Jordan: I could score 100 in current NBA

[Lex L.]

I believe Wade was a shell of himself when the Bulls swept the Heat. No way does that Bulls team sweep the Heat otherwise. His production was down in that playoff comparable to all other playoff years with the exception of his rookie season.

What about the other years? I just mentioned that as an example. The fact is, youre holding one year that Portland didnt make it to the finals against Drexler and youre overlooking the years Miami didnt accomplish much with Wade.

My pointing out that Wade won as the main man points to his suitability for that position...over Drexler. Better clutch player with the ability to take over and dominate games when compared to Drexler. That is why I brought up a ring. The same reason people bring up rings with other great players in this sport. It is how great players are measured.

Except, once again when you compare by looking at who the Blazers played and then at who Miami played. Once again, Im not necessarily saying one is better than the other, but the ring argument is bogus.

You pick out three stats that support what you seem to be arguing, that Drexler is better, though you say that is not your position. You regurgitate what I already stated about Drexler's rebounding. And Drexler having more steals definitely doesn't mean he is a better defensive player than Wade, so why did you bring that up...

You asked for facts. I gave you facts. The numbers are what they are. I bring up steals because its part of Drexlers overall production.

I can tell you in what ways Wade was better on the court, because I saw the both of them play in their primes. You should actually try watching those players play...and find flaws in your own damn reasoning.

This is an ironic comment coming from the guy who was recently screaming about supposition and subjective commentary. Its funny, I throw some facts at you in the form of stats and you resort to "try watching those players play", which is purely a comment speaking to subjective observation. And all of this makes the "find flaws in your own damn reasoning" especially priceless.

So, basically, you scream about speaking out of supposition without facts. But then when you are presented with facts, you yourself, suggest its more about supposition. Its pretty obvious by now that youre trying to have it both ways.

 

[houheffna]

What about the other years? I just mentioned that as an example. The fact is, youre holding one year that Portland didnt make it to the finals against Drexler and youre overlooking the years Miami didnt accomplish much with Wade.



Except, once again when you compare by looking at who the Blazers played and then at who Miami played. Once again, Im not necessarily saying one is better than the other, but the ring argument is bogus.



You asked for facts. I gave you facts. The numbers are what they are. I bring up steals because its part of Drexlers overall production.





This is an ironic comment coming from the guy who was recently screaming about supposition and subjective commentary. Its funny, I throw some facts at you in the form of stats and you resort to "try watching those players play", which is purely a comment speaking to subjective observation. And all of this makes the "find flaws in your own damn reasoning" especially priceless.

So, basically, you scream about speaking out of supposition without facts. But then when you are presented with facts, you yourself, suggest its more about supposition. Its pretty obvious by now that youre trying to have it both ways.

I was giving all...ALL of the ways in which Wade was superior to Drexler. Including the eye test. You have never heard me scream about anything. Your facts are that Wade is inferior to Drexler because Drexler averaged more steals? That is a rather stupid argument.

I only pointed to the Lakers series as a point where Drexler had a chance to rise to the occasion and lead his team to victory and was upset in the conference finals with his best team, which happened to have the best record in the league that year. Wade, with his best team to date, was an underdog in the Finals and would win the Finals MVP. No wing player in this era, including Kobe, has been as dominant in a finals series as Wade in 2006.

By the way, you ignored Lefty's post purposely, because it pisses all over your argument. Your argument is based totally on supposition because the facts have been exposed, and Wade was a superior player.

You stick to one portion of the argument so, i will indulge you...say neither of them EVER got to the finals. Based on what they accomplished...Wade is STILL obviously the better player. When counting playoff performance, there is even less of a dispute. Which was my point from the very beginning. You have no leg to stand on...so lets just shut it down...

 

[Lex L.]

I was giving all...ALL of the ways in which Wade was superior to Drexler. Including the eye test. You have never heard me scream about anything. Your facts are that Wade is inferior to Drexler because Drexler averaged more steals? That is a rather stupid argument.

Well, I havent taken a position on Wade being better than Drexler, nor have I taken a position on Drexler being better than Wade. All Im doing is exposing your flaws and contradictions. And you might want to check the facts again. Of all the stats I listed, Wade was only better in assists and the difference wasnt massive. Drexler was better in FG%, Rebs, and steals.

