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Could Dirk Nowitzki be one of the best basketball players ever?

by Bestballer on June 13, 2011

in Basketball

Nowitzki named 2011 NBA playoff MVP

Nowitzki named 2011 NBA playoff MVP

Last night, as the Dallas Mavericks crept closer and closer to an NBA title that was supposed to go to the Miami Heat and the supposed Best Player in the World, Lebron James, one of the commentators on the ESPN broadcast team said something to the effect of, “If Nowitzki can win this title, he will have to be considered one of the top twenty players of all-time.”

All-time?

Yep all-time.

Wow – that’s saying a lot. That’s going out on a limb.

The “best player ever” debate can be mighty heated in any sport but if you start doing some research you might find that basketball fans are the most passionate and the most divided on this subject. There is a surprising amount of variance in terms of which player specifically fits where. This is understandable mostly because we are dealing with different eras and many people may never have seen some of the best play. But I think it is also just a function of too much talent and too much opinion.

Thankfully, my objective is not specific but general: Does Nowitzki fit into the best 20 of all-time?

To get a perspective on this “general” question, I consulted two of the seemingly most reliable “best player ever” lists. One was the NBA 50th Anniversary All-Time Team and the other was the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Index.

The NBA list was generated way back in 1996 when the league was celebrating it’s 50th anniversary and was based on a vote by a panel of media members, former players, coaches and current and former general managers. The Hall of Fame list simply contains all of the players who have been voted into the Hall.

For now let’s just take a look at the Hall of Fame list and just focus on the players who would be most recognizable to the modern-day fan: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar / Nathaniel “Nate”Archibald / Charles Barkley / Elgin Baylor / Larry J. Bird / William W. “Bill” Bradley / Wilton N. “Wilt” Chamberlain / Robert J. “Bob” Cousy / Adrian Dantley / Clyde Drexler / Joe Dumars / Alexander “Alex” English / Julius W. Erving / Patrick Ewing / George Gervin / John J. Havlicek / Earvin “Magic” Johnson / Michael Jordan / Robert J. “Bob” Lanier / Karl Malone / Peter P. “Pete” Maravich / Robert A. McAdoo / Kevin E. McHale / Moses E. Malone / Hakeem Olajuwon / Robert L. Parish / Drazen Petrovic / Scottie Pippen / Oscar P. Robertson / David Robinson / William F. “Bill” Russell / John Stockton / Isiah L. Thomas / David O. Thompson / William T. “Bill” Walton / Jerry A. West / Leonard R. “Lenny” Wilkens / Jacques Dominique Wilkins / John R. Wooden / James A. Worthy.

I count 40 players in my recognizable and arbitrary list of modern-day players. Not 20. 40. Those are 40 modern-day players who have already been recognized as the best ever by being inducted into the Hall.

I wonder where Nowitzki would rank among them? Now that he has his NBA title and his MVP award, he will surely be elected to the Hall of Fame some day. Especially when you look at some of the other achievements on his resume. But once he’s in the Hall is he going to be considered to be among the best of the best?

We’ll see. Maybe we need the NBA to do an updated list. Maybe they need to do a list every ten years or so – just to bring some balance to a debate which won’t stop raging on.

One thing is for sure – NBA champion Dirk Nowitzki has a head-start on the hard to like Lebron James. Nowitzki proved that becoming the best is a long road and requires as much grit and determination as it does talk and cockiness. And wherever he ends up ranking, Dirk should be happy that for today at least he was leading the conversation.

Tagged as: Dirk Nowitzki

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Game 6: Will Lebron James come through in the clutch to save the Miami Heat and his own reputation?

by Bestballer on June 12, 2011

in Basketball

Will Lebron ever match up to Mr. Clutch, Michael Jordan?

Will Lebron ever match up to Mr. Clutch, Michael Jordan?

Lebron James has been compared to Michael Jordan probably since the day he could walk. And the comparisons have not ceased despite his mediocre performances in this final round of the 2011 NBA play-offs.

How can anyone really compare Lebron to Jordan these days?

But it goes on and on.

There is a great post by Henry Abbot (no he is not Bestplayer’s the Abbot) on the ESPN blog, TrueHoop, which through Alok Pattani’s research and analysis shows just how great Jordan was and how far James has to go before he can rightfully be compared to probably the best player to ever have played the game of basketball.

