RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #15 (Dirk Nowitzki)

[Dutchball97]

Looking at the players getting votes here I'll probably have a ghost vote the next couple of rounds. Things really took a turn quick.

[70sFan]

Nah, strawmen are when you have no real response to the issue at hand and instead make it a case of me not properly appreciating Caldwell’s six years as a bench player or how he led the ABA in blocks in 1974 and 1975.

When the specific argument raised was that the 76ers went from “slightly below average” on defence to “absolutely terrible” simply by swapping Moses with “very good defender” 1983 Caldwell Jones, yes, I would say that is a pretty blatant implication of the (poorly substantiated) hypothesis that Moses was actually exerting substantial defensive impact on the team.

I know this is against my post, so let me put this quickly:

1. Rockets got worse on defense from 1982 to 1983 relative to the league.
2. Sixers got better on defense from 1982 to 1983 relative to the league.
3. Caldwell Jones was very good defensive player and I don't know how can you deny that. He also didn't play low minutes in either year.
4. This doesn't show that Moses was all-time great defender, but it shows that he had defensive value and wasn't as bad as some of you imply.

I hope we're done with this discussion because it didn't bring anything valuable here.

[70sFan]

Perhaps I've got to rethink my thoughts on KD vs Dr. J. I'm changing him to my 3rd vote.

What made you change your voting for KD?

I went to see who you are voting for after your Doctor J post - I don't see that you did - wondering your thoughts on Doc, Malone, and Nowitzki. I view Malone and Dirk similar to how you had Doc - top 5 player in the league for a long time, although realistically none of them were probably ever the best player in the game. I dont place a lot of value on the 74 ABA title very much, but in 76 the Nets beat two pretty good teams in the playoffs, probably as good as the three teams the Celtics beat. I always thought the 76 Nets would have done well against the 75 Warriors NBA champs, but am still probably too biased to think they were better than the 76 Celts. But looking at it hopefully being smarter, I think they have real good case as second best team in the world in 1976, with Doc clearly the leader.

I don't vote in this project, I don't have enough time to make it work in a way that woulf satisfy me. I also have problems with my criteria for players below top 40 and I don't see any reason to participate only in one part of the project. That's why I decided to contribute in discussions but without voting.

I think you should take a closer look on 1974 Nets run - they were dominant. They swept arguably the best team in the league in Kentucky Colonels with Juluus averaging 30 ppg and then they won the finals in 5 games against very solid Utah Stars led by Willie Wise, Jim Jones and Zelmo Beaty (they beat another strong Pacers teams in conference finals).

I think that 1974 Nets team was more talented than 1976 team. 1976 Nets was a one man army in the mold of first career LeBron Cavs. 1974 in comparison was full of young and promising stars.

The thing I love with Julius (and Dirk is similar in that way) is that he had huge success with any type of roster. He played with inexperienced but talented guys in 1974 and he won the title. He played with roleplayers in 1976 and won the title. Then he went to dysfunctional Sixers team that was full of talented, but selfish players and he almost won the title. Then Sixers became more well-rounded in the 1980s and he had constant success. There is no scenario where Julius would struggle to make an impact.

[mailmp]

Nah, strawmen are when you have no real response to the issue at hand and instead make it a case of me not properly appreciating Caldwell’s six years as a bench player or how he led the ABA in blocks in 1974 and 1975.

When the specific argument raised was that the 76ers went from “slightly below average” on defence to “absolutely terrible” simply by swapping Moses with “very good defender” 1983 Caldwell Jones, yes, I would say that is a pretty blatant implication of the (poorly substantiated) hypothesis that Moses was actually exerting substantial defensive impact on the team.

I know this is against my post, so let me put this quickly:

1. Rockets got worse on defense from 1982 to 1983 relative to the league.

Because there was a league-wide fall in offensive results that year which jumped back up dramatically in 1984. I literally just posted the numbers that primarily affect defensive results to show how they performed basically the exact same (and consequently had the exact same defensive rating). This is the problem with making everything relative: it is lazy analysis that does not bother to look at what the teams themselves were doing. (To say nothing of the team context with which you refused to engage at all in any meaningful sense.)