I only pointed to the Lakers series as a point where Drexler had a chance to rise to the occasion and lead his team to victory and was upset in the conference finals with his best team, which happened to have the best record in the league that year. Wade, with his best team to date, was an underdog in the Finals and would win the Finals MVP. No wing player in this era, including Kobe, has been as dominant in a finals series as Wade in 2006.

Again, what about Miami's other failures? Also, had Wade played against the 90 Pistons or the 92 Bulls, Wade wouldnt hav carried the day either.

By the way, you ignored Lefty's post purposely, because it pisses all over your argument. Your argument is based totally on supposition because the facts have been exposed, and Wade was a superior player.

Coming from you, this doesnt mean much. Youre not really qualified to assess the merit of his arguments. Youve established that here with all of your flawed reasoning and contradictions.

And also, I have lefty on ignore.

You stick to one portion of the argument so, i will indulge you...say neither of them EVER got to the finals. Based on what they accomplished...Wade is STILL obviously the better player. When counting playoff performance, there is even less of a dispute. Which was my point from the very beginning. You have no leg to stand on...so lets just shut it down...

What is this based on, your eyeball test? Because its not really based on output.

I dont blame you for wanting to give up. You cant even get out of your own way any longer with all of your bogus arguments and your contradictions.

 

[Lefty]

:rofl: Funny how Lex having me on ignore didn't stop him from responding to me in the other Jordan thread, but here it does somehow. Hmmmmmmmm.........

 

[TheStig]

You can't just strictly compare separated time periods like that, though, because as someone said before, the NBA was a much different league when Drexler was 22--all the way up until he was 28--than it is today. Over that period of Drexler's career, the average NBA team scored 108.8 points per game. During that same age period over Wade's career, however, the average NBA team has scored only 98.8 PPG.

Drexler's PPG, ages 22-28: 22.37
Wade's PPG, ages 22-28: 25.41

We will ignore for the moment that the 3.04 PPG difference (in Wade's favor) certainly makes up--perhaps more so--for the 1.66 difference in rebounds (in Drexler's favor) and the 0.49 difference in steals per game and the 0.62 difference in turnovers per game because, as has been pointed out many, many times on this board, scoring is more important than any other facet of the game.

So then, ignoring all that, what we have to do is account for the context in which Drexler's numbers were put up relative to Wade's. To do that, let's just simply add one point to each era's Team average PPG totals. This will represent the Minimum League-Average Win (MLAW) for both eras (109.8 for Drexler, 99.8 for Wade), which is the minimum number of points that need to be scored if you are playing the league-average team for that era (we will assume that in that game, each team will play era-dependent defense).

Looking at the numbers, Wade's PPG is worth .254 MLAWs' per game in his own era, whereas Drexler's scoring would net his team .204 wins per game in his own, making Wade's production roughly 25% more valuable against a neutral backdrop. In fact, Drexler would have had to average 27.9 PPG to equal what Wade has done so far in his career. And even if Wade and Drexler scored the same amount of points per game over the time span we are interested in, Wade's production would still be more valuable than Drexler's (to the tune of about 9%), because Wade scored his points during a time when they were harder to come by than they were in Drexler's day.

Now, taking into account the fact that scoring is the most important aspect of the NBA, Wade is clearly the superior player, and by a wide margin. You can look at strict differences in stats when eras are comparable (i.e. closer together both in terms of time and the league environment), but when they become separated by longer and longer spans of time, you have to take into account the differences in the leagues of the respective eras you are inquiring about before you can value the statistics put up in those eras.

This notion is similar to the one applied to minor league baseball statistics: given the variability across different parks and leagues in the minors (for instance, the entire California League and a good number of the Pacific Coast League teams play their games at altitude significant enough to influence the flight of a baseball so much so that it needs to be accounted for either by park factors, league factors or both), one must consider the context in which batting and pitching lines are put up before one can properly valuate a prospect. An .800 OPS in the California League is just slightly above average, but in the Florida State League it is other-worldly.

Lefty, teams were scoring more but it was a much more physical league back then with less foul calls. Wade would have played a lot less games if he went through the Pistons. The guy misses a lot of time with these touch fouls, now imagine being thrown to the floor by bill lambier. If Drexler played in todays NBA, he'd have more than 5fta per game. He'd be pretty close to Wade's 9+. The nba was also more post oriented back then and Drexler never had the usage that Wade did.

