. But his ability to create for himself was never better at any other point in his career to me. That combined with no drop off as a rebounder (same trb%) or in his defense makes me side with those years.

[Doctor MJ]

to argue for Dwight, his defense may have been even better if he wasn't also far away best player offensively on his own team

I don't know what you mean really. I understand the idea that the offensive needs of the team could push a player to an offense-defense balance that doesn't quite maximize his impact, but Howard wasn't actually a volume scorer. When you're taking 13 FGA per game and you aren't working as a big time distributor, I expect a big man to be able to do that without sacrificing his defense much at all.

Heck, I've even said before that the advantage of bigs in genearl is not that they CAN have 2-way impact, but that they can do it with human levels of energy exerted. When Wade or Jordan go nuclear, they are seemingly EVERYWHERE on the court. Bigs need to do much, much less movement in order to have that same defensive impact.

well looking at Dwight's FGA seems like very dumb thing to do considering how many times he shoots free throws

You know what I mean man. Howard scores 20 PPG. This is the standard for a 2 way big man. If you want to ask what he could do in a Chandler type role, you can of course, but if Howard were scoring significantly less than this you'd have to look at him as offensively challenged compared to not just the other players in debate right now, but compared to other bigs not yet even mentioned.

[Doctor MJ]

One thing I notice with Chris Paul, and this is a subjective comment:

His teams are SLOOW.

From his rookie season forward, pace/rank:

89/21, 90.2/23, 89.9/26 (08), 87.8/28 (09), 92.6/15 (Bower replaces Scott), 88.7 (29, Monty Williams), 89.2/27 (Clippers).

That's an average pace/rank of 89.6/24.

If you watch him, it's not a killer surprise because everything is centered around the PnR and dribble isolation (even last year, representing ~ 41% and ~ 28% of his total possessions). He's an extremely deliberate player.

When you're playing that much slower compared to the rest of the league (and especially on teams that didn't really stun with all-time defensive excellence apart from 08 and 09), well, now you're really limiting your options. There was a rather long and interesting discussion about pace and offensive efficiency in a thread on the Stats board here, and I wonder at the impact of slowing the game down that much.

I have nothing quantitative to add, just an observation. Chris Paul's teams play slow; it's not a subjective point, either, since their offense remained effective and they won a pile of games, especially when he was balling his mind out in 08 and 09, with them peaking at 111.5 ORTG in 08 when they won 56 games (and hilariously still being "only" the 5th best offense in the league that year).

Anyway, ramble aside, back on topic. Paul's ability as a distributor. It should bear mention that, on a new team with a different talent array than he had in New Orleans, Paul just led the league in offensive win shares. Again. He wasn't at the 13+ level he managed in 08 and 09, but double-digit OWS are usually rather impressive. Limited as is that stat, when you dominate to that degree, it's typically meaningful to at least a base level. He was just shy of 20 ppg at 19.8 and doing it on 58.1% TS, but again, 35% of his offense came in the last 10 seconds of the clock. And in doing that, he posted the highest ORTG of his career.

He's very athletic and the PnR is an extremely useful play; there are many variations of the play, of course, but especially now that he's got a really dangerous roll man, it's not a huge surprise that he's killing it as a distributor. The big thing is that he's such a dirty scoring threat as well that he exerts a huge pressure on the opposition, so he's not just an excellent distributor, he's an excellent high-teens/low-20s scorer as well, which is what makes him superior to most other PGs.

In terms of portability, that scoring threat remains even if his volume of shots is reduced in order to facilitate ball movement in other contexts (or say to facilitate transition play by passing up, etc). He'd have trouble with other isolation players, so we'd see something similar to Wade/Lebron or Nash/Shaq (though when Phoenix went SSOS, that worked out well enough), though.

Again, he's a possession-control kind of guy, and his effectiveness away from the ball isn't all that remarkable. Because he lacks any kind of size, there's no real option for him to guard post to any serious extent. He's a pretty nasty spot-up shooter, though, so I'm sure he'd find away. Wasn't he top 20 in the league on spot-ups last year? I vaguely recall him bombing away to the tune of 40-something percent from downtown when he got a chance to spot-up and him having a really wicked pay-off out of those sets.

