nonjokegetter wrote:Sedale Threatt wrote:What difference does that make?
When you say things like "1300 games of Duncan or 900 of Magic", it kinda frames the argument in a way where it can be taken as one monolithic player, ya know? But the last 50 games of each weren't the same as the first 50 from them, nor were they their best 50, right? So all those games aren't equal.
So I'm curious when it was 900 of Magic versus 1000 of Duncan where you had them...And then interested in how these last post prime 300 have catapulted him. The long and short of it is the last few years, Duncan has been basically a normal All Star level player, at best. So where people had him before these last few years is of a lot of interest. If you had him at 8 then and you have him at 5 now....that's odd, that's all.
Two observations:
1. You're drastically underrating Duncan's performance over the last three years. The Zach Randolph comment speaks for itself. Duncan is playing as well as Randolph ever did in his prime in his late 30s, and that's not even taking defense into account, which vaults him to an entirely different level. Pretty much everything we can glean from advance stats, particularly RAPM -- fourth in both 11-12 and 12-13, 7th in 13-14 -- tells us this is still an elite player, if one who can no longer log heavy minutes.
If you want to dock him for that, I get it. There's a huge difference between 30 and even 35 minutes a night, let alone the 40 he used to get in his prime. But other than the fact he's not quite the same scorer -- albeit still very, very good -- and he's lost a little bit on D, there is no real discernible difference between the player he is today and any other point of his career. Look at his per 36 numbers, and it's just machine-like consistency, with excellent durability. So if you had Duncan as something of a coin flip with Hakeem or Shaq, and put a premium on two-way play, it's not a huge stretch to think this historically strong finish -- maybe the best ever for a big man given that Kareem was a shell of himself as a rebounder and defensive player at this stage -- might be reason for separation.
2. You seem to view the difference between 4th or 5th and 8th or 9th on an all-time list as a large chasm. It's not. For me personally, there are only three locks: Jordan, then Kareem and then Russell. Beyond that, I can see cases both for and against that next tier of elites: the Duncans, the Olajuwons, the Birds, the Magics. There isn't much separation among those players, to me. I certainly don't see any sense or fairness in locking an active player, who is still performing at an extremely high level, into a permanent position before his career is actually over.
Everybody has their own criterion for these sort of arguments. I go back to my first statement with Duncan, and the fact you get all those qualities for nearly two decades is absolutely deserving of the sixth or fifth spot, maybe even fourth if you caught me on the right day. Instead of flinging around the recency bias accusations, why don't you come up with a case AGAINST Duncan in that respect? I don't expect it to be particularly good after the Randolph comment, but that would at least have some substance to it.
