Hoops Tonight - Top 25 Players of Last 25 Years: Dirk Nowitzki is best shooting big man of all time

ten Dirk Novitsky. Very very excited to talk about Dirk today, but we're also going to hit a little bit of the Steph Curry versus Magic Johnson debate that was going around last week. We're hit that at the top, and then we'll get to Dirk. You guys know the joke before we get started. Subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel so you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore Jason lt so you guys

don't miss anyhow announcements. And last but not least, for whatever reason, you guys miss one of these shows and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget. You can find them wherever you get your podcasts. Under hoops tonight, all right, one last thing before we get started.

I'm gonna be hitting this Steph Versus Magic debate at the start of this video, but we're gonna do a mailbag style question at the start of every video for the next two weeks because obviously we're just doing one player per day on Monday through Friday this week and Monday through Friday next week. So today we're doing this

Steph Curry Versus Magic Johnson debate. But underneath this video, in the comments, I want you guys to drop mail bag questions about absolutely anything pertaining to the NBA and we'll pick one every single day to hit in addition to the players that we're covering on the list. So drop some questions in the comment. So the Steph vers Magic Johnson debate, basically the genesis of this was Steph Curry himself declared himself the greatest point guard of all time,

and then Michael Jordan got involved in this discussion. I believe through a text message to Steven A. Smith that he believes Magic Johnson is clearly the greatest point guard of all time. And I personally hate this discussion because to me, focusing on singular position groups to rank players

doesn't make a ton of sense. I think Gilbert Arenas was the guy who put this best when he went on his show in the middle of this debate and basically said, like, why aren't we including guys like Lebron or Nicola Jokitchen this debate because they functionally act as the point guard for their team. Now. I don't agree with Gilbert in the sense that I wouldn't want to have a point guard debate with Lebron and Nicoley Jokitchen it because that doesn't make any sense to me either.

But I think the larger point that he's hitting at and essentially talking about the positionless nature of basketball and the fact that any star should have the basketball in their hands a lot and functionally act as a point guard for their team, I think represents a better way to rank basketball players. So I would rather not focus on who's the best point guard or who's the best shooting guard, but rather who's the best perimeter shot creator for a team. I'll give you an example. Let's say

we were talking about shooting guards. Who's the best shooting guard in the league right now? It's probably Devin Booker. Right If we go down my player rankings. Nikole Jokic at number one was a center. Steph Curry at number two is a point guard. Yiannis at number three is a power forward. Kd at four is a power forward or small forward. Embiads center, Anthony Davis center, Tatum small forward, Lebron power forward, Luka Doncicic power forward, point forward, point guard,

depending on what you want to call him. Devin Booker shooting guard, and then Kawhi Leonard power forward. So of my twelve bona fide superstars, I've got one shooting guard. So technically, Devin Booker is the best shooting guard in the league. But if I swapped Steph Curry in for Devin Booker and had him do all the exact same shit that he does for the Suns, the Suns immediately

become a better basketball team. Why Because Steph can play shooting guard better than Devin Booker can play shooting guard. Biggest Steph is a very versatile basketball player. They can fill any role. But even then, let's look at what that means. What does it mean to be a two

guard in the NBA? In the two guard at the two guard position in the modern NBA, you're expected to run pick and rolls, run ISOs, maybe some post ups if you've got a size advantage, gerbil handoffs, wide pinned downs, running the lanes and transition, spotting up and attacking closeouts. But those responsibilities are the same for every perimeter star. I would argue that exact same list is fulfilled by Lebron James or Jason Tatum or Kevin Durant or Jimmy

Butler or Luka Doncicch. You get the point. They're just basketball players, perimeter oriented basketball players. Now, the ones that are bigger might use their size more and play a different style. Guys that are more skilled might lean on that more. Obviously they played differently, but they all feel the fundamental same role on a basketball team, which is

creating shots for your team. And so I don't see any point in isolating point guard as a position group because there are a lot of players that don't technically play point guard but can do point guard stuff better. All the point guards do and basically do that for their team anyway, so the debate doesn't make any sense. I prefer to rank players based on two types. Those of you guys have been following the show for a

