A player can play for 20 plus years and achieve total stTs that top lists, doesnt make them generational in my opinion, just ming of endurance.
i didnt say you did say steph was the best. I just countered your stats with some others is all and it shows me he isnt even better than steph. You are right though. Define generational.
So define it. I define it as the best player or couple of players in the generation. Can a generation have lots of generational players? Possibly but then some will be better than others so how do the others still get considered generational when there are other plYers better than them in the same generation?
I feel like you guys are missing the forest through the trees with this definition of "generational." And yes, I feel like that moniker can be bestowed on more than the five best players at each position, especially when they are damn close in a bunch of different categories. This conversation stemmed from the fact that @STOMP countered that 3 months before a draft, you can't simply dismiss the entire draft as being bereft of high level talent when this has been proven wrong year after year.
No need to bring up your opinion of others lack of sight. okay so 1st and 2nd all nba players could be considered a generational talent? Maybe 3rd? fair enough. I personally think a generational talent is just that. The best of his/her generation. That, to me, leaves room for only a few players in a generation. Not 10-30 players. But its just my opinion. I dont think their is a Webster's definition per say. now on how the convo started, i agree one cant judge so early in a draft about generational talent. Giannis is a recent example of that alone. but it still should be defined what a generational talent is, in order to understand who was/wasnt missed out on. Is klay and dgreen a generational talent? They were steals in the draft but still not generational to me. Generational talent, to me, is a guy always in the running and winning a few mvps. Dame has been in the talks a couple of years early in the season and thats about it. In my opinion he is not generational. Close. But still a step down from those currently playing, i would consider generational.
I think our young guys will get a lot out of the games from the twentieth of this month until April seventh when they won't be as outclassed but will still be losing almost all of those games. I don't see young NBA players like young NFL quarterbacks who can get shelled so much that they end up with shell shock that ruins their potential. These guys are getting reps in Chauncey's system against much better players than they will face as second and third stringers. They'll be better just from having real NBA playing time. It's just uncomfortable to watch. I do believe it's either making the guys that are playing better or exposing them as being too far away from being competitive to rely on in the future.
Game has changed quite a bit for these players. Without Question Curry and Lillard will continue to rise among them for this stat.
Fair enough. Dame is unquestionably very very good. Maybe because he has played during the same time that some other players played has come into play. I think possibly his game could be duplicated and maybe even improved upon? We are all seeing what Morant is doing. Not trying to diminish him at all but the Game has changed and he was one of the players that might have benefitted from that?
I think some people would say that a generational talent is the best player from his generation. I think some would say a generational talent would be a superstar in any generation. I think some would say a generational talent is one whose talents will be remembered for generations. It's a really loose term to be arguing about. Dame is a superstar talent, he may still very well end up with an MVP and a championship or more. That being said, I think he's lived in Steph's shadow for so much of his career that he'll never be on anyone's Mt. Rushmore of point guards let alone their overall Mt. Rushmore. So in that way he's not a generational talent like LeBron, MJ, Magic, Kareem, Wilt, Bird, The Big O or a handful of others and he's not even one like Steph who will be on a lot of people's Mt. Rushmore of point guards. I do believe that Dame would have been a superstar in any generation and I do think when it's all said and done his talent will be remembered for generations. Does that make him a "generational talent"? I don't know and I really don't care. It makes him an all time great and we know that because of out of all of the thousands of players to ever play in the league Dame was recognized as one of the top 75 and his body of work is far from being complete.
great post! Hope it wasn't too exhausting! Lol i pretty much agree with everything you said. Basically i dont think he is one. But can certainly still become one if he fills those trohpy cupboards with a ring and mvp or two.
If you're talking about the change in physicality I think Dame has been hurt by that. I think his build and approach to the game would have withstood the hand checking and bumping in the lane he would have seen as a scorer and facilitator. I think Steph would be the one relegated to being Mark Price in a different era. If we're talking about Dame's ability to get to the line or Harden's for that matter, these guys would have been able to impact the game in other ways back then. If Dame was allowed to be more physical on defense, throughout his career, he actually would have fared much better on that end of the court.
do you really believe that Watford-Brown-Williams are learning nothing right now? I sure don't. If Portland was deep into the playoff race those guys wouldn't be playing. They are gaining experience, and experience is gained on the floor, not the scoreboard. Those are not going to be clutch-time players worrying about possible bad habits for players that will very likely be 11-15 in the rotation when there are bigger issues in play seems misplaced energy. I know it's not an entertaining product right now, but I'm looking at it as the season has been over since the trade deadline. In fact, what I'm seeing right now is that 4 game win-streak and winning 6 of 8 games a little earlier are hurting Portland. Those were entertaining games, but those games would still have been entertaining if the Blazers would have gone 6-6 or 5-7 instead of 10-12. If so, they'd be firmly in 4th or 5th place right now in lottery odds (with a chance of moving higher) instead of seemingly locked into 7th-9th seed. we disagree on things but we're alike in being big Blazer fans. Even believing as I do that at this point in time that losing has value, if I watch a game I'm still pulling for the Blazers to win...kind of. But that's my heart; what little there is of my brain is saying "keep losing", we've dug the hole pretty deep but need to keep digging besides that, maybe my foundational complaint about the olshey-era was that it was a decade of fence-straddling. It's good to see they aren't wishy-washy about the tank even though there's no guarantee it will work
this, i am in full agreement with. i also called for the tank, but i just don't think there needs to be any scenario where we have to sit Ant/Hart. Those guys would at least contribute to making games closer and put our youngins in situations that they might need experience for later. And yes , i really believe Watford et al are getting nothing out of this glorified summer league rat ball. Even Billups admitted that we aren't running any actions because guys that are on the floor don't know where to go, or what to do.
There have now been 2 generations of Blazer players and Blazer fans. Is leadership a talent? I say yes, it is. Does loyalty and integrity and morality enter the equation? Why shouldn't those be factored? All things considered Dame is the best Blazer player in 2 generations. Maybe confining it to Blazer players dilutes the meaning of 'generational talent', but that a pretty subjective label to start with.
And it's not even the intangibles. The last two Dame seasons have been fairly close to Steph's in the two years where he won unanimous MVP. Lillard averaged 30/8/4 on a ridiculous 63% TS%.
Dammit its not Dame hate! Lol. Ill say this. If not for Steph i think the question is easily answered. Top 50-75 may be a good basis for generational but i bet if you combed that list i think there would be alot of players the majority would consider not generational. To me generational is super rare. Rarer than an mvp. i put about 10-15 names in that category. Unfortunately Dame isn't currently one of them.
Between the given choices of generational talent, a really good asset and serviceable, I'll stick with arguably the greatest Blazer in the 50+ years the franchise has existed as being a generational talent. STOMP
