Are we really gonna stick with Blake-Miller-Roy combo all season?

Come on dude! I've read your posts for the past couple months, you got a good head on your shoulders. No way, no how is Kukoch better than Roy. Sorry, I absolutely disagree with you on this one.

 

I think that Kukoc had Roy level talent (I got to see him in the Euroleague or whatever it was called at the time in '93) - and he was a great player.

But, he was not a Roy like contributor in the NBA - simply because he was played as a 3rd/4th option next to MJ/Pip and the rest of the Bulls crew. His NBA level performance was about what you get from LMA - very good player, borderline all-star but not a superstar.

Kukoc is what Turkeyglue dreams he could be.

 

...Rudy [25+ mins] and/or Webster [20+ mins] should be starting ahead of Blake [I mean really, Steve Fucking Blake ]

 

Well if the goal is to get your best five players starting . . . we will see this line up for awhile. Until Nic gets back or Rudy takes Blake's spot.

 

Mags you can have "fun" playing sound fundamental basketball, guys like Rudy and Bayless need work on that, not the fancy stuff. See turnovers and dumb passes for exhibit A.

MK

 

Yeah I can agree. I just got from your previous post that you have to be all business. Maybe I misread it then.

 

Kukoc is nowhere near Roy. Sorry. He was a talented player for sure. He wasn't a Roy level player. I've seen just about every game of Roy's young career, as well as the first 7 or so years of Kukoc's. Kukoc is not on his level. And it wasn't because he didn't have the opportunity to be.

 

Kukoc was a solid player, not a star-caliber player (in the NBA). The Bulls were great because they had a Kukoc level player (above average) as their fourth-best player (after Jordan, Pippen and Rodman). That's impressive. For comparison's sake, the very good Kings teams had a similar level player (Stojakovic) as their second-best player. The Bulls were also great because they had four great (not just good) defenders (Pippen, Jordan, Rodman and Ron Harper).

Kukoc was definitely not on Roy's level. He was an above-average complementary player. Roy is arguably a top-ten star.

 

Have you seen Kukoc in Europe where he was the #1 option, all the time?

My opinion is that Kukoc was an amazing talent, about what Roy is. But, he was buried in the rotation in Chicago and still got several 20-21 PER seasons (LMA is now at 18-19).

 

You're going to base it on his play in Europe, in a much MUCH weaker European league than what we have now? No, sorry, I didn't watch him a lot there. I watched him in the NBA. I mean, by that measure, Rudy is on that level as well.
He got his highest PERs playing alongside MJ and Scottie. That helps some. Outside of those years, he was roughly an 18 PER player, which is a good player. It's not a player of Roy's caliber.

 

He was 31 by the time he was out of Chicago - He had a very short period, as a 32 years old with a PER of 21.8 in Atlanta and he had a PER of 18 as a 34 years old in MIL.

I think that anytime you have a PER of 18 as a 34 years old - it should tell you he was a very good player earlier in his career.

And, I had a chance to see Rudy playing in Europe and I enjoyed seeing him there - but he never dominated the upper-end of European play as Kukoc did. I think Rudy's team made into the Euroleague once and he had rather forgettable performance there.

... and I think I can base my opinion on European play, sure - Sabonis was a shell of himself in the NBA - and I had a chance to see him in the Euroleague and can tell you for sure that he was better, period, despite the fact that when I saw him there he was facing lesser competition.

Arvidas Sabonis was an all-world Center in his prime - just because we did not get to see it in the NBA does not negate it - and the same is true for Kukoc - who played, at his prime, next to the best player in the NBA and one of the NBA's 50 greatest players, thus being minimized, as far as his opportunity to shine.

Kukoc was a Roy level player, imho - just like Sabonis was a Walton/Shaq/Hakeem/Kareem level center - even if we did not get to see it in the NBA.

 

Big difference is Sabonis came over way past his prime. Kukoc came over as a 25 year old. Basically just hitting his prime. Having a PER of 18 as a 34 year old, which is similar to what you had as a 29 and 30 year old tells me that that was about what caliber of player he was. an 18-20 PER player. I am not trying to put him down at all and say he was not a good player. But Roy is a player you can build a team around, and a player who can carry a team. Kukoc was a very good player who would never be more than a #2 player on a decent team.

The overall level of play in Europe is far better now, adn when Rudy played than it was when Kukoc played there. That does not mean Kukoc wasn't a phenomenal player there. But dominating the 1993 Euroleague championships doesn't mean he's a top level NBA player.

 

I am not buying that idea bout the level of European competition at all. There was a lot less talent pillaging of European players to the NBA at the time - but there were just as many American players there.

Well, anyway, we are going nowhere fast with this. Tony Kukoc was a fantastic player that you could build around, in his prime, imho. We just never got to see him in his prime as a #1 option in the NBA, because he was "unlucky" to play next to MJ and Pip when he was as good as he possibly could.

 

except of course for the 1993-94 season when MJ was off playing baseball. Toni was a 25 year old rookie and posted a 15.3 PER in 24.1 MPG. Conversely as a 22 year old rookie, Roy posted an 18.0 PER in 35.4 MPG.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/k/kukocto01.html
http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/r/roybr01.html

this is all speculative of course, but I'm not buying. Toni had some great skills, but so does Brandon. What separates them IMO is that Brandon is also a top shelf athlete while TK was merely okay by NBA standards

STOMP

 

You mean as a rookie who did not know the language and had to adjust to a very different system (triangle), team and country? Remember - he did not have a Sergio there to help him make the transition. More interesting - look at his PER in the playoffs that year, as a rookie with a little bit of experience in the league - 21.9

Better yet, let's look at their 2nd year. Roy was the #1 option and had a PER of 19.4, Toni was the #2 option or lower (behind Pip) and had a PER of 19.8 - while posting a much higher win-score (10) than Roy did in his 2nd year (8), the next year, his PER only went up to 20.4 - while Roy's shot all the way to 24 as a #1 option on a very good team, an all-star that started to get a lot of the official's "unofficial" support.

Kukoc was a nightmare to deal with - he was a 6'11'' guy that could handle, attack the rim and shoot the 3. He just never got the opportunity to show it properly in Chicago. This guy was like a super-deluxe version of Turk.

 

And most of it was flashes more than anything. He could have really good stretches. He wasn't someone that was going to do that for a season as a #1 guy. I know people mock it, because there's numbers to look at, etc. I watched basically every game of his career with Chicago. He wasn't the overall talent, #1 guy that Roy is. We can just agree to disagree.

 

Fair enough. I think Roy's career will be better than Toni's even if Toni got the chance to be the #1 option in his prime, because I think Roy just wants it more than Toni ever did (the biggest knock on him from Phil Jackson and Jordan was that he was never willing to working to maximize his talent - after that 2nd year when he had almost 21 PER or whatever - Jackson said he was using maybe 25% of his talent with 75% more to grow if he wanted it) - but the talent, imho, was definitely there for Kukoc.

 

how is that "better yet"? Isn't Toni 26 years old at that time while Brandon is 23? At 24 years old Brandon achieved a PER 3.6 higher then Toni ever did. And please, Toni was 6'11 like Sir Charles was 6'7.

the more I think about this the more ridiculous it seems

STOMP

 

Toni Kukoc = Manu Ginobili
Toni Kukoc = Brandon Roy?? ugh...