Is Amare Stoudemire a "Top 5" PF?

[sas45champs]

My problem with Duncan is he can't give you more than 30MPG anymore, can't carry the load on a consistent basis, and his defense isn't anywhere near where it used to be to make the offensive gap negligible (at this point his defense is right on par with Gasol's). I should have included him in that second tier along with Amare and Bosh, but I'd take both of those players over Duncan at this point.

 

It's not the fact that his body can't handle more than 30 minutes, it's just that they don't want him to get injured. Each of the Spurs big 3 are taking cuts in minutes, but their bodies are actually in great shape. Same with carrying the load, it's not that he can't do it when he's called upon, but why not let everyone get their numbers?

 

His defense is just as great as always. Making someone miss is the same as blocking their shot, but they don't have a stat for the number of times players make people miss.

 

No offense, but the fact of taking Amare and Bosh over Duncan is an insult to his game. Maybe it's because Duncan doesn't appear to be explosive...but Duncan has never appeared to be explosive. He's played just about the exact same game his entire career. Amare and Bosh just aren't leaders. I don't see it from them. I can't see the Knicks slipping into the playoffs this year, and when Bosh was on the Raptors instead of dealing with a problem he just wanted out.

[Check my Stats]

Can you clarify what you mean by offensive gap? The guy shot the 3rd highest percentage of his career last year, grabbed 10 boards and was the best player on a team that won 50 last year with TP out almost half the season. Duncan isn't a top 5 player by any means, or even dominant anymore, but is definitely still an elite PF in the NBA.

 

He is off to a pretty good start this year too it looks like.

[Nitro]

It's not the fact that his body can't handle more than 30 minutes, it's just that they don't want him to get injured. Each of the Spurs big 3 are taking cuts in minutes, but their bodies are actually in great shape. Same with carrying the load, it's not that he can't do it when he's called upon, but why not let everyone get their numbers?

 

The idea with playing Duncan 30MPG is to keep him fresh for the post-season, but the issue is that last 2 post-seasons he hasn't been able to raise his game to that "dominant" level. He has averaged a solid 19/9 that last 2 post-seasons, but not what you expect from a #1 option that was rested all season...that should be your first sign that he isn't the same player anymore. Compare that example to Kobe, who for the last few seasons has been rested during the season, then comes out firing on all cylinders during the post-season, and you can see my point.

 

His defense is just as great as always. Making someone miss is the same as blocking their shot, but they don't have a stat for the number of times players make people miss.

 

His defense is not what it once was. As I said, his defense is on par with Gasol's...by that I mean he still has great instincts, and still has the size that bothers many opponents. But against many of the elite PF's, who have a distinct advantage athletically, he gets burned. Last season, Amare averaged 33/11 on 56% shooting against the Spurs. Bosh averaged 27/13 on 47% shooting against them. David Lee averaged 25/12 on 63% shooting against them. The list goes on and on. Compare him to a guy like Garnett, who routinely shuts those guys down and makes an even bigger impact that Duncan on help defense, and that's where the difference is.

 

No offense, but the fact of taking Amare and Bosh over Duncan is an insult to his game. Maybe it's because Duncan doesn't appear to be explosive...but Duncan has never appeared to be explosive. He's played just about the exact same game his entire career. Amare and Bosh just aren't leaders. I don't see it from them. I can't see the Knicks slipping into the playoffs this year, and when Bosh was on the Raptors instead of dealing with a problem he just wanted out.

 

I value what players produce on the court first and foremost. As I said, I made a mistake not putting Duncan in that same group that Amare/Bosh are in, but the fact that those guys can go 35-40MPG during the regular season and carry their teams on a consistent basis while Duncan can't IS a big factor IMO.

[sas45champs]

The idea with playing Duncan 30MPG is to keep him fresh for the post-season, but the issue is that last 2 post-seasons he hasn't been able to raise his game to that "dominant" level. He has averaged a solid 19/9 that last 2 post-seasons, but not what you expect from a #1 option that was rested all season...that should be your first sign that he isn't the same player anymore. Compare that example to Kobe, who for the last few seasons has been rested during the season, then comes out firing on all cylinders during the post-season, and you can see my point.

 

Kobe? Kobe has been injury free, and he's the best player in basketball. And what do you expect from Duncan? 25/15? 30/15? Duncan's not the only one who gets touches, you know. And no, he's not as dominant, but yes, he brings production every game, no matter what you don't see out of 19/9.

