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durantbird wrote:Try to describe Tim Duncan's career:
- In the most diminishing way you can that is still close to reality
- In the most flattering way you can that is still close to reality

Dutchball97 wrote:- Great player who got drafted into a perfect system that allowed him to stay relevant well after his individual performance started declining. Pretty much the same arguments you see against Russell and Jordan where their succes is attributed to everyone around them instead of themselves because they didn't "prove themselves outside the one system they had success with". Probably most common among LeBron fans hyping up "getting it done in different environments".

f4p wrote:The higher take seems obvious

- Won a ton
- For a long, long time
- Super easy to build around and low maintenance
- Very good playoff numbers
- All-time defensive team results for basically his whole career

The lower take
- Joined the core of a 59 win team as a 4-year college rookie, one of the best starting situations you could hope for.
- Team then drafted a future hall of fame SG (and top 40 in this project) with the 57th (!!) pick in the draft and a future hall of fame PG with the 29th pick, basically pulling off a perfect rebuild with no assets.
- When that team started faltering by 2008/9, they added a ton of talent with relatively little cap space or draft capital, and then, for the 3rd time in Duncan's career, acquired a future hall of famer with a non-lottery pick, trading for Kawhi with an 18th pick. Basically another rebuilding on the fly.
- By the time he retired, the Spurs closing lineup in 2016 was an all-hall of fame lineup (aldridge is 50/50), with two of them in their prime.
- Tim Duncan was known for winning and defense. The year after he retired, the Spurs won 61 games and had the #1 defense in the league, went to the conference finals, and were giving arguably the greatest team of all time the business until Kawhi got hurt.
- In other words, his career was bookended with a 59 win team and 61 win/#1 defense team. teams that would be up there as the best team in some franchise's last 30 years. And those were the teams without Duncan! While that doesn't explain the longevity of Duncan's individual play, it does explain the longevity of the team results.

- Largely fell off as a dominant post offensive force after his dominant 2003 season.
- Duncan's average series loss in the playoffs is as an SRS favorite
- Lost 8 series as an SRS favorite, which is a fairly incredible number, including 3 as the #1 overall SRS team and 2 more as the #2 SRS team without facing the #1 team. Won 4 of his 5 titles as the #1 overall SRS team and won the 5th as #3 while not playing #1 and playing #2 injured.
- Team was only 4-7 vs +6 SRS opponents, indicating the Spurs mostly hung around (for 20 years, admittedly) as a really good team and took advantage of the years there were no really dominant teams.
- He was a quiet leader, who was given one of the great "loud" leaders in history in Pop, who basically was the drill sergeant who kept everything on track, leaving Duncan to only have to not be an a-hole to make things work. Leading by example only goes so far. Not having to be the day-in, day-out vocal leader is a burden off of anyone, especially someone who may not have been up for it.
- A lot of his longevity advantage is caused by that talent boost the Spurs got post-2010. If the Big 3 just trend down like they had been and fade off as they retire, I don't think people talk about Duncan's late career years nearly so highly.
- In 5 championship runs, was a negative net on/off guy in 3 of them and barely positive in a 4th (2007). For an impact giant, this is very strange. And in all 3 of the negatives, he had a teammate with equivalent or better box numbers. In other words, painting him as the best playoff player on most, much less all, of his title teams is a shaky claim.

AEnigma wrote:

Dutchball97 wrote:- Great player who got drafted into a perfect system that allowed him to stay relevant well after his individual performance started declining. Pretty much the same arguments you see against Russell and Jordan where their succes is attributed to everyone around them instead of themselves because they didn't "prove themselves outside the one system they had success with". Probably most common among LeBron fans hyping up "getting it done in different environments".

Yeah the guy who beat him twice gets disrespected by his fans all the time.

Btw Russell and Duncan both won titles with completely different rosters (same head coach for Duncan though), so sick false equivalence on top of your strawman.

AdagioPace wrote:

f4p wrote:The higher take seems obvious

- Won a ton
- For a long, long time
- Super easy to build around and low maintenance
- Very good playoff numbers
- All-time defensive team results for basically his whole career

The lower take
- Joined the core of a 59 win team as a 4-year college rookie, one of the best starting situations you could hope for.
- Team then drafted a future hall of fame SG (and top 40 in this project) with the 57th (!!) pick in the draft and a future hall of fame PG with the 29th pick, basically pulling off a perfect rebuild with no assets.
- When that team started faltering by 2008/9, they added a ton of talent with relatively little cap space or draft capital, and then, for the 3rd time in Duncan's career, acquired a future hall of famer with a non-lottery pick, trading for Kawhi with an 18th pick. Basically another rebuilding on the fly.
- By the time he retired, the Spurs closing lineup in 2016 was an all-hall of fame lineup (aldridge is 50/50), with two of them in their prime.
- Tim Duncan was known for winning and defense. The year after he retired, the Spurs won 61 games and had the #1 defense in the league, went to the conference finals, and were giving arguably the greatest team of all time the business until Kawhi got hurt.
- In other words, his career was bookended with a 59 win team and 61 win/#1 defense team. teams that would be up there as the best team in some franchise's last 30 years. And those were the teams without Duncan! While that doesn't explain the longevity of Duncan's individual play, it does explain the longevity of the team results.

- Largely fell off as a dominant post offensive force after his dominant 2003 season.
- Duncan's average series loss in the playoffs is as an SRS favorite
- Lost 8 series as an SRS favorite, which is a fairly incredible number, including 3 as the #1 overall SRS team and 2 more as the #2 SRS team without facing the #1 team. Won 4 of his 5 titles as the #1 overall SRS team and won the 5th as #3 while not playing #1 and playing #2 injured.
- Team was only 4-7 vs +6 SRS opponents, indicating the Spurs mostly hung around (for 20 years, admittedly) as a really good team and took advantage of the years there were no really dominant teams.
- He was a quiet leader, who was given one of the great "loud" leaders in history in Pop, who basically was the drill sergeant who kept everything on track, leaving Duncan to only have to not be an a-hole to make things work. Leading by example only goes so far. Not having to be the day-in, day-out vocal leader is a burden off of anyone, especially someone who may not have been up for it.
- A lot of his longevity advantage is caused by that talent boost the Spurs got post-2010. If the Big 3 just trend down like they had been and fade off as they retire, I don't think people talk about Duncan's late career years nearly so highly.
- In 5 championship runs, was a negative net on/off guy in 3 of them and barely positive in a 4th (2007). For an impact giant, this is very strange. And in all 3 of the negatives, he had a teammate with equivalent or better box numbers. In other words, painting him as the best playoff player on most, much less all, of his title teams is a shaky claim.

you know this is not the top 100 project right?

I like how you casually and almost begrudgingly listed a few positives and then went nuclear with your idea of negatives.

Also, 2005,2007,2014 and 1999 title teams were between 7-8 SRS, which is on line with several title teams, so your comment about "hanging around" and exploiting weaknesses is not very convincing.

Moreover, PS performances and resilience is only to a certain point dependent on RS SRS. I don't think being as good as '96 Bulls or '17 Warriors is obligatory for a championship.
your attempt to make look TD like a slighlty more polished Alonzo Mourning is funny.

Dutchball97 wrote:

AEnigma wrote:

Dutchball97 wrote:- Great player who got drafted into a perfect system that allowed him to stay relevant well after his individual performance started declining. Pretty much the same arguments you see against Russell and Jordan where their succes is attributed to everyone around them instead of themselves because they didn't "prove themselves outside the one system they had success with". Probably most common among LeBron fans hyping up "getting it done in different environments".

Yeah the guy who beat him twice gets disrespected by his fans all the time.

Btw Russell and Duncan both won titles with completely different rosters (same head coach for Duncan though), so sick false equivalence on top of your strawman.

Funny thing is I already knew you were going to reply to this because it included a little jab at LeBron and mentions Jordan in a positive light alongside Russell and Duncan. Never change lil bro.