What Abbot and Pattani have managed to do is figure out empirically how great Jordan was in clutch moments. In doing so Abbot and Pattani have done us a great service because they have confirmed what most of us thought from simply observing Jordan deliver time and again, over the years, in countless moments for his 6-time championship winning Chicago Bulls.

Here in a nutshell is the criteria they settled on for judging Jordan’s clutch-ness:

  • Playoff games only (no regular season)
  • Go-ahead or game-tying shot attempts (free throws, turnovers and the like were ignored)
  • Final 24 seconds of the fourth quarter or overtime

Based on that criteria, Jordan had 18 opportunities to be Mr. Clutch and delivered on them an incredible 9 times for a 50% Clutch Rating.

What is really interesting though – and it contradicts the tone of my piece thus far – is that of current players, two of the clutch-iest players around are…Dirk Nowitzki at 38.5% and…wait for it…Lebron James at 41.7%.

(Check out Abbot’s very cool post to see for yourself.)

Not a bad rating for Lebron.

Hmm – maybe we will be able to compare him to Jordan – some day.

But Lebron has a hell-of-a-lot of work to do before “someday” comes.

Maybe he’ll start tonight with Game 6 as he faces the embarrassing prospect of losing the NBA title to Nowitzki and the underdog Mavericks.

Can’t wait to see what will unfold. This is Lebron’s moment. Let’s see if he grabs it the way Jordan could. Let’s see if he can be “Like Mike”.

Tagged as: Lebron James, Michael Jordan

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Loving and hating Lebron James

by Bestballer on May 31, 2011

in Basketball

Lebron keeps his eyes on the prize

Lebron trying to keep his eyes on the prize

According to ESPN’s Michael Wilbon the NBA has never been more popular than it is today. He says that if all media gets factored in – the league right now is more popular than it was during the heyday of the best player of all time, Michael Jordan.

Yep – greater than that golden era. And let’s not even debate about the best player ever. Let’s not do what Scottie Pippen did. More on that error later.

Here’s what Wilbon has to say about the Lebron James Effect:

“The Eastern Conference finals just enjoyed ratings and viewership records for cable TV on TNT, according to Nielsen.com. Meanwhile, the ratings for this year’s playoffs on ESPN were up 8 percent over last season, and were the most-viewed in ESPN history. Not only was regular-season viewership of NBA games up 45 percent over the previous season, it was up 30 percent over 1995-96, when folks were obsessed over Michael Jordan leading the Chicago Bulls to a 72-win season.”

“And television isn’t the only place where increased interest in the NBA is reflected. NBA.com reports that page views are up 40 percent over last season, video streams are up 130 percent and NBA mobile downloads are up 75 percent. Traffic to NBA content on ESPN.com has increased dramatically as well, with some categories approaching triple-digit increases. If it’s too soon to say the NBA is in the middle of a full-fledged renaissance, at the very least the league has seen a resurgence, probably even an explosion.”

Amazing. Interest is “exploding”. Funny what a little hatred will do.

Or is it all hatred?

Everyone is still talking about how they hated “the Decision”. I was one of those dudes. It wasn’t so much that Lebron left his “hometown” team, it was more how he did it. He did it without consideration for Cavalier fans and he did it without class. Jordan would never have done anything like that. Jordan was too smart for garbage like that.

So – I hated that about Lebron. Most people probably hate him for that. But is that why we’re watching more, connecting more? I don’t know.

I think that it’s mostly about his talent and the talent of the Heat and I think most people are actually fascinated and really want to see if Lebron and Wade and Bosh can pull off a championship.

Sure, the drama, the love-hate, is driving traffic but I also think that this convergence of talent is occurring during a massive technology and media convergence which is giving fans richer access to the fascinating world of the NBA and to it’s other-worldly players.

Lebron is one of those out of this world talents. Maybe the game’s best talent now. Many people insist he is now the best player in the world and that the Lebron-Kobe debate is now over.

Something new has come up though and it doesn’t have to do with who is the best now. It has to do with who is the best ever. And that brings us back to Scottie Pippen.

