kodo wrote:og15 wrote:In terms of playing style and impact, Aldridge and Noah is actually a clone of Hibbert and West except Hibbert is better than Noah as a scorer. Aldridge and West are almost the same player in more than one way.
LMA & West are both scoring PFs but there's some separation between the two, 21 ppg vs 17 ppg.
There's more scoring difference between Wade (21 ppg) and Derozan (18 ppg).
The difference between DeRozan and Wade isn't the PPG averages. If DeRozan did everything else as well as Wade except score less, he's an excellent player. That's an 18/5/5 SG that can handle the ball, is a very excellent off ball defensive player, has a .571 TS% (DeRozan is at .523 TS%). The difference between Wade and DeRozan isn't just PPG average, it's a whole lot of skill set. It's ball handling, passing, help defense, scoring efficiency....
West and Aldridge is a different story, extremely similar skill sets on both ends, each better than the other in one small thing or the other, both excellent shooters, both average to above average defenders, not to mention that West scores 17.1 pts in 33.4 MPG (18.5 pts/36) on the league's slowest paced team, while Aldridge scores 21.1 pts in 37.7 MPG (20.1 pts/36) on an average paced team. The 21 to 17 no longer accurately depicts the actual difference in scoring ability and impact.
Then you compare their scoring efficiency (LMA: .530 TS%, West: .545 TS%). Taking out their less productive years, LMA as a rookie and West's first two seasons, their career pts/36 (LMA: 19.0, West: 18.5). Their last three seasons (including a down year last season for West coming back from his injury):
LMA: 20.4 pts/36, 49.7% FG, .545 TS%, 112 Ortg | West: 18.0 pts/36, 49.9% FG, .546 TS%, 110 Ortg
Then you say "well West was playing off Paul in New Orleans", or wasn't a first option, of course he isn't now and producing similarly, but also, you look at West as a first option the year Paul was injured for a good chunk of the season: 19.0 pts (18.8 per 36), 50.5% FG, .560 TS%, an even the next year when Paul was recovering and West was the first option, and he looks pretty good.
Aldridge is better, but pretty marginally, but he's also 5 years younger, so that's a big deal, but in that front-court comparison, if I can forget Hibbert's awful regular season start and also take into account how many games he misses a year in comparison to Noah, I think my Hibbert over Noah gap from all the factors at the least matches the very tiny Aldridge vs West impact gap, more likely surpasses it because similar impact but more games / greater health ends up becoming more impact.
Now of course, the difference between the two teams is that when healthy, like mentioned, one has Rose and Deng, the other Hill and George, so while George and Deng will give similar impact, and even if you argue George > Deng, which is fine, go ahead, there's a chasm between Rose and Hill.
