Ranking the Power Forwards
BDL at Yahoo! Sports is at it again.
Dirk Nowitzki came up 4th in the rankings when it came to the best power forwards in the NBA.
5. Bosh
4. Dirk
3. Amare
2. Duncan
1. Gasol
I definitely can see the reasoning for Gasol even though he really didn't get hot until this past season. I can't see how you can legitimately say Amare is ahead of Dirk.
over 1 year ago
Bryan Gutierrez
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instead of telling people what not to post
why don’t you give us one of your insightful posts isntead?
Wow...
No. I don’t agree with this at all. Call me extremely bias but i say dirk is the best forward in the league. Gasol is good, but he can not do what he does without the best player in the entire league drawing double teams and leaving him open. If anyone disagrees, I’m glad to argue.
Dirk is the best in the league because he is also the best by FAR on his team. Gasol showed he can’t do anything when he has to lead a team by himself. If you recall there was a time memphis was, (lol) a good team. They were the 5th seed in the west, and we swept them. Dirk deals with supporting casts only about, eh, Id say a little better than Gasol’s that year.
The point being, Gasol is good, Nay, great. But Because Kobe is there to play beside him and draw all of the attention i can’t say Gasol is the best.
My rating using these 5 goes…
1. Nowitzki
2.Gasol
3.Amar’e
4.Duncan
5.Bosh
If i had the entire league to pick from I’d havea surprise in the top 5, but to prevent being ridiculed I’ll just use these 5
~Karim!
Dfoes it matter WTF a blogger says about Dirk?
As long as he plays, it’s all good.
War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.-1984 George Orwell.
According to NBA.com
1. Kevin Durant
2. LeBron James
3. Carmelo Anthony
4. Dirk Nowitzski
5.Danny Granger
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Agreed on Gasol
the guy truly is underrated, but Dirk should, at the very least, be #2. Yet another set of awful rankings by BDL!
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poster formerly known as hinduplaya
It's like this
Gasol deserves top spot, I love Dirk and all but Pau was rockin’ the glass in the playoffs. Double doubles a-plenty. And yeah he doesn’t score as much as Dirk, but that’s the nature of the triangle offense, he’s supposed to make those kick-out passes often.
Dirk definitely lands squarely in second. He’s a surefire draw on the double team, he scores at will from damn near anywhere and no other power forward shoots 3s like that.
Now the last three is where it gets confusing. Seems to me that Duncan is at the end of his rope, he’s still good but a bit too weary to count as “elite” if you ask me. Even considering all that I still put him in third.
It’s a tough call but I’ll give Amare the 4th spot. Man doesn’t play a lick of defense but the bastard can still put the ball in the hole better than most.
Lastly we got Bosh. Mark my words, this is the year when the world will see how over-hyped this guy is. Sure he was a rockstar in Toronto, big deal! Big fish, little pond. Never forget that it’s easy to do big numbers when you’re the one and/or only option on your team. Wade and James will cut into that heavily for sure. Now he’s going to be under the magnifying glass for all the world to see and he’s got a target on his back. He’s the weak spot of the “three kings” and people will be exploiting it.
by elbow greater than face on Aug 26, 2010 12:12 AM CDT reply actions
Ugh
Tim Duncan is SOO old. He’s really slow. He’ll stay decent for one more year, at the most, before somewhat turning into what Shaq is now.
My apologies to Dirk and Pau “Look at my beard! I’m SOO European” Gasol, but that is one lackluster list. Bad Knees Amare and the unfunny/uncharismatic 3rd Stooge don’t belong to any Top 5. It seems like we’re going through a period of time where there aren’t many good PFs. There are a lot of good PGs, though.
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some context
The rankings are supposed to be a projection of what the players will produce in ‘10-’11. Dwyer’s thought is that Amare could be the more productive player, considering he will be basically the only major offensive threat on the Knicks. He also does state that Dirk and Amare could easily be flipped.
I think Duncan is a center, but that’s semantics. Either way, it’s hardly a great insult to rank TD and Pau ahead of Dirk.
I do take the Duncan thing as an insult.
Their numbers are almost the same for career but Duncan has way more turnovers and sucks ass at 3s. Dirk > Tim clearly.
by elbow greater than face on Aug 26, 2010 6:51 PM CDT up reply actions
seriously?