3. Caldwell Jones was very good defensive player and I don't know how can you deny that. He also didn't play low minutes in either year.

Then maybe you should have bothered to read the cohesive coverage of how he had undeniably declined rather than again lazily citing to prior reputation. And yes, sub-30 minutes per game is pretty low and makes an obvious difference when it comes to defensive results.

2. Sixers got better on defense from 1982 to 1983 relative to the league.
4. This doesn't show that Moses was all-time great defender, but it shows that he had defensive value and wasn't as bad as some of you imply.

Superficial results that can be applied to basically any decent centre is maybe the worst way to analyse defence, and as usual this is an empty refutation of some vague perceived slight. Did you see Game 7 of the Clippers series? I guess that proves any criticism of Jokic as a defensive anchor is overblown and not worth discussing.

I hope we're done with this discussion because it didn't bring anything valuable here.

It did not bring anything valuable because you cared more about blindly defending big names than about conducting any real analysis of them.

[eminence]

Voting time. Didn't see enough to swing me on Dirk vs Karl, bit higher on Dirk's non-prime years and also value that scoring efficiency gap a bit more.

1. George Mikan
2. Dirk Nowitzki
3. Karl Malone

Mikan - Peak/prime unmatched by those remaining outside of potentially Curry, who has even worse longevity. Big physical guy with a ton of skill, think he's an All-NBA+ guy in any era.

Dirk - Great longevity, great/resilient offensive player plug him in and you've got good to great offense, usable defender.

Malone - The best longevity, strong/useful offensive player, bordering into great in his later years. Solid defender, especially man to man.

Who'll be up next? DrJ is a decent contender, though I like looking at the top flight of modern guards as well - CP3/Nash/Wade/Curry/Harden the likely first five. As of now I'm leaning Robinson over Moses/Barkley for next bigman.

[DQuinn1575]

What made you change your voting for KD?

I went to see who you are voting for after your Doctor J post - I don't see that you did - wondering your thoughts on Doc, Malone, and Nowitzki. I view Malone and Dirk similar to how you had Doc - top 5 player in the league for a long time, although realistically none of them were probably ever the best player in the game. I dont place a lot of value on the 74 ABA title very much, but in 76 the Nets beat two pretty good teams in the playoffs, probably as good as the three teams the Celtics beat. I always thought the 76 Nets would have done well against the 75 Warriors NBA champs, but am still probably too biased to think they were better than the 76 Celts. But looking at it hopefully being smarter, I think they have real good case as second best team in the world in 1976, with Doc clearly the leader.

I don't vote in this project, I don't have enough time to make it work in a way that woulf satisfy me. I also have problems with my criteria for players below top 40 and I don't see any reason to participate only in one part of the project. That's why I decided to contribute in discussions but without voting.

I think you should take a closer look on 1974 Nets run - they were dominant. They swept arguably the best team in the league in Kentucky Colonels with Juluus averaging 30 ppg and then they won the finals in 5 games against very solid Utah Stars led by Willie Wise, Jim Jones and Zelmo Beaty (they beat another strong Pacers teams in conference finals).

I think that 1974 Nets team was more talented than 1976 team. 1976 Nets was a one man army in the mold of first career LeBron Cavs. 1974 in comparison was full of young and promising stars.

The thing I love with Julius (and Dirk is similar in that way) is that he had huge success with any type of roster. He played with inexperienced but talented guys in 1974 and he won the title. He played with roleplayers in 1976 and won the title. Then he went to dysfunctional Sixers team that was full of talented, but selfish players and he almost won the title. Then Sixers became more well-rounded in the 1980s and he had constant success. There is no scenario where Julius would struggle to make an impact.

Agree on 76 - they beat two pretty good teams in Denver and San Antonio that proved they were NBA quality teams in the playoffs. Those teams were about as good as the three teams the Celtics did. The Nets beating the Celtics wouldnt' have been a lot bigger upset than the Warriors beating the Bullets the year before, especially considering how well the Suns did.

