NBA Playoffs 2022

[CDu]

I also think Paul has been pretty clearly a better player, although I'm not sure he would have been able to do what AI did for that 01 Sixers team. Seemed like just a perfect fit for Iverson's skill set, and I always think people underestimate the importance of fit when talking about how good a player is.

I agree. That was a well-coached (Larry Brown), elite defensive team that needed a scorer. Iverson could certainly score. So in the heavily watered-down East, they could thrive. Paul was a good scorer, but probably not what that team needed.

Also, I guess I'm in a bit of a minority but I don't like PER. Not sure what people trust the most these days, although 538's one seems pretty reasonable to me.

I'm not a huge fan of PER either. But I think pretty much all the metrics agree on Paul over Iverson. PER is just one of the readily-available ones.

[camion]

He was the better puncher too. And as we all know, a puncher always has a chance.

That's just nuts.

[weezie]

... Jerry Stackhouse carried the label as Worst Shooter in NBA History...this former Carolina wing has been bestowed that title.

Surely that deserves a banner in the rafters over there?

[WillJ]

Perhaps a non-sequitur, but Patrick Beverley is an awesome complement to JJ in the ESPN studio.

[robed deity]

Surely that deserves a banner in the rafters over there?

Jerry Brickhouse can be right next to the Helms Bakery Trophy banner.

[bundabergdevil]

Dirk? He does look impressive in the crowd and we will get to see him in that role at least twice more this season.

As an aside, maybe someday soon Canadian born R.J. Barrett will be on that list of great international NBA players.

I included Dirk because he broke the international superstar glass ceiling in the NBA. I know the big German is retired.

[Billy Dat]

Perhaps a non-sequitur, but Patrick Beverley is an awesome complement to JJ in the ESPN studio.

My goodness, he KILLED people today...Chris Paul, Grayson, the list was long

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526222591270191107

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526209247373152258

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526206133689532416

[bundabergdevil]

My goodness, he KILLED people today...Chris Paul, Grayson, the list was long

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526222591270191107

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526209247373152258

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526206133689532416

Wow. That’s some unfiltered disrespect there. Hah!

[jimsumner]

I included Dirk because he broke the international superstar glass ceiling in the NBA. I know the big German is retired.

I know. But if you read the rest of your post it appeared we were talking about current players.

As an aside, many Europeans regard Drazen Petrovic as the breakout guy who proved emphatically that the best European players could dominate at the NBA level.

Dead at 28. What might have been.

Of course, we could say the same thing about Arvydas Sabonis. Before his knees started going bad he was a force of nature. The NBA never saw him at his peak.

And of course, we're talking about Euros. Hakeem Olajuwon preceded Nowitzki and he certainly was a superstar, albeit one who played college ball in the U.S.

[HayYou]

He single-handedly took the 76ers to the 2001 NBA Finals.

The Philly starting line-up was an aging Mutombo, Aaron McKie, Tyrone Hill, Eric Snow, and Allen Iverson.

That's amazing. Iverson took a bunch of role players to the finals.

Paul is likely better than Iverson, but Iverson is a legend in his own right.

Paul put up empty numbers on bad teams that did NOTHING in New Orleans. He forced his way on to teams where he was frequently the 2nd or 3rd best player on teams where all 5 starters were better than any of Iverson's teammates on that finals team.

Of course Paul is efficient. On good teams he's the 2nd, and most recently, the 3rd offensive option from the POV of the opposing team.

Teams sent 2 dudes to stop AI, with the other 3 starters playing off their guy to help on AI.

Put AI on some of the teams that Paul has been on, and you'd have a bunch of titles. Whereas AI has been not great in some big moments late in his teams' playoff runs, I think AI closes those games out.

[moonpie23]

My goodness, he KILLED people today...Chris Paul, Grayson, the list was long

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526222591270191107

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526209247373152258

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526206133689532416

absolutely love PB on this.....

[HayYou]

The following is an excerpt from an article by basketball writer Fox Doucette:

Of every player with at least 30,000 minutes played in the 3-point era, all 117 of them, only Jerry Stackhouse (.446) has a lower career eFG% than Iverson’s .452. He had an absolute triumph of inefficiency in the 2001 Eastern Conference Finals. Against Milwaukee in Game 1 he scored 34 points on 13-of-35 shooting. In Game 2 he had 16 points on 5-of-26. Game 3 he missed. I’m Game 4 he scored 28 points on 10-of-32. He had 15 points on 5-of-27 in Game 5.

And for the icing on the cake, he scored 46 points in Game 6 and 44 in Game 7…on 14-of-33 and 17-of-33 respectively, meaning he had only two games where he scored more points than he had field goal attempts, and even then he took 66 shots to get his 90 points.

Yes, Iverson led the league in steals three times, but for his career, he was a slightly below-average defender, with a -0.2 DBPM. And he was turnover-prone, leading the league in giveaways twice. And what’s more, unlike the pass-first point guards who have lots of turnovers in part because turnovers are a function in many ways of assists (if you throw lots of passes, some of them will go astray), Iverson had less than a 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio, giving him a point guard’s penchant for turnovers with a shooting guard’s lack of assists.

Iverson shot 3,383 3-pointers in his career, hitting just 31.3 percent of them. Of all players in NBA history with at least 3,000 3-point attempts, only Russell Westbrook (30.5 percent) and Jerry Stackhouse (30.9) shot the ball worse from beyond the arc, again reinforcing the point that Allen Iverson is one of the worst shooters in the modern history of the NBA—he is saved from the ignoble honor of “worst shooter ever” only because of just how hideous Stackhouse was shooting the ball.

