Has Tim Duncan become somewhat overrated?

Jaivl · Post #81 » by **Jaivl** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 12:59 am

If Duncan is a cyborg (as I suspect) and puts 8-10 seasons more at this level of play he is the GOAT and I don't care about stupid peaks. There is a moment where longevity overcomes peak. And Duncan has clearly crossed that line with Bird.

Shaqsquatch · Post #82 » by **Shaqsquatch** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 1:09 am

Sedale Threatt wrote:
nonjokegetter wrote:
Chuck Texas wrote:
What is the relevance of comparing every NBA player at his best against Duncan's most recent 3 years? It suggests you think Duncan is ranked exclusively on those last 3 years instead of his career as a whole.

Because in the last 3 years, he has ostensibly leapfrogged people like Shaq and Magic and Bird, and I'm wondering three years of, say, prime Zach Randolph-level play would warrant that. But see, I think prime Zach Randolph was probably a bit better than Tim Duncan over the last three years, so it's not even really that, is it?

So you take Duncan's career from 1997 to 2011 and say it's #7 or #8. Then you say "Let's add three years as a top 20ish player to that." Is that something that sounds like it's worthy of catapulting him over those other players? Not to me.

Which is why some people think we're dealing with a subconscious recency bias.

That's the relevance.

Sedale Threatt wrote:
It's massively relevant. You pick Duncan, and you're basically getting an All-Star for nearly two decades. Forget championship impact or whatever. The simple fact he's still at a league-best level at his age, independent of whatever his team puts him in position to do, is gigantic. Compare that to, say, 10 or 12 with Bird and Magic. That's a huge, huge difference, and I struggle to see how it's not part of the equation. Given the choice to start a franchise with any of the three, knowing what we know, how does one not take Duncan, given the fact he's going to give you an extra five or six or maybe even more years of quality, cornerstone-type play? If we're just ranking careers, maybe it's different, at least for Magic. But from a practical standpoint, I'm taking Duncan over all but about four or five guys. Maybe not that many.

Okay? I didn't know 3 years of Zach Randolph were enough for you. It's not to me. Whether or not we're getting prime Zach Randolph play when a guy is 25 or 37 doesn't really matter, if you're just tacking on three years of that. Duncan's a great player. But 3 years of top 20 play doesn't bump him significantly from where he was in 2011 (which is a ranking I agree with).

Zach Randolph?!? Duncan was freaking All-NBA first team two seasons ago, and he wasn't far from that last year or the year before. Duncan is putting up PERs at 35-38 -- All-Star level stuff -- that are comparable to Randolph's prime. Plus, he plays better defense than Zach Randolph ever did even at this stage. That alone separates him. And we're not even getting into intangible qualities like leadership and professionalism.

I mean, it's whatever, but there are very, very fine lines when you're ranking stuff like this. You think about the thousands of players who have come through the NBA, there aren't vast chasms between the top eight or so. And Duncan was pretty much permanently ensconced there even before these last three years. Then when you add those seasons, which are way better than you're giving him credit for, at a point where pretty much everybody but Kareem and Karl Malone were shells of themselves, it's fairly lazy to chalk up any elevation in his ranking strictly to recency bias.

We've already known for years and years that Duncan is an elite championship cornerstone, one of the three or four best two-way bigs in history. Then when you add this last finishing run, surely it's not a stretch to put him over someone like Bird or Magic, who were inferior two-way players and had significantly less longevity. It's always up for debate, but you can make a damn good case: 17 seasons with a 22 PER or better -- 17 seasons!!! -- elite rebounding and defense, impeccable intangibles. As I said earlier, it's impossible to overrate that.

Forget the all star nonesense. In 2013 he made the defensive team at power forward by default and then he made the offensive team at center by default. Explain how he gets voted in at two different positions in the same year? Talk about media love. There were better defensive centers in 2013 and there were better offensive power forwards in 2013.