while know exactly where I'm going here. To me, you're either a perimeter based shot creator as a star, or you are a center, and that's basically it. Everybody kind of falls into those groups. The only guy that really I've seen that bridges that group at the highest level is Nikole Jokic because he's like legitimately a center, but you can't just deny him the ball or double team him out of a game the way you do with maybe Anthony Davis, and even Joel Embich struggles with that

a lot. If you do that, he can dribble, vault the floor, and he can run. He can create offense for himself off a live dribble. So like Jokic kind of bridges that gap. But outside of that, everybody kind of falls into one of those two groups. Right Like when I don't rank Tim Duncan among perimeter players. Typically if I'm doing all time lists now doing it for our top twenty five list, because I'm grouping them all

together for that list. But if I was doing just an all time greatest players in NBA history, I'd prefer to split it into two lists. I want to rank all these perimeter guys, and I want to rank my centers. Let's talk Kareem Duncan, right, Will Chamberlain, Shaquille O'Neil. Let's talk about those guys over here, because they do something fundamentally different than what the perimeter players do. And then

let's rank the perimeter players over here. So from that lens, there is a debate to have about Steph Curry in Magic Johnson. Ironically, I have them right next to each other in the list. If you look at my list, I have Michael Jordan at number one, Lebron James at number two, Kobe Bryant at number three. So if I'm talking the greatest perimeter players of all time, I'm going MJ, Lebron, Kobe won two three. At that point, the next three

guys on my list are some combination of Magic, Stephan Bird. Right, it used to be Magic and Bird steps entered into that conversation. But let's take a look at those three championships. Magic Johnson five, Steph Curry four, Larry Bird three Finals, MVPs Magic three, Steph one but should be two, Larry Bird two, League, MVPs Magic three, Steph two, Larry Bird three First Team All NBA's Magic nine, Steph Curry four,

Larry Bird nine. Now, one of the big things that was going around last week I saw it was people talking about supporting casts. I think that's ridiculous. I think all three of those guys, Bird, Magic and Steph all played on top tier talented teams in their era, from basically two thy fifteen to the to Kevin Durant leaving the Warriors after like when Klay Thompson came back from the Achilles injury, they weren't the most talented team in

the league anymore. And we'll talk about that twenty twenty three title in a little bit, but before that, from base sickly twenty fifteen to twenty nineteen, the Warriors were either among the most talented teams in the league before they got KD and then became by far the most talented team in the league with KD. They like, he won two titles with Kevin duran on his team. Right, So you're not gonna sit here and complain about talent

as a Warriors fan, right. Magic Johnson literally plays with played with a six time champion, one of the all time great players in NBA history, the guy who was a leading scorer before Lebron got there. Kareem Abdul Jabbar. You know, Larry Bird played with Kevin McHale. Even in addition to that, they had star level role players or guys who starred in their roles or low lower level stars, whatever you want to call him. That's Klay Thompson, and

that's Straymond Green, that's James Worthy and Byron Scott. That's Dennis Johnson and Robert Parrish or Bill Walton coming off the bench in nineteen ninety six or nineteen eighty six, right, all those teams were talented. So to me, that's irrelevant. You're splitting hairs if you're trying to talk about which team was better. The nineteen eighty six Celtics are resoundingly

considered one of the greatest teams in NBA history. The nineteen eighty seven Lakers are resoundingly considered one of the greatest teams in NBA history. The twenty seventeen In twenty eighteen Warriors were literally the most talented rosters that have ever been assembled in NBA history. The twenty sixteen Warriors without Kevin Urant won seventy three games. You guys get the point. They won sixty seven games in twenty fifteen.

Talent is not related, is not relevant here in my opinion, except for that twenty twenty three title, which we'll get to in a little bit. So in terms of real life actual accomplishments, it's not close in my opinion between Magic and Steph. Magic has more titles, he has more finals MVPs. Even if we give Steph twenty fifteen, which I do, he has more MVPs, and he has more than twice as many first team All NBA selections. So Steph does have to accomplish significantly more in my opinion

to pass Magic Johnson. Now Larry Bird is where it gets interesting. Steph has more titles, should have the same number of finals MVPs, and I think the twenty twenty three NBA Championship with Andrew Wiggins as his best player is best teammate on his team against the Celtics team that was significantly more talented than the Warriors. In my opinion, that accomplishment was greater, in my opinion, than anything Magic

