Highest reasonable ranking for Tim Duncan?

[TripleDub]

Good points but I think you forgot to include Lebron James in the group he does not have a realistic argument over. Lebron is worthy of being in that group. So the highest I can rank Duncan at without expecting any objection to placing him there is #6. Or 5th if you are low on Magic Johnson. If Tim Duncan has an argument for #1, then arguments for #1 could be made for Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille Oneale, Kevin Garnett or whoever else the Board deems worthy of being in the Top 10-12. I feel the difference between these #6 to #12 is so close that you can toss up the salad bowl and come up with an acceptable order.

I think Lebron has a clear advantage over Tim Duncan as an individually dominant player. But one could argue that Tim Duncan helped facilitate winning better than Lebron and place him higher based on that alone. I don't subscribe to that but perhaps one could make that argument.

The reason you cant put Tim Duncan over MJ, Russell, Kareem, or Magic is because they not only matched or exceeded Tim Duncan in terms of facilitating winning but they also were more individually dominant and successful as individuals. I personally have Lebron firmly ahead of Tim Duncan but was trying to consider arguments for his highest posdible ranking. And I agree that if were putting Tim Duncan number 1 then you could also put almost anyone in the top 10-12 as #1.

Tim Duncan has a better regular season record than Magic Johnson and a comparable playoff record (a better one if we only include prime years).

Tim Duncan won just as many times as Magic Johnson did. Tim Duncan was the best player on more championship teams than Magic was for his.

So Magic did not win more.


Magic has won more MVP than Tim Duncan but they have the same number of Finals MVPS.

Tim Duncan has more All-star and way more All-NBA selections (Duncan has as many 1st selections than Magic has all-nba in general and did it during a golden era of forwards).

Despite Duncan being snubbed for defensive player of the year he has 15 all-defense selections. Magic Johnson has zero.

So Magic was not more successful as an individual. Unless we are saying all-defense is not an accolade it's not even close.

Those are good points to consider.

Again it's obvious you're affected by media perception. Magic Johnson was the face of the league while Tim Duncan was not. Magic Johnson objectively has less accolades and objectively won less (or the same if you just want to go by ring count).

You don't have to be so contentious. You made your points and they were good points. No need to follow that up with personal attacks.

[LukaTheGOAT]

I think the highest you can consistently rank him would be #5. I don't see a realistic argument to put him above Russell, Kareem, MJ, or Magic. I don't understand the arguments putting him #1. If you can argue Tim Duncan as the actual GOAT then I think you can argue anyone in the top 10 as #1. It's #5 for me.

He has much more longevity than Magic, and has a reasonable argument having peaked higher. I think that would be the case for him>Magic.

[ceoofkobefans]

Good points but I think you forgot to include Lebron James in the group he does not have a realistic argument over. Lebron is worthy of being in that group. So the highest I can rank Duncan at without expecting any objection to placing him there is #6. Or 5th if you are low on Magic Johnson. If Tim Duncan has an argument for #1, then arguments for #1 could be made for Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird, Hakeem Olajuwon, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille Oneale, Kevin Garnett or whoever else the Board deems worthy of being in the Top 10-12. I feel the difference between these #6 to #12 is so close that you can toss up the salad bowl and come up with an acceptable order.

I think Lebron has a clear advantage over Tim Duncan as an individually dominant player. But one could argue that Tim Duncan helped facilitate winning better than Lebron and place him higher based on that alone. I don't subscribe to that but perhaps one could make that argument.

The reason you cant put Tim Duncan over MJ, Russell, Kareem, or Magic is because they not only matched or exceeded Tim Duncan in terms of facilitating winning but they also were more individually dominant and successful as individuals. I personally have Lebron firmly ahead of Tim Duncan but was trying to consider arguments for his highest posdible ranking. And I agree that if were putting Tim Duncan number 1 then you could also put almost anyone in the top 10-12 as #1.

Tim Duncan has a better regular season record than Magic Johnson and a comparable playoff record (a better one if we only include prime years).

Tim Duncan won just as many times as Magic Johnson did. Tim Duncan was the best player on more championship teams than Magic was for his.

So Magic did not win more.


Magic has won one more MVP than Tim Duncan but they have the same number of Finals MVPS.

Tim Duncan has more All-star and way more All-NBA selections (Duncan has as many 1st selections than Magic has all-nba in general and did it during a golden era of forwards).

Despite Duncan being snubbed for defensive player of the year he has 15 all-defense selections. Magic Johnson has zero.

So Magic was not more successful as an individual. Unless we are saying all-defense is not an accolade it's not even close.



Again it's obvious you're affected by media perception. Magic Johnson was the face of the league while Tim Duncan was not. Magic Johnson objectively has less accolades and objectively won less (or the same if you just want to go by ring count).

Duncan actually has more finals MVPs than Magic (3 to 2) Magic Johnson did not win the 1980 FMVP it was given to him because Kareem was not in attendance while he was tending to his ankle injury from game 5 but Kareem won it.

[HeartBreakKid]

I think Lebron has a clear advantage over Tim Duncan as an individually dominant player. But one could argue that Tim Duncan helped facilitate winning better than Lebron and place him higher based on that alone. I don't subscribe to that but perhaps one could make that argument.

The reason you cant put Tim Duncan over MJ, Russell, Kareem, or Magic is because they not only matched or exceeded Tim Duncan in terms of facilitating winning but they also were more individually dominant and successful as individuals. I personally have Lebron firmly ahead of Tim Duncan but was trying to consider arguments for his highest posdible ranking. And I agree that if were putting Tim Duncan number 1 then you could also put almost anyone in the top 10-12 as #1.

Tim Duncan has a better regular season record than Magic Johnson and a comparable playoff record (a better one if we only include prime years).

Tim Duncan won just as many times as Magic Johnson did. Tim Duncan was the best player on more championship teams than Magic was for his.

So Magic did not win more.


Magic has won one more MVP than Tim Duncan but they have the same number of Finals MVPS.

Tim Duncan has more All-star and way more All-NBA selections (Duncan has as many 1st selections than Magic has all-nba in general and did it during a golden era of forwards).

Despite Duncan being snubbed for defensive player of the year he has 15 all-defense selections. Magic Johnson has zero.

So Magic was not more successful as an individual. Unless we are saying all-defense is not an accolade it's not even close.



Again it's obvious you're affected by media perception. Magic Johnson was the face of the league while Tim Duncan was not. Magic Johnson objectively has less accolades and objectively won less (or the same if you just want to go by ring count).

Duncan actually has more finals MVPs than Magic (3 to 2) Magic Johnson did not win the 1980 FMVP it was given to him because Kareem was not in attendance while he was tending to his ankle injury from game 5 but Kareem won it.

Yup, that is true.

[Dutchball97]

Doesn't anybody else think reasonable and unreasonable are too loaded to ask this kind of question with? You could make an argument for Duncan as GOAT or you could put him outside the top 10 and I wouldn't think either person is being "unreasonable". Everyone has different criteria and different perspectives but these threads become kind of useless if you can't say in what range you could see a player and immediately accept it without being surprised at how high or low said player is.

My personal range for Duncan is 5-7, anything above or below I understand there are arguments that could reasonably get you there but not with the criteria I value.

