not sure if this was posted, but seems to fit in with recent discussion: charles barkley says kobe bryant is top 5 greatest NBA player ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyhX2...eature=related

Barkley also took Iverson first overall in an all-time draft.

Yes, Wade is better (bigger so better on D and more efficient on O and I've said that several times) but offensively they are identical in terms of how they grind an offense to a halt.

I think they are reasonably close in terms of how good they are as passers.

Wade or AI has the ball with bad teammates, one of 5 things happens:
1. Fouled
2. Gets to Rack
3. Sometimes gets a pass off that turns into an assist when all else has failed and he's got no choice
4. Turnover
5. Terrible contested shot.

Same thing happens with GOOD teammates. So whenever he's got the ball, everyone stands around. He minimizes the added value that Bron and Bosh bring to the table because of how he plays - they may as well be stiffs since they don't get utilized. A byproduct of that is they just stand around because, well, why be active when the black hole isn't gonna pass it unless he's forced to at the very last second. It's made it very easy for good defensive teams to defend them in the half court since it's so rare that he passes quickly, let alone that a 2nd pass gets made afterwards that could really punish a defense for overcommitting.

he was an awful poster 3 years ago in the fr forum so its safe to say it was long before he came to SE.

yeah, that was hilarious too. just so it's clear, the vid i posted was more for humor value than anything else

Any more discussions of poster quality, etc, go to the FAQ thread. Gonna move terrible one-liners too. It's a pain to move the posts so if I have to move posts out of here into there I'm gonna go ahead and tempban while I'm at it. Let's NBA, cause this is a pretty incredible season.

Overrated, sure. Hated, by some sure.

Obv most important thing is when you are at least in the discussion for being one of the top 20 players of all time.

scola or J. smith

better on ball defender
better help defender

I'd say JSmith for both, although it seems like they both probably suck at man to man d

help is obviously Josh Smith, it really isn't close. Scola really isn't in the same realm defensively has Josh Smith. Scola is a good scorer and rebounder and that's about it. Josh is average to below average scorer but excellent defender. DWS are probably on the high side for Scola in some years b/c he was playing with Yao, Artest, Battier, Ariza, etc. for a lot of minutes and they are all excellent defenders.

how does smith go 4 straight years chucking 87+ 3s, then last year only 7, now this year hes back up to 128?

someone was prolly like, dude, ur awful at them, stop shooting them.

didn't they get a new coach this year? he prolly dont curr.

new coach is more of a "players" coach

someone probably had a talk with him. and said like, yo you can't try to be something you're not. god put you on this earth to chuck 3s erry day

id take josh smith over scola for this year and obviously going forward...

Scola vs. Smoove is going to depend on the team I think, with Smoove probably helping the majority of teams more

So -115 for neither LA nor Miami to win the championship is +EV, right?

90%

smoove's sheer stupidity is being underrated

This.

Edit: though Milwaukee and Houston are the only two off the top of my head where the answer is clearly Scola. Maybe OKC as well.

after thinking about it a little bit I think most contenders would rather have Scola, although it depends on how you approach the exercise (adding one of the two to the team, or assuming they substitute whoever the starting PF is)

Is that b/c most contenders already have a good post defender? On teams with excellent post D or more so good off ball shot blocking, Josh Smith is much less useful...on teams without it he can be extremely valuable.

I think it's because every contender has a good/very good scoring option at PF. Gasol, Bosh, Dirk, the Spurs don't have that option but they do have Duncan at C, so they can easily do without Smoove. The celtics without Garnett is interesting but without Perkins they likely take Smoove.

thats not really fair though thats like saying chris paul is worse than kobe bc most contenders have an elite PG or something (meh comparison but close)

jsmoove>>scola in pretty much any scenario

I don't get that comparison, please explain. Both guys play the same position, the fact that they bring different skillsets is precisely why we're having the discussion

and addressing your last comment, the only reason I'd consider Smoove over Scola in a redraft is because of the age difference