1974 Kentucky was a good team, Artis did not play well in the series, and that should be considered when people champion him later. Winning that series is one of many feathers in Doc's cap.

The 1974 Stars had a 34 yo Zelmo Beaty way past his prime, and Gerald Govan starting who was never very good. Only Bruce Seals played much off the bench, and he was pretty non descriptive.
THat leaves Wise, Jimmy Jones, Ron Boone.
Boone became a pretty solid NBA starter
Jones went to NBA next year, and was sub for good Bullets team
Wise was a very trendy guy with the "in the know crowd" - a guy no one in the general public knew who was an ABA star. He didnt do well in NBA at age 29, so maybe he was a little overrated. A good scorer, with a rep for good defense.
To sum it up, I think the Stars had 3 above average starters in Boone,Jones, Wise, and two below average starters, with no bench. But no superstars. They were basically an average ABA team, that beat out a couple of other average teams to make the final.

[70sFan]

Yeah, all I do is defend name. Thanks for your excellent analysis instead. I won't reply to this for the rest of this thread anymore, just keep in mind that your conclusions of analysis aren't the only possible ones.

To be honest, I don't understand how can anybody be so sure about things that happened so long ago without many proofs. I mean, how mane 1982 Rockets games have you seen? I've seen 3 if I remember correctly and I don't think more 1982 Rockets games exist in public.

[Hal14]

Voting time. Didn't see enough to swing me on Dirk vs Karl, bit higher on Dirk's non-prime years and also value that scoring efficiency gap a bit more.

1. George Mikan
2. Dirk Nowitzki
3. Karl Malone

Mikan - Peak/prime unmatched by those remaining outside of potentially Curry, who has even worse longevity. Big physical guy with a ton of skill, think he's an All-NBA+ guy in any era.

Dirk - Great longevity, great/resilient offensive player plug him in and you've got good to great offense, usable defender.

Malone - The best longevity, strong/useful offensive player, bordering into great in his later years. Solid defender, especially man to man.

Who'll be up next? DrJ is a decent contender, though I like looking at the top flight of modern guards as well - CP3/Nash/Wade/Curry/Harden the likely first five. As of now I'm leaning Robinson over Moses/Barkley for next bigman.

The bolded part is a head scratcher for me. Which years do you consider Karl's prime? I mean, from 87-88 through 99-00, the guy averaged over 25 PPG in 12/13 seasons..the 1 season he didn't, was 99 when he averaged 23.8 and won MVP of the league. Do you consider all 13 of those seasons his prime? If not, which ever seasons you're not counting as his prime have got to be as good as any player's non prime years since he either aged 25+ PPG or won league MVP every one of those seasons. Even in his 18th season, he was still averaging over 20 PPG, 8 rebounds and 5 assists while playing 36 MPG in 81 games. Dirk meanwhile really started to drop off quite a big production wise in 2011-2012 both his numbers really starting to drop off and also started missing a lot of games to injury almost every year for the rest of his career..

[Baski]

1. Karl Malone
2. Dirk Nowitski
3. David Robinson

I've always had Karl Malone as my #14, and I expected to see a lot of posts that would put that into question. I have, but they mostly show that other players deserve to be seen on par with Karl rather than knock him down from there. Trex's post was great. As convincing an argument as I could hope to make.
He was elite for a very long time, racked up a crapton of accolades, displayed incredible skill and adaptability throughout his career. In the RS as automatic a bucket as any PF ever, in the PS less so but he mostly looks bad in comparison to guys who have already got in. Even with his scoring "struggles", he had massive impact that kept his team going deep into the playoffs.
Sure he has no titles but that's not as damning for him as it is for lesser players. Karl was very obviously a championship caliber teammate and would be my second draft from the remaining players.

[eminence]

Voting time. Didn't see enough to swing me on Dirk vs Karl, bit higher on Dirk's non-prime years and also value that scoring efficiency gap a bit more.

