#32 Highest Peak of All Time (Durant '12 wins)

[Doctor MJ]

Rick Barry '75 has been enshrined. We move on.

[Raaccoonn]

Guys... guys!

Have you guys just magically forgotten about Walt Frazier???

His Peak was imo better then Kobe's and on the same level as Wade's.

Whatever you do please include him in the debates from now on.
He probably should have been voted in many spots ago.

[therealbig3]

Guys... guys!

Have you guys just magically forgotten about Walt Frazier???

His Peak was imo better then Kobe's and on the same level as Wade's.

Whatever you do please include him in the debates from now on.
He probably should have been voted in many spots ago.

He was very good, but nowhere close to Kobe or Wade imo.

I see him as a little better than Gary Payton. Excellent wing defender, and a very capable floor general...but he wasn't THAT amazing as a floor general, and as a small, his defensive impact was limited. He's basically a poor man's Pippen, who just recently got voted in.

[C-izMe]

I'm voting McHale.


And your crazy saying Walt has a better peak than Kobe.

[Doctor MJ]

Guys... guys!

Have you guys just magically forgotten about Walt Frazier???

His Peak was imo better then Kobe's and on the same level as Wade's.

Whatever you do please include him in the debates from now on.
He probably should have been voted in many spots ago.

I don't think as highly of him as you do, but I agree it's remarkable how little traction he's getting given that he's been so consistently championed in Top 100 projects.

[therealbig3]

Vote: 87 McHale

[Raaccoonn]

Walt was an absolute terror defensively and had an amazing BBIQ.

Also.. for reference here are his Peak stats.

Regular Season :
----
21 / 6 / 8.2apg on 58%TS
.236-WSP48 ||| 6.4-DWS ||| 77 games

Playoffs :
----
24.3 / 7 / 6.1apg on 59%TS
.227-WSP48 ||| 16 games

Walt was an excellent jump shooter and was also very good off the dribble.
His offensive ability is being forgotten he was far from just an elite defender and a good floor general.

[Lightning25]

Same vote as last time and for the past 3-4 ones.

Vote: 2012 Kevin Durant

I made my explanation a few threads back, here is the copy and paste version.

Durant is the best scorer left of the bunch. He is the ultimate portable player and does not need to dominate the ball to disrupt the flow of the offense similar to Karl Malone and Reggie Miller. He can take over games in the clutch as he shown all of last season in the post-season and in the regular season. An example would be game 5 in the WCF vs. the Spurs where Kevin Durant dropped 16 straight points against the Spurs to take the lead in the series. Durant wasn't like Miller either like I've heard being talked about. Durant wasn't reliant on screens to score like Miller was. Durant creates off the dribble all the time whether it's in the 1st quarter or the last shot of the game. Durant just uses screens very well and takes advantage of it, similar to MJ/Bird.

His all-around game is underrated.

He is a very good rebounder and averaged about 8 rpg last season and with a front-court of Nick Collison, Kendrick Perkins, Serge Ibaka, etc. one of the best defensive/rebounding front-courts in the league.

He has shown that he can be a good passer as well although he is not great at it and he is not as great as say Penny, Hill, or Tmac were, but he was still capable. The 2012 WCF showed what Durant's passing was all about, he averaged about 5-6 apg in the WCF iirc.

He is also a very good defender due to his length. He contests shots very well and synergysports show that Durant is one of the best isolation/contesting defenders last season. He is also a very good help defender with rotating, communicating, and also his length to disrupt the vision of the offensive player with the ball. I actually thought Durant defended Lebron the best in the 2012 finals, he just wasn't disciplined enough so he got into foul trouble and couldn't guard him full time but I thought of all the guys that defended Lebron between Thabo, Harden, and Durant, Durant was the best.

His only issue is his ball-control. He does have good ball-handles to create off the dribble but he doesn't take care of the ball too well in terms of turning the ball over.

Now factor in the intangibles such as his great leadership ability. He always works hard and everybody always talks about how hard he works whether it's in the off-season, in practice during the season, whatever. People always rave about Durant's amazing work-ethic and that's what you want in a leader. Durant never calls out his teammates either and he always sticks up for them. This means that this leader will have everybody else's back regardless of what happens and as a teammate you would like that from your leader because not all leaders are like that.

[therealbig3]

So comparing my top 100 list to who's gotten voted in so far, the guys in my top 50 that have not made the peaks list yet:

-Bob Pettit
-Walt Frazier
-Clyde Drexler
-Gary Payton
-Artis Gilmore
-Paul Pierce
-Jason Kidd
-George Gervin
-Isiah Thomas
-John Stockton
-Kevin McHale
-Alonzo Mourning
-John Havlicek
-Dominique Wilkins
-Kevin Johnson
-Reggie Miller
-Willis Reed
-Bob McAdoo
-Ray Allen
-Bob Lanier
-Marques Johnson

I don't expect Stockton, Havlicek, Miller, Allen, or Lanier to make it, because they're ranked highly mainly because they were very good players for a long time, not because they were super high peak players. So that leaves 16 players in my top 50 that I believe should make the list.

