of course you are

If microfrature surgeries are considered freakish injury, and if neither grant hill and Hardaway are not considered extremly injury prone, it basically means that injuries don't matter at all in the draft.
If that's the case, it should have been clearer.

kc, assani will have better drs so he wont have future complications. better rehab program so he will come back stronger. better timetable so he wont *** his leg up too early. and a better coach/motivator so he will lift weights, never eat mcdonalds and keep himself in tiptop shape.

ship it, best player ever.

no, grant hill's injury was not freakish, it was already ****ed up from before he was 24. this is important.

elton brand's injury was a total freak injury, some/most ACL injuries are freak injuries.

i was heavily considering penny with my pick (if a couple other guys weren't available), but the reason i didn't like him was because his knee was ****ed up, not his acl. huge difference, imo. it wasn't a single occurance that destroyed his knee, it was already messed up (tendonitis for one), and it just never healed the way they wanted.

the most you can do is argue that microfracture surgery has been perfected more, but there have been sucess/failure stories all across the spectrum, and spanning both present and past.

microfracture is just like flipping a coin, imo.

Good points.....

1. I have Tim Duncan on my team to fill the Shaq role.

2. His bulk numbers didn't slip much, but his TS% dropped from an insanely good 60+% to a merely good 55.4%. Thats because his team was god awful that year. Give him at least some other solid offensive options and he'd be back up there. Regardless, as I said Duncan will fill the Shaq role.

3. Yes he missed 23 games that year. His first 6 years in the league included 3 seasons in which he missed zero games, one season in which he played 77/82 games, the one year you mention in which he missed 23 games, and the microfracture surgery year. If you take out the microfracture surgery or if he can come back at full strength from it(which I admit is a huge 'if', but I think I do give some reasoning why its certainly possible) then I think hes fine in this regard.

Because Penny is a bulk scorer, so his is overrated by PER in that regard as well as underrated in the area of being efficient. That was the point of that post.

You came here flipping out that anyone would question your amazing pick, my sarcasm is effective and needed in this debate.

Give me a break man, there were not 20 players in the league better than him during the two years we're talking about.

ya, microfracture is required for a deficiency of cartilage. this can be from a freak accident, like twisting your knee improperly, ie blowing it out.

or bc your muscles, ligaments and cartilage werent strong enough to overcome the twist. still blew it out, but wasnt freakish bc u werent strong enough.

or bc genetically, your knees werent designed properly thereby causing the cartilage and meniscus to wear out too fast.

The sarcasm is really obnoxious because I think I've been very unbiased and fair in my analysis. I've always said "Maybe Penny will be healthy in this format because of better microfracture surgery techniques, him not being injury prone out of college, and his playing 3 full seasons in his first 6 years. Then again maybe he won't be. It is indeed a gamble, but I've provided some reasoning why it could work out."

I think thats a very fair analysis on my part. And then you guys jump all over me with these sarcasitc "You're right Assani, he'll absolutely never be hurt and be the best player ever" which is not even close to what I'm saying. Why are you lashing out at me with this sarcasm???

The only points I've debated heatedly are the "Penny was overrated/not as good as I thought/not a great player" line of thoughts which I think are just horrendously wrong.

+1

Basically everyone who picks an injury prone guy rolls out the freak injury card, and anyone else who has put their team on the shoulders of an injury prone guy comes in to defend the injured players.

There is a reason Penny slipped (and should have slipped farther). Its because you can't count on him to have a full career and he only had 1 great season. Just because the person who picks them argues it won't happen again doesn't change my mind.

well, the argument was 20 players since 1980 with 2 yrs better than pennys.

20 players in the past 30 years? You realize thats what we are discussing right? Not 20 players in the NBA that season. The past 30 seasons. Thirty.

And its one really great season, the other is just a good-really good season that many others have surpassed that aren't even close to top 20 players.

Penny isn't as bad as people are making it out to be, I just think you need more starting caliber guards on a team like that. Having Duncan is nice because he addresses so many needs and is durable as hell. You can go with a three big man rotation basically.

I'm going to repost what I just said: Please just list those 24 seasons and we'll analyze them individually. Don't you think that'd get us a much better analysis than guessing at who is and who isn't overrated without actually seeing the stats we're talking about?


Flipping out? I flipped out at the people who claim that his prime wasn't that good. I fully understand and always have understood the injury concerns.

Someone saying that Hardaway wasn't that good in his prime is like someone saying that Stockton, Pippen, or Hill weren't very good in their primes. Its just a ludicrous statement(I understand you weren't saying he wasn't good though, so I'm not calling you ludicrous). He was insanely good in his prime. Maybe I'm just shocked that anyone could've watched him play, seen his numbers, and still not think he was amazing. It just doesn't make sense to me. I apologize if Im coming across as rude in this argument, as thats not my intention. I was just shocked maybe.

Regardless, please list all the players you believe have put up a better season than Hardaway at age 24 or younger. I'm interested in actually debating this, so lets do it....

If you're second pick gives you no production because he is hurt your team becomes drastically worse.

Yeah, but your team suddenly becomes one of the best in the league if he is healthy and you draft around him/Duncan (which is, needless to say, quite easy).

edit: Also, people need to stop treating it like its an injured/not-injured thing. A guy like Penny is going to miss a lot of games and probably a few times miss almost an entire season. He also has a high probability of just completely breaking down. But maybe most of the time you at least get 4-5 really good years out of him, years where is the best PG taken in this first round, but occasionally he only plays 40-60 games in a season. So long as you build your team knowing that, you can still manage to straggle into the playoffs and make sure he is as healthy as possible.

other than my last sentence my post perfectly sums up why u think its a great pick.

You're arguing that I only feel the way I do becuase I picked Penny. You're arguing that other people who picked injury prone guys only feel that way because they picked those players. I think you have it backwards.....

We felt the way we do, which caused us to rank those players highly and pick them.

Basically you're arguing that we're biased, and I totally disagree with that.

right, and thats why i think his pick is super lame. if those other guys, who ended up having good to great to mediocre CAREERS would have got injured immediately after their great season, they would be much more valuable in this draft than they are.

at least grant hill had 5 awesome years. thats enough to justify drafting him in this draft and in real life.

Not making fun of you, just a pet peeve of mine...how do you use it twice in the same sentence and use it differently both times?

so does everyone vote on who gets injured and who doesn't? (lol?)

Because I'm talking to people, watching basketball, debating in this thread, and kicking my dog because the Knicks got the 6th pick.

I'm usually good with stuff like that.

+1 regarding your edit.

I don't need Penny to be completely healthy for every year of his career. If he gives me 5 years then gets hurt in 2013(when microfracture surgery has progressed even more) and then comes back in 2014 at 75% that will be fine.

For those years that I do have him, I'm one of the only teams with two legit superstars. People are taking role players already, and rightfully so. How many teams have two legit superstars who are good on both ends of the floor though? For however many years Penny can give me, I'll have that. If I can win a championship or two in those years then it was worth it imo.

What do you mean by super stars? Are all-nba players superstars? B/c there are a bunch of teams with 2 all-nba players, I believe you took the last guy with more than 1 All-nba though.

i have two guys from the orig dream team yo