Better player - Dirk or Barkley?

[Bush4Ever.]

Kinda shows you how cream puff soft players back then were then IMO. Those dudes all joined the league at 21-22 years old, not 18-19. And those BANS were considered “fairly advanced”?

[Bush4Ever.]

The year before they joined in Houston all 3 were all-stars.....Barkley and Hakeem were All-NBA.....and Hakeem was All-defense. Drexler was coming off a 19/7/6 season. They were 33, 33 & 34.

The Celtics Big 3, comparatively, were 30, 32 & 32 when they won their title.

The Rockets were meaningfully less skilled defensively (10th in the league), and had relatively little in the cupboard beyond those big three names:

Major players past the big three included 33 year old Mario Elie, 37 year old Eddie Johnson, and 34 year old Kevin Willis.

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I think they still had talent, but I'm not sure they classify as "super-loaded". To me, they achieved roughly to their talent.

[Kingcarl24]

If you guys want to play semantic games, fine I guess.

Barkley has played on much better teams than Dirk has and Dirk, has been more successful.

Can anyone even remember the 2nd best player on that Mavs team?

Jason Kidd? Terry? Marion? Hell, the way the way people talk about Barea locking down LeBron, maybe he was the 2nd best?

[Bush4Ever.]

If you guys want to play semantic games, fine I guess.

Barkley has played on much better teams than Dirk has and Dirk, has been more successful.

Can anyone even remember the 2nd best player on that Mavs team?

Jason Kidd? Terry? Marion? Hell, the way the way people talk about Barea locking down LeBron, maybe he was the 2nd best?

Dirk shot 41.6 percent in the 2011 NBA Finals.

Barkley shot 47.6 percent in the 1993 NBA Finals. Even had a slightly higher TS% (in an era less devoted to shooting to boot).

13 rebounds a game versus 9.7. 5.5 assists a game versus 2.0

I don't think we are talking about two different tiers of player, especially when you dig through playoff performances, where they both shined, even by superstar standards.

Edit: Basically, I think we are talking about a photo-finish in terms of who played the game of basketball better and who pushed the needle more towards winning. They each have advantages over the other. I would probably take Dirk, but it's close.

[elmerjfudd]

Terry was the 2nd best scorer, but they had a bunch of guys that were good at a lot of areas

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[FPL]

Dirk is a guy I'm a lot lower on than I used to be.

One of the best shooters and developed a post game in the second half of his career. But was a poor defender and playmaker, and not an all-time rebounder to make up for it.

I mean not many players are above-average or great in every regard, but to have that many holes is problematic for a top 12-15 ranking IMO.