Ordering these 16 players is very difficult for me. The remaining 3 players for this list should be Kevin Durant, Bernard King, and Manu Ginobili imo.

[lorak]

vote: Stockton 1988. In head to head matchup (of course they didn't defended each other) he was as good as prime Magic.

[ElGee]

vote: 2012 Durant

Couple thoughts:

-we could be coming to the best part of the project...hashing out the ever-shrinking part of the bell curve between these next 15-25 spots). Even guys that don't get voted in will hopefully be discussed in detail they've never been discussed in before. I have some clarity over ~ the next 10 guys (not necessarily the order), but after that, there's a case for a LOT of players to be made. Could be fun and informative.

-I've said I have Frazier coming right up after McHale, although Frazier vs. Reed isn't entirely clear in my mind. Frazier was a terror defensively at the PG spot, but that's not something I view as encroaching on big man impact. Offensively, I think he was good, but this is not an all-time level offensive player by any means.

-I'm having a hard time NOT thinking of Dennis Rodman. I've evaluated him. And re-evaluated him. And what I get is a +4 super super portable player...which is good enough for this project and not too far away. I think Rodman's peak season is pretty clearly 1992, where he still had a blend of DPOYness coupled with crazy offensive rebounding, peaking by winning NBA POM. HIs super-diverse defensive is also about as portable as it gets.

The knock on Rodman's 1992 season is what on earth happened to him in the PS...which as we know, isn't an anomaly. There was a point in G2 against NY where Daly asked him if we wanted to go in the game, and Rodman basically shrugged. Then in the 4th they finally put him in (was he depressed or something? These are the questions with Worm) and he scores two hoops and holds the red-hot McDaniel (24 pts) scoreless the rest of the game. Then after two more "normal" games he only played 27 minutes in G5. This was coming off an April where he averaged 14-16-3 62% TS and hit 8-19 3's (not the Dennis you remember, eh?). He was simply a dynamic player that year.

Rodman also illustrates out how clumped together the next "group" of players will be...as the difference between a +4 guy and +3.5 guy might be fairly small, but in terms of trying to rank all these players, it's probably the difference between being around 40th and being around 55th (not voted in).

[ElGee]

Guys... guys!

Have you guys just magically forgotten about Walt Frazier???

His Peak was imo better then Kobe's and on the same level as Wade's.

Whatever you do please include him in the debates from now on.
He probably should have been voted in many spots ago.

I don't think as highly of him as you do, but I agree it's remarkable how little traction he's getting given that he's been so consistently championed in Top 100 projects.

Yeah, but the flip side to that coin is I thought it was remarkable how much traction he got in the top 100 project (and where he was voted in). I really like Clyde, and I have him 37th I think.

[fatal9]

vote: 2012 Durant

[JordansBulls]

I'm thinking of 1986 or 1987 Dominique Wilkins here. I probably will take 1987 Nique of the two. He led the Hawks to more of an elite record. However 1986 Nique was higher in MVP voting and led the league in scoring.

Vote: 1987 Dominique Wilkins.

[Lightning25]

Vote: 1987 Dominique Wilkins.

Dominique Wilkins was worse than George Gervin at like everything, and you are voting his peak over Gervin's? That doesn't make too much sense to me.

[PTB Fan]

I'm thinking Kidd, King, Pettit and possibly Frazier for my next votes.

Edit: I forgot Kevin McHale as well.

I'm kinda leaning on Kidd as of now. Could be wrong. And then on the other hand, we have a guy like Bob Pettit who should be mentioned. McHale's 86 season is really sick. Either way, I think I'm going to vote for one of them before I do for King, who outside of his sick scoring, didn't have as good all-around game.

[Lightning25]

Tallies at the moment

87 Mchale - (1) therealbig3
12 Durant - (3) Lightning25, ElGee, fatal9
88 Stockton - (1) DavidStern
87 Wilkins - (1) JordansBulls


I don't know which year for Mchale C-Mizle voted for because he did not specify.

[JordansBulls]

Vote: 1987 Dominique Wilkins.

Dominique Wilkins was worse than George Gervin at like everything, and you are voting his peak over Gervin's? That doesn't make too much sense to me.

Gervin couldn't really even dominate in the 70's when he had opportunity. At least Nique had much better teams to deal with in his career.

[Doctor MJ]

Gervin couldn't really even dominate in the 70's when he had opportunity. At least Nique had much better teams to deal with in his career.

Hmm, seems like you're basically biasing your pick toward the '80s coming & going.

You see the parity of the '70s and assume that means nobody was that good, and then blame the guys from the '70s for failing to dominate a bunch of teams that "weren't that good".

[therealbig3]

What qualifies as dominant?

Gervin from 77-80 averaged per 36:

28.7 ppg, 5.3 rpg, 3.0 apg, 3.5 TOpg, 59.3% TS

He finished top 3 in MVP voting three straight times from 78-80.

Wilkins for his career only finished in the top 3 once.