Ballerhogger · Post #83 » by **Ballerhogger** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:57 am

Lol kobe somehow gets into every PC Thread

Ballerhogger · Post #84 » by **Ballerhogger** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:58 am

Duncan almsot averages a double double in his 17th season . Thats crazy guys

poopdamoop · Post #85 » by **poopdamoop** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 3:57 am

Clyde Frazier wrote:
poopdamoop wrote:I don't think he's overrated, but everyone in this thread is bringing up age for some reason. It doesn't matter that he was 37 when he's putting up 17/10 in the playoffs, all that matters is he was putting up 17/10. Age is irrelevant here.

On topic though, let's assume Shaq or Magic had slightly better careers than Duncan up to 2011. I don't see why its impossible for Duncan to move above them with the seasons he's had since then. It's not like any season that doesn't end in an MVP or FMVP is pointless.

It's a comment on his longevity and consistency. It definitely matters when looking at his career as a whole.

It's certainly impressive, but I just don't think it deserves extra credit or anything because he played well when he was old. In a vacuum though, it's definitely worthy of praise.

mtron929 · Post #86 » by **mtron929** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 3:58 am

When evaluating players, there is a natural tendency to count everything that has transpired into the entire narrative however minute the details might be. In this sense, Duncan is getting overrated from his post-prime productions. In a hypothetical scenario, let's say that Duncan at age 41-42 is still playing in the NBA and getting about 4 points and 3 rebounds per game in 12-15 minutes. But he is playing on a stacked Spurs team that eventually wins the championship with Duncan making some timely role-player like plays to help the Spurs team. There will be quite a number of people who overrate these type of accomplishments as it seems to be larger than life narrative that is transpiring before our eyes. For someone like myself, this type of production would add close to zero when it comes to evaluating his entire career.

magicmerl · Post #87 » by **magicmerl** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 6:27 am

nonjokegetter wrote:
magicmerl wrote:
nonjokegetter wrote:
I think the answer to the question is partially found in how many players in the history of the game you think are better than just those three years of Duncan. How many current players do you think have been better in that time frame?

How many players in the NBA do you think were better than MJ during his washington years?

A lot. Maybe 100. Now can you answer my question?

I'd still need to know more. Are you asking me how many players were better than Duncan when they were 35-37? Or are you talking about any player in their peak/prime/career?

If it's the former KAJ is the only candidate that springs to mind, and even then he has a marginal scoring advantage and a substantial rebounding disparity. I would say that Duncan was better than both Hakeem and Shaq at that age. So maybe one person in history was as good or better than Duncan's last 3 seasons.

If it's the latter I would have to question what value that comparison would have.

Post #88 » by **Texas Chuck** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 1:21 pm

mtron929 wrote:When evaluating players, there is a natural tendency to count everything that has transpired into the entire narrative however minute the details might be. In this sense, Duncan is getting overrated from his post-prime productions. In a hypothetical scenario, let's say that Duncan at age 41-42 is still playing in the NBA and getting about 4 points and 3 rebounds per game in 12-15 minutes. But he is playing on a stacked Spurs team that eventually wins the championship with Duncan making some timely role-player like plays to help the Spurs team. There will be quite a number of people who overrate these type of accomplishments as it seems to be larger than life narrative that is transpiring before our eyes. For someone like myself, this type of production would add close to zero when it comes to evaluating his entire career.

This fictional scenario is so far from what happened the last 3 years as to be beyond trivial. Its such an extreme reduction as to be completely worthless and intentionally misleading. Tim Duncan was 1st team all-NBA during this stretch. Do you really think that should be treated like your 4/3 example?

When we get to Chief on the list I promise you not one single person will be attempting to use the fact that he was a member of the 1997 Bulls champions in an effort to bump him up. Heck I'd imagine without looking him up most people weren't even aware he was on that team. But people will rightfully credit him for longevity for still being a really solid center for the Celtics in his late 30s--and those weren't championship teams so you can't accuse everyone of getting blinded by winning.

Joseph17 · Post #89 » by **Joseph17** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 1:38 pm

Jaivl wrote:If Duncan is a cyborg (as I suspect) and puts 8-10 seasons more at this level of play he is the GOAT and I don't care about stupid peaks. There is a moment where longevity overcomes peak. And Duncan has clearly crossed that line with Bird.

No chance at being the goat even if he continues playing at the level he's playing at. Contrary to what realgm thinks, he's not the best player on the team.

nonjokegetter · Post #90 » by **nonjokegetter** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:13 pm

magicmerl wrote:
nonjokegetter wrote:
magicmerl wrote:How many players in the NBA do you think were better than MJ during his washington years?

A lot. Maybe 100. Now can you answer my question?

I'd still need to know more. Are you asking me how many players were better than Duncan when they were 35-37? Or are you talking about any player in their peak/prime/career?

If it's the former KAJ is the only candidate that springs to mind, and even then he has a marginal scoring advantage and a substantial rebounding disparity. I would say that Duncan was better than both Hakeem and Shaq at that age. So maybe one person in history was as good or better than Duncan's last 3 seasons.

If it's the latter I would have to question what value that comparison would have.

As I mentioned to a previous poster, I'm talking any player in their peak/prime/career. And the value is that if you think that Duncan was around 7 or 8 in 2011, do you think three years of [whatever player] is enough to catapult him to 5, over Magic and Shaq, in particular?

Unless you thought Duncan in 2011 was already at 5- then you don't need to ask yourself that question at all.

G35 · Post #91 » by **G35** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:28 pm

nonjokegetter wrote:
Swagalicious wrote:Yes
Ballerhogger wrote: at the tail end of his career he still having championship impact.

This, to me, is overrating him. His "championship impact" last year wouldn't have interested anyone if he was playing for the Orlando Magic. He was a closer to being a fringe allstar level player than a legit all-nba level player.

He's one of those guys who gets all the credit and none of the blame.

Agreed. If that's our bar for championship impact, how many people could've had a similar championship impact last year if they had as good of a team around them, with as good of a coach. 30? 40? Of course Duncan is an all-time great and an easy top 10, but 5 is a tad too much.

This is why I quoted you.

Keep banging your head against the wall because many players DO provide championship impact but that DOES NOT win championships. Results matter.

You agreed that Duncan gets all the credit and none of the blame which is where you are completely wrong. Whenever the Spurs have not won a title Duncan gets all the blame. Who else do they blame? Parker? Ginobli? No, it all goes directly to the star and that is Duncan.

This is where I say that people are upset at Duncan is because they want to place some blame on him for some insane reason. Except when he retires watch what happens......

nonjokegetter · Post #92 » by **nonjokegetter** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:31 pm

G35 wrote:
nonjokegetter wrote:
Swagalicious wrote:Yes

This, to me, is overrating him. His "championship impact" last year wouldn't have interested anyone if he was playing for the Orlando Magic. He was a closer to being a fringe allstar level player than a legit all-nba level player.

He's one of those guys who gets all the credit and none of the blame.

Agreed. If that's our bar for championship impact, how many people could've had a similar championship impact last year if they had as good of a team around them, with as good of a coach. 30? 40? Of course Duncan is an all-time great and an easy top 10, but 5 is a tad too much.

This is why I quoted you.

Keep banging your head against the wall because many players DO provide championship impact but that DOES NOT win championships. Results matter.

This is just you going back to team results. It's not a very good argument and we know why.

You agreed that Duncan gets all the credit and none of the blame which is where you are completely wrong.

I wasn't, actually, I was agreeing with what he said about championship impact. Which is why, ya know, I went on to talk about that? I don't care about blame or credit, that's for you story line guys to worry about.

This is where I say that people are upset at Duncan is because they want to place some blame on him for some insane reason. Except when he retires watch what happens......

What?

