re: Are Lebron and Wade the Top 2 Players in the NBA?

Dude, if you think Pippen was better than Wade, then you don't know what you're talking about. He was a great player, but didn't make the impact that Wade did.

Wade carried a team to a championship, with one of the greatest individual performances in Finals history. And if you think Scottie Pippen, who was never really a clutch player or truly ever showed a "killer instinct" late in games, is better than Wade, then you are going against everything you have ever argued on here.

I watched basketball in the '90s. The Bulls teams were really good. And in the very early '90s, the league was good. Lots of good players who had developed in the 1980s and some very good teams who played outstanding defense. However, around the middle of the decade (1993-1994ish), the league began to take a big dip talent-wise. The drafts in the early '90s sucked, and some of the players who did show some promise were major head cases. Some great players suffered injuries that they could never truly recover from (Penny). The game became more of a hip-hop fest. There were too many young players coming into the league that weren't really ready or developed enough to be NBA players (which continued for a while). Yet they were still being pushed as huge stars, which ultimately led to these players believing in their own hype.

The poor drafts in the early '90s literally had a lasting effect on the league all the way up until the mid-2000s. I would honestly say the talent level in the league never returned to how it was in the late '80s and very early '90s until around 2007 or 2008.

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which is what you've been struggling mightily to convince

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I'm not trying to convince anyone that it's true, I'm trying to convince them that it's conceivable that it could end up being true, which it is.

Wade is better than Pippen. Look what happened when pippen tried to carry a team by himself. The statisitcs also favor wade.

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Wade is better than Pippen. Look what happened when pippen tried to carry a team by himself. The statisitcs also favor wade

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You either didn't watch 90s ball or don't get the game, and your opinion is useless now because you're arguing a FACT!!!

can't believe the lack of respect for pippen here. The only thing Wade definitely did better than Pippen in his prime is score the ball.

of course Wade also has a much high volume of shots as he dominated the ball until Lebron came along.

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can't believe the lack of respect for pippen here.

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Just because people think Wade is better than Pippen was doesn't mean people don't respect Scottie.

He was a great player, like people have been saying in this thread. One of the most elite players of all-time.

Yes.

Scottie was a great player, but he was, to some extent, a product of Michael Jordan and Phil Jackson's Triangle in terms of his legacy. At the same time, he did have to tailor his game to compliment Jordan, so you could argue that in his favor. However, he isn't a player who can carry a team on his own, like a Dwyane Wade. He was never a clutch player, and he got the opportunities to do all of these things in the time that Jordan was away. There was a time when Phil Jackson didn't even trust him with the ball in his hands at the end of the game.

Wade is better statistically, obviously. He can score the basketball in a ton of different ways. He's also extremely efficient for a shooting guard. In fact, in this point in their careers, Wade is shooting about the same percentage from the field that Scottie was, except from the 2 spot. Wade is better at getting to the goal and getting to the line. And although he's not near the defender Pippen was, Wade isn't chopped liver. He's one of the best defenders in the league today.

Pippen is one of the greatest glue guys of all-time. He was a perfect fit for those Bulls teams. But would he be considered a Top 50 player of all-time playing somewhere else? He still would have been a great player, but not what we see him as today, most likely. And to be fair, without Pippen, Jordan might not be seen in quite as much light as he is today either.

At the end of the day, Wade took one of the worst supporting casts in the last 30 years and won an NBA title with them. Pippen could have never done what Wade did in 2006 in a million years. There are different kinds of players in the league, and to me, the ones who can score at will and put their teams on their back at any point in the game, while still doing the other intangibles like passing and playing great defense are the most valuable.

Was Pippen even a top 4 player of his era? Jordan, Olajuwon, Malone, Robinson, Barkley, etc. Just a question.

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Plus jason williams, james posey, and udonis haslem. all very good NBA players

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I don't wanna nitpick too much, but we must have completely different meanings of what is a "very good NBA player".


Though I do agree that Wade and Shaq were enough even with an average supporting cast to win a title in that spot.

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How so?

and why is that a negative?

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First off, I'm not saying that it was a negative. Even though Pippen might have not been one of the best 1st options of all-time, it has to be noted that for most of his career, he didn't get those opportunities because of Jordan's presence. Maybe if he came up as the guy in Chicago without Jordan, he would have become that kind of player. Who knows.

Pippen was exactly what they needed him to be around Jordan. Offensively, he provided another ball handler so Jordan didn't have to do it all himself. In the first 3-peat, the Bulls pretty much started small shooting guards at the point guard spot. Those couldn't create that well for themselves, definitely not to the extent that Jordan and Pippen could. They were more there to stretch the defense. On the defensive side is where Pippen made his biggest impact for Jordan. Pippen guarded the opposing team's best wing player a good amount of the time (Jordan still guarded the best player a lot of the time depending on the physical match-up), allowing Jordan a little bit of rest. However, it would also allow Jordan to roam the passing lanes, which was where he was at his best. The Bulls trapped a lot, allowing Pippen to deflect passes, while Jordan (being the great anticipating defender that he was) could make steals in the passing lanes, allowing the Bulls to get easy transition points.

Pippen being there made it so where Jordan didn't have to do everything on both sides of the floor, which is something he had to do in the late '80s. He alleviated Jordan of some of those responsibilities.

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at what point in time was that?

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The series against the Knicks the year Jordan wasn't there. You know, when Jackson drew up the play for someone else in the huddle and Pippen threw a hissy fit and refused to play the last 2 seconds of the game.

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he was great when jordan left.

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He was very good.

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i hate when people say this. Him and Shaq and a great cast of role players. 3 former all stars, not even counting him and shaq. Plus jason williams, james posey, and udonis haslem. all very good NBA players.

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Who was the 3rd best player on those teams? Whoever you say it was, he is one of the worst 3rd best players on a title team ever. But yes, you don't need too much if you've got a star wing and Shaq down low. That was proven in LA from 2000-2002. However, it still was one of the worst supporting casts around the star players on a championship team in a while. Sure, they had a lot of veterans and former all-stars, but go back through the last decade or so and you won't find a supporting cast of that caliber surrounding the stars of a team that managed to win it all very often.

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He probably wasn't even top 10. That was the golden era of NBA basketball though.

DWade is because the top end talent now is shite compared to what it was then.

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I think Dwight Howard gets a huge bump because their aren't many other elite centers also. Elite meaning non pussies on the floor and highly talented.