All that being said, I'd take Wade today and Drexler back then. I just don't think Wade could hold up in a much more physical game with less foul calls. Wade has a more varried skill set but I think Drexler would have been just as good of a scorer these days.

 

[houheffna]

Lefty, teams were scoring more but it was a much more physical league back then with less foul calls. Wade would have played a lot less games if he went through the Pistons. The guy misses a lot of time with these touch fouls, now imagine being thrown to the floor by bill lambier. If Drexler played in todays NBA, he'd have more than 5fta per game. He'd be pretty close to Wade's 9+. The nba was also more post oriented back then and Drexler never had the usage that Wade did.

All that being said, I'd take Wade today and Drexler back then. I just don't think Wade could hold up in a much more physical game with less foul calls. Wade has a more varried skill set but I think Drexler would have been just as good of a scorer these days.

Wow, way to go out on a limb dude...

 

[TheStig]

Wow, way to go out on a limb dude...

Hou, I don't know if its a limb. Wade isn't Bron, he can't take the beating imo. He also wouldn't get to the line as much, lowering his efficency and bringing his scoring figures back down to earth. His importance on the court would also be lowered because the game wasn't as guard friendly as it is now. I just can't see him being as good as he is now.

 

[houheffna]

Well, I havent taken a position on Wade being better than Drexler, nor have I taken a position on Drexler being better than Wade. All Im doing is exposing your flaws and contradictions. And you might want to check the facts again. Of all the stats I listed, Wade was only better in assists and the difference wasnt massive. Drexler was better in FG%, Rebs, and steals.



Again, what about Miami's other failures? Also, had Wade played against the 90 Pistons or the 92 Bulls, Wade wouldnt hav carried the day either.



Coming from you, this doesnt mean much. Youre not really qualified to assess the merit of his arguments. Youve established that here with all of your flawed reasoning and contradictions.

And also, I have lefty on ignore.



What is this based on, your eyeball test? Because its not really based on output.

I dont blame you for wanting to give up. You cant even get out of your own way any longer with all of your bogus arguments and your contradictions.

"You can't just strictly compare separated time periods like that, though, because as someone said before, the NBA was a much different league when Drexler was 22--all the way up until he was 28--than it is today. Over that period of Drexler's career, the average NBA team scored 108.8 points per game. During that same age period over Wade's career, however, the average NBA team has scored only 98.8 PPG.

Drexler's PPG, ages 22-28: 22.37
Wade's PPG, ages 22-28: 25.41

We will ignore for the moment that the 3.04 PPG difference (in Wade's favor) certainly makes up--perhaps more so--for the 1.66 difference in rebounds (in Drexler's favor) and the 0.49 difference in steals per game and the 0.62 difference in turnovers per game because, as has been pointed out many, many times on this board, scoring is more important than any other facet of the game.

So then, ignoring all that, what we have to do is account for the context in which Drexler's numbers were put up relative to Wade's. To do that, let's just simply add one point to each era's Team average PPG totals. This will represent the Minimum League-Average Win (MLAW) for both eras (109.8 for Drexler, 99.8 for Wade), which is the minimum number of points that need to be scored if you are playing the league-average team for that era (we will assume that in that game, each team will play era-dependent defense).

Looking at the numbers, Wade's PPG is worth .254 MLAWs' per game in his own era, whereas Drexler's scoring would net his team .204 wins per game in his own, making Wade's production roughly 25% more valuable against a neutral backdrop. In fact, Drexler would have had to average 27.9 PPG to equal what Wade has done so far in his career. And even if Wade and Drexler scored the same amount of points per game over the time span we are interested in, Wade's production would still be more valuable than Drexler's (to the tune of about 9%), because Wade scored his points during a time when they were harder to come by than they were in Drexler's day.

Now, taking into account the fact that scoring is the most important aspect of the NBA, Wade is clearly the superior player, and by a wide margin. You can look at strict differences in stats when eras are comparable (i.e. closer together both in terms of time and the league environment), but when they become separated by longer and longer spans of time, you have to take into account the differences in the leagues of the respective eras you are inquiring about before you can value the statistics put up in those eras.

