Page 4 of 5 FirstFirst ... 2345 LastLast
Results 61 to 80 of 89
  1. #61
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    Rocky Mount, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by niveklaen View Post
    Shifting to a different all time great argument, I agree with Rodman that Bird was seriously over-rated. People talk about him being some amazing shooter, but his career 3pt% was 37.6% on less than 2 attempts a game from 3. In today's game he would be a liability because of his lack of shooting ability. While 'only' 136 players shot better from 3 last year than he did, a mind numbing 236 players averaged more 3s made than him last year - almost 8 players per team! (Those are per game numbers which grotesquely inflate his actual contribution given the amount of pt he got - his per 36 numbers put him at #348 - basically the 11th man on an average modern NBA team.) Further, he put up these tepid numbers against defenses that never bothered to rotate onto shooters or run anybody off the 3pt line. Today, he would be a disaster from a floor balance perspective. He would still be a good player, but he would basically be Ben Simmons.
    That is certainly an opinion.

  2. #62
    Quote Originally Posted by DukeFanSince1990 View Post
    That is certainly an opinion.
    I agree. Of all the opinions in the world that was certainly one.

  3. #63
    You guys are too kind. ...and no fun

  4. #64
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    I think folks would be surprised to go back to the early days of the NBA-3 and see how little it was utilized. Put 1985 Bird in the 2019 game and he's jacking up a lot more 3s. A lot more.

  5. #65
    Quote Originally Posted by jimsumner View Post
    I think folks would be surprised to go back to the early days of the NBA-3 and see how little it was utilized. Put 1985 Bird in the 2019 game and he's jacking up a lot more 3s. A lot more.
    And with that added emphasis, it would be foolish not to assume that Bird would've worked on it even more and been better. Bird was great for his time. If he were 40 years later, he'd be great now.

  6. #66
    Quote Originally Posted by jimsumner View Post
    I think folks would be surprised to go back to the early days of the NBA-3 and see how little it was utilized. Put 1985 Bird in the 2019 game and he's jacking up a lot more 3s. A lot more.
    I think this is true - the 3 was thought of as a gimmick back then - he would probably still shoot 37% but on 2 or 3 times the volume if he played today, which would be fine for a stretch 4 - he would be like Nikola Mirotic plus some passing.

  7. #67
    I would also argue that the game was more physical back then. Players would have shot more 3s, and at a higher percentage, if opponents weren't allowed to hand check.

  8. #68
    Personally I do not think Pete Maravich was that great of a player. His numbers impressed people back in his day because there were no analytics to speak of, and people only used counting stats and Maravich had a lot of those because he basically took every shot on his team.

    He had a great skill, but overall he wasn't a great player.

    He was not a particularly efficient in scoring, which is his only strength. Since stats were not kept the way they are today. we dont' really know his steals, his TOs etc, to truly do modern analytics on him. We does have two numbers though. One team, and one individual.

    His teams finished 14-12, 13-13, 22-10 in 3 seasons, never once made the tournament, ranked in the top 20 for one week in those years. So for a guy who supposed one of the great players of all time, he sure didn't affect the outcome of games much in his team's favor. Yes, you might argue he had bad teammates, but once again, we've seen truly great players carry a team of no-names to some success (such as Bird), Maravich was never able to do so.

    Let's look at his one individual stat that we have: True Shooting Percentage (TSP).
    His TSP over his 3 years: .481, .497, .502, career .484
    His shooting efficiency were simply not that great, and for all his reputation as a great shooter, his career FT% in college was a pedestrian 77.5% on a large sample size.

    Compare that to the other All Americans during his time:
    In 1970, here are the other First Team AA and their TSP for that season and their careers:

    Lanier(.590, 595)
    Murphy(.526, .504)
    Issel(.594, .561)
    Mount(.536, .536)

    Everyone of those 4 had far more effcient seasons and also far more efficient shooting careers, yet it was Maravich who swept all the POY awards that year.
    I didn't bother to look up the 2nd team AA but I'm willing to bet they had better TSP than Maravich.

