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Can we remember that the next time a debate comes up about how good Robinson was, or Paker is?

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Sure. You don't get much debate that 7 point 7 rebound end of the career Robinson wasn't exactly the MVP Robinson of a decade earlier.

Parker was decidedly unclutch that year and was repeatedly replaced by Speedy Claxton in crunch time. Speedy went on to get a big contract and then disappear.

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It's laughable to say that Dirk had a ton of help that year.

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It isn't laughable at all. He had a DPOY anchoring the defense, something he didn't have in any other season. He had Jason Kidd, who was obviously at the end of his career and had lost a step, but still played excellent ball including 9 points/7 assists/5 rebounds/2 steals while hitting a respectable 37% from three and hitting two threes/game. He has a great second scorer in JET that was able to take over games (remember his 9 of 10 from three against Kobe?) He had great role play from JJ Barea, Shawn Marion, Peja and Stevenson plus had Haywood to make sure the paint didn't get overrun when Tyson was out. Helped Dirk rest some more by not having to take on all the big men in the paint on defense.

That Mavs team was very well built and everything came together for them well. Acting like Dirk had no help like Mavs do is ridiculous. The story at the time was Chandler's defensive leadership, but that seems all but forgotten now.

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So for example, its guys like Sabonis, who was 7'3" but shot around 32% as opposed to Dirk's 38%

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We caught the tail end of his career when he was broken down. Sabonis had range before his knees gave out and he finally left Mother Russia for Red Portland.

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And then you had the curiosity guys you referenced, Hakeem, Admiral,etc. who would maybe shoot 5-10 3-pointer a season. And their percentages weren't good either.

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No, neither shot many threes, but if you actually watched back in the early 90s (were you around that long ago?) both would use their ability to hit the long mid-range shots to draw their defenders out, then use their quickness to drive inside.

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Whereas, AFTER Dirk, you see true outside shooting big men all over the place, because GM's are more willing to take a chance on those types of players, having seen the impact Dirk has made on the MAvericks.

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Or the fact that the NBA has drastically changed its rules since the 80s that makes it much more desirable for teams to run men out to the perimeter. I don't think Dirk would have had as much success if he tried his game in the 80s. He would have been bowled over repeatedly. The NBA is just a completely different game.

Weren't chris webber and Dirk both injured in the 2003 playoffs?

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I'm not sure why you can't acknowledge what Dirk did was amazing

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I've got no problem saying Dirk is one of the all-time great power forwards and one of the most unique offensive weapons.

Just clearing up some of the misconceptions that are often spewed around here to try to make his legacy into something it isn't. It is funny that when the seasons were going on, the Mavs fans were talking about how great their depth was and how good they were, but now it was basically a one-man band, as long as it helps prop up Dirk's legacy.

Dirk's accomplished a lot and proven himself worth of inclusion without discrediting the contributions of his teammates. Dirk was a great player. But don't pretend he did things that he didn't do.

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It isn't laughable at all. He had a DPOY anchoring the defense, something he didn't have in any other season. He had Jason Kidd, who was obviously at the end of his career and had lost a step, but still played excellent ball including 9 points/7 assists/5 rebounds/2 steals while hitting a respectable 37% from three and hitting two threes/game. He has a great second scorer in JET that was able to take over games (remember his 9 of 10 from three against Kobe?) He had great role play from JJ Barea, Shawn Marion, Peja and Stevenson plus had Haywood to make sure the paint didn't get overrun when Tyson was out. Helped Dirk rest some more by not having to take on all the big men in the paint on defense.

That Mavs team was very well built and everything came together for them well. Acting like Dirk had no help like Mavs do is ridiculous. The story at the time was Chandler's defensive leadership, but that seems all but forgotten now.

