RealGM

Who's higher on your all time list? Tim Duncan or Bill Russell and Why?

Tim duncan is probably a better player in a vacuum.

Russell is close to unassailable as the era-relative goat peak/prime

Russell.

Why? Well, because he was better, I don't know how to put it in words, lol, I think he was more valuable over his career. Russell has a very easy GOAT case in a way Duncan just doesn't.

(They are my #4 and #6 right now)

Russell = my #2

Innovator, player/coach and probably the reason why 'defense wins championships' was invented. So ahead of his time while being the centerpiece in 11/13 championships. I don't care if you're playing house league, to keep that level of committment is something we'll most likely never see again.

Another vote for Russell. I think that healthier Duncan would have a better case, but his prime was cratered by injuries in 2004-08 period.

As it is, I have them relatively close on the list, but Russell is tier ahead.

Russell wouldn't even be a top 10 player today. This is Duncan easily.

I see Russell as one of four legitimate GOAT candidates, while I have Duncan in the tier after that with guys like Wilt, Shaq and Magic.

The main differences to me are Russell spending more years on top than Duncan and the years where they weren't considered the best player in the league, Russell fared a lot better too. For about the second half of his career Duncan was mostly a top 10 player with a couple of top 5 seasons sprinkled in, while Russell has a grand total of 1 season where he didn't finish top 2 in POY voting (he was 3rd in 67 behind Wilt and Oscar, only by a hair as well). It'd be fair to say Duncan had more competition for the top spots than Russell did most years but that doesn't explain Duncan receiving only a handful of votes in some prime seasons or getting no votes at all for 3 years straight in 2010-2012.

70sFan wrote:Another vote for Russell. I think that healthier Duncan would have a better case, but his prime was cratered by injuries in 2004-08 period.

As it is, I have them relatively close on the list, but Russell is tier ahead.

Hey 70sFan! It's very speculative, but how much do you think these injuries affected Duncan after this period? Do you think these injuries just affected that 2004–08 period, or do you think they also limited his athleticism later on compared to what it might have been?

For example, Duncan's lateral mobility seemed to drop over this time period. Do you think he might have had better mobility later on, e.g. after 2010, had he not been hit by mid-prime injuries, or do you think his loss of late-career mobility can all be chalked up to normal aging?

I have Russell as the greatest basketball player ever, with Duncan at 5. I think, Russell, Lebron, Jordan, and Kareem are the clear cut players with GOAT arguments. I have Duncan and Wilt as fringe GOAT cases, built around outlier attributes that could matter more to different people (Duncan's intangibles and Wilt's athleticism).

Duncan is in my 5-8 range, I moved Russell up to 2nd on my all time list with a pretty unimpeachable Mount Rushmore (along with Kareem, Jordan, LBJ) case.

DraymondGold wrote:

70sFan wrote:Another vote for Russell. I think that healthier Duncan would have a better case, but his prime was cratered by injuries in 2004-08 period.

As it is, I have them relatively close on the list, but Russell is tier ahead.

Hey 70sFan! It's very speculative, but how much do you think these injuries affected Duncan after this period? Do you think these injuries just affected that 2004–08 period, or do you think they also limited his athleticism later on compared to what it might have been?

For example, Duncan's lateral mobility seemed to drop over this time period. Do you think he might have had better mobility later on, e.g. after 2010, had he not been hit by mid-prime injuries, or do you think his loss of late-career mobility can all be chalked up to normal aging?

Both to me, I think Duncan started to lose his athleticism as early as in 2000. Of course, he adjusted to that more than fine and maybe we wouldn't have seen this amazing defensive surgery of 2007 Duncan, but I think he'd be a better player with more mobility in the 2000s.

Russell probably has a higher range where you can rank him but most would have him nearer the top end of that range, whereas Timmy doesnt have anything like a goat case or anything

Russell 3rd all time, Duncan 9th.

I have Russell higher because he's got a better resume and he impacted the game more than Duncan did on the court.

I have Russell 4th/5th and Duncan like 7th-10th.

Russell is such a tough one for me to evaluate. Like, objectively, his collection of accolades and impact on the sport were extreme. Basically the best there is. 11 titles, 5 MVPs. Career predates DPOY or he would have a pile of those, likely most ever by a massive margin.

We talk up his titles but very rarely do we discuss how they were won. The first title required 7 wins across two series. They won 6 games in two series and lost to the Hawks the year after. 8 wins to title in 59.

Even in 69, 12 wins, 3 series. It improved over the years, evidently, as the league evolved but the achievement doesnt mean quite the same as a full, 4-series, 15/16-win title when there were no first-round byes and all that.

It bears repeating that he was still incredible. 8 in a row and 11 in 13 are still very impressive. But it's something undiscussed when we do cross-era stuff. More series, more wins required, higher difficulty. So it changes the texture of comparisons to some extent.

To what extent? No clue. Only so much, I guess, but it is worth mentioning when we speak of Russell. And on the flip side of that, in a league with immature offensive development, a defensive titan reigns supreme, and Russell crushed his era with relevant dominance. So that is a match-off as well, since he js basically the template for a defensive anchor. What'd that worth? And vs someone like Duncan, how much of Tim depended on standards and strategies Russ set?

Tim Duncan is higher on my all-time list, which focuses on career value.

If the question is phrased differently with specific, commonly-valued criteria...Russell ends up ahead in a lot of those. He ends up the GOAT in a lot of those, actually.