Who do you rank higher all time: Scottie Pippen or Chris Paul?

[LKN]

I think both of these guys tend to be two of the most overrated ATG players on this board and in analytics circles, but I'm going Chris Paul with zero hesitation. Both were great defenders in their prime, and even though you should value forward/frontcourt defense more highly than PG defense, which gives Pippen an edge, Paul is 2-3 tiers above as an offensive player. The Bulls are sitting there with 8 rings instead of 6 if you swapped Pippen and Paul's age 22-24 seasons.

Not sure I agree 100% with the last sentence... but good post overall.

Edit - I do think one should take into account health... Pippen was generally healthy when the Bulls needed him (with a couple of exceptions)

[Gooner]

I think both of these guys tend to be two of the most overrated ATG players on this board and in analytics circles, but I'm going Chris Paul with zero hesitation. Both were great defenders in their prime, and even though you should value forward/frontcourt defense more highly than PG defense, which gives Pippen an edge, Paul is 2-3 tiers above as an offensive player. The Bulls are sitting there with 8 rings instead of 6 if you swapped Pippen and Paul's age 22-24 seasons.

How can you value a choker like Chris Paul more than a 6 time championship winner, and one of the best players ever?

[Dr Spaceman]

I haven’t read this whole thread but I will say if you replace Pippen on the Bulls with Paul there is a legit chance they don’t win 6 titles due to Paul’s various maladies. I don’t think that means I’d take Pippen over Paul but it is a question worth asking.

[Dr Spaceman]

God are people still pushing this narrative?

You are talking about the same series where both KD and Westbrook torched the Clippers. Bringing up a few possessions against KD is so cherry picking.

It's not a narrative. They put him on KD in the entire 4th quarter and he literally locked him up. KD couldn't even get the ball. When he did get it, he couldn't even dribble the ball because Chris ripped him every time. He got like one clean shot off the entire quarter.

Before that move, KD was torching the Clippers through 3 quarters. That just goes to show you how there were no defensive stoppers on his teams, HE was his teams best defender lot of the time. At 6'0.

I don’t remember it being an entire quarter when i watched the series in real time.

Feel free to find the footage though..

Edit: If you’re talking about this, i’m seeing a bunch of double teams and on top of that Paul was honestly fouling the **** out of him

Spoiler:

Watch on YouTube

For the record Paul fouls the **** out of everyone and gets away with it nearly 100% of the time so you have to kind of consider it part of his value. Certain guys, usually undersized, Draymond being another great example, are just given a lot more leeway from the refs for whatever reason and you have to take it into consideration.

[70sFan]

Russell never even averaged 19 points, he isn't goat level overall player. Wilt Hakeem Kareem Shaq Duncan are all clearly better because the offense and scoring gap.

Wilt averaged more than double the points Russell ever did. Russell is an all time great defensive player, great playmaker, not a great scorer. Same with Pippen. Russell's rings get exaggerated, in his first ring there was 2 other teams in the league over .500 record how is that impressive.

That's not my fault that you are so obsessed with volume scorers, but players can impact the gam in so many other ways. Russell had higher overall impact than any of the players you mentioned even though he's worse scorer than them.

I don't rank him because of rings either and don't forget that being over 0.500 in 8 teams league is far more impressive than in 30 teams league.

I just don't see how Russell is that far ahead on defense to make up for his lacking offense. Duncan's offense gap on Russell is bigger than the defensive gap, much much bigger. You are the one obsessed with 50s/60s players and overrating Russell here.

I'm not obsessed, Russell is clear GOAT candidate by any measure. Russell had excellent case over Wilt Chamberlain who was a two-way monster. It doesn't sound ridiculous if you pick Russell over Wilt and Wilt has case over Duncan both offensively and defensively.

I personally have Russell over Duncan and Duncan over Wilt, but they are all relatively close.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

That's not my fault that you are so obsessed with volume scorers, but players can impact the gam in so many other ways. Russell had higher overall impact than any of the players you mentioned even though he's worse scorer than them.

I don't rank him because of rings either and don't forget that being over 0.500 in 8 teams league is far more impressive than in 30 teams league.

I just don't see how Russell is that far ahead on defense to make up for his lacking offense. Duncan's offense gap on Russell is bigger than the defensive gap, much much bigger. You are the one obsessed with 50s/60s players and overrating Russell here.

I'm not obsessed, Russell is clear GOAT candidate by any measure. Russell had excellent case over Wilt Chamberlain who was a two-way monster. It doesn't sound ridiculous if you pick Russell over Wilt and Wilt has case over Duncan both offensively and defensively.

