I'm planning to stay out of this discussion, I don't have time to participate properly, but I will quote this post I found in the top 100 thread which is among the best on highlighting Duncan's contribution, and refuting some of the myths about his performances (i.e. the claim that he beat the Lakers in 03 because Horry choked).
The case for Tim Duncan.
With the problematic Russell now voted in, the 4th place comes down to 3 guys for me; Wilt, Magic and Duncan. Everyone knows the case for Wilt, and many people will be making the pro-Magic case, indeed some people will probably be making a pro-Shaq case. This means it falls to someone to give the case for Duncan, who I think deserves serious consideration at 4, and is a very strong choice for 5 or 6. So let’s look as concisely as we can at the arguments for Tim Duncan over Magic and Wilt (and Shaq).
Has a perfect record
I saw people emphasising how Bill Russell “won when he was supposed to, as well as when he wasn’t supposed to”, but that is even more true of Tim Duncan, whose impact over his career has been simply staggering. Over the last 14 years he has carried the Spurs to an average win record of 57.4 wins (99 has been pro-rated obviously). In his 10 year prime (ending after 07) he never once lost in the playoffs to a team he was supposed to beat.
98- rookie, everyone gives you a pass when you don’t win the title (good for top 5 in the MVP vote, and was already on the all-nba 1st team, which he made the next 8 years, and again in 07).
99- Wins championship in dominant fashion as teams best player.
00- injured for playofs
01- loses to prime Shaq and Kobe
02- loses to prime Shaq and Kobe
03- Wins championship (beats prime Shaq and Kobe with garbage team)
04- injures foot in the regular season (teams goes 50-16 while healthy), despite incredible would be game winning shot he loses to prime Shaq and Kobe (and Karl Malone), and a shot that probably wouldn’t be counted today since there is no physical way to catch and release a ball in 0.4 seconds, and had the timer been started the moment Fisher touched it, it wouldn’t have counted). If Duncan doesn’t miss 16 games this year, he wins his 3rd MVP in a row.
05- Wins championship
06- loses to the excellent Dirk Mavs in 7 games, but take a look at the ridiculous stats he put up this series. Duncan carried them to a boneheaded foul away from winning, this loss is on Parker and Manu.
07- Wins championship
After that Tim isn’t in his prime, though he still continues to have excellent performances, only going down in 08 to the much more stacked Lakers. His per 36 numbers are eerily similar, despite the drop off from his prime, particularly his mobility and defence, which doesn’t show up on paper as much.
There are just no examples of blatant failures like we can see for Magic (81, 86, 90 all stand out as very disappointing outcomes), Wilt everyone knows about, and Shaq has too many to name.
Impact is absurd. Can succeed with a star who also plays inside, or trash, or all-stars who handle the ball alot
What’s impressive is how he was able to succeed with often garbage teams. Sure, in some years like 05 or 07 or 99 he has an excellent support cast. But try looking at years like 2002 or 2003, and you begin to see an impact that is rivalled by only a handful of players in history.
2002- worst 58 win support cast in history
In 2002 Duncan somehow carried a trash team to 58 wins and a 2nd round appearance, where they lost 4-1 to the Lakers with prime Shaq and Kobe. For all people (rightly) are impressed by Lebron in 09 or 10, what Duncan did in this year is possibly more impressive. His help was almost non-existent. D.Rob was a shell of himself in 2002, especially in the playoffs, where he played 4/10 games and played for only 20mpg, which resulted in 4.5ppg and 5.8rpg, and in the Spurs only win against the Lakers in that series D.Rob didn't even play. He didn't play for games 1 or 2 either, where the Spurs only lost by 6 and 3 points. The idea D.Rob was a factor of any significance is nonsense. The closing game he put up 0-3-4 (4 fouls).
Duncan had starters like the corpse of Steve Smith (out of the NBA right after), least intelligent player in the NBA A.Daniels, 35 yr old Dan Ferry's skeleton, fell out of the NBA afterwards Charles Smith, and 59 games of a Bowen who didn't know how to shoot in the Spurs system yet (seriously, look up his shooting, it was horrendous that year, he literally had zero offence). Parker was as raw as his rookie numbers show, and that’s pretty frickin raw. I’ve seen people astoundingly claim D.Rob was an all-star this year, but it’s utter nonsense, he was really washed up at this point in his career. There’s a reason he didn’t make the all-star team (he lost to Wally World!), didn’t make an all-defensive team (something even old man Mutumbo did this year), hadn’t made one in years in fact. I don’t think people realise just how bad this team was. To give you an idea I want to highlight one particular event which helps give you an idea of how sucky this team was without him. In the 2002 playoffs against the Sonics, Duncan’s father died causing him to miss a game. In the game that Duncan missed, the Sonics killed the Spurs, and were up at halftime by 57-31. Once Duncan returned the next game, the result was very different as Duncan led the Spurs to a lead of 55-26 at the half. It’s a stark contrast.
2003... greatest over-achievement season of all-time?
In 2003 Parker was so raw, a little known energy player named Speedy Claxton stole his minutes in the playoffs.
Malik was an undersized, unathletic, often overweight, energy guy off the bench who started a mere 85 games in his 813 game career (44 of those starts for the Isiah Knicks). He was a sucktaculous player frequently. When the Spurs gave him a $42mill/7 year contract to entice Tim to stay (because they were best friends) they were roundly condemned for massively overpaying. Thankfully for the Spurs, Isiah took his contract on.
D.Rob was a shell in 2003. He played 64 games for 26mpg and put up 8.5 and 7.9, playing like a stiff alot of the time. He was worse in the playoffs. Much worse. In game 4 he actually had more turnovers than points (1-0), and twice as many fouls as rebounds (6-3). He was a non-factor that series almost. In game 2 he played 17 minutes for a pitiful 4 points, 4 boards and 4 fouls. The Spurs won by 19 anyway. In game 3 when the result was reversed D.Rob was again a non-factor, 15 minutes for 4 points and 4 boards from 1-3 shooting. In game 4 D.Rob played 14 minutes, posting 6 fouls, 0 points and 3 boards. The next game 6 & 7 on 3/7 shooting, and the deciding game 7-5. The only decent game he had was game 1. D.Rob was basically a non-factor in the playoffs (and regular season generally) for a similar ratio. He'd have one solid game, then a 5 duds. Someone who is solid 1/6 games and pitiful the rest is not a desirable big man. Especially not when he misses games and can't physically play for more than 26mpg.
Manu played 20mpg for a reason, he was incredibly raw and all over the place. He shot poorly, he caused turnovers. S.Jax was such a rising star the best offer he got in the offseason was $1mill per year from the Hawks. The Spurs had offered a 3 year deal starting at $1.4 mill, but he turned it down. Nobody saw S.Jax as any kind of star in 2003, and while he later rose to the heights of MLE player (and then "overpaid GSW player") that was some years off. Bowen was a good defender, and a terrible offensive player. Teams understood his flaws, which is probably why they never offered him a big pay day to come play for them. He earnt over $4mill I think once in his career (barely). He was a very hard player to utilise, because he had no offence at all, no handles, no passing, just defence and the ability to hit a wide open corner 3. Without TD there to suck in defenders, Bowen becomes a huge liability.
Smith and Ferry were washed out. There is no shortage of bench bums who can hit 3's, but the reason they ride the pine is because they suck holistically as players, and such was true of Ferry and Smith in 2003.
1/15 ESPN analysts picked them to win the title in 03. Nobody really gave them a hope in hell. Duncan taking these guys to the title over prime Shaq and Kobe might be the greatest single man effort in the history of the NBA playoffs. I hear a lot of people whine that Horry let the team down in the playoffs to explain away the loss. I have 3 responses to that:
1) You shouldn’t be relying on a bench player to bail you out when you have prime frickin Shaq and Kobe
2) A lot of the reason Horry played so bad was because he was being guarded by Duncan. Not all the reason, but it’s strange people draw a disconnect between Horry playing badly, and Duncan guarding him a lot. Most importantly though,
3) Horry’s shooting actually had very little impact on the outcome. Taking a look at the numbers it's hard to see the argument that Horry's cold shooting (partly induced by good defence) was the decisive failure down the stretch. In the games the Spurs won Horry was 0-3 (Spurs win by 5), 0-2 (Spurs win by 19), 0-6 (Spurs win by 2), 0-2 (Spurs win by 28). The only one of those games it would have made an obvious difference in is game 5 (I think it's unrealistic to expect Horry to shoot 2-3 with Duncan guarding him most of the game), and I think a much bigger factor in that game was Kobe taking an incredible 31 shots (for sub-500 shooting), rather than lobbing it downlow to Shaq (though he took 38 shots in the game 1 loss... 38!) The Lakers bench in particular shot well that game. I can point to any game and say "if player X shoots better, they win", indeed should I cry about S.Jax, who didn't hit a 3 except in game 4 (which the Spurs lost), the rest of the series he was 0-10! Full credit to Tim, he really carried the Spurs that series.
Great all around player, no holes in his game like Magic
Everyone knows Duncan was jobbed for DPOY multiple times because he didn’t post gaudy stats or have his coaches lobby for him, he’s even better than all those defensive teams suggest. As a defender you can build your whole defence around him, and ask him to anchor it, even when your team is otherwise bad defensively. There’s a reason he led all those Spurs teams to great defensive ratings and records for so many years. He’s more valuable than Shaq on defence by a good way, not least of all because of the consistency and effort.
Offensively too he’s basically flawless in his prime as a post player, even having range like his bank shot. Players who would have minimal value like Bonner or Bowen or washed out Steve Smith can have value on his team because he sucks in the defenders down low, and creates so many open shots. In fact the Spurs pretty much ran every play through him back in 02 and 03 when the team was weak, where the plays would involve giving him the ball, and giving the opposing team 2 bad options. Double Duncan and create an overlap, which would give his shooters space, or give him single man coverage, in which case he was almost certain to score (especially peak Duncan). And it worked, his impact was so incredible he was always able to win when he was supposed to, and other times when he was not. He has good longevity too.
I don’t think Shaq compares because of the inconsistency of effort over his career, which is the main reason the result of his career was so disappointing. Shaq should have been a top 3 player ever, but he didn’t put the effort in and too many years lost when he should have easily won a title (03, 04, 99, etc). On defence Shaq could have been a DPOY candidate, but he was often lazy on this end too. He was still awesome of course, but based on the career he actually had his impact was considerably less than Duncan.
Do Magic and Wilt give you enough to justify taking them over Duncan? I’m just not sure anymore, it seems to me Duncan has a bigger impact than Magic in a lot of ways. It’s not as pretty, but it’s damn effective. All the intangibles for him are excellent too.
Imagine Duncan had the same help Shaq had from 98-07. How many titles does he win? Probably no fewer than 8, and as many as 10. Heck, put Duncan on Shaq's teams from 98-11 and they'd probably win 10-12 easy. Duncan wouldn't be the best player on the team in 2010 or 2011 (probably), but otherwise he would be. Indeed, is there a plausible argument for him not winning every title from 99 through to 2011? Maybe you could make the argument for a few years, but I'm not seeing it.
