How do Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum rank compared to the rest of the NBA?

as a guard duo?

not sure about that, although with Klay's injury it's kind of hard to see another pair of starting guards at the level of Dame/CJ except for Harden/Westbrook. Maybe Conley/Mitchell. Murray/Harris (Den) might enter the conversation in the next year or so. So might Oladipo/Brogdon. Bledsoe/Middleton is a good pairing, especially on defense

in terms of talent while ignoring health/injury & disregarding fit, if I use simple-minded and somewhat irritating symbols, I'd come up with something like this:

Curry > Dame > Draymond/Klay > CJ

Kawhi > Dame = PG13 > CJ (nationally, I'd imagine two way player PG would be considered better than Dame. might be true)

Harden > Dame > Westbrook > CJ

Lebron > AD > Dame > CJ (Dame and AD are pretty close IMO, but AD gets the nod)

Dame = Jokic > CJ > Murray

Dame > Gobert = Conley > CJ

Giannis > Dame > Middleton = CJ

Durant > Dame > Kyrie > CJ

yeah, I know some of those 'formulas' will get a few people around here in a twist. That puts Dame/CJ about 8th. If you account for injury than Durant/Kyrie fall off leaving Dame/CJ 7th. And injury history might devalue the Lebron/AD but not enough to drop them below Dame/CJ. I think Golden State has a better duo with Curry/Draymond. And if you account for implosion potential than you could put an asterisk in front of Harden/Westbrook....but the entertainment value of the implosion might lead the league

and if Nurkic hadn't been hurt, then Portland's duo of best players would have been Dame/Nurkic

 

Conley has played over 800 games...... at 174 lbs.
I wonder when that will take a toll on him?

 

The problem with these formulas is it doesn't really quantify the differences between the players. Just saying one is greater than the other is helpful, but if one is like a 92 and one is a 91 the differences isnt all that great where as if ones a 92 and one is an 85 well that could signify theres a significant difference between the two. Its not that Im “upset” about where you have the Blazers tandem though if you’re gonna go with a bunch of forwards and duo’s I think you should use Nurkic (assume he’s healthy), as he is there 2nd best player.

 

Many of those aren't even guards and you start off your post "as a guard duo?"

 

wut?

I talked about guard duo's

then, I talked about the thread topic which is about how Dame/CJ compare to other NBA duo's. That what the OP asked and it's what the article that was the basis of the OP was about. It wasn't about just guards, and frankly confining it to just guards would be kind of pointless

again, I was trying to stay on topic...you know, thread title, OP, & article cited. It was about Dame/CJ vs other NBA duos.

as for a 92 vs a 91, if there was a question in my mind, I used the =

if you disagree with a particular 'rating' (it feels absurdly grandiose calling them that), tell me what your disagreement is.

 

The problem with your formula is that it is all subjective and thus not much merit can be taken from it. Like tortured pointed out, where one player might be marginally better on one group while the other player is significantly better than the opposing player but yet by your rating system that would be a push.

Player a1> player b1 (but player a1 is just slightly marginally better)

Player b2> player a2 (but player b2 is significantly better)

by your formula it would be a push but in my opinion team b would have the advantage

 

LOL...forgive me for being subjective in a place where objectivity rules....(imagine green font)

that's all fine when you're talking generalities. I don't necessarily disagree.

but we're talking specific players, and in this case while Dame belongs in the conversation with players like Curry, PG13, Kawhi, Harden, Jokic, Lebron, AD, Giannis, Durant, & Kyrie, CJ doesn't. He's not close to the level of those players. So when he's half of Portland's side of the equation, the Blazer pair are going to finish 2nd in a race of two different pairs

maybe it would help if you guys said specifically which "formula & conclusion" I used you object to:

* Curry > Dame > Draymond/Klay > CJ - Warriors win
* Kawhi > Dame = PG13 > CJ - Clippers win
* Harden > Dame > Westbrook > CJ - Rockets win (yeah, they might implode)
* Lebron > AD > Dame > CJ - Lakers win
* Dame = Jokic > CJ > Murray - Blazers win, barely (and the Nuggets are young)
* Dame > Gobert = Conley > CJ - close, but Blazers might win win, barely
* Giannis > Dame > Middleton = CJ - Bucks win (Middleton >>> CJ on defense)
* Durant > Dame > Kyrie > CJ - Nets win

as I said, I didn't factor health. The problem is that CJ is almost always 4th in a 4 man comparison, so the criticism you and Tortured have doesn't apply

and all that's why I asked Stamped if he meant guard duo's because clearly, Dame/CJ are not the best duo in the league

But that wasn't the biggest problem with my "formulas"; the big problem is that they don't account for fit or mesh. How well the duos fit together can sometimes turn a comparison like that. The sum can be greater than the parts. I don't think that's the case with Dame and CJ though as I do not believe, for a second, they have ever shown they fit together seamlessly. They clunk too much. They are too redundant in size, style, skill-sets, and weaknesses, while the gap between their talent level is too large. It's not like Stockton/Malone, or Jordan/Pippen or Magic/Kareem or Kobe/Shaq or Duncan/Parker. Now, several of those other duos above haven't played together yet, but they have established their games enough that we can at least forecast some strengths and weaknesses.

