My greatest power forwards of all-time list.

[dirk4mvp]

lol scarred for life

[FkLA]

lol homers cant answer any of my questions

1.is dirk the undisputed 2nd best PF of all-time?
2.was his supporting cast complete ?
3.were any of the teams they beat on the level of jordan's bulls?

[Jodelo]

1. Yes
2. They played well but JJB, Stevenson, Cardinal and Mahinmi are scrubs
3. No

Still, everyone expected them to lose every series, and they won against teams with multiple all-stars (expect Portland), so yeah they had a tough road.

[LkrFan]

I didn't read this whole thread, but I got some trivia for y'all...

Name the only player in NBA history that had 8 all stars on his team and failed to win a gold medal for our country.

[Ice009]

I didn't read this whole thread, but I got some trivia for y'all...

Name the only player in NBA history that had 8 all stars on his team and failed to win a gold medal for our country.

How about you name all the pussies that pulled out of the team because they were scared to go. KG was one of them and Kobe was probably too scared to even put in his name, let alone go.

[LkrFan]

How about you name all the pussies that pulled out of the team because they were scared to go. KG was one of them and Kobe was probably too scared to even put in his name, let alone go.

Scared of playing. Are you serious? TD had 8 all stars on his team. 8!! How much more help does a guy need?

By comparison, Kobe had one all star on his team and won back-to-back NBA championships (without Shaq BTW ). Yet he played with some of the same all stars TD had and won gold.

[Ice009]

Scared of playing. Are you serious? TD had 8 all stars on his team. 8!! How much more help does a guy need?

By comparison, Kobe had one all star on his team and won back-to-back NBA championships (without Shaq BTW ). Yet he played with some of the same all stars TD had and won gold.

Yeah Richard Jefferson, Stephon Marbury, Allen Iverson in the starting lineup. Those are some real winners TD played with.

I seem to recall Team USA always outplaying the other team when TD was on the court, unfortunately they got stomped when TD was on the bench, and he was on the bench way too much with foul trouble. Don't know what he did to piss off the refs over there.

A lot of players skipped out on the team because they were worried about their safety and security in Athens. The same players that played the year before pulled out of the Olympics, so yes they were scared. A few came up with BS excuses, but make no mistake they were scared.

[LkrFan]

Yeah Richard Jefferson, Stephon Marbury, Allen Iverson in the starting lineup. Those are some real winners TD played with.

I seem to recall Team USA always outplaying the other team when TD was on the court, unfortunately they got stomped when TD was on the bench, and he was on the bench way too much with foul trouble. Don't know what he did to piss off the refs over there.

A lot of players skipped out on the team because they were worried about their safety and security in Athens. The same players that played the year before pulled out of the Olympics, so yes they were scared. A few came up with BS excuses, but make no mistake they were scared.

That year TD was not a tired old bag (yet). He should have played the whole game. But then again, FIBA refs aren't paid to cater to him: hence the "foul trouble"

Riddle me this: how many gold medals does LO have, how many minutes did he log, and what position did he play when he won a gold medal for our country? I seem to recall him logging a ton of minutes for team USA. Are you saying LO > TD? Better yet: would Pop trade TD for LO right now? I bet he would if the salaries matched!

[Axe Murderer]

lol homers cant answer any of my questions

1.is dirk the undisputed 2nd best PF of all-time?
2.was his supporting cast complete ?
3.were any of the teams they beat on the level of jordan's bulls?

scarred for life over a basketball team

[Ice009]

That year TD was not a tired old bag (yet). He should have played the whole game. But then again, FIBA refs aren't paid to cater to him: hence the "foul trouble"

Riddle me this: how many gold medals does LO have, how many minutes did he log, and what position did he play when he won a gold medal for our country? I seem to recall him logging a ton of minutes for team USA. Are you saying LO > TD? Better yet: would Pop trade TD for LO right now? I bet he would if the salaries matched!

I wouldn't trade Tim Duncan for Kobe Bryant. Certainly not then and not now either. Thanks.

[FkLA]

1. Yes

2. They played well but JJB, Stevenson, Cardinal and Mahinmi are scrubs

JJ didnt play like a scrub, stop looking at names and start looking at performance. Stevenson played well as well...but I love how you bring up less important end of the bench guys to make your point, what a homer

Is Chandler a scrub?Kidd?Terry?Marion? Was that entire $90 mill payroll full of scrubs other than Dirk?

3. No

Still, everyone expected them to lose every series, and they won against teams with multiple all-stars (expect Portland), so yeah they had a tough road.