This notion is similar to the one applied to minor league baseball statistics: given the variability across different parks and leagues in the minors (for instance, the entire California League and a good number of the Pacific Coast League teams play their games at altitude significant enough to influence the flight of a baseball so much so that it needs to be accounted for either by park factors, league factors or both), one must consider the context in which batting and pitching lines are put up before one can properly valuate a prospect. An .800 OPS in the California League is just slightly above average, but in the Florida State League it is other-worldly."

This was Lefty's post...enjoy...feel free to reply...

 

[houheffna]

Hou, I don't know if its a limb. Wade isn't Bron, he can't take the beating imo. He also wouldn't get to the line as much, lowering his efficency and bringing his scoring figures back down to earth. His importance on the court would also be lowered because the game wasn't as guard friendly as it is now. I just can't see him being as good as he is now.

I could...he is a great, highly skilled basketball player. I don't understand why you or anyone else wouldn't think he would make the necessary adjustments. Same with any other player from this era.

 

[Fred]

I've really enjoyed reading this back and forth. Hou, you should come back on the Bullseye and Lex, we would love to have you on. If your verbal sparring is half as entertaining as the text, it will be an all time great episode. Email me at chicagobullseye@gmail.com if you're interested. Or Hou you can just come on and we'll talk Jordan.

 

[Lex L.]

"You can't just strictly compare separated time periods like that, though, because as someone said before, the NBA was a much different league when Drexler was 22--all the way up until he was 28--than it is today.

Its interesting that you would hide behind his analysis considering this part above, once again, highlights your contradiction. He says you cant compare time periods but thats what youre doing when you say this is sort of a golden age for wing players and claim that Wade is definitely better as you have. Yet another of you talking out of both sides of your mouth.

Over that period of Drexler's career, the average NBA team scored 108.8 points per game. During that same age period over Wade's career, however, the average NBA team has scored only 98.8 PPG.

We're not talking about what teams did on a macro level. This discussion is occurring on the micro level. Its specifically discussing individual players and how the game played at that time affected what they did. Looking at it from a macro level and working your way back has more deficiency than looking at the micro level mechanics and seeing the spin off from this one component.

And, again, Drexler never played in an NBA where they didnt have handchecking. Those Portland teams forced tempo. Thats how it was back then. The west teams forced tempo and the easter teams were more grind it out half court. The NBA Finals for a while in those days was about contrasting styles. The Bulls three-peat teams could run with the teams in the west and they could also play the half court style. But also, you could look at the greatest contrast when the Pistons were in the finals (since the Bulls were good at both) since the Pistons were more the epitome of that style of play. And the fact that the Pistons won the finals in back to back years also potentially highlights the possibility that they won because their style of play was tolerated by the NBA and the officials. They were allowed to clutch, grab, and annihilate people when going into the lane. But it also speaks to the NBA that Drexler played in then vs now. The Bad Boys style of play became more prominant in the late 80s, but there was always handchecking before that and during Drexlers entire time in the league. What the Pistons effectively did was redefine the severity of contact necessary to have a foul called.

Drexler's PPG, ages 22-28: 22.37
Wade's PPG, ages 22-28: 25.41

I thought you might walk into this. Previously I pointed out that Drexler had a higher FG%. So, in effect, if Wade was scoring more, its a function of choice. 3 pts per game in an era that allowed handchecking is more than negligible.

We will ignore for the moment that the 3.04 PPG difference (in Wade's favor) certainly makes up--perhaps more so--for the 1.66 difference in rebounds (in Drexler's favor) and the 0.49 difference in steals per game and the 0.62 difference in turnovers per game because, as has been pointed out many, many times on this board, scoring is more important than any other facet of the game.

See above

So then, ignoring all that, what we have to do is account for the context in which Drexler's numbers were put up relative to Wade's. To do that, let's just simply add one point to each era's Team average PPG totals. This will represent the Minimum League-Average Win (MLAW) for both eras (109.8 for Drexler, 99.8 for Wade), which is the minimum number of points that need to be scored if you are playing the league-average team for that era (we will assume that in that game, each team will play era-dependent defense).

Once again. Whats less flawed is looking at how teams were allowed to defend Drexler. Drexler was a super star. And so whatever else happened, centers around that component. In other words, this top level down is an amalgam of a bunch of other stuff that has nothing to do with the issue being discussed. We're not talking about Kersey, Duckworth, or Porter. We're talking about their super star in Drexler. Not a bunch of other stuff that gets amalgamated in the macro. And, with that in mind, looking at things in the macro the way lefty is doing, fails to appropriately identify or weight the components. To do that, you have to look at the micro.