I personally have Russell over Duncan and Duncan over Wilt, but they are all relatively close.

You are putting too much stock into defense than. That's no different than me putting a lot of stock in scoring and saying Kawhi is the goat because he scored 30 PPG 62% TS on a title team. You would tell me how Kawhi supposedly lacks in other areas to be a goat. Right now, I'm telling you that Russell lacks in other areas to be the goat (scoring).

[HBK_Kliq_33]

I haven’t read this whole thread but I will say if you replace Pippen on the Bulls with Paul there is a legit chance they don’t win 6 titles due to Paul’s various maladies. I don’t think that means I’d take Pippen over Paul but it is a question worth asking.

And thats why for careers, its clearly Pippen. Their peaks are comparable but the career is easily Pippen for the reasons you said.

1994 = 2015
2000 = 2018

[bledredwine]

Pippen was a better leader, example, all-around player, didn't have any flopping or antics with fellow teammates, didn't choke over and over in important games, and won 6 championships alongside Jordan. He was the perfect 2nd fiddle. Chris Paul certainly is not, and the defensive end is nowhere close.

[70sFan]

I just don't see how Russell is that far ahead on defense to make up for his lacking offense. Duncan's offense gap on Russell is bigger than the defensive gap, much much bigger. You are the one obsessed with 50s/60s players and overrating Russell here.

I'm not obsessed, Russell is clear GOAT candidate by any measure. Russell had excellent case over Wilt Chamberlain who was a two-way monster. It doesn't sound ridiculous if you pick Russell over Wilt and Wilt has case over Duncan both offensively and defensively.

I personally have Russell over Duncan and Duncan over Wilt, but they are all relatively close.

You are putting too much stock into defense than. That's no different than me putting a lot of stock in scoring and saying Kawhi is the goat because he scored 30 PPG 62% TS on a title team. You would tell me how Kawhi supposedly lacks in other areas to be a goat. Right now, I'm telling you that Russell lacks in other areas to be the goat (scoring).

Kawhi lacks overall impact, he's not GOAT tier on offense nor on defense. Russell led the greatest defensive teams in NBA history that collapsed without him. Show me Kawhi having similar impact and then we can argue.

[nate33]

Chris Paul was phenomenal at nearly all aspects of basketball, but his relative lack of playoff success proves that there are limits to the effectiveness of diminutive PGs. You just can't win with them. Height matters. The last team to win with a sub 6-2 PG as their best player was Isiah Thomas 30 years ago, and one could argue that he wasn't even their best player.

I figure prime Chris Paul was usually a top 5-8ish player in the league. I think Pippen's 1994 run demonstrates that he was also a top 5-8ish player during his prime, but he had to adapt his game to function alongside Jordan.

I'll take the top 5-8ish player who is 6-7 with a 7-0 wingspan over the top 5-8ish player who is 6-0.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

I'm not obsessed, Russell is clear GOAT candidate by any measure. Russell had excellent case over Wilt Chamberlain who was a two-way monster. It doesn't sound ridiculous if you pick Russell over Wilt and Wilt has case over Duncan both offensively and defensively.

I personally have Russell over Duncan and Duncan over Wilt, but they are all relatively close.

You are putting too much stock into defense than. That's no different than me putting a lot of stock in scoring and saying Kawhi is the goat because he scored 30 PPG 62% TS on a title team. You would tell me how Kawhi supposedly lacks in other areas to be a goat. Right now, I'm telling you that Russell lacks in other areas to be the goat (scoring).

Kawhi lacks overall impact, he's not GOAT tier on offense nor on defense. Russell led the greatest defensive teams in NBA history that collapsed without him. Show me Kawhi having similar impact and then we can argue.

Leonard won a title with the toronto raptors who had never won it before and carried them without any other superstar on his team. He has also never lost a playoff series when healthy since 2017. Leonard can anchor an offense in the playoffs by himself, Russell can not. Leonard is also capable of dominating defensively like he did vs Jimmy Butler and Giannis. Overall, Leonard wins for impact because Russell lacked offense.

[70sFan]

You are putting too much stock into defense than. That's no different than me putting a lot of stock in scoring and saying Kawhi is the goat because he scored 30 PPG 62% TS on a title team. You would tell me how Kawhi supposedly lacks in other areas to be a goat. Right now, I'm telling you that Russell lacks in other areas to be the goat (scoring).

Kawhi lacks overall impact, he's not GOAT tier on offense nor on defense. Russell led the greatest defensive teams in NBA history that collapsed without him. Show me Kawhi having similar impact and then we can argue.

