Who was the best player in 2007

[LAL1947]

No one is going to think that Kenyon Martin and Carlos Boozer was better than 2009. Even if you're going based off your typical "what people thought of the time argument" - no one thought that...and you're sure as heck aren't going to break their games down, because you haven't done that at all in any thread.

I threw out a list to show you that he was not TOP 10... while you were insisting that he was.

Pau Gasol was widely considered to be a top 10-15 player during that time. You said he's the 24th best player, and there are only 24 all-star spots. So you're saying Pau Gasol is a borderline all-star? I mean Andre Iguodala...? What?

Until I made that list, you said our memories were not good for thinking Pau was not Top 10. Now you've changed it to Top 10-15. In truth, he was probably Top 20 or thereabouts.

You don't think Iggy was a good player back then? What?

You listed Paul Pierce and Ray Allen as better players but not Kevin Garnett, which almost infers that they are better players. Given your terrible criteria I would not be surprised that you thought that. But even if you had just forgotten Kevin Garnett, you're telling me the Celtics had three players better than Pau Gasol and still lost? Okay, that makes a lot of sense.

I didn't list Kevin Garnett simply because the person I was responding to already said that Dwight, Timmy, KG and Dirk were better than Pau... they were the 4 Bigs referred to. So I listed 20 players on top of those 4... 20 + 4 = 24... and said Gasol could have been #24-25. I didn't say #25, since I wasn't sure about Boozer even when writing my post.

[Stalwart]

If you want to say Pau was top 15 at his best I won't argue although it is arguable. But top 10? Absolutely not ever was that the case.

And yes, the Celtics big 3 were all better than Pau. As was Tony Parker.

[sansterre]

All Six in a bunch of metrics:

Estimated Impact (Reg Season):

1. LeBron, 19.4
2. Dirk, 17.6
3. Duncan, 16.8
4. Kobe, 16.2
5. McGrady, 14.2
6. Nash, 13.1

Estimated Impact (Postseason):

1. LeBron, +6.0
2. Duncan, +4.9
------------
3. Nash, +2.9
4. McGrady, +2.6
5. Dirk, +1.3
6. Kobe, +0.9

BackPicks BPM (adjusted for Minutes):

1. Dirk, +5.8
2. LeBron, +5.6
3. Nash, +5.3
4. Duncan, +5.1
5. Bryant, +4.8
6. McGrady, +3.6

Backpicks BPM (postseason):

1. Duncan, +5.9
2. LeBron, +5.6
3. Nash, +5.4
4. Dirk, +3.9
5. McGrady, +3.4
6. Kobe, +2.1

AuPM (Regular Season):

1. Duncan, +5.3
2. Dirk, +4.9
3. Nash, +4.6
4. LeBron, +4.2
5. McGrady, +3.3
6. Kobe, +3.1

AuPM (Postseason, not adjusted for mpg):

1. LeBron, +4.6
2. Duncan, +4.5
3. Nash, +4.0
4. Dirk,+3.5
5. McGrady, +2.1
6. Kobe, +1.3

There are pretty obviously three tiers here (based on these different stats):

Tier 3 (bottom): Kobe and McGrady, below the other tiers in regular season impact, and way below the others in the postseason
Tier 2 (middle): Dirk and Nash, with Dirk being one of the frontrunners in the regular season and Nash being one of the best in the postseason, but neither great in the other
Tier 1 (top): LeBron and Duncan, who are #1 and 2 in every postseason metric and doing quite well in the regular season as well.

Any vote for LeBron or Duncan seems extremely reasonable.

[HeartBreakKid]

If you want to say Pau was top 15 at his best I won't argue although it is arguable. But top 10? Absolutely not ever was that the case.

And yes, the Celtics big 3 were all better than Pau. As was Tony Parker.

The Celtics Big 3 were better than Pau Gasol...when they were in their prime. They were not better than him in 2010. What makes Ray Allen and Paul Pierce better than him?

29 year old Pau Gasol was a significantly better defender than 34 year old Ray Allen, how on earth can anyone argue that?

Pau Gasol averaged more points than Ray Allen

Averaged more assist than Ray Allen

More than doubled his rebounds

Ray Allen was only a bit more efficient (60 TS% vs 59 TS%), despite him having more of his shots created for him

And that's the regular season where Ray Allen played pretty well. In the post season and in head to head, Pau Gasol absolutely murdered Ray Allen in 2010 (and Paul Pierce also, in fact nearly everything I said would apply in a comparison with Paul Pierce)

Conclusion = past prime Ray Allen >>> Peak Pau Gasol?

[HeartBreakKid]

I am a bit disappointed that no one has went full SportsCenter and said Rondo > Gasol yet.