Looking at the numbers, Wade's PPG is worth .254 MLAWs' per game in his own era, whereas Drexler's scoring would net his team .204 wins per game in his own, making Wade's production roughly 25% more valuable against a neutral backdrop. In fact, Drexler would have had to average 27.9 PPG to equal what Wade has done so far in his career. And even if Wade and Drexler scored the same amount of points per game over the time span we are interested in, Wade's production would still be more valuable than Drexler's (to the tune of about 9%), because Wade scored his points during a time when they were harder to come by than they were in Drexler's day.

See my previous comment about working your way back from the macro. And also, look at the part Ive bolded and consider the comment made from the outset about being able to compare eras. Not only that, but even if Wade is more integral to his team, that doesnt mean Wade was better. It could just mean his team wasnt as good even though he played with another HOFer and Drexler didnt.

Now, taking into account the fact that scoring is the most important aspect of the NBA, Wade is clearly the superior player, and by a wide margin. You can look at strict differences in stats when eras are comparable (i.e. closer together both in terms of time and the league environment), but when they become separated by longer and longer spans of time, you have to take into account the differences in the leagues of the respective eras you are inquiring about before you can value the statistics put up in those eras.

No. Most of Wades career has been played under the current rules that really opened up the game giving a lot more space to perimeter players. Youve identified 3 ppg and have assigned for more value to it than is appropriate, especially considering Drexler played during a time where handchecking was prevalent. But also, Drexlers FG% was higher in spite of the defense having the ability to handchecking him. This brings us back to the fact that Wades 3ppg more is a function of taking more shots and nothing else.

This notion is similar to the one applied to minor league baseball statistics: given the variability across different parks and leagues in the minors (for instance, the entire California League and a good number of the Pacific Coast League teams play their games at altitude significant enough to influence the flight of a baseball so much so that it needs to be accounted for either by park factors, league factors or both), one must consider the context in which batting and pitching lines are put up before one can properly valuate a prospect. An .800 OPS in the California League is just slightly above average, but in the Florida State League it is other-worldly."

I can poke holes in Bill James' work all day. And, he's no more qualified in statistics than I am. And for that reason, I approach a lot of the statistical analysis in baseball with a large measure of scrutiny. Baseball is probably the worst sport when it comes to taking the macro and applying it to the micro, when this is backwards. The macro is a reflection of the interrelating things going on at the micro level.

This was Lefty's post...enjoy...feel free to reply...

Done.

 

[Lefty]

So basically, you just said "no, you're WRONG, stop proving me wrong!" and repeated "macro" and "micro" in as many different combinations as you could think of. You say "well the game is more opened up now", implying that the game when Drexler played was not "opened up", completely ignoring the fact that teams scored more when Drexler played by, like, a lot. So what they were allowed to hand-check, that clearly didn't change the games all that much, as evidenced by the hand-check era being a more potent offensive environment than the post-hand-check era.

At no time did you address specifically anything I said, rather just cherry-picking points I made and arbitrarily assigning to them a "macro" title and saying, "can't look at the macro, dude" and never once did you fully explain yourself on that point. You arbitrarily decided the points I made had to be wrong, and you twisted your thoughts and arguments in an attempt to make it appear so, and it really show up in your work.

Oh yeah, and "looking at the micro" when comparing players from different eras (i.e. swapping them, taking one player back in time and so on) is a bad way to formulate your ideas, because doing so inherently leads you to making faulty, erroneous assumptions (nothing new for you) based solely on what you think would have happened. There is absolutely no way to tell with any certainty that Wade wouldn't have been able to score at least as well as he has so far in his career (we're only going to talk about scoring because it is the most important), and certainly that he would have scored less than Drexler in that same "closed era" or whatever you want to call it (though I find it rather interesting that despite all the "physicality" and "roughness" people associated with that era of basketball, it was a markedly more potent offensive environment, this would raise red flags about the stability of one's position in most intelligent people, but in you I can see it had no discernible affect).

 

[houheffna]

Its interesting that you would hide behind his analysis considering this part above, once again, highlights your contradiction. He says you cant compare time periods but thats what youre doing when you say this is sort of a golden age for wing players and claim that Wade is definitely better as you have. Yet another of you talking out of both sides of your mouth.



