Me too, with whatever Eastern Conference team winning it all (unlikely). Golden State needs to get knocked down a peg.
Duncan is still a defensive monster. He has never relied on athletic ability, he has done it with consistent effort, length and defensive know how, and those things don't age. Eventually what athletic ability he has will decline to sub NBA levels at some point, but it certainly hasn't yet. I really can't stand the Spurs fans, but man I respect their basketball execution on both ends.
Unless the Rockets play themselves back into contention, this season is all about waiting for the inevitable Spurs-Warriors playoff series.
You saying that merely puts the whole quantitative stats for individual defense into question. Look up Duncan's whole career of Adv Stats on b-r.com. Sort by DBPM. Are we really going to believe that this is Duncan's best defensive season, BY FAR. And are we really going to believe the 3 out of Duncan's top 5 DBPM years happened since he turned 36. R e a l l y Duncan's defense has improved with age? INB4 comments about him focusing less on offense allows him to improve with age on defense. Is that what we are going with, or are we going to say the DBPM stat is highly flawed, and Duncan's seasonal DBPM ranked against themselves proves it. Also, that stats doesn't even have Hakeem and Deke in the top 10 lifetime. Howard and Rodman aren't in the Top 20 Stats regarding individual defense have a long way to go, especially Boxscore based ones.
Alright let me backtrack and address your appropriate concerns. I merely intended to say that he was still a defensive force and in my enthusiasm I said he was posting one of his best defensive seasons ever. This is a guy who was a monster defender for most of the 00's and was playing a tremendous role for his team. That role his since declined. So it would be difficult to put this season in context of such a sustained history of defensive excellence. BUT Let me add a couple of things. I think it's logical that having an elite wing defender (and DPOY, in my book) in Kawhi would make your job easier as a rim protector. By many rim protection metrics, imperfect as they are, Duncan is a top 10 rim protector; if you restrict it to players who play 25 mpg or more, he's a top 5 rim protector. He's also around his career average in block/steal% and his team is by far the best defensive team in the league and has the second best differential. His rebounding has gone down a bit but it's still at an elite level. So, even if this isn't his best defensive season ever, it isn't THAT crazy to say that this is one of his best defensive seasons ever, with the caveat that this is with a somewhat smaller role, but that it still compares favorably with most of his elite high-usage seasons.
To address this concern specifically, you're right, DBPM is flawed and fails to capture the nuances of defensive excellence. It doesn't, for example, consider that a defensive rebound is an offensive rebound denied. Also defensive rebounds are figured into OBPM, though in a weird way. How does that make sense? If you look closely you could surmise that because DRB% is a negative coefficient in the equation for OBPM, that it does positively affect DBPM. But this poses the question of why those two necessarily need to be lumped with each other, as if all statistics must be part of a zero sum game. To an extent, DRPM deals with this by weighting defensive statistics more appropriately, and as far as I can tell they haven't gone back and looked at players like Hakeem and Rodman to see where they rank historically. But even with all those caveats, most of those players in the top 10 and top 20 make sense. If you accept that the statistic needs refinement so ranking is somewhat imperfect and that weird outliers may pop up that you may not have previously considered, then the top 20 isn't all that crazy. In general though, it gives you a sense of defensive impact, and while Hakeem is likely a top 10 or top 5 all time defender, it's hard to say that Ben Wallace wasn't even more of a force during those 5 or 6 years where Detroit was dominant, considering that Big Ben had almost no role on offense. That doesn't mean that Hakeem wasn't the far superior player, or that given a similar offensive role, that Hakeem wouldn't be the superior defender. At the end of the day, you need to place stats into context, which is why your point regarding Duncan is well taken. However, I still contend that there is no evidence that Duncan is "done" and by many metrics he is a top 5 defensive big this season.
One last thing as I think we've beaten this dead horse enough. Defenses have changed completely between the Rodman/Hakeem era and now so it's nearly impossible to compare those players apples to apples. For example, take the hand check rule. Did the fact that everyone could hand check limit Hakeem in the sense that we never saw his full potential as a rim protector? Or did it help his DBPM because fewer people drove on him? Similarly, did it help or hurt Big Ben (from a purely statistical standpoint?) Was it more impressive or less impressive that Big Ben could post huge DBPM stats when it was easier for speedy guards to drive into the lane? Offenses have also completely changed. Would Hakeem be equally effective as a defender in the current spread pick and roll system versus the iso/post heavy offenses of the 90's? My guess is he would stand out even more given his excellent perimeter defense. But that's just a somewhat educated guess. Bottom line is, take all stats with a grain of salt. And respect the insane longevity of Robot Duncan.
Duncan doesn't need to score much anymore and is completely focused on defence. And surpise surprise he's one of the strongest DPOY candidates this year so far. (along with Kawhi). If every player in the league who was done was like current Duncan then all the teams would be loaded and we would be watching amazing bball.
Now you're baiting him. Tim Duncan is definitely an amazing player. But I think Hakeem is a notch over him.
Exactly my intention, since he drew the first blood by bringing DRob vs Hakeem debate into this discussion. Honestly, it's quite arguable IMHO, the same with Shaq, Hakeem's peak was higher (though TD did carry that lone superstar Spurs team in 2003 to championship too ala Hakeem did in 1994), but TD's longevity & continued excellence are great too, and ofcourse 5 rings trump two's -that's just my opinion of which i am entitled to. I think they are lump in the same echelon just below the all time greats like Jordan, Chamberlain, and Kareem. Back to topic, it is not bad for a player who is presumed to be done having stat like this: http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/RPM Being the only C in top ten & highest in the list, if he is done, then what will it imply toward other Cs in the league such as Howard of your own ? LOL. :grin:
I think its arguable who is better TD or Hakeem. They are both up there in the conversations of greatest players ever. They play different positions anyway.
Come on. It's obviously Hakeem. No homer-ism there. Hakeem carried two teams to a championship. Popavich carried five teams.