[f4p]

seems really hard to get him above 4 (and i have him at 8th), and only with big penalties on russell for not having an offensive game (penalties i'm not necessarily against). unless we think kareem knew how to win in his 2nd season in the league and then just forgot for the rest of the 70's, it seems reasonable to think that 2nd year kareem winning a title was more dominant than 2nd year duncan winning a title and then there's not much reason to think that changes much going forward, other than one guy had a great organization and one guy didn't. kareem racked up titles with a great franchise just like duncan did, with duncan arguably (inarguably?) playing for more contenders than anyone in history and yet not coming up with the most championships in history.

[OhayoKD]

seems really hard to get him above 4 (and i have him at 8th), and only with big penalties on russell for not having an offensive game (penalties i'm not necessarily against). unless we think kareem knew how to win in his 2nd season in the league and then just forgot for the rest of the 70's, it seems reasonable to think that 2nd year kareem winning a title was more dominant than 2nd year duncan winning a title and then there's not much reason to think that changes much going forward, other than one guy had a great organization and one guy didn't.

I don't think people placing Duncan over Kareem and Russell are being strict era-relativists.

Kareem racked up titles with a great franchise just like duncan did, with duncan arguably (inarguably?) playing for more contenders than anyone in history and yet not coming up with the most championships in history.

You do realize this only works as a critique if you demonstrate Duncan had more help than whoever you're comparing him to?

[f4p]

seems really hard to get him above 4 (and i have him at 8th), and only with big penalties on russell for not having an offensive game (penalties i'm not necessarily against). unless we think kareem knew how to win in his 2nd season in the league and then just forgot for the rest of the 70's, it seems reasonable to think that 2nd year kareem winning a title was more dominant than 2nd year duncan winning a title and then there's not much reason to think that changes much going forward, other than one guy had a great organization and one guy didn't.

I don't think people placing Duncan over Kareem and Russell are being strict era-relativists.

Kareem racked up titles with a great franchise just like duncan did, with duncan arguably (inarguably?) playing for more contenders than anyone in history and yet not coming up with the most championships in history.

You do realize this only works as a critique if you demonstrate Duncan had more help than whoever you're comparing him to?

Correct. duncan played for a GOAT organization and a GOAT coach and had hall of fame teammates all along the way, though obviously they were at different stages of their careers at various points.

his organization drafted a future HOF PG with the 28th pick.
his organization drafted an even better future HOF SG with the 57th pick.
they used another non-lottery pick (18th?) to trade for an even better future HOF SF.

has anyone picked up 3 hall of fame teammates with assets that are basically free?

he basically pulled a brady with belichick by showing up at the exact same time as a legendary coach and then got to play for him for 2 decades. pop is why the 7th man on the team was scared to miss a defensive rotation in the 2nd quarter in a game in the middle of january. and he's why it was the correct rotation to begin with. that's how you churn out smart, disciplined teams, that pretty much everyone acknowledges as smart, disciplined teams, for 19 straight years.

all in all, it results in:

he was drafted to a 59 win team with a HOFer and elite defender that had recently added a GOAT coach, one of the best starts to a career you could ever hope for. right up there with russell's early celtics, bird getting mchale and parish right away, and magic getting to play with Kareem and then worthy.

when that team was about to age out, his team used the 28th and 57th picks to pick up hall of famers who could play with him through his prime at the same age (ginobili) and pick up the back end of his prime by being younger (parker). perimeter players to complement his inside play. can't ask for much better help to play out your prime with. maybe not quite the loaded teams of the 80's celtics and lakers and maybe on par with russell's later celtics. but stability to an extraordinary degree.

then where he separates himself. when there is talk of "is the spurs dynasty over?" after the 2008-2010 period, his team quickly adds guys like danny green, boris diaw, tiago splitter and patty mills and then gets kawhi leonard. they suddenly go from an aging HOF trio to a super deep and talented team around their aging HOF trio. duncan plays fewer minutes, his team still wins, he's not asked to stretch himself offensively though he's clearly declined on that end. by the time he retires, kawhi is in his prime, and they've signed ANOTHER future HOFer in his prime in lamarcus aldridge (not really a HOFer if this were baseball, but bbref says he's better odds than not to make it into the HOF). he plays 60 games and 25 mpg and his team wins 67 games with a +11 net rating. they win 61 games and lead the league in defense the year after he retires! and were giving possibly the greatest team ever all they wanted in the WCF until kawhi got hurt.

came in on a 59 win team, left on a 61 win team, GOAT coaching and HOF teammates all the way through.

that last stretch is what gives him the edge. magic and bird are 13 season careers, probably all contenders for magic except '96 and basically all contenders for bird for 9 years. russell got contenders forever but only played 13 seasons. now that doesn't necessarily mean every contender is created equal. the 80s lakers certainly seem loaded compared to say the 2004 spurs, but the spurs weren't exactly weak contenders most years. if we don't count 2000 for duncan's injury and are nice and don't count '09 and '10, even though he had parker and ginobili and that's pretty damn good and hard to not consider as a contender, then that would be 16 contenders i would think. kareem can't match that, lebron can't match that.

[OhayoKD]

Kareem racked up titles with a great franchise just like duncan did, with duncan arguably (inarguably?) playing for more contenders than anyone in history and yet not coming up with the most championships in history.

You do realize this only works as a critique if you demonstrate Duncan had more help than whoever you're comparing him to?

Correct. duncan played for a GOAT organization and a GOAT coach and had hall of fame teammates all along the way, though obviously they were at different stages of their careers at various points.

[/quote]
The GOAT coach who didn't pick up 5 rings after he retired and didn't see his team skyrocket within the span of a season simply on the implementation of a scheme? Very interesting Russell is the member of the top 4 you think is vulnerable here. Your list of quibbles with Duncan probably applies more strongly to another guy who also only ended up winning half as much.

his organization drafted a future HOF PG with the 28th pick.
his organization drafted an even better future HOF SG with the 57th pick.
they used another non-lottery pick (18th?) to trade for an even better future HOF SF.

What a creative way to say the Spurs drafted 3 good players for Duncan to play with. 3 good players who were barely even factors for Duncan's first two titles. Again, there's a guy this line of attack applies much more strongly to, and you have him at the very top.

has anyone picked up 3 hall of fame teammates with assets that are basically free?

Ah yes, lucky Duncan, picking up manu while his competition picked up Kobe. A prime with Pippen, several years with Magic? Gunning against McHale and Stockton? Just ain't fair.

he basically pulled a brady with belichick by showing up at the exact same time as a legendary coach and then got to play for him for 2 decades. pop is why the 7th man on the team was scared to miss a defensive rotation in the 2nd quarter in a game in the middle of january. and he's why it was the correct rotation to begin with. that's how you churn out smart, disciplined teams, that pretty much everyone acknowledges as smart, disciplined teams, for 19 straight years.

Pop would tell you he was able to do all that because Duncan was one of those rare superstars who didn't let being told what to do hurt his ego. And we have pretty clear evidence that doesn't apply to at least one member of your big four. Of course that wasn't the guy you decided to highlight as vulnerable...it was Bill, who literally coached two championship winners while playing.

he was drafted to a 59 win team with a HOFer and elite defender that had recently added a GOAT coach, one of the best starts to a career you could ever hope for. right up there with russell's early celtics, bird getting mchale and parish right away, and magic getting to play with Kareem and then worthy.