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Good god, this is unbearable. I'm not going to get into a back and forth over this. When did I ever say that Dirk had no help at all? You are just trying to put words in my mouth to suit your argument. I said that he didn't have a ton of help. He didn't and its easy to see this when you compare his help to other championship teams. He obviously had help, as the role players on every championship team have to step up in order to win a championship. But not as much as the great players on most championship teams have.

The fact that you are mentioning Peja, Stevenson and Haywood as part of his great "help" is ridiculous. You would laugh at me if I said Duncan had a ton of help in 02-03 and started listing Claxton, Kerr, Danny Ferry, and Malik Rose. Did the spurs have role players that came up huge in the playoffs? Yes. Does that mean I think Duncan had a ton of help? No.
I could write a near identical paragraph as yours above about the Spurs 02-03 championship run and point to the great play of their role players and all the big games or clutch shots they had. This doesn't mean Duncan had a ton of help. You could literally write a paragraph like that for any championship team.

So I'll just leave it at this...compared to other championship teams, Dirk had far less help than the other great players who won championships. In 02-03 Duncan also had far less help than other great players who won championships. The end.

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Weren't chris webber and Dirk both injured in the 2003 playoffs?

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Didn't the Spurs have the best record in the league and the back-to-back league MVP? Didn't Dirk not get hurt until the Mavs were already down 3-1?

Did suck for the Kings, but the Spurs did have a 3-1 advantage over them during the season. That's life. Spurs didn't have Duncan for the 00 playoffs, either. Things happen. Kind of amazing that the Kings and Spurs never met in the playoffs while Webber was still there. They didn't play until it was the Bonzi Wells Kings in 06.

So the Spurs had the best record, but Duncan didn't have much help?

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Just clearing up some of the misconceptions that are often spewed around here to try to make his legacy into something it isn't. It is funny that when the seasons were going on, the Mavs fans were talking about how great their depth was and how good they were, but now it was basically a one-man band, as long as it helps prop up Dirk's legacy.

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I guess you can remember it how you want, but this was absolutely not the case. Absolutely no Mavs fans were talking about how good we were. Did we have a good year? Yes. But no one thought we had any chance at the championship that year until after we beat the Lakers in round 2. When the playoffs started everyone, including Mavs fans, thought the championship was a pipe dream. Sure, a lot of people had hope just like every fan always hopes their team can win. But at least in my circle, no one realistically thought we had a good shot at winning the title.

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I guess you can remember it how you want, but this was absolutely not the case. Absolutely no Mavs fans were talking about how good we were. Did we have a good year? Yes. But no one thought we had any chance at the championship that year until after we beat the Lakers in round 2. When the playoffs started everyone, including Mavs fans, thought the championship was a pipe dream. Sure, a lot of people had hope just like every fan always hopes their team can win. But at least in my circle, no one realistically thought we had a good shot at winning the title.

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If I remember correctly, Portland was a pretty popular upset pick among both Mavs fans and "experts"

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We caught the tail end of his career when he was broken down. Sabonis had range before his knees gave out and he finally left Mother Russia for Red Portland.

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Sure, I don't blame him. That's just circumstance though. If Arvydas had been allowed to play in his prime years we might be talking about how he was the greatest European basketball player to play the game, but sadly Communists were jerks about that back then. The thing is, like Sabonis, the other true 7 footers that played their whole career in the NBA like Laimbeer only shot 32% at most as well..

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No, neither shot many threes, but if you actually watched back in the early 90s (were you around that long ago?) both would use their ability to hit the long mid-range shots to draw their defenders out, then use their quickness to drive inside.

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Sure, and Karl Malone and Kevin Garnett too. And Dirk does that as well of course. I'm just talking about shooting threes though, because that the thing that sets Dirk apart, and the thing you see a lot of big men doing now that you really never saw before.

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Or the fact that the NBA has drastically changed its rules since the 80s that makes it much more desirable for teams to run men out to the perimeter. I don't think Dirk would have had as much success if he tried his game in the 80s. He would have been bowled over repeatedly. The NBA is just a completely different game.