or Bird accomplished. Now, it's not enough to make up the gap with Magic in my opinion, although it does make it close, but I do think it gives him the edge over Larry Bird. So when people ask me who's the greatest point guard of all time, Magic Johnson or Steph Curry, I don't really have a take on that. If I had to pick up point guard, I'm taking Lebron because he kind of functionally played the role of

a point guard. But even then you could say, you could say Michael Jordan did, and he played point guard for the Bulls in the late eighties. So again, that whole conversation is just silly to me. But if I'm ranking the top perimeter players in NBA history, I'm going mj at one, Lebron at two, Kobe at three, Magic at four, Steph at five, and Bird at That's where those guys land. For me. That's just again, everyone's gonna

have a different take on this. You're gonna have a lot of traditionalists that are gonna be like, screw that, at point guards to point guards a point guard, we gotta rank point guards. But then they want to conveniently leave out that Magic Johnson like straight up played center in the NBA Finals, and that he played alongside a point guard who actually played point guard. You get the point, Like,

it's just all these things. It kind of goes back to what we were talking about with the Chris Paul situation, Like there's anytime you set up criteria, there are holes. Right, My criteria has holes. Your criteria as holes, and there are gonna be guys who slipped through the cracks and who are not properly rated in those situations. But for me personally, I don't like to rank by positions. I like to rank by just general archetypes of stars. You're

either a perimeter star or you're a center. And for me, Stephan Magic are very close among perimeter stars. But Magic has a clear edge to be the fourth best perimeter player of all time in my opinion. All right, let's move on to our number ten. Dirk Novinski. He's best player on a championship team with the two eleven maps, four time First Team All NBA, twelve time All NBA overall, We're gonna start getting into some crazy resumes from now on. He's the MVP of the league in two thousand and

seven NBA Finals, MVP in twenty eleven. His prime I put down from two thousand and one to twenty fifteen. In that stretch, Dirk Novitski averaged twenty three points, eight rebounds, and three assists per game on fifty eight percent for shooting, and then in the playoffs twenty five points per game, ten rebounds, and three assists per game on fifty eight percent through shooting. I think Dirk's claim to fame, the thing that we'll all remember him for, is that he's

the best shooting big man of all time. When we think about shooters, obviously we think about Steph number one, Klay at number two, you know, some combination of Reggie Miller, Ray Allen after that, right, But those guys are all traditional perimeter players that you expect to be great shooters. When it comes to the legitimate big men and their ability to shoot the basketball, it's Dirk. He's the guy

that gets the recognition there. I think that Nicole Joki has an opportunity to enter into that discussion in the long run, but even then, he doesn't take enough jumpers in general, just in terms of volume in my opinion, although he's very, very accurate in those situations. He also was one of the best scorers of all time over his prime from two thousand and one to twenty fifteen, he was second to Kobe Bryant in total points score to twenty six, two hundred and ninety nine. His archetype

just a seven foot power forward. Never a great athlete, although he was a decent athlete when he was younger. But he was a master of manipulating defenders through leverage, which we'll get to in a little bit. I want to focus heavily in on the isolation situations and the post up situation. So ISO situations for Dirk, generally speaking, were face ups. Right. So a face up is I'm going to be a triple threat. Right, So hasn't used

to dribble. He has an opportunity to dribble, usually left foot, pivot foot, and for Dirk, usually right about the nail. They experimented with a bunch of different spots in his career, but they love to use Dirk at the nail. Now the nail is at the free throw line, right right in the middle of the freight line. The reason why they like to work with Dirk at the nail or at the top of the key, somewhere between the nail and the nail and the top of the key, is

because it was harder for teams to double team. So we've talked about this a lot on the show, and there are advantages both ways. If you go clearside ISOs, you do have a lot of space to operate, But it's harder to beat teams with the skip pass right because so for instance, I have this hyeh cleared like Jimmy Butler was doing with the heat and he's working off the dribble. That skip pass to the corner is a really tough pass to make, and so teams can

load up and load up the paint. Although that's also hard spots double team from right at the nail. Everywhere is one pass away. Right, I'm not making a skip pass to the corner, I can throw it to the corner, throw it to the corner, throw it to the wing, throw it to the wing, throw it to the dunker. So it's actually a harder spot to double team out of, but it's also a much harder position to play offensively. The reason why is you have to have really good