G35 · Post #93 » by **G35** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:39 pm

mtron929 wrote:When evaluating players, there is a natural tendency to count everything that has transpired into the entire narrative however minute the details might be. In this sense, Duncan is getting overrated from his post-prime productions. In a hypothetical scenario, let's say that Duncan at age 41-42 is still playing in the NBA and getting about 4 points and 3 rebounds per game in 12-15 minutes. But he is playing on a stacked Spurs team that eventually wins the championship with Duncan making some timely role-player like plays to help the Spurs team. There will be quite a number of people who overrate these type of accomplishments as it seems to be larger than life narrative that is transpiring before our eyes. For someone like myself, this type of production would add close to zero when it comes to evaluating his entire career.

If Duncan was coming off the bench...if he was only getting your 4pts and 3 reb's there would be a point that his contributions could be replaced.

But in the playoffs he was second on the team in scoring and led the team in rebounding and block shots. He also led the team in minutes played! Who was on the court the most for the Spurs...Duncan! How does he not have the most impact of any Spurs player.

Then if you want to get into all the advanced stats:

Led the team in Playoff PER
Led the team in WS and WS/48
He was 2nd in ORtg from players that played more than 10mpg

I think he should have gotten the Finals MVP. What metric shows that he was not the best player for the Spurs during the playoffs? Someone's say so? It's crazy to me that people think he was a role player this year.....

G35 · Post #94 » by **G35** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:41 pm

nonjokegetter wrote:
G35 wrote:
nonjokegetter wrote:
Agreed. If that's our bar for championship impact, how many people could've had a similar championship impact last year if they had as good of a team around them, with as good of a coach. 30? 40? Of course Duncan is an all-time great and an easy top 10, but 5 is a tad too much.

This is why I quoted you.

Keep banging your head against the wall because many players DO provide championship impact but that DOES NOT win championships. Results matter.

This is just you going back to team results. It's not a very good argument and we know why.

You agreed that Duncan gets all the credit and none of the blame which is where you are completely wrong.

I wasn't, actually, I was agreeing with what he said about championship impact. Which is why, ya know, I went on to talk about that? I don't care about blame or credit, that's for you story line guys to worry about.

This is where I say that people are upset at Duncan is because they want to place some blame on him for some insane reason. Except when he retires watch what happens......

What?

No I don't know why. Because if the Spurs had lost, no one would be placing them as one of the best teams ever. We would be hearing how Lebron has gotten a threepeat and Duncan now lost back to back finals and he is overrated.

You know what championship impact is? It's when you actually win a championship, what you are talking about is some vague, netherland where you can shift your standards to fit your agenda......

nonjokegetter · Post #95 » by **nonjokegetter** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 2:50 pm

G35 wrote:No I don't know why. Because if the Spurs had lost, no one would be placing them as one of the best teams ever. We would be hearing how Lebron has gotten a threepeat and Duncan now lost back to back finals and he is overrated.

Okay? I don't care about your storylines, remember? I don't care. I don't care who's led a team that's never won a championship to one, I don't care about who's considering what, I don't care about the Decision, I don't care about any of this. When I analyze basketball players, I care about how they play basketball. That's it.

You know what championship impact is? It's when you actually win a championship, what you are talking about is some vague, netherland where you can shift your standards to fit your agenda......

So your argument is only championship teams have players that can provide championship impact? Is that correct?

G35 · Post #96 » by **G35** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 3:18 pm

nonjokegetter wrote:
G35 wrote:No I don't know why. Because if the Spurs had lost, no one would be placing them as one of the best teams ever. We would be hearing how Lebron has gotten a threepeat and Duncan now lost back to back finals and he is overrated.

Okay? I don't care about your storylines, remember? I don't care. I don't care who's led a team that's never won a championship to one, I don't care about who's considering what, I don't care about the Decision, I don't care about any of this. When I analyze basketball players, I care about how they play basketball. That's it.

You know what championship impact is? It's when you actually win a championship, what you are talking about is some vague, netherland where you can shift your standards to fit your agenda......

So your argument is only championship teams have players that can provide championship impact? Is that correct?

Guess what I don't care about your championship impact, because it doesn't have any tangible result except in your own head.