No championship road is easy homer, obviously there will be good teams. I never said the Mavs played scrub teams, I said they didnt play any legendary/dominant teams that will be remembered years from now like Jordan's Bulls that Malone & Barkley faltered against. The Cheat might be that someday, but theyre not ready yet.

Also who expected them to lose every series? Yall s exaggerate so much to prop up Dirk lol, I hate the Mavs and even I expected them to get past both Portland and OKC. And again the unlikeliness of the Mavs championship has no correlation to how good Portland, LA, OKC, and the Cheat were.

[nevitt_&_smrek]

JJ didnt play like a scrub, stop looking at names and start looking at performance. Stevenson played well as well...but I love how you bring up less important end of the bench guys to make your point, what a homer

Is Chandler a scrub?Kidd?Terry?Marion? Was that entire $90 mill payroll full of scrubs other than Dirk?



No championship road is easy homer, obviously there will be good teams. I never said the Mavs played scrub teams, I said they didnt play any legendary/dominant teams that will be remembered years from now like Jordan's Bulls that Malone & Barkley faltered against. The Cheat might be that someday, but theyre not ready yet.

Also who expected them to lose every series? Yall s exaggerate so much to prop up Dirk lol, I hate the Mavs and even I expected them to get past both Portland and OKC. And again the unlikeliness of the Mavs championship has no correlation to how good Portland, LA, OKC, and the Cheat were.

Their fans won't like this, but the Mavs essentially picked a year where neither the Spurs or Lakers were at their best. The Mavs took advantage, went through the open door.

In addition, they played a Heat team that had the weight of expectations on its shoulders.

As for the Mavs-Heat: Mavs should have won in 2006, but blew it. Heat blew it in 2011, gave away gm 2 & probably gm 4. It all evened out.

[LkrFan]

I wouldn't trade Tim Duncan for Kobe Bryant. Certainly not then and not now either. Thanks.

Who's raising the bar that high? I was talking about Lamar Odom. His 14.4 ppg as a bench player beasts TD's 13.8 ppg as an "all star" and his 8.7 rpg virtually matches TD's 8.9 rpg.

Now that , ya dig?

[stretch]

I said they didnt play any legendary/dominant teams that will be remembered years from now like Jordan's Bulls that Malone & Barkley faltered against.

id say that the Lakers were pretty dominant. they were reigning back-to-back champions, and were supposedly an improved team from previous years with the much improved play of Odom, and needed additions to the bench of Steve Blake and Matt Barnes, while suffering no significant losses or injuries (unless losing Vujacic or Farmar is considered significant ).

there is only a small handful of back-to-back champions in NBA history (thus giving them a very arguable legendary status), and most people expected them to beat the piss out of the Mavs and probably complete the 3-peat, especially after what happened the last time the Mavs and Lakers played with the Mavs getting "punked"

dont forget the Mavs losing their 2nd best player on the team for the rest of the season in Butler, and still being able to win it all.




and fwiw, legendary status isnt given to you. you make your own legendary status. MJ did it by beating guys like Barkley and Malone. Had Barkley and Malone beaten him, him and the Bulls wouldnt nearly be as legendary as they were. and they certainly werent unbeatable, as there were several years where the Pistons owned the out of the Bulls just prior to their run, despite having the same general core of teammates, and several times they were pushed to 7 games by teams like the Pacers and Knicks, and still given very hard-fought series against teams like the Jazz, in which almost every single game they played in the two times they faced off were within 5 points. I think there was only 3 games out of the 12 they played that were more than a 5 point margin (the Bulls won 2 and the Jazz won 1). The Suns gave them a hard fought series as well. So those guys certainly had good enough teams and had their chances. They simply didn't make the best of their chances, while guys like MJ (or in the case of our discussion, Dirk) did.

[stretch]

Their fans won't like this, but the Mavs essentially picked a year where neither the Spurs or Lakers were at their best. The Mavs took advantage, went through the open door.

tbqh, the Spurs havent been particularly good for 4-5 years now, and wont be getting back there anytime soon, unless they pull off some Gasol-esque trade.

[DMC]

tbqh, the Spurs havent been particularly good for 4-5 years now, and wont be getting back there anytime soon, unless they pull off some Gasol-esque trade.

Haven't been good?

Yeah, they've missed the playoffs damn near every year since 2007 (4 years ago).

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

For the most part, Tim Duncan didn't play any legendary teams (outside of the Kobe and Shaq Lakers, that just like the 2011 Lakers, were imploding at the time of the series and having severe chemistry issues) en route to his 4 championships, but no way in does that make his victories against non-legendary teams less impressive than Malone's defeats against legendary teams.