    Maravich had a great skill, and had he played during the 3 point modern era that skill might have made him special player, but in the time he played, he was a statistical curiosity who rarely affected the outcome of games in his team's favor. Which would be my definition of a great player.

  9. #69
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by niveklaen View Post
    I think this is true - the 3 was thought of as a gimmick back then - he would probably still shoot 37% but on 2 or 3 times the volume if he played today, which would be fine for a stretch 4 - he would be like Nikola Mirotic plus some passing.
    So, Simmons plus Mirotic. That's some combo.

  10. #70
    Quote Originally Posted by jimsumner View Post
    So, Simmons plus Mirotic. That's some combo.
    yes, but arguably only the 4th best wing in the league - behind Lebron, KD, and K leonard...but hardly in the discussion for an all-time great.

  11. #71
    Quote Originally Posted by Ian View Post
    Personally I do not think Pete Maravich was that great of a player.
    I'd rather believe my eyes, and the comments of those who played against him:
    " Former San Diego/Houston Rockets guard Calvin Murphy:
    "Pistol was so head-and-shoulders above the rest of us," said Murphy, who starred in college for Niagara, where he averaged 33.1 points during his career. "I still do TV for the Rockets, and anytime they talk about today’s players and how good they are, I say 'You haven't seen the best.'

    "People really don’t understand how good Pistol was. Let’s be real here. We’re talking about a man kind of like (Michael) Jordan. You try to figure out all week how to stop him, and it doesn’t happen."People talk about Jordan and his six (NBA championship) rings. I talk about Pistol as an innovator, as a motivator, as a new breed of basketball player."

    Rick Barry: "I could run the floor and Pete would know how to get me the ball," Barry said. "He played on teams that didn’t complement him. He had to score on those teams, but he was actually a very unselfish player...you knew you would be seeing a guy do things that you’d never seen before,"

    And the Ice Man, George Gervin: "He gave me the inspiration. I learned a long time ago that you take something from greatness and add it to your game. Pete showed me how to score, how to put it in the hole. He was a special player and person."

    “Pistol Pete is a legend to all who understand the history of basketball.”–Jason Kidd

    “Pete was ‘The Man.’ I’d just sit there and shake my head and say to myself: ‘How’d he do that?’”–Magic Johnson

    “Oh my. He did things with the basketball that players - still today - can’t do. If Maravich was playing today, he’d be a god.” — Isiah Thomas

    “(Oscar) Robertson was the best guard I ever played against. Jerry West was the best I ever played with. And Pete is the best I’ve ever seen.”–Elgin Baylor

    “I’ve got a lot of Pistol Pete in my game.”–Steve Nash

    “Like a master chess player, Pete Maravich saw things that nobody else did.”–Bill Walton

    “He was the greatest ball handler I’ve ever seen in my life. He could do things with the basketball that were unbelievable.”–Rick Barry

    “A lot of guys break the laws of gravity. Pete breaks the laws of physics.”–Red Auerbach

    “I learned all my tricks from Pete Maravich.”–Kobe Bryant

    “The stuff that Pistol did with the ball was the breaking ground for what we can do today.”–Jason Kidd

    “You talk of Jerry West or Oscar Robertson or any of those great ones who scored and passed so well. Maravich is better. He’s a show.”–Lou Carnesecca

    I can find hundreds of former NBA players with quotes just like this...they would know.

  12. #72
    Quote Originally Posted by niveklaen View Post
    Shifting to a different all time great argument, I agree with Rodman that Bird was seriously over-rated. People talk about him being some amazing shooter, but his career 3pt% was 37.6% on less than 2 attempts a game from 3. In today's game he would be a liability because of his lack of shooting ability. While 'only' 136 players shot better from 3 last year than he did, a mind numbing 236 players averaged more 3s made than him last year - almost 8 players per team! (Those are per game numbers which grotesquely inflate his actual contribution given the amount of pt he got - his per 36 numbers put him at #348 - basically the 11th man on an average modern NBA team.) Further, he put up these tepid numbers against defenses that never bothered to rotate onto shooters or run anybody off the 3pt line. Today, he would be a disaster from a floor balance perspective. He would still be a good player, but he would basically be Ben Simmons.
    I don’t even know where to start with this. You obviously weren’t around to see Larry Bird play. You’re taking seriously the outright RACIST comments of a Detroit Pistons player after yet another crushing loss to Larry Bird and the Celtics? Seriously? Why don’t you look at comments from rational high-character (unlike Rodman and Isaiah Thomas) contemporaries like Magic Johnson who said that “Larry bird was so good it’s scary.” Or Kareem Abdul Jabbar who said, “Larry Bird may be the best player I have EVER played against.”