 

His defense is not what it once was. As I said, his defense is on par with Gasol's...by that I mean he still has great instincts, and still has the size that bothers many opponents. But against many of the elite PF's, who have a distinct advantage athletically, he gets burned. Last season, Amare averaged 33/11 on 56% shooting against the Spurs. Bosh averaged 27/13 on 47% shooting against them. David Lee averaged 25/12 on 63% shooting against them. The list goes on and on. Compare him to a guy like Garnett, who routinely shuts those guys down and makes an even bigger impact that Duncan on help defense, and that's where the difference is.

 

Well I don't know why you would mention rebounds since that has nothing to do with how the man is guarding him. The thing about numbers: they're misleading. I'm sure you looked at everyone's splits stats. Notice how it says "vs. sas", not "vs. Tim Duncan?" Don't you think that suggests that those numbers are vs. the team as a whole? Maybe you should think about how the three players you mentioned are not one-on-one players. All three get points from put-backs, pick-and-roll/pop plays. Duncan is the best one-on-one post defender in the league. He can only do so much to contest someone's shot. And yes, those players are much more athletic than Duncan, but it's not like they're waltzing into the lane, barely jumping, and not even trying to make the shot. He makes them work. There's just too much talent in the league for a 34 year old man to force younger players to shoot 40% from the field without fouling them; all he can do is go up with both arms. All the players today can adjust their shot over or around the arms of a defender.

 

I value what players produce on the court first and foremost. As I said, I made a mistake not putting Duncan in that same group that Amare/Bosh are in, but the fact that those guys can go 35-40MPG during the regular season and carry their teams on a consistent basis while Duncan can't IS a big factor IMO.

 

Lol@Bosh/Amare carrying a team. Carrying them to what? Just because they have fresher legs doesn't make them better. I'd take 20/10 in 30 minutes over 20/10 in 35 minutes. Besides, I know you've said that Duncan is not as good a defender as was, and yeah I suppose that's true. But Amare and Bosh won't even be able to reach the level of defense that Duncan is in 5 years, or have the basketball IQ.

[Nitro]

Kobe? Kobe has been injury free, and he's the best player in basketball. And what do you expect from Duncan? 25/15? 30/15? Duncan's not the only one who gets touches, you know. And no, he's not as dominant, but yes, he brings production every game, no matter what you don't see out of 19/9.

 

Kobe's been injury free? Last season he had to battle through a broken arthritic finger and knee injury which required surgery in the off-season.

 

And I don't expect Duncan to average 25/15, but if I'm to call him better than guys who can produce more than he does and play more minutes, there better be a good reason. That reason would normally be that when the playoffs come around, Duncan could raise his game after being limited to only 30MPG the regular season. The issue is he hasn't been raising his game the last few post-seasons, and his regular seasons haven't been as impressive as those other players'. It'd be one thing if we were talking about Duncan from 4-5 years ago, who was able to dominate games and series' when he needed to, even if it didn't show up in regular season averages. The issue is he can't anymore. He'll have the occasional big game, but he's not capable of carrying a team on either end of the floor for a full month or playoff series. Add to that the fact that his defense has taken a hit and he no longer is a force on that end, and it makes it even harder to defend Duncan against those players.

 

Well I don't know why you would mention rebounds since that has nothing to do with how the man is guarding him. The thing about numbers: they're misleading. I'm sure you looked at everyone's splits stats. Notice how it says "vs. sas", not "vs. Tim Duncan?" Don't you think that suggests that those numbers are vs. the team as a whole? Maybe you should think about how the three players you mentioned are not one-on-one players. All three get points from put-backs, pick-and-roll/pop plays. Duncan is the best one-on-one post defender in the league. He can only do so much to contest someone's shot. And yes, those players are much more athletic than Duncan, but it's not like they're waltzing into the lane, barely jumping, and not even trying to make the shot. He makes them work. There's just too much talent in the league for a 34 year old man to force younger players to shoot 40% from the field without fouling them; all he can do is go up with both arms. All the players today can adjust their shot over or around the arms of a defender.

 

I've seen with my own two eyes what Duncan's capabilities are as a man-to-man defender the last few seasons, and those stats are just examples. If you want analysis, Duncan does not have the lateral quickness to stay in front of today's quicker PF's, or the athleticism to show and retreat on the PnR consistently without getting burned. Because he's lost athleticism, he's more frequently late on rotations and doesn't have the explosiveness to block many shots. He can still defend the post extremely well, but there's only 2-3 effective post players in the NBA that can't also expose Duncan with their face-up and PnR games.

 

Lol@Bosh/Amare carrying a team. Carrying them to what? Just because they have fresher legs doesn't make them better. I'd take 20/10 in 30 minutes over 20/10 in 35 minutes. Besides, I know you've said that Duncan is not as good a defender as was, and yeah I suppose that's true. But Amare and Bosh won't even be able to reach the level of defense that Duncan is in 5 years, or have the basketball IQ.

