Steroid boy, whats your definition of a soft player versus a finesse player?

on my team dirk is coming off the bench and standing at the 3 point line. maybe leading the 2nd unit.

seadood: what part was ludicrous ?? the dirk carrying isiah's bad or the image of dirk getting close lined driving the lane and him folding up ???

i just dont think dirk would be efficent after say maurice lucas banged him for a bit. i just see him standing out at the 3 point line.

if bruce bowen can bang dirk and take him out his game, i would sic maurice lucas on dirk and not have to worry about him anymore... lol..lol... the picture of that cracks me up.

In games Dirk and Bruce Bowen have played head to head, Dirk averaged 24/10.

Ashy Knuckles, for the love of God stop posting.

soft players cant handle adversity. dirk choked at the foul line in game 3 of the finals which virtually would have ended the series

so his career playoff average of 25 and 11 means nothing?

ok. your team would suck then.

For starters, the part that implies toughness has anything to do with putting the ball in the basket, or keeping it from going in.

Yeah it would suck to have a 38% 3pt shooter taking shots from the 3 point line, against big men who won't play out that far, or against guys he can shoot over. That's much worse than having a guy like Isiah thomas shoot 2 pointers at a 45% clip, and still manage to maintain being "tough" in the process.

Game 7 WCF. I think I win.

you all build your team based on stats and i will build a team thats going to win the game.

i dont need to look at stats i have been following the league i saw the players, critically analyzed them and know their strengths and weaknesses.

for example.. dirk: strengths... great shooter, out of worldly for a 7 footer, great agility, especially for a 7 footer, great free throw shooter, difficult to match up against.

weaknesses... defense... does not like physical contact, internal fortitude of the greatest players has not been displayed....

can dirk take over the game against the greatest players since 79 in the most pressure packed of situations ?? nothing so far says yes..

i just feel like i can put a team together that will neutralize dirk and i guess i need to know what the nba rules are in the league ... better for me if its the old rules (where you could actually play d) or todays rules that are driven by fans wanting to see a 120-125 game) then we can bang dirk and reduce his effectiveness.

No, the rule of calling a player soft states that you can only use their bad games as evidence and have to ignore their truly great games, no matter how many they have.

I guess it easy argue against stats when you use qualifications which are virtually immeasurable, such as fortitude.

As to the second point, WCF game 7.

You're gonna tell me defenses were awesome back then? In 1980 the San Antonio Spurs scored 119 points per game. Dirk would destroy people then. Nobody knew how to guard a 7 footer who could shoot 3s. Hell, nobody could even shoot 3s then! The Celtics were the only team who even shot better than 33% on 3s, and they only took about 400 of them.

Teams played extremely fast. The average team got 103 possessions per game. The slowest team in the league still got 10 more possessions than the Mavericks did this year! Dirk was made to play in those leagues against those players, he would absolutely wreck the league.

Come on now, toughness and intestinal fortitude are what it takes to win.

Here's an analogy:

dtemp(and JOA, myself, etc) : Hollinger
Ashyknuckles : Steven A

Would Jordan's famous game with a stomach virus be an argument for or against intestinal fortitude?

if you question if toughness has anything to do with putting the ball in the basket i direct you to ... scottie pippen.... 7th game of the eastern conference finals against detroit he scores 2 points bulls lose by about 5, claimed a migrane headache.

detroit knew they had to bang scottie to beat the bulls, take him out of the game... first few years .. bulls could not beat detroit because the clothes lines, elbows etc effected scotties game. it was apparent that scottie did not like the physical play.

ONLY when scottie was able to get off the floor and keep going to the basket = toughening up were the bulls able to beat detroit.. when he would not allow detroit to intimidate him any longer = being tough...ONLY THEN were the bulls able to dethrone the pistons and the rest is history.

i would think if you are building fantasy teams that toughness would be a very important criteria. you better believe that if these teams we are building actually played on the court that would be one of the 1st things that they found out about each other and what do you think would happen to the players that shied away from or reacted negatively to physical contact ??? i will tell you they would be sitting on the bench and eventually get ran out of the league because everyone would be testing their manhood on a daily basis.

internal fortitude=toughness is as important of a criteria to be great as anything else if not more so.

dont get me wrong dirk is a very good player. build your team around him vs the best players since 79 ... i dont see him leading the team (which he would have to do) to a championship.

he cant even lead the mavericks to the championship against the heat when it was basically sewn up.

finally, my opinion of players are swayed heavily by what they did when the pressure was the greatest. its a big difference sinking a 3 vs sinking a 3 when its the most important shot you ever took in your life.

Jack:

can you tell me what happened to the 1980 spurs in the playoffs ??? did they make the playoffs ???


when i think of fantasy team.. i think of winning the playoffs

Outside of Shaq and professional wrestlers, what player can withstand clothelines? Not to mention the kicking and tripping in the lane. FWIW, even Jordan struggled against the Pistons and no one would ever doubt his "toughness". Quite simply, most any player would struggle against the bad boys. They played a game that was very smart defensively and very physical, some times to the point of being just plain dirty. When the bulls finally made it past them it had more to do with the pistons decline than the bulls players getting tougher. Thomas was injured (wrist) and their players were getting old.

Again, internal fortitude is pretty hard to judge without getting in a person's head. Though I can see some argument for a player who is willing to constantly go up against a person who is constantly harassing him. But that doesn't necessarily make it the wiser move.

OMG I am chewing on my hand right now. I am trying to stay out of this debate b/c of bias and passion but I can't. Would German Jesus' bff Nash Head strike down these clowns that are seriously calling him soft? No really, rain on their asses.

Do we really need to cite all the injuries he has played through, and played well through carrying his ****k team on his back. Or the lights out performance against Pho to get to the 06 WCF--hell the whole series--then the WCF ldo. He was also one of 2 guys to lace up his sneakers this year. He is a bonafide bad ass, tough as ****ing nails. This soft bull**** has to stop, some of you just don't like him--hell I ****ing hate Manu for his flopping, that doesn't make him soft, guy is an assassin (hard to say, ugh). Misses a ft and now he's soft, lol, give me a ****ing break...nice sample size. Why don't you use the GS series too where he was doubled every time he touched the ball and could do nothing the entire series and was forced to force **** b/c his team sucked and they were the quitters (sans Stack that year). complete lol at some people in this thread.

According to basketballreference, guys who have led the league in PER twice since 1980...

Dirk
KG
Shaq
David Robinson
Jordan
Bird
Moses Malone

Pretty good company for Dirk, even if you don't like PER. Great pick.

Let's talk about the Champion 1980 LA Lakers. How many points per game do you think they gave up? Did you guess 109?

That team had 15 more possessions per game than the Hornets, Spurs, Mavs, Celtics, etc. The game is extremely slow now. The Suns, Warriors, and Nuggets would all be one of the slowest teams in the league.

Teams really have to work to create good shots. Teams are taking 10% less shots than in 1980 and doing so at a pretty similar efficiency. It's harder to get open shots in the NBA today.

He's also lead the league in WSAA twice, which puts him in the comapny of... all those guys you mentioned + Duncan and Karl Malone.

So clearly, the players who chose Malone, Stockton, and Barkely ahead of Thomas were wrong? No room for discussion?

Dirk >>> Isiah

I think Dirk's an ok pick there.