Done.

Well its frustrating to talk to a guy who says that "Drexler averaged more steals"...which means what exactly? So let me ask you a simple question. You have a firm belief that Wade would not have survived in Drexler's era under the same situations.

Could Drexler have led a team...LED a team in 2006 against Nowitzki and the Mavericks to a championship after being down 2-0? If so, what is your basis for that reasoning?

 

[Lefty]

Oh yes, and I'm not saying that you just cannot compare eras, but that you have to consider the context of those eras before you compare stats across those eras (we'll ignore that Lex originally pointed to statistics to show what he thinks about Drexler v. Wade, then said "you can't use macro stuff like that", which is basically saying "you can't use stats").

However, one has to be careful not to go too far in considering context, because it will eventually lead to saying things like "Wade wouldn't have been able to score that much with the physical defense played in Drexler's era" and "Wade would have been hurt more had he played in the more physical NBA". That first statement completely ignores the fact that Drexler's era was a much better scoring environment than today's NBA (which implies that perhaps the physical defense didn't do as much to limit scoring as people want to believe), and the second statement is almost completely erroneous, because there is no way of knowing exactly when Wade would have been injured, what kind of injury he would have sustained, how long he would have been out, and that the injury sustained occurred because of the physicality of the game, and thus would not have occurred in Wade's own era.

Playing the "let's compare players (and thus, eras)" game can be fun, but when you start to try to delve deeper to the smaller and smaller increments of play, you begin to ignore the larger picture (what actually happened, what you can reasonably expect, etc.) in favor of making erroneous arguments and statements that have no backing or testability.

 

[Lex L.]

Well its frustrating to talk to a guy who says that "Drexler averaged more steals"...which means what exactly?

Its output just like the other stats I mentioned. Stop trying to disaggregate what I said by picking out one thing.

So let me ask you a simple question. You have a firm belief that Wade would not have survived in Drexler's era under the same situations.

Thats really not what was said at all. You were saying that this current generation of wing players is like this golden age and you were talking as if Wade puts Drexler to shame. You were kind of suggesting or explicitly stating that Drexler is a significant drop off from the current guys.

I think really where the disagreement is, is that I think Jordan dwarfs anyone, whether its Kobe, Wade, or Drexler and I think that Drexler is a victim of playing during the same time as Jordan. You seem to be implying that part of why Jordan seemed so good was because he was compared to Drexler and not the current guys. I go the opposite way.

Could Drexler have led a team...LED a team in 2006 against Nowitzki and the Mavericks to a championship after being down 2-0? If so, what is your basis for that reasoning?

Your question needs more clarification. Are you asking whether I think the 90-92 Trailblazers would have also beaten the 06 Mavs? Or are you asking whether or not I think you could drop Drexler into the 06 Heat lineup in Wades place and see the same results?

I think those Blazer teams would have defeated the 06 Mavs. If youre asking the latter, its hard to know if Drexler would have taken the same team that Wade did and won in the exact same circumstances. But I also think thats kind of a bogus way of looking at it because if Drexler was your star player, you might build the team differently.

I think if you were to ask me to compare and contrast the 90 Blazers and the 06 Heat, its basically like asking me to compare the league now vs then. And along those lines, I think back then there was a little more team integration...at least on some of those teams back then. And I think thats partly a function of being less averse to older players and also having more players who spent 3 years in college instead of 1. I should also mention the effect that AAU has had on players. With AAU being so prevalent, some leverage has been taken away from HS coaches because the players always have AAU to fall back on. I think it hinders the HS coach's ability to emphasize fundamentals and team integration. I think AAU turns more players being a planet into a sun. Im not saying that means everything now is tainted and all young players are selfish and devoid of fundamentals. But I also see how euros are brought up emphasizing fundamentals and team ball and cant help but wonder if part of their success in the league is filling this void.

 

[Lefty]

Lefty, teams were scoring more but it was a much more physical league back then with less foul calls. Wade would have played a lot less games if he went through the Pistons. The guy misses a lot of time with these touch fouls, now imagine being thrown to the floor by bill lambier. If Drexler played in todays NBA, he'd have more than 5fta per game. He'd be pretty close to Wade's 9+. The nba was also more post oriented back then and Drexler never had the usage that Wade did.

