Durant at night

[Steve Ouellette]

Let me rephrase the theoretical question again: What if Durant is Larry Bird and Oden is Robert Parish? 

Steve O

---- "Berry wrote: 
> This is one of those debates that really gets me going. Define "better
> basketball player ... "
> 
> If it's a skills challenge, Durant wins hands down. But if it's a skills
> challenge, someone like Russell wouldn't even be invited.
> 
> If it's not a skills challenge, how do you quantify value? LeBron is a
> great, great talent. But is he more valuable than Steve Nash? LeBron
> would be ahead of Nash on every list of the NBA's best players. Nash
> would win a skills contest between the two of them and certainly seems
> to elevate his team. Who is "better?" 
> 
> The disparity really comes into play when you start talking about bigs
> vs. smalls. Dwyane Wade vs. Tim Duncan? 
> 
> Forget trying to rank the players. If you're trying to win a
> championship, who do you take? Oden or Durant? If you have Yao in the
> middle, maybe it changes your answer. Other than that, though, who do
> you take? That's when it gets really simple for me. I take the franchise
> center.
> 
> Mark
>