My list is as follows:
1. Kobe
2. Bron
3-6: Dirk, Duncan, Melo, Wade, any order you want
7: Chris Paul
8: Steve Nash
9: Roy
10-13: Durant, Dwight, D Will, Gasol, any order you want
After reading through this crap, I am ready to send Charlie Rosen packing.
Kobe Bryant: No contest? Ya, right. He hit some game winners. Big deal, Jamal Crawford hit 3 gamewinners in 21 days somewhere around 2006. He wasn't proclaimed best player. Just because he hit a shot to win a game does not mean he is the consensus best player in the league. Next.
LeBron James: I got nothing to say about being LeBron being second. He could have been first as well.
Dwyane Wade: Ouch, no way he is 3rd at this point. He is basically cruising. And the Heat are not really winning that much compared to last season when they had a weaker team.
Carmelo Anthony: No way he is 4th, maybe he would have been 3rd early on in the season, but he has taken a dip.
Paul Pierce: GTFO, this crap is ridiculous. He may not even be a top 20 player in the leaguee anymore. And KG, despite all his struggles, is still the best two way player on the Celtics.
Steve Nash: Nash deserves to be top 12, I believe. He is doing a good job but not a top 6 player in the league.
Pau Gasol: I don't hate Pau Gasol, but he is not the easily most skilled of all NBA big men. If that is the case, the 2009-2010 season doesn't need to be watched.
Tim Duncan: Boo Rosen for this crap. He can on Tim's declining athletic ability all he wants but he says Tim's skills have diminished? Clearly has not watched games this season. Even if you go by stats, Tim is registering a career high PER.
Dwight Howard: Deserves to be higher, despite his struggles. Still the best defensive anchor in the league today and defenses still respect him.
Kevin Durant is a borderline top 10, but his defense has improved by leaps and bounds from last season and he is still ting on his defense. At least he is a decent defender now.
Left out: Chris Paul, Dirk, Roy.
My list is as follows:
1. Kobe
2. Bron
3-6: Dirk, Duncan, Melo, Wade, any order you want
7: Chris Paul
8: Steve Nash
9: Roy
10-13: Durant, Dwight, D Will, Gasol, any order you want
The way we saw Nash perform in a traditional offense makes it pretty hard to call someone that one dimensional a top 10 player.
No paul, No Dirk? Paul pierce at #5? Really?! Really?!
But he doesn't play in one, so I'm not sure that's relevant. Nash is a bad defender, but he's never played with a Duncan or a Howard that could protect him. Magic was a defensive liability towards the end of his career, including the late eighties when they won their last two les with him. But he always had a strong defensive frontline behind him.
sons my biggest problem with this stupid ass list is no DOWNTOWN Devin Brown ... the disrespect he gets is disgusting.
I highly doubt Magic Johnson was ever half the defensive liability No-D-Steve is.
We'll never know because Nash has never had a dominant defensive big behind him. If he did, we'd hear a lot less about his lack of D.
That's bull . Nash running around ball hawking and leaving players wide open has nothing to do with who his big men are.
It also has a lot to do with who his coaches are. You think Popovich would let him do that? Put him on the Spurs in his prime and you'd hear very little about his defense.
I'm not sure how it isn't. If a player is so one dimensional that he can only succeed in a gimmicky run and gun offense that never accomplished in the playoffs, that's gotta factor into a who are the top 10 players debate.
I don't need a coach to tell me stay on my man when I play pickup basketball.
Im surprised #2 wasnt "any player who plays for Phil Jackson". As if Gasol would have sniffed any top 20 list he made two years ago.
Youre not going to convince anyone that Nash sucks, so why do you get so upset?
I hope Rosen wiped Kobe's off his hands before he typed this out.
kevin durant plays no Defense? does this guy even watch basketball
lol if you think I'm upset, and I didn't know saying someone isn't a top 10 player means he sucks.
It's Phil Jackson's , those two are BFF's (either way, Kobe s on people's faces, not their hands).
Rosen will take a Laker load wherever he can get it...face, hands, feet.
What's so funny?
Paul >>>>>> Pierce
Dirk >>> Howard
I'm guessing because, at 33 and far from his peak, Duncan is still a better player than Pau Gasol in almost every conceivable way.
The Suns have been one of the best teams in basketball and have remained relevant for most of his second tenure in the desert. And I don't know how you can say that they haven't done " " in the playoffs: they made the conference finals twice and essentially played for the le in 2007, since they would've beaten Utah and Cleveland. Nash is lucky to be in a system that has utilized his talents to the max. You have to go by what he has accomplished and not what his game would theoretically look like if he was in some walk it up offense for the Bucks or Pacers.
Pau Gasol isn't in the top 10, much less top 20.
Fair. For me:
1. Kobe
2. LeBron - I wouldn't argue if someone said LeBron #1 and Kobe #2 though
3. Melo - I actually agree with Rosen that he has the best overall offensive skill set (repertoire) in the league
4. Dirk
5. Wade - he's had some below average games this season, but I still think he's a top 5 talent in the league
6. Duncan - sorry, and yeah he's played great this season, but I still think the ones above are better
7. CP3 (interchangeable with Durant, imo)
8. Kevin Durant - last year I said he was a poor man's Rashard Lewis... i.e., I'm stupid
9. Dwight Howard - I know that he should be much better offensively, but he still produces and his team still wins with him as the franchise player, although his scoring has dropped quite a bit
10. Pau Gasol - I guess, but could go a lot of different ways with this last spot
Roy, Nash, and Pierce could easily go in that #10 spot. And, I'm probably a minority in this, but I think one could argue despite his numbers, KG still is right around the top 10 as well for what he brings to his team.
Couple of things with Magic. He never really had to defend quick point guards because the Lakers had guys like Cooper, Jamaal Wilkes, and Byron Scott who would switch over and take the point guards while Magic would end up defending 2-guards and small forwards most of the time. Moreover, the 80s were a period of NBA basketball where defense overall in the league wasn't really emphasized. This was before the Pistons, Bulls, Knicks, Spurs teams that changed the ideology on how to win in the league. Magic had the athleticism and sufficient quickness to have been a solid defender. I don't think it was really coached in his career, especially for him. Nash has played in an era where defensive liabilities are more noticeable, exploitable. The NBA had evolved from a team-oriented game into a one-on-one, exploit the mismatch league. And, lastly, it's key to point out that you talked about Magic being a defensively liability "towards the end of his career." Nash has been one pretty much his entire career.
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