Good points, and this is of course central to why he's so good about limiting turnovers, but he's not a genius at actually manufacturing great shots for his teammates on the level of the Magics and Nashes. As far as how these differences influences portability I think that's food for some thought from both ends.

[Doctor MJ]

But 07 and 10 surround his 2 peak years. So its interesting he is not making an pact those years.

Sure it's interesting, but when we have pretty understandable explanations for large changes in his quality of play it's not alarming to me. Where I get nervous is when I see things that don't have explanations.

3. They played better without him in 2010. The only reason the record was worse without him was because they played a really tough schedule without CP3. They played over half of their games without CP3 against 3.3+ SRS teams. They played as many games vs. 4.5+ SRS teams as they did negative SRS teams. They played 25 games vs. 1+ SRS teams and only 12 games vs. negative SRS teams. The average SRS of the opponents was +1.66 which would explain the bad record without him. If you adjust that, they played better without him.

Hmm, this could be interesting. Can you spell it out further? Have you done split analysis on this? Obviously Paul's play was uneven as hell this year because of the injuries. Can you break it out in a format like:

Period, MOV, Opponent SRS?

[tsherkin]

Good points, and this is of course central to why he's so good about limiting turnovers, but he's not a genius at actually manufacturing great shots for his teammates on the level of the Magics and Nashes. As far as how these differences influences portability I think that's food for some thought from both ends.

One of the nice things I like about the way Nash approaches the game is that he'll push and look for a quick shot... and give up the ball really fast. There are a ton of possessions where the first thing he does a step or two inside the halfcourt line is fire a pass to a forward or guard somewhere else, then move... someplace, do... something. He doesn't just walk it up, doesn't just push it up and jack or isolate. He shifts things up very well and he can move the ball, then play effectively without it for a while. He's obviously at his best when he's slithering around screens and making passes to shooters or whatever but he's got that capability and it adds versatility to an offense.

Paul is GREAT, but like 3/5s of his possessions come as halfcourt sets and he plays on slow, slow teams, so means he's dominating the ball a LOT of the time. It's good because he is such a low-error player but it does make the offense a might predictable.

[Doctor MJ]

If Dwight is getting mentioned here, I think Yao should as well since I think their peaks were close. I know plenty of people argue that Yao was better at his peak than Dwight was at his. I probably would disagree but the argument can be made.

Yao's peak would be in 2007 by the way at least in terms of box-score stats. I think one could argue it was 2009 though because his impact was still there and he also had a good post-season performance until he got hurt.

I don't think their peaks were really that close, but I'll say the bigger issue - the reason why I really don't know if I can see him making the High 50 - is those injuries. This is a guy without any double-double season or 20 PPG season where he played more than 60 games. He was basically didn't become truly great until health was too big of an issue for him to be relied upon.

I know that sounds weird for me to say given that I've ignored injuries in the case of Walton & West, but that was only because of their fully healthy and dominant deep playoff runs. Yao never did that. Yes, maybe just because he didn't get the opportunity...but when I use playoff runs to re-write the story of the regular season, it's got to be based on what you showed us in force, period.

But yeah: It's a shame about Yao. He proved a lot of skeptics wrong about his ability to play at the highest of levels, but only proved them right when it came to health concerns for the giant.

[Lightning25]

I don't think their peaks were really that close

I personally do think Yao and Dwight's peaks were close although I would personally give Dwight the slight edge due to better portability (can play as any option on the team whereas Yao has to be either the #1 or #2 option) and better stamina. Yao was a bit restricted in terms of playing time to stamina although he was still ultra productive even with the limited playing time.

I just think that if Dwight is getting some nominations and talk, Yao should as well. I will say this and that's that Yao's peak should be somewhere in the top 50 (not necessarily in the high 50s like Dwight might be but in the top 50) and should specifically be above Alonzo Mourning's. I haven't heard Zo's name come up just yet but when he starts getting votes and a lot of talk then I hope Yao's name will also come up.

