Was my first thought when posting this. Most younger fans don’t even remember what his reputation was from 2009-2012 or so

And becoming a serviceable defender

He added muscle which strengthened everything. His whole life he was able to get by on just being better than the people he played against. He didn’t need to work on his body he just needed to work on his game.

Once he started getting paid, and I think his smaller second contract really reinforced this, he needed to add muscle so his body could keep up. He had all the talent but talent only got him so far. He needed to up his muscle mass to be able to maintain the rigors of the long season.

He never got super jacked or anything but he strengthened himself to the point where he was more than capable of being strong enough to withstand the regular season and a deep playoff run.

Yeah the critics had a fair point at that time though. I thought his ankles would hold him back from a prolific career

He was considered such an injury risk that for the first 3 Warriors Finals runs, until 2017, he was still on a contract getting paid $11M a year.

Honestly it’s one of the reasons that team was so good, his low salary enabled more depth than they would have had otherwise

Hoping Jayden daniels can do the same

And before that, Steve Nash

Good one; that 2011 run completely reversed his reputation as a Playoff dropper after 2006 and 2007

Yeah went from great player but choke artist to underdog with that dog in him. I wonder how different he would be viewed if he won 2006 but lost 2011.

Before 2011, many were arguing that he was still an all timer. The ESPN narrative changed but a large subset outside that bubble saw Dirk for who he was. Webber I think is one who changed the narrative, he didn’t have the greatest attitude, felt like wasted potential and I didn’t think he would turn it around.

Good one. Pau too, right?

Schnitzel Anthony

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Chris Bosh suddenly became an outside shooter as well.

was ball hog the knock on Vince? I thought it was “soft” and “didn’t care enough”.

From jailbreaker to blue collar

My friend was on the golf team at MSU when Randolph was on the basketball team there. He was in his golf coach’s office, and he overheard his coach finishing up a phone call with Izzo, and I guess he heard Izzo complaining about how Randolph was too stupid to learn the plays. I guess it just took him a long time.

I mean, the reason he was considered that is because he was that. And all credit to Zach, he matured. I always think of him first when I think of what can be the upside when an immature, but talented, player moves in a fire sale deal (*fingers crossed for you Ja!).

I think it was when Zach was with the Knicks that there came to be a viral clip of him wasting like 2 straight possessions on deeply unprofessional zero-pass heaves. It was Knicks or Clippers and he was on the fast track out of the league, but again all credit to Zach – he landed in Memphis and just straight up matured as a man, completely rewrote his career story. I really think he should be held up as an example more of what can happen when young, immature guys just do some plain ol’ personal growth.

That’s a great example!

He had a great rep as a quality fantasy pickup

Even when he was in Canada he had the Trash Bros tag. Scoring the first 11 points of game 6 of the finals put that to bed.

Eh I disagree. He was off the bench so his usage was a lot lower but he was talked about as one of those sneaky good guys as long as I can remember. I remember it being a pretty praised trade for Toronto to get him, he cost a 1st round pick for a not great raptors team.

I don’t think he had a reputation of being a choker, which is why people leaned so hard on the “soft” part. The criticism was “soft euro” more than anything.

And it’s interesting that he definitely changed not just his own narrative but the narrative of European players being “soft” by default.

KAT’s minor gaffe-type situations are more about the media being willing to distort things to draw clicks than they are about him. The guy has really been a good egg for his whole career, and somehow got miscast as “selfish my-own-numbers-first star” despite having been willing to bend his game for the team every. dang. season, even back in college.

Not a perfect player. Sure. He basically has obeyed the Patrick Ewing “keep it in the locker room” code when it came to moments like Jimmy Butler, and fans aren’t always sharp enough to recognize that.

They 100% would not have won without him and his defense on Wemby. That is the biggest impact imo. Scoring is easy and natural in this era. But nullifying someone like Wemby is incredibly difficult

Aaron Gordon is an excellent example. He drove Orlando fans absolutely nuts when we realized before he seemingly did that he wasn’t a real first option. I’m so happy with the role he discovered in Denver. I wish he’d had the chance sooner, because it seems like his hammy is cooked.

Wiggins is frustrating because he clearly showed he could rebound and be a #2 on a title contender like in ‘22. Then he got paid a bit, and decided to just go back to being average again 🤷‍♂️

Successfully lowered expectations

Nah, Wiggins is still a failed number 1 option. Warriors run doesn’t change that. He didn’t get the most out of his talent. AG never had the chops to be a first option, but Wiggins has the talent

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Narratives like this are always funny. Brook Lopez was NEVER an elite defender, literally only one year he was def2 and that’s it. He was just a good fit with Giannis and Jrue, there’s a reason he never came close to it again.

For real, it was the most devastating injury you can ever see, but he managed to carve out a legitimate 15 year career in the NBA. This required A LOT of resiliance. As an Illini fan, I was salty when he chose Duke over Illinois (which was rendered moot when he declared for the draft), but nothing but respect.

He never missed a midrange yk

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KAT

IMO his narrative changed a bit when he defended Jokic very well 1 on 1 in the playoffs. He immediately lost the “soft” rep

Just finished reading the athletic article about him and then saw this post.

OP is talking about narratives. KAT’s narrative was that he couldn’t defend well enough to win a title. He won a title by defending well enough to win a title.

Dirk is changing a narrative. Dirk managed to changed his narrative by winning a title. He didn’t do anything special to do so, people just labeled him a loser because they’re dumb and he had a better fitting team around him.

Too soon. I feel like Brunson leading a team to a title is a better example on the same team. KAT stayed out of foul trouble, but not really. He got bailed out a lot by having Mitch on the team.

Nobody ever said he wasn’t a very good player. The question is can he be the best player/ leader on a championship team and that’s still to be decided

What narrative did he turn around? If anything, he proved that he’s not a leader by accepting a lesser role. Same with Wiggins.

I was watching Game of Zones a while back and was on the Butler episode. Man how everyone’s opinion changed since then lol.

Good one. Nobody was talking about how big of a dump truck he had early on in his career. It wasn’t until later on that people started noticing

Here for this comment. The narrative was that he had attitude issues and wasn’t coach-able.

Yeah, went from a locker room problem (and pretty mid player on the court) in Memphis and Houston to being an incredible leader, 6x all-star, reputation as a guy who makes all the little winning plays on the court, had the 7th-highest win shares of any player in the NBA in the 2010s, and second-best player on a championship team. He is a true winner.

YA YA HEY

Moses was the real deal. Mentored guys and didn’t pull any punches.

Good one. Also his rep as a toxic player. It didn’t totally go away but his rep went from being a total asshole in Philly, to just being a guy who speaks his mind in Phoenix.

I was going to say this too, but also because he was kind of a Draymond (not THAT bad), but in retirement he became a very likeable person

I would have never predicted his career being this long after the Shaqtin days on the Bullets.

First example I think of. When reading his bio and learning he was a SF coming up it did put into context why he was trying to do so much but when his role became more confined he was so much better.

I also wouldn’t be surprised if he has ADHD and through maturation in his late 20s and developing coping strategies and possibly meds helped him

Going from “Ason Kidd” to shooting over 40% from 3 as a role player on a championship team was pretty wild

2nd this.

Three pointer shooter too

Pretty good example of the player who, after being drafted high, couldn’t catch on — until he finally got to stable situations in Minnesota and Detroit and redeemed himself.

… And then last fall it all fell out from under him.

Surprised I had to scroll so far down to see this. But yeah, was on his way to becoming a disappointment before being traded to Detroit and leading them to a championship. Dominated the East too for a good 3-4 years

Wildly overrated now. He was a terrible chucker. He loved the deep 3 with 15 seconds on the shot clock.

Kobe too

This is a great one. I and the city of Memphis absolutely adore ZBo

That Jail Blazers squad was wild, lol

I mean there was the dog fighting thing with Qyntel Woods

They didnt make it up

Came to say Oubre.

While he has evolved, it’s hard to argue he’s turned into anything beyond usable.

These days, all you hear is “Kobe had Shaq and then PAU GASOL” as if they’re remotely comparable

Before that Pau was a soft euro, on a fake franchise that doesn’t even belong in Memphis, who couldn’t win a single game in the playoffs

First guy I thought of.

Webber on the Warriors they would throw him like 6 or 7 lobs a game. Before his knee injury the athleticism was on a truly rare level.

Same with James Harden. 6th man at OKC to MVP

Same as Kevon Looney.  Loon was injury prone during the dynasty days and became one of the most reliable Warrior on his time there when KD left and got his hip fixed.

The ‘22 title run cemented it.

The bucks rejecting the Curry for Bogut trade after the physical and getting Ellis instead is not talked about enough as one of the biggest fumbles in history.

It’s funny in hindsight because it was mainly the 2011-2012 season that he missed time. 80 games first year, 74 second, then from 2012-2017 he didn’t play fewer than 78 games.

Hindsight always makes those arguments stupid.

Was seen as a Harden-esque playoff dropper until 2011, then had one of the best championship runs of all-time

Legend

This needs to be much, much higher. The pre-season before the Grit & Grind Grizzlies took off there was a podcaster/blogger (Hardwood Paroxysm) that savaged the GM of the team.

Randolph was “everything that’s wrong with the league” before he got to Memphis.

When was this?

Lakers fans liked to pretend that was true, but MWP kept doing the same violent, stupid shit that Artest did.

The Harden incident is the most infamous, but he was also suspended in the playoffs for hitting JJ Barea in the face.

He even got a new name to go with the personality

Other than the James Harden elbow lol

“I love basketball!” - Metta World Peace 2016

I was gonna say Karl Malone who had a reputation as a great player who just couldn’t get it done. Playoff choker. And he changed his narrative to a pedophile and a monster who should be in prison.

Go Jazz!

Yeah before that he was just a dirty little guy

I like this one.

If I retired as an NBA champion with over a decade of service time under my belt I’d call that a job well fuckin done. If that shithead Shaq didn’t exist he’d be a lot of people’s favorite players

People love to say this about his time with the Warriors because he did add some value. But he averaged less than 10 minutes a game on those Warrior’s teams. Steve Kerr would use him and then hide him so he couldn’t make those dumb mistakes.

Very hard to argue KAT is the reason why you got that ring.

Kat is still soft

If constantly changing the narrative is his default… Is he really ever, changing the narrative? 🤔

Ason Kidd

There’s still goofs that LeBron hasn’t won enough big ones, but I guess (or hope) most people know at this point, the issues are more with his detractors than him.

There’s literally nothing LeBron could have done to have shut up a lot of his detractors. He could have won more championships as Russell, more MVPs as Kareem, and more Finals MVPs than Jordan and some bozos would be saying “Yeah but…”

Hes still not a great shooter. It never mattered though.

So he joined superstars so he could win

A lot of fans, players, and pundits saw him as a soft Euro player who only took jump shots and didn’t go into the paint.

The 2006 loss didn’t help this narrative but 2011 proved that wrong and ensured his legacy of helping to change the PF position to what it is now.