I'm arbitrating positions. You don't get a say.
PG/SG: Steph Curry/Klay Thompson, c.2016.
No one's ever done better than this. Thompson might not be superstar level, but next to Steph he was perfectly situated to dominate and the two of them led their team to five finals and three rings in five years, an inarguable dynasty. There were other important players on the roster -- Draymond Green notably, and, much less relevantly, Kevin Durant -- but Curry and Thompson formed the core of the greatest regular-season team ever* in 2016, and they formed the core of arguably the greatest TEAM ever in the years that followed.
* By record. There's still a good argument to be made for the '72 Lakers, especially if you value point differential.
Runners-up: Chris Paul/James Harden (Deceptively dominant for what few games they had together. I could write a whole paragraph about this if I gave a shit about them. But we don't grade on what-ifs. 0/27 baby lmfao.)
PG/SF: Kyrie Irving/LeBron James, c.2016
This is not a particularly strong positional duo. It's unclear what makes a positional duo good or bad -- there are great duos at every position pair here, but some are clearly better than others -- but a good guess is just player talent. There happen to be a lot of dominant centers, so duos including a center tend to be good. And there aren't a ton of dominant SFs, so guys like LeBron get to feast. So to speak. Irving is not a world-class player, but he was a legit second option on a team that Did Some Stuff. Most notably the comeback in 2016 (that is why the year is 2016, and not Irving's better regular season in 2017), which absolutely would not have happened if not for Irving. Say what you will, the boy can play.
Runners-up: Magic Johnson/James Worthy (Probably this would get some complaints if anyone read my blog. Worthy was a great third option, but a third option all the same. He came onto the team after they had won two of their five '80s titles, and replaced a guy who was nearly as good in Jamaal Wilkes. This is one of the closer positions, but Irving was good enough on those Cavs teams (and LeBron is outright better than Magic) that I'm giving the Cavs the edge.)
PG/PF: John Stockton/Karl Malone, c.19something
I'm gonna be real with you, I straight up have never seen these guys play. Maybe one game. Maybe a couple games. But they're boring. And they're kind of shockingly bad (they're the only pair on this list that didn't win a single Finals... probably). Like it's staggering that you could have two allegedly "world-class" players playing together for 18 years and they make the finals twice and lose both. I don't know where to look to find the incompetence involved here, but it's SOMEWHERE. Imagine Kobe and Shaq playing for 18 years and never winning. Imagine Magic and Worthy. Shit, LeBron and Kyrie are theoretically a worse pairing by averages and they made three straight finals, winning one against one of the best teams of all time. That three-year stretch is straight-up BETTER than Stockton and Malone ever did in 18 years. Like even if they'd lost all three it would be better. Just a staggering run of mediocrity. Call me ungenerous, but it's enough to make me wonder if Stockton and Malone were ACTUALLY that good, or if they just excelled at stuffing a stat sheet. And yet here they are, right above a scathing paragraph (ongoing) about their incompetence. So I guess they achieved something. For whatever it's worth.
Runners-up: Tony Parker/Tim Duncan (Not at all convinced that this pairing is worse; they made and won four finals together, albeit with a much better team around them than the Jazz typically had. I guess I tend to err on the side of "Parker was a very good role player and Duncan succeeded in a more comfortable situation than any team since the '80s Lakers" rather than "Parker was a superstar on par with the guys we're listing in these pairings." I don't even think Parker was the best guard on those Spurs teams.)
PG/C: Magic Johnson/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, c.1985 or so
Finally, some good fucking basketball.
Okay do I need an actual paragraph here? Magic and Kareem won five titles together. They owned the '80s. This is the pairing that was so good that it demoted Worthy earlier. There's just nothing like it. Well, more accurately, there are quite a few things somewhat like it, but there's nothing exactly like it. This is not the best pairing in basketball history, but it's damn close.
Runners-up: Oscar Robertson/Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (There are a LOT of strong 1-5 pairings, largely because 5 is the most stacked position in NBA history. Oddly though, our Point Guard Golden Age, spanning for a little over 20 years and ongoing (Jason Kidd, Allen Iverson**, Steve Nash, Chauncey Billups (fine), Chris Paul, Deron Williams (woo), Tony Parker, Derrick Rose, Russell Westbrook, Rajon Rondo, occasionally James Harden, Damian Lillard, Steph Curry, Kyrie Irving, Kyle Lowry, Isaiah Thomas (pog), John Wall, and yeah I left off some guys, because I'm not sure if Gilbert Arenas or Stephon Marbury or Kemba Walker or Luka Doncic or Ben Simmons belongs on here, but shit, why not, bring the whole gang) is almost completely disjunct from our Center Golden Age, which was going from the '40s through about Shaq's winding down after the '06 title (with arguably a brief renaissance with Dwight a few years later), so there are oddly few strong 1-5 combos in recent years. Which is one big reason why Robertson/Kareem stands tall at #2 (#3 was like Cousy/Russell, so you're not missing much).)
**Not a point guard, okay, fine. He was short.
SG/SF: Michael Jordan/Scottie Pippen, c.1996
This was one of the harder decisions on this list. I really really really (really) wanted to have Wade/LeBron here, if only because I hate Jordan. But it's just hard to make an argument that they're better than Jordan/Pippen. Call it what you want -- call it selfish scoring mixed with selfless point-forwarding, call it elite defense mixed with slightly less elite defense, call it the biggest asshole in NBA history mixed with the biggest DICK (and no that's not a shot at Pippen, it's a shot at his DICK)... Whatever it was, the combination worked. It worked better than Wade/Lebron. It worked better than any other pairing in history, except maybe Russell and Some Schmuck. So idk. Whatever man. Just like. Whatever.
