Well, let's get this out of the way.....
VOTE: Tim DuncanThere is simply no one else on my immediate radar until he is off the table. By way of explanation, I'm going to be lazy and copy what I'd written in the last [2020] project (one or two of the listed ranks may have changed since then, but otherwise is all the same today)......
The Curious Case of Timothy Duncan (again)
Spoiler: I think Duncan is underrated;
grossly so in the mainstream, but even a tiny bit here on RealGM. The arguments to support this position follow.
But first---although this might seem backwards---I’m going to start with the reasons WHY [imo] people tend to under-credit him…..
1. 
His game doesn’t really contain the moments of flashy brilliance (a la Magic or Bird [or Nash or Ginobili]), nor the jaw-dropping aerial acrobatics of someone like Jordan (or Kobe, or Vinsanity). I mean, his primary nickname was “The Big Fundamental”. Check your thesaurus; you wanna know a synonym for fundamental?......how about "
basic".
And basic isn’t sexy. It doesn’t sell. Sometimes it even flies so far under the radar that people don’t recognize the value of it.
But when done consistently, and very very well [and by an understated NBA-level athlete], “basic” is really damn effective.
Doesn’t hurt that he did this while also being nearly 7-feet tall, too. Which brings me to the 2nd reason why he’s undercredited…..
2. He’s so bloody tall!Both casual fans and media tend to
not identify with the bigs.
In the 90s when the mythology of Jordan and his indisputable GOATness was being established, the discussions about who was 2nd-greatest (‘cause you didn’t dare question who was THE greatest [in some circles this is
still taboo]) invariably revolved [primarily] around two candidates: Magic and Bird, with Kareem getting a few name-drops (though usually as more of a dark horse candidate). Wilt would occasionally be mentioned; and Russell was mentioned not at all.
What do these latter four individuals have in common? They were all bigs.
I think it’s partly because we can maybe fantasize about ourselves dominating a game like the smaller guys, doing things like dribbling, shooting from the outside, and passing, etc.
Most of us can’t imagine controlling a game with the [often decidedly less sexy] acts of changing [or just deterring] shots at the rim, securing rebounds, or being a threat in the post.
99.9% of us are nowhere near big enough to even imagine what that’s like. So we don’t identify with the guys for whom that’s their bread and butter.
EDIT (one new [2023] part): As evidence of how this just naturally works its way into the psyche of we averaged-sized people--->my 13-year-old son is really into volleyball these days, and he watches all kinds of international matches constantly. I asked him if there was a consensus GOAT in the sport. He mentioned a few names, hedging toward this one guy on the Italian team [who is 6'8"] as maybe being the consensus best. But for his own
personal pick my son hedged towards this 6'4" guy on the Japanese national team for no other reason than [you guessed it]: he's a shorter (and more "obtainable") height, while still being nearly as good/impactful.
And perhaps there’s some more subtle subconscious bias against bigs, ingrained in us from media.
Certainly in literature, folklore, and tv/movies, “giants” are almost invariably portrayed in an evil or at least unflattering way: the giant in
Jack and the Beanstalk (bad guy); ogres in multiple sources; the giants in
Game of Thrones are portrayed as ugly, brutish, and possibly of lower intelligence; the Lenny character in Steinbeck’s
Of Mice and Men [who has been parodied in
Looney Tunes] is a pitifully simple-minded oaf who doesn’t understand his own strength---->the “big and dumb” motif has been repeated in many shows/movies, actually. Etc etc…..
Whatever the reason(s), many don’t wish to sympathize with the NBA’s great big men.
If two players are of basically equal dominance on the court, but one is 6’6” and the other is 7’1”.......the mainstream will almost unanimously crown the shorter guy as the “greater” player.
I’ve even had discussions with posters here who have explicitly stated they don’t much credit guys who seem to rely on their size and/or only seem to come to some degree of dominance thru being so bloody huge.
