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Originally Posted by Underdog
Absolutely.
Dirk and Terry were our best two players without a doubt and Shawn Marion was the guy who guarded Kobe/LeBron/Durant/Wade/Westbrook (you know, the best players in the league). I'd also argue that Kidd was every bit as important on offense as Chandler was on defense, so, yeah, I could even make the argument that Ty the fifth-best player on that championship squad...
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I agree that Jason Terry was an integral part of our championship roster and came up clutch throughout the entire postseason run. Without his contributions, we likely don’t have a banner being raised – particularly in the Miami series where he shot .494. That said, I do believe you are overstating the role he played by anointing him to be the 2nd best player on the 2011 roster because you are ignoring the two major flaws in JET’s game:
First, he is a streaky shooter who is reliant upon both screens, floor spacing, and the 2-man game with Nowitzki to truly be an offensive option. Coupled with Dirk, his offensive game is a beautiful, beautiful thing, but he is not the caliber of player that many teams would consider a legitimate second option. If you place him on the four remaining postseason teams, where would he rank as far as offensive totem pole? On the Celtics, he’d likely be fifth after Pierce, KG, Allen, and Rondo. On a healthy Heat team, he’d be fourth. On a OKC team, he’d be fourth. On a San Antonio team, he’d be fourth. On every team we rampaged through in the post season last year, he would likely only be a third option on the Blazers and that’s only when the corpse of Brandon Roy decided not to show up. The main point is this: JET is a great player for our system but he would not survive on many teams being the 2nd scorer as an undersized 2guard who is mostly reliant upon the attention being paid to Dirk to truly benefit from the offense.
Conversely, if you remove Tyson Chandler from Dirk’s team and all you have left is someone who wins the defensive player of the year.
Second, Jason Terry is a notoriously poor defender. Given the defensive liabilities that are both he and Jason Kidd when it comes to guarding larger and quicker players respectively, having Tyson behind them to funnel defenders was the difference last year than in years before. When teams attacked us via the PnR last year, having an agile defender who could hedge hard and roll back was key. Once that was taken away, a player like, say, James Harden, would have no trouble dominating us in the paint via a simple high screen and roll play.
Chandler is no Al Jefferson on offense, but he at the very least had to be accountable for and hit his freethrows with high regularity. Again, that’s not saying that much if you take a step back, but considering the current state of NBA centers, it’s more than adequate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Underdog
But you go ahead and keep pumping up Chandler's importance during that run - the revisionists are already crediting him for guarding Aldridge and Bynum, even though the incredibly-worthless Brendan Haywood was the guy who gave them fits... By the time the offseason is over, I'm sure you'll be crediting him for Dirk's lefty lay-in over Bosh, Kidd's Game 5 buzzer-beater against the Heat and, hell, why not give him Terry's record-tying three-pointers against the Lakers too?
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As far as the Marion guarding all the top players in the league during the playoff run, I believe you are either misstating facts or lying. The most potent scorer vs the Blazers was Aldridge and that was defense by committee amongst the bigs, but mostly Chandler. Vs the Lakers, it was Kidd who got the credit of checking Kobe, not Marion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ayIynMatcys This clip highlights his contributions from the 1st through the 4th. As I’m sure you recall, during the regular season’s Roddy experiment, Kidd was forced to guard Artest and Marion handled Kobe so Roddy could be forced back into the rotation. The outcome was horrendous – Artest physically bullied Kidd and had his way with him. RickyC made the adjustment of putting Kidd on Kobe and allowing Marion to play Artest and it worked out beautifully. For you to suggest that Marion checked Kobe primarily is, as I said before, either a misstaqtement of the truth or a flat out lie.
VS the Thunder, Marion primarily guarded Durant throughout the game and was credited with doing as valiant a job as anyone. Not sure how you can claim that he simultaneously guarded Durant and Westbrook without also claiming that Shawn Marion can split in two like an atom. Also, why didn’t you throw in Harden to the list of people Marion shut down? Did you think that would be too much of an overstatement? So there’s that.
Again, vs the Heat, it’s the same issue. Marion covered LeBron, Kidd covered Wade. And I thought Marion did an excellent job on Lebron and Kidd a so-so job on Wade. You insisting that Marion is a modern day Deion Sanders that covers any and everyone simultaneously would be laughable if I did not believe you to be serious.
Do note that I never brought up Chandler’s post defense vs Aldridge or Bynum so your strawman argument is ill placed. But, since you want to discuss that, lets.
You know, those 15 minutes per game Haywood played in the 2011 playoffs were key in making sure Aldridge didn’t average his customary 21 ppg in the playoffs. He only averaged 20. Haywood’s 18 minutes were definitely the difference in us winning and losing that series. With Aldridge was playing 43 minutes a game, can you imagine what his statline would have been if Haywood's 18 minutes weren't utilized? He may have even cracked 25 ppg. Scary shit.
It also didn’t matter that the 2 games we lost to Portland, Chandler either fouled out or had 5 fouls and we were forced to play Haywood more minutes. Lets just completely ignore those facts and embrace yours.
Furthermore, there is little question that without the 15.5 minutes Haywood put into the Laker series, Bynum would have destroyed the Mavericks en route to averaging a whole 15 ppg. While Tyson was busy being overrated and playing 31 minutes a game, Haywood was out there doing the real work and got no credit.
I won't credit Tyson with all of those offensive accomplishments you listed because they came as a result of the beautiful offensive game that was built around Dirk. Conversely, I do not think it improper to give Tyson as much of the share of the defensive praise that we give Dirk for the offensive one.
Afterall, Dirk did when he, early in the season, predicted that Chandler's impact defensively was not only comparable, but on par, with the defensive impact KG had on the 08 Celtics that won the title. If the franchise player is willing to go that far and credit one man with changing the culture and perception of the notoriously defensively soft Mavericks, why is it so hard for you to? I suppose you reckon you have more of an understanding of the team dynamics than Dirk, JET and Marion did.