Runners-up: Dwyane Wade/LeBron James (Okay, fine whatever. Shoutout West/Baylor too. Couldn't make it work. Couldn't justify it to myself. I'm a slave to my own objectivity.)
SG/PF: Kobe Bryant/Pau Gasol, c.2009
This one is kind of oddly bad. Like, it's a phenomenal pairing, but it's also one of the weaker pairings on this list. The big problem here is that there are about two elite shooting guards in history, and one (Jordan) only ever played with Pippen (and Rodman, sigh, cue the fucking article. And like, Grant I guess). Kobe played with Gasol, and they won two titles and lost a third, which makes them one of the best pairings in NBA history (I'm not kidding). Gasol's wonderful, but he's not a world-class player. But this still ends up being the best we're gonna do. It does make me feel better though, considering that these are basically my two favorite players of all time. Nice consolation prize after the last one.
Runners-up: Manu Ginobili/Tim Duncan (Or Jordan/Rodman, or Allen/Garnett... There's really not a lot to work with here. And none of them are championship-tier alone, or at least not at the time they were playing together -- Allen/Garnett circa '04 would have been very close, but of course by '08 they needed Pierce.)
SG/C: Kobe Bryant/Shaquille O'Neal, c.2001
In 2001 Kobe and Shaq were the two best players in the NBA. This statement gets a ridiculous amount of controversy for how true it is (undeniably). But it is true. And this is the only pairing for which you can unequivocally say it. They were the best two players in the league in 2002, too. And 2003 (although McGrady was damn good by then.) In 2004 they both made First Team All-Pro (as they did in '02 and '03 as well), although by that time Garnett was pretty good. In '06 they both made FTAP AGAIN, although a lot of that was just because there wasn't another center competing with the aged Shaq (see the PG/C writeup). There's just never been another pairing with this kind of firepower, where both guys were legitimate world-beaters alone, and together they just dominated. Personalities eventually tore the team apart (namely, Kobe's personality being "killer" and Shaq's being "dipshit"), but while it lasted, it was the best duo in NBA history.
Runners-up: Jerry West/Wilt Chamberlain (Dominated the early '70s. HMs also go to Wade/Shaq and Drexler/Hakeem. None of these are especially close to the first-string duo though.)
SF/PF: LeBron James/Anthony Davis, c.2020
It is VERY hard to make a compelling argument for LeBron/Davis over Bird/McHale here. But then it's hard to get a good read on McHale. Was he a world-class player (he made the All-NBA team only once, sharing first-team honors with Bird in '87)? Or was he, well, a Kyrie Irving-level player with a diametrically opposite skillset? I've seen more of McHale than I have of, e.g., Stockton/Malone, but not enough to have a real handle on this question. But I've seen a lot of LeBron/Davis. And they're Lakers. And they won last year. And they rock my world. So fuck McHale, fuck Bird, fuck the Celtics, fuck Doc Rivers, fuck Paul Pierce, fuck John Havlicek, fuck Bill Russell, fuck, uh, Danny Ainge? Fuck... K.C. Jones? Shit, I don't know. Fuck 'em all.
(In all seriousness, Anthony Davis is straight-up better than Kevin McHale. I'm calling it. And LeBron is obviously better than Bird. OBVIOUSLY. He SHITS on Bird.)
Runners-up: Rick Fox/Horace Grant (The 2001 Lakers might be the best team of all time, and the killer combo of Fox/Grant is, more than anything, the reason why. Some of their high-flying teammates might have earned more individual honors, but when the dust settled it was Grant and Fox who towered above the rest.)
SF/C: Julius Erving/Moses Malone, c.1983.
I have never watched this team play. Why would I? But there isn't a whole lot of competition.
Runners-up: Uhhhh. Bird/Parish? LeBron/Shaq? McGrady/Ming?? BARRY/THURMOND??? (It is not Barry/Thurmond. I have no idea why this is the weakest position by far.)
PF/C: Tim Duncan/David Robinson, c.1998???
It's not a huge secret that I dislike the Spurs. This whole "twin tower" thing never sat right with me. Man, it's just disrespectful. Not because of 9/11. Because of RALPH SAMPSON. That's right, Houston's OTHER big man, who together with Hakeem, formed the ORIGINAL "Twin Towers." Duncan/Robinson is clearly better, but still. Show a little goddamn respect. (I am messing around more in these writeups not just because we're coming to the end of the list, but also because these pairings are frankly not that good. Turns out you need someone to handle the ball and create shots in order to have a really elite pairing. Who knew?)
Runners-up: Hakeem Olajuwon/Ralph Sampson (See above, I guess. They're really not that good. They just had the name first. Hell, for all I know someone had the name before THEN. But who would that be? Like it legitimately might be true. Like Parish/Walton or something (it's not).)
Rankings:
My rankings of these duos (which is not, NB, the same as a ranking of the top duos in NBA history, although it's not THAT far off) goes:
Kobe/Shaq
Magic/Kareem
Jordan/Pippen
LeBron/Davis
Steph/Klay
Kobe/Gasol
Kyrie/LeBron
Erving/Malone
Stockton/Malone
Duncan/Robinson
Boy there's, uh... There's a lot of Lakers on there, huh? And just not a ton of Celtics. Boy, I tell ya.
No comments:
Post a Comment