Pat Beverley just said that the NBA players have a nickname for Paul: Cone

As in that thing that doesn't move when you dribble around it.

[HayYou]

Not really. Do you remember that AI got jail time in HS for beating up some adults at a bowling alley?

AI got into a fight, off court. Not great.

Paul waited after a confrontation, snuck up behind a guy, and reached around him, again, FROM BEHIND, and hit an adult man in the testicles.

[HayYou]

Yep, those were the numbers I cited in my previous post (somehow I mangled the quote ranges in the second post, which cut the Dutchman's quote in half and attributed part to me).

Paul was by far the better player. Iverson was flashier and more explosive, but he was a pretty inefficient player. Paul was a better defender, better rebounder, better passer, better shooter, and better decision-maker.

Iverson took advantage of having an elite defense around him and of playing in a terrible conference in the late-90s/early-00s. But those Philly teams wouldn't have made it out of the second round in the West.

But are those efficiency numbers telling? Paul has, for the last 2/3 of his career played on far more talented teams. Teams where Paul was not the focal point of the O, nor the main focus of the opposing team's Defense.

Vs Philly, 2-3 guys were tasked with stopping Paul. Is it possible that AI was less efficient because opposing teams devoted more resources to stop him? The defense was geared around stopping AI. Paul has never really faced that level of scrutiny by opposing teams, at least not once Paul was on playoff capable teams.

[Steven43]

Pat Beverley just said that the NBA players have a nickname for Paul: Cone

As in that thing that doesn't move when you dribble around it.

That’s fine with me; I’m not a huge Chris Paul defender.

As far as Beverley goes, his team choked away several games against Memphis that they should have won. He was a big part of that fiasco. Here is an excerpt from an article about Minnesota’s epic collapse in Game 3 after leading by 26 points with 15 minutes to go only to end up losing by nine, 104-95:

When looking at the box score, Patrick Beverley somehow took the most shots for the team in the fourth quarter. He missed all five attempts, including a trio of 3-pointers. His drive attempt that wound up getting viciously erased by Jaren Jackson Jr. with the Timberwolves down five with just over two minutes left was the perfect summation of this collapse. In no world should Patrick Beverley be taking that shot, and in no world should he be the Timberwolves’ leader in shot attempts in a fourth quarter with the game on the line.

[tommy]

AI got into a fight, off court. Not great.

Yeah, I'd say that bashing a woman over the head with a chair qualifies as "not great."

[CrazyNotCrazie]

My goodness, he KILLED people today...Chris Paul, Grayson, the list was long

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526222591270191107

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526209247373152258

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526206133689532416

I caught the opening bit on Get Up this morning from about 8-8:10 before taking the kids to school - at that point it was just PatBev, JJ and Greenberg. JJ was great - opinionated, fact-based, made his points without drifting into total hyberbole like Stephen A.

PatBev then started going off. I think JJ said that Phoenix had several good players and Pat said they only had one player anyone cared about and that was Booker. He also talked repeatedly about guys who will "deserve the slander" they will get today (I don't recall the exact term except the word "slander") and Paul is top of the list. JJ said that he agrees with Pat but also wanted to note that Pat has a history with Paul.

It was a real dropping of the gloves for an active player. And unlike Stephen A and others, he is in the locker room so knows what he is talking about, and he is doing it in a more meaningful way, not just to show off how opinionated he can be.

[sagegrouse]

Yeah, I'd say that bashing a woman over the head with a chair qualifies as "not great."

The one write-up I saw didn't report the situation as I remember it. Allen was 17 and with a friend or two at a bowling alley and making a lot of noise. A couple of adult men objected to their behavior and got beaten up for their troubles. I don't remember the chair -- but Iverson was thrown in jail without bail and sentenced to five years in prison. Virginia Governor Doug Wilder (a really good guy) let him out after 4-5 months with a clemency decree.

[flyingdutchdevil]

My goodness, he KILLED people today...Chris Paul, Grayson, the list was long

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526222591270191107

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526209247373152258

https://twitter.com/i/status/1526206133689532416

In fairness, Grayson Allen was atrocious offensively - and not good defensively - in the Celtics series. As good as he was against the Bulls, he couldn't produce anything against the Celtics.

Now, Beverly clearly has as vendetta against Paul. That was vicious...

[budwom]

I caught the opening bit on Get Up this morning from about 8-8:10 before taking the kids to school - at that point it was just PatBev, JJ and Greenberg. JJ was great - opinionated, fact-based, made his points without drifting into total hyberbole like Stephen A.

PatBev then started going off. I think JJ said that Phoenix had several good players and Pat said they only had one player anyone cared about and that was Booker. He also talked repeatedly about guys who will "deserve the slander" they will get today (I don't recall the exact term except the word "slander") and Paul is top of the list. JJ said that he agrees with Pat but also wanted to note that Pat has a history with Paul.

It was a real dropping of the gloves for an active player. And unlike Stephen A and others, he is in the locker room so knows what he is talking about, and he is doing it in a more meaningful way, not just to show off how opinionated he can be.

note to PatBev: if people "deserve the slander" it probably isn't, by definition, slander...back to your normal programming, Pat.