1. George Mikan
2. Dirk Nowitzki
3. Karl Malone

Mikan - Peak/prime unmatched by those remaining outside of potentially Curry, who has even worse longevity. Big physical guy with a ton of skill, think he's an All-NBA+ guy in any era.

Dirk - Great longevity, great/resilient offensive player plug him in and you've got good to great offense, usable defender.

Malone - The best longevity, strong/useful offensive player, bordering into great in his later years. Solid defender, especially man to man.

Who'll be up next? DrJ is a decent contender, though I like looking at the top flight of modern guards as well - CP3/Nash/Wade/Curry/Harden the likely first five. As of now I'm leaning Robinson over Moses/Barkley for next bigman.

The bolded part is a head scratcher for me. Which years do you consider Karl's prime? I mean, from 87-88 through 99-00, the guy averaged over 25 PPG in 12/13 seasons..the 1 season he didn't, was 99 when he averaged 23.8 and won MVP of the league. Do you consider all 13 of those seasons his prime? If not, which ever seasons you're not counting as his prime have got to be as good as any player's non prime years since he either aged 25+ PPG or won league MVP every one of those seasons. Even in his 18th season, he was still averaging over 20 PPG, 8 rebounds and 5 assists while playing 36 MPG in 81 games. Dirk meanwhile really started to drop off quite a big production wise in 2011-2012 both his numbers really starting to drop off and also started missing a lot of games to injury almost every year for the rest of his career..

Whoops, that's a mistype from me. Meant to say something like "bit higher on Dirk's non-prime years than some seem to be", not compared directly to Karl. I like him through '16 (and starting in '00). Karl's still got the longevity edge (arguably over anyone).

[Baski]

Because there's zero argument for durant as being more consistent when you consider curry is consistently creatiing 10 chances a game while KD's scoring plummets against good playoff defenses.

Well... I can give you some examples of that not being true. Specially in GSW.

Given he didn' do anything impressive against the jazz or the rockets(he only good defenses) you sure about that?

This is KD's track record of being impresisve vs good defenses(and we're just talking scoring mind you, nvm his non-existent playoff creaion)
1.On low usage vs the 2012 heat
2. As the secondary focus of the 16 spurs.

That's it, that's his resume "under pressure."

Harden as THE FOCUS of good playoff defenses while havign a far bigger creative load, in less time:

-> 2020 lakers
-> 2015 warriors
-> 2018 jazz


Durant doesn't create in the playoffs, he can't be trsuted to handle the ball, he doesn't move, he doesn't set screens, he chokes against doubles. All he does is score on single coverage and statpad with weakside blocks and assits off easy open passes after one of his teamamtes already beat the defense for him. He's had a season or two of good man defense and collecting weakside blocks but he'ls slow on switches, gets blown by smalls, and can't fight screens.


And here's the bottom line, when it comes to "impacting winning", there is no measure by which he's been a top 2 player outside of 2014 in either the playoffs or the regular season.

His longetvity is also basically a non-factor comapred to ahrden or curry because of playoff injuries

He's just a less reliable, more one dimensional james harden +marginal value add defensively. He doesn't belong in this conversation.

There's probably a nicer way to say that Durant isn't as consistent as Curry in the POs. The player youre describing resembles Derozan more than Durant.

[Baski]

Also I'm not sure how KD scoring on low (for him) volume and elite efficeincy against a non-threat such as the Jazz that got swept is an indictment on his playoffs scoring

[trex_8063]

Nah, strawmen are when you have no real response to the issue at hand and instead make it a case of me not properly appreciating Caldwell’s six years as a bench player or how he led the ABA in blocks in 1974 and 1975.

When the specific argument raised was that the 76ers went from “slightly below average” on defence to “absolutely terrible” simply by swapping Moses with “very good defender” 1983 Caldwell Jones, yes, I would say that is a pretty blatant implication of the (poorly substantiated) hypothesis that Moses was actually exerting substantial defensive impact on the team.