awareness of the entire floor looking both ways. So if I have my back to the basket, I'm looking this way, I can't see this side of the floor right, Whereas if I'm on a clear side ISO and there's nobody over there and it's just me on the left side of the floor. I can look this way and see the entire floor and kind of survey all nine other players, right, So it's it's a harder pass to make from that side of the floor, but it is actually easier to

make reads. But if you have a player who is smart enough and can see the floor well enough to make reads from the middle of the floor, that is the hardest spot to double team from, and every pass is a quick little rifle pass away. Nikole Jokic has been destroying the NBA with this for years now. He catches in the middle of the floor, and there are so many players that catch in the middle of the floor and they can't functionally see everything well enough to

make reads. Jokic can. Dirk could as well, so he liked to work from the nail because when he was in his triple threat, if any team shaded over from any side, it was an easy pass to somewhere on the floor to kill the defense for that specific mistake. But that from the nails where we're starting from. Everything. The foundational great skill for Dirk obviously shooting, like we talked about, but from the standpoint of isolation skill it was his ability to get that jump shot off with

just the tiniest bit of space. Dirk leaned back on his jump shot and had a very high release, and so even if you were up in his space, he could just kind of bump you with his shoulder a little bit and then quick lean back and get enough separation to knock that shot down. That forced defenders to literally get right up into his airspace. So when Dirk would catch at the foul line, dudes were like literally putting their chest on his shoulder. From there, everything is

about using his attack foot. His attack foot is his right foot, so if he's got his left foot as his pivot foot, he's leaning into you with that right foot to then try to lean back to take the shot or if you're pressing too far up on him once he gets that attack foot past your foot, So imagine the defensive player has his right foot up here. Once Dirk gets his foot past him, he's buying him. At that point, you can use a little chicken wing

and he's all the way to the rim. So with Dirk, he would get you into his airspace with the threat of the jump shot and then use leverage to go around you. Using that attack foot, and so Dirk would get a ton of dribble penetration being a guy who's not a great athlete, a guy that you would think like, oh, I'm gonna put you Donnis haslam on him, He's gonna

slide his feet and be able to keep him in front. No, because Eu Donnas has to be up into his space to take away the jump shot, and as soon as he does that, Dirk can feel where his body's at. Everything about this, the ISO and the post up stuff with Dirk is all about feeling the body. If he's got his back to the basket and the dude's leaning heavy on his shoulder, he's pivoting this way. If he's leaning heavy on his shoulder, he's pivoting that way. In

the drive. When he's in a face up situation, if you're up in his space and he can get that attack foot past your foot, he's going around you. But if you stay back to stop that attack foot, he's leaning back and taking it shot. And it just made him completely unguardable because again, like you had to concede something, and a lot of the biggest shots in Dirk's career were conundrums that he put defenders in because they didn't

know which of those two to go with. Even though I would argue the biggest shot of Dirk's career that game two, game winner against the Heat in the twenty eleven finals, and we're going to talk about that shot a few times here. That shot was a drive. Greatest shooting big Man of all time. Biggest shot of his career was a driving left handed layup. He ripped through to the right. Dirk loved to go right left. Even when he would start right, he would spin back left

and again like that spin. That little bit of leverage with his shoulder was important to him because he wasn't a great athlete, so he had to beat people with leverage.

But he caught the ball against Bosh there on that left extended elbow, and he ripped through to the right, and then when Bosh slid, he spun back to the left and went all the way to the rim with that left handed layup, so getting him the ball at the nail or near the top of the floor of what was really difficult to double team, weaponizing the shot to force guys to press up into his body and then using leverage to go past them out of the post. It was a very similar type of situation. He preferred

the right block. He would almost always go to his right shoulder because he had a really good right shoulder fade away. Again, like right handed players love to shoot over their right shoulder. He would just kill teams making this like little right shoulder fade away at like sixty percent clip, which was insane. But if anybody ever reached behind to go for the basketball, he's just going all the way to the rim for a left handed layup. If you got out of position at all, whatsoever, he's

going around you. And so he just put teams in a really difficult predicament with how good he was at driving to the basket to compensate for his jump shot. Crowning achievement for Dirk Novitski the twenty eleven championship run. It was a perfect encapsulation of everything that peaked Dirk Noovitsky could do well. His jumper was completely locked in.

