How strong was Duncan’s case for BITW for the 2008 season?

[ardee]

I would probably put him 7 that year. Kobe, CP3, LeBron, Garnett, Dirk, Nash all better in that order.

Zero case for best player.

He had 49% TS in the Playoffs... as a big man.

Hate to say that in your case, but this post proves my point. Scoring numbers is all that matters I suppose.

i mean you can't just be a brick for 3 rounds as a #1 option and still be called the best player in the world. maybe if this was the 60's and bill russell with crazy numbers of possessions, huge minutes, and interior defense being beyond valuable in that era, but not in 2008.

If defense is all that matters these guys should be saying Dikembe Mutombo was a top 5 player through the 90s lmao.

[AEnigma]

Hate to say that in your case, but this post proves my point. Scoring numbers is all that matters I suppose.

i mean you can't just be a brick for 3 rounds as a #1 option and still be called the best player in the world. maybe if this was the 60's and bill russell with crazy numbers of possessions, huge minutes, and interior defense being beyond valuable in that era, but not in 2008.

Say he needs more than that to be #1, fine, but you are replying to a criticism placing him below two entirely uncompetitive first round exits. That team made the conference finals because of their defence. Nash lost directly and had the worst series of his prime. Dirk lost indirectly and had pretty fair scoring numbers, but the Hornets put up a 120 offensive rating against his team and were then twelve points worse against the Spurs.

(Will note I have criticisms of marking Chris Paul above Duncan that year too, but there I can recognise a lot of people consider that supporting cast to be much worse than I do.)

I would probably put him 7 that year. Kobe, CP3, LeBron, Garnett, Dirk, Nash all better in that order.

Zero case for best player.

He had 49% TS in the Playoffs... as a big man.

If defense is all that matters these guys should be saying Dikembe Mutombo was a top 5 player through the 90s lmao.

I mean I would probably have him top ~ten from 1994 through 2000, and his scoring and playmaking volume had nothing on 2008 Duncan.

More comparable is 1994 Patrick Ewing, who was an all-time clutch Hakeem block away from a title despite similarly ugly scoring efficiency. Being a “big man” does not mean you are guaranteed midrange isolation mastery, which is the bulk of the shots both players were taking — but it does mean there is an expectation you serve as the team’s defensive anchor, and both Duncan and Ewing fulfilled that role as well as basically anyone.

[70sFan]

I would probably put him 7 that year. Kobe, CP3, LeBron, Garnett, Dirk, Nash all better in that order.

Zero case for best player.

He had 49% TS in the Playoffs... as a big man.

Hate to say that in your case, but this post proves my point. Scoring numbers is all that matters I suppose.

i mean you can't just be a brick for 3 rounds as a #1 option and still be called the best player in the world. maybe if this was the 60's and bill russell with crazy numbers of possessions, huge minutes, and interior defense being beyond valuable in that era, but not in 2008.

My response was to ranking Duncan outside top 7, not at number 1.

[70sFan]

Hate to say that in your case, but this post proves my point. Scoring numbers is all that matters I suppose.

i mean you can't just be a brick for 3 rounds as a #1 option and still be called the best player in the world. maybe if this was the 60's and bill russell with crazy numbers of possessions, huge minutes, and interior defense being beyond valuable in that era, but not in 2008.

If defense is all that matters these guys should be saying Dikembe Mutombo was a top 5 player through the 90s lmao.

Mutombo was top 10 player many times in my opinion, he is highly underrated. Nate Thurmond was an MVP candidate in his prime. Ben Wallace was a top 10 player while being an absurdly bad offensive player in his peak years. Rudy Gobert was a top 5 candidate at his peak. That's a poor argument.

Besides, even with inefficient scoring Duncan was closer to someone like Patrick Ewing than Dikembe Mutombo (I'd still take 2008 Duncan offense over most Ewing years). Would you laugh at the idea that prime Ewing was a top 5 player? Would you have 7 players from 2008 over 1992-94 Ewing?

[LA Bird]

Duncan has no case being best in the world in 2008. It's quite telling that the first thing people use to support the argument is that he was #1 the previous year, as though they know his 08 season can't stand by itself. Nobody has to bring up 91 Jordan being #1 to have 92 Jordan at #1. And it's not like Duncan's 06 season which was sandwiched being two strong years and could be argued as a one off blip from injury - 08 was the start of the decline for him.