Duncan is a far superior rebounder, shotblocker and defender. He’s also a better passer, and his career free throw rates are better, though Dirk had the advantage there the last few years.
I think Duncan is a center, and I would probably take Dirk over Duncan at this stage in their careers, since Duncan doesn’t play much more than 30-32 minutes a night. Still, there’s an argument to be made that Duncan is still, even at this age, the superior player…and I don’t think even the strongest Dirk supporter could make a reasonable case that Duncan hasn’t had the better career. Bottom line: being one or two spots down on a top 5 list from a future Hall of Famer is nothing to sneeze at.
What other player today averages a double-double with a couple of blocks, shoots 50% from the field, gets to the line regularly, defends, and is a devastating passer out of the post?
by Alan Smithee on Aug 27, 2010 2:00 AM CDT up reply actions
I refuse to see Pau as the top PF in the game when he's a sidekick.
Yes, he’s probably the best all-round big man in the game, and probably changed since his Memphis days, but he hasn’t won a playoff game without Kobe. Think of that stat.
Remember to retire Fin's number, Mark.
So Scottie Pippen was not a top player cuz he was with Mike?
Come on, I know we all probably hate the Lakers but Kobe or no Kobe you can’t deny that Pau is a remarkable player, probably one of if not the best PF of the current generation.
by elbow greater than face on Aug 26, 2010 6:55 PM CDT up reply actions
Since when did I say Pau isn't a top player?
“Best all-round big man in the game”?
I just don’t think you can put him over Dirk, even for this coming season. I think his defensive ability is inflated from slightly above-average to ‘pretty good’, people count how he has ‘traditional big man skills’ i.e. two-way post game, way too much in a comparison with Dirk. I know he’s a little disadvantaged by being Kobe’s sidekick in making a judgement on how good he would be as a #1, but I highly doubt he’s the type who owns the ball for an entire quarter and does something like Dirk did in dropping 29 last season.
Remember to retire Fin's number, Mark.
It really seems like people around here don't fully grasp what Dwyer's rankings are for
It isn’t some neutral-adjusted hypothetical team ranking system where you look at every player as though they were “the guy”. What Pau would do if he didn’t have Kobe is irrelevant. The roster and style of the respective team is a major factor in the ranking system. After all, it’s pretty hard to divorce who a player is from what he does within the confines of the team.
Pau is on the Lakers, a system that greatly benefits him, and that is the reason he’s ranked so high. Of course, the reason the system does benefit him is because he can do everything asked of him, and extraordinarily well to boot. The triangle makes great use of his terrific passing skills, and as an devastatingly efficient post scorer he’s able to pick his spots and put up 18-20 a night without taking possessions away from Kobe, who needs a lot of shots to be at his most effective.
I don’t think there’s a very big gap between any of last year’s top four power forwards(Dirk-Bosh-Duncan-Pau), and my guess would be that Dwyer doesn’t think so either. Bosh obviously is ranked lowest for next year due to the presence of both Wade and LeBron. Amare gets a bump, as I mentioned above, because he is likely to have the offense run through him in New York. Dirk isn’t exactly hurt in the rankings by playing on a team that gives him 20 shots a night, either.
As for Pau’s defense, my eyes and most metrics agree that Gasol has improved markedly since arriving in LA. He is an outstanding help defender, he defends in the post better than ever, and with Bynum and Odom on the roster he doesn’t have to bang on the blocks quite as much as he did in Memphis, something that likely helps his endurance on both ends of the court.
by Alan Smithee on Aug 27, 2010 11:59 AM CDT up reply actions
Well, then that's a debate for a different day.
But right now, I’m still going to be highly indignant at any ranking which places Dirk behind Amare and Gasol. If you’re taking team as part of it, that creates an entirely different ranking as to ranking according to “true” ability.
Remember to retire Fin's number, Mark.
True enough
You’ve stated your case pretty well. Pau is not the alpha dog type of player that Dirk is and that does count for something. Given how close the comparison is I guess that would be a fair tie-breaker. Perhaps it was just my subconscious wishing that Dirk would bang for boards and blocks a lil more…
by elbow greater than face on Aug 27, 2010 1:24 PM CDT up reply actions
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