NBA 2012-13 Season Thread - Crown The Heat!
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Foggy
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The 4th is Toronto's lottery pick the Thunder own lawl. It doesn't really matter who the 4th is, Durant alone is better than all four players you listed combined. Oh he is 24 so we have no idea where his ceiling is and he isn't to his prime yet. Same for Westbrook.
There is also Minny. They have a much more intriguing group of young players.
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Jesus. Calm down guys. All I said is those were 4 good young players. It's not something a lot of teams have and they seemed to be on track for a pretty decent rebuild and shit that down the drain trading for Gay. I doubt any of you would contend they're in a better position now. Thanks for naming two teams with better young talent, though. That completely disproves my point.
Statistically NBA players peak at 24. You can look at that figure and disagree if you'd like, but you'd be wrong.
Also, statistically, players continue their per minute numbers regardless of playtime. Again, you can think about that and disagree if you'd like but there has been a lot of research done on this. Davis will be just as productive in Memphis as he was in Toronto regardless of how much they play him.
Foggy
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Great article about the evolution of Durant's offensive game:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...ns-nba-history
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...ns-nba-history
Foggy
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Don't need elite defense if you can score at will and rebound. Save your energy for those things.
Then he wouldn't be as good on offense. Players aren't robots, they can't give maximum effort on both sides for the whole game without being affected.
Itlan
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Kobe isn't that great on offense. He's a great referee... or what I mean is, the referees love him and send him to line all god damn day. Kobe can't compete with Melo or Durant on the offensive end. Same with LeBron, he's just a great driver. They're both outstanding defenders, though, and probably more complete players than Melo or Durant.
Melo gets NO fucking calls. It's INSANE. Yet he's still insanely effective on the offensive end, and I could care less about his defense, although he has stepped it up recently.
Feel the same way with KD. He'll never be a shutdown defender, but his offense is just so far above everyone else.
Melo gets NO fucking calls. It's INSANE. Yet he's still insanely effective on the offensive end, and I could care less about his defense, although he has stepped it up recently.
Feel the same way with KD. He'll never be a shutdown defender, but his offense is just so far above everyone else.
Foggy
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You suggested he doesn't work on his defensive game and I think that is total bullshit. Durant works his ass off on everything.
I wouldn't put much stock in regular season defensive stats of Durant. He manned up on Kobe late in games against the Lakers in the last playoffs and shut him down.
I don't think he will ever have the ability to be a top notch defender. The same things that make him impossible to guard on offensive limit his potential on defense.
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LeBron and Durant have nearly identical shooting percentages. You're underselling the best player in the league. The fact that Durant takes more jumpers isn't a good thing.
KD is having a career year right now and there's no reason to say he won't continue at that level for a while, but it's the first time his numbers have come close to rivaling that of LeBron's and James been doing it for 6 years straight.
The "best overall player" vs "best offensive player" is media hype. LeBron is seriously just that good.
This isn't meant to downplay just how good Durant is though. And he's worked himself into a very, very above average defensive player. Again, the defensive deficiencies everyone focuses on come from some +/- stats from his first two years in the league. There really hasn't been anything to back that claim up since.
KD, like Dirk (and Aldrige), breaks the shooting mold. The long 2 is the worst shot for anyone in basketball except for a very select group of players - the one thing they all have in common is a nearly unguardable release point - LeBron is not one of these players.
In crunch time/playoffs, when the game gets slow and everything is half-court, someone who can shoot like KD is the greatest breaker. It's why he Heat ended up losing in the 2011 Finals - Dallas slowed the game down and stopped the Heat fast breaks, and used Chandler to keep LeBron and Wade out of the paint - LeBron had (has?) no post game then so they had to resort to jacking up 3s and long 2s. The Mavs really had no paint scorers anyways, but they had Dirk so they had the advantage in the half-court.
TLDR; when it comes down to it, KD will always have the trump card that LeBron doesn't have.
In crunch time/playoffs, when the game gets slow and everything is half-court, someone who can shoot like KD is the greatest breaker. It's why he Heat ended up losing in the 2011 Finals - Dallas slowed the game down and stopped the Heat fast breaks, and used Chandler to keep LeBron and Wade out of the paint - LeBron had (has?) no post game then so they had to resort to jacking up 3s and long 2s. The Mavs really had no paint scorers anyways, but they had Dirk so they had the advantage in the half-court.
TLDR; when it comes down to it, KD will always have the trump card that LeBron doesn't have.