Nav22;2788137 said:
Wrong.
I've said that a team needs a better #1 player than a Dirk Nowitzki to win a title. But I've never said 1 player can do it on his own.
Nice job putting words in my mouth, though.
I haven't put any words in your mouth. You are being myopic. You act as if the #1 player is all that matters. There was no one on Detroit's team who was better than Dirk is and they won the title. So no, you don't have to have a #1 better than Dirk to win a title. Considering he almost won a title as a #1, and there are two teams in the playoffs now who don't have a better #1, and there have been teams in the past who have won titles who didn't have a better #1, then you're wrong. The importance lies with who the supporting cast is.
Look at the #1 options on title teams since '88 and find one that plays worse defense than Dirk Nowitzki. Can't do it.
I can find a lot who aren't as good on offense. And what is a #1 option?? It's #1
offensive option right...?
Defense in the NBA is a team concept. I don't know how you can't see that. How many of those #1 options on title teams were the best defenders on their teams? I can't think of any off the top of my head.
And that reality is only irrelevant to a homer like yourself.Only the blindest of the blind homers would deny that him and the Mavs choked vs. the Heat and vs. the Warriors.
A choke implies that the win was a sure thing. It never was against the Heat or the Warriors. The Warriors had won the season series against the Mavs, and the series against the Heat was in the Finals. Nothing's a sure thing in the Finals.
He was the butt of every NBA joke after receiving his MVP trophy, after his historic choke vs. the Warriors.Hahah... so you admit that they were "bad games"... it seems you only have an issue with the term "choke". Interesting.
Bad games do not = chokes. Sorry.
Okay, how's this... he didn't choke, he only had 4 bad games in 4 straight losses in the Finals, and he had 2 horrendous games in the Mavs' historic defeat to the 8th seeded Warriors the very next season.
Like I said a choke implies a win is a given... that wasn't the case. All the Mavs had done in the first two games vs. the Heat was hold home court.
And he didn't have 4 bad games. You assume he did because they lost. Like others have said, you have a revisionist memory influenced by your hate. In Game 3, he had 30 points and 7 rebounds. Yet he missed a last second free throw, and you scream choke. In Game 5 he had 20 points on just under 50% shooting and 8 rebounds. In Game 6, he had 29 points and 15 rebounds.
And you know the facts of the Warriors series, because I've told them to you before. He was double and triple teamed all series. No one else stepped up. If the roles players don't make the defense pay for that, there's nothing any #1 can do.
So he had a handful of "bad games" at the most inopportune times, over the span of 2 consecutive playoff series', which happened to be during the brief stretch in which the Mavs had FINALLY unseated the Spurs as the best team in the West.
...but he didn't choke.
Better?
If he didn't have the good games, then they're never in the situation in the first place. If he had scored 40+ in every game, he's still not guaranteed to win. It's about the rest of the team. You're seeing that in the series that this thread is about.
No he didn't choke. Only the short-sighted and myopic would think so.
