30 number fives in 30 years
Your first 4 players of Wade,Barkley,Garnett & Pippen,you could have either 1 of them at number 1 and wont get many complaints......
But i'll go:
1.Barkley
2.Garnett
3.Wade
4.Pippen
When you look at a player's domininace once their careers are over..Wade playing with Lebron and Pippen being 2nd fiddle to Jordan might hurt their final rankings among the all-time greats......
Rudeboy how can you say that Barkley's at the top yet the man has no rings. I don't like holding that against guys in terms of validating their greatness but still KG, Wade, and Pippen all have 1 or more rings. They played with other great players but so did Charles e.g. Houston 96-97 when he played with Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. At the end of the day the one day the reason why Barkley was never able to attain at least one ring is because he did not stay in shape and take care of his body consistently throughout his career. No doubt he was a force to be reckoned with in his prime but to say he had a better career than Wade, Pippen and KG is, in my opinion, a bit much for the Round Mound of Rebound.
@reeko.....Barkley was a Unique talent,with great all around skills....You can make a case for him being 1 of the top 5 players at his position....Dude was All NBA 1st Team 5 Times and All NBA 2nd Team 5 Times....11 All Star Games and won MVP when the NBA was full of Future Hall of Fame Big Men.....
Winning a Ring helps Validate a player's career but it doesnt define it....Heck, Robert Horry has 7,Steve Kerr have 5....Nobody would ever say they were great players....If Lebron had never won a ring,where he rank when his career was done?
Interesting article by the guys at 82games.com: http://www.82games.com/nbadraftpicks.htm
Although the time period is 1989 - 2008, they decided that 6th overall picks tend to be sh*t.
They put each player in a category (star, bust, dnp, etc) and gave each category a numerical value to arrive at an average rating for each pick.
Pick Rating
1 27.0
2 21.6
3 23.8
4 22.2
5 21.1
6 16.5
7 17.8
8 15.2
9 16.6
10 16.7
Wade vs. Pippen is an interesting argument. Wade carried a team to win the Finals. Pippen obviously was a key part to the Bulls championship success but he didn't carry a team, thanks Hugh Hollins. Both players do everything extremely well besides shooting, but I think Pip has a slight edge in every category- D, rebounding, passing, shooting, etc.
there are 30 teams so i ranked 30 number five picks from the last 30 years. my criteria was how i believe the careers will be ranked when it is all done if they are still active. if you missed any of the previous rankings and are interested, you can take a look at them here:http://www.nbadraft.net/forum/30-number-ones-30-years, http://www.nbadraft.net/forum/30-number-twos-30-years, http://www.nbadraft.net/forum/30-number-threes-30-years, http://www.nbadraft.net/forum/30-number-fours-30-years
kevin garnett
dwayne wade
charles barkley
scottie pippen
kevin love
mitch richmond
ray allen
vince carter
ricky rubio
demarcus cousins
steve smith
juwan howard
jason richardson
isaiah rider
kendall gill
devin harris
raymond felton
mike miller
jeff green
jonas valanciunas
laphonso ellis
j.r. reid
thomas robinson
sidney green
tony battie
kenny walker
jon koncak
jonathan bender
shelden williams
nikoloz tskitishvili
thoughts?