They say it’s “harder” for a guy to dominate the game when he doesn’t have that advantage of basically being a giant.
They say they’re more impressed with a player who can achieve dominance thru something other than that kind of outlier height (though they never seem to want to walk
all the way down this path of reasoning to proclaiming someone like Muggsy Bogues one of the most remarkable/best players ever; there’s apparently an arbitrary stop-point of non-tallness).
I could just as arbitrarily say I’m more impressed with the [tall] player being able to achieve that same level of dominance while being so much slower. It’s
no different.
3. Too Stoic
Duncan doesn’t have the emotional expressions of joy (a la Magic). He doesn’t have a boyish or playful exuberance (a la Shaq). He doesn’t engage in shows of machismo or “look how fierce I am” outbursts (a la KG, maybe Jimmy Butler, or even Lebron [flexes his muscles]). He doesn’t have the flashes of almost psychotic competitiveness, the “you think you’re better than me?” answer to challenges that weren’t even uttered, but which [even imagined] provided Jordan’s drive.
No, Duncan was probably more often accused of having the stoicism of a robot. That left many a casual observer feeling, well…..
bored by him.
They couldn’t [or at least didn’t
want to] identify with a guy who went about his job as one of the world’s greatest basketball players with the same professional reserve you’d expect of someone punching the clock before sitting down in their cubical office space.
4. Small MarketHe played his entire career in one of the smallest markets in the NBA. For that reason alone, he’d already have less spotlight on him than most similar-tiered superstars.
5. Not a “scorer”I mean, he did score (and a lot: is still #19 in NBA/ABA history in total rs points scored, #6 all-time in the playoffs.......not bad for someone who's not a great scorer). But that wasn’t really his calling card, it's not where the bulk of his value came from (especially late in his career), and he would happily sacrifice primacy if it was for the betterment of the team. But when you’re not averaging something close to 30 ppg, the casual fan [for some reason--->namely poor understanding of what actually produces impact in basketball, imo] can easily dismiss you as not REALLY one of the greatest in the game.
All of these reasons sort of compound on each other to make him a somewhat under-credited individual.
But at this point (damn near TL;DR already) I suppose I should get on to some points that illustrate that he is underrated at all….
So How Good Was He?That he was awfully damn good at the game of basketball might be a marginal understatement.
Hopefully we all watched him play, so I’ll try to provide the evidence by way of:
*looking at media-awarded accolades (fwiw)
**providing the statistical backing,
***and then backing it up with some tangible measures of impact.
And I do so looking at both peak and full career (with some snippets of prime).
In terms of media accolades:
*He was a 2-time MVP, and is 9th all-time in MVP award shares.
**He’s tied for 2nd all-time (only Lebron has bested him) in All-NBA selections.
***He’s tied for 4th all-time in All-NBA 1st Team selections.
****He’s tied for 5th all-time in All-Star selections
*****He's tied for 3rd *all-time in FMVP's (*though safe to assume Russell would have edged him there)
******He’s #1 all-time in total All-Defensive selections (with 15 [8 1st Team nods])
So he’s looking pretty substantial here (easily a top-5 candidate based on such accolades).
Let’s now take a look at his likely peak season [‘03]; and to put it into perspective, I’m going to compare it to the peak season of another big, a big many hold in extremely high esteem: Hakeem Olajuwon.
‘03 Duncan (rs, per 100 poss): 31.6 pts @ +4.5% rTS, 17.5 reb, 5.3 ast, 0.9 stl, 4.0 blk, 4.2 tov, 3.9 pf.
‘94 Hakeem (rs, per 100 poss): 33.7 pts @ +3.7% rTS, 14.7 reb, 4.4 ast, 2.0 stl, 4.6 blk, 4.2 tov, 4.5 pf.
‘03 Duncan (playoffs, per 100 poss): 30.6 pts @ +5.8% rTS, 19.1 reb, 6.6 ast, 0.8 stl, 4.1 blk, 3.9 tov, 4.0 pf.