    And you say “lack of shooting ability” based on a 3-point percentage when defenders could get away with murder and he was playing his last 7 seasons with a back so damaged that he was in nearly-constant debilitating pain? Not to mention the fact that Bird did not grow up shooting 3-pointers because they didn’t EXIST. He was the supreme master of the 10-20” jumper because that’s what he grew up shooting.

    All things considered, 38% for a 6’10” forward — who made game-winning shot after game-winning shot (look at the highlights) and was the most feared shooter in the entire NBA with the game on the line — was actually quite great. And this is in addition to the general consensus that he is easily the best passing forward in basketball history, one of the all-time great FT shooters, an excellent rebounder, often in the top 10 to top 20 in the league in steals, ALWAYS made his teammates better and played with more confidence and moxie than just about anyone who has ever played the game of basketball and you think Larry Bird was overrated??? Oh my goodness. I would say a lot more but I would get banned from DBR.
    Last edited by Steven43; 12-30-2018 at 06:03 PM.

  13. #73
    Quote Originally Posted by niveklaen View Post
    yes, but arguably only the 4th best wing in the league - behind Lebron, KD, and K leonard...but hardly in the discussion for an all-time great.
    Nope. I think Bird was a better, more versatile overall player than all three of the guys you mentioned, even James. If he had grown up in James’s era I think he would have been better than James. He would have grown up shooting 3’s and would have been light-years better than James at shooting from three, and everywhere else. He was a much better passer than James and that would have carried over to today’s game as would his unmatched ability to see the floor and anticipate where everyone would be before they got there. He would have been as good or better at rebounding — no reason to think otherwise. He would have been as adept or better at getting steals. He would clearly have been a more clutch player than James. His confidence, his leadership ability and his coolness under pressure was unmatched and that would also have carried over to today.

    But truly you can only fairly compare players to those of their era. It just doesn’t make sense to compare players from different eras because the unknown factors are too great. Suffice to say that Larry Bird was by far the greatest forward of his era and is unquestionably one of the handful of greatest players in history and is on the basketball Mount Rushmore.
    Last edited by Steven43; 12-30-2018 at 06:24 PM.

  14. #74
    Quote Originally Posted by niveklaen View Post
    Shifting to a different all time great argument, I agree with Rodman that Bird was seriously over-rated. People talk about him being some amazing shooter, but his career 3pt% was 37.6% on less than 2 attempts a game from 3. In today's game he would be a liability because of his lack of shooting ability. While 'only' 136 players shot better from 3 last year than he did, a mind numbing 236 players averaged more 3s made than him last year - almost 8 players per team! (Those are per game numbers which grotesquely inflate his actual contribution given the amount of pt he got - his per 36 numbers put him at #348 - basically the 11th man on an average modern NBA team.) Further, he put up these tepid numbers against defenses that never bothered to rotate onto shooters or run anybody off the 3pt line. Today, he would be a disaster from a floor balance perspective. He would still be a good player, but he would basically be Ben Simmons.
    In his time- he was a great player. The 3 was not a huge part of offenses back then- but in several (6) years - he shot over 40% - once at 42.7%. I would say that is proof enough he was a pretty good shooter in his career and I suspect if he made that his game- he would have excelled. Bird was a career 88% free throw shooter and made a ton in the clutch. Ben Simmons can only dream to shoot like Larry Bird.

  15. #75
    Quote Originally Posted by Steven43 View Post
    He was the supreme master of the 10-20” jumper because that’s what he grew up shooting.
    I should probably head this off before it gets started. I meant to write “10-20 FOOT jumper”. But hell, he may well have been the master of the 10-20 inch jumper, too.