As for Duncan vs Kobe, he crushes him in career and peak comparison but for the single year in question, I would have Kobe ahead. I don't know why people are making such a big deal about the Pau Gasol trade in this comparison when Ginobili is literally a better player and was actually on Duncan's team for the whole season.

[ardee]

As for Duncan vs Kobe, he crushes him in career and peak comparison

Duncan does not "crush" Kobe in a career comparison. He is higher all time, yes, but they were contemporaries and most people regarded them to be on a similar level throughout their primes.

Over their relevant careers they were probably better than each other an equal number of years (if you count '98-'13, I have Duncan higher in '98, '99, '02-'05 and '13, with Kobe in '00, '01 and '06-'12). That's 8 for Kobe, 7 for Duncan. Then of course Duncan has the extra longevity years of '14 and '15, while Kobe was done after '13, and that + the superior peak is enough to rank Duncan ahead all-time, but to act as if they were never in the same ballpark is absurd.

[LA Bird]

Duncan does not "crush" Kobe in a career comparison. He is higher all time, yes, but they were contemporaries and most people regarded them to be on a similar level throughout their primes.

Many people at the time considered Kobe to be better than LeBron too. Doesn't mean they are right.

Over their relevant careers they were probably better than each other an equal number of years (if you count '98-'13, I have Duncan higher in '98, '99, '02-'05 and '13, with Kobe in '00, '01 and '06-'12). That's 8 for Kobe, 7 for Duncan. Then of course Duncan has the extra longevity years of '14 and '15, while Kobe was done after '13, and that + the superior peak is enough to rank Duncan ahead all-time, but to act as if they were never in the same ballpark is absurd.

This type of comparison is meaningless without specifying the gap between the two players in each season. People often make this same mistake in Magic vs Bird comparisons too even though winning a year by a large margin (eg. 89 Magic over Bird) is clearly not equivalent to winning a year by a small margin (eg. 83 Bird over Magic). For starters, most people would have switched three of those seasons you listed (00, 01, 07) from Kobe to Duncan instead, making it a 10-6 advantage for Duncan. I also don't see a case for 14/15 Duncan not being "relevant" years when you are counting 98 Kobe so that extends Duncan's lead to 12-6. Then you look at the gap by which each won in every season and Duncan wins by a larger margin in more seasons than Kobe too. So no, the two aren't in the same ballpark when it comes to career comparisons IMO.

[carlquincy]

whats bitw?

anyway from the retro poy here, he's a distant 5th.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1006832&start=280

[LukaTheGOAT]

whats bitw?

anyway from the retro poy here, he's a distant 5th.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1006832&start=280

Best in the world

[Black Feet]

Duncan does not "crush" Kobe in a career comparison. He is higher all time, yes, but they were contemporaries and most people regarded them to be on a similar level throughout their primes.

Many people at the time considered Kobe to be better than LeBron too. Doesn't mean they are right.

Over their relevant careers they were probably better than each other an equal number of years (if you count '98-'13, I have Duncan higher in '98, '99, '02-'05 and '13, with Kobe in '00, '01 and '06-'12). That's 8 for Kobe, 7 for Duncan. Then of course Duncan has the extra longevity years of '14 and '15, while Kobe was done after '13, and that + the superior peak is enough to rank Duncan ahead all-time, but to act as if they were never in the same ballpark is absurd.

This type of comparison is meaningless without specifying the gap between the two players in each season. People often make this same mistake in Magic vs Bird comparisons too even though winning a year by a large margin (eg. 89 Magic over Bird) is clearly not equivalent to winning a year by a small margin (eg. 83 Bird over Magic). For starters, most people would have switched three of those seasons you listed (00, 01, 07) from Kobe to Duncan instead, making it a 10-6 advantage for Duncan. I also don't see a case for 14/15 Duncan not being "relevant" years when you are counting 98 Kobe so that extends Duncan's lead to 12-6. Then you look at the gap by which each won in every season and Duncan wins by a larger margin in more seasons than Kobe too. So no, the two aren't in the same ballpark when it comes to career comparisons IMO.

