The average height of today's player is 1 inch shorter than previous eras and I just listed a bunch of bonafide 6'7" shooting guards like Dale Ellis, Reggie Lewis, Clyde Drexler, Reggie Miller, Dan Majerle, Finley, Theus, Sealy and many more - these guys were legitimately 6'7" and it's common knowledge - the eye test would also confirm this quite clearly.. Gifs provided above - no one would try to say Lewis or Ellis or Gervin aren't 6'7"... that's why I provided all the specific examples, so you couldn't refute it with some broad brush statement like wishful height or whatever you said.

It's simply a fact that today's small ball is a common strategy and it's lowered the height and length of the league compared to prior eras.. Guys like Derrick White and other 3-point shooters are all listed as SG's.. Again, previous eras weren't allowed to travel or carry, so their handle was inferior - they offset this with HEIGHT at the SG position and other posiitons.

Please stop arguing with nobody on Ant being the next MJ. I'm embarrassed for you.

It's okay. Being the second best player on a team that got knocked out in the first round in 5 games, by a team that got eliminated in the second round is still a massive achievement

Luka + old kyrie > lebron + young kyrie.

Kobe was helping Pau.

The biggest change is that literally no one had a left hand except maybe Isiah. To defend mj you they forced him left all the time.

Golden .

Yes only the players of today can evolve , not the players of other eras….

It’s like thinking chess players , poker players of 20 years ago wouldn’t be better today if they had all the tools of today , to get better back then .
The narrative of “The peak they had then is the max they could ever have achieve, regardless of the environment u put them in” is so dumb ….

Well two decades straight of All - NBA level play is a massive achievement. Year in, year out for 20 ****ing years.

Davis being considered the 10th best player on the season and LeBron 11th doesn’t bother me in the slightest here.

Incredible. The entire point is that those players from the 80's and 90's would be much better if they had access to modern training.

Ah ok

But everyone would be better except mj because he couldn’t have learn to be a bit better 3pts shooting like everybody else to have slightly better advanced stats in TS% ….

No. He means MJ's career TS% as it was if pasted into today would be well below average, not that MJ wouldn't have been a better player had he been born in 1995 than he was in reality.

You're missing the point. People are trying to argue that MJ is better than Lebron in *absolute* terms rather than just *relative to his era* terms, and that is LOL.

U don’t seem to know candybar much …
There is a reason I spoked like that .

I’m not missing the point .
I want to hear him say it and he never will , even on relatively terms.
Hell mj dominate in his prime like no others , individually and team success and yet he still admit in some other post the peak of mj wasn’t even on tier 1 level ….

Just no.

I think everyone except your dumbass got that the statement was not about some weird hypothetical about what kind of numbers MJ would put up in today's game but rather a direct comparison of what MJ's TS% was versus what the average TS% actually is today. The defense of course is substantially better in today's game and if you were to literally have a clone of 22-year old MJ, he'd put up higher efficiency but substantially lower usage as he would be more of a role player rather than a star player. If MJ got to grow up as part of Ant's generation, sure he'd be way better, but that's a bit too far fetched for us to reasonably project the likely outcome.

Either way, your hypothetical doesn't even really make sense without a bunch of assumptions - at what age does he make the jump, how long does he get to train, etc.

That's an entirely separate conversation - of course it's also true that MJ's era-relative peak wasn't as high as Lebron's (also probably not Kareem's or Russell's). I know your mushy, jumbled brain can barely distinguish between unrelated comparisons, but this is an entirely different conversation, we're not even talking about Lebron (comparing MJ and Lebron purely as players is just not even remotely fair), but rather comparing MJ and Ant purely as players from an athletic and skill perspective. And the point is that Ant is incomparably more skilled than young MJ and compares reasonably well to the most skilled version of MJ as well.

I'll keep it at that since this is already multiple levels beyond your capacity to process information.

Are you guys prepared to call Tatum a champion and a top respected player in the history of our game

I am

I've been watching him since the John Lucas camp.

Similar to other champions, Tatum's skillset doesn't impose spot up roles like a ball-dominator - his skillset allows the ball to move, so his team can develop the chemistry required for a great-performing cast, aka great team.

And Jaylen Brown was always the guy that I saw standing over Lebron.. Vanquishing him . it didn't quite work out that way as Lebron ran away out West, but the point remains that Brown was always destined for greatness.

Tatum is probably my favorite player in the game right now, so why not, but you randomly jumping on the bandwagon now that they are a huge favorite is pretty lol. Like someone else said:

I've been saying for a few pages now that the last 3 champions are low hold-time players, aka Curry, Jokic and now Tatum, which is the opposite of the perennially-losing ball-dominators like SGA, Luka, Lebron, Harden, Westbrook, etc... The champions and best teams are normally the low hold-time players like expert jumpshooters (Curry, MJ, Kobe, Bird), or fundamental bigs (Kareem, Duncan, Jokic).