I know this is against my post, so let me put this quickly:

1. Rockets got worse on defense from 1982 to 1983 relative to the league.

Because there was a league-wide fall in offensive results that year which jumped back up dramatically in 1984. I literally just posted the numbers that primarily affect defensive results to show how they performed basically the exact same (and consequently had the exact same defensive rating). This is the problem with making everything relative: it is lazy analysis that does not bother to look at what the teams themselves were doing. (To say nothing of the team context with which you refused to engage at all in any meaningful sense.)

I'm not in the Moses camp at all [he's not even in my top 20, and will likely be off the table before I've even lent him a 3rd vote].......but this [combined with prior posts] is not good faith posting at all. I mean, the above quoted portion doesn't even make sense.

You're saying offenses league-wide got worse than the year before, while the Rockets defense played "basically the exact same".

Then presumably these offenses [which again: are worse than the year before] would perform worse against a defense that was "basically the exact same" as the year before.

But that's not what happened. So your contention then almost necessarily becomes: a) teams were just spontaneously/coincidentally better against the Rockets than they were against the entire rest of the field, and b) this had NOTHING to do with the Rockets defense itself; it's just an anomaly that followed the Rockets around for 82 games, while other teams were exempt.


You're trying to spin the rhetoric in such a way that makes you seem like the rational and enlightened one; but this simply does not logically track.

You do this while accusing others of shallow or flawed analysis, while offering distractions instead of cogent responses (e.g. sarcastic statements about people thinking Caldwell Jones = Ben Wallace [which precisely no one had declared]), while making barely tenable implications (e.g. Caldwell Jones was a mediocre defensive center circa-1983)......

......apparently all because admitting that Moses might have been a decent defensive player for a couple years near his peak is an abhorrent proposition to you.

And all of this has come while you consistently bait and belittle those who disagree with you.
But we're done with tolerating this kind of behavior, and my apologies to those who've been effected by it.

3. Caldwell Jones was very good defensive player and I don't know how can you deny that. He also didn't play low minutes in either year.

Then maybe you should have bothered to read the cohesive coverage of how he had undeniably declined rather than again lazily citing to prior reputation.

I'll have to go back and read it all again; I don't recall "the cohesive coverage of how he had undeniably declined". I recall you saying that was the case, I recall you arbitrarily dismissing the evidence to the contrary as irrelevant.......but I don't recall the actual evidence put forth to support the notion of a sudden decline. But maybe I just missed it.

And whatever decline had occurred or was in process, it wasn't extensive enough to push him out of the league for another seven years (despite him having almost no offensive acumen to speak of which may otherwise have allowed him to hang on to spots on a roster).......which makes one question how relevant it could have been specifically in '83.

[O_6]

At this point, the tiers are getting so deep. I think there are a ton of players with some sort of argument, however in my opinion this spot comes down to 3 of greatest forwards that this league has ever seen in Dirk, Malone, and Dr. J.

Malone vs. Dirk is the most interesting 1v1 debate out of the three, due to their position and role being so similar. High scoring offensive anchors at the PF position, who did not have a huge imprint on the defensive end due to limited rim protection. Malone is 2nd all-time in Points while Dirk is 6th (Erving is 8th), just two brilliant scorers with ridiculous longevity. Malone made every All-Star team from his 3rd year to 17th season ('88 to '02) and Dirk made 13/15 All-Star teams from his 3rd to 17th season ('01 to '15). So let's compare their respective 15 year extended primes.

SCORING: Dirk with a clear edge due to the playoffs

Regular Season
Player ------ PPG ---- TS%
Malone ----- 26.7 --- .585
Nowitzki --- 23.2 --- .584

Playoffs
Player ------ PPG ---- TS%
Malone ----- 26.8 --- .531
Nowitzki --- 25.4 --- .578

Scoring was the primary driving force in terms of impact for both of these players. These two are all-time great scorers, the fact that both are in the 30,000 point club cements that. But while Karl Malone had the edge in terms of scoring in the regular season, he fell off much harder than Dirk did against the tougher defensive environment of the playoffs. Most scorers see their efficiency numbers drop in the playoffs due to facing better teams, but Malone's drop of 5.4% in terms of True Shooting is just massive and hard to overlook considering scoring is supposed to be his biggest strength. In comparison, Dirk maintains his efficiency and actually increases his volume.

