WingedEagle

I think one of the funny-odd things about Bird were those first four seasons: Eastern Conference Champions 1980 Philadelphia 76ers (4-1 over Celtics) 1981 Boston Celtics (4-3 over 76ers) 1982 Philadelphia 76ers (4-3 over Celtics) 1983 Philadelphia 76ers (Celtics were swept by the Bucks in the ECSF) People like to remember the 1981 series because the 76ers blew the 3-1 lead, but they tend to forget that Doc vs Bird in the ECF was 2-1 before Doc got Moses. Then the Celtics ducked the match up in the fourth season. The Celtics in those four seasons were far from impressive. That's before taking into consideration that they won the 1981 title over the 40-42 team in the Finals thanks to the West melting down in the post season. The 1984-87 Celtics were impressive. Though I'm not sold that coming out of the East in those years was as impressive as coming out of the West in the 2000s and 2010s. They went through Shaqkobe in 1999 as well, sweeping them. They did have some issues with the Lakers from 2000-2004 losing in 2001, 2002 & 2004 while winning in 2003. But those transitional Duncan Spurs really weren't that great behind him. That they still won 53, 58, 58, 60 & 57 games in those years in the West is mind blowing and a sign of just how good Peak Duncan was in carrying them. Look at the 2004 Spurs: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/SAS/2004.html That is not yet a great team as Tony and Manu hadn't yet taken the leap. Yet they went 57-25 in the West. Tim basically gets very little credit for how pedestrian his teammates were in those years, yet they kept winning. That they won it all in 2003 is pretty mind bending if you look at the roster. I'd take Peak Bird over Peak Duncan, but Peak Duncan was a helluva played and pretty underrated. With Larry you get 1980-1988 as pre-peak and peak, 9 years. Timmy would be 1998-2007, which is 10 years. The thing with Tim is that you get another 8 years where the first few remained a very strong post-peak, and then the "fading" Duncan remained a foundational player on a very good team that was good enough to bag another title. It's just an amazing run. I can't put him above Jabbar, who had an even longer and better pre-peak and peak, and then the same post-peak where he was a key player on some terrific teams. He really only faded in the last two years. Don't know how to format this properly to mix quoting and responding so you'll have to bear with me. No arguments at all here on Bird, and without 84-87 producing the jewelry it did we may very well be talking about the before and after in the same fashion as do LBJ. Maybe I'm not giving Shaq & Kobe enough credit but things got rolling there when Phil showed up so I'm not holding that against them. But you certainly can. Peak Duncan is arguably the most underrated player we've seen. You highlighted Parker & Manu in '04, which is 12 months removed from the biggest talking point in the finals being whether the Spurs could land Kidd to replace Parker -- which they would've if Kidd was on board with their money instead of a larger payday in NY (and perhaps some ear wringing from Joumana, but that's for another day). It still boggles my mind that Parker took Finals MVP in '07 or even Kahwi least year -- he may have made Lebron work but that's a 50 win team if you take away any body other than Tim. Maybe even any 2 bodies. If Duncan isn't there its probably a playoff team due to Pop but you'd find some money betting against it. Absolutely difficult to argue against Jabbar's run when Duncan's post-prime is such a huge part of his resume, but settling for something in the 4-8 range, the #2 big in my eyes and 5 rings is not too shabby.

Yohe is 65+ and grew up watching Baylor and West when the Lakers first showed up in Los Angeles. He admitted that perhaps he was jumping the gun by having him that high. But he also thought he's been clearly the best player in the NBA from 2008/2009 to 2013/2014. There aren't many players who were clearly the best in the NBA for six seasons, and I think in Steve's mind the only ones are the folks he has ahead of Lebron: Russell, Jabbar and Jordan. There is a certain logic to that. He also places more weight in Mikan's dominance (5 titles in 6 years or 6 titles in 7 years depending on how you count it). Jag and I discount him because of (i) the era of Narrow Key & No Shot Clock helped him, and (ii) The Lack of Black Players. We agree he has to be in the Top 50 somewhere, but rate him way down. He would have been exposed in Russell's era. Ha I kind of sensed Yohe may have been around a few more years than me. I kind of see the argument about LBJ being #1 from 09-14, but on the other hand you can point to Duncan being top 2/3 over a 10+ year stretch. With multiple rings. Without an all-time supporting cast. In a system and with a mindset not geared towards posting crushing individual numbers. I'm with you you on MIkan -- great as he may have been, you can't discount those 2 huge, huge points. If we're being unfair to Mikan he'll have to live with his fistful of rings and status as a pioneer and legend but just not widely regarded as a top tier all-timer.