‘94 Hakeem (playoffs, per 100 poss): 35.9 pts @ +4.0% rTS, 13.7 reb, 5.3 ast, 2.2 stl, 5.0 blk, 4.5 tov, 4.4 pf.
Overall, he sort of looks comparable [statistically] in both rs and playoffs. Both players led their teams to a title with relatively underwhelming [
for a title team] supporting casts (Hakeem arguably a little more so).
The ‘03 Spurs were the better team in terms of record, net rating (both rs and playoffs, if I’m not mistaken), and SRS.
Duncan was #1 in the league in NPI RAPM and 4th in PI RAPM [according to J.E.’s numbers, though one other source had him as #1 in PI RAPM, too]; that’s for the whole year (rs and playoff combined). Hakeem was 3rd in the league in rs-only APM (distantly behind #1 David Robinson).
I’d previously (last thread) mentioned looking at players’ CAREER cumulative production/efficiency above replacement level as measured by PER and WS/48 (defining “replacement level” as PER 13.5 and WS/48 of .078 for rs, 12.5 and .064 for playoffs), using a modifier in the equation such that an average PER [15.0] carries the same value as an average WS/48 [.100], and weight playoff minutes 3.25x as meaningful as rs minutes.
If using raw PER and WS/48, and with no weighting for strength of era, Duncan comes out 5th all-time, even ahead of other longevity giants who also played [mostly] for good teams; guys like Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and Dirk Nowitizki…..all trail Duncan in this (only LBJ, KAJ, MJ, and Wilt come out ahead).
If instead of raw PER and WS/48, I use scaled PER and WS/48 (to account for era-to-era, or even year-to-year differences in how common it is to deviate so far from the mean), and still no accounting for era…...Duncan remains at 5th all-time.
If I use my own intricate [though basically subjective] rating of years/eras, Duncan moves into 4th all-time (whether using raw or scaled figures).
If using a BPM model, well, he’s 6th *all-time (*or since 1973) in rs VORP, and
3rd *all-time in playoff VORP.
So he’s got the statistical chops of a top 5(ish) player, at least if you put any emphasis [at all] in a “total career value” type model.
And it’s not empty statistical value.
Duncan’s peak full-season [rs and playoff combined] PI RAPM is exceeded only by Lebron in the data-ball era.
Duncan’s best 10-years combined PI RAPM is 4th (behind only Lebron, Garnett, and Shaq).
Then there is, of course, the less granular team-based indicators of impact…..
*In 19 years, the Spurs NEVER failed to win 50+ games (that is: their win% was > .600
every single year for nearly two decades). Their cumulative win% during Duncan’s tenure was .710 (that is: they won 58 or so games ON AVERAGE).
**In 19 years, they never failed to achieve an SRS above +3 (the single worst was +3.30); they only had two seasons out of 19 in which they failed to achieve an SRS above +5 (which, historically, is roughly contender level). The 19-year
average SRS for the Duncan Spurs was +6.55!!
***They not only made the playoffs in all 19 seasons, they only four times failed to get PAST the 1st round (and one of those was when, due to the brutally competitive WC and the way the seedings rolled out, they had to face a top 3-4 Clippers team in the 1st round [lost in 7 games]; another was when Duncan was injured, fwiw).
****They made it as far as the conference finals NINE times (again, in this brutal Western Conference). They went to the finals SIX times, winning five of those (and came about as close as you can possibly come in that one loss).
*****The AVERAGE Spurs defense during his tenure was -5.1 rDRTG. I just want to point out that that is, for instance, better than ANY defense Hakeem Olajuwon ever anchored. EVER! The
19-year average of a Tim Duncan-led defense was better than the peak [-4.9 rDRTG] Hakeem-led defense. Seriously think about that.
"The Pop Factor"“But Tim always had Popovich [the real architect of Spurs success].”