Can you all believe that Michael Jordan’s old sidekick is suggesting that Lebron could be the best player ever? That’s right. EVER. Pippen’s comments on ESPN radio ignited a fire-storm of controversy and he has since backed down from the ludicrous idea that a player with no rings and no history of magically leading teams to championships could be better than a player who has done all of the above and then some.

Pippen clearly “loves” Lebron. Maybe standing in the shadow of Michael Jordan caused Pippen to hate Jordan (speaking of love and hate).

The interesting thing about this is that Lebron has wisely distanced himself from Pippen’s (false?) praise. Lebron knows he is nowhere close to Jordan, nor is he yet the best player ever.

I guess maybe Pippen’s thinking that Lebron could be the best ever.

I could handle that. But I wouldn’t love it.

Lebron can win all the rings he likes but I just can’t see him contributing to those rings in the way Jordan did. Jordan manufactured wins, willed his teams to win.

Lebron just seems to be along for the ride in South Beach, part of a convoy of super-duper stars.

And I hate that.

Tagged as: Lebron James

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Could Derrick Rose be more than just an MVP? Could he possibly be the best basketball player in the world?

by Bestballer on May 16, 2011

in Basketball,The Big Theory

Bulls' star Derrick Rose

Bulls' star Derrick Rose

Everybody knows that the Chicago Bulls’ Derrick Rose recently ended Lebron James’ two-year reign as the NBA’s Most Valuable Player (MVP).

But some people are starting to wonder if Rose is more than just an MVP. More than just “valuable” to his team. Some people are starting to ask if Rose is more than that. Some people are beginning to think that he is the “best” player in his sport. In the world.

One of those people is ESPN senior writer J.A. Adande who wrote this piece: “Is Derrick Rose the NBA’s best player?” and immediately got rid of the question mark with this opening line: “It’s time to think of Derrick Rose as the best in the league, not just the Most Valuable Player.”

That’s pretty emphatic: “It’s time…”

Adande wrote his piece after Lebron James’ Miami Heat fell 103-82 to Rose’ Chicago Bulls in the opening game of the NBA’s Eastern Conference final.

Lebron James is supposed to be the best player in the world in many people’s eyes, that is unless you’ve been a Kobe Bryant fan or unless you’ve been keeping a close eye on the marvel that is Kevin Durant.

Or unless you use Adande’s definition of what a “best player” is:

“The MVP is an award for what’s been done. As I define it, it’s the player who’s the most responsible for making his team elite during the regular season. That’s a title bestowed upon someone based on what he’s accomplished, rather than what you believe he can do. The best player is about what’s next. The simplest way to define best player is to ask yourself whom you’d pick first if you needed to win a playoff game. And at the moment, nobody has won more games in these playoffs than Rose and the Chicago Bulls.”

Great definition. I think that we here at BP should use it going forward and apply it to all sports and include it in our “Big Theory“.

I love when Adande says that the difference between being the most valuable and being the best is the “what’s next?”.

You can see that quality in a player from another sport, soccer’s Lionel Messi. Sure, Messi has been very valuable to his club, Barcelona, but with him you also get the “what’s next?” In fact, with players like Messi (and Rose?) you often don’t know what he’s going to do next because he’s so special, so magical and so determined.

Adande thinks that Rose – for the sake of the Bulls in this series against the Heat – needs that kind of determination because, quite simply, he is just one “best player”, while the Heat have two:

“He has to be better than either Wade or LeBron James. The Bulls can’t afford to have those two be the best players on the court. When the two best players are wearing the same jersey, that team tends to win (see Kevin Durant’s and Russell Westbrook’s performances in the Thunder’s Game 7 win over the Grizzlies).”

It’s amazing but possibly true: the mere presence of Lebron and Wade may force Rose to be the best, to be the kind of decisive player he was in prior play-off rounds.

And if he can pull it off and lead Chicago past Miami and then onto the “next” step, he will become the answer to the key question that Adande seems to ask: how can a player not be the best player if he is the one who can lead a team to play-off glory?

Maybe that’s a question that Lebron should be asking himself too, especially since Kobe was precisely that kind of player as well.

Hmm – this play-off series just got juicier for me: a battle ground for teams becomes a place for self-actualization.

Wouldn’t it be something, Mr. Adande, if after all of this talk of Kobe and Lebron (and for a while, Durant), Derrick Rose was actually the best player all along?

Tagged as: Derrick Rose

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