@kluke @MobileBengal But we're looking for an all star DUNK team. Jordan's the greatest who ever lived, but Adam Levine is running him off the court in a dunk contest. See this all goes back to the importance of dunking in the overall game. Take the dunk out of Jordan and Kobe's game and they're still brilliant.
oh so i can’t take whatever great dunkers i want? i mean i have a combined 5 past NBA dunk contest wins. which is more than you have past 3pt winners. so i can say something like: well you can’t have Reggie Miller, you gotta take Craig Hodges because he has smoked him in a 3 point contest. face it i put together a team of great dunkers that will absolutely destroy that team you think is great.
But you've inserted yourself in the conversation and then changed the tone. This started with another poster making repeated comments that led to the conclusion that great dunker=great player. My argument is that dunking is an athletic skill and it is entertaining, but its only one skill in the total makeup of a player. You're selecting great players who were also great dunkers. If you're going to hold Jordan and Wilkins' 2 wins over my head, why didn't you take Nate Robinson? He won it 3 times. But would you prefer him to Jordan? Nope; Robinson was a great dunker, but Jordan was a great player. Oh, and if contest wins is the stipulation for being on one of these teams, OK, I'll drop Miller. But I'm taking Larry Bird.
you brought up the Maroon 5 singer hypothetically beating Jordan. i brought up a guy that actually DID beat one of your guys. i mean you’re in here legit trying to say that Michael Jordan isn’t a “all star dunker” The dude catapulted into superstardom by winning dunk contests and “flying” before he was winning NBA titles. Bring up dunk contests to anyone older than 12 and they talk about Jordan vs Nique.
and you are selecting great 3 point shooters that are also hall of famers. in general dunking is better correlated with basketball talent. lots of short white guys are great 3 point shooters. LSU walk on parker edwards is an excellent 3 point shooter. he gets 3 minutes a year.
but its their athleticism , their ability to dunk, that makes them so great. they dont need to dunk, but they need to be able to dunk. kobe and MJ were global elite level athletes. if they couldnt dunk, they woulda sucked. below the rim players are not as effective. MJ had hang time for days, it was his leaping that was an integral part of his game.
i didnt say a great dunker is a great player. emmit williams and marlon taylor are amazing dunkers but G league. of course i agree its only one skill. like any other. my claim is its the skill mose usefully correlated with elite players. again, if you have a random group of 100 people. i take the 13 best dunkers. you take the 13 best anything else
lol at the Maroon 5 ref. And yep, I get what you're saying about the MJ/Nique showdowns, but be honest... the dunks that were earning Jordan 50's back in 1987 barely get him to the second round today. We could have a debate over Jordan vs Kobe as the greatest player of all time, we could each post a dozen times and never once mention dunking, because the guys had the whole skillset. Dunking has been entirely re-imagined over the last 15 or so years; guys are doing things today that MJ, Nique and company wouldn't have dreamed of in the '80s. And when challenged to create an all star dunk team, you pointed out dunk championships in your guys, but you passed over the only 3-time winner, Nate Robinson. You took Nique and Jordan, but passed over the other 2-time winners, LaVine, Harold Miner and Jason Richardson. Why? Well you answered that yourself, because MJ and DW were also all-NBA defensive players. Those other guys? Dunkers, and that's it. You made my point, which was dunking is nice, but its not the yardstick for all around ability.
