03-22-2021, 10:28 PM
(03-22-2021, 09:36 PM)KillerLeft Wrote: While it's true that they have this particular struggle in common, that's where the similarities end for me. I mean, they're both great shooters I guess, but young Dirk's face up game - his two dribble pull-ups, his ability to floor the ball and drive with effective purpose, his ability to go coast to coast with the ball - was sooooo much more varied and lethal than KP's is right now. Those extra 3" work against him in terms of coordination, I think, relative to Dirk.
Doesn't mean KP is destined to fall flat here, I'm just saying that we're doing him a disservice by comparing him to Dirk. On the flip side, young Dirk had no business playing center, probably even in today's game.
The article isn't even mentioning KP's talent in relation to Dirk. Obviously Dirk's game blows KP out of the water. They're not in the same stratosphere. That's well understood.
All Townsend was saying was it isn't unheard of for undersized defenders to bother shooting bigs, no matter the talent. I mean the fact that Bowen/Jackson both had such great success in slowing down Dirk is proof in the pudding that that archetype counters stretch bigs more often than not.
If anything, because Dirk was so great and had well documented issues with small guys mean we should give KP more rope since he isn't nearly as talented as Dirk.
14x All-Star, 12x all-NBA, 1x MVP, 1x Finals MVP, 1 NBA Championship: Dirk Nowitzki, the man, the myth, the legend.