kidcolin- You're better than that. There are plenty of good teams with good point guards, nobody is denying that. Tony Parker being 3rd is my argument, not yours. There are only 5 positions, and its pretty rare that a team will have PF/C be 1/2 for obvious reasons.

The Billups Pistons teams are an outlier case in team construction.

I realize you are just asking a question, but suppose none of those teams had a PG as their most important player. That does not mean a PG is not important, nor does it not mean a PG can't be the most important player on a team.

Big Men > Swingmen > Guards.

Jordan is the shortest player I can think of to have a legitimate claim at being the best player in the league in my lifetime. Why do you guys think that is?

According to this article, THE RAPTORS GAVE UP A 1ST ROUND PICK?? WTF IS THIS **** fgfiusdgfdhfigfh;fdsgfh;ffhf`hf;hfsd`s

this is pretty money

for the record I am aware Olden Polynice is not great

I guess my point is, if you have Chris Paul as your best player, are you going to blow the team up with the premise that "our best player is a PG, we can't win!" or are you going to take arguably the best player in the NBA and build around him?

yay, so Calderon/Parker/Marion/Bosh/Bargnani.. best starting 5 not to make the playoffs this year

Cause he's the GOAT. Wait--didn't Nash have 2 MVPS .

My guess is because they play with a 10 foot hoop, and not a 8 or 12 foot one, or something like that.

So true.
Thorpe on trade.

We used to talk about Shawn Marion, in his Phoenix days, as an MVP candidate?


History, I think, is starting to write the story of how special that Phoenix franchise was. That was something so amazing.

Besides winning, the first agenda of any coach is creating systems to help players reach their potential.

And in what I do, every player tells me they are motivated not by money, but by the urge to be as good as they can possibly be.

But it's not up to me, or some assistant, to get the most out of a player. It's really largely a factor of the head coach, and the system they choose to execute. And it's beginning to be clear that the job Mike D'Antoni did in Phoenix was at a Hall-of-Fame level. Steve Nash was an MVP. Amare Stoudemire one of the best big men in the league. Shawn Marion having amazing years.

That guy created something pretty special, and that's gone now. Steve Nash, Amare Stoudemire, Shawn Marion ... I don't think anyone of them is going to see that level of basketball again, unless they luck into another similar situation somehow.

It's a little bit of a tragedy, like from Broadway: The Sinking Suns. It's really sad.

I know they're trying to rebuild that in New York. And maybe it will be better. But it won't be the same.

I remember one night when I was brand new at ESPN, and I was trying to watch as many games as possible. I was watching Phoenix vs. whoever. There was no one on either team that I knew, and I had no real reason to be invested in that game. But I just had to admit that it was the most fun I had had watching basketball in a long, long time.

They were just so selfless with the ball. The only person who would probe with the dribble was Nash, and he'd only do it to find better angles for his teammates. And they cared about each other on defense, while still managing not to foul, which is what Mike wanted. Keep the game moving!

No, and nobody ever came close to saying this.

whoa wtf

i'd hope it's at least lottery protected

Why did you copy and paste someone's article (Blog). Do you work for ESPN?

If your point is "Jordan is the shortest player who I think is a candidate for greatest of my lifetime" then yeah, I think he's everyone's. If your point is that Jordan is the shortest player who is a candidate for "currently the best player in the NBA," well I think you're neglecting Chris Paul.

pistons, lakers, jazz (recent and stockton era), nawlins, .. jesus how can I forget the Nets?

sonics with GP. swingmen and C clearly the weakest spot on these teams.

those Portland team's 2nd best were the PG (Drexler obv 1st).

Chris Paul will never be the best player in the NBA at any point in his career.

last season, it was essentially a coin flip between he and LBJ, with guys like Kobe, Duncan, and KG coming close.

I am just curious if you go back and look at all the HoF PG's how many of them were the best players on their team.

just off the top of my head,

Magic is definite
Isiah yeah even though I think he's overrated
Stockton (will be this year) and Malone are so close it's splitting hairs, though I side with Malone
Payton will be one day, and yes
Nash will be one day, yes
Kidd will be one day, yes
Walt Frazier, it's pretty close but he was at least the best for some of the years
Oscar Robertson obv, but those were weird times
Tiny Archibald was

That's all I can think of without spending a lot of time on b-ref

It's almost more interesting to ask, how many PGs will make the hall that weren't the best player on their team?

I'm well aware of how good Tony Parker is. Rose is a favorite to be better. He's ahead of pace and has better tools imo. What he's done this year is absurd all things considered. Better than an older Paul was in his rookie year.

like what, 4 months younger? Not sure how you're seeing Rose's rookie year as better than Paul's.

No one outside Chris Paul's extended family honestly believes Chris Paul is the best player in the NBA.

Clark, stop for a second. You're saying the absolute worst we should expect from Derrick Rose is Tony Parker. Do you not understand how this is lunacy?

I'm not a big metric guy, but all that I know of have him at or near the top.

The one I'm big on is this though:

28-18 with CP3 in the lineup.

The rest of the Hornets looks like this:

SG: Rasual Butler (below average)
SF: Peja Stojakovich (below average)
PF: David West (borderline all-star)
C: Tyson Chandler (good, missed time)

Bench has James Posey, who is definitely one of the better bench players in the league, then it has only one other player (Antonio Daniels) who I would consider rotation worthy.

This team has a decent shot at 50 wins. LBJ's teams were ~50 wins, with similar caliber talent. CP3 is absolutely a top 2 player in the NBA.