The reason that I never mentioned Tatum earlier than the last few pages is because Tatum was never in the thread title and my narrative of "expert jumpshooters winning more frequently" didn't look like it could be supported by the Celtics while the Nuggets were still in the playoffs.

But with the Nuggets exposed as much weaker than last year's team, it's Tatum's time and sure enough, he's ANOTHER expert jumpshooter or low hold-time player, just like 3 of the previous 4 champions before him.

And I was surprised to see just how much Tatum's style looked like MJ regarding where each guy catches the ball and the types of shots/moves they use.... Otoh, other guys like SGA, Luka and Lebron - they play largely the same brand of "down-hill" basketball, which isn't 5-man basketball, so can't develop the great chemistry required for a great-performing cast, aka great team.. Again, notice how expert jumpshooters DEVELOPED great chemistry (Curry, MJ, Bird, Kobe, Tatum), but ball-dominators impose spot-up roles that can't develop great chemistry needed for great-performing casts, aka great teams.

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Tatum adds more evidence that low hold-time players win more than "down-hill" players


The best player on 4 of the last 6 champions has been a low hold-time player (Tatum, Jokic, Curry, Kawhi), and we can add AD to this list if we think he was the best player on the 2020 Lakers - he joined a lottery team and was their leading scorer, while turning their defense from worst to 1st.

Ultimately, the low hold-time players (biggest winners) are generally expert jumpshooters (Tatum, Curry, Jokic, MJ, Bird, Kobe), or fundamental bigs (Kareem, Duncan, Jokic), while the high hold-time players, aka "down-hill" players are the low frequency winners (Lebron, SGA, Ant, Luka, Harden, Westbrook) - this style isn't 5-man basketball and imposes spot-up roles, so it lacks capacity to develop great chemistry required for great-performing casts, aka great teams .

TLDR: Tatum will now be mentioned along with all the other "expert jumpshooters" that developed great chemistry (MJ, Curry, Bird, Kobe, Tatum).. Due to their superior ability to dominate while the ball moves and therefore develop great chemistry that allows a great-performing cast, aka great team - this is a primary argument for them being superior at basketball than players whose skillset is restricted to the "down-hill" approach, which isn't 5-man basketball and therefore lacks the great chemistry needed for a great-performing cast, aka great team.

twog, have you evolved beyond this or is this still your basic thesis?

In the history of 3-pointer basketball, most champions are led by fundamental bigs or expert jumpshooters - the exceptions are starred below:

1980 - Kareem
1981 - Bird
1982 - Kareem
1983 - Moses
1984 - Bird
1985 - Kareem
1986 - Bird
1987 - Magic*
1988 - Magic*
1989 - Isiah*
1990 - Isiah*
1991 - Jordan
1992 - Jordan
1993 - Jordan
1994 - Hakeem
1995 - Hakeem
1996 - Jordan
1997 - Jordan
1998 - Jordan
1999 - Duncan
2000 - Shaq
2001 - Shaq
2002 - Kobe
2003 - Duncan
2004 - Chauncey*
2005 - Duncan
2006 - Wade*
2007 - Duncan
2008 - Pierce/KG
2009 - Kobe
2010 - Kobe
2011 - Dirk
2012 - Lebron*
2013 - Lebron*
2014 - Duncan
2015 - Curry
2016 - Lebron*
2017 - KD
2018 - KD
2019 - Kawhi
2020 - AD
2021 - Giannis*
2022 - Curry
2023 - Jokic
2024 - Tatum

^^^ 35 of the 45 titles in the history of 3-pointer basketball were won by teams led by expert jumpshooters or fundamental bigs.

Unlike ball-dominators or "down-hill" players that impose spot-up roles (not 5-man basketball), the skillsets of fundamental bigs or expert jumpshooters allow the ball to move, which allows the development of great chemistry and a great-performing cast, aka great team.

Btw, it isn't coincidence that the goats of basketball combined the best of both worlds, aka expert jumpshooting and fundamental post game = Bird or MJ (and his clone Kobe).. These are my top 3 all-time.
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Can't believe you're not crediting Rip Hamilton over Chauncey to keep the argument going

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Ant turned it over on the last possession instead of having the skill to rise up like MJ over Ehlo or these exact shots:

^^^ these were the types of tough mid-range shots specified earlier that Ant can't make, along with the paint shots outside the restricted, which require longer arms for greater touch and extension, wrap-around capability around 7-footers... All these shots were specified in GIF's earlier itt

That was a test - you're learning the proper hoops theory - Rip did infact help the chemistry greatly on that team, just like he did with MJ in 2002 before MJ's injury - people forget that after a horrific start, the MJ/Rip combo was already unbeatable - they were 15-1 together leading up to Jordan's injury in Game 46.