TorontoRapsFan wrote:Los Soles wrote:Steelo Green wrote:I said the best players, which is obviously the top 5-10 guys. I don’t need to have some subjective measure.
No, that's not obvious. Could have been the top 15, or top 3, or... I still have no idea what "best" means, and you still haven't told me. "Top 5-10 guys" is entirely unclear, and arbitrary, and defining it is arbitrary. Different people would have different opinions about who is on that list. You said 5-10...well is it 5 or 10, or somewhere in between? Does it include elite defenders, or just elite offensive players? Two-way players who are good both ways but not
elite either way? Is Doncic on it? Gobert? Tatum? Bam? Butler? Jamal Murray? Donovan Mitchell? Kyrie? Jokic? Randle? Beal? Capela? Booker? Chris Paul? Trae Young? Paul George? Anthony Davis? Draymond Green? Embiid? Simmons? Lillard? Harden? I honestly have no idea, but you're acting like it's obvious. "I don’t need to have some subjective measure." Ok...you have no measure at all. It is just entirely your subjective opinion, except I don't think you even know what it is.
Tell me: Who is on
your list of *best* players?
I think something that needs to be realized to help with this argument is that right now in the NBA there are more top 5 type and top 20 type players than there has been for probably the last 3o years. The list of superstar caliber players that usually are top 5-10 includes something along 3 generations of players with players like LBJ and Paul playing so well in their mid 30s. Add the added scoring and possessions in games and players able to put up stats that make them all star caliber players is pretty large.
Just my 2 cents
I don't think that's the problem. I think the problem is that we don't know who's going to win titles until they win titles. We know who won titles in the past, but we don't know who's going to win titles the next few years. Then we'll start calling the best players on those teams "the best". The "Best Players" is easy to define after the titles are won. Is Doncic the best? Well, he might win multiples titles...or none. We don't know yet. Same with Gobert, Embiid, Jokic, Tatum, Simmons, George, Capela, Harden, Randle, Booker, Zion, Morant, Murray, Mitchell, Ball, Young, Cade, Suggs, etc. They're not all going to win multiple titles. Steelo Green can't define who among them are "the best" because he doesn't know how many titles they're going to win the next few years.
How many years was Dirk "the best"? Was Dirk "the best" when he hadn't won any titles yet? When his 67-win team flamed out in the first round to an 8th seed? When his Mavs only won one playoff series in four years? Was he only "the best" the year they won the NBA title? Say Tyson Chandler tears his ACL in 2011 and Dirk never wins any titles. Would he be "the best" if his legacy was fundamentally playoff failure?
When did Kawhi become "the best"? Steelo Green just said he was "the best" in 2014. No one thought that at the time. ESPN ranked him 34th going into the year. He got zero votes for MVP that year. He wasn't on any of the All NBA teams that year. He wasn't even an all-star. Key player on a title team, so now, in retrospect, he's "the best".
It's circular, tautological reasoning. You can't win titles without the best players, so if you win titles, you have the best players.