All that being said, I'd take Wade today and Drexler back then. I just don't think Wade could hold up in a much more physical game with less foul calls. Wade has a more varried skill set but I think Drexler would have been just as good of a scorer these days.

Actually, there aren't more fouls called today than there were during Drexler's day, or at least, the time period we're interested in:

Drexler's era: 24.13 personal fouls per game
Wade's era: 21.71 personal fouls per game

The more and more I look into it, the more and more it seems as though the "physicality" of the game in Drexler's era didn't play as big of a role as people want to believe. There was more scoring relative to today's NBA, and there were actually more fouls called back then than there are today. All of this ragging on today's NBA for being "soft" versus that game of old may actually be the result of conditioning and selective remembrance on the part of NBA fans and media members.

Everyone remembers the Bad Boy Pistons era and the escapades of Bill Laimbeer and touts that era as "rough" and "tough" on scorers, but really, it wasn't, being a much higher-scoring environment than today's league, even worrying the NBA about the eventual emergence of a 150 PPG team towards the end of the 80's. So this physicality either didn't exist to the extent people wish to believe (are the Pistons of that time just a well-known aberration that we extrapolate to encompass the entire data set?), or it didn't have the impact people think it did (as evidenced by the scoring numbers relative to even a supposed "softer" era more conducive to scoring).

 

[Lefty]

Look at Lex, busting out is Word-A-Day calendar. Good work. Disaggregate, .

 

[Crystallas]

Wait, is Drexler drinking regular, old, gatorade? Or is he drinking G-Pro? I mean, the other stuff, stats, rules, blah blah blah... But come on, this argument is all about the gatorade.

 

[Crystallas]

Proof

 

[houheffna]

Its output just like the other stats I mentioned. Stop trying to disaggregate what I said by picking out one thing.



Thats really not what was said at all. You were saying that this current generation of wing players is like this golden age and you were talking as if Wade puts Drexler to shame. You were kind of suggesting or explicitly stating that Drexler is a significant drop off from the current guys.

I think really where the disagreement is, is that I think Jordan dwarfs anyone, whether its Kobe, Wade, or Drexler and I think that Drexler is a victim of playing during the same time as Jordan. You seem to be implying that part of why Jordan seemed so good was because he was compared to Drexler and not the current guys. I go the opposite way.



Your question needs more clarification. Are you asking whether I think the 90-92 Trailblazers would have also beaten the 06 Mavs? Or are you asking whether or not I think you could drop Drexler into the 06 Heat lineup in Wades place and see the same results?

I think those Blazer teams would have defeated the 06 Mavs. If youre asking the latter, its hard to know if Drexler would have taken the same team that Wade did and won in the exact same circumstances. But I also think thats kind of a bogus way of looking at it because if Drexler was your star player, you might build the team differently.

I think if you were to ask me to compare and contrast the 90 Blazers and the 06 Heat, its basically like asking me to compare the league now vs then. And along those lines, I think back then there was a little more team integration...at least on some of those teams back then. And I think thats partly a function of being less averse to older players and also having more players who spent 3 years in college instead of 1. I should also mention the effect that AAU has had on players. With AAU being so prevalent, some leverage has been taken away from HS coaches because the players always have AAU to fall back on. I think it hinders the HS coach's ability to emphasize fundamentals and team integration. I think AAU turns more players being a planet into a sun. Im not saying that means everything now is tainted and all young players are selfish and devoid of fundamentals. But I also see how euros are brought up emphasizing fundamentals and team ball and cant help but wonder if part of their success in the league is filling this void.

I don't think Kersey and Buck Williams could have done anything with Nowitzki. Its not like there were any Nowitzkis running around back then. How would you build a team differently around Drexler? Terry Porter would have worked with Wade well. Shaq would have been great with Drexler...

I don't think Drexler could take his game to that extra level as Wade did, because he just wasn't as good. Wade gave an all time performance...not every player can do that. Reggie Miller? Yes. Drexler? not so much. But again, that was one area. Wade is superior defensively, Wade is a better ballhandler and could create off the dribble better than Drexler could. And Wade is superior in the clutch...that was the whole point...

The last paragraph must have been written while you were on acid or something. I don't give a fat baby's d--- about AAU teams and HS coaches. That has nothing to do with the argument at hand.