SLAM Top 50 Players

[koberulz]

Wait, what? He played well, but the rest of the team sucked, so it's clearly his fault? Wow.

Everything you say is false because you always miss a point.

Perhaps, you should consider stop quoting out of context.

How can I quote out of context if I don't quote anything? Also, benji proceeded to make basically exactly the same point I did. Evidently he's misunderstanding you too, so perhaps you should try explaining yourself better.

[NovU]

How many FTs did Dirk shoot in the Finals anyways? People saying was rigged but the rest of Heat team took pretty much no FTs.

But Wade took at least as many as the entire Mavericks team. I'm sure you see nothing wrong with the Lakers taking more FTs in the fourth quarter of Game Six than they had in any other game in the series or the playoffs or the season.

So the final was rigged? Based on number of FT Wade took? Ok...

Actually it'd be stupid to claim he holds all the responsibility for it. He delivered. He put up better than expected, he showed up in major games and stuck daggers into teams hearts. But nobody else bothered to show up. Avery Johnson coached himself into tangles ruining 2007 and didn't help the 2006 implosion as Dirk kept it up.

Not all, but partial. It has been Dirk's team for pretty much longer than decade and no doubt he has shown up big in many playoffs games. I was just implying it's no wonder why some think like Lax, due to how it has been damn tricky to build around Dirk to win it all.

People have this myth in their heads that the great players are never weak. They ignore Jordan failing time and time again, but his team persevering. Jordan was brilliant, the best perimeter player of all time, the best player of his era, but even he bombed at times. It happens because players are human. He self-destructed down the stretch against the Sonics defense in 1996, if Jordan did anyone would have, that defense was incredible, suffocating, constructed brilliantly. Jordan fell apart, but the Bulls, they survived. Something they had done against teams that also threw it all against Jordan like the Heat.

Basketball is a team sport.

I mean we aren't going to bash Wade for not winning titles from 2007-2010 are we?

True that. But the difference is that MJ and Wade were able to win it all as the centerpiece of championship team. Dirk like you said during this year's playoffs had enough pieces. In fact, for many years, Mavericks fell under well short of expectations.

[jonthefon]

Who did Michael Jordan have? He always had Pippen. He also had guys like Horace Grant and Dennis Rodman. Dirk has never had anybody near the level of Pippen. Even Wade had Shaq, and the referee whistles in his pockets.

Obviously there's no way the Mavs should've blown that lead in Game 3. But did you even see how Wade got many of his free-throws? It wasn't like he was getting hacked epically by Sagana Diop. He would brush past Diop, then stagger sideways, flip up a shot and the whistle would be there. He got away with several blatant charges on Devin Harris, called as blocking fouls. In fact, there's a video on Youtube where he reaches out and sidearm-swipes Dirk late in Game 6 as he dribbles past, and Dirk gets called for a foul.

Many Mavs fans complain about that series because it was so blatantly affected by terrible officiating. Do you hear Mavs fans complain about other crippling defeats now in the past? I don't think so - just that they were outplayed in '07 and '08 and '09, and that Carlisle was an idiot for benching Beaubois last season.

[NovU]

Who did Michael Jordan have? He always had Pippen. He also had guys like Horace Grant and Dennis Rodman. Dirk has never had anybody near the level of Pippen. Even Wade had Shaq, and the referee whistles in his pockets.

How much talent is enough anyways? 2006, 2007 mavericks I thought were more than superb, roster wise, but yet no ring.
In the end, Dirk belongs to the pack of Ewing, Malone, and Barkley. And quite possibly I can see 2000s Mavericks going down as one of the best teams that never won a ring, perhaps before or after the 90s Knicks. Those will be more remembered to people than how he played well and teammates not during the playoffs.

[Laxation]

You CANNOT judge a player's entire body of work in the playoffs on whether they win a ring. That's beyond ridiculous. And it's not like Dirk's reduced his chances of winning a ring through his play: I just told you, 25/11 over 100 games is a pretty useable sample size. Does Reggie Miller's failure to win a ring kill his status as a playoff performer? It really shouldn't.

I mean Dirk has obviously had his bad playoff series - well, I can count that 05 Phoenix series, Golden State series, and maybe the second half of the Finals. Elsewhere, he's been pretty darn good. But even Kobe took a shit in the 2004 Finals (he tied the game in Game 2? Even Dirk rescued Game 2 against the Warriors, and he produced three scores late in Game 5 of the Finals before Wade was 'fouled'.) and obviously he didn't exactly do things in Game 7 last season, and people continue lauding him.

Dirk measures up pretty nicely on advanced stats for the playoffs, but I'm not using them - I'm not certain about how they apply with what tend to be very small sample sizes. But I just don't see how he could be considered as a impotent, ultimately a 'failure' in the playoffs, just because he hasn't won one.

Now, if you told me to pick between the past ten years of Duncan and the past ten of Dirk, I'd pick Duncan in an instant. He's the best player of this generation - though I'd take Dirk for this season.

I never said it was the only factor, but you said it was insane to use rings as a measure of judging someone's performance in the playoffs. Think about how retarded that sounds... Rings won is a VERY GOOD INDICATION of how well you performed in the playoffs.

I also never called him a failure, nothing of the sort. I never said he was a bad player or that he isn't in the top whatever of the league. Regardless, I still choose Duncan over Dirk. Better defence, still very adequate offensively, and importantly he has proven himself as a top team member and a big-time performer.

If you want to argue, go right ahead - but at least read what I'm arguing about instead of making shit up and extrapolating everything.

[jonthefon]

Again, we're just going to disagree about this issue. I'm not going to say I'm right, you're wrong because in the end, it's a matter of opinion. I just don't think whether one wins a ring or not should be used as a major (i.e. not singular, an idea which you suggest I extrapolated from your statements) indicator in determining their playoff performance, which you seem to imply. I'd blast LeBron James for being a flaming douchebag, but I'm not going to call him out as being a poor playoffs performer simply because he hasn't won a thing yet - he has been exceptional in the postseason excepting of course, that game.

And again, we can differ on Duncan and DIrk. I'd just think that if you could only pick between Duncan and Dirk as leading a team to win a playoffs game for you tomorrow, I'd take Dirk because he would perform heavier lifting than what Duncan seems to be able to do at this stage of his career. As for a whole season, I'd still take Dirk, but the Duncan argument could be made even easier. I'm just still curious as to why you seem not to label Dirk as a 'big-time performer' when he has clearly shown, over a massive sample size, that he is capable of putting up big numbers in important games, just because the ring isn't there for him. I never jumped to conclusions in thinking that because of the arguments you put up, that you were suggesting that Dirk wasn't a very good player or whatelse.