Rank These Duo’s Talent At Their Peak

[the lone star]

Tough for me to compare at peak, especially if the peak was short lived. I just compared overall. That was the best I could do.

[seminoles1]

1 hour ago, DirtyDez said:

Were people sleeping when Wade was in his physical prime?

Not at all; he just wasn't at his peak for either duo.

Is this asking where to rank these duos if both players were at their peaks or the peaks of the duo while playing together?  I thought it was about the duos while playing together.

[DirtyDez]

37 minutes ago, seminoles1 said:

Not at all; he just wasn't at his peak for either duo.

Is this asking where to rank these duos if both players were at their peaks or the peaks of the duo while playing together?  I thought it was about the duos while playing together.

05' Wade was having an insane postseason before hurting his ribs in the ECF.  The next year he even surpassed that.  Even if you throw out the Dallas Finals he was even better vs Detroit with 45 less FT attempts.  Give me Wade at his athletic prime those years.  The only excuse for not having them near the top is if you think Shaq wasn't up to par.

[the lone star]

3 hours ago, DirtyDez said:

05' Wade was having an insane postseason before hurting his ribs in the ECF.  The next year he even surpassed that.  Even if you throw out the Dallas Finals he was even better vs Detroit with 45 less FT attempts.  Give me Wade at his athletic prime those years.  The only excuse for not having them near the top is if you think Shaq wasn't up to par.

That was my reasoning.

[the lone star]

On 2/12/2018 at 10:36 PM, seminoles1 said:

Not at all; he just wasn't at his peak for either duo.

Is this asking where to rank these duos if both players were at their peaks or the peaks of the duo while playing together?  I thought it was about the duos while playing together.

That's how I'm looking at it. Otherwise it doesn't make much sense at all.

[Mossburg]

14 hours ago, Darkness said:

Duncan was still an elite, top 5 talent at Parker’s peak in the mid 2000’s. Parker and Duncan were just as much a duo as Bryant and Gasol. I think people can forget just how great Parker was.

I don't remember the years exactly, but I thought Parker didn't really hit his peak until the later 2000s. By then Ducnan was already struggling with a ton of long and/or positional defenders and lost almost all his athletic ability. This was basically the worst stretch of the Spurs run,  really the only time you can tell this team had no chance of winning anything.

I personally never thought of them as a duo, always thought of the Spurs trio.

[Mossburg]

14 hours ago, seminoles1 said:

Only MJ-Pippen and Curry-Durant played with each other during both players' primes.

Gasol and Kobe was close enough IMO. Year one Wade and LeBron were as well. I think Kobe and Shaq played with the best versions of each other. No other version of Kobe would have made that duo better.

[Mossburg]

10 hours ago, seminoles1 said:

Not at all; he just wasn't at his peak for either duo.

Is this asking where to rank these duos if both players were at their peaks or the peaks of the duo while playing together?  I thought it was about the duos while playing together.

I imagine it's the latter, considering if it was the former we'd have things like Shaq and LeBron and Shaq and KG on the list lol

[Darkness]

5 hours ago, Mossburg said:

I don't remember the years exactly, but I thought Parker didn't really hit his peak until the later 2000s. By then Ducnan was already struggling with a ton of long and/or positional defenders and lost almost all his athletic ability. This was basically the worst stretch of the Spurs run,  really the only time you can tell this team had no chance of winning anything.

I personally never thought of them as a duo, always thought of the Spurs trio.

Parker became an All-Star in 05-06, and won the Finals MVP in 06-07. Duncan was still only 29. 

Ginobli was great, but the clear 3rd option to me

[Mossburg]

Parker was definitely not at his peak when he won Finals MVP. It took him another year or two. Duncan struggled badly vs Tyson Chandler the next year and even more against Gasol in the following series. He wasn't the same player, he had a pretty sharp decline, maybe even in the previous season, I honestly don't recall. I think as Duncan fell off Parker was ascending, and Parker and Kyrie are the 2 worst players mentioned in your list.

[Darkness]

Parker made back to back all-star games during those 2 seasons, in addition to Finals MVP,  producing stats in line with the rest of his prime while having 2 of his most efficient seasons as a scorer. He was a star.

And Duncan averaged 23.6 PPG, 11.1 RPG, 3.3 APG, 2.6 BPG, 54 FG% in 33 playoff games during those 2 seasons.

 

[MWil23]

If you take both duos completely separate from one another, put them in a vacuum, and create them both playing TOGETHER in their absolute primes, then I think that you have to take Prime Shaq and Prime Kobe.

If it's just duo's in general/when they played, then Steph/KD, Shaq/Kobe, and Jordan/Pippen are all very close. I'd eliminate KD/Steph because so far they've played together the least, and defensively they're little more than average (Klay/Dray are MUCH better). Jordan and Pippen were phenomenal on both ends of the court together as well. Pippen could take any guard/SF completely out of the game unlike anyone I've seen, and he was better than most want to admit offensively. 

[Mossburg]

13 minutes ago, Darkness said:

Parker made back to back all-star games during those 2 seasons, in addition to Finals MVP,  producing stats in line with the rest of his prime while having 2 of his most efficient seasons as a scorer. He was a star.

And Duncan averaged 23.6 PPG, 11.1 RPG, 3.3 APG, 2.6 BPG, 54 FG% in 33 playoff games during those 2 seasons.

 

And those were the worst Spurs teams of the Popovich era moving forward until Popovich decentralized the offense. I remember that series when they lost to the Lakers after barely squeaking by the Hornets, that team looked done. I had a ton of posts on here bashing Buford for doing nothing in free agency because they can't rely on their core anymore.

[Darkness]

2 hours ago, Mossburg said:

And those were the worst Spurs teams of the Popovich era moving forward until Popovich decentralized the offense. I remember that series when they lost to the Lakers after barely squeaking by the Hornets, that team looked done. I had a ton of posts on here bashing Buford for doing nothing in free agency because they can't rely on their core anymore.

They won the championship...

[the lone star]

I miss the Dirk / JET duo. 

Dirk / Nash was good too.