  16. #76
    Quote Originally Posted by Ian View Post
    Personally I do not think Pete Maravich was that great of a player. His numbers impressed people back in his day because there were no analytics to speak of, and people only used counting stats and Maravich had a lot of those because he basically took every shot on his team.

    He had a great skill, but overall he wasn't a great player.

    He was not a particularly efficient in scoring, which is his only strength. Since stats were not kept the way they are today. we dont' really know his steals, his TOs etc, to truly do modern analytics on him. We does have two numbers though. One team, and one individual.

    His teams finished 14-12, 13-13, 22-10 in 3 seasons, never once made the tournament, ranked in the top 20 for one week in those years. So for a guy who supposed one of the great players of all time, he sure didn't affect the outcome of games much in his team's favor. Yes, you might argue he had bad teammates, but once again, we've seen truly great players carry a team of no-names to some success (such as Bird), Maravich was never able to do so.

    Let's look at his one individual stat that we have: True Shooting Percentage (TSP).
    His TSP over his 3 years: .481, .497, .502, career .484
    His shooting efficiency were simply not that great, and for all his reputation as a great shooter, his career FT% in college was a pedestrian 77.5% on a large sample size.

    Compare that to the other All Americans during his time:
    In 1970, here are the other First Team AA and their TSP for that season and their careers:

    Lanier(.590, 595)
    Murphy(.526, .504)
    Issel(.594, .561)
    Mount(.536, .536)

    Everyone of those 4 had far more effcient seasons and also far more efficient shooting careers, yet it was Maravich who swept all the POY awards that year.
    I didn't bother to look up the 2nd team AA but I'm willing to bet they had better TSP than Maravich.

    Maravich had a great skill, and had he played during the 3 point modern era that skill might have made him special player, but in the time he played, he was a statistical curiosity who rarely affected the outcome of games in his team's favor. Which would be my definition of a great player.
    You’re welcome to your opinion but it is an outlier to say the least. A couple of points to consider though:

    - LSU was 3-21 the year before Maravich arrived so his team’s records were quite an improvement. I’m not sure what you mean by “rarely affected the outcome of games in his team's favor” but Pete averaged over 44 points and 5 assists per game and was undoubtably the best player on the team so, if not Pete, then who was responsible for LSU winning over 4times as many games his first 2 years and over 7 times as many games his senior year than they won the year before his arrival?
    - there were no at large bids to the NCAA tournament until 1975 and the NIT was not considered the “Not Invited Tournament” then as it
    is today. Al MaGuire famously turned down an ncaa tournament bid for Marquette in the 70’s in lieu of the NIT. Duke would have made only 1 NCAA tournament in the past 8-years or so under the Pre-1975 rules under which ACC teams had to win the ACC tournament to be invited. Duke’s first Championship never would have occurred under those rules as Rick Fox blistered the Devils in the ACC championship game (I was at the game in Charlotte and remember it well) that year.

  17. #77
    Bird averaged a very respectful 6.0 assists per 36 minutes. Lebron averages 6.7. Your claim that he was a much better passer is without foundation.

    ps - I grew up rooting for Bird against the Lakers. I watched him play in person several times and on tv more times than I can count, but thank you for the ad hominen attack.

  18. #78
    Quote Originally Posted by niveklaen View Post
    Bird averaged a very respectful 6.0 assists per 36 minutes. Lebron averages 6.7. Your claim that he was a much better passer is without foundation.

    ps - I grew up rooting for Bird against the Lakers. I watched him play in person several times and on tv more times than I can count, but thank you for the ad hominen attack.
    I don’t consider anything I said to be a personal attack whatsoever. It was about the message not the messenger. Beyond that, just watch the kinds of passes the two of them made and I think it will be clear that Bird was an absolute genius at passing and seeing the floor. And to see it being done by a 6’10” guy is just shocking. The term “Point Forward” will forever be synonymous with Larry Bird.
    Last edited by Steven43; 12-30-2018 at 06:51 PM.

