Quote:
Originally Posted by Cannon Shell
Worthy played wing on a fast break offense with the best point guard in history. I could have scored 15 and grabbed 5 rebounds a game in that offense with magic.
Since defense is 1/2 the game and pippen was easily one of the top defensive players in the game it is hard to say a guy who scored 17 points a game makes that an even trade.
If you were choosing teams from scratch and you had to take one of these two, virtually everyone would choose Pippen. Worthy's skill set was just not that unique in the NBA. Pippen's absolutely were.
|
Pippen was better in my opinion. You could run an offense through Pippen as Chicago did lots of times with or without Jordan. When I say "run the offense" I mean simply that he could be the primary ball handler. Pippen had that unique ability to fill the wing or the run break. The list of guys that can actually do that effectively is smaller than people think.
He could also play the point on the press on defense although Grant played that role until he left for orlando. It is a special defensive player that can play both the point and the front wing in a press defense. It takes a huge degree of versatility as you have to be long and agile enough to play point and quick enough to play wing.
Worthy shouldn't be underrated though and I think that you may be unintentionally doing that in your posts. He wasn't just a wing filler on a fast break. He had one of the best first steps in the game and presented a major matchup problem for most teams with his size and quickness on the wing. A top 50 player? No, but certainly from 1983-1989 one of the best small forwards in the game.