 

Bosh averaged 25/11 last season and had led the Raptors to the 5th seed before his injury, and Amare was averaging 27/10 post All-Star break en route to being the primary scoring option on a WCF team.

 

But, as I said before, Amare/Bosh/Duncan are all on the same level to me, and depending on the situation I may take Duncan over those two (i.e- Duncan would be a better fit alongside Wade/LeBron). At this point, generally I'd take those other two guys because they've been producing more, are more physically gifted and can handle being played 35-40MPG as primary options.

[Big Penny]

Kobe? Kobe has been injury free,

[AllenIverson#1fan]

Yes he is. Top 5 in no particular order.

Amare

Dirk

Duncan

Pau

Garnett

 

Duncan's slowly starting to drop down the scale though. He's really underrated though.

[AllenIverson#1fan]

Garnett is way too inconsistent offensively to be considered in the top tier of PF's still.

I do not agree. If he's healthy he is a 18+ PPG and 8+ RPG guy.

[Oliver P]

Yes I believe he is.

 

First of all I wanna say that I agree with Nitro and Real Deal that Dirk and Pau are the two best PFs in the game right now. I honestly don't see how a case can be made against them.

 

Dirk is definitely number one for me, last year he just had his best season ever IMO. He was a serious candidate for the MVP, he really asserted himself as a true leader. Despite his amazing talent he's always been heavily criticized because he wasn't cold blooded enough (especially during the 2006 Finals). Well last year no one was better than him in the clutch, except Kobe. He's really been amazing. And even if the Mavs lost against the Spurs in the first round (mainly because Butler and Haywood didn't have enough time to adapt to their new team IMO), Nowitzki was absolutely unbelievable, definitely the best player of the Mavs-Spurs series. He was defiinitely the best player in that series.

 

And that is why, even if I admit that a case can be made for Pau, I believe that Dirk is right now the best PF in the game, because he's just a better leader than Pau ever was so far. Don't get me wrong Pau is a fantastic player but he never asserted himself as a true leader. As a matter of fact in his Grizzlies days Pau was never able to at least make his team win one game in the playoffs. Besides in the FIBA games Spain had no trouble winning the World Cup in the 2006 Finals against Greece without him. And it's there that we see the major difference between him and Dirk IMO, cause without Dirk Germany is nothing. We saw that once again in the last World Cup, without Dirk Germany ended as the 11th team. While with him they were thrid in 2002 (HUGE surprise), and second at the 2005 Eurobasket, which are tremendous performances consiereing the lack of talent in that German team. Dirk was MVP those two years. Honestly no one has ever had such a huge impact on his team in the history of the FIBA. Dirk is defiintely the FIBA's Jordan. While Gasol, as great as he is, has never been better than a second option, he's a fantastic second option with LA but he's no leader material.

 

At third I would put Duncan. Cause even if he's now past his prime he's still a better leader and defender than most NBA PFs, including Chris Bosh and Stoudemire. That's why I still put him above these two players. Stoudemire is still the fourth PF in the league though IMO. Honestly Stat was absolutely unbelievable in the second part of the last season and the main reason why the Suns were so good. I know that many people think that it's first because of Nash that Stats has been that good but in New York this year, so far, he's still averaging as much PPG, RPG and BPG and has a career high in APG (3 assists per game), so he definitely deserves to be considered as the fourth best PF in the league right now.

 

As for the fifth best PF it's between Bosh and Garnett right now IMO. The problem I have with Bosh is that, despite his huge talent, he's never shown that he was a great leader and defender. He clearly has to improve in both those areas. I've honestly always thought that Bosh was more of a second option, so I think that he's better right now in Miami as the third option of the team. But despite the fact that Garnett shown that he's a better leader and defender than him in his career, I still think that a case can be made for Bosh ahead of him though, as Garnett appeared to be very old those past two years honestly. Garnett seems in better shape this season but we will have to wait a bit till we say that he's back as a top 5 PF IMO.

[Finch23]

I would take Duncan, Dirk, Gasol, Garnett, and Bosh over Amar'e anyday

[DaFranchise03]

I would consider Amare and Bosh 5/6.

 

 

btw can Amare go left or can he only go right?

[*Swish*]

Here are some players infront of Amare Stoudemire for the top 5 Pf's

 

Chris Bosh

Pau Gasol

Dirk Nowitzki

Amare Stoudemire

Kevin Garnett

[damon4ever]

No, his defense is too bad.

 

I have it Dirk, Pau, TD, Bosh, Josh Smith/Zach Randolph.