Karl Malone vs Dirk Nowtizki

[knickswin]

Malone was a lot, lot more powerful than Dirk, particularly when he was younger. Dirk is probably more fluid though.

[knickswin]

Malone is top 15 ever.

Dork ain't even top 20.

Joke thread?

Who says Malone is top 15?

[Jacks3]

He's a consensus top 15 player ever...as he should be. 2nd-3rd best PF ever.

Now dudes wanna put Dork over him?

I guarantee nobody was saying this shit before Dirk won a ring, which is a TEAM accomplishment.

SMH.

[97 bulls]

He's a consensus top 15 player ever...as he should be. 2nd-3rd best PF ever.

Now dudes wanna put Dork over him?

I guarantee nobody was saying this shit before Dirk won a ring, which is a TEAM accomplishment.

SMH.

Exactly

[knickswin]

He's a consensus top 15 player ever...as he should be. 2nd-3rd best PF ever.

Now dudes wanna put Dork over him?

I guarantee nobody was saying this shit before Dirk won a ring, which is a TEAM accomplishment.

SMH.

Okay, well I don't put him in my top 15 so it's not consensus. In fact, I don't think he's even the best power forward who never won a ring (that would be Sir Charles IMO). He didn't have a super elite scoring skill set which most top 20 guys did. I don't want to hear about his great scoring averages. He benefited a lot from the easy points he got from the Sloan offense.

[bizil]

Dirk is on a level to where there are only 4 PF's I would take over him. And Malone is one along with Duncan, KG, and Barkley. I like my PF's to be dominant rebounders and scorers if I can have it that way. But Dirk is so great on offense and a good enough rebounder (especially in playoffs) to where I would take him over guys like Pettit, Mchale,etc. Now a prime Webber is a guy that I'm possibly inclined to take over Dirk. But I'm not sure. Bob McAdoo is a guy similar to Dirk, but McAdoo was a better rebounder and defender. But it seemed Mac's best days were at Center.

In GOAT terms, I think u got Timmy, Malone, Chuck, KG, and Dirk as the top 5 PF's ever. Who knows, Dirk could possibly get as high as number 2 before its all said and done. He's at his peak right now at age 34 and has a game built to last. He could end up with 27,000 points an another ring or two. But Malone had awesome longevity being a great player. Even his last year with the Lakers, u could still see was not far off from his prime. He was All Star level until the very end of his career. And he has the second most points of all time!

[WillC]

He's a consensus top 15 player ever

Actually, no he's not.

Why not do some research instead of making stuff up about Karl Malone?

http://basketballjournalist.blogspot...a-history.html

He's ranked 18th all-time by Bill Simmons, 18th by Slam magazine, 17th by Elliot Kalb, etc.

[Jacks3]

Nobody cares about those garbage lists. Bill Simmons?

The vast majority of All-Time lists by hardcore fans on here and other places like realgm have him top 15 all-time. Deal with it.

[Jacks3]

No, I'm pretty sure he won because he was on a extremely well-built team that was lucky enough to play 3 stars (Kobe/Pau/LeBron) all playing terrible basketball for their standards, and he himself played very well. I'm not taking anything away from him, but think about it. Saying Dirk>Malone would have been considered laughable before this ring. So what really changed? Did Dirk become a better player? No. Actually, he was past his prime. Not nearly as dominant as he was in 2006 and, again, Dirk>Malone would have been considered a joke back then. I suppose you can say he's added a good deal more elite seasons, but Malone's longevity still crushes his. So unless you really over-value clutch scoring, or else think Dirk's peak is so much better that it trumps the huge longevity (which is ridiculous), Dork has NO case over Malone at this point. This is just sad. I knew people would start overrating the shit out of Dirk after the championship and I was right. Now he's better than guys like KG,Malone even though he's actually past his prime.

[WillC]

Nobody cares about those garbage lists. Bill Simmons?

The vast majority of All-Time lists by hardcore fans on here and other places like realgm have him top 15 all-time. Deal with it.

Ok, I'll trust a hardcore ISH armchair fan over respected journalists.

[DMAVS41]

He's a consensus top 15 player ever...as he should be. 2nd-3rd best PF ever.

Now dudes wanna put Dork over him?

I guarantee nobody was saying this shit before Dirk won a ring, which is a TEAM accomplishment.

SMH.

Because Dirk was absurdly under-rated all time before this year/playoffs. You are using people just being ignorant as an argument for your side. Which is just plain not logical.

Go look at Dirk's entire career and numbers...and even without a title this year Dirk is right there with Malone on everything other than longevity. If you want to claim that Dirk needs to play a few more years to catch up to Malone...then I understand that point and it makes sense.

But if your argument is about their impact on the games and just how good they were/are...it doesn't hold up.

