Why do people overrate Dirk and underrate Pierce?

[FireDavidKahn]

Dirk had better teammates. That '11 team was stacked. Early on he had Nash, Finley, and Jamison.

Who did Pierce have, Antoine Walker and Ricky Davis?

Pierce played in the EAST. Keep digging a hole. There really isn't a whole lot that separates Pierce from Love except that Pierce played a wing position so it is more glamorous than a PF.

[eklip]

Dirk won the MVP award
Dirk was in two finals without all-star help (two different teams and coaches)
Dirk won a championship without all-star help
Dirk was also the undisputed best player on the Mavs since 2003 (Garnett was arguably better than Pierce in 2008)

If you just care about stats, then take a look at the playoff statistics:
Dirk: 25.6 pts / 10.1 reb / 2.2 ast / 2.0 tov on 46/37/89 shooting (.579 TS%), 24.2 PER
Pierce: 20.3 pts / 6.2 reb / 3.8 ast / 3.1 tov on 42/34/83 shooting (.551 TS%), 17.6 PER

All-NBA:
Dirk: 1st team: 4, 2nd team: 5, 3rd team: 3
Pierce: 1st team: 0, 2nd team: 1, 3rd team: 3

Dirk is ranked so high (top 20 or whatever) because there just aren't more players you can rank above him. There are still many players you can rank between Dirk and Pierce on the all-time list.

[ArbitraryWater]

I guess it comes down to Pierce never being a top 6 player in the league, while Dirk was an MVP candidate from 2005-2007, 2009-2011 and a top 5 player for minimum 6 seasons, with an argument to BEST PLAYER in 2006, 2007 AND 2011...

[GrapeApe]

I guess it comes down to Pierce never being a top 6 player in the league, while Dirk was an MVP candidate from 2005-2007, 2009-2011 and a top 5 player for minimum 6 seasons, with an argument to BEST PLAYER in 2006, 2007 AND 2011...

I don't think he has an argument in '06 and if he was the best player in '11 than Wade was the best player in '06. I agree with your point though. Pierce was never a "tier 1" player. He was consistently good for several years but was never truly elite.

[IncarceratedBob]

Pierce was never even the best player at his position, plus dude is ugly as hell. #beatingwiththeuglystick

[StephHamann]

Dirk had better teammates. That '11 team was stacked. Early on he had Nash, Finley, and Jamison.

Who did Pierce have, Antoine Walker and Ricky Davis?

But the East was terrible during the 00s

[ArbitraryWater]

I don't think he has an argument in '06 and if he was the best player in '11 than Wade was the best player in '06. I agree with your point though. Pierce was never a "tier 1" player. He was consistently good for several years but was never truly elite.

Dirk was the playoff's best player BY FAR in 2011...

In 2006 I would give that title to him aswell, but I guess you would to Wade for the finals.. So its pretty even, but when you consider regular season, I think it needs to be Dirk.

[JohnnySic]

Pierce had a pretty good '06 season as well: 26.8 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 4.7 apg, 1.4 spg.

[FireDavidKahn]

Pierce had a pretty good '06 season as well: 26.8 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 4.7 apg, 1.4 spg.

And no play offs, in the freaking EAST. That is even more stat stuffing than Love has ever done. You give Love a historically good defense and he could lead a team to a finals as well.

[riseagainst]

Dirk had Antoine too .

Btw Antoine Walker 98-2003 (Pierce years) 22 ppg, 9 rpg, 5 apg
Finley 98-2004 17 ppg, 5 rpg, 3.7 apg
Finley 98-2004 13 ppg, 3 rpg, 7 apg
Jamison 03-04 15 ppg, 6 rpg, 1 apg

Toine wasn't that bad with the Celtics you know. It wasn't his fault that there were no 4 pointers back then.

Edit and just for fun Ricky Davis 2003-06 17 ppg, 4 rpg, 3.6 apg.

[Eric Cartman]

Pierce was unarguable in 2008, that close out game vs Cleveland was one of the best battles in NBA history. Dirk was the same in 2011. His team was underrated tho, he had 3 point snipers all around + barea being a beast.

Both owned Kobe and Lebron in the process.

[kentatm]

+ barea being a beast.

he actually put up worse overall numbers in the playoffs than he did the regular season.

he played pretty much how he always did in Dallas TBH. Sometimes he did jack shit, other games he'd explode a bit.

to say a guy that averaged 8.9ppg and 3.4 apg on 41% shooting was being a beast is silly.

[TheMarkMadsen]

Dirk was the playoff's best player BY FAR in 2011...

In 2006 I would give that title to him aswell, but I guess you would to Wade for the finals.. So its pretty even, but when you consider regular season, I think it needs to be Dirk.

Dirk has no argument for 06

[Eric Cartman]

he actually put up worse overall numbers in the playoffs than he did the regular season.

he played pretty much how he always did in Dallas TBH. Sometimes he did jack shit, other games he'd explode a bit.

to say a guy that averaged 8.9ppg and 3.4 apg on 41% shooting was being a beast is silly.

Come on dude you remember this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Est9V44mhA

Came through when it mattered the most.

[eklip]

I don't think he has an argument in '06 and if he was the best player in '11 than Wade was the best player in '06. I agree with your point though. Pierce was never a "tier 1" player. He was consistently good for several years but was never truly elite.

Dirk was probably the best player statistically in the regular season (led the league in PER and WS, which are the two most used stats to evaluate box-score statistics) + he had an all-time great run before the finals including a win against the 2005/2007 champs. His finals were mediocre, though.

I'm using PER and WS, because it's useless to discuss about pts, reb, ast, efficiency, turnovers, etc. If a player leads the league in WS and PER he definitely has an argument for being the best player in the league. I don't know if you could find an example in the history of NBA to prove the opposite.