I guess you forgot the bit where that the HOFer suffered a season-ending injury and was never the same again? Or that the "GOAT COACH" was literally on the verge of getting fired after he brillantly inspired the robinson-less spurs to 20 wins?

1998 D-Rob scored alot less(on the same efficiency), saw his turnover% spike(on the same ast%) while playing significantly less minutes than his 1996 iteration. 1999 D-rob had more turnovers than assists, saw his efficiency and volume drop a second time while playing even less. And off course lucky Duncan couldn't overcome his co-star slipping steadily from superstardom. Except...

The Spurs...got better, winning 60 games and then going 15-2. IOW, 2nd year Duncan got to play with something resembling a co-star and responded by pulling a 1991. Truly fraudulent.

when that team was about to age out

No, the team was already aging out when Duncan had them run the league roughshod. Then, when this over-the-hill hall-of-famer was well and truly a corpse, Duncan went and won 62 games and title #2. The following two seasons as he battled through injuries, the Spurs saw improvement with him on the floor that matches a rather optimistic appraisal of the guy you have at #1.

maybe not quite the loaded teams of the 80's celtics and lakers and maybe on par with russell's later celtics. but stability to an extraordinary degree.

I think you're forgetting a far stabler and significantly more "loaded" team from the 90's. Especially when you're bringing up the super unfair 35-win Celtics.

when there is talk of "is the spurs dynasty over?" after the 2008-2010 period, his team quickly adds guys like danny green, boris diaw, tiago splitter and patty mills and then gets kawhi leonard. they suddenly go from an aging HOF trio to a super deep and talented team around their aging HOF trio. duncan plays fewer minutes, his team still wins, he's not asked to stretch himself offensively though he's clearly declined on that end. by the time he retires, kawhi is in his prime, and they've signed ANOTHER future HOFer in his prime in lamarcus aldridge (not really a HOFer if this were baseball, but bbref says he's better odds than not to make it into the HOF). he plays 60 games and 25 mpg and his team wins 67 games with a +11 net rating. they win 61 games and lead the league in defense the year after he retires! and were giving possibly the greatest team ever all they wanted in the WCF until kawhi got hurt.

Because 21 ppg+ DPOY winner Kawhi and 12 ppg Kawhi were absolutely the same player. Just like Duncan got to play with Peak D-rob when he clapped the league in year 2. You understand that throwing "hall-of-fame" on top of a guy does not magically make them better than they actually were at the time Tim Duncan played with them?

Duncan got great help well, well past his peak and capitalized. Duncan got very limited help at his apex...and found a way anyway. That "always contending" tag lasted through a variety of casts, teammates and eras with exactly one player consistently at the center. He won about as much as anyone not named Russell and by raw winning has no peer in the modern NBA. Your assumption that was a reflection of unprecedentedly stable help falls to pieces the second we apply scrutiny.

russell got contenders forever but only played 13 seasons.

Correction, Russell led contenders forever(well champions actually), your assumption all of those teams would have contended without him is uh...completely unfounded. I'm noticing a pattern here.

now that doesn't necessarily mean every contender is created equal. the 80s lakers certainly seem loaded compared to say the 2004 spurs, but the spurs weren't exactly weak contenders most years. if we don't count 2000 for duncan's injury and are nice and don't count '09 and '10, even though he had parker and ginobili and that's pretty damn good and hard to not consider as a contender, then that would be 16 contenders i would think. kareem can't match that, lebron can't match that.

Duncan led 16 contenders. And thus far you've done a quite terrible job arguing this is because his deck was unfairly stacked.

[Joao Saraiva]

I don't see him #1. You value longevity... does he have a case over KAJ ou LeBron?

You value the recent era... can he be over LeBron?

His peak isn't high enough to compete with MJ, Bron, Hakeem or Shaq in my view.

You value records? Wilt Chamberlain, MJ, LeBron...

Accodales he has no case over MJ.

You value defense very high and longevity? I still think he can't be over Russell. Same for team success.

I can see him as high as #2 but I don't believe he can have a case for #1.

I personally don't rank him as high, but I can see it.

[OhayoKD]

I don't see him #1. You value longevity... does he have a case over KAJ ou LeBron?

You value the recent era... can he be over LeBron?

His peak isn't high enough to compete with MJ, Bron, Hakeem or Shaq in my view.

What are you using to determine his peak isn't on that level?

If you take the "isolate for winning" approach Lebron is the only one really gaining significant separation and Duncan's arguably has the second best profile. Box-stuff Duncan still does better than Hakeem(comes #1 in the box/impact hybrid of AUPM) and is competitive with Shaq. 2003 is a 62 win rs followed by a historically rare one-star title win where he won a bunch with limited help and then upped his creation and scoring int he postseason.

[trex_8063]

he basically pulled a brady with belichick by showing up at the exact same time as a legendary coach and then got to play for him for 2 decades. pop is why the 7th man on the team was scared to miss a defensive rotation in the 2nd quarter in a game in the middle of january. and he's why it was the correct rotation to begin with. that's how you churn out smart, disciplined teams, that pretty much everyone acknowledges as smart, disciplined teams, for 19 straight years.

Pop would tell you he was able to do all that because Duncan was one of those rare superstars who didn't let being told what to do hurt his ego. And we have pretty clear evidence that doesn't apply to at least one member of your big four. Of course that wasn't the guy you decided to highlight as vulnerable...it was Bill, who literally coached two championship winners while playing.

I'll again refer people to my vote post from the last Top 100 project (it's post #7 in that link); particularly the sections titled "The Pop Factor", "Tim's Leadership", and "Leadership Beyond the Locker-room/Practice/Media Persona".

Almost three years old, but still relevant given the same arguments continue to arise.

[f4p]

not sure why you brought up jordan so much, this was a post about duncan. also not sure why the antagonistic tone, as i didn't even address you and simply threw an opinion out into the ether. only here does thinking jordan was good get brought into every conversation. i brought up russell for 4th place because that's where i have him. i believe it was none other than you in a recent thread that said "I do think the offensive stuff may be fairly debilitating for future translation" so i'm not sure why my low opinion of russell's offense is so uhh...offensive.

Correct. duncan played for a GOAT organization and a GOAT coach and had hall of fame teammates all along the way, though obviously they were at different stages of their careers at various points.

The GOAT coach who didn't pick up 5 rings after he retired and didn't see his team skyrocket within the span of a season simply on the implementation of a scheme? Very interesting Russell is the member of the top 4 you think is vulnerable here. Your list of quibbles with Duncan probably applies more strongly to another guy who also only ended up winning half as much.

i never said jordan didn't have a good situation. but it started in like year 7, not year 1, and he basically batted 1.000 after that. also, i said "a GOAT", as in one of the GOAT's, not "the" GOAT. are we really arguing pop wasn't one of the greatest ever?

his organization drafted a future HOF PG with the 28th pick.
his organization drafted an even better future HOF SG with the 57th pick.
they used another non-lottery pick (18th?) to trade for an even better future HOF SF.