I don’t know why you keep saying most people because that’s not true these are your own personal opinions and that’s fine. Most people had Kobe over Duncan in 07, Kobe had 2x the mvp votes and a lot of people had him best in the league you can’t say the same for Duncan. I would say from 06 on it was clear Kobe was the better player until he suffered career ending injuries.

[Doctor MJ]

whats bitw?

anyway from the retro poy here, he's a distant 5th.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1006832&start=280

Love the link back to the RPOY project from that year. I really think it's a great way to get your head around what others thinking about the same stuff have gone back and forth on and '07-08 in particular is extremely noteworthy because of the discussion around Kevin Garnett.

Nowadays people tend to see me as extremely high on KG, but you can see in that discussion I was on the low side - entertaining the arguments for KG, complimenting them, but in the end sticking with where I had him before.

But over time the arguments marinated in my mind, and now I rank them differently.

On the general question of Duncan in '07-08, and whether he was so much different from '06-07 or maybe just had some injury issues, it's always something to be wary of. What's absolutely the case though is this marks a spot on the way from the Spurs playing a slow offense built around Duncan's post-offense to a faster style with more passing and 3's. They became less effective, and then with the shift became more effective.

So while it's possible Duncan could have been just as much of a BITW candidate in '07-08 as he was in '06-07 given his physical body, we would never again after '06-07 see the Spurs have a great offense with Duncan having that primacy, and since the leap forward that would come was driven primarily by the co-stars already on his team at that time, it's hard to really be that satisfied with an answer of worsening supporting cast.

So back with the POY that year, most of us had a clear top 4 in some order - Bryant, Garnett, James, Paul - with Duncan in the next group down. While the guys having the POY level seasons are not necessarily the guys I'd call "best in the world", I would tend to rank players with an eye toward their capacity for POY, and I think I'd say I feel more confident in those 4 guys at that point than Duncan.

I see a lot of debate about Duncan vs Kobe and that's an interesting one for me. I'm generally on the pro-Duncan side of that one. I think in general he was better in prime, and better outside of prime, but I suppose I tend to see this as Duncan slipping out of his prime at the same time as Kobe is actually most synergized as an alpha with the rest of his team, and seems like the brief window where Kobe has the edge.

While I'm confident that these general trends were true though, it doesn't mean necessarily that that window ever actually opened.

[70sFan]

Duncan does not "crush" Kobe in a career comparison. He is higher all time, yes, but they were contemporaries and most people regarded them to be on a similar level throughout their primes.

Many people at the time considered Kobe to be better than LeBron too. Doesn't mean they are right.

Over their relevant careers they were probably better than each other an equal number of years (if you count '98-'13, I have Duncan higher in '98, '99, '02-'05 and '13, with Kobe in '00, '01 and '06-'12). That's 8 for Kobe, 7 for Duncan. Then of course Duncan has the extra longevity years of '14 and '15, while Kobe was done after '13, and that + the superior peak is enough to rank Duncan ahead all-time, but to act as if they were never in the same ballpark is absurd.

This type of comparison is meaningless without specifying the gap between the two players in each season. People often make this same mistake in Magic vs Bird comparisons too even though winning a year by a large margin (eg. 89 Magic over Bird) is clearly not equivalent to winning a year by a small margin (eg. 83 Bird over Magic). For starters, most people would have switched three of those seasons you listed (00, 01, 07) from Kobe to Duncan instead, making it a 10-6 advantage for Duncan. I also don't see a case for 14/15 Duncan not being "relevant" years when you are counting 98 Kobe so that extends Duncan's lead to 12-6. Then you look at the gap by which each won in every season and Duncan wins by a larger margin in more seasons than Kobe too. So no, the two aren't in the same ballpark when it comes to career comparisons IMO.

I don’t know why you keep saying most people because that’s not true these are your own personal opinions and that’s fine. Most people had Kobe over Duncan in 07, Kobe had 2x the mvp votes and a lot of people had him best in the league you can’t say the same for Duncan. I would say from 06 on it was clear Kobe was the better player until he suffered career ending injuries.

I don't know how many people still had Kobe over Duncan after the 2007 playoffs. I wouldn't bet anything it was the majority.

