trex_8063 wrote:homecourtloss wrote:trex_8063 wrote:
I guess to some degree I want to see how the rest of the playoffs go for Lillard, but off the cuff I do think there are a number of players Jordan faced who were as good or better than Lillard, especially in terms of looking at both sides of the ball [it's perhaps not in vogue to suggest such a thing right now, as hot as Lillard's been, but there it is].
And personally, I would still call '20 part of Lebron's prime (or at least certainly part of what I sometimes refer to as "extended prime"), even if he is 35 years old. He's certainly well-past his peak, but I don't feel there's an automatic shut-off age for one's prime [or extended prime]. For example, I think Karl Malone's extended prime goes all the way to age 37; Nash's went to probably about age 37 too.
otoh, some players are past even their extended primes by age 30 (especially if injury is involved).
Not that calling this a prime or extended prime year is a strike for or against Lebron (is merely semantics); all that matters is his level of play.
But yeah: it's a very special-tiered player who damn-near has a 20-20-20 triple double in his 17th season at age 35 and is still [apparently] open to criticism because his team lost (by only 7, while his teammates [which includes more than a few 3&D role players] go a combined 4 for 27 [14.8%] from 3pt range). I do sort of feel like he's on an island with that kind of treatment.
Good post as per usual, but name the players. Now Lillard is for sure a negative defender but he plays a position in which almost every player is a negative. In these bubble games, his offense makes his overall impact (even including subpar defense) tremendous and basically makes his defense close to irrelevant.
"Almost every" is probably exaggerating a little. Chris Paul, Kyle Lowry, Patrick Beverly, Fred VanVleet, Eric Bledsoe [just off the top of my head] are all [more or less] PG's and all generally plus defenders (and at times pretty substantially so).
At any rate, it comes down to combined 2-way impact, imo. Sure, Dame's is still pretty high recently, but I'm not wiling to take a short-term hot-streak as the solitary definition of who he is as a player. And I'm skeptical he can continue to perform like that as the playoffs progress. Look what happened just a couple hours after you posted this: he had just 18 pts on average efficiency, with 1 ast and 4 tov (and the single-worst +/- on his team, fwiw), as his team got blown out despite Lebron having a terrible game.
homecourtloss wrote:Other than ‘95/‘96 Shaq, I don’t think Jordan played a player I wouldn’t rather play than Lillard.
Agree Shaq was better.
homecourtloss wrote:Magic ‘91 is a better overall player but I’d take my chances against him rather than bubble Lillard.
Agree '91 Magic was better.
homecourtloss wrote:Barkley ‘93—same as above
Agree '93 Barkley was better.
homecourtloss wrote:Stockton/Malone, ‘97. Maybe better overall individually (certainly as a duo) but don’t scare me the way Bubble Lillard does.
Agree '97 Malone (but not Stockton) was a little better overall. Probably '98 Malone, too.
So that's FOUR, and we're apparently not really in disagreement, so.....
homecourtloss wrote:Payton, no. Kemp, no. Drexler, no. Ewing, no
I
potentially disagree on a couple of these. Kemp, no, I definitely agree was not as good as '20 Lillard. I think there is room to debate the other three, however, unless Lillard immediately (and for the rest of the playoffs) goes back to game 1 form [or better].
Prime Payton is a seriously underrated offensive general; not on Lillard's level offensively, but I feel he's often put on par with Jason Kidd (whereas I actually think he was [probably substantially] better offensively than Kidd). '96 Payton was [at the same time] probably the best defender at his position. As such, I think a case can be made (though I'm not necessarily making it.....just saying I don't think it's an absurd comparison).
Ewing I think is an often underrated DEFENSIVE player [who could potentially be a front-runner for DPOY today, imo], while also being a fairly capable offensive center. Not a guy you relish building your offense around, but certainly more capable offensively than someone like Rudy Gobert. As such, I actually tend to think he was possibly a better all-around player than Lillard.
Drexler, idk......he's always been a tough one for me to peg just how good he was (even though I saw kind of a lot of him). I think it's because around '92 the media pegged him as so high (like he was some sort of legit rival to Jordan, which even at the time I realized that was basically bunk). I've somewhat struggled to say with certainty just how far off they were about him, though.
I don't think he was as good offensively as Lillard (though he WAS really good offensively), but he's also at least a net-neutral defensive guy (which is more than can be said for Lillard), and obviously a much more substantial rebounding perimeter guy. And I do think Clyde would have the potential to be nasty as a penetrator with today's spacing and defensive restrictions.
So......idk.
I'm not gonna argue the case, but nor do I think it would be absurd for someone to do so (I say this with the assumption that Lillard is likely to have at least one more playoff game that is closer to G2 than it is to G1, btw).