What a creative way to say the Spurs drafted 3 good players for Duncan to play with. 3 good players who were barely even factors for Duncan's first two titles. Again, there's a guy this line of attack applies much more strongly to, and you have him at the very top.

it was a creative way to point out how a team can overhaul itself with no rebuilding, thus why most people don't play on 19 straight contenders because teams ebb and flow as guys age, their contracts get expensive, and you have to eventually reload and retool. simply spawning a few hall of fa...umm, elite guards onto your team right as things were going to get dicey helps you not ever have to retool. because every team has a low 1st and low 2nd (at least) at their disposal at any given moment. but most teams are lucky to turn that into a single rotation player, much less great players. usually you have to make trades and mortgage the future or suffer for a few years while you build up cap space or high picks. the spurs skipped that. all i said was duncan played for the most contenders ever, a fact you did not dispute, and laid out how that came to be.

has anyone picked up 3 hall of fame teammates with assets that are basically free?

Ah yes, lucky Duncan, picking up manu while his competition picked up Kobe. A prime with Pippen, several years with Magic? Gunning against McHale and Stockton? Just ain't fair.

how many playoffs would you say pippen was better than 2005 manu? hell, how many was kobe? and of course, it's not that manu was the greatest, but per minute he was pretty damn amazing, and i'm pretty sure he was an impact beast so i'm not sure why you're downplaying him. throw on a tony parker, some good 3&D guys and a mid-2000's nba where the 2004 pistons and janky-looking 2006 heat could pick up titles and i'm not sure sure why i'm supposed to think the spurs weren't supposed to win a lot. hell, robert horry arguably saved the 2005 title with his crazy 4th/OT performance in game 5.

he basically pulled a brady with belichick by showing up at the exact same time as a legendary coach and then got to play for him for 2 decades. pop is why the 7th man on the team was scared to miss a defensive rotation in the 2nd quarter in a game in the middle of january. and he's why it was the correct rotation to begin with. that's how you churn out smart, disciplined teams, that pretty much everyone acknowledges as smart, disciplined teams, for 19 straight years.

Pop would tell you he was able to do all that because Duncan was one of those rare superstars who didn't let being told what to do hurt his ego. And we have pretty clear evidence that doesn't apply to at least one member of your big four. Of course that wasn't the guy you decided to highlight as vulnerable...it was Bill, who literally coached two championship winners while playing.

and there it is. the popovich was only good because of duncan argument. the tim duncan version of the ridiculous "pippen was only good because jordan made him good" argument. where the player isn't lucky to be in a great situation, but somehow created it out of sheer will.

pop is full of you know what, and he knows it. that's stuff you say in interviews to not put the attention on yourself. russell played for Red for a long time, no problem. magic played for a decade or so for pat riley. jordan and kobe managed to be wrangled by phil. i'm sure hakeem would have played with rudy forever if they hadn't met so far into his career. steph is still with steve. great players with great coaches who are winning tend to be long-lasting combos. drill sergeant popovich wasn't going to take crap from anybody. in fact, i would argue a hardass who got on everybody is exactly what a quiet guy like duncan needed. show up to work, play basketball, let pop get on everybody's ass.

duncan wasn't a kobe or jordan who, for better or worse, were going to run things. he needed pop to drop the hammer. like am i supposed to believe manu, one of the most selfless and toughest competitors i've ever seen, was going to be a wild child who wouldn't listen to the coach unless duncan did? was patty mills going to tear the team apart? malik rose? part of the spurs being such a good organization was they brought in guys who were "over themselves" as pop once put it. and if you weren't, pop made you get over yourself. it feels like no one is lower on pop than people trying to rate duncan highly.

it's not like i'm alone in praising pop. the whole world has praised the spurs for how organized and disciplined and tough they were, joked about them being "the borg", all of that is pop.

he was drafted to a 59 win team with a HOFer and elite defender that had recently added a GOAT coach, one of the best starts to a career you could ever hope for. right up there with russell's early celtics, bird getting mchale and parish right away, and magic getting to play with Kareem and then worthy.

I guess you forgot the bit where that the HOFer suffered a season-ending injury and was never the same again? Or that the "GOAT COACH" was literally on the verge of getting fired after he brillantly inspired the robinson-less spurs to 20 wins?

come on, we're going to pretend the spurs record mattered when they were literally tanking?

1998 D-Rob scored alot less(on the same efficiency), saw his turnover% spike(on the same ast%) while playing significantly less minutes than his 1996 iteration. 1999 D-rob had more turnovers than assists, saw his efficiency and volume drop a second time while playing even less. And off course lucky Duncan couldn't overcome his co-star slipping steadily from superstardom. Except...

these sound suspiciously like box score numbers. didn't 1998-2001 david robinson post the greatest APM or AuPM in playoff history according to his peak video from ben taylor? theoretically, he was the best player in the game by that measure, the same thing that tends to make duncan look so good. even just with the box score, my main man drob led the league in WS48 3 times in duncan's first 4 seasons and added a BPM win for good measure. does that sound like some "meh" player or does that sound like a guy still bringing the goods? box score wise, he handily beat duncan in the 1999 regular season and it was pretty even in the playoffs, though duncan wins overall for playing significantly more minutes. how much better does duncan's help need to be early in his career when most #1 picks are playing with garbage. and again, this goes back to my point. gets drob early, manu/parker middle, loaded as hell team at the end.

The Spurs...got better, winning 60 games and then going 15-2. IOW, 2nd year Duncan got to play with something resembling a co-star and responded by pulling a 1991. Truly fraudulent.

the guy who finished 3rd in PER, 1st in WS48, and 4th in BPM resembled a co-star? remember, you've informed me many times that these number vastly underrate defensive big men, and i think we would agree DRob is a great defensive big man, so he must be pretty incredible overall.

and in the playoffs, duncan's net on/off was actually negative at -3.6. the spurs were better with him off the court. robinson's net on/off was an unbelievable +35.0 with a +20.3 on net rating. if anything, it sounds like the conventional thought that duncan carried robinson isn't so straightforward. robinson was crazy valuable to this team.

when that team was about to age out

No, the team was already aging out when Duncan had them run the league roughshod. Then, when this over-the-hill hall-of-famer was well and truly a corpse, Duncan went and won 62 games and title #2. The following two seasons as he battled through injuries, the Spurs saw improvement with him on the floor that matches a rather optimistic appraisal of the guy you have at #1.

i've never disputed 2003 duncan. robinson was great defensive but nothing on offense, manu and parker weren't anything yet other than nice sparks. bower is underrated though.

maybe not quite the loaded teams of the 80's celtics and lakers and maybe on par with russell's later celtics. but stability to an extraordinary degree.

I think you're forgetting a far stabler and significantly more "loaded" team from the 90's. Especially when you're bringing up the super unfair 35-win Celtics.

how exactly are the bulls so much stabler? main teammate and coach were the same, whole rest of team changed. is that way more stable than coach and main 2 teammates for duncan? also, when did i say unfair celtics? i said they WERE NOT as loaded as the 80's celtics and lakers, just like the spurs were not either. and the russell celtics were clearly not a 35 win team for all of russell's later career.

when there is talk of "is the spurs dynasty over?" after the 2008-2010 period, his team quickly adds guys like danny green, boris diaw, tiago splitter and patty mills and then gets kawhi leonard. they suddenly go from an aging HOF trio to a super deep and talented team around their aging HOF trio. duncan plays fewer minutes, his team still wins, he's not asked to stretch himself offensively though he's clearly declined on that end. by the time he retires, kawhi is in his prime, and they've signed ANOTHER future HOFer in his prime in lamarcus aldridge (not really a HOFer if this were baseball, but bbref says he's better odds than not to make it into the HOF). he plays 60 games and 25 mpg and his team wins 67 games with a +11 net rating. they win 61 games and lead the league in defense the year after he retires! and were giving possibly the greatest team ever all they wanted in the WCF until kawhi got hurt.

