In terms of best players, it’s probably them. 'Nique was a top 75 player of all time, HOFer and 9x All Star, Gerald was a 15/3/3 guy for the first 9 seasons of his career, peaking at 20 ppg.
But yeah they were toast when they finally teamed up in Orlando.
Jonas Valanciunas in the early to mid 2000s would probably be a 5-10x All Star.
Centers were incredibly weak then, and he is a walking 20 & 10. If he’s in the East from 2000-2010 I think he is a 5+ All Star. He grabs a lot of rebounds which that era, counting stats were really all anyone looked at. He is also very healthy and plays most games each season.
This was an era that saw Jamal Magloire, Brad Miller, Alonzo Mourning, Vlade Divac all make all star teams while averaging like 10-12 ppg or playing ~20 games. Valanciunas being a steady 20 & 10 in the era where Shaq was fading and Dwight hadn’t dominated yet would be hard to vote against. Boban too would probably be a couple time all star in the 2000s.
fwiw it is per36 estimates.
Giannis has averaged 30-32 mpg each of the last 5 seasons, Dame is 33 years old and will likely only play 31-32 mpg, Middleton is coming off injuries and has averaged ~30 mpg over his last 4 seasons.
Assuming all three play 30-32 mpg (age, injury recovery and Milwaukee likely wins a lot of games and thus they don’t need to play these three 40+ mpg), their per game averages (using these per36 averages as a starting point that then gets scaled down to ~31 mpg) would be around:
That is totally reasonable, maybe a tad high. I personally imagine Giannis around 27, Lillard around 24 and Middleton at 16-17.
idk I think there’s a few MVPs who prefer the award over the title.
Allen Iverson and James “I am the system” Harden both strike me as preferring their individual accolades. Just from the way they talk and regard themselves, I think they value their success more than team success. Quite literally when asked to come off the bench to help his team his response was all in regards to his prior individual accomplishments. "I don’t know any Olympian that comes off the bench. I don’t know any All-Star that comes off the bench. I don’t know any former MVP that comes off the bench. I don’t know any three-time scoring champion that comes off the bench." I also think had Carmelo won MVP he’d be in this convo.