I feel like current and ex-players downplay some players who don’t have a bag like Giannis and then blow smoke up Kyrie’s or even DeRozan’s ass. I was reading a similar thing regarding footballers, how many of them rate Neymar a lot because of a similar reason (he can do things they cannot do).
It’s true for all athletes. When you go to training you don’t practice getting taller, you work on skills and techniques. You can’t help but admire someone who did all the same drills as you and practiced like you did but is just better at everything. It’s also annoying to see someone taller be more effective at the game despite having crap skills.
When you are one of the best basketball players in the world you probably see someone who can do things you can’t as being someone to admire much more than a winning player. Kyrie has arguably the best handle in history and even all star level players probably admire that skill
Damn those pesky players for recognizing talent
Noted great evaluators of talent.
Talent is innate or natural ability.
I’m not sure it has all that much with developing a ‘bag’ through years of hard work and dedication other than the fact that those who have it find the path easier.
I’m not sure it has all that much with developing a ‘bag’ through years of hard work and dedication
lol what?
Talent helps but it’s not the critical element. Hard work and dedication is.
Only people who say Giannis has no bag are casuals on here and twitter. Plenty of current and ex nba players give Giannis his flowers.
He actually doesn’t have a bag though.
And you’re a casual lol
Hold up I’ll go ask them.
“Basketballers” hahahaha
Overrate in terms of impact? Yes.
In terms of pure skill and talent or degree of difficulty? No.
Players respect the work it took for Kyrie to become so skilled.
If tomorrow a 10 foot tall invincible athlete joined the NBA, he’d be the best player of all time but players aren’t gonna respect him very much.
Skill only matters when your average height. Because that’s what will help excel you and further your career. If you’re a freak of nature like Giannis and Lebron you just gotta love the game and continue to work hard at what you do.
A lot of NBA players overrate skills that are best in 1 on 1 games compared to skills that win NBA games.
I mean Giannis might not have a bag, but he has averaged the most PPG in the league over the last 5 years…
Like seriously, some of y’all talk about Giannis like he’s Andre Drummond. For all the skill your favorite player has, he still can’t hang with Giannis (excluding Jokic/Steph).
That’s the real “Skill issue”.
It’s not an act of overrating, more that it’s just an acknowledgement of someone’s skill set.
You can’t always demonstrate the things you really can do in an organized game. There are many players who just went to the wrong team or had the misfortune of a shitty coach/front office whose futures would be different if those lottery balls fell diff.
Also, god given physical ability/height you got or you don’t got. Someone who has worked to perfect their game will always be acknowledged in that way.
That said. Giannis is a beast on the offensive and defensive end. Imma take that over a bag, any day.
I think it’s largely true that a lot of player-driven, and casual-fan-driven, analysis is based on what a player can do, not how much they actually help you win games.
Going into the 2015 season, you could find a lot of people telling you that Kyrie and Wall were better than Curry. The advanced stats were all in on Curry, by the way, even before Kerr arrived.
But the thing is, Wall was just this jump-off-the-screen athlete. Kyrie had that dazzling array of dribbling moves and circus finishes. So people who weren’t digging into the nitty gritty would say, well, “Curry can’t get down the court as fast as Wall, can’t dunk like Wall.” “Curry doesn’t have Kyrie’s handle or his array of finishing moves.”
(And to be clear: Curry didn’t have Kyrie’s handle. In 2014 and 2015, you could attack Curry’s dribble if you weren’t worried about the shot. In the half court he used the threat of his shot to set up his drive, but pressing him full court could be effective. It’s part of why the Warriors really wanted Iguodala, a guy you could trust to handle the rock a lot where you didn’t have to worry about positional overlap with Steph.)
And players rarely hold things like “holds the ball too much” against someone, even if they know that it’s better to attack off the catch. Instead, Kyrie gets the ball, survey’s the field, dribbles a lot, and then drives, it actually is worse for the team but LOOKS more impressive because of how the defense is able to get set. Whereas the ability to catch and go looks less impressive (because the defender is more likely to be off balance) but is actually more effective.
The last portion of your comment reminds me of Steph Curry talking about the ball being a grenade: you have a half-second to make a decision with it or it blows up.
I think basketball players do overrate a bag a bit too much but the reddit doesn’t give it enough respect. Too stat driven with lack of context in these parts, while actual players ignore stats a bit too much when someone has a bag
Usually to me its just semantics. When NBA players say words like “better” “skilled”, they’re just meaning different things than redditors.
it’s always easy to spot a narcissist in basketball if you played