In regards to the thread related remark above; Lebron did alot more with the Cavs than KG did with the (often more talented) Wolves teams.
Ok, Bastillion...
bastillon wrote:what you showed so far is only the ability to scream. your lone argument for Duncan is that Spurs were incredibly bad team and they won 60W just based on contributions from Duncan, which is honestly ridiculous.
It's hardly ridiculous, in fact it's much the same thing people have realised about Lebron for this year. The Spurs in 2002 and 2003 were incredibly weak with Duncan, he carried those teams entirely. Your rebuttal has varied, from inaccurate (Malik "Allen" was awesome) to totally dishonest ("David Robinson was one of the best defenders in the NBA", "they had 4 defensive all-stars")
the reason why you say this is because they didnt have a strong 2nd best player, but you're overlooking the fact that there was nobody played 30 mpg excluding Duncan and hence their per-game stats are so poor. D-Rob was actually posting 20 PER and .200 WS48 which is amazing (easily 2nd best C that year). there were 9 players posting above average WS48 (over 0.100), two more at .080 which is solid. of all major players only Bowen had really poor production but he brought intangibles to the table. it was basically a team of Duncan, still very good D-Rob and tons of good role players.
I'm not ignoring anything, I watched those teams, and don't need to try and rewrite it to bolster Hakeem or KG or whoever. KG had players who were legitimate all-stars, or very close. There was simply nobody on those Spurs teams even close to being in that category. I've pointed this out, and asked who such players were for the Spurs, and you don't reply, except dishonestly asserting ridiculous things, like D.Rob was still awesome. D.Rob played 20mpg in the 2002 playoffs (in only 4 games out of 10!), and was worse the following year overall. His numbers were terrible in the postseason, and mediocre in the regular season. Claiming he was posting 20PER or whatever it a ridiculous way of measuring value. If I extrapolate Tiago Splitter's per minute stats he looks awesome too, but there's a reason he's riding the pine, just like there is a reason the Spurs didn't play D.Rob or Bowen or S.Jax alot. Probably why most of your argument rests on the "intangibles" of the player. And anyway, if PER is the go to stat, what does PER say about the rest of Duncan's team in 2002 (or the whole team in 2003)? In fact looking at PER both KG and TD were better players than Hakeem ever was. But I'm consistent in that I don't put much value in a silly super stat like PER, and I look across the board at what a player contributed.
Your argument comes down to one simple sentence: "I know better than 30 GM's and coaches". I say this because none of those coaches was willing to pay well for said players to obtain them, seemed to regard them totally differently to you in terms of overall value, etc. Needless to say I don't think you know better than every other GM in the NBA, certainly not over such a long period of time.
you'd think they wouldnt win 50 games, but Popovich has proven time and time again what he can do with talent and how they can overachieve with him at the helm. look no further than this year - Spurs dont really have top5 most talented team and they're by far the most winningest team in the RS. most importantly, they didnt have holes in any aspects - defenders, shooters, ballhandlers, shotblockers, passers, low post options. Pop just brilliantly connected all the parts.
The Spurs are overachieving in terms of what was expected, but I've been pretty consistent in talking to people about what the reasons are (and why I'm not optimistic we'll win a title this year). We have the deepest team we've had for one (guys like Hill, Blair, Jefferson have all taken a step forward this year, Neal coming out of nowhere, etc). We've traditionally had at least 1 or 2 bad starters, and a weak bench. This year we're deep all over the place, we have 5 good to great starters, which includes Manu and Parker playing like all-stars (something we didn't have in say 2002 or 2003), R.Jefferson shooting the best of his career, in fact we have the best 3pt shooting team in the NBA. That, and a nice schedule and a good focus for the regular season has allowed us to win more than expected, and I'm thrilled.
Wolves on the other hand, not only less talented but more importantly far worse coached
Flip Saunders has shown himself to be a very good coach. Maybe not the best coach at winning titles (not many coaches win titles anyway), but the "Flip sucks" stuff got thrown out a long time ago. He coached Detroit to a 64 win season that was eerily reminiscent of this years Spurs run, out of nowhere, and after the team was supposedly past it (and had lost Ben Wallace). The team posted 2 more seasons with him, of 53 and 59 wins, and made it to the ECF's all 3 years. Flip is an excellent coach.
and didnt fit as well either. besides KG there was really no legit big.
Who were the legit bigs on Duncan's teams over the years, 2002-2003 included? 37 year old D.Rob who barely played in the playoffs? Malik 'fat ass' Rose? Nazr, Rasho, Oberto, 40 year old K.Willis? Joe Smith is definitely better than most if not all of those guys, even Kandi man is as useful as a few, Googs is better than all of them. And anyway, Rasho was certainly serviceable enough, if limited, when we got him.
top players were playing the same position and their skillsets were doubled. Billups and Brandon were both PGs, KG and Joe Smith were both jumpshooting PFs, Peeler and Szczerbiak were both shooters with inept defense. see, this is where Spurs and Wolves were completely different. Spurs players were complimentary to each other - Bowen brought you defense and 3p shooting but was inept as a scorer, Ferry was exactly the opposite; Porter was a steady veteran PG who stretched the floor, Parker was a 19 year old rookie with poor range but great ballhandling/slashing combo. KG meanwhile had to play SF alongside Joe Smith...and Im not talking about a part-time job, Joe Smith started games with Garnett as their small forward. I'd love to see Duncan guarding (and locking!) prime TMac
All you've really said above is that it's hard to build a team around KG than it is around TD, because of course Duncan would have just played inside, and thrived with a jump shooting, tough on D Joe Smith. He would have thrived with jump shooters like Peeler and Wally (far better than Bonner or S.Smith). KG on the other hand would have been far less valuable than Duncan, because KG isn't as much of an inside scorer, he can't stay inside and suck in multiple defenders on every play for Bowen, he can't provide the same inside intimidation Duncan does. Sure, KG is more "versatile" or whatever, that's like saying Spud Webb is more versatile than Shaq... who cares, I know which one is the more valuable player. KG's skill set just isn't as valuable, that's the whole point. And you guys HAD Porter, a younger Porter! I notice Googs and Marbury don't even get a mention above (nor do some others I named), and Brandon and Billups, superior to our 2002 or 2003 PG's, are dismissed with "they play PG, and KG is a jump shooter". It's still great to have a far superior PG!
still cant see the difference ? Spurs had productive role players, who fit perfectly and were well-utilized by Pop.
Fit perfectly? There's a reason our 2002 team varied from our 2003 team (and from many of our teams, who were constantly overhauled around this period), it's because they didn't fit perfectly, alot of the players around Duncan were trash. Steve Smith, Antonio Daniels, Malik Rose, S.Claxton, etc. Most of these guys fell out of the NBA after this, and never did anything meaningful again. Bowen, while useful, was a two edged sword, and other teams knew it, he was paid more than $4 mill a year only once. If he was such a great fit, other teams would have paid money for him! If S.Jax was the player you describe him as, why did he only get a $1mill contract offer that offseason? Why was he forced to go play for the worst team in the NBA?
and I cant even express how idiotic your quotes about Joe Smith were... you actually said he was better than D-Rob...
Joe Smith was better than 36-37 year old D.Rob, a guy who struggled to stay on the court, barely played in the playoffs, was old and slow. There's no shame in that, the man was 37 years old! Nor do the numbers really draw any doubt on that claim, D.Rob put up 12-8 in the 2002 regular season in the 29.5 mpg he could manage, followed up by playing 20mpg in the 4/10 playoff games he was healthy to play in, and posting 4.5ppg and 5.8rpg. The next season was worse. He managed 26mpg in the regular season, posting 8.5ppg and 7.9rpg. He shot a career low 469 from the field. In the playoffs he managed 23mpg, 7.8ppg and 6.6rpg. When Joe Smith played for the Wolves he was between 23 and 27, the prime of his career. He posted generally better numbers, wasn't hampered by age and slow, and was a role player of significant repute and value, to the point that he was offered an 86 million dollar contract by you guys. He would have been overpaid if he took it of course, but there is a reason he was getting offered huge money, people regarded him as a very, very good role player. He played strong D for one. I don't especially care what his PER was, of all the things PER measures badly, defence is among the worst.
Joe was never a significant defender to begin with, and meanwhile D-Rob averaged 1.8 bpg in under 30 mins 