[colts18]

3. They played better without him in 2010. The only reason the record was worse without him was because they played a really tough schedule without CP3. They played over half of their games without CP3 against 3.3+ SRS teams. They played as many games vs. 4.5+ SRS teams as they did negative SRS teams. They played 25 games vs. 1+ SRS teams and only 12 games vs. negative SRS teams. The average SRS of the opponents was +1.66 which would explain the bad record without him. If you adjust that, they played better without him.

Hmm, this could be interesting. Can you spell it out further? Have you done split analysis on this? Obviously Paul's play was uneven as hell this year because of the injuries. Can you break it out in a format like:

Period, MOV, Opponent SRS?

Some of the teams the Hornets played without CP3:

Magic x2, 7.12 SRS
Cavs 6.17 SRS
Jazz x3, 5.33 SRS
Spurs x2, 5.10 SRS
Lakers 4.78 SRS
Suns x3, 4.68 SRS
7 games vs. Hawks, Nuggets, Thunder, Celtics all 3-4 SRS teams
25 games vs. 1.3+ SRS teams
12 games negative SRS teams

With CP3 they had a -1.64 MOV, -0.95 MOV, -2.59 SRS
Without CP3 they had a -3.46 MOV, a 1.66 SOS,-1.88 SRS

[fatal9]

Good points, and this is of course central to why he's so good about limiting turnovers, but he's not a genius at actually manufacturing great shots for his teammates on the level of the Magics and Nashes. As far as how these differences influences portability I think that's food for some thought from both ends.

One of the nice things I like about the way Nash approaches the game is that he'll push and look for a quick shot... and give up the ball really fast. There are a ton of possessions where the first thing he does a step or two inside the halfcourt line is fire a pass to a forward or guard somewhere else, then move... someplace, do... something. He doesn't just walk it up, doesn't just push it up and jack or isolate. He shifts things up very well and he can move the ball, then play effectively without it for a while. He's obviously at his best when he's slithering around screens and making passes to shooters or whatever but he's got that capability and it adds versatility to an offense.

Paul is GREAT, but like 3/5s of his possessions come as halfcourt sets and he plays on slow, slow teams, so means he's dominating the ball a LOT of the time. It's good because he is such a low-error player but it does make the offense a might predictable.

I understand the concerns (I have them about Paul too), and '08/'09 is a lot better option at generating full court offense than current Paul because of his speed, but isn't this a symptom of the coaches he played under? Byron Scott and Monty Williams both value slower style, grind it out type of games than up and down offensive shootouts. Monty Williams I liked as a defensive coach but offensively I felt he limited Paul's creativity (he tried to give rest of the team a little bit more of a share of the offense, but all that resulted in was way too many isos for a guy like Trevor Ariza) and preferred a tempo that was wayyy too slow given the offensive talent on the team. Without Paul the Hornets were the slowest team in the league last year, and before Paul's rookie season, the Hornets under Scott were 28th out of 30 in pace.

Nash was in different offensive systems where the quick shot was encouraged under his offensive minded coaches (Nellie, D'Antoni, Gentry), while Paul's teams and coaches prefer that grind it out, execution first style. This is what Paul played under his entire Hornets career. I agree he can be a little too cautious and unwilling to loosen up the offense (especially current Paul, '08 Paul was more willing to push the ball when the opportunity was there and had amazing speed which made him lethal whenever he did push), but based on his skills and intelligence/awareness, I don't think he'd have a problem if that sort of style were preached by his coach. Nash's approach and natural instincts when it comes to this are better and it's why I rank him ahead offensively by a little bit, but Paul might not be as rigid as we think.

[C-izMe]

If Dwight is coming up I have to say Zo is better (just slightly). Both are great defenders, similar volume/efficency scorers (at least Zo 2000), and the only difference between them is that Zo is way more versatile offensively and Dwight is a way better rebounder. Zo also has the best PS run between them (he was great in 2000) while Dwight's best PS run and RS are in two different years.

