Sedale Threatt wrote: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
This is exactly what I said. You went on to say "and that doesn't take into account defense", but it does. A prime Zach Randolph put up 24 points on 54% TS. This Tim Duncan...isn't close to that. At all*. The comparison all together is close, though. You're basically adding three years of prime Zach Randolph (or something similar) to where Duncan was in 2011. To you, that might be good enough to vault from 7 or 8 to 5. It's not to me. Maybe you thought they were close enough that a Z-Bo couple of years can make the differece. For me, it might to leapfrog Bird, but not Magic and Shaq.
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 you.
Great. For me, it is.
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.
Why? Seriously: why? Recency bias IS a thing. We DO tend to overrate recent events as compared to ones further in the past. That's what humans do. I think this is a case of it. What are you gonna say? "No, there's no possible way?" Good luck! That's how I got roped into this: someone asking what were the errors in the ranking and i said I thought Duncan was too high. Coincidentally, the Spurs just won a championship and Duncan his 5th ring. I saw a correlation, and I mentioned it. Now we have people gnashing their teeth, insisting that a subconscious bias couldn't have occurred in them. Good luck with that?
The irony is, because of this conversation, years down the road some people who, in my opinion, fell into the recency bias trap will only ossify their opinions and, in a Cassandra prophecy type situation, my drawing attention to it will only motivate you and yours to keep the opinion far longer than you would've otherwise. No biggie, just basketball. I like Duncan.
* All flippancy aside- and it is flippant, cause I like Duncan, but I didn't think three years ago he was better than Magic or Shaq and three years of being an average All-Star isn't changing that, that's all- it's important to note how close it's not. 16 points on 54% TS is NOT 24 on 54%TS, and we both know it's not even close, so let's not pretend it is. I reread my post and realized I just kinda glossed over that, but if we're going to pretend that's similar offensive output, there's no point in going on anyway.
man. 
