it’s tough because i’m speaking on behalf of people but I think they consider the 2 fmvps in back to back championships erasing a lot of those early problems.
I would say the common consensus is that during those prime years you listed in the OP…his team was just not very good. Theres only so much you can do and it doesn’t help when you are...
KAT is an xfactor. he seems to be sensitive to comments about his softness which worries me bc dallas is going to be more hostile than denver and should they make it past dallas, boston is going to be even worse. i'm following them to dallas but i don't think i'd go to boston with them extremely trashy and all, may have to go to Minneapolis.
I get how you would think Rice was still decent at that time but he was way past his prime scoring just 11ppg same with Harper while Horry and Fox where at 9 and 7ppg.
High IQ players for sure but that type of production is barely decent even with a young Kobe. There is a reason Shaq needed to average almost 40ppg just to win his first ring.
Jordan's low in a series was 27 ppg, so no... that doesn't compare to any of the other examples you gave
people just like to throw Jordan in there for cumbaya purposes.. but the reality is that he had a perfect career because he's the only guy that really had to BUILD something, including Pippen... he wasn't handed ready-made stars, teams or...
I would think this would be the easiest metric for Jokic to improve with a summer of practise.
Missed at least 7 shots from 3 in game 7. If just half of those go in, then it's a different game.
He also seemed to be able to get that Pick and Pop every time with Murray. With hitting a few of those, then KAT or Gobert would have to close out...
I really wanted those as a kid :lol My mother refused to buy them for me.
I could almost dunk, could dunk with a tennisball. If I had 2 more inches from those shoes, it would have changed my life.
Even Jordan couldn't win until he had an elite team and the powers from the 80's were either extinct or on their last legs. Most of the time the cream rises to the top and the elite players win the title, but so often winning a championship comes down to circumstances and lucky breaks that are out of a players control, which is why I don't like...
He just looked really bad in that Minny series.
It showed some serious weaknesses in his game that seem exploitable going forward.
In any case, they can keep him if it doesn't stop them from getting some good backup players.
The point is more that even the most dominant center ever, couldn't just go off and average 40 ppg if needed. It takes a team. Jokic can't just go off and do that either.
Jordan could do that and that's why he is GOAT.
Okay but it's the exact kind of thing people would completely dismiss other players from being top 10 for. "Four years with no playoff series wins in his prime, hell no."
It's literally a worse and more damning indictment than "durr, 4 for 10 in finals, he cant be da G0at!"
But nobody ever uses it. EVAAAA.
Well, Kobe was not the only sidekick in 2000.
Of the top of my head:
Ron Harper
Rick Fox
Glenn Rice
Robbert Horry
That's a pretty damn strong supporting cast, even without Kobe. Glenn Rice in particular was big time and still in his prime.
MPJ was the 3rd leading scorer at 16 PPG on good efficiency.
I doubt you're going to trade him for that easily. Better than him starts to creep into "star" territory.
I just mentioned in another thread the shocking amount of mediocre playoff series Bird had that never get talked about, the fact is guys that came before the internet/social media age caught a huge break in that all their failures weren't documented permanently in real time for all the world to see. That's an advantage pre 2000's players will...
My point is if you ask someone today to critique those players... they're going to include every failure and caveat under the sun. People yesterday were saying Jokic was eliminated from the top 10 because he had a mediocre second half to last night's game.
I have NEVER heard anyone mention Hakeem's four year playoff drought in his prime. He...
I don’t really see hakeem over duncan very much, that is definitely an outside opinion
To be simplistic he had an insane peak and people like to FMVP count. And he has 2x that of jokic.
Nah, Duncan is consistently ranked ahead of Hakeem, who's usually in the fringe top 10 range. The guy does have 2 titles, 2 FMVP's and made 3 Finals, which is worst case as good, if not better, than virtually anybody else outside the top 10. It's not just the titles, his peak during those years (and '93 too) was legitimately as dominant as any...
I think the thinking is who cares who the backup Center is when you will never play 2 Centers at once and Jokic will play at least 38 minutes in the playoffs (that's literally his career MPG).
Doesn't make sense to invest heavily for 10 minutes.
At the time we had something you guys call 'communism' in Eastern Europe. It was half- assed socialism or a malfunctioning state-corporatism but it doesn't matter. The whole ideology was that group above all. Of course it was a lie, but a very often repeated lie. We all wanted more individualism at the time. In retrospect... well, we all die in...
Gobert's playoff career high is 4 assists. Gobert has a 72% assisted FG rate over his playoff career. Why do you feel the need to lie to get your point across?
Gobert does not have in his skill set to find the open man, nor create for himself. He can draw fouls, but cannot hit them consistently, only if he's lucky.
This takes nothing away...