Because 21 ppg+ DPOY winner Kawhi and 12 ppg Kawhi were absolutely the same player. Just like Duncan got to play with Peak D-rob when he clapped the league in year 2. You understand that throwing "hall-of-fame" on top of a guy does not magically make them better than they actually were at the time Tim Duncan played with them?

Duncan got great help well, well past his peak and capitalized. Duncan got very limited help at his apex...and found a way anyway. That "always contending" tag lasted through a variety of casts, teammates and eras with exactly one player consistently at the center. He won about as much as anyone not named Russell and by raw winning has no peer in the modern NBA. Your assumption that was a reflection of unprecedentedly stable help falls to pieces the second we apply scrutiny.

pretty damn close to peak DRob by the impact numbers. also, i don't know where i said 12 ppg and 21 ppg kawhi were the same. i said they added kawhi for the close of duncan's career and he grew into his prime. i don't see how an amazing coach and 2 amazing guards, one of whom looks even better by impact numbers, is limited help. who were the more stacked teams? the 2005 suns? you guys don't like amare so can't be them. the 2006 heat with post prime shaq? the pistons led by chauncey billups? kobe and garnett were on crap teams. so was lebron. dirk had a good team, and well, he beat the spurs. the warriors saved the 2007 spurs from meeting dallas. you can't knock jordan for having a good team relative to the league when he constantly won with that good team, then act like duncan is amazing for winning with a very good team in a league with no superteams.

russell got contenders forever but only played 13 seasons.

Correction, Russell led contenders forever(well champions actually), your assumption all of those teams would have contended without him is uh...completely unfounded. I'm noticing a pattern here.

don't get pedantic. you know i didn't say they were contenders WITHOUT russell. is the argument really that russell could make a contender of anybody? that would speak poorly of the 60's. because i've seen KG miss the playoffs 3 straight year and then win 66 games and a title the next year. seen hakeem miss the playoffs and then 3 years later hold 2 championship trophies. seen steph make the finals 6 times and miss the playoffs 5 times. teammates matter. a lot. having an organization constantly give you teammates that you can turn into a contender is a blessing. some guys get lucky, some guys don't. i don't know why we have to pretend the lucky ones somehow made it happen themselves.

now that doesn't necessarily mean every contender is created equal. the 80s lakers certainly seem loaded compared to say the 2004 spurs, but the spurs weren't exactly weak contenders most years. if we don't count 2000 for duncan's injury and are nice and don't count '09 and '10, even though he had parker and ginobili and that's pretty damn good and hard to not consider as a contender, then that would be 16 contenders i would think. kareem can't match that, lebron can't match that.

Duncan led 16 contenders. And thus far you've done a quite terrible job arguing this is because his deck was unfairly stacked.

yes, all the players we talk about "led" contenders. no one said it was unfairly stacked. i said he played for the most contenders. that doesn't mean 16 straight 72-10 bulls type teams. it just means he basically never had a year he couldn't think about contending. if we're going to praise duncan for longevity, we must praise the spurs/pop for the longevity of never having a slip in terms of team construction. somehow constantly reloading without ever rebuilding. some guys played just as high a percentage of their years on contenders, but duncan got it for all 19 years. maybe the lakers could have done it with magic or celtics with russell, the other contenders for pretty much pretty much always being contenders, but we didn't see it happen.

[LukaTheGOAT]

This question kind of depends on what you think reasonable is I suppose. Lime does Shaq have a "reasonable case," to be #1? I think overall Duncan and Shaq's range is similar.

[OhayoKD]

not sure why you brought up jordan so much, this was a post about duncan. also not sure why the antagonistic tone, as i didn't even address you and simply threw an opinion out into the ether. only here does thinking jordan was good get brought into every conversation. i brought up russell for 4th place because that's where i have him. i believe it was none other than you in a recent thread that said "I do think the offensive stuff may be fairly debilitating for future translation" so i'm not sure why my low opinion of russell's offense is so uhh...offensive.

Because MJ is your #1 and one of the 4 players you can't see Duncan above. So when you list a bunch of stuff that applies harder to Jordan, referencing MJ makes sense. It also helps that we just had a whole big drama because people voted duncan over mj while others stated they were considering duncan over jordan. In fact I suspect that drama was what started this thread...

As for Russell, you've specifically made a bunch of era-relative claims(including a couple in this post), so I'm not seeing the relevant of my time-machine stances(especially when it's Duncan, not Russell, Kareem, or Jordan who stand to benefit).

The GOAT coach who didn't pick up 5 rings after he retired and didn't see his team skyrocket within the span of a season simply on the implementation of a scheme? Very interesting Russell is the member of the top 4 you think is vulnerable here. Your list of quibbles with Duncan probably applies more strongly to another guy who also only ended up winning half as much.

i never said jordan didn't have a good situation. but it started in like year 7, not year 1, and he basically batted 1.000 after that. also, i said "a GOAT", as in one of the GOAT's, not "the" GOAT. are we really arguing pop wasn't one of the greatest ever?

We are arguing that Duncan did not have an unfair advantage with Popovich relative to most all-time greats including the guy whose even better coaching situation(again, schematic shift -> team gets exponentially better over the course of a season) has not prohibited him from a literal #1 rating.

Duncan also didn't always have a "good"(what an understatement)situation. The difference is Duncan found a way to win when the deck wasn't stacked(and it was never that stacked in his prime). And when he wasn't winning, he was always, as you say, "contending".

his organization drafted a future HOF PG with the 28th pick.
his organization drafted an even better future HOF SG with the 57th pick.
they used another non-lottery pick (18th?) to trade for an even better future HOF SF.

What a creative way to say the Spurs drafted 3 good players for Duncan to play with. 3 good players who were barely even factors for Duncan's first two titles. Again, there's a guy this line of attack applies much more strongly to, and you have him at the very top.

it was a creative way to point out how a team can overhaul itself with no rebuilding, thus why most people don't play on 19 straight contenders because teams ebb and flow as guys age, their contracts get expensive, and you have to eventually reload and retool. simply spawning a few hall of fa...umm, elite guards onto your team right as things were going to get dicey helps you not ever have to retool. because every team has a low 1st and low 2nd (at least) at their disposal at any given moment. but most teams are lucky to turn that into a single rotation player, much less great players. usually you have to make trades and mortgage the future or suffer for a few years while you build up cap space or high picks. the spurs skipped that. all i said was duncan played for the most contenders ever, a fact you did not dispute, and laid out how that came to be.

The Bulls and Celtics never rebuilt. Lebron mostly skipped the rebuilding phase. The only guy this applies to in any meaningful capacity is Kareem who got to dry his tears with Magic Johnson giving him service. And again, plenty of this is because of Tim Duncan's own choices:

Well, backtrack to 2012, it is documented that Duncan voluntarily took a pay-cut to enable the Spurs to sign Diaw, Green, and Mills to the contracts they were asking for.

But it seems Tim had a hand in that too: he voluntarily took a pay cut in ‘15 (and I think ‘14 as well) to allow the Spurs the cap space to acquire his replacement LaMarcus Aldridge, as well as re-signing Kawhi Leonard.
In essence, he was sacrificing for a team he would not even be part of; just looking out for the future after he was gone.

He supposedly took “team friendly” contracts at other points along the way. And indeed we can see that in his 19 playing years he earned more than $53M less than Shaquille O’Neal did [in 19 years], nearly $90M less than Kobe Bryant did [in 20 years], and $105M less than Kevin Garnett did [in 21 years, also mostly for a small market team].

Wanna guess which guy did the opposite, threatening to leave for a team that came within a game of a championship?

has anyone picked up 3 hall of fame teammates with assets that are basically free?

Ah yes, lucky Duncan, picking up manu while his competition picked up Kobe. A prime with Pippen, several years with Magic? Gunning against McHale and Stockton? Just ain't fair.

how many playoffs would you say pippen was better than 2005 manu? hell, how many was kobe? and of course, it's not that manu was the greatest, but per minute he was pretty damn amazing, and i'm pretty sure he was an impact beast so i'm not sure why you're downplaying him. throw on a tony parker, some good 3&D guys and a mid-2000's nba where the 2004 pistons and janky-looking 2006 heat could pick up titles and i'm not sure sure why i'm supposed to think the spurs weren't supposed to win a lot. hell, robert horry arguably saved the 2005 title with his crazy 4th/OT performance in game 5.

For Pippen? 91, 92 and 94-97 all have cases. Kobe literally turned into Jordan in 01, and 02's pretty easy to take as well. Manu was an impact beast per-minuite. He was never a true superstar. Contrary to how you frame these conversations, I like to apply context to what I'm using and look at the forest as opposed to whatever isolated leaves(cough gamescore dumps cough) suit a specific narrative.

he basically pulled a brady with belichick by showing up at the exact same time as a legendary coach and then got to play for him for 2 decades. pop is why the 7th man on the team was scared to miss a defensive rotation in the 2nd quarter in a game in the middle of january. and he's why it was the correct rotation to begin with. that's how you churn out smart, disciplined teams, that pretty much everyone acknowledges as smart, disciplined teams, for 19 straight years.

Pop would tell you he was able to do all that because Duncan was one of those rare superstars who didn't let being told what to do hurt his ego. And we have pretty clear evidence that doesn't apply to at least one member of your big four. Of course that wasn't the guy you decided to highlight as vulnerable...it was Bill, who literally coached two championship winners while playing.

and there it is. the popovich was only good because of duncan argument. the tim duncan version of the ridiculous "pippen was only good because jordan made him good" argument. where the player isn't lucky to be in a great situation, but somehow created it out of sheer will.

The question is whether Duncan's "great situation" was special relative to other greats we're comparing him to. Since Kevin Garnett is not the comparison, the answer is no.

duncan wasn't a kobe or jordan who, for better or worse, were going to run things.

They were going to run things without ever actually demonstrating they knew how.

“They’re not interested in winning. They just want to sell tickets, which they can do because of me. They won’t make any deals to make us better. And this Kukoc thing. I hate that. They’re spending all their time chasing this guy.”

“I don’t know about trading a 24 year-old guy for a 34 year-old guy.” – Michael questioning the Oakley trade

Jordan flipped his lid over his manager getting him a lotto pick then pushed against getting the role players that would help him pick his rings. Kobe found himself a Shaq and tried to be a hard-ass after derailing a season because he didn't know the definition of "consent". Mikey ran things and Rodman still skipped practice during the finals, his bigs laughed him off, and the machine clicked just fine when his airness took his break. OTOH

But as soon as the 19-year-old came in, Jordan was all over him, “ritually reducing Brown to tears in front of his teammates”. Washington Post called Kwame MJ’s whipping boy, who usually call him by some outrageous names like “Flaming *****ot”

.

“The criminal charges were ultimately dropped and the civil suit settled, the scrutiny was unabated. Kobe also infuriated Shaq by intimating in interviews with Eagle Colorado detectives that O'Neal paid off woman quote, not to say anything about his encounters with them.”

Being a talented player who does the work is not difficult to work with. It doesn't require a specific disposition. It simply requires competence. Toxic machismo does require special considerations, as does a proclivity for petty beefs and a refusal to take personal responsibility:

“I hate when I have to read that in the papers the next day, that I couldn’t do something. It wasn’t my fault.”

Mj, Kobe, and Shaq? They needed Zen masters. And triangles. And proper co-stars alongside teams that could win 50+ without them. Duncan just needed someone who knew how to do his job. Oh and some complimentary pieces. How very unfair.

he was drafted to a 59 win team with a HOFer and elite defender that had recently added a GOAT coach, one of the best starts to a career you could ever hope for. right up there with russell's early celtics, bird getting mchale and parish right away, and magic getting to play with Kareem and then worthy.

I guess you forgot the bit where that the HOFer suffered a season-ending injury and was never the same again? Or that the "GOAT COACH" was literally on the verge of getting fired after he brillantly inspired the robinson-less spurs to 20 wins?

come on, we're going to pretend the spurs record mattered when they were literally tanking?

The Spurs were not trying to tank when they went 3-15 before D-Rob broke his foot(yes that wasn't under Pop). Bit players also don't tank, they're playing for their careers. Pop was coaching for his. I will accept you dodging d-rob as a concession that "spurs won 59 games with peak d-rob and a completely different coach" wasn't particularly relevant.

1998 D-Rob scored alot less(on the same efficiency), saw his turnover% spike(on the same ast%) while playing significantly less minutes than his 1996 iteration. 1999 D-rob had more turnovers than assists, saw his efficiency and volume drop a second time while playing even less. And off course lucky Duncan couldn't overcome his co-star slipping steadily from superstardom. Except...

these sound suspiciously like box score numbers. didn't 1998-2001 david robinson post the greatest APM or AuPM in playoff history according to his peak video from ben taylor? theoretically, he was the best player in the game by that measure, the same thing that tends to make duncan look so good.

Now why don't you compare their minutes played.

even just with the box score, my main man drob led the league in WS48 3 times in duncan's first 4 seasons and added a BPM win for good measure. does that sound like some "meh" player or does that sound like a guy still bringing the goods?

That sounds to me like a guy who did super well in a very specific role. Remember. the comparisons here are Pippen, Magic, and Kobe Bryant. Maybe if the second best dudes were Rodman or Worthy, you'd have a point.

The Spurs...got better, winning 60 games and then going 15-2. IOW, 2nd year Duncan got to play with something resembling a co-star and responded by pulling a 1991. Truly fraudulent.

and in the playoffs, duncan's net on/off was actually negative at -3.6.

Now why don't we look at Duncan's on/off over the next 3 post-seasons:

+38.8
+23
+23

Forest. Trees. It's not Quantum Physics. Jordan was +2.2 in 1992. Lebron got on/off'd by Dereck Fisher in 2016, and the Bulls posted a nice postseason o-rating with Pete Myers instead of your GOAT.

This is why you look at things in totality as opposed to cherrypicking point a or b. Jordan has crossed +20 twice over his whole playoff career. Lebron has never done it 3 times in a row. Duncan had some help(to go along with a 20-win base) and the spurs dominated. Duncan had "nice sparks" in 03 and the Spurs won 60 games before snagging a title. Just because there were points where Duncan had great help(and let's be real, 1999 is a stretch given the comparisons we're making) does not mean it was always so.

Using the fact Duncan always led very good teams against him is nonsensical. Those teams stayed very good when the cast was weaker, when the teammates were different, and when the league was different. It is the ultimate evidence of consistency and you're trying to spin it as a negative. Just absurd.

when that team was about to age out

No, the team was already aging out when Duncan had them run the league roughshod. Then, when this over-the-hill hall-of-famer was well and truly a corpse, Duncan went and won 62 games and title #2. The following two seasons as he battled through injuries, the Spurs saw improvement with him on the floor that matches a rather optimistic appraisal of the guy you have at #1.

i've never disputed 2003 duncan. robinson was great defensive but nothing on offense, manu and parker weren't anything yet other than nice sparks. bower is underrated though.

Ah, but I'm sure you have various seasons engineered in much easier contexts above it. How many players can say they won 62 games and a championship with "nice sparks"? Duncan leading contenders is bad because duncan always had a great infrastructure!! Except all the times he didn't.

And since I'm suspect you have some one-in-alls you're about to fire up, I feel I should remind you how very strawy the straws you reached for were the last time we discussed the merits of taking winning out of the equation:
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=103164373#p103164373

maybe not quite the loaded teams of the 80's celtics and lakers and maybe on par with russell's later celtics. but stability to an extraordinary degree.

I think you're forgetting a far stabler and significantly more "loaded" team from the 90's. Especially when you're bringing up the super unfair 35-win Celtics.

how exactly are the bulls so much stabler? main teammate and coach were the same, whole rest of team changed. is that way more stable than coach and main 2 teammates for duncan? also, when did i say unfair celtics? i said they WERE NOT as loaded as the 80's celtics and lakers, just like the spurs were not either.

You mean besides him playing under the same coach, with the same co-star, with the same type of tertiary pieces, in the same system for the vast majority of his prime?(and crucially, for all of his rings). As you've admitted, those 2 "main-teammates" weren't actually all that relevant to his first two rings. And unlike the Bulls, Duncan's spurs contended playing a wide variety of styles in very different iterations of the league.

and the russell celtics were clearly not a 35 win team for all of russell's later career.

No, they simply were that when Russell knocked of two of the best teams of his era. Feel free to post your evidence for the Celtics still being an uber doober juggernaut for the 5 rings they won after Cousy and co faded into obscurity. Also feel free to tell me which other player in history replicated what Russell managed for that one ring, let alone all eleven.

Because 21 ppg+ DPOY winner Kawhi and 12 ppg Kawhi were absolutely the same player. Just like Duncan got to play with Peak D-rob when he clapped the league in year 2. You understand that throwing "hall-of-fame" on top of a guy does not magically make them better than they actually were at the time Tim Duncan played with them?

Duncan got great help well, well past his peak and capitalized. Duncan got very limited help at his apex...and found a way anyway. That "always contending" tag lasted through a variety of casts, teammates and eras with exactly one player consistently at the center. He won about as much as anyone not named Russell and by raw winning has no peer in the modern NBA. Your assumption that was a reflection of unprecedentedly stable help falls to pieces the second we apply scrutiny.

pretty damn close to peak DRob by the impact numbers. also, i don't know where i said 12 ppg and 21 ppg kawhi were the same.

No, you simply said "Kawhi" and then referenced 2016 which has almost zero role in how people view Duncan as he was well, well over the hill. And yes, RS Drob looks "damn close" to pretty much anyone not named Lebron, Kareem or Russell using that approach. But he was a big big playoff dropper. Still not seeing how that's relevant for TD.

who were the more stacked teams? the 2005 suns? you guys don't like amare so can't be them. the 2006 heat with post prime shaq?

You just listed a 62 win team with the greatest offense ever(anchored by an arguable offensive GOAT), Peak(or close) Wade+ A superstar, and one of the best full-strength teams ever(with arguably the greatest ever post-russell defense)? Shaq-Kobe lakers also weren't a thing apparently. Nor were the Heatles, the Westbrook-KD thunder(paired with Ibaka and, at one point, an about to shine Harden).

the warriors saved the 2007 spurs from meeting dallas.

And the universe conspired to save the Bulls from Hakeem. Is this the part where we throw random hypotheticals and hope they stick?

you can't knock jordan for having a good team relative to the league when he constantly won with that good team, then act like duncan is amazing for winning with a very good team in a league with no superteams.

The team that posted 50-win SRS without numero uno or tres was "good". Over-the-hill D-rob and "nice sparks" is "very good." Interesting choice of language.

Regardless, I can knock Jordan for failing to replicate Duncan's success outside of exceptionally loaded casts(the thing you seem to think all of Russell's teams had for...reasons), being a comically more volatile lockeroom presence, repeatedly failing to match or exceed peak Duncan in empirical analysis that isolates for winning(as opposed to the stuff that looks at steals per game and concludes MJ was a better defender than 4-point defense pusher Kareem), and failing to match Duncan's longevity(and no, "he'd done it all" doesn't really work when you've won half as much as your predecessors).

As it is, this all started with you trying to knock Duncan because he won too much. Your opening salvo was pretending David Robinson didn't have a career altering injury in 1997. Round two was you pretending Duncan didn't win 2 titles without much help from the non-superstars who would eventually hit their peak.

I also have no clue what you're talking about regarding competition because Duncan faced much stiffer opposition including multiple superteams he faced and beat as the best, or arguable best player. Duncan did not play in an especially favorable situation for his prime. But he led 19 contenders(your count, not mine) anyway, and helped anchor one of the most successful teams ever both with what he did on and off the court.

But somehow this is a negative. Because you seemingly forgot how time works.

Correction, Russell led contenders forever(well champions actually), your assumption all of those teams would have contended without him is uh...completely unfounded. I'm noticing a pattern here.

don't get pedantic. you know i didn't say they were contenders WITHOUT russell. is the argument really that russell could make a contender of anybody?

Considering he made championships out of everything he was ever handed, that wouldn't suprise me no.

that would speak poorly of the 60's.

Considering that 3 of your big 4 played before Duncan, breaking relativity does not help you here.

i don't know why we have to pretend the lucky ones somehow made it happen themselves.

"Pretend" is when we actually analyze context to determine the extent of "luck". "Truth" is when we look at how much a guy won and then conclude it's a matter of "luck" because we forgot that David Robinson had a career-changing injury.

Duncan led 16 contenders. And thus far you've done a quite terrible job arguing this is because his deck was unfairly stacked.

yes, all the players we talk about "led" contenders. no one said it was unfairly stacked. i said he played for the most contenders. that doesn't mean 16 straight 72-10 bulls type teams. it just means he basically never had a year he couldn't think about contending. if we're going to praise duncan for longevity, we must praise the spurs/pop for the longevity of never having a slip in terms of team construction. somehow constantly reloading without ever rebuilding. some guys played just as high a percentage of their years on contenders, but duncan got it for all 19 years. maybe the lakers could have done it with magic or celtics with russell, the other contenders for pretty much pretty much always being contenders, but we didn't see it happen.

[/quote]
Actually, that is exactly what you tried to argue:

You do realize this only works as a critique if you demonstrate Duncan had more help than whoever you're comparing him to?

Correct. duncan played for a GOAT organization and a GOAT coach and had hall of fame teammates all along the way, though obviously they were at different stages of their careers at various points.

Duncan leading more contenders than basically anyone is bad because he had too much help. **** Brillant.