Leonard won a title with the toronto raptors who had never won it before and carried them without any other superstar on his team. He has also never lost a playoff series when healthy since 2017. Leonard can anchor an offense in the playoffs by himself, Russell can not. Leonard is also capable of dominating defensively like he did vs Jimmy Butler and Giannis. Overall, Leonard wins for impact because Russell lacked offense.

Leonard "carried" one of the best defensive teams in recent era while being at best 3rd best defender on this team to a title.

He never lost playoffs series since 2017, because he missed whole year in 2018 and got injured in 2017. Russell lost 1 series in his entire career when healthy, not only in two years. Sorry but in that aspect Leonard can't touch Bill.

Leonard can't anchor defense by himself, Russell could and did anchor the greatest defense ever. Russell also was capable of dominating offensively in some series like in 1962 finals when he averaged 23 ppg and 6 apg on 60 TS%. Leonard also can't anchor elite offense by himself, Raptors were underwhelming offensively in playoffs. Russell led elite defensive team with all rosters he had in his career.

So Russell, like Leonard on defense, had moments when he dominated offensively. The difference is that Russell's defense is much more impactful than Kawhi's offense. By any measure and that's a fact.

[wutevahung]

I haven’t read this whole thread but I will say if you replace Pippen on the Bulls with Paul there is a legit chance they don’t win 6 titles due to Paul’s various maladies. I don’t think that means I’d take Pippen over Paul but it is a question worth asking.

This line of thinking is just not logical though.

We can reasonably argue Jordan replacing Shaq on Lakers wouldn't produce 3peat titles for Lakers 00-02, and We can reasonably argue that replacing Dirk with Peak Tim Duncan on Mavs wouldn't produce title on 11, but those arguments don't mean anything since those teams are built around the star players, straight up swapping them for a "supposed superior player" and pretend all other conditions are equal makes no sense.

If we are just going by their impacts on their teams chance to win basketball games through out their career, it's Chris Paul and I don't think it's remotely close, but to me, narratives such as number of championships should factor into historical rankings because it's not the ranking of BEST PLAYER OF ALL TIME, but GREATEST, so Pippen's legacy and CP's lack of legacy in the biggest stage bring them a lot closer than their actual abilities in my own ranking (thoughI have never sat down to do an official one).

At the end of the day though, CP should still be higher, at least to me, because he was just that much better than Pippen.

[HBK_Kliq_33]

Kawhi lacks overall impact, he's not GOAT tier on offense nor on defense. Russell led the greatest defensive teams in NBA history that collapsed without him. Show me Kawhi having similar impact and then we can argue.

Leonard won a title with the toronto raptors who had never won it before and carried them without any other superstar on his team. He has also never lost a playoff series when healthy since 2017. Leonard can anchor an offense in the playoffs by himself, Russell can not. Leonard is also capable of dominating defensively like he did vs Jimmy Butler and Giannis. Overall, Leonard wins for impact because Russell lacked offense.

Leonard "carried" one of the best defensive teams in recent era while being at best 3rd best defender on this team to a title.

He never lost playoffs series since 2017, because he missed whole year in 2018 and got injured in 2017. Russell lost 1 series in his entire career when healthy, not only in two years. Sorry but in that aspect Leonard can't touch Bill.

Leonard can't anchor defense by himself, Russell could and did anchor the greatest defense ever. Russell also was capable of dominating offensively in some series like in 1962 finals when he averaged 23 ppg and 6 apg on 60 TS%. Leonard also can't anchor elite offense by himself, Raptors were underwhelming offensively in playoffs. Russell led elite defensive team with all rosters he had in his career.

So Russell, like Leonard on defense, had moments when he dominated offensively. The difference is that Russell's defense is much more impactful than Kawhi's offense. By any measure and that's a fact.

Leonard anchored 2016 spurs defense, 2017 spurs defense and 2019 raptors all-time great defense. Siakam or gasol didn't guard jimmy butler, Kawhi did. Siakam or gasol didn't guard Giannis, Kawhi did. Kawhi also had excellent help defense in the finals averaging over a block a game which is great for a wing player.

Leonard also carried an offense to a title without any other great scorers or offensive players on his team. That's something Russell is not capable of.

[hoosierdaddy34]

Stunned that this is a debate. Pippen was a much better player than Paul was. People that are saying it was close defensively, while pulling up BS stats...this is why some people do not trust stats at all. They need to be used appropriately, and Def RPM or any defensive stat like that are remarkably flawed. Unless you can give isolated synergy possession stats...I don’t want to hear about defensive statistics. And CP3 was a regular season player that often times couldn’t hold up when the playoff lights got bright. Pippen got even better in the playoffs. To me that’s a huge part of a players makeup.