He shot fifty percent on catch and shoot jump shots in that playoff run, sixty percent when you weigh it for threes, fifty one percent on dribble jump shots, fifty two percent when you waited for threes, so he literally made more than half of every jump shot he took like that, that's just dead eye shooting. In the playoffs, barbecued every defender he faced in the playoff Roun twenty eight points and eight rebounds on sixty one percent true shooting.

Went through the Lakers, the thunder and the Heat, so he went through Kobe KD and Lebron was absolutely off the charts good in clutch situation. So when the score was within five with less than five minutes left, he was fifteen for twenty eight from the field, three for five from three, thirty three for thirty four from the line, so just dead eye locked in when the game was on the line. He had sixty six total clutch points

in the playoff runt. Lebron was second place in that playform with forty three, so he had twenty three more clutch points than anyone else in that playoff runt. In the NBA Finals, again it's a heat team that was heavily favored, he was eight for thirteen in clutch situations, so eight makes and five misses, one for two from three, nine for nine at the line. The MAVs were plus eighteen and eighteen clutch minutes with dark on the floor. There were three big moments in that series that I

want to hit on. He hit the game winner in Game two. Again, that's spin move on Bosch, like we said, kind of cleared side. Actually it wasn't clearst of his shooter in the corner. I think it was Jason Terry in the corner if I remember correctly, But uh yeah, because he sat like a wide pinned down for Dirk to get up to the top of the floor and Lebron couldn't help out of the corner anymore. He does a hard rip through the right spin back to the left,

left handed layup. Game four, by the way, that and by the way, Dirk finished Game two on a nine to two run by himself as and that was the crazy comeback game. I remember the heat We're up fifteen. D Wade was doing the celebration in front of the MAVs bench. It was a big comeback win for the MAVs. Game four, now, this is a pivotal game in the series because after the heat blue Game two, they went into Dallas in one Game three. Dwayne Wade was incredible in that game. They go up two to one in

the series. So in Game four, the Mavericks have the ball up by one with twenty nine seconds left. It was eighty two to eighty one. There's a five second gap between the game game clock and the shot clock, so if the Heat get a stop, they have a chance to go down and score and win the game. They run the exact same type of play that they ran in game two. They actually in this game the Heat go with Eudonis Haslim on Dirk, same sort of situation.

They put Jason Terry in the right corner again instead of going from the left elbow, this time, Dirk's going from the right elbow. They put Lebron. They stashed Lebron away in the opposite corner or in the strong side corner with Jason Terry on, and Lebron's not going to help because Jason Terry was dead eye in that situation. And in this case, Eudonis Haslim is heavy overplaying the

left shoulder, which is taking away Dirk's jump shot. But again, like we talked about, Dirk always weaponized that leverage against the defender. So eudonas is taking away the jumper, but he's literally giving a right hand drive. And it's funny because he rips through to the right and you can actually hear I think it was Jeff Van Gundy on

the broadcast complaining like he's going too early. He's going too early, but Eudonas was giving him a layup, and Dirk didn't give a shit because if he makes a layup, they go up three. It's a you're safe now. They can't beat you, they can only send the game to overtime. Right, So he rips through to the right. Lebron doesn't help bosh ops to box out Dirt Tyson Chandler instead of go for the block, and Dirt gets an easy layup to put them up by three. Mike Miller ends up fumbling.

Adin Wade ends up fumbling the game tying possession, throws it to Mike Miller. He throws up a prayer and he airballs it and the series is tied at two. Significant swing in that game. Dirk just getting an easy basket.

That's always the dead giveaway. It's like, it's not Nicole jochicch in Game four against the Lakers this year, one thirteen, one thirteen, and he just makes it look easy to get a basket against Anthony Davis when when a guy is scoring easy in huge leverage situations, that's always a sign that you've mastered the game. And then in Game six, Dirk scores ten points in the fourth quarter to execute

the heat win his first title. Each of the five baskets had a little bit of that Dirk flair to it right first, one is a double pick and roll with Tyson Chandler. Jason Terry's running it with Tyson Chandler setting the screen and with Dirk set in the screen. Dirk pops Tyson rolls, Jason Terry throws a really nice pass, hits Dirk. Eudonnas is just a touch slow to close out, knocks down the jumper. After that, a right block post up, same type of thing we were talking about. He's posting