Of course, even if so, it doesn't make it right. People always overrate high volume scorers while they also underrate defense first stars.

[Cavsfansince84]

I don't know how many people still had Kobe over Duncan after the 2007 playoffs. I wouldn't bet anything it was the majority.

Of course, even if so, it doesn't make it right. People always overrate high volume scorers while they also underrate defense first stars.

More so, Duncan had started playing less minutes in the rs and Kobe was getting tons of attention for all his scoring output at that time. Some of you need to realize that the media will always have some players it is hyping up and others it doesn't want to put much effort into. The other narrative going on was the whole idea of Kobe getting his first mvp and proving he could win without Shaq. It was along the Wade/LeBron hype the most talked about thing in the league. The media if anything just wanted the Spurs dynasty to roll over and die at that point.

[carlquincy]

whats bitw?

anyway from the retro poy here, he's a distant 5th.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1006832&start=280

Thanks. 1st time hearing this term. Is it something new or borrowed from other sports?

[carlquincy]

whats bitw?

anyway from the retro poy here, he's a distant 5th.

viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1006832&start=280

Love the link back to the RPOY project from that year. I really think it's a great way to get your head around what others thinking about the same stuff have gone back and forth on and '07-08 in particular is extremely noteworthy because of the discussion around Kevin Garnett.

Nowadays people tend to see me as extremely high on KG, but you can see in that discussion I was on the low side - entertaining the arguments for KG, complimenting them, but in the end sticking with where I had him before.

But over time the arguments marinated in my mind, and now I rank them differently.

On the general question of Duncan in '07-08, and whether he was so much different from '06-07 or maybe just had some injury issues, it's always something to be wary of. What's absolutely the case though is this marks a spot on the way from the Spurs playing a slow offense built around Duncan's post-offense to a faster style with more passing and 3's. They became less effective, and then with the shift became more effective.

So while it's possible Duncan could have been just as much of a BITW candidate in '07-08 as he was in '06-07 given his physical body, we would never again after '06-07 see the Spurs have a great offense with Duncan having that primacy, and since the leap forward that would come was driven primarily by the co-stars already on his team at that time, it's hard to really be that satisfied with an answer of worsening supporting cast.

So back with the POY that year, most of us had a clear top 4 in some order - Bryant, Garnett, James, Paul - with Duncan in the next group down. While the guys having the POY level seasons are not necessarily the guys I'd call "best in the world", I would tend to rank players with an eye toward their capacity for POY, and I think I'd say I feel more confident in those 4 guys at that point than Duncan.

I see a lot of debate about Duncan vs Kobe and that's an interesting one for me. I'm generally on the pro-Duncan side of that one. I think in general he was better in prime, and better outside of prime, but I suppose I tend to see this as Duncan slipping out of his prime at the same time as Kobe is actually most synergized as an alpha with the rest of his team, and seems like the brief window where Kobe has the edge.

While I'm confident that these general trends were true though, it doesn't mean necessarily that that window ever actually opened.

Yeah it's pretty interesting to read back on those discussions.

Most ppl typically correlate best player with team success and personal stats. It's intuitive and straightforward.

08-10 Lakers/Kobe had a beast of a run. I don't think it's unreasonable that most had Kobe over Duncan during that period. Over the course of the career, Duncan had a distinct edge.

[xb3at band1tx]

I have Duncan over Kobe all-time.

However I think it's a tall ask to debate Timmy as being Top 5 that year let alone best in the world.

I would still slot him somewhere in the top 10 of 2008 but yeah, I'm mixed on top 5 status that year.

[Matt15]

In 2008 I think his highest reasonable ranking is Top 5 behind Kobe, Paul, Lebron and KG.

[FlyingArrow]

When Duncan arrived, the Spurs rattled off 11 straight seasons with a top-3 defense (5 of those seasons as the #1 defense). 2008 was the last of those 11 seasons.

For the four seasons from 2009-12, the Spurs' defense was in the #5-#12 range in the league. Then, for each of Duncan's final 4 seasons, the Spurs were again a top 3 defense - starting with Kawhi's second season.

I'm not sure how relevant all that is, but I found it interesting and this was the most recent thread where that bit of info seemed to fit.

(Top defense based on opponent points per 100 possessions.)