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I don't know if Dirk would have been "bowled over" I think Dirk's proven over the years to have toughness despite all the attempts by media types to label him soft.

Regardless, that's not really what I'm arguing. The rules changed sure, but applaud Dirk for having the skills to exploit those rules changes to his advantage. He was pretty much the first to do so. Maybe Pettit or one of those pre-90's players would have had the range to do what Dirk did, but its really hard to play "what-if". Someone had to take advantage of the rules as they were laid out. For Dirk it was "right place, right time".

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I said that he didn't have a ton of help.

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And you are wrong. Did he have a traditional second fiddle? No. Did he have a 6th Man of the Year award winner in his prime and a DPOY in his prime? Absolutely.

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The fact that you are mentioning Peja, Stevenson and Haywood as part of his great "help" is ridiculous.

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That is a pretty solid 6-8th best player on the team. You wouldn't trade that Peja/Stevenson/Haywood for Norris Cole, Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem and neither would I.

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You would laugh at me if I said Duncan had a ton of help in 02-03 and started listing Claxton, Kerr, Danny Ferry, and Malik Rose.

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Not at all. Claxton was crucial because Parker was still wetting the bed. Kerr had that one big game, but that was pretty much the only minutes he played. Rose was ok, but you and I would bother rather have Haywood than him. Ferry was 100% worthless in 2003.

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So I'll just leave it at this...compared to other championship teams, Dirk had far less help than the other great players who won championships.

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And I disagree. Dirk had great play all around him in 2011. He did not have the traditional second star, but he did have fantastic play.

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So the Spurs had the best record, but Duncan didn't have much help?

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MVP for a reason. Duncan at his absolute peak. Compare the play from Duncan's teammates with any other NBA championship team and from 2-12, that is easily the weakest championship team ever. But Duncan also put in one of the all-time great playoff performances ever, too.

Wow

How many DPOY did Chandler have when he was with the Mavs?

Competition was so weak in 2003 dude...

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That is a pretty solid 6-8th best player on the team. You wouldn't trade that Peja/Stevenson/Haywood for Norris Cole, Mike Miller and Udonis Haslem and neither would I.

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LOL. Peja was absolutely awful. We picked him up at the end of the year and he was absolutely terrible except for one or two games.

Haywood is Haywood, enough said.

Stevenson fit in well with our team...typical role player. He played well in the playoffs and was very important to our team. Just because a player plays well and was important (in hindsight) doesn't mean that Dirk had a ton of help. If that was the case, then it is literally impossible to ever have a championship team where the best player "didn't have much help."

Maybe we have different definitions of help. You are looking at it in hindsight (if you do this of course every best player on every championship team had a ton of help). I am objectively comparing the rosters of championship teams over the past 35 years.

He won the following year. Are you really going to say that he progressed so much defensively to win the DPOY in 2012 with the freaking Knicks? Come on. His stats per minute were even better in Dallas than the Knicks. He was rewarded because of how great he played in the playoffs. Kind of like when Dirk won MVP the year after he should have.

I wouldn't even care if you want to say it's not possible for a championship team to ever have no help. That's fine. So Dirk had a ton of help, and Duncan had a ton of help. So did every other championship team in the history of the NBA because there were big shots made by a lot of players and good D played by a lot of players.

But you are somehow trying to argue that Dirk had a ton of help, while maintaining that Duncan did not. It's ridiculous. And I haven't even been arguing Dirk vs Duncan. All I said that in the past 35 years there have only been 4 teams that have won without 2 great players. 4 teams in 35 years. That proves that Dirk did something special. I even agreed that Duncan won a championship without a great player. Then you just kind got your panties in a wad about how great the mavs roster was and that Duncan won a championship with far less. It's like you couldn't believe that I agreed with you about Duncan so you just wanted to argue about something.

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it is literally impossible to ever have a championship team where the best player "didn't have much help."

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I'd agree with that.