We’ve heard this refrain before, haven’t we? It wasn’t Tim, it was Pop who single-handedly drew miracles out of mediocrity. It was Pop’s system that engineered the defensive dynasty that AVERAGED a -5.1 rDRTG over 19 years (peaking at an historic Russell Celtic-level -8.8 rDRTG [this AFTER Robinson retired, too]).
Well, Pop’s still there; but look how quickly the dynasty crumbled once Tim was gone. They had another fantastic year immediately after his retirement, although Tim had a hand in that [more on that to follow].
But just one year separated from his departure and two things happened that NEVER happened in his 19 years: they won fewer than 50 games and had an SRS < 3. They also lost in the 1st round (which had occurred only four times in 19 Duncan years). This would repeat itself the following year.
They’ve been a below average team missing the playoffs each year after that.
They still had 6-time All-Star DeMar DeRozan [in his prime] through '21, who was also All-NBA 2nd Team in '18 just before coming to the Spurs. They had LaMarcus Aldridge through '20/'21, who although getting on in years has aged fantastically well, and had All-Star seasons in S.A., including an All-NBA year there in '18.
They had a couple decent limited-minute veteran role players in Patty Mills and Rudy Gay. They had a few promising [though definitely not star quality] young players in guys like Derrick White, Dejonte Murray, and Jakob Poetl.
We’re not asking for a contender with these casts, but maybe just a playoff team?? If Pop is the true architect of prior Spurs success, surely he could manage it with this talent, right?
I don’t mean this to sound disparaging of Gregg Popovich. I absolutely do think he’s on the short-list of greatest coaches ever. But something was missing…..
Tim’s LeadershipSure, it was a give and take; but you might say Tim gave more than he took in their relationship. As great a coach as Popovich was and is, that dynastic winning culture just doesn’t work without Tim.
Especially 6-8 years ago, you had multiple franchises trying to emulate the Spurs culture……..but [to quote ThaRegul8r] “try as they might to replicate the Spurs' recipe, all of them are forced to concede at a certain juncture that they're missing one essential ingredient: They don't have Tim Duncan.”
You don’t have to take it from me [or from ThaRegul8r]. You can take it from Pop himself.
When being interviewed wrt the winning culture that “he creates”, Pop responded:
Gregg Popovich wrote:Before you start handing out applause and credit to anyone else in this organization for anything that's been accomplished, remember it all starts with and goes through Timmy.
Spurs general manager R.C.Buford is on record saying:
R.C. Buford wrote:Tim's contributed to our success in so many ways for so long. I know people continue to point it out, and it needs to be pointed out, the support and what he's allowed us to do, but this is nothing new.
And….
R.C. Buford wrote:The truth is we all work for Timmy.
Says Sean Elliott (played four seasons with Tim, winning one title):
Sean Elliott wrote:We all see it R.C.’s way. We’re not dumb. We all know we wouldn’t have any rings without Timmy. Everybody understands that. We all feel like we’re working for Timmy.
If there’s a “Pop System/Factor” at play, it’s Tim’s presence that allows it to flourish. To again paraphrase statements made by ThaRegul8r in the past: Tim let himself be coached, which set the example for everyone else,
thus empowering Gregg Popovich.
The system and the partnership worked so well because Popovich could coach Tim Duncan. This sounds pretty basic [and I suppose it is]. But in an era where superstars constantly flex their power, and coaches live in fear of getting on the wrong side of the superstar (and potentially being fired as a result), they tend to only yell at the lesser players, and allow the superstar to get away with anything.
Not so for Pop; he didn’t have to worry about the usual BS. He had security [and authority] in his head coaching position: courtesy of Tim Duncan. Pop would openly yell at Duncan in practice, and Tim would quietly accept it without complaint, would communicate respectfully and ultimately always defer to Pop’s judgment.
And the franchise player sets the tone for everyone else.
