HBK_Kliq_33 wrote:70sFan wrote:HBK_Kliq_33 wrote:Durant shows plenty of great ball handling here relative to his size. 45 seconds Durant does a crossover and than stepback jumper, how many 7 footers can do that? Relative to his size he is an outstanding ball handler based off his crossover dribbling skills and his ability to shoot off the dribble.
I've seen at least 15-20 different Dantley games and plenty of his highlights. He's a very good scorer but he's not a scorer you can build around because he lacks athleticism and mobility. There's nothing that really sticks out to him as being a great scorer across eras because he doesn't have a defining trait. I don't like Durant but he at least has a defining trait that makes him a great scorer and that's his combination of size\shooting ability like a Dirk Nowitski. Would you say Dantley is better scorer than Dirk as well? Because than you would be wrong again. Dantley doesn't have unique size, athleticism, length that puts him at the level of scorers like Dirk Durant Kawhi.
Plenty of highlights? Outside of my channel there is almost nothing on YT about Dantley.
You want defining trait? How about unmatched ability to draw fouls? GOAT post game for someone 6'5 or smaller? You keep talking about physical traits like they are more important than skillset. Dantley had elite first step and was very strong for his size, that's his physical traits. Add to that his unbelievable sense of space and ability to use his body to perfection, his elite midrange shot and you have GOAT level isolation scorer.
You can't bulid elite offense only around Dantley, but it's because of his other shortcomings. Not because something in his iso game is wrong. He scored more on better efficiency than either Kawhi or Dirk and that's not because of other parts of his game. Hell, he was more efficient than Durant. How can somone who scored 30 ppg on 66% TS could be called different than elite scorer? Especially when his main strength was iso game?
He played in probably the weakest defensive era in nba history by FG%
1984 - 49% FG league average
This era has been mostly 45-46% FG
Dantley's TS was not more efficient than Durant or Leonard in the playoffs at their peak seasons.
He was also on average offensive teams when he was the teams leading scorer.
Yeah you make good videos man I've seen some of your highlights I will give you praise there. We just have difference of opinions on how some players would adapt in different eras. Across YouTube there are other highlights as well.
Watch this one look how many open jumpers he's getting, he has the athleticism of a turtle and he's average physically as well. A 6"5 guy that likes to post up and has average athleticism, I doubt he thrives in an era like today besides being a good 6th man type.
League average in 1984 was 54.6 TS% compared to 56.0 TS% in 2019 and 55.2 TS% in 2017. 2014 (KD peak) is almost identical at 54.1 TS%. You can't compare raw FG% when in one era players shoot a lot of threes and almost none in the other.
In 1984 Dantley scored 30.6 ppg on +10.6 rTS% (65.2 TS%) in RS and 32.2 ppg on +6.1 rTS% (60.4 TS%) in playoffs.
Durant averaged more points only once in 2014 and he did worse in playoffs that year: 32.0 ppg on +9.4 rTS% (63.5 TS%) in RS and 29.6 ppg on +2.9 rTS% (57.0 TS%). He has only one playoffs run that is comparable in terms of raw volume+efficiency and that's 2019 with Curry and Thompson around him. In short - no, Durant wasn't more efficient scorer in playoffs.
He was on average offensive teams because of lack of talent around him but also because he was worse offensive player than Durant or Kawhi. Doesn't mean that he's worse one on one scorer and this debate is only about iso scoring, not overall impact. I never said that Dantley is better player than Durant.
You don't understand that he was average athlete with small body in the 1980s too and that didn't prevent him to be unstoppable. He was guarded usually by bigger, stronger and more athletic players. It wasn't unusual to see him playing against power forwards on defense, because small forwards were hopeless inside against him. His size wasn't a problem then and wouldn't be today. It would be perfectly fine to question his portability if he had played in the 1950s in segregated league against smaller players. have footage when he was guarded by Larry Nance, Kevin McHale, James Worthy, Scottie Pippen, Horace Grant, Charles Oakley, Dennis Johnson, Rodney McCray, Maurice Lucas, Paul Pressey, Mychal Thompson, AC Green, Michael Jordan and many, many players who were bigger, quicker, more athletic and better defensively than 90% of the league today. He made them look foolish, then you say "he's getting open jumpers", but do you know why? These players didn't give them others, Dantley was just so good that he made it look laughably easy. I have footage of him posting up Robert Parish and scoring on him. Robert Parish was one of the best low post players I've seen, he gave guys like Moses or Hakeem a lot of problems. McHale was excellent defender with huge wingspan and Dantley posted him up like a child.
Kawhi is one of the best man defenders ever and I'm sure he would fare better than most against Dantley, but I can't see him shutting AD down without help. Nobody did that and Kawhi isn't bigger or more athletic than guys Dantley faced. He would be tough, but Dantley would solve him like he did with any other defender. I wouldn't even try much Kawhi on him, because of possible foul trouble.