As stretch said in the post above mine, Dirk made the most out of the chance he had. Malone had plenty of chances to win a championship without going through Jordan, and in other situations choked against a team he had to beat to even face Jordan's Bulls.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/...606020SEA.html
Getting worked by Shawn Kemp in game 7 of the WCF has nothing to do with Jordan.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/...905270POR.html
Shooting in 18% () in a must win game 6 against an inferior Portland team has nothing to do with Jordan


Karl Malone found ways to lose big playoff games regardless of who his opponent was. If it was simply Michael Jordan's Bulls in his way, he would have had a lot more than two trips to the finals in his 15+ year career with the Jazz.

Same can be said for Barkley. He did stupid things and found ways to lose games. Against the Rockets in 1995 when the Suns were up 3-1, he started drinking and playing 36 holes of golf the day before games. Against the Bulls in 1993, he made the re ed decision to leave his man and force Ainge to help off John Paxson. That's a re ed decision he coulda made at the worst time against any team. It's not like Michael Jordan was able to hypnotize him and make him do something dumb.

[FkLA]

id say that the Lakers were pretty dominant. they were reigning back-to-back champions, and were supposedly an improved team from previous years with the much improved play of Odom, and needed additions to the bench of Steve Blake and Matt Barnes, while suffering no significant losses or injuries (unless losing Vujacic or Farmar is considered significant ).

there is only a small handful of back-to-back champions in NBA history (thus giving them a very arguable legendary status), and most people expected them to beat the piss out of the Mavs and probably complete the 3-peat, especially after what happened the last time the Mavs and Lakers played with the Mavs getting "punked"

These Lakers were never that dominant to begin with. Im pretty sure most people would agree that even just in the past 15 yrs aside from Jordan's Bulls...Duncan's Spurs, Shaq&Kobe's Lakers, and even the Pistons and Celtics that won les were superior. They won back to back les because during this era only Boston really stepped up as a legit team, and they had significant injuries both years LA won it all. They mightve beat Boston despite the injuries, but the point is prior to the Mavs stepping up this year and the Cheat forming the Big 3 the NBA was basically a 2 team league and in 09' and 10' one of those teams got hit hard by the injury bug.

For the most part, Tim Duncan didn't play any legendary teams (outside of the Kobe and Shaq Lakers, that just like the 2011 Lakers, were imploding at the time of the series and having severe chemistry issues) en route to his 4 championships, but no way in does that make his victories against non-legendary teams less impressive than Malone's defeats against legendary teams.

As stretch said in the post above mine, Dirk made the most out of the chance he had. Malone had plenty of chances to win a championship without going through Jordan, and in other situations choked against a team he had to beat to even face Jordan's Bulls.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/...606020SEA.html
Getting worked by Shawn Kemp in game 7 of the WCF has nothing to do with Jordan.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/...905270POR.html
Shooting in 18% () in a must win game 6 against an inferior Portland team has nothing to do with Jordan


Karl Malone found ways to lose big playoff games regardless of who his opponent was. If it was simply Michael Jordan's Bulls in his way, he would have had a lot more than two trips to the finals in his 15+ year career with the Jazz.

Same can be said for Barkley. He did stupid things and found ways to lose games. Against the Rockets in 1995 when the Suns were up 3-1, he started drinking and playing 36 holes of golf the day before games. Against the Bulls in 1993, he made the re ed decision to leave his man and force Ainge to help off John Paxson. That's a re ed decision he coulda made at the worst time against any team. It's not like Michael Jordan was able to hypnotize him and make him do something dumb.

The chemisty issues are were the comparison ends . In 03' Kobe was still in his prime and Shaq was damn close to it, also Fish aside from being a
clutch mofo was also still a very respectable starting-caliber PG. Comparing the aging and declining 11' Lakers to that team is ridiculous. There were certainly chemisty issues and complacency during the season, but talent wise they still were still stacked and picked their game up in the post-season...the 11'Lakers werent capable of simply turning the switch on because Kobe is clearly past his prime and Fish is now a dead corpse out on the court.

And Im aware that Malone had his fair amount of chokejobs (as did Dirk), but he still had 2 Finals appearances which happened to be against MJ's Bulls. A team Dirk wouldve likely faltered against as well. The Cheat had their 3 all-stars but they were nowhere near as polished and savvy as the 90s Bulls. You cant just simply look at ring count and say Dirk rang and Malone didnt so Dirk>Malone...you have analyze their games and the eras they played in as well.

[FkLA]

Notice how basically everyone (other than homer Mavfan) whether it be Spurs, Cavs, Pistons, Lakers, or Boston fan is saying the exact same . How Dirk is certainly a Top 5 PF of all-time probably in the 4-5th rang and how his supporting cast (especially defensively) is really being underrated.