[udfa]

BPM is a good stat for star players but not for role players.

Why?

But ok, let's throw out BPM since it's decisively against you and look at other stats. To stack the process even more in your favor, we will only use Gordon's best season for both regular season and playoffs (most of Gordon's seasons are much worse than his best while Smith has several regular seasons that were better than 2000).

00 Smith regular: 14.9 PPG (.584 TS), 3.8 RPG, 2.5 APG, 0.9 SPG, 0.4 BPG, 1.4 TO, 10.4 WS, .186 WS/48, Net Rtg +16
11 Gordon regular: 22.3 PPG (.566 TS), 2.9 RPG, 4.4 APG, 1.3 SPG, 0.3 BPG, 2.7 TO, 5.3 WS, .120 WS/48, Net Rtg +0

00 Smith playoffs: 17.1 PPG (.636 TS), 2.5 RPG, 2.8 APG, 1.2 SPG, 0.3 BPG, 1.7 TO, 2.5 WS, .195 WS/48, Net Rtg +17
19 Gordon playoffs: 17.8 PPG (.604 TS), 2.5 RPG, 1.3 APG, 0.6 SPG, 1.0 BPG, 2.5 TO, 0.6 WS, .072 WS/48, Net Rtg -4

Both Steve Smith and Eric Gordon's role are to shoot and score, there's not a significant difference between them. It certainly doesn't make up the gap between Harden and Rasheed.

Eric Gordon's role on good teams is to shoot. On bad teams it's to score because he's bad at it so no team will ever be good with Ego as their top scorer. At the same time, he's a poor defender.

Steve Smith was a scorer, a good one and actually one time all-star too (1998). Smith was the lead scorer and best offensive player on several playoff teams. He actually led the 2000 Blazers in playoff PPG! Gordon led 0 teams to the playoffs and led 0 teams during the playoffs in scoring or anything else. You are just refusing to apply any objectivity here. Meanwhile there's a mountain of stats to say "Smith >> Gordon" not to mention Smith was an all-star and actually led teams while Gordon was just a shooter on any good team.

The significant difference is the teams best scorers in Rasheed and James Harden, which you conveniently keep ignoring. James Harden won MVP that regular season and you're trying to make some case about how great Paul made them better in 58 games he played? Pippen wasn't playing with an MVP, he was playing with Rasheed who clearly isn't a 1st option scorer. Pippen still ran the offense in regular season and had them at a top 3 offense. Paul wasn't running the offense in regular season, harden was. Paul didn't even play 60 games.

Playoffs? Like I said both teams the previous year won zero west finals games and both teams ended with 3 wins the next. The difference is Pippen actually played in games 6 and 7 which gives him the edge.

I didn't just "try to make" that case, I made it beyond reasonable doubt. I'll make it again.

1999 Blazers won 57 games* and lost 0-4 in the WCF to the champ Spurs. They lost no one and added Pippen and Steve Smith. Then 2000 Blazers won 59 games and lost 3-4 in the WCF to the champ Lakers. A difference of two regular season wins from adding Pippen AND Smith? Their additions don't even get them out of the round they lost in the year before?

2017 Rockets won 55 games and lost 2-4 in the 2nd rd to a Spurs team that got crushed in the WCF. They added CP3 and Tucker but lost 3 of their top 6 players in Bev, Lou and Harrell. 2018 Rockets won 65 games. That's what 58 games of Chris Paul got you, +10 wins. 2018 Rockets were up 3-2 on the again champ Warriors before CP3 was injured. That's the impact of the addition of Chris Paul.

There is no significance in comparing Sheed and Harden. For what I hope is the last time, the Pistons were an ensemble. Damon-Smith-Pippen-Sheed-Sabonis. The 2018 Rockets were a duo. It was Harden and CP3 and a bunch of role players.

Honestly, this is one of the most lopsided arguments I've ever participated in on this board. Believing Pip ranks higher all-time than CP3 is fine, plenty of room for reasonable disagreement. Claiming that Pippen was more important to the 2000 Blazers than Paul was to the 2018 Rockets is near the line of absurdity. Claiming that Gordon is better than or even equal to Smith is way over the line of absurdity. You've offered nothing to contest the stats cited, which very clearly show who was the better player in both pairs. I can only conclude you are either delusional or you're one of those people like America's Dear Leader who simply can't admit they're wrong and won't give up the topic.