[iggymcfrack]

I feel like #2 is the highest reasonable ranking. I can see an argument for him over Jordan with the longevity, but LeBron has the longevity too and was clearly more dominant in basically the same era.

[DonaldSanders]

Doesn't anybody else think reasonable and unreasonable are too loaded to ask this kind of question with? You could make an argument for Duncan as GOAT or you could put him outside the top 10 and I wouldn't think either person is being "unreasonable". Everyone has different criteria and different perspectives but these threads become kind of useless if you can't say in what range you could see a player and immediately accept it without being surprised at how high or low said player is.

My personal range for Duncan is 5-7, anything above or below I understand there are arguments that could reasonably get you there but not with the criteria I value.

Agreed!

Some people think there are objective answers to these questions, which there are not. Folks think you can benchrace two players even if they played in different eras with different teammates against different players and get an "objective answer" based on stats. No need to watch the games or consider circumstances surrounding them/their team/the league.

This type of mentality is why I sometimes cringe at player comparison threads, because the deeper you understand stats you should know there is no objective answer to who the best player is. The joy in all this should be appreciating players and for each person to have fun discovering their own list/tiers and honing their own criteria while learning more about the greats.

There is too much angst when people disagree about questions that have no objective answer.

[Joao Saraiva]

I don't see him #1. You value longevity... does he have a case over KAJ ou LeBron?

You value the recent era... can he be over LeBron?

His peak isn't high enough to compete with MJ, Bron, Hakeem or Shaq in my view.

What are you using to determine his peak isn't on that level?

If you take the "isolate for winning" approach Lebron is the only one really gaining significant separation and Duncan's arguably has the second best profile. Box-stuff Duncan still does better than Hakeem(comes #1 in the box/impact hybrid of AUPM) and is competitive with Shaq. 2003 is a 62 win rs followed by a historically rare one-star title win where he won a bunch with limited help and then upped his creation and scoring int he postseason.

Well if you want it based on stats alone don't come with AUPM or anything isolated. I can also say Duncan isn't breaking 30 PER in any year, 30 WS/48 or even leading the league in any of that.

I'm not going just by stats as it should be obvious, otherwise Hakeem 94 wouldn't have a case for GOAT peak. Rewatch the entire playoffs run. It's really impressive the amount of ground cover, post defense display, rim protection... along with him beign a focal point on an offensive scheme with him and shooters. It's a thing of beauty and to this day I still believe 93-95 Hakeem is on pair with any C/PF to say the least.

If you wanna bring stats... well, Duncan is on the same level as MJ or LeBron or even Shaq. You can bring AUPM alone all you want, but that's definitely a wrong approach. I can bring PER alone and put CP3 on the top 10 ever or something. (I don't even know if that is true but skewed results will come from everywhere). At least use raw production along with advanced stats.

[OhayoKD]

I don't see him #1. You value longevity... does he have a case over KAJ ou LeBron?

You value the recent era... can he be over LeBron?

His peak isn't high enough to compete with MJ, Bron, Hakeem or Shaq in my view.

What are you using to determine his peak isn't on that level?

If you take the "isolate for winning" approach Lebron is the only one really gaining significant separation and Duncan's arguably has the second best profile. Box-stuff Duncan still does better than Hakeem(comes #1 in the box/impact hybrid of AUPM) and is competitive with Shaq. 2003 is a 62 win rs followed by a historically rare one-star title win where he won a bunch with limited help and then upped his creation and scoring int he postseason.

Well if you want it based on stats alone don't come with AUPM or anything isolated. I can also say Duncan isn't breaking 30 PER in any year, 30 WS/48 or even leading the league in any of that.

I'm not going just by stats as it should be obvious, otherwise Hakeem 94 wouldn't have a case for GOAT peak. Rewatch the entire playoffs run. It's really impressive the amount of ground cover, post defense display, rim protection... along with him beign a focal point on an offensive scheme with him and shooters. It's a thing of beauty and to this day I still believe 93-95 Hakeem is on pair with any C/PF to say the least.

If you wanna bring stats... well, Duncan is on the same level as MJ or LeBron or even Shaq. You can bring AUPM alone all you want, but that's definitely a wrong approach. I can bring PER alone and put CP3 on the top 10 ever or something. (I don't even know if that is true but skewed results will come from everywhere). At least use raw production along with advanced stats.

I asked why you have Duncan's peak as uncompetitive with Lebron, Hakeem, Shaq, and MJ's(simulateously). Not a rant on statistics you evidently don't have a serious rebuttal for. I also didn't bring AUPM "alone" but nice strawman I guess?

[Joao Saraiva]

What are you using to determine his peak isn't on that level?

If you take the "isolate for winning" approach Lebron is the only one really gaining significant separation and Duncan's arguably has the second best profile. Box-stuff Duncan still does better than Hakeem(comes #1 in the box/impact hybrid of AUPM) and is competitive with Shaq. 2003 is a 62 win rs followed by a historically rare one-star title win where he won a bunch with limited help and then upped his creation and scoring int he postseason.

Well if you want it based on stats alone don't come with AUPM or anything isolated. I can also say Duncan isn't breaking 30 PER in any year, 30 WS/48 or even leading the league in any of that.

I'm not going just by stats as it should be obvious, otherwise Hakeem 94 wouldn't have a case for GOAT peak. Rewatch the entire playoffs run. It's really impressive the amount of ground cover, post defense display, rim protection... along with him beign a focal point on an offensive scheme with him and shooters. It's a thing of beauty and to this day I still believe 93-95 Hakeem is on pair with any C/PF to say the least.

If you wanna bring stats... well, Duncan is on the same level as MJ or LeBron or even Shaq. You can bring AUPM alone all you want, but that's definitely a wrong approach. I can bring PER alone and put CP3 on the top 10 ever or something. (I don't even know if that is true but skewed results will come from everywhere). At least use raw production along with advanced stats.

I asked why you have Duncan's peak as uncompetitive with Lebron, Hakeem, Shaq, and MJ's(simulateously). Not a rant on statistics you evidently don't have a serious rebuttal for. I also didn't bring AUPM "alone" but nice strawman I guess?

If you want a reply to that I'll give you one. I don't believe you can build as good of an offense arround Tim Duncan as you can with the others. Against the perimeter players for obvious reasons, as the Spurs in 05 are proof that building trough a perimeter player is much better than from the interior one. That's why initiating trough Manu gave them much more PPP than with Duncan.

I don't believe he has the same gravity as Shaq or Hakeem on offense too. Even tough he's probably at their level passing wise (better passer than Hakeem career wise for sure) I think Hakeem did a very good job in that regard as he got older.

On defense yes Duncan brings more impact than all but Hakeem. However when I'm thinking about building with him as the #1 player I don't believe he can be the same weapon the others are.

But this is my opinion only. He's a good scorer - but not at the level of others. He can pass - but his gravity doesn't allow him to have the same offensive impact the others do.

I can see Shaq being less reliable on defense, but even there at his peak he was a good rim protector. He didn't cover a ton of ground, but the game didn't require that as much as today. It's still great to have of course, but not gonna hurt as much in the era he played. Does that mean Shaq isn't portable however? I don't think so. If he played today I think we'd see something much closer to his Orlando days.
EDIT: sorry for deviation into a lot of topics. Anyway this is just my opinion I might add. Feel free to feel different about his peak.