[Poll & Discussion] Best player of last generation

Shaq is better than Duncan and it isn't really close.

 

Shaq would

not Kobr though

 

BEST CAREER - Tim Duncan

BEST PEAK - Shaq

BEST STAR - Kobe


Duncan would probably a top 5 pick ALL TIME if a team (any market size team) were drafting a player, knowing all the positives and negatives they would have to contend with in terms of peak/longevity/health/behavior/attitude/loyalty/maturity... etc.

With Duncan, the issues of wanting a bigger market or spotlight wouldn't be an issue, like it was for Shaq, Kareem, Lebron, Kobe (to some extent). With Duncan, the issue of money wouldn't be an issue (as far a we know anyways) like it was for many of the other all time greats.

Duncan didn't threaten to leave for a bigger market nor did he gripe about his contract or ever asked/threaten/wanted to be traded.

He didn't have public battles with teammates/owners or coaches. He just simply & consistently played basketball at an elite level for the same team, coach and city for nearly two decades.

 

i said Kobe, but you could easily say Duncan. If you think about longevity, efficiency, and consistency, it's Duncan. Really tough call.

 

Kobe.

 

If you want PEAK then it's Shaq, otherwise it's TD. But then again I don't think Shaq and TD belong on the same generation since Shaq was already playing when Kobe and TD came in the league.

Anyway there's no question it's TD over Kobe, people who say Kobe probably have Kobe as their idol so they put him higher up then he should be. As a player, TD is better big man>small man. As a leader, TD is better he has no drama no BS Kobe landed in a dream situation and then chased his big man away, then started whining and crying when he couldn't get it done with just Lamar Odom even posting a rant throwing his young up-and-coming star Bynum under the bus. As a winner, TD has more MVPS, Finals MVPs and just as many rings as Kobe. As for health, TD played 19 seasons without injury and could have still played longer if he wanted to. He also took a discount to allow Spurs to surround him with talent. AND best of all, he won his 5 rings with like 4 different cast of characters, and in all of those he was the heart and soul of his squad. In Kobe's case the only times he won was with Shaq who was the main man and with Gasol who honestly should've been the Finals MVP instead of him. Kobe shot 6-24 and his team still won, if TD shot that percentage in a game 7 his team loses. If you want clutch despite being a PF/C TD has his own clutch moments, he even shot a last second 3 pt shot against the Lakers before in the playoffs. And he hasn't abandoned his team at all, before LMA and Kawhi came they had like 2 seasons where Spurs were expected to finally fade away, instead of running away or asking for a trade to a contender TD put them on his back and carried them to the Finals.

TD may not be as talented or dominant as some players in history but if all players entered the draft he would go top 5, maybe even top 3. The reason is his character, dude has no ego and no drama despite being a superstar, if you get him on the team he will make sure other players get in line with the coach. At the end of the day basketball is about teamwork, it's not about the individual it's about whose team scored more and if you're a GM your concern should be that "W" and not whether the dude is a generational talent or not. TD is the best of both worlds, he's an amazing talent but he also has the intangibles you'd want in a teammate, leader and franchise player.

 

Bro kobe did

 

i ended up picking shaq because i just think he dominated at a higher level for a decade. longevity is hard to account for. if you use longevity, then at some point michael jordan probably isn't the best player ever because he really only played 13 peak seasons and others could eclipse him just from the totality of their careers. do we want that? obviously it has to account for something, but how much i don't know. maybe shaq would've played longer if he stayed in shape. maybe duncan shouldn't get so much credit for these last few seasons because he got to manage his minutes and have other people carry the offense so it would easier to play longer. plus, given how close i think shaq and hakeem are, i can't really put duncan over shaq.



as for kobe, duncan has the same number of titles, has slightly better regular season stats and significantly better playoff stats, and has those stats over a larger number of seasons. i just don't see much argument for kobe.

 

This..

 

The fact Kobe is beating out Shaq proves we have far too many clueless posters on here.

 

I guess it depends on how you define "best". Shaq was probably the most dominant but seemed to lack fundamentals. I think he could have accomplished more if he had the drive of Kobe or the discipline of Duncan. With that said, it's between Kobe and Duncan. Garnett and Dirk should not be in the same conversation as the other three.

 

Without a dominant center Kobe couldnt even get a team into the playoffs

 

Shaq. Most dominant superstar at his prime and during his era.

Duncan had the benefit of having a tremendous organization behind him. Yes, Duncan did make a lot of team building possible because of his character and class etc, but still he did benefit from having awesome teams and coaching staffs.

 

Thank you for posting this...I agree and the main thing to take away from this is how criminally underrated KG's career will be. I remember the debate used to be between Duncan and KG, but Duncan was very fortunate to have been coached by Pop and played with the Spurs organization. Prime KG > Prime TD