Who Are Your 5 Best Two Way Players of All Time (NBA)

[Professor Emeritus]

Payton was a better scorer than CP3.

CP3 was a much better 3 pt shooter than the glove and a better distributer,

Payton’s defense was legendary tho.

CP3 has been the best defender out of star point guards in this era (best since peak Kidd), but like you say Payton is straight legendary so there's still a gap. Payton's size in particular allowed him to blanket guys in a way that CP3's 6' bulldog defensive just wasn't capable of.

I'm meh on whether Payton was a better scorer. CP3 is such a good distributor that he doesn't have to rely on his scoring, he picks his spots. But when he needed to fill up the bucket he did that too, he was a MUCH better shooter than Payton not just from three but from midrange as well. Payton could drive but he wasn't like D-Rose level where he could pick defenses apart with it. Look at their per-100 possession numbers and CP3 actually comes out ahead:

CP3: 27.5 points/100 and 14.1 assists/100 on 51% from 2 and 37% from 3
Glove: 24.0 points/100 and 9.9 assists/100 on 50% from 2 and 32% from 3

You could say Payton's last few years hurt his averages, yet his top season (29.8 points/100 in 2000) isn't as high as CP3's peak (32.4 points/100 in 2009), and they both had the same number of elite scoring seasons. Pretty much the same in the playoffs as well - CP3's averages are better and their peaks are about the same.

I watched Payton in real time, and was he the guy you could really trust to put up 30 when you needed it? I really can't say he ever was. I think they were about even as scorers and I'm favoring CP3 if anything, and then so far as passing/distribution/ballhandling goes you have to give CP3 a huge edge on offense overall.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Basically MVP/DPOY candidate from 59'-68' if both awards existed.

What are you basing that on?

It's not like I was around to watch game in and game out, but I was under the impression that back when he was putting up big scoring #'s Wilt often mailed it in on defense, and even just among centers of his era I'd say Bill Russell and Nate Thurmund were more dominant defenders.

Like you said DPOY didn't exist in that era, but every year from 1959-1967 you had either Russell or Thurmond pulling a decent number of 1st-place MVP votes (with Russell often winning) despite being FAR inferior offensive players to Wilt, so I have trouble believing they wouldn't have destroyed him in the DPOY voting.