I also have serious issues with him getting shut down by Jason Collins. I saw some of that series live and Dwight was very frustrated on the bench and during timeouts.

[C-izMe]

Good points, and this is of course central to why he's so good about limiting turnovers, but he's not a genius at actually manufacturing great shots for his teammates on the level of the Magics and Nashes. As far as how these differences influences portability I think that's food for some thought from both ends.

One of the nice things I like about the way Nash approaches the game is that he'll push and look for a quick shot... and give up the ball really fast. There are a ton of possessions where the first thing he does a step or two inside the halfcourt line is fire a pass to a forward or guard somewhere else, then move... someplace, do... something. He doesn't just walk it up, doesn't just push it up and jack or isolate. He shifts things up very well and he can move the ball, then play effectively without it for a while. He's obviously at his best when he's slithering around screens and making passes to shooters or whatever but he's got that capability and it adds versatility to an offense.

Paul is GREAT, but like 3/5s of his possessions come as halfcourt sets and he plays on slow, slow teams, so means he's dominating the ball a LOT of the time. It's good because he is such a low-error player but it does make the offense a might predictable.

I understand the concerns (I have them about Paul too), and '08/'09 is a lot better option at generating full court offense than current Paul because of his speed, but isn't this a symptom of the coaches he played under? Byron Scott and Monty Williams both value slower style, grind it out type of games than up and down offensive shootouts. Monty Williams I liked as a defensive coach but offensively I felt he limited Paul's creativity (he tried to give rest of the team a little bit more of a share of the offense, but all that resulted in was way too many isos for a guy like Trevor Ariza) and preferred a tempo that was wayyy too slow given the offensive talent on the team. Without Paul the Hornets were the slowest team in the league last year, and before Paul's rookie season, the Hornets under Scott were 28th out of 30 in pace.

Nash was in different offensive systems where the quick shot was encouraged under his offensive minded coaches (Nellie, D'Antoni, Gentry), while Paul's teams and coaches prefer that grind it out, execution first style. This is what Paul played under his entire Hornets career. I agree he can be a little too cautious and unwilling to loosen up the offense (especially current Paul, '08 Paul was more willing to push the ball when the opportunity was there and had amazing speed which made him lethal whenever he did push), but based on his skills and intelligence/awareness, I don't think he'd have a problem if that sort of style were preached by his coach. Nash's approach and natural instincts when it comes to this are better and it's why I rank him ahead offensively by a little bit, but Paul might not be as rigid as we think.

Remember that as slow as the Clippers were last year they weren't going slow until Chauncey got hurt. Paul and Chauncey pushing the ball for oops really worked well. I personally believe those few games proved he can play even better with another ball handler. His personal stats fell but the team was great.

[tsherkin]

I understand the concerns (I have them about Paul too), and '08/'09 is a lot better option at generating full court offense than current Paul because of his speed, but isn't this a symptom of the coaches he played under? Byron Scott and Monty Williams both value slower style, grind it out type of games than up and down offensive shootouts. Monty Williams I liked as a defensive coach but offensively I felt he limited Paul's creativity (he tried to give rest of the team a little bit more of a share of the offense, but all that resulted in was way too many isos for a guy like Trevor Ariza) and preferred a tempo that was wayyy too slow given the offensive talent on the team. Without Paul the Hornets were the slowest team in the league last year, and before Paul's rookie season, the Hornets under Scott were 28th out of 30 in pace.

And the last season I mentioned was under Vinnie Del Negro... who had the Clippers at 92.8 possessions per game, 12th in the league, the year before Paul got there. In his first season in Chicago, he had them at 93.1, 10th in the league, then 93.1 again, 11th in the league the year after.

So he's not a guy who values slow-tempo basketball but, lo and behold, upon Paul's arrival the Clippers changed into an 89.2 pace team, 4th-slowest in the league.

It's nothing definitve, but it is most certainly suggestive.