No, my argument is results matter. Your opinion of what matters doesn't.....

nonjokegetter · Post #97 » by **nonjokegetter** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 3:26 pm

G35 wrote:
nonjokegetter wrote:
G35 wrote:No I don't know why. Because if the Spurs had lost, no one would be placing them as one of the best teams ever. We would be hearing how Lebron has gotten a threepeat and Duncan now lost back to back finals and he is overrated.

Okay? I don't care about your storylines, remember? I don't care. I don't care who's led a team that's never won a championship to one, I don't care about who's considering what, I don't care about the Decision, I don't care about any of this. When I analyze basketball players, I care about how they play basketball. That's it.

You know what championship impact is? It's when you actually win a championship, what you are talking about is some vague, netherland where you can shift your standards to fit your agenda......

So your argument is only championship teams have players that can provide championship impact? Is that correct?

Guess what I don't care about your championship impact, because it doesn't have any tangible result except in your own head.

No, my argument is results matter. Your opinion of what matters doesn't.....

hahahahah then why are you responding to a post that was questioning the idea of championship impact? lol wtf? Seriously:
1- someone brought up championship impact,
2- another poster called that idea into question,
3- I agreed with that second poster,
4- you were critical of my agreeing with him,
5- and now you're saying you don't care about championship impact? Then what were you disagreeing with? loool

(incredibly simplistic way to analyze players, too, btw. "Did he win that year? Yeah? Then he's a champion and that's the result and so he's better than the other guy. Next!")

Sedale Threatt · Post #98 » by **Sedale Threatt** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 4:48 pm

G35 wrote:If Duncan was coming off the bench...if he was only getting your 4pts and 3 reb's there would be a point that his contributions could be replaced.

But in the playoffs he was second on the team in scoring and led the team in rebounding and block shots. He also led the team in minutes played! Who was on the court the most for the Spurs...Duncan! How does he not have the most impact of any Spurs player.

Then if you want to get into all the advanced stats:

Led the team in Playoff PER
Led the team in WS and WS/48
He was 2nd in ORtg from players that played more than 10mpg

I think he should have gotten the Finals MVP. What metric shows that he was not the best player for the Spurs during the playoffs? Someone's say so? It's crazy to me that people think he was a role player this year.....

Exactly, it's bananas. He also finished fourth overall in RAPM in 12-13, ninth in ESPN's real plus/minus last year (third on defense), and it's meh. All I can put that on is people looking at raw box score numbers and going off that. When in fact the only major difference between now and then is the fact that he's playing fewer minutes -- which is no small thing, of course. But if you look at his rate of production per 36 minutes, and he's basically right around the same level he's always been, particularly as a rebounder and shot blocker. Clearly a top-flight player still, at an age when most of his historic peers were either washed up or retired altogether.

That's definitely enough in my eyes to make a case over the likes of Magic or Bird, and very probably Shaq. Looking at it another way: Would you rather have Magic or Bird for 900 games, or Duncan for -- barring some kind of major injury this year -- more than 1300? That's a pretty easy choice for me. Then in Shaq's case, maybe my second-favorite player of all time, but you're getting more consistent play on the defensive end, with none of the chemistry and work ethic issues, for about two more RS games out of every 10. That's a huge, huge difference. Can you still make cases for those three? For sure. But to just attribute elevating Duncan to recency bias is lazy, and does not take the full picture into account.

It's not the fact the Spurs have had such great success over the past three years or so, it's the fact Duncan has played so great along the way. Still. For nearly two decades now.

waya · Post #99 » by **waya** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 6:55 pm

The fact that there are still idiotic threads like this is evidence that he's still underrated.

microfib4thewin · Post #100 » by **microfib4thewin** » Sat Sep 27, 2014 7:55 pm

I am not sure how Duncan can be classified as injury prone. There's missing the 2000 playoffs and limping to finish 2005. I don't recall any other instances where Duncan was severely affected by injuries.

I do think that Duncan doesn't get enough flack for underperforming, but outside of Shaq I don't see anyone that should have went ahead of him. Lebron will also surpass Duncan when all is said and done.