up on that right block, left handed dribble. Eudonis's garden. Himonis just barely reaches, just barely reaches, and then changes his mind and pulls back. But in that split second where he went like this, Dirk just went right around him. It was crazy how good he was at reading that body leverage stuff, goes right to the basket, makes a

left handed layup. Then there was this crazy player where Chadler gets the ball in a broken play right around the right around the nail, and Dirk is kind of relocating above him, and he pitches it back to Dirk, and Chris Bosh is like all over the place, spun in circles, tries to close out, but then Dirk just hits him with a wonderable pull up and knocks it down, just beautiful wondribble pull up just hits nothing but net. And then the last one is the one we all remember,

the left elbow iso against Chris Bosh cleared side. This time Bosh just smothers him along the left baseline, literally walls him up like this, and Dirk pump bakes and then literally just kind of bumps Bosh and then leans to his left and makes a jump shot, just a

ridiculous shot. Then he got a garbage time layup and pick and roll after the Heat had already quit, if you remember, in that game, like Dirk had demoralized the Heat so much that they weren't even boxing out in the final minutes and the Mass just kept getting offensive rebounds. But it was a little bit of everything that made Dirk great showing up on the biggest stage they upset the Miami Heat to win Dirk's first NBA championship. One hell of a crowning achievement, one of the most impressive

playoff runs in NBA history. Biggest what if I have two for Dirk Novitski Number one, what if the MAVs got a better whistle in the two thousand and six finals. So if you remember the two thousand and six MAVs went sixteen to twenty two, Dirk was third in MVP voting. By the way, Lebron James, at age twenty one, was second MVP voting that year. It's crazy how good he

was when he was young. The MAVs take a two zero lead in the finals, and they were up by thirteen points with six minutes left in the fourth quarter of Game three, but Dwayne Wade goes on a crazy run to tie it and Gary Payton it's the pull up jump shot that puts him up by two, and then Dirk actually ends up getting fouled and misses makes the first but misses the crucial second free throw, and then they end up losing right two games to one.

But that starts a run where the Heat win four games in a row and they actually steal that title from the MAVs. But here's the thing. Dwayne Wade attempted an astonishing seventy three free throws over the final four games of that sit There's a lot of conspiracy theories about what may or may not have been taking place, but there's no doubt that he got a good whistle. Two things are true in this situation. One, the MAVs could not guard Dwayne Wade. He was way too quick

for them. No one could keep him in front of the dribble, so he was constantly flying downhill. He's also just an incredible athlete and he fell down a lot, so he was a very difficult player to officiate. There's no doubt. But he also got a lot of calls. So I think there's a version of that story where Wade gets a tighter whistle, the MAVs get the benefit of the doubt on some of those calls, and they

have a better chance to win that series. So Number one, what if they get a different whistle in six do the MAVs have two titles? Number two, what if the mass had kept Tyson Chandler after the twenty eleven finals. Tyson Chandler's rim protection played a huge role in the twenty eleven championship. The MAVs were eighth in defense that year and they were the third best defense in the league at protecting the paint, but they let the Knicks post poach Tyson Chandler in a three team, three team

sign in dread. I should say Tyson goes on to anchor really good Knicks team for the next couple of years, and those were the best Knicks teams of that decade, which I think Tyson played a big part in. And then the MAVs just slide their backup Brandon Haywood back into that starting position. They also made a move for Vince Carter, which was something that didn't really pay off. He didn't play very well for them, although he did hit a huge buzzer beating three at one point in

a playoff game. But they were the third worst defense in the twenty twelve playoffs and they got swept by OKC. So it kind of sucks that they immediately got rid of their defensive anchor right after winning a championship, and they didn't really have a legitimate chance to defend their title, which is frustrating. So that's another big what if what if they had kept Tyson Chandler? Do they win the twenty twelve championship or at least do they have a

rematch with Miami? And do we have a chance for Lebron to redeem himself in those situations? Right? So another big what if in drk Novitzky's career. All right, guys, that is all I have for today. We will be back tomorrow with number nine. Don't forget to drop a mailbag question in the comment. So no, so you guys tomorrow. The volume