Well, I think it would take a little more than Perkins to get Dirk a ring. If you replace KG with Dirk on that 2008 Celtics championship team, do they still win it all? I'm not so sure. They would be a better offensive team but inserting Dirk would completely break down their interior defense and limit the perimeter guys' effectiveness on that end as well. Offensively, Dirk is a better scorer than KG but I'm not sure he understands spacing and how to set up his teammates as much as Garnett. And, LOL - yeah, I think Melo would benefit from playing with Deron Williams. Still, Nene probably wouldn't be enough in the post.
2008 Celtics would not have won anything if KG had not been playing. Dirk and Garnett are completely different players. Garnett brings different dimensions to the table than Dirk does. If the Mavs had Garnett instead of Dirk, they'd probably be worse too. They are just very different.
I disagree. I think KG had a mixture of great defense, rebounding and good offense that made him more complete and an overall dominant low post player. Dirk needs much more help to compensate for his weaknesses.
What? Dirk may be a really good but KG is even better. I'm not sure they would win a title since KG's a jumpshooter like Dirk but a Mavs team with KG, Nash and Finley would be very tough to stop. They'd be way better defensively, at the very least.
If you are referring to his Don Nelson teams, you are probably right because they were stacked with talent. If you are referring to the Avery Johnson teams, I somewhat disagree. They wouldn't have a closer, I'm not sure if Jason Terry would do the trick, but I guess they'd be better than Dirk with the Celtics.
First off, I have to say this thread has actually become one of the more interesting ones despite its, um, special start. Props to you guys. Secondly, I'm siding with Durvusa on this one. Dude has done his homework (even though he says he hasn't watched much of Melo this year, he's pretty dead on with him. Honestly, I have him ranked a little better than Durvusa does, but I'm also a biased homer, so there you go...). I'll try to write a longer post in response to this because I've seen my name brought up in this thread when I'm not braindead (only got 4 hours sleep last night. Misread the Nugs schedule and had a date last night, then had to watch the game on DVR when I got home), but I do want to say that I think both Durvusa and OldSchool are wrong on Melo's D. It's about in the middle of where you two have it. Is Melo a lockdown defender? God no. There are times where he's barely tolerable on D. However, he does have the ability for short periods of time to frustrate players. I'd have to pull out the DVDs to check, but I do remember Melo "stopping" Kobe in the fourth quarter of one of the WCF games (I want to say it was game 2, but don't quote me on that). It was only for about 4 minutes or so, but it was in crunch time and he stepped up when he had to. The thing is, with Dahntay Jones (last year, Afflalo this year), we don't need Melo to be a stopper. We don't need him to be a great defender. We just need him to be good. Save the energy for offense where we need it. Most of the time, he does that. Some times (I'm looking at last night's game), he doesn't even come close. As for Dirk, I used to hate him. HATE. I blame Mavs fans for this because good God just shut up already. Then the Nugs played the Mavs in the playoffs last year and I really gained a lot of respect. The Nugs smacked him around (literally) and he never complained about it. He just went out there and busted his ass every second of every game. So as long as I never have to hear Mavs fans or Cuban whining, I've become a Dirk fan. I honestly don't know if Melo could have put up the numbers Dirk did in that series if they switched roles.
Like I said, I thought you were referring to the team Dirk had when Avery Johnson was coaching, not Don Nelson.