Yes.

Most of us work have more days on the job over 2-3 weeks than Brock has for the year. If he decides that's too much of a burden then its possible he may explore his options to get out of what's reported as $5M+ annual contract. Otherwise, he'll be doing his best Rasheed Wallace for as long he likes.

lol his new contract I believe runs through 2 if not 3 more wrestlemanias. He's not going anywhere.

I think the strongest case for Bird is the competition and taking out Erving, Magic/Kareem and Hakeem en route to his titles. I wasn't old enough to watch and appreciate him in his prime on a daily basis. He also had McHale, Parrish, DJ and a much deeper team on the whole than Duncan ever did, though Duncan had arguably one of the greatest coaches of all time with him. You can't knock Duncan for sweeping a weak Cavs team in '07 or a post-prime Ewing-less Knicks in '99, but it seems as though people forget that he had to go through the Shaq/Kobe Lakes in '03, the '05 Suns (with a prime Amare that felt like a world beater at the time) and then a prime LBJ last year. That has got to count for something. Bird also unquestionably has more standout offensive performances. Not going to dispute for a minute that he was a more prolific scorer, and while Duncan was never asked to carry that kind of load on a nightly basis, its not even worth trying to look for ways around that argument in his favor. I wouldn't fault anyone for putting Bird over him but think the case for Duncan is just as strong, especially when you factor in his work on both ends of the floor and a comparison of their supporting casts. That's also forgetting about durability and what may have been if Bird's back held up. Though we all know that happened at the perfect time so that he never had to take a fair loss to Jordan

Current WWE is gone so I'm tossing this up to stick with the trend. So, so disappointed with the Brock show last night. Its fine for him to sell and be laid out when appropriate, but if you're going to do that please let some folks other than Kane & J&J get heat for it. Really surprised Brock & Heyman didn't veto it but I guess as long as the script it is written in green they're on board.

'92 only seems lacking in the sense it doesn't have anything like Hansen/Kobashi, Misawa/Kawada, 12/3/93 or 6/9/95 that people talk about as all timers, but for its still a great, deep year. I'd argue that the May 6 man is as great as any they produced before or after, while you get the last big tags of Jumbo's career, the first big Misawa/Kawada and other greats sprinkled in. 1992 All Japan can hold its head high.

Is any footage of heel Dusty available online?

I buy a John Cena shirt. Do we know how many pennies on the dollar go into Cena's pocket? How about Kofi Kingston? Brock? Is there a standard for much of the roster and different rates for others? Ditto other merch.

Completely agree ab out the greatest PF of all time logic. Call him that if you like, or a top 3 Center (at worst) -- just make sure you call him one of the greatest players who ever lived. I have a tough time selling myself on Russell due to competition at the time but can't really argue with the jewelry. Leaving Russ at or near the top gives Duncan a floor on my list at 6, behind MJ, Russ, Kareem, Bird and Magic, with cases to be made for slotting him above anybody other than Jordan and perhaps Kareem. I can easily settle for best post-MJ and a slam dunk member of the your all time 8 man rotation. What I can't fathom is how anyone could slot him below the 6-8 range.

I feel like 3.5-3.75 may see a disproportionate amount of traffic from me, and then again at 4 as my hesitation is to push anything into the elite territory unless I'm incredibly sure of it. Parv, I need to rewatch a few things from this year before making my random and very incomplete addition to your 4.75+ thread.