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Competition was so weak in 2003 dude...

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I won't argue. Kobe and Shaq self destructing. The East was pretty much at their all-time low. Terrible coaching by Nellie for a team with a ridiculous amount of talent.

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Just because a player plays well and was important (in hindsight) doesn't mean that Dirk had a ton of help.

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You had a lot of players that were important and played important roles at different times. That is pretty much the definition of having help. Peja played great against the Blazers and Lakers. JJ had a bunch of nice games. Haywood is Haywood, but is a LOT better than most backup centers you would have. He provided much needed rest for Chandler.

Dallas did a very good job of putting the right players around Dirk and Jim Carrey did a very good job of getting the right performances out of them at the right time. Dallas had the perfect storm.

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But you are somehow trying to argue that Dirk had a ton of help, while maintaining that Duncan did not. It's ridiculous. And I haven't even been arguing Dirk vs Duncan. All I said that in the past 35 years there have only been 4 teams that have won without 2 great players. 4 teams in 35 years. That proves that Dirk did something special. I even agreed that Duncan won a championship without a great player. Then you just kind got your panties in a wad about how great the mavs roster was and that Duncan won a championship with far less. It's like you couldn't believe that I agreed with you about Duncan so you just wanted to argue about something.

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I just think you are intentionally minimizing the contributions of all non-Dirk members of the team in order to highlight Dirk and make his ring into something it isn't. Just let it stand how it is. It was impressive and Dirk played great. Why is that so hard?

Yet you claim that the Spurs supporting cast was the worst of any title team.

I think if you compare Dirk with the case study of Kevin Garnett, it illustrates what Mavsfan and the others who argue about "help" are trying to say.

Garnett and Dirk are very similar players. Power Forwards, who have an outside touch, similar scoring averages across a similar number of years. Garnett is clearly better defensively but Dirk is a notch above KG offensively. They were very much "franchise players" of Western Conference powerhouses in the 90's-00's.

When Garnett played on the Timberwolves, He had the very definition of "no help". His second best players were Sam Cassell and Wally Szczerbiak. Still, the T-Wolves, because of Garnett, made the playoffs consistently, but struggled to get very far.

Dirk certainly had more help than Garnett. As a result his teams went further than Garnett, and even beat the T-Wolves head to head. But like Garnett, Dirk struggled to take the Mavs to the promised land. Some of that was help. Some of it was an over-reliance on the offensive minded coaching style of Don Nelson. I mean, you have the defensively challenged young Dirk in the lineup, then you add in the defensively challenged Nash as well, and then you just run and gun it, well, you're just never going to win the big one that way.

Then Garnett goes to the Celtics, where he is given a "superteam" that included Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. They make 2 Finals appearances and win one championship.

Meanwhile Dirk stays with the Mavs. His "help" does not get noticeably better. The coach changes. Dirk gets to the Finals twice and ultimately wins one championship.

So what's the difference. To Mavs fans, we would argue Dirk finally turned the corner, got a couple of coaches in here who played to his strengths better (Avery to a lesser extent, but then especially Carlisle), and won a championship without a large degree of help, and lost one with even less help.

Whereas, Garnett did the same thing, but it required a reboot on a superteam to do the exact same thing.

I think this is why we consider what Dirk did to be remarkable. I'm not blaming KG, I think he is a great power forward.

But Dirk did that extra little bit, without players like Allen and Pierce on his team, that makes his championship extra special.

Guitarsoup, I really do think you are making some good points, and I'm glad your not just bashing, but arguing from a logical point of view. But surely you can see the difference between Dirk and Garnett's careers, and how that illustrates what we Mavs fans feel about Dirk. No one is saying Dirk did it all by himself, in a way no NBA player ever has.

We are just saying if Dirk had been on a "superteam" or even paired with a second superstar, it's very likely he would have had more than 1 championship.

[This message has been edited by R0GUE (edited 4/9/2014 5:48p).]

