I was thinking today, I’ve seen talks about people entering their prime at really old ages, like Karl Malone for example. But that made wonder, who hit the peak of their career at the younger ages? For example, micheal carter Williams practically peaked in his rookie year.
You had me until you said ad is a better scorer than melo because he’s more efficient in the playoffs? Yeah he better be, he’s a big man who doesn’t create nearly as many of his own shots and posted. He also played a large majority of those games next to bron
Off-ball scoring can still be valuable scoring. There is something to be said for being valuable beside other all-time offensive players. Carmelo was great on his own but it’s unlikely that he could’ve amplified the talent of a ball-dominant talent like AD did with his rolling to the basket. And it’s unknown if Melo could be a #1 on a championship offense. He was a guy who had the ball in his hands a lot but was never a very good playmaker.
And the difference between AD and 99% of play-finished bigs is that he also has elite scoring volume.
Like I said, it depends how you value longevity versus peak. I think that players have more valuable careers when they rack up a handful of strong all-NBA and/or MVP-level seasons over players who have several All-NBA / All-Star level seasons.
I agree that it depends on how you value longevity vs peak but you literally made the criteria so specific that it perfectly caters to the insane playoff (since you made it playoff only) run peak AD went on with Bron (plays like 2/3 of his games you listed in 1 year) resulting in a boosted efficiency. The framing sounds misleading
Idt you’re going to convince me that a boost in efficiency because of his off-ball rim-running abilities or gimme dunks makes him a better scorer than melo