So already just from a purely statistical view, Dirk was a more impressive scorer than Malone due to how much better he maintained his efficiency in the playoffs. But in my eyes, Dirk's ability to prove himself as a scorer and offensive centerpiece on several different variations of the Mavericks is the thing that always stands out to me in a comparison of him vs. Malone.

Don Nelson, Avery Johnson, Rick Carlisle; these guys were all unique stylistically but Dirk was able to make it work under all of them in his prime. Steve Nash vs. No Steve Nash, if anything Dirk got significantly better after Nash left.

In 2004 with Don Nelson and Steve Nash, the Mavs had the #1 Pace in the league and ended up with the #1 Offense in the league. Just 2 years later in 2006 with Avery Johnson and no Steve Nash, the Mavs had the #27 Pace in the league and ended up with the #1 Offense in the league. The only 2 other players on both rosters were Josh Howard and Marquis Daniels. It didn't matter the Head Coach, it didn't matter the offensive pace, and it didn't matter if he was paired with a HOF Point Guard or not; Dirk Nowitzki was capable of leading a dominant offense that was centered around his scoring ability.

Karl Malone never had a chance to prove the same. He did average 28 PPG in '88 before Sloan became HC, but the Jazz were a below average offense that year. He was with Sloan every other year of his career besides the '04 Lakers season. Malone is also linked with Stockton, and it is very hard to separate their offensive impact from one another. A lot of the Plus/Minus data we have indicates that Stockton may have been underrated in terms of the Stockton/Malone dynamic. I don't know if I believe that, but there is definitely a lot more uncertainty with Malone's ability to carry an offense in a vacuum compared to Dirk's. Dirk proved it over various circumstances and Malone didn't, it's not so much of a knock on Malone as it is a boost for Dirk.

So Dirk just has a clear edge as a scorer imo and since scoring is both of their main strengths, it's an important edge.

DEFENSE: Malone definitely makes up ground, but enough?

I do think Malone is underrated as a defensive player. Whenever I think of Dirk vs. Malone, one of the main things that makes me start leaning towards Malone is how much he terrorized the Spurs on defense over the years. In the '94 , '96, and '98 playoffs; Karl Malone absolutely shut down David Robinson. David was so used to his quickness and strength combo overwhelming his defender, but Malone overpowered him and used his quick hands to stifle his drives. An ancient Malone in 2004 was also instrumental in the Lakers getting by the Spurs/Wolves, with his defense on Duncan and Garnett being incredibly impressive. He didn't shut them down like he did Robinson, but he forced them into inefficient series on offense. These were series-deciding defensive efforts from Malone, and quite frankly there is nothing Dirk has done in his career that can compare to them.

But as great as Malone's best moments as a man-defender in the playoffs were, his relative lack of rim protection and generally not-so-special team defense limits his overall impact on that end. Just compare Malone vs. Dirk in the playoffs during their 15 year extended primes.

Playoffs
Player ------ DRB% --- BLK% --- STL%
Malone ----- 23.9% --- 1.5% ---- 1.7%
Nowitzki --- 24.7% --- 1.7% ---- 1.3%

So Dirk was actually a better defensive rebounder and shot blocker in the playoffs, which is huge in terms of this debate since this is an area that Malone needs to clearly win in order to make up the ground he lost to Dirk in terms of playoff scoring. I do think those numbers don't show the full picture when it comes to Malone on defense. Malone was notorious for his "crafty" defensive style that included tons of taking charges, pulling the chair in the post, and just flat-out flopping. While I think Malone would have significantly more "non-Steal or Block" turnovers created than Dirk, there's only so many charges a player can draw or times you can pull the chair to cause a travel.

