70sFan wrote:I think people underestimate 2008 Duncan. He wasn't at his peak anymore of course, but it doesn't mean he wasn't MVP-level player anymore.
This is a good push back and it encourages us to drill down.
Here's one thing that I think should be brought front of mind:
Statistically Duncan's decay is noteworthy for how gradual it is. To the extent this can be taken to be a reasonable mapping of how good Duncan was at any given time, it implies that Duncan wasn't that much worse in his post-prime compared to his prime.
Taking that as a premise is compatible with the contemporary story of Duncan's stature:
Not one of the great primes in history compared to Shaq and others from different eras, but his gradual decay allowed him to surpass Shaq for career.
It gets trickier though, I think, if you do believe that Duncan was as good or better than Shaq in their respective primes. If we continue with the premise of graceful gradual decay on Duncan's part, we'd expect that that would mean Duncan would be able to have a really long run continuing to be an MVP candidate into old age...which as I've pointed out, is absolutely not what happened.
So what then explains this discrepancy? I'll separate my post out below into a different section because that's just some further thoughts on my part, but I think that question is at the heart of what's to be discussed further.
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So, my own thoughts:
Let's start with a pragmatic reality. Duncan's Spurs took a step back - still great, but enough for a few teams to squeeze by, which then allows for the Spur star to get usurped by voters placing a significant weight on team record at the very least. Of course it's a team game, so if that alone really did Duncan's candidacy in, I think we agree there's an unfairness there.
Now as I've said, while I don't like such unfairness, and I respect others trying to normalize for unfairness in their criteria, I've come to the conclusion that trying to do this causes too many problems and so I've adopted a more simple perspective based around achievement, which will - among other things - elevate Duncan over Garnett. However it may also ends up "hurting" Duncan because that's how it goes. A lack of opportunity for achievement doesn't mean I credit you with achievement.
On a broad level, if that ends up being the difference between our rankings, that's quite understandable and I'm certainly not going to tell you you're wrong.
Of course, I'm still not wanting to just give guys the nod because they were on the best teams. I know it's a team game, and while individual achievement exists in that team medium, we do do what we can to try to normalize for that. This then to say, it was certainly no given for me when I went back that I'd shut Duncan out of my POY tallies, and yet I did.
After '06-07, he makes no appearances in my POY 5 nor in my OPOY or DPOY 3, and I feel like that's a thing I can put forward to
you and others: Does he make yours?
To give a sharper target here: Duncan stops being a 30 MPG guy in the RS after '09-10. While one can argue he deserves POY/OPOY/DPOY love after that, I think it's unlikely that someone would believe that if they didn't also believe Duncan deserved that stature over the 3 years '07-08, '08-09 & '09-10.
I think it would be great for people to say when and where Duncan placed in those lists if they could. I'll say up front that if people feel he should have been high up on all those lists as a matter of course, I think it just plain makes sense you rank Duncan quite high. On the other hand, for anyone who finds themselves unsure if Duncan squeezes on to their list, I think they need to consider what it means that this is so for Duncan with respect to the creme de la creme.