 

Your determination is based solely on your subjective opinion. That's the flaw. You are entirely entitled to your opinion, but it really doesn't hold value to others as they may have a completely different opinion than yours on the value of said players. Your use of McCollum is a perfect example as the league views McCollum as a top level guard where as you don't put a lot of value on him.

 

bullshit...

I put value on CJ. I just don't "value" him as much as Paul George or Kawhi or Kyrie, and that's the level of players we're talking about here.

I asked for you to point at specific examples I gave and explain any objections you have. You didn't do that, but instead just came back with more vague generalities. I'm assuming it's because you can't come up with specific arguments against specific comparisons, so you're ranging even further away from the topic. I gave you 6 examples above where I said I thought other duos were better than Dame/CJ. Which one(s) do you disagree with?

and by the way, pound sand with this "subjective" crap. All of us here live in the subjective world and post from that zipcode

 

and that's why it is flawed. These are strictly your opinions. At least with other formulas they have a basis other than "hey, I think so and so is better". There is no differentiation between a player that is a lot better to a player that is slightly better. They are just graded as better. Here is an exaggerated example:

Lillard better than Derozan is no different than Lillard better than Gary Trent jr. Now it's pretty obvious by all that Derozan is significantly better than Trent jr. but your formula makes the comparisons as equal. A good formula would differentiate between the two examples.

A simpler example. This is using strictly points. Player a averages 20ppg, player b averages 15ppg and player c averages 10ppg. Your formula says player a > player b and player a > player c, but as we can see there is a significant difference between player b and c but your formula wouldn't show that.

Also, please refrain from the "bullshit" and "pound sand" comments that you use so often when debating. Once you resort to that, it's hard to take what you say seriously.

 

I've asked you three times to deal specifically with my examples. I didn't talk generalities and I wasn't vague...I compared Dame/CJ to other NAMED pairs, and graded accordingly. I named 6 pairs I said were 'better', and nowhere were Derozan or Trent listed for chrissakes. Which specific examples do you disagree with?

this shouldn't be hard to do unless you're only comfortable with straw men. I named names and if you think any of my 'equations' were wrong, the examples are right there for you to deal with. Tell you what, I'll make it even simpler and delete the symbols:

Curry/Draymond(Klay) are better than Dame/CJ
Kawhi/PG13 are better than Dame/CJ
Lebron/AD are better than Dame/CJ
Harden/Westbrook are better than Dame/CJ
Giannis/Middleton are better than Dame/CJ
Durant/Kyrie are better than Dame/CJ

there....no symbols used and that eliminates all your hair-spitting-red-herring-weird-tangent objections and allows you to talk specifics. And what I'm anticipating is that if you do respond again, you still won't deal with those comparisons...it will be more of the same misdirection. Surprise me

 

You have completely missed my point so moving on.

 

Wiz - the ignore feature is great... you ought to look into using it for specific posters.

 

yeah, I know

sometimes though it's entertaining to corner a straw man and watch the squirm

 

rotflmao! and thus the reason I avoid even trying to have a reasonable discussion with you. You simply can't do it.

 

you said you were "moving on". I don't think moving on means what you think it means

and LOL at you and "reasonable discussion". What a joke. If you were really interested in being reasonable, you would have answered the question I asked 3 times. Here's your 4th opportunity to be reasonable and answer it. I'm betting you won't

 

I am suspect of any duo with Russell Westbrook in it. It could work in the regular season but I doubt it’ll do so well in the playoffs.
Khris Middleton is a good 3rd player. Scoring single digits twice in the conference finals doesn’t cut it as a #2.
Who knows what Durant will be like when he plays again. I wouldn’t put him on any list until that’s known.

 

When I said rating, I was just trying to find a term to quantify a player, I realize you weren't trying to give them a rating. If we're talking pure talent I don't have a lot of disagreements other than I think fit plays a big part in our "measurement" of CJ. I think he could be a better player if he had his "own team" so to speak. I feel like when he plays with Dame he's way more of a chucker than when Dame is off the court. I may be way off but I think many of the guys you have listed as "more talented" than CJ are guys who have been option A for their teams and have been able to show off what they can do more than CJ has ever really done over long stretches.

Like for example, you have Middleton as = to CJ, but honestly, if I had to "start" a team with one of them it would be really, really easy for me to pick CJ. I realize that's not a "great" way to judge players either, but I don't think Middleton even with the better defense is actually a better player than CJ, now he may FIT better on some teams and he may even fit better here.

I'm not sure where I fall on AD, everyone gives the dude a hard pass saying his teammates suck, but I honestly don't think his teammates have sucked any worse than many of Dame's and Dame has routinely shown he can carry his team to the playoffs and is available much more often than AD has been. So overall I'm not really disagreeing completely with where you came out just that it's hard to gauge some of these things.

 

Westbrook was also terrible last season and by terrible I mean completely inefficient for a guy with so much of the ball. Can’t shoot, gets too caught up in 1v1 battles. Without George they probably miss the playoffs last season.

 

So twice now in just 3 pages, you've managed to completely derail a thread. If you're not interested in discussing a topic on duos, why not ignore the thread. You admitted you werent even responding or trying to respond to his opinion on the topic he tried to get back on track. You just attacked his methodology on it.