The only thing holding back Dirk in these rankings was missing a title. He's now done everything....and his all time ranking should reflect that.

[D-Wade316]

And Nowitzki would have two rings if the referees didn't give Dwyane Wade a helping hand in 2006. Your point?

[RRR3]

LOL Jacks,
You calling Dirk "Dork" Just makes me LOL for some reason.

[Flamboyant]

Are you comparing Kobe's Lakers to the Olajuwon/ Barkley/ Drexler Rockets?
Are you comparing the Heat to the Bulls?

in 97-98 Malone (& Stockton) had to go through:
Houston - Olajuwon, Drexler, Barkley (3-2)
San Antonio - Robinson, Duncan (4-1)
LA Lakers - O'Neal, Jones, Bryant, Van Exel etc (4-0)
THEN, they played out of their minds against the Bulls, but came up short.

This team would trounce the Mavs. They swept Shaq with an amazing supporting cast, dominated the twin towers, and beat 3 HOFers on one team.

This is one of the most biased posts. Houston's big 3 were old (in game 5 Barkley(injured for most of the series) didn't play, and Clyde was like 1-13), Duncan was a rookie, and Kobe wasn't even in his 20s. I won't pick none of these teams against 11 Lakers, or Heat.

He's a consensus top 15 player ever...as he should be. 2nd-3rd best PF ever.

Now dudes wanna put Dork over him?

I guarantee nobody was saying this shit before Dirk won a ring, which is a TEAM accomplishment.

SMH.

I was saying it before last year, and Dirk winning a ring didn't change much. It is still close. If general opinion on Dirk has changed on Dirk because of one PO run, it doesn't necessarily mean that Dirk has become overrated now. To me it just shows that Dirk was underrated before.

---

To me these two are the 3rd & 4th best PFs in history after KG and TD. And it's hard to find players from other positions to put in between them as well.

[DMAVS41]

I've never seen a poster be more one-sided.

First, as usual, you center your whole argument around 5 minutes of a game that last 48 minutes. You gotta get there first.

Second, you bring up the teams/player/ coaches nowitzki had to go through. But what about malone? Didn't malone have to go through the showtime lakers with magic (player) riley (the coach)? Or the houston rockets? With olajuwan and tomjonovich? Or the bulls? With jordan and jackson? Even duncan and the spurs with popovich. The teams malone had to go through would cream the teams dirk had to go through.

And my god please stop trying to act like nowitzki has had these terrible teams over the coarse of his career. Cuban has maintained one of the highest payrolls in the nba during dirks tenure with the mavs. And dirk has had plenty of talented teammates playing alongside of him.

And you fail to bring up the defensive side of the ball. As usual, all your povs come from one side. Have you noticed how the pro malone crowd acknowledged dirks strengths before siding with malone?

Come on dmavs

You over-rate the crap out of malone through a regular game. And I'm actually higher on Malone than most.

I don't need to sit here and say Malone was great. Everyone knows that. Its just a waste of time.

Its about impact. You can't just break down a player the way you do because it leads to crappy conclusions. We've been over this so many times. Its why you think Pippen was better than Magic. Malone was a better defender and rebounder.....absolutely. But how much did those two things actually impact winning/losing over the defense and rebounding of Dirk? Its marginal to me....You act like Malone was Duncan or Hakeem on defense. He wasn't. Was he better than Dirk defensively? Sure, but not enough for it to matter nearly as much as you want it to.

And for malone being better before crunch time. Again, marginal and debatable to begin with. Malone got fed so many easy buckets. And he deserves credit for being a freight train and impossible to stop running the lanes. But he also had one of the best pg's ever feeding him his entire career. That matters.

And its not one sided if I think the deciding factor between to players that are obviously close in impact (if you watched them both play) is late game play. In the playoffs, what matters more? The problem with Malone is that his offensive game didn't translate well to late game play. He didn't have reliable moves to consistently beat defenders or defenses late in crunch time when easy baskets are taken away. You simply couldn't consistently run an offense through Malone late because of those holes in his game. Not to mention his inept ft shooting in crunch time at times as well.

Does that mean Dirk is easily better? Of course not. I think its a good debate. But for people to come on here and act like its not close is absurd.

But we all know the truth. If your team was entering the 4th qtr of a playoff game and the score is tied.....we all know which player you want. And yes...that matters a hell of a lot to me.

And also, Malone could never have led a team like the 11 Mavs to the title at any point in his career. He just wasn't capable of doing it. And I'd take Dirk's chances matching Malone's 2 finals appearances....0 titles...playing for Sloan and with Stockton his entire career.

That matters as well.

Funny how you list Duncan/Spurs as a team that would kill Dirk. Do you remember 06? You know...a series that actually happened. You remember what Dirk did? But yea, Dirk would have no success playing for a better coach and with better players.....LOL