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I think if you compare Dirk with the case study of Kevin Garnett, it illustrates what Mavsfan and the others who argue about "help" are trying to say.

Garnett and Dirk are very similar players. Power Forwards, who have an outside touch, similar scoring averages across a similar number of years. Garnett is clearly better defensively but Dirk is a notch above KG offensively. They were very much "franchise players" of Western Conference powerhouses in the 90's-00's.

When Garnett played on the Timberwolves, He had the very definition of "no help". His second best players were Sam Cassell and Wally Szczerbiak. Still, the T-Wolves, because of Garnett, made the playoffs consistently, but struggled to get very far.

Dirk certainly had more help than Garnett. As a result his teams went further than Garnett, and even beat the T-Wolves head to head. But like Garnett, Dirk struggled to take the Mavs to the promised land. Some of that was help. Some of it was an over-reliance on the offensive minded coaching style of Don Nelson. I mean, you have the defensively challenged young Dirk in the lineup, then you add in the defensively challenged Nash as well, and then you just run and gun it, well, you're just never going to win the big one that way.

Then Garnett goes to the Celtics, where he is given a "superteam" that included Paul Pierce and Ray Allen. They make 2 Finals appearances and win one championship.

Meanwhile Dirk stays with the Mavs. His "help" does not get noticeably better. The coach changes. Dirk gets to the Finals twice and ultimately wins one championship.

So what's the difference. To Mavs fans, we would argue Dirk finally turned the corner, got a couple of coaches in here who played to his strengths better (Avery to a lesser extent, but then especially Carlisle), and won a championship without a large degree of help, and lost one with even less help.

Whereas, Garnett did the same thing, but it required a reboot on a superteam to do the exact same thing.

I think this is why we consider what Dirk did to be remarkable. I'm not blaming KG, I think he is a great power forward.

But Dirk did that extra little bit, without players like Allen and Pierce on his team, that makes his championship extra special.

Guitarsoup, I really do think you are making some good points, and I'm glad your not just bashing, but arguing from a logical point of view. But surely you can see the difference between Dirk and Garnett's careers, and how that illustrates what we Mavs fans feel about Dirk. No one is saying Dirk did it all by himself, in a way no NBA player ever has.

We are just saying if Dirk had been on a "superteam" or even paired with a second superstar, it's very likely he would have had more than 1 championship.

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Very well said

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it is literally impossible to ever have a championship team where the best player "didn't have much help."



I'd agree with that

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Ok, so you think that it is impossible to ever have a championship team where the best player "didn't have much help." That is a reasonably position to take. It's just a semantics argument at that point which isn't important.

But even if the above statement is true (it's not possible to have a championship team where the best player didn't have much help), you can still objectively compare the "help" that existed on each of the championship teams over the past 35 years. Even though you may think that all of these teams' best players had help, you would have to agree that some had more help than others. Surely you aren't saying that Dirk/Duncan had the same amount of help as Shaq, Magic, and Bird? This is all I was doing. I was comparing the "help" that Dirk had to the other championship teams and stating that he had less help than almost all the other teams. If you disagree with that statement, then I am done here because you are clearly just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing.

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Yet you claim that the Spurs supporting cast was the worst of any title team.

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What championship team in the modern era (post ABA) was worse from #2-12?

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I mean, you have the defensively challenged young Dirk in the lineup, then you add in the defensively challenged Nash as well, and then you just run and gun it, well, you're just never going to win the big one that way.

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I will say if you didn't have them going up against the Spurs and Lakers and Kings, you might have had a shot with a coach like DAntoni. I still think DAntoni sucks and dislike him, but I think he knew much better than Nelson how to run a fast paced offense. If DAntoni was running those early Mavs, they might have gotten further.

I think Nellie ruined a lot of Dirk's career and possibly a lot of his progression.

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I think Nellie ruined a lot of Dirk's career and possibly a lot of his progression.