Malone's defensive edge is clear when it comes to man-defense. His man defense against elite offensive bigs have been the x-factor that helped his team win different series, something Dirk cannot claim. But his team defense leaves something to be desired. Dirk's plus/minus numbers have always shown him to be an above-average defender as well. That combined with the fact that he actually blocked more shots and was better on the defensive glass than Malone in the playoffs just makes it hard to say Malone's defense completely makes up for the scoring gap in the playoffs.

PASSING: Malone was better, but not always and with side effects to his shooting

Malone developed into a great interior passer. I've been so impressed by watching his passing in '97 and '98, these are just high leverage brilliant passes that he was making. But Malone wasn't always great as a passer. And when he did become an elite passer, his scoring took a drop when it came to the playoffs.

Playoffs
Player --------------- AST% --- TOV% --- TS%
Malone ('88-'93) ---- 9.6% --- 11.1% --- .560
Malone ('94-'02) --- 19.1% --- 10.0% --- .518

As he improved as a passer in the playoffs, his efficiency as a scorer became an issue. Take a look at how his passing compared with "Nash" Dirk and "Post-Nash" Dirk, since he had to create more after Nash left.

Playoffs
Player ----------------- AST% --- TOV% --- TS%
Nowitzki ('01-'04) ----- 7.8% --- 8.5% --- .580
Nowitzki ('05-'15) ---- 13.0% --- 9.8% --- .577

While he was never the passer that late 90s Malone was, Dirk's improvement in this area did not come at the expense of his scoring efficiency. So while I definitely give Malone the edge as a passer, there's a limit to it since Dirk was able to handle the scoring/passing balance better as he also grew as a passer.

LONGEVITY: Both had a couple of other pretty good seasons beyond their 15 year primes

Malone averaged 20 PPG in '87 and '03, and Dirk averaged 18 PPG in '00 and '16, so both guys had a couple of more volume scoring seasons beyond the years we compared. But neither guy was elite during these years. Malone's '04 season with the Lakers was one where he was no longer a primary scorer due to Shaq/Kobe but still made an impact with his defense as mentioned before. So Malone having the best season outside of their 15 year primes ('03) plus the added value of his solid role player season for LAL ('04) gives him a slight edge over Dirk in terms of longevity.

VOTE
It's a tough one. Malone consistently terrorizing David Robinson as a defender is just hard to get out of my head, same with how well he defended Duncan later in his career. It's one reason I'm not considering David Robinson for this spot. And as I mentioned, I'm so impressed by Malone's passing later in his career as well. The edge in man defense + passing is pretty clear, so I totally see the argument for Malone over Dirk. But at the end of the day, Dirk's edge as a pure scorer is also pretty clear and it makes him a superior offensive anchor. He also proved he could do it in a variety of different contexts in terms of offensive style/roster construction, which Malone never was able to prove due to the Stockton/Sloan connection. Again that's not a knock on Malone, but it's a positive note about Dirk's flexibility as an offensive mega force. Overall, Dirk has my vote.

Karl Malone vs. Dr. J is extremely tough. It's a toss up for me. I think at the end of the day the issue for me is that Malone's finishing skills were such a key component to his game, yet his explosiveness dipped in the mid 90s by the time his skills improved. Against elite rim protectors, Malone needing to shoulder his way into off-balance layups instead of dunks were a big reason for his efficiency dip. Julius Erving on the otherhand never had any such issues with finishing, and was finishing over people with ease in his last year. This allowed his offense to be much more reliable against tougher interior defensive teams. I'll go deeper on my vote in the next thread, but I'm going Dr. J as 2nd here.

1. Dirk
2. Dr. J
3. Karl Malone

[Hornet Mania]

My vote this round goes to Mikan. I've discussed him a bit in previous threads and while I admit his impact almost certainly wouldn't translate to the modern game I feel like his role as a pioneer and the dominance he had in the era he inhabited are worth honoring at 15. After that I'm going with Mailman due to longevity same as last round.

For my third choice I went back and forth on D-Rob and Dirk, offense vs defense was a big part of my thinking. In the end I side with D-Rob because I felt like he had significantly more impact on offense than Dirk did on defense. I also was impressed by how D-Rob was able to impact the game on defense in his latter years even when age began to chip away at his athleticism. His impact for the 99 champion Spurs is also underrated, that team had two superstars but he doesn't seem to get credited for that. I could easily see myself flipping back on that though, it's a shaky choice at this point.

My vote:
1. George Mikan
2. Karl Malone
3. David Robinson

[Doctor MJ]

Vote:

1. Karl Malone
2. David Robinson
3. Dirk Nowitzki

Really appreciate the discussion and I'm really torn on Dirk vs Malone. In the end, we're at the deadline and I haven't made up my mind to switch my prior order so I'm just going to keep it. I'll be continuing to ponder this in the future though, and if Dirk wins here, I'll be happy for him and his advocates.

I'll post a quote to part of my last vote for more context in my thought process for those who'd like to remind themselves of WTF I was thinking.

Spoiler:

For the next two spots the 3 guys on my mind are Malone, Robinson, and Dirk Nowitzki. I'll not that I've been seriously pondering Dirk as a candidate for longer than the other two, and that's because Dirk is an unusual enough player that it's fairly easy to make compelling cases for him over a lot of guys, and fairly easy to make cases for a lot of guys over him.

In the case of Malone vs Dirk, I really could go either way, but in general it just seems to me like the big thing is Dirk's ring and what you connect with it. If you see it as evidence for Dirk reaching a crescendo that Malone never hit, I get it. I do think though that we don't think of Dirk that way if they had to play Jordan's Bulls. And if I don't think of his peak that way, Malone just loomed larger over his era than Dirk did. He was more of an MVP candidate and won more playoff series. I kinda feel like I need good reason to go against him here, and I don't think I've got enough of one for Dirk.

Robinson vs Dirk is perhaps surprisingly easy for me. I'm really impressed by Robinson's ability to transition to a secondary offensive role and dominate on defense. You combine that with what he can do as an alpha, and I'm just more impressed with Robinson. Dirk does have a longevity edge, but when viewed from the lens of continuing to add significant value until his last day, Robinson's career actually lasts a pretty long time. I don't feel absolutely compelled to give Dirk the nod simply by longevity.

But y'know, as you might hope, it's the top two guys of this particular love triangle that is most devilish of a comparison.

What if I like the idea of Robinson more, but it matters to me that Malone seemed destined to get the best of Robinson? How do I weight these two things? How big of a deal should match up advantage be when comparing two players?

From a purely bottom-up quantitative perspective, the answer should be that the question is irrelevant because the player's relative success was captured in other stats.

Here's another way of looking at it:

Through '97-98, the 34 year old Malone had won 14 series, while the 32 year old Robinson had won 6, and Malone's Jazz had beaten Robinson's Spurs all 3 times they played with general consensus that Malone was just too strong for Robinsons. What should it take from Robinson's beat career to surpass that?

And the answer is "I don't know", but forced to choose, so far I've chosen Malone.

[trex_8063]

Thru post #96:

Dirk Nowitzki - 9 (Cavsfansince84, DQuinn1575, Dr Positivity, freethedevil, Magic Is Magic, mailmp, O_6, sansterre, Whopper_Sr)
Karl Malone - 4 (Baski, Doctor MJ, Joao Saraiva, trex_8063)
George Mikan - 3 (eminence, Hornet Mania, penbeast0)
Moses Malone - 2 (Hal14, Odinn21)
Kevin Durant - 1 (Dutchball97)


19 counted votes this round (couldn't count lebron3-14-3's vote [no supporting arguments]). 10 required for a majority, so we'll eliminate Durant; his vote is ghosted. Next eliminating Moses, which transfers one vote to Karl, another gets ghosted....

Dirk - 9
Karl - 5
Mikan - 3
(ghosted) - 2

Mikan is next on the chopping block, which ghosts one more, and then transfers one each to Karl and Dirk....

Dirk - 10
Karl - 6
(ghosted) - 3

I could have asked the ghost votes who they'd prefer of the remaining candidates, but that would have taken extra time, and one way or another Dirk had this one well in hand.
Will have the next up in a moment.

Spoiler:

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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