ardee wrote:HeartBreakKid wrote:Wade was a much better two way player.
Ardee, you're talking about the Heat's offense not being as good. You know who Michael Beasley is, right? He was their 2nd lead scorer...as a rookie.
Wade did not have a better roster at all. If he had a better roster then his team would have done better. It's not like Wade is not an MVP caliber player.
Shawn Marion was a year removed from being an All-Star. Haslem and Chalmers were good enough to start on championship teams. These guys aren't world beaters but they're better than the horrific trio that is Parker, George and Brown (yeah, I had to double check, it wasn't Walton starting at the 3 that particular year, he did in 2007 though). Some games Odom played the 3 and they went with Mihm and Brown in the frontcourt
Modern scorers like Harden and LeBron typically play a setup with a lead guard, 3 shooters and a big. Meanwhile Kobe was out there with Smush Parker and 3 bigs, and he was STILL having otherworldly impact on offense.
I think Kobe's cast was worse for sure, but even if you don't, you at least have to admit they're comparable. And if you accept that, then Kobe's team results being far superior with comparable casts wins him this comparison. I'm not denying Wade was MVP level for sure, but his ball dominance and lack of shooting ability led to his having less offensive impact than someone like Kobe. Perhaps Wade indeed was a better defender but Kobe made up the difference on offense so that made him the better player.
It sounds like you know recognize their names and not their play. Smush Parker = scrub. Mario Chalmers = starter on championship team. Look at what they actually did.
Mario Chalmers was not a "starter" on a championship team, he was a starter on a first round elimination team -
Mario Chalmers was a rookie in 2009. It's like you are looking at all the names on the Miami Heat and imagining they're all in their prime. Chalmers rookie numbers are what they are because he was on a bad team.
Mario Chalmers = rookie
Michael Beasley = Rookie. (and their 2nd lead scorer)
Jemario Moon = Second year player, out the league by his 4th year
Even
Erik Spolstra was a rookie
O'Neal and Marion = Past their prime due to injuries. Shawn Marion played half the season. O'Neal played 1/4th of the season
The fact of the matter is the Lakers are highly publicized so their "scrubs" also get highly publicized. SMUSH PARKER is
BETTER than Jemario Moon. Why don't we hear about Jemario Moon's name or why is everyone looking up who Jemario Moon is atm? Because he sucks so bad and plays on a team no one cared about.
It's the same exact reason why you think Luke Walton was on the 06 Lakers...
No, Kobe Bryant did not have the worst team of all time.
No, you cannot just omit Lamar Odom. You can't say he's just one guy, when only 5 guys can be played at once. Who was Wade's "one guy", his 2nd best player was Shawn Marion who wasn't there. That sounds pretty bad, after that who is he relying on - Haslem?
In addition, how are we ignoring
Phil Jackson? Isn't overachieving a key factor added to good coaching? Phil Jackson was at the time considered the greatest coach of all time. Erik Spolstra was a rookie coach. But I feel like if we did what what we did with Chalmers/Marion/Haslem we will ignore context of the era and say Erik was a championship coach, when at the time he was considered a bad coach - and was considered as such until 3 or 4 years into his career.
Even the compliments to Wade's players should be seen as cons not pros.
It is a
CON that Chalmers and Haslem were on championship teams. They were on a championship team that had 3 max contracts. Due to how the NBA works this means that literally only bad players can start, and I think you are aware of that but you are adding championship pedigree to make it seem like they are competent, when they were largely irrelevant. This is like praising Joel Anthony as a competent player. The Heat were literally not allowed to spend any money on any role players.
Haslem was an irrelevant player during all of the championship years and I think you know it, but are trying to add this high degree of prestige to his name that obviously Smush Parker does not have.
Mario Chalmers was a rookie in 2009 and thus his championship years which came when he was 26 years old are not relevant. I am assuming you forgot Mario Chalmer's age/experience at that point. Chalmers in his prime may have been a half way 7th or 8th man.
Lamar Odom was a highly efficient 15/9/5 player with good defense (those are fantastic stats for today much less 2006). If we ignore Lamar Odom, THEN you might be able to argue the Heat and Lakers are comparable. If we do not ignore Lamar Odom, which given he played 80 games so we should not, then why WOULDNT the Lakers win more games than the Heat?
Furthermore, we are talking about like the Lakers are so much more success. The Lakers won a whopping
two more games than the Heat. Is Lamar Odom not worth at least two games?
So what is this basis that
Heat = Lakers
Lakers did better than Heat
Therefore, Kobe Bryant > Wade
Because the Lakers had a better SRS? Because they were "closer" to round 2 than the Heat were? This means that Kobe Bryant was better than Dwayne Wade. I can list so many variables that can effect that, so why are you defaulting to "well, that must be because Bryant > Wade"
I think many fans think paint mediocre teams in broad strokes as "one star team" like all one star teams are equal. So I have seen this type of logic many times where people think that this player carried these scrubs to 50 games so he must be better than this player who carried to scrubs to 42 games, and it doesn't make sense.
And while this post sounds aggressive, I am trying to point out why this line of thinking doesn't make sense.
The Lakers were ranked 7th spots higher in their SRS than the Heat were. Are you saying that Kobe Bryant is
THAT MUCH BETTER than PEAK Dwayne Wade? You realize how astronomically good a player would have to be for that to be the difference? This is why I brought up "they are both MVP caliber players", there is no player who is THAT MUCH BETTER than Dwayne Wade.
But naturally in modern society, we default to the leaders when obviously the supporting cast were the biggest difference in their success of lack of. It isn't possible to be THAT much better than Wade to the point where you can make a team TWICE as good. I just don't think that is possible.