Awesome, thanks so much for posting these. Very interesting that the same guy who has Lebron at 4 has Mikan at 10. Wouldn't expect to see that kind of pairing. Then again he didn't put Jordan 1 so I'd be inclined to dismiss the entire list It warms the heart to see that you & JDW both showed proper respect for Duncan. While I know that generally being considered a top 10-12 all timer isn't anything to snuff at, it often seems as though he's an afterthought in these discussions. We can all quibble about whether someone was slotted 1-2 spots too high or low, but the big variances are what make it interesting. Lebron at 4, Mikan 10, Bird 11, etc. Russell is always the conundrum for me. You can't dismiss the rings, but I just don't know how to compare someone from that era against anyone basically post-Kareem.

That's generally where I am, at least at the top. 5 = Legit Greatest Match of All Time Candidate 4.75 = Slightly less but immediately feels like a top MOTY at worst. 4.5 = What I'd call a MOTY nominee but for whatever reason feels like it could be moved from the top of a year's list. Its around that 4.5 and below level where things get murky, especially comparing across eras, much less years. There may be a random AJ tag from '93 that I put at 4.25 which if I'm being honest is better than a crazy Young Bucks spotfest from today, but my gut there may also be to go 4.25 when watching through 2015 goggles. On the one hand Its all kind of irrelevant at the end of the day, but on the other I wish I had some better way of tracking what I thought about a couple matches from different eras when I look back at those ratings.

Not that I'm someone to seek out something I expect to be bad, but where is the Takayama who was bashed for his work in mid-late 90s WON? I haven't checked out anything from the early tag days when he went to AJPW so perhaps its there but I'm fully on board that in UWFI he's passable at worst and usually been very interesting and unique, even for that setting.

The only "Some Like It Hot" worth a damn stars Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis. Nobody's perfect!

I have a question about consistency in ratings no matter how you do it -- stars, letters, words, cryptography or anything else that works for you. How consistent do you try to be when rating matches and how much do you think you succeed? The thought occurred to me when looking over JVK's ****3/4 stars+ thread. Many of the matches I've rated near the top of that scale are as you might imagine those I consider all time classics, and a great deal of them are from the 90s All Japan era. When I watch something today -- whether its an outrageous spotfest or Brock/Reigns -- and its time to drop a rating I find myself asking how I'd compare it with some from that era. If its not on the same level I'll ding 1/4 or 1/4 star just so that its not on that same level when I refer back to my own otherwise silly rankings. Some days I'm glad I do that, others I think its silly to make that comparison. I don't have a strong opinion as to what's right or wrong here but am curious how others consider this kind of "big picture" perspective when throwing snowflakes or their personal equivalent.

Looking for some help from people that have been ROH regulars for the last couple years. Did Lethal's push over that time and culminating in the build to this show effectively portray him the man to dethrone Briscoe? Curious because one thing that's stood out to me since jumping back into the weekly TV this year is how strongly they've pushed Briscoe as undefeated in singles action for a couple of years. Let me know if I'm reading more into it but it sure seemed like they were building that up for something more climactic.

#4?? This Yohe fella watches too much sportscenter Lebron probably makes my top 10 at this point. With a ring this year he would've been a no-brainer top 10, whereas now I'll still force myself to think about who's ahead of him even if he ends up there. Who were the top 15 or so on eveyrone's list?

I've only been back following ROH seriously for a few months now, but am trying to understand Lethal taking the title. Do we think he's a short term transitional champ? His character and style don't seem to fit the profile of what they usually book on top. Maybe I'm in the minority but everything I've seen from him is more along the lines of King Barrett than Wade Barrett, lead Nexus heel, if you know what I mean.

Agreed, they really walk that line well by always offering a wink & a nod with their schtick without letting it completely take over a match and become some parody. If I had to watch a full 3 hour show of that act up & down the card it would tire pretty quickly, but they stand out in a fun and fresh way.

Love the Young Bucks. Have yet to watch a match of theirs that did not entertain. I get why they're not everyone's cup of tea but its good for this soul.

Yesterday I told the folks at Starbucks my name was Virgil and damn near broke out in dance when they called that my drink was ready. Good times!

A very charismatic guy with an unique gimmick who plays it well and works hard in the ring with a somewhat unique offense. Got it. Definitely missing those things.

What am I missing on Dalton Castle?