Hyperbole Runneth Over

In case you missed it, check out my introduction from earlier today. Of course I'm a few days late on this, but I'm going offer my take on the Jim Carrey doppelganger's (Rick Carlisle) assertion that Dirk Nowitzki is a top 10 player of all time. Sports journalists have to love when coaches make claims about their own players like this, it just opens the floodgates for opinion and that's really what sports journalism is all about. While Dirk ranks as one of my top 5 favorite Dallas sports heroes, in the mix with Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman, and Nolan Ryan, I just can not justify him as a top 10 NBA player of all time.

Of course he is definitely the best European player of all time and has definitely inspired laughs at some of his, uh, fashionable hairstyles.


Isn't he gorgeous? But I think you can run a list of 10 names pretty quickly that are obviously better than he is, even if he wins a championship this year. Jordan, Bird, Olajuwon, Magic, Kareem, Russell, Wilt, Kobe, Duncan, and probably Shaq, even though he could never play more than 60 games. A big reason we dont see Dirk here is that he still has a huge hole in his defensive game and all of these named players were more all around players. So we put that to bed, but where does Dirk fall in the top players of all time spectrum? Bill Simmons, who initially inspired me more than 5 years ago to start a sports blog, wrote a mammoth book called The Book of Basketball, where he devotes more than half of it to reorganizing the Hall of Fame and ranks the top 96 players in history. If you like basketball its a must read.

Simmons did two rankings, one for the initial hardcover release, and then updated it for the paperback. The folly in putting these rankings to paper in a book is that they only maintain credibility for that day they were put to paper. In the updated paperback edition, Simmons places Dirk 39th all time just ahead of Patrick Ewing and Gary Payton and just behind George Mikan and Allen Iverson. Seems pretty rational, at least more rational than Doug Gottlieb, the ESPN hack who has a radio show and is an anchor on SportsCenter, who claimed yesterday that Dirk isnt a top 50 all time player or even a top 10 Boston Celtic.

Gottlieb seems to hang on to Dirk's "failures" in the playoffs, stating that when you are the face of the franchise you get a majority of the kudos for the successes of the team, and the blame for the losses. That's total B.S. Kobe shouldered almost zero blame for one of the most historically humiliating defeats in Lakers' history when Dallas swept them. The blame fell on Pau Gasol and really poor team defense. When Kevin Garnett flamed out in countless first rounds, it was pity he received, not blame. But look at Dirk's resume: One of only 4 players to lead a team to 11 straight 50 win seasons (with Magic, Duncan and Russell), he will be the top 20 in points when he retires and very near the Top 20 in scoring average. Also one of only 4 players to average 25 points and 10 rebounds in the playoffs. He has a regular season MVP. Dirk has never played with the quality of talent that the other top players played at least one season with. Kobe had Shaq, and vice versa. Magic and Kareem. Duncan and Robinson. Bird and McHale. Even players who could make top 10 cases all had other players at least once in their career who also could make top 10 cases. Dr. J and Moses Malone. Oscar Robertson had Kareem. The best Dirk has ever had is a past his prime Jason Kidd and a Steve Nash whose legacy will be more mysterious than Dirk's because he only thrived statistically in environments that had zero emphasis on defense and at one point had the offensive philosophy shoot in 7 seconds or less.

Dirk is easily the best shooting 7 footer of all time, he ranks very high in "clutch' stats like fg% and ft% at the end of games with the score close. He was a closer in the Portland series and was the driving force behind 3 of Dallas' wins against L.A. this year. He has evolved his game from relying on 3s and playing zero defense, to an offensive game that is virtually unstoppable with fadeaway mid range jumpers, and an emphasis on help and team defense. Dirk receives an absolutely unfair amount of criticism for his failure to win a title to this point in his career. I feel like Dirk's place in history with or without a title has to rank somewhere between Karl Malone and Kevin Garnett just on the cusp of the top 20.

Ultimately, just like we will likely never see another Michael Jordan, another Shaquille O'Neal, or another Magic Johnson (the kid played Center as a rookie in a winner take all NBA Finals game for Christ's sake), we will likely never see another Dirk Nowitzki. I think that was Carlisle's point in ranking him in the top 10, and said as much about his uniqueness. I am excited he is still playing at a level as high as he ever has and hope to enjoy another half decade of this. Just gives me goosebumps rewatching this. Note how just about every Laker tried to guard him and just can't stop it.