  19. #79
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by HereBeforeCoachK View Post
    I'd rather believe my eyes, and the comments of those who played against him:
    " Former San Diego/Houston Rockets guard Calvin Murphy:
    "Pistol was so head-and-shoulders above the rest of us," said Murphy, who starred in college for Niagara, where he averaged 33.1 points during his career. "I still do TV for the Rockets, and anytime they talk about today’s players and how good they are, I say 'You haven't seen the best.'

    "People really don’t understand how good Pistol was. Let’s be real here. We’re talking about a man kind of like (Michael) Jordan. You try to figure out all week how to stop him, and it doesn’t happen."People talk about Jordan and his six (NBA championship) rings. I talk about Pistol as an innovator, as a motivator, as a new breed of basketball player."

    Rick Barry: "I could run the floor and Pete would know how to get me the ball," Barry said. "He played on teams that didn’t complement him. He had to score on those teams, but he was actually a very unselfish player...you knew you would be seeing a guy do things that you’d never seen before,"

    And the Ice Man, George Gervin: "He gave me the inspiration. I learned a long time ago that you take something from greatness and add it to your game. Pete showed me how to score, how to put it in the hole. He was a special player and person."

    “Pistol Pete is a legend to all who understand the history of basketball.”–Jason Kidd

    “Pete was ‘The Man.’ I’d just sit there and shake my head and say to myself: ‘How’d he do that?’”–Magic Johnson

    “Oh my. He did things with the basketball that players - still today - can’t do. If Maravich was playing today, he’d be a god.” — Isiah Thomas

    “(Oscar) Robertson was the best guard I ever played against. Jerry West was the best I ever played with. And Pete is the best I’ve ever seen.”–Elgin Baylor

    “I’ve got a lot of Pistol Pete in my game.”–Steve Nash

    “Like a master chess player, Pete Maravich saw things that nobody else did.”–Bill Walton

    “He was the greatest ball handler I’ve ever seen in my life. He could do things with the basketball that were unbelievable.”–Rick Barry

    “A lot of guys break the laws of gravity. Pete breaks the laws of physics.”–Red Auerbach

    “I learned all my tricks from Pete Maravich.”–Kobe Bryant

    “The stuff that Pistol did with the ball was the breaking ground for what we can do today.”–Jason Kidd

    “You talk of Jerry West or Oscar Robertson or any of those great ones who scored and passed so well. Maravich is better. He’s a show.”–Lou Carnesecca

    I can find hundreds of former NBA players with quotes just like this...they would know.
    Weren't we discussing Maravich as a college player? Did any of these guys play against Maravich in college?

    But it is interesting to see how many of these quotes address Pistol Pete as an entertainer. "I learned all my tricks" from a guy who was in diapers when Maravich played his last game. "The stuff that he did with the ball," "he's a show," "the things he did with the basketball." et. al. and etc. Rick Barry says Maravich knew how to get him the ball. Barry and Maravich never played a real game together other than an all-star game.

    As I've said ad nauseam, I think Maravich was one of the most skilled and most entertaining basketball players who ever lived. But the greatest players elevate their teams to championships and Maravich never came close to that standard.

    And that's my standard.

    And a hill I'm willing to die on.


    Figuratively.

  20. #80
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Deeetroit City
    How about this, if recruiting news shows up, we agree to start a new thread. That way, those of us who have heard these arguments hundreds of times (not counting the multiple iterations espoused here) can just ignore this thread without the risk of missing recruiting news.

Similar Threads

  1. 2021 Men's Basketball Recruiting Thread
    By DavidBenAkiva in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 2970
    Last Post: 10-03-2021, 07:08 PM
  2. ESPN's College Basketball Player Ranks
    By kAzE in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 20
    Last Post: 11-07-2014, 09:14 PM
  3. Replies: 160
    Last Post: 03-20-2013, 05:58 PM
  4. 2012 Basketball Recruiting Thread
    By Osiagledknarf in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 3572
    Last Post: 03-13-2012, 08:25 PM
  5. Greatest College Basketball Player
    By gw67 in forum Elizabeth King Forum
    Replies: 152
    Last Post: 03-08-2008, 11:20 AM

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •