04 Pistons

[KingRobb02]

You need to watch some games, son. Question, which player is a top 50 all time?

The watch some games argument is kind of nostalgia taking over. His legend is built on being awesome early and then gets a boost by being the "best player" on two title teams. He peaked in 1985 and by the time the time they were ready to compete, he was closer to a B than to a A+. This is basically the equivalent of what would happen if Amar'e Stoudemire had won a title in Phoenix in 2010. An exciting offensive player who was never the best at his postion, hung around until his team was good enough to win. Thomas was great, but it wasn't a full career of greatness.

Watch entire games, Isaiah was still killing it in the playoffs. You have zero clue about a top 50 player all time just because you watched Billups go 17/7 a few times in the playoffs. Man, people are short cited.

I've seen them both play plenty. I just prefer Chauncey's 7 year apex to Zeke's 3 year peak. This eye test stuff is why we are 30 years away from people trying to tell my son that Carmelo was the best scorer of his generation.

[BadMofoPimp]

The watch some games argument is kind of nostalgia taking over. His legend is built on being awesome early and then gets a boost by being the "best player" on two title teams. He peaked in 1985 and by the time the time they were ready to compete, he was closer to a B than to a A+. This is basically the equivalent of what would happen if Amar'e Stoudemire had won a title in Phoenix in 2010. An exciting offensive player who was never the best at his postion, hung around until his team was good enough to win. Thomas was great, but it wasn't a full career of greatness.

Watch entire games, Isaiah was still killing it in the playoffs. You have zero clue about a top 50 player all time just because you watched Billups go 17/7 a few times in the playoffs. Man, people are short cited.

I've seen them both play plenty. I just prefer Chauncey's 7 year apex to Zeke's 3 year peak. This eye test stuff is why we are 30 years away from people trying to tell my son that Carmelo was the best scorer of his generation.

Zeke had way more than 3 years, more like 7 himself and wasn't he nominated as top 10 PG all time. I doubt any NBA coach or analyst would take Billups over Zeke. Fun arguement tho. This has been very entertaining!

[Xatticus]

A "superstar" who only finished higher than 8th in MVP voting once, but okay. I pick top 8 because that is generally the lowest you finish if you get ANY 2nd place votes at all.

Thomas: 1 Finals MVP (1990), 6 Player of the week, 0 player of the month, 2 top 8 MVP (5th '84, 8th '87)
Billups: 1 Finals MVP (2004), 6 player of the week, 2 player of the month, 2 top 8 MVP (5th '06, 6th '09)

Billups is the better scorer (58% TS vs Thomas's 51%... 53% is average) and defender (2x all-defensive vs Thomas's 0). Plus the biggest thing for me with evaluating the Bad Boy Pistons is this. None of them had much success without Rodman. Rodman's rookie year was the first time they made it out of the first round. After he left, they immediately became bad again. He's also the only Bad Boy to keep winning after they (well, besides Salley). This leads me to believe that Rodman was more important to the Pistons than Thomas or Dumars. If he was on a team and played 2400 minutes, that team was a contender. Billups was good enough to continue his success in Denver, immediately gettign Carmelo to his only conference Finals. Yes, Thomas is more of a legendary name, but that's not how I rank players.

You need to watch some games, son. Question, which player is a top 50 all time?

The watch some games argument is kind of nostalgia taking over. His legend is built on being awesome early and then gets a boost by being the "best player" on two title teams. He peaked in 1985 and by the time the time they were ready to compete, he was closer to a B than to a A+. This is basically the equivalent of what would happen if Amar'e Stoudemire had won a title in Phoenix in 2010. An exciting offensive player who was never the best at his postion, hung around until his team was good enough to win. Thomas was great, but it wasn't a full career of greatness.

All of this and the ankle game. I've also always thought that Thomas was really overrated, but those Pistons teams were revered and he was the most beloved player on them. He had some really good seasons on some meh Pistons teams. The Pistons immediately got a lot better when he and Laimbeer arrived, but those championship teams were stacked.

I'd take Kevin Johnson over Isiah Thomas.