All of those fans cant be butthurt and jealous of the Mavs & Dirk can they? Maybe theyre just being unbiased, which is something Mavfan is incapable of doing when talking about anything Mav or Dirk related.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Yeah, the 03 Lakers were better than the 11 Lakers, and Tim Duncan's 2003 season was more impressive than Dirk's 2011 season, and that's one of the many reasons Duncan is considered better than Dirk. The point is that Dirk in 2011, like Duncan in 2003, took advantage of the opportunity a weak playoff field gave him. Malone had that same opportunity in 1999 and shot 18% in a game 7 against an inferior team. Last year, Dirk did everything he could to take advantage of what very well might be his last shot at a championship, something Malone never did.

As far as bad playoff games go, Dirk has his share of bad playoff games at the wrong time, but there isn't the kind of statistical drop off between his regular season numbers and post season numbers like there is with Malone. At some point, something clicked in Dirk that made him better and more hungry in the playoffs. Nothing ever clicked with Malone. He never stopped looking scared.

[rascal]

Elvin Hayes was the greatest power forward of all time.

Finally someone who remembers to not forget the old time greats.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

Notice how basically everyone (other than homer Mavfan) whether it be Spurs, Cavs, Pistons, Lakers, or Boston fan is saying the exact same . How Dirk is certainly a Top 5 PF of all-time probably in the 4-5th rang and how his supporting cast (especially defensively) is really being underrated.

All of those fans cant be butthurt and jealous of the Mavs & Dirk can they? Maybe theyre just being unbiased, which is something Mavfan is incapable of doing when talking about anything Mav or Dirk related.

For the record I basically have Dirk as a top 3 PF by default. I think both Barkley and Malone are wildly overrated stat s.

[Deuce Bigalow]

These Lakers were never that dominant to begin with. Im pretty sure most people would agree that even just in the past 15 yrs aside from Jordan's Bulls...Duncan's Spurs, Shaq&Kobe's Lakers, and even the Pistons and Celtics that won les were superior. They won back to back les because during this era only Boston really stepped up as a legit team, and they had significant injuries both years LA won it all. They mightve beat Boston despite the injuries, but the point is prior to the Mavs stepping up this year and the Cheat forming the Big 3 the NBA was basically a 2 team league and in 09' and 10' one of those teams got hit hard by the injury bug.




The chemisty issues are were the comparison ends . In 03' Kobe was still in his prime and Shaq was damn close to it, also Fish aside from being a
clutch mofo was also still a very respectable starting-caliber PG. Comparing the aging and declining 11' Lakers to that team is ridiculous. There were certainly chemisty issues and complacency during the season, but talent wise they still were still stacked and picked their game up in the post-season...the 11'Lakers werent capable of simply turning the switch on because Kobe is clearly past his prime and Fish is now a dead corpse out on the court.

And Im aware that Malone had his fair amount of chokejobs (as did Dirk), but he still had 2 Finals appearances which happened to be against MJ's Bulls. A team Dirk wouldve likely faltered against as well. The Cheat had their 3 all-stars but they were nowhere near as polished and savvy as the 90s Bulls. You cant just simply look at ring count and say Dirk rang and Malone didnt so Dirk>Malone...you have analyze their games and the eras they played in as well.

The lakers never even got the best record in the league in 2008-2010
in 2010, the 8th seed in the West won 50 games

[stretch]

You cant just simply look at ring count and say Dirk rang and Malone didnt so Dirk>Malone...you have analyze their games and the eras they played in as well.

we do

and dirk is still better

malone made a career off of john stockton getting him wide open shots over and over and over.

dirk made a career off getting his teammates wide open shots over and over and over, and getting any shot he wanted to get for himself in the process

[FkLA]

For the record I basically have Dirk as a top 3 PF by default. I think both Barkley and Malone are wildly overrated stat s.

Malone stat-padded some especially towards the end of his career, sure. But how was Barkley a stat , is it because he put up those number and didnt win anything? So does that mean that prior to this past season Dirk was a stat as well??

we do

and dirk is still better

malone made a career off of john stockton getting him wide open shots over and over and over.

dirk made a career off getting his teammates wide open shots over and over and over, and getting any shot he wanted to get for himself in the process

First of all your statement about Malone making a career out of Stockton is re ed. Stockton helped but I didnt see any other Jazz players making all-nba teams and winning MVPs because they had Stockton setting up shots for them. The Mailman could play.

Secondly, is the game of basketball played on one side of the ball? Why conveniently not consider other aspects of the game, is it because Dirk is average at best in those other aspects?