[Dr Spaceman]

I haven’t read this whole thread but I will say if you replace Pippen on the Bulls with Paul there is a legit chance they don’t win 6 titles due to Paul’s various maladies. I don’t think that means I’d take Pippen over Paul but it is a question worth asking.

This line of thinking is just not logical though.

We can reasonably argue Jordan replacing Shaq on Lakers wouldn't produce 3peat titles for Lakers 00-02, and We can reasonably argue that replacing Dirk with Peak Tim Duncan on Mavs wouldn't produce title on 11, but those arguments don't mean anything since those teams are built around the star players, straight up swapping them for a "supposed superior player" and pretend all other conditions are equal makes no sense.

If we are just going by their impacts on their teams chance to win basketball games through out their career, it's Chris Paul and I don't think it's remotely close, but to me, narratives such as number of championships should factor into historical rankings because it's not the ranking of BEST PLAYER OF ALL TIME, but GREATEST, so Pippen's legacy and CP's lack of legacy in the biggest stage bring them a lot closer than their actual abilities in my own ranking (thoughI have never sat down to do an official one).

At the end of the day though, CP should still be higher, at least to me, because he was just that much better than Pippen.

I’m not arguing about how well he’d fit with Jordan, I’m arguing about his health issues.

Jordan/Paul would be better than Jordan/Pippen. Not really a debate to me. But I think Paul’s health issues woul ultimately make that duo less successful in the long run.

[Dr Spaceman]

Eric Gordon's role on good teams is to shoot. On bad teams it's to score because he's bad at it so no team will ever be good with Ego as their top scorer. At the same time, he's a poor defender.

Gordon is a terrific defender these days. I’d probably put him in tier 2 for wing defenders in the current league. He’s got great length, incredible strong and physical. He was terrible in New Orleans but dude has put in the work since then.

As far as scoring, EJ isn’t suited to be a team’s primary scorer but he had a couple 30 point games in the playoffs and was easily the Rockets 2nd best player. He’s a fairly good iso player still and the reason his percentages are depressed is because he often takes deep and highly contested 3s.

The reason he’s not suited to be a team’s leading scorer is more his passing deficiencies than anything else.

[udfa]

Eric Gordon's role on good teams is to shoot. On bad teams it's to score because he's bad at it so no team will ever be good with Ego as their top scorer. At the same time, he's a poor defender.

Gordon is a terrific defender these days. I’d probably put him in tier 2 for wing defenders in the current league. He’s got great length, incredible strong and physical. He was terrible in New Orleans but dude has put in the work since then.

As far as scoring, EJ isn’t suited to be a team’s primary scorer but he had a couple 30 point games in the playoffs and was easily the Rockets 2nd best player. He’s a fairly good iso player still and the reason his percentages are depressed is because he often takes deep and highly contested 3s.

The reason he’s not suited to be a team’s leading scorer is more his passing deficiencies than anything else.

Well if you think so then I'll look closely at his defense this season. Maybe my impression of him has just calcified over time, but for the record most of the advanced stats (RPM, BPM, WS) all say he's a net negative defensive player today. RAPM does rate him marginally positive.

[Dr Spaceman]

Eric Gordon's role on good teams is to shoot. On bad teams it's to score because he's bad at it so no team will ever be good with Ego as their top scorer. At the same time, he's a poor defender.

Gordon is a terrific defender these days. I’d probably put him in tier 2 for wing defenders in the current league. He’s got great length, incredible strong and physical. He was terrible in New Orleans but dude has put in the work since then.

As far as scoring, EJ isn’t suited to be a team’s primary scorer but he had a couple 30 point games in the playoffs and was easily the Rockets 2nd best player. He’s a fairly good iso player still and the reason his percentages are depressed is because he often takes deep and highly contested 3s.

The reason he’s not suited to be a team’s leading scorer is more his passing deficiencies than anything else.

Well if you think so then I'll look closely at his defense this season. Maybe my impression of him has just calcified over time, but for the record most of the advanced stats (RPM, BPM, WS) all say he's a net negative defensive player today. RAPM does rate him marginally positive.

He’s a bit like Joe Ingles in that he doesn’t contribute through boards or steals or blocks so his box metrics don’t look good. His value is in being an A+ individual man defender.

He kinda murdered Donovan Mitchell in their first round series. He didn’t really stand a chance against Durant due to the length difference but he did a great job of getting low on him and preventing him from dribbling by swiping at the ball and sometimes straight stripping him. Nothing you can do of course when Durant just turns and fires with 0 dribbles but Durant was toast when he tried to put it on the deck against Tucker or Gordon.