Kawhi Leonard would say he disagrees.....if he weren't so quiet. He just goes out and kills you on the court on both ends.
He's the kind of guy who would be available at 15. If we pick right. What I do know is we are terrible with 1st picks in the 1st round.
Still too early for me to invest in watching players specifically to see if I like them as a draft pick of ours.
I thought about Chris Paul and forgot about Kawhi , but I think they are borderline at best niether have won it all or got close on thier own. Kawhi needed Duncan. The reason why I don't think any of those other names you guys mentioned are superstars, is because all of their accomplishments have been individual. They have yet to lead their team to anything. AD is on his way, but until his team makes the playoffs?
My definition of Superstar is if someone who has never watched a basketball game recognizes the name of a player they hear in passing or being called out in a conversation. So of current players I would say the following fit that definition: Westbrook Harden Durant Chris Paul LeBron Steph Lilard (yes Dame, his name is always put out there on radio, adds, shoes, etc.) Maybe Griffin Now if you are talking pure star on the court and getting calls then Dame would be left off. Some guys who aren't superstars if you go with my definition: Greek Freak (probably due to location) Kawhi (only cus he is so non-assuming and no one on the Spurs is hyped individually) Davis (this one maybe you could move up but I don't think people outside of NBA fans hear about him too much due to his location and injuries)
Playoffs shmayoffs chuck never won a single title in his entire carreer that dudes still a hofer and a superstar during his time in the association. KG needed paul pierce and ray allen but do you want to argue he wasnt a superstar when he was in MIN? Lebron still a superstar he needed Dwade and Bosh before he got his first title? How about Ewing, he never won? or Melo in DEN? or or how about clyde when he was here, never won a title, still a superstar? there are so many caveats and exceptions when you start making team success qualifiers to being a superstar that it just comes off as biased. AD cant help it that he is the only NBA player on the roster outside of drew holliday (who is an average pg at best) I dare you to find one person in the entire NBA that wouldnt mortgage their team's entire future for that guy. He's an absolute monster and I just dont think you get anywhere judging an individual on team success. Everybody needs SOMEBODY to win this is a team game dont short the superstars of this league because of some vague personal notion of success.
We will have to agree to disagree. I thin superstars are few and farbetween, then we have a ton of all stars, but NOT superstars. Superstars are SUPER. They don't need a ton of other all stars to win. one or two at most. I think Steph is also borderline.
Really? you must have missed last years playoffs. OR the one where he lost in the finals but had NOBODY else.
Last year's playoffs? When he had Kyrie Irving (a player about as good as Lillard) and Kevin Love? How many championships did he win that year? I don't actually think James is borderline--I do think judging talent by wins is supremely flawed. Especially since we see constant evidence that players labeled "good stats on bad teams" suddenly have success when they get some good teammates. Michael Jordan was labeled as a "stats guy" who couldn't compare to Magic and Bird--until he actually got a talented team around him. Same for Kevin Garnett and LeBron James. It's also weird that you would label Curry "borderline" since when he won the title in 2015, he didn't have a "bunch of All Stars" around him. He had one, in Klay Thompson, and no one would call Thompson a superstar.
I don't think Love made the allstar team last year? So technically LBJ had one other all star and a bunch of star/role players. Also, I consider going deep into the playoffs winning. Only one team can win each year. Not making the playoffs or getting outed in the first round convincingly, I consider not winning. D.Green wasn't an all star in 2015? I thought he was. As far as judging purely on wins, I don't think I am. I'm not saying they suck cause they cant get a team to win, but I am saying they are not superstars. They are al stars. So what is the diff between a superstar and an all star then? I think the difference is largely how much better they make their team. not individual stats.
Yeah, but he's made several All Star games and is still in his prime. In my opinion, it's a technicality to say that if he doesn't make it in 2016, he stops counting. Do you feel Lillard no longer counts as a star since he didn't make the All-Star team last year and may not again this year? Nope, last year was his first. But you can make your team better and still not go deep in the playoffs because the rest of your team is terrible. If you took prime Michael Jordan and surrounded him with grade schoolers, he'd lose every game in the NBA. Would he cease to be a superstar? "How much better you make your team" goes from the baseline of "how good your team is without you." Kevin Garnett elevated his Minnesota teams plenty--they just started from a very low level because they didn't have much other than him. Once he had talented teammates, the raised value meant NBA championship.
No one wins it on their own and Leonard is a 2-time DPoY and Finals MVP which is something very few have on their resume. Duncan was a shell of his former self by the time Leonard was the Finals MVP for the Spurs most recent title.
Good points. a superstar can take a 20-82 team and make it a .500 team. doesn't mean they are in the playoffs, but he did improve the team a bunch. I get it. I still think there are some players with over inflated superstar status who should be thought of as no more than all stars though. So I get your point,k but then what is a good metric for differentiating an all star from a superstar?
I'm not sure that there's a bright line metric that cleanly separates "stars" from "superstars." The term even means different things to different people (some may have felt Kobe Bryant was a superstar last year due to his previous career and overall fame level, for example). To me, while it's subjective, it comes down to how much impact you have on the court in pushing your team towards victory, even if you don't ultimately get that victory. Another question I ask myself is whether a player is on a Hall of Fame track (while still being in his prime). LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Anthony Davis, Chris Paul, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kawaii (I mean, Kawhi) Leonard all meet that criterion for me. 9 players isn't a huge number. Generally, I feel there are probably between 5-10 superstars in the league at a given time.
