dirkdiggler4177 wrote:UcanUwill wrote:I still hate when people call TIm Duncan PF, because he was obviously center in every way beside what he was listed on paper, but whatever, I never gonna win this debate, so will just say it NO, he will not be better than Duncan.
He played power forward. Centers like Robison, Nesterović, Mohammed, Oberto, Elson started with him. Yes, he played some center, but he was a power forward, even if his style in today's game was center-like, he was a power forward in any other era. Later in his career he was a center and played the center spot.
He really did play center, even with Rasho and Splitter, he played more center than these guys, and at the end of the day, they just played 2 center lineups. I know just from simple linguistics point of view, it makes no sense to have more than one ''center'', but they simply had 2 centers on the court, just like you can have two PGs on the court, or even 3. Look at that tape back, Splitter would start with Duncan,. then he would sit, Duncan would play center most of the time even on paper, but even with another center, he was a freaking center, Duncan was more center than Splitter or Rasho or Oberto even. he always played the same, he defended the rim, he played in low post, he was a center. All of his game was pure center. I dont why everyone wanted to make DUncan a PF, but I remember they used to list Mat Bonner as C and Tim Duncan as PF when they played together, at that point that was just stupid. If anything, Splitter, Rasho and Oberto were more of the PFs in this logic, because Duncan was a damn center.
I know back in the day the difference between PF and C was minimal to begin with, but even then Tim Duncan was a center, stop telling me he wasnt, I am not being arrogant, but I understand this game, they played two centers sometimes and thats the explanation. Lingvistically it makes no sense, but from tactics point of few, you can have two centers.
I always was subscriber to logic that 5 players on the court, that doesnt mean that each of them is either PG, SG, SF, PF, C and its a lock. Lots of lineups had no center at all, some had 4 guards, it just how it goes. THinking outside NBA, Panathinaikos always played Dimantidis, Spanoulis and Jasikevicius, that didnt make Jasikevicius an SF, not ever, he was a PG, all 3 of them were PGs playing in same lineup. Some coaches always loved to have as much PGs as possible, some loved as much of bigs as possible, some jsut adapted to waht they had.