>(just in case anyone forgot)
>
>http://grantland.com/features/carmelo-anthony-new-york-knicks-legacy/
>
>"Dirk is one of the 20 best basketball players of all time by
>any calculation. He’s the best foreign player ever not named
>Hakeem. Of the 10 best forwards ever, he’s behind Bird, LeBron
>and Duncan, right there with Doc, Elgin and Pettit, and ahead
>of Malone, Barkley and Rick Barry.

I don't think he's better than Barkley or Malone...


>(Sorry, John Havlicek — I
>didn’t count you because you were technically a “swingman.”)
>He won an MVP and a Finals MVP. He made four first-team
>All-NBA’s and five second-team All-NBA’s. He won 50-plus games
>for 11 straight years, topped 60 wins three times, made two
>Finals, beat LeBron and Wade in the Finals, and won a Game 7
>in San Antonio during Duncan’s prime.
>
>And it’s not like he had a ton of help. In 15 years, he played
>with only four All-Stars: Jason Kidd (2010), Josh Howard
>(2007), Steve Nash (2002 and 2003) and Michael Finley (2000
>and 2001). Amazing but true: Dirk never played with a Hall of
>Famer in that Hall of Famer’s prime.

some of that is misleading, Dirk played with a lot of talented guys that may not have made a lot of All-Star teams playing with Dirk but they were still All-Star players, Kidd is obviously a 10-time All-Star and HOF'er, Nash is a 8-time All-Star, 2-time MVP and HOF'er, Finley only made 2 ASG's but probably should've made more, unfortunately his prime coincided with the primes of a lot of all-time great HOF players in the late 90's/early 00's, but for a 5 or 6 year stretch Finley was one of the best all-around wing players in the NBA averaging 20,5&5 forming a "big 3" for Dallas along with Dirk and Nash.

Not to mention he played with other people in their primes like Jamison and Walker that were All-Stars on other teams but they just didn't have as many scoring opportunities with Dirk. Then there were other former All-Stars that were slightly past their primes but still good like Stackhouse, Van Exel, Tim Hardaway, Matrix and Chandler. Jason Terry may have never been an All-Star but he has been a very good player for a very long time so the narrative that Dirk didn't have "a ton of help" is kinda bogus.

>During Dirk’s decade-long peak (2002 through 2011), he
>averaged 24.5 points and 8.8 rebounds and came damned close to
>creating the 10-Year 50-40-90 Club (48% FG, 39% 3FG, 89% FT).
>His career PER (23.48) ranks 19th all time, just behind Doc
>(23.58) and Bird (23.5) and just ahead of Kobe (23.36). And he
>was an absolutely phenomenal playoff performer: 25.6 PPG (12th
>all time), 24.2 PER (12th), 22.6 win shares (16th), stellar
>46-37-89% splits in 135 games, and a couple of epic multigame
>hot streaks in 2006 and 2011. Along with Pettit, Hakeem and
>Elgin, he’s one of four players in the shot-clock era who
>averaged 25 and 10 in the playoffs. And he’s an underrated
>leader, a famously fantastic locker-room guy, an insanely hard
>worker and someone who, by all accounts, everyone loved
>playing with at every point of his career."

As great as his offensive numbers were one of the main reasons his teams didn't win more was because its tough to hide a defensive liability at the PF position, lol.