When your main guy at the top is nearly devoid of an ego, you will field a roster of players devoid of egos. Teams take on the personalities of their best player.The Spurs were able to craft a coveted locker-room environment, where no one whined about minutes or shots or lack of spotlight
because their star player embodied it.But again, you don’t have to take it from me….
Gregg Popovich wrote:There's not an ounce of MTV in him. His approach is totally unique in today's world. […] He couldn't care less about himself.
Bruce Bowen wrote:Even in a day and age of promoting the individual, he didn’t allow anything about himself to take away from the good of the group.
R.C. Buford wrote:In terms of humility, he’s a different animal in today’s world. I’m not sure the systems that are in place now allow someone to grow up that untainted. In that way, you may never see another like him.
Leadership Beyond the Practice/Locker-room/Media Persona“But Duncan always had excellent supporting casts.”
We’ve heard this refrain, too, no?
But Duncan is one of the few players for whom it doesn’t carry a ton of weight. That’s not to say that he didn’t have mostly good casts [he did]. But in his case,
he facilitated their formation.
Remember the 2014 Spurs team? This team that seemed somehow greater than the sum of its parts? Let’s recall a few of those “parts”; in particular: Boris Diaw, Danny Green, and Patty Mills.
These guys combined for 28.4 ppg @ >59% TS, 9.6 rpg, 6.1 apg [3.4 topg] in the rs, and similar overall production in the playoffs, as well as comprising one of their most key defensive role players [Green], and a guy who provided them a ton of versatility on offense in particular and crucial “matching up” cog [Diaw].
Specifically in the 2014 Finals, this trio combined for 25.6 ppg @ 60.8% TS, 12.0 rpg, 8.6 apg [and only 3.0 topg]. Diaw in particular led the team in assists and was 2nd in rebounds during the series. A 2014 article was lauding the contributions of “role players” on that team, and described Diaw in particular as “a vital piece to the team’s success” and a “secret weapon”.
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.
Although the wheels have pretty well fallen off the success bus now, the Spurs did have an excellent year in ‘17, just after Tim’s retirement.
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 over $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].
Where most superstars are making demands or asking the franchise “what can you do for me?”----be it for greed, prestige, or petty competition [like “so and so over there is making $X, so I want $X+1”]: even Bill Russell is guilty of the latter [when Wilt got his then-historic $100,000 contract, Russell negotiated a contract for $100,001, just to make a point]----Tim was asking, “What do
you need from
me? You need me to take less? Fine, let’s do what we gotta do to put us in a position to win.”
So you can’t try to use good supporting casts as a detracting point for Tim Duncan, because doing so fails to acknowledge
that he’s partly responsible for obtaining those casts.
Tim Duncan is quite simply the single-greatest team leader in the history of the game, imo. The impact he had OFF the court on his own success, and that of his team, is potentially so substantial that if someone were to rank him as the GOAT, I’d not argue them. I may not agree, but I’d at least acknowledge “I get it”. In fact, I'm considering bumping him all the way up to #2 on my own ATL.
When I look at a player whose statistical, impact, and accomplishment profile looks rather easily top 8 (and arguably top 5 [VERY likely from a total career value standpoint]), and then add on consideration of his extraordinary leadership resume [I mean, it doesn't sell shoes, but I still think it's pretty relevant in a discussion of basketball greatness], it makes him a LOCK on my "Mount Rushmore".
ALTERNATE: Wilt ChamberlainIt was between him and Bill Russell, but I'm surprising myself and going with Wilt. Had recently started doing some "CORP" considerations, and he comes out ahead of Russell in this for me (in a vacuum). Which seems predictable, really; he simply is the "bigger" talent [to me].
ZeppelinPage made some cogent arguments regarding his wearing of many hats (changing his role repeatedly), as well as some simple bad luck he had in multiple years (unfortunate circumstances that Russell was largely spared), too.
Doctor MJ also noted that he may have been more motivated toward an even better NBA career than he already had, if it had been as lucrative as it is today.
Anyway, that's the short of it.
Nomination: Magic Johnson"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
