My top 50 Players in the League of All Time

[70sFan]

That's crazy low for Dirk. Can't imagine Durant, Wade or Malone ahead of him.

Incredible peak and longevity, averaged 25/10 on 58% TS in the Playoffs for his CAREER, deserves to be a top 15 guy.

You can't imagine Malone over Dirk? Really?

[ardee]

That's crazy low for Dirk. Can't imagine Durant, Wade or Malone ahead of him.

Incredible peak and longevity, averaged 25/10 on 58% TS in the Playoffs for his CAREER, deserves to be a top 15 guy.

You can't imagine Malone over Dirk? Really?

Dirk is one of the most Playoff resilient and consistently big-game players ever. Malone was a guy who consistently came up short when his team really needed him.

They're both 4s who were positives on defense but made the bulk of their impact on offense. Both also had crazy longevity. When one guy steps up to the plate almost always when the time comes and the other guy used to mostly shrink from it, it's hard to imagine a justification for the latter over the former.

[Owly]

That's crazy low for Dirk. Can't imagine Durant, Wade or Malone ahead of him.

Incredible peak and longevity, averaged 25/10 on 58% TS in the Playoffs for his CAREER, deserves to be a top 15 guy.

You can't imagine Malone over Dirk? Really?

People can go back and figure it (it's Karl) but I'd suggest (in both cases here) the use of just "Malone" in this context is needlessly ambiguous.

[70sFan]

That's crazy low for Dirk. Can't imagine Durant, Wade or Malone ahead of him.

Incredible peak and longevity, averaged 25/10 on 58% TS in the Playoffs for his CAREER, deserves to be a top 15 guy.

You can't imagine Malone over Dirk? Really?

Dirk is one of the most Playoff resilient and consistently big-game players ever. Malone was a guy who consistently came up short when his team really needed him.

They're both 4s who were positives on defense but made the bulk of their impact on offense. Both also had crazy longevity. When one guy steps up to the plate almost always when the time comes and the other guy used to mostly shrink from it, it's hard to imagine a justification for the latter over the former.

It's true that Dirk was far more resiliant scorer than Malone, there is no need to explaining that. I think that the rest of your post isn't 100% honest for Malone though:

1. "They're both 4s who were positives on defense but made the bulk of their impact on offense." - technically, it is correct but you shouldn't equate these two on defense just because of that. Dirk was positive in some seasons, negative in some and throughout his prime I wouldn't call him anything more than a slight above average defender with clear weaknesses that were exploitable. Meanwhile, Malone has been consistently a strong contributor on defensive end after the first few years and he had a massive value against certain matchups. I can't imagine Dirk switching into David Robinson and shutting him down like Karl did a number of times in the 1990s. Defensive advantage for Malone is quite big in my estimations.

2. "Both also had crazy longevity." - yeah, that's also technically correct but it doesn't make their longevities equal. Dirk's whole relevant career is basically 2000-16, which is 17 seasons at all-star level (depending on how you view 2000 and 2015-16 Dirk). Malone equates that with 1987-03, but he played more games and minutes during that period and I'd say he had less arguable all-star seasons than Dirk during that period (I'd take all of Malone's seasons from that period over 2000 and 2015-16 Dirk). Malone was absurdly consistent and he never missed games. He also never became a liability in either end (like Dirk was on defense after 2014).

3. You don't take into account other aspects. Malone was far better passer and playmaker than Dirk for example, that's something that isn't captured by your analysis of Malone shrinking down in postseason. If we look at Utah offensive success in postseason, it doesn't look like Malone was that bad at anchoring the offense:

2001-13 Mavs: +4.0 rORtg in RS, +7.3 in PS
1988-01 Jazz: +3.3 rORtg in RS, +4.2 in PS

Granted, Mavs looks staggeringly good, but if we take into account smaller sample of size it looks closer:

2004-11 Mavs: +6,7 rORtg in PS
1991-98 Jazz: +5.6 rORtg in PS

Dirk does look better, but it doesn't look like one is ATG and the other one is choker.

[70sFan]

That's crazy low for Dirk. Can't imagine Durant, Wade or Malone ahead of him.

Incredible peak and longevity, averaged 25/10 on 58% TS in the Playoffs for his CAREER, deserves to be a top 15 guy.

You can't imagine Malone over Dirk? Really?

People can go back and figure it (it's Karl) but I'd suggest (in both cases here) the use of just "Malone" in this context is needlessly ambiguous.

I think it was pretty clear, because Moses was ranked below Dirk in the OP.

[Owly]

You can't imagine Malone over Dirk? Really?

People can go back and figure it (it's Karl) but I'd suggest (in both cases here) the use of just "Malone" in this context is needlessly ambiguous.

I think it was pretty clear, because Moses was ranked below Dirk in the OP.

I do effectively state this (and make it so people don't need to go back). I suspect many don't read full threads every time they visit. There's only one Karl in the vicinity, only one Moses, and two Malones often in a very similar ballpark. It doesn't really matter but for ease of following "Malone" ... yeah it's needless uncertainty for the reader as they read. They can find out of course, that's stated too. It's just an easy quality of life thing that can be done in discussing Karl or Moses in an all time context.