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I don't know about ruined but he certainly prohibited them from winning a championship as coach. Maybe stunted is a better word. Fortunately Dirk had Holger.

The Mavs always had solid rosters, but it's interesting to look back at the last two decades of NBA champions. The 2004 Pistons, the first year Rockets, and the 2011 Mavs are the outliers in that they only had 1 star leading the team.

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The Mavs always had solid rosters, but it's interesting to look back at the last two decades of NBA champions. The 2004 Pistons, the first year Rockets, and the 2011 Mavs are the outliers in that they only had 1 star leading the team.

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It's already been pretty much agreed upon that the 2003 Spurs had only one star.

I also kind of disagree that the 04 Pistons had only one star. Their entire starting 5 were in their primes and 4 of those 5 were all-stars within a year or two of the title. They didn't have a typical franchise guy, but four all-stars is a pretty good trade off for no franchise player.

I agree with your assessment of the pistons, I just figured id get killed for it on here so I included them. They were a great team and all their players fit perfectly, But they only had one all star in 02-03 and none of those players would be considered "great."

All I'll say on the subject is that if not for Duncan, Spurs would have 0 banners in the rafters.

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All I'll say on the subject is that if not for Duncan, Spurs would have 0 banners in the rafters.

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Really going out on a limb there. You sure you want to make such a bold statement?

If you take every NBA champion since 1980 and removed the best player from each team, and then held a tournament between the teams, who would win?

Without looking at every roster, I think the Duncan-less 2003 Spurs would be the 34 seed.

Would the 1980 Lakers - sans Kareem, but with a 20-year-old Magic - be the favorite? 1985 or 1988 Lakers? No Magic, but you get Worthy, Scott, and whatever Kareem has left. Maybe one of the 2000-2002 Laker teams with Kobe and a bunch of guys.

86 Celtics would be pretty stout.
Parish
McHale
Danny Ainge
Bill Walton
Dennis Johnson

The 80 Lakers had 4 players scoring over 17.5 PPG. Take away Kareem and you have:
Magic
Norm Nixon
Jamaal Wilkes
Michael Cooper
Spencer Haywood
Jim Chones

85 Lakers: remove Magic or Kareem:
Magic or Kareem
Worthy
Cooper
Byron Scott
Kurt Rambis
Bob McAdoo
Jamaal Wilkes

89 Pistons?

Dumars
Microwave
Aguirre
Rodman
Laimbeer

Dantley, Mahorn, Darryl Dawkins off the bench.

True you'd really miss Isaiah's PG abilities, but that's still a really stout lineup.

Dirk is one of the most versatile big men I've watched. He can drive or pull-up (from just about anywhere), face-up or post up, or dial up that unblockable fadeaway at any time. And he's good to fantastic at all of it. Also, and I feel that this is his most unique attribute, he can transition from one to the other seamlessly and he knows when to make the transitions to screw up defenders.

Have you ever watched Tom Brady or Peyton Manning play when they're in that 150+ qb rating zone? They use every inch of the field and throw screen, short, mid-range, and deep passes. They throw to the sidelines and the middle of the field. Basically, whatever the defense isn't prepared for, they do, and after a little while, the D is confused and dejected. That's how I feel about Dirk's offensive game. He uses the entire court within 30' of the basket and attacks with all sorts of styles to keep the other team guessing.

He's not the best ever at any one thing, but again, the list of big men with his versatility is pretty short.

If I had some stars to do a search of this site easily, it would be so much fun to pull all of the threads from 2011 where 'soup undoubtedly **** all over the Mavs roster and management for building it the way they did.

I've crapped on Dirk a lot myself over the years here, but he's proven himself one of the all-time greats and probably a top 5 players of the last 20 years or so. I'd put Duncan, Kobe, Jordan, and Lebron's accomplishments ahead of Dirk's since '94 and that's it.

[This message has been edited by ATM9000 (edited 4/13/2014 12:39p).]