[LAL1947]

If you want to say Pau was top 15 at his best I won't argue although it is arguable. But top 10? Absolutely not ever was that the case.

And yes, the Celtics big 3 were all better than Pau. As was Tony Parker.

I am a bit disappointed that no one has went full SportsCenter and said Rondo > Gasol yet.

You still not owning up to wrongly claiming that Pau Gasol was a Top 10 player in the league?

That's disappointing but not unexpected.

[Texas Chuck]

Can we stop with this whole Pau wasn't a top 10 player bit already? I mean for one thing its nothing but spam at this point, but also its just wrong. Of course he was a top ten player multiple seasons.

And this thread is about 07 when Pau didn't even play with Kobe so you are literally minimizing him for no reason. Please, please stop.

[Stalwart]

Can we stop with this whole Pau wasn't a top 10 player bit already? I mean for one thing its nothing but spam at this point, but also its just wrong. Of course he was a top ten player multiple seasons.

And this thread is about 07 when Pau didn't even play with Kobe so you are literally minimizing him for no reason. Please, please stop.

Pau was never close to a top 10 player. Sorry, you're not getting away with that.

[LAL1947]

Can we stop with this whole Pau wasn't a top 10 player bit already? I mean for one thing its nothing but spam at this point, but also its just wrong. Of course he was a top ten player multiple seasons.

And this thread is about 07 when Pau didn't even play with Kobe so you are literally minimizing him for no reason. Please, please stop.

We can stop with that whole convo because it is ruining this thread. We didn't bring it up anyway. This will be my last post on that.

Pau was never close to a top 10 player. Sorry, you're not getting away with that.

I definitely agree with Stalwart though, Pau was just simply not a Top 10 player in the league. The only reason I can imagine for someone to try painting him as one is to diminish Kobe... and the implications of that apply to this thread too. People seem to be trying to use stuff like this to say Kobe was not the best player in the league in 2006-07... and that he wasn't the best player even in future seasons because he had "Top 10 players" to help him then. Manu and Parker had more of a case for being Top 10 players than Gasol ever did.

[Texas Chuck]

I definitely agree with Stalwart though, Pau was just simply not a Top 10 player in the league. The only reason I can imagine for someone to try painting him as one is to diminish Kobe... and the implications of that apply to this thread too. People seem to be trying to use stuff like this to say Kobe was not the best player in the league in 2006-07... and that he wasn't the best player even in future seasons because he had "Top 10 players" to help him then. Manu and Parker had more of a case for being Top 10 players than Gasol ever did.

People aren't saying that about Kobe. You are just defensive about Kobe. I am a person who thinks Kobe was not the best player in the league in 07 and I understand he had very little talent around him. I don't think Kobe was the best player in 08 either when he had a lot of talent around him.

It's okay for people to simply think that Duncan or Lebron were better players than Kobe on their merits without teammates having to come into the discussion at all. And the people choosing Duncan over Kobe in 2007 are definitely not saying Duncan is better because Kobe had better teammates.

You've invented this entire narrative because you've diminished Pau for so long to prop up Kobe you assume everyone else takes the same tack. Duncan supporters never take the tack he had minimal help because outside of 2003 he always had good to great supporting casts. Nobody would believe an argument that Timmy had little to work with so nobody argues that.

Move on.

[LAL1947]

You've invented this entire narrative because you've diminished Pau for so long to prop up Kobe you assume everyone else takes the same tack. Duncan supporters never take the tack he had minimal help because outside of 2003 he always had good to great supporting casts. Nobody would believe an argument that Timmy had little to work with so nobody argues that.

Move on.

I value Pau's contributions as a Laker and I've not tried to diminish him "for so long to prop up Kobe" because I've only been posting on these boards for a month. I never thought he was a Top 10 player in the league before the team signed him or at any point during during those finals runs. If you disagree, I've got a friendly and simple game to sort it out quickly.

Here is list of 24 players. Scratch off all the players that you think were not better than Pau going into 2007-08, since that is when he joined the Lakers. We don't even need to say anything else, and I won't debate your views on the players, as I understand we may have different perspectives. What do you say?

Kobe
Lebron
Duncan
Dirk
Steve Nash
Dwayne Wade
KG
Dwight Howard
Tracy McGrady
Amar'e Stoudamire
Paul Pierce
Chauncey Billups
Tony Parker
Manu Ginobli
Carmelo Anthony
Chris Paul
Shawn Marion
Yao Ming
Baron Davis
Andre Iguadola
Deron Williams
Ray Allen
Kenyon Martin
Brandon Roy

And you're quite wrong about Duncan supporters. I've been reading some astonishing takes especially in this forum... attempting to draw parallels between the help he had compared to other players (like Kobe post-2004). They do this in two ways:
1) Diminishing those on the Spurs in different ways, from Manu/Parker/Robinson to the rest of the depth guys like Michael Finley, Malik Rose, Bruce Bowen, Brent Barry etc.
2) Trying to make players on other teams seem better than they were, like they do with Gasol, Derek Fisher, etc.
Both 1 & 2 have the same effect.

[Texas Chuck]

Going with the period of 08-11 which is I think are the best years for Pau to be top 10. Leaving in only the players as good or better than Pau.

Kobe
Lebron
Duncan
Dirk
Steve Nash
Dwayne Wade
Dwight Howard
Chris Paul

I think KG is arguable but over this time period I would take Pau. So not only is Pau a top 10 player in multiple of those individual years, he's a top ten player over the entire span.

Pau Gasol was really freaking good at basketball. And its pretty clear from your list, that you are looking at names rather than actual performance. Some of those names aren't close to Pau Gasol during his best years. I mean really not close.

[LAL1947]

Going with the period of 08-11 which is I think are the best years for Pau to be top 10. Leaving in only the players as good or better than Pau.

Kobe
Lebron
Duncan
Dirk
Steve Nash
Dwayne Wade
Dwight Howard
Chris Paul

I think KG is arguable but over this time period I would take Pau. So not only is Pau a top 10 player in multiple of those individual years, he's a top ten player over the entire span.

Pau Gasol was really freaking good at basketball. And its pretty clear from your list, that you are looking at names rather than actual performance. Some of those names aren't close to Pau Gasol during his best years. I mean really not close.

Well, lets agree to disagree. I won't debate your choices, as promised. If you think only these 8 guys were better than Pau and that even KG wasn't better, then it explains why you also think Duncan was a better player than Kobe.

I'm not looking at names alone. All 24 guys were really freaking good at playing the game of basketball. In any case, I'd agree that not all 24 were better than Pau. I simply provided you with a list of the best players in the league at that time (end of 2006-07) to see which you'd scratch off. It's pretty clear that you retroactively factor in the team's success Pau achieved once he was with the Lakers rather than the actual abilities of players at the time. If the Lakers had gotten Rudy Gay from Memphis instead, they would have still won what they did.

[GSP]

For the people saying Duncan doesn't have an argument, I wonder if you are realling underrating his defensive impact. He is arguably at his offensive peak this year with the exception of 02 and 03 and maybe a tier down from his peak defense in 03 and 03, but he overall was phenomenal.

07 isnt even a top 5 offensive season for Timmy.... arguably at his peak w/ exception of 02/03? That doesnt make sense. He got shut down in the finals by the Cavs and Big Z/Varejao too

99-06 Timmy are all offensively superior to 07 and most by miles

[70sFan]

For the people saying Duncan doesn't have an argument, I wonder if you are realling underrating his defensive impact. He is arguably at his offensive peak this year with the exception of 02 and 03 and maybe a tier down from his peak defense in 03 and 03, but he overall was phenomenal.

07 isnt even a top 5 offensive season for Timmy.... arguably at his peak w/ exception of 02/03? That doesnt make sense. He got shut down in the finals by the Cavs and Big Z/Varejao too

99-06 Timmy are all offensively superior to 07 and most by miles

Duncan wasn't shut down by the Cavs. He had two bad shooting nights, that's it. The series lasted only 4 games, so they impacted his averages heavily but he was effective offensively in the first two games. It's basically two good and two bad games on offense and only one of them was competitive.

[LukaTheGOAT]

For the people saying Duncan doesn't have an argument, I wonder if you are realling underrating his defensive impact. He is arguably at his offensive peak this year with the exception of 02 and 03 and maybe a tier down from his peak defense in 03 and 03, but he overall was phenomenal.

07 isnt even a top 5 offensive season for Timmy.... arguably at his peak w/ exception of 02/03? That doesnt make sense. He got shut down in the finals by the Cavs and Big Z/Varejao too

99-06 Timmy are all offensively superior to 07 and most by miles

One play-off series in which Duncan struggled, is not enough for me to automatically agree that he was worse offensively than his 00-06 counterparts.

In the 07 PS, despite the not great offensive performance, he finished with 25.5 pts per 75 on a rTS% of 1.9% when adjusting for opponent. This is generally in line with the rest of his PS scoring from 00-07 other than 02, 03, 99, and 06 (and 02 and 06 were notably shorter PS stints) that were another tier up. And I generally believe Duncan was consistently a solid passer who only would have gotten better in 07 compared to previous versions. I don't think it is crazy to believe this at all.