Stuff you should read/listen to today

[jthig32]

So I know this article was posted in the Dirk is great thread, but I think it's a good enough article overall to be in its own thread.

Simmons analyzes the careers of several current NBA stars and discusses why their primes are stretching further than normal.

Nowitzki: I can't decide if he's moving into the Barkley/Malone discussion (for best modern power forward not named Tim Duncan or Larry Bird) or the Larry Bird/Rick Barry discussion (for best offensive forward ever), but there's definitely been some moving. It's a junior version of the Kobe/Michael thing: Nowitzki's peak can't come close to matching Bird's peak, but his freaky consistency and legendary summer work ethic makes a Bird/Nowitzki career comparison closer than you'd think.

For 11 straight seasons, he's been the best player on a contender. Grab any Dirk season from 2001 to 2011 and it will look something close to his career numbers (22.6 PPG, 8.3 RPG, 48 percent FG, 38 percent 3FG, 88 percent FT, 23.8 PER, 0.213 WS/48, 27.0 usage rate, 58.1 true shooting). And he hasn't slipped even a little. I asked ESPN's Marc Stein, the Gayle to Dirk's Oprah, whether 2011 Dirk looks any different than 2001 Dirk or 2007 Dirk. His response: "He's a little creakier, but it's not like his first step was ever the key to his game. He's shooting the ball as well as he ever has. He's like a surgeon now, he just carves up anything you throw at him. [Erik] Spoelstra told me that, too -- he said the stuff [Miami] did in 2006 just doesn't work anymore."

Quick tangent: For whatever reason, basketball fans don't care about career NBA numbers like baseball fans care about baseball numbers. I see four reasons for this: (1) baseball has been around almost twice as long as basketball; (2) baseball's signature threshold numbers are famously identifiable (500, 3,000 and 300), as are the players who broke its major records, whereas your average sports fan would struggle to answer questions like "Who leads the NBA in career scoring?"; (3) statistics matter more in baseball because it's an individual sport; and (4) we need to throw ourselves into baseball statistics because the sport itself is so f------ boring. If we were eating lunch and I told you, "Johnny Damon has 2,571 hits right now," that would mean something to you. If you're a true baseball fan, you would process that information in 0.008 seconds and think, "He needs 429 for 3,000, that's doable!" But if I told you "Dirk Nowitzki has 21,925 points right now," you wouldn't think anything other than, "That's a lot."

Well, only 19 players have ever topped 25,000 points. Only 10 players (I'm including Kobe, who will get it next week) have topped 27,000. Only five players have topped 30,000. Only two (Kareem and Mailman) have topped 32,500. And then there's Dirk, who should be close to 23,000 by the end of this season and grinding out 1,700-1,900 points for at least three after that ... and we haven't even covered the final phase of his career, his late 30s, when he hangs on for an extra four years as the greatest version of Sam Perkins ever. Barring injury, we'll have our first foreign-born player in the 30,000 Point Club. Throw in longevity, durability and eye-popping shooting percentages (for his career, he's a 48-38-88 guy right now) and suddenly we're talking about one of the best 15-18 players ever and the best foreign-born player other than Hakeem. Pretty high stakes. Twenty years ago? He'd already be in the Fat Sam Perkins stage. With equally horrible hair.

Last footnote on Dirk: With advanced metrics slowly taking over basketball for better and worse, Dirk should be one of the big retroactive winners historically, a little like how the sneaky-great Tim Raines dropped the "sneaky" about two years and 550 homicidally impassioned pro-Raines sabermetric essays ago. I was there for Dirk, and I was there for Bird. It's no contest. (These three YouTube clips explain everything: "Why You Don't Mess With Larry Bird," "Larry Bird 47 Points vs. Portland (the Left-handed Game)" and "Larry Bird Greatest Passer of All-Time.") But Nowitzki's PER, win shares and true shooting percentages are better, and as long as you throw out MVPs, titles and overall impact, and you skew longevity, you can make a great case that Dirk Nowitzki was better than Larry Bird. I will now light my game-worn Bird jersey on fire with me in it.

Also, I would recommend listening to Simmons' latest podcast, where he talks to Henry Abbott about his great article (discussed here) and then talks to Stein about Dirk and a few other topics.

He even spends the very last part of the podcast talking about his impending trip to Dallas for the superbowl. So very Dallas-centric overall.

Link for podcast.

Oh, and here's the full Dirk interview from BaD radio this week. Someone posted another version of this in the Dirk thread, but I think that was the version that was cut short.

[BGMaverick9]

MOR vs BS?

Just kidding...sort of.

He definitely does paint a picture stating the greatness of Nowitzki.

[jthig32]

Originally Posted by BGMaverick9

MOR vs BS?

Just kidding...sort of.

He definitely does paint a picture stating the greatness of Nowitzki.

I love them both. But any Simmons NBA podcast is an absolute stop down, must-listen for me.

[Bayliss]

JThig, is Simmons podcast different than the one he had a while ago where he thought Dirk was the MVP?

[jthig32]

Originally Posted by Bayliss

JThig, is Simmons podcast different than the one he had a while ago where he thought Dirk was the MVP?

Yes, this is a very recent podcast. From sometime this past week.

[Dim499]

I think Dirk's career has been treated unfairly, because you just look at the stats and it's been 11 straight monster years. With no dip, nothing. He's one of the most durable superstars that we've had. Even just him getting hurt a couple weeks ago was kinda shocking. (...) He's never really had any help. He's had a lot of veterans, they always seem to be like 3 years past the year when they were really good and it's just been a steady stream of those guys.

I also like the Kobe is to MJ what Dirk is to Bird comparison. I think that's the least the informed public should concede.

[CadBane]

If Dirk gets a ring, I think he clearly passes Barkley. Even without one, he has a good claim over CB. Both guys had fantastic careers. Barkley's peak might have been a little better, but Dirk has him on longevity.

Malone is another story. Personally, I think Malone is slightly overrated (not a great playoff performer, played in a great system with a top 5 PG ever). But Malone had a great prime, absurd longevity, and a ton of hardware (sans ring).

[SMC0007]

It's a team sport. Ranking these players means what? Like anyone could even know that.