its been said since he started in the league, he can't guard the jump shot. he tends to play a bit off his man to deny penetration but doesn't have the length or insane athleticism to challenge the shot when he does this. he's still a great defender, but he's vulnerable to PGs who can consistently knock down outside shots. overall, he may be the 3rd best defensive PG of her generation behind Rondo and now Lowry, but top 5 all time is definitely stretching it.

I think he's quite a good defender who was, at one time, a mediocre/bad defender (plenty of statistical analysis to back that one up). He's one of the top defensive guards today, but I can think of many in my lifetime who were better. Just naming 76ers, I'd rather have Eric Snow defensively. But major props to Paul for adding good on-the-ball defense to go with his great off-the-ball defense.

Eric Snow the Great, at least on D. he was a complete offensive liability and still was a major factor on two finals teams.

in my lifetime, just from observation (the def stats i trust are relatively new, so i don't know if my observations are backed up):
1. Gary Payton
2. Jason Kidd
3. Mookie Blaylock
4. Rajon Rondo
5. Eric Snow
6. Kirk Hinrich
7. Kyle Lowry
8. Chauncey Billups
9. Chris Paul
10. Devin Harris

His offense was quite bad. It was much worse at the start of his career. He really worked on his shooting. In college, he was a Shaq-level free throw shooter. Kobe called him his toughest defender. No idea if that's really true, but it made me happy. He was one of my all-time favorites.

The 1970s was the weakest era for basketball talent wise.

Bullshit.

so you don't think losing several high level players to a competing league would have hurt at all? really? it has nothing to do with an "old vs new" argument. ask most people here and they will tell you the 60s were fantastic. but look at the talent that the ABA took away from the NBA in the early 70s:

Julius Erving (72-76)
Artis Gilmore (72-76)
George Gervin (73-76)
Rick Barry (68-72)
Moses Malone (75-76)
Mel Daniels (68-75)
Dan Issel (71-76)
Don Buse (73-76)
Bobby Jones (75-76)
George McGinnis (72-75)
Maurice Lucas (75-76)
and on, and on, and on

now throw in the fact that the league went from 10 teams in '67 to 17 by '71 despite a rival league on the verge of taking dozens of high-level talent, including a couple MVPs and several future NBA all-stars.

how on earth would that NOT lead to a talent problem in the NBA? expand the league almost double while losing half the stars you hoped would replace guys like Russell and Baylor?

if the early 70s weren't the worst era for NBA talent, then that would be a miracle. it just wouldn't make any sense given the facts of that time period.

My "bullshit" came as a response to this:

The 1970s was the weakest era for basketball talent wise.

which says nothing about the NBA or ABA having less talent. It just says that "the 1970s" had less talent.

You don't say anything about that talent being spread around the league more. That's an entirely different thing. Sure, the talent was more spread out among various teams with the advent of the ABA and expansion, but if you took the top 100 pro players in 1971 they would be much better than the top 100 players of 1961.



Pssst.

Most people around here were not born until the 1980s.

At the start of the 1960s the NBA was still predominantly white. By the end of the 1970s the NBA was predominantly black. Black players did not become better over those 19 years, the owners just got less racist and started to take the best players regardless of race. A good argument can be made that half of the white guys in the NBA in 1961 would never have made the laegue if not for racsim.

There would have barely been over 100 players playing at the start of the 1960s (and by playing I mean getting regular playing time). In any case my reference was to the quality of basketball. Spreading talent out and between two leagues meant that the 1970s were the weakest era for the NBA. The 1970s was probably the weakest era for the very top players in the league but the main issue was talent spread.

Nah. In the early 50s when the league was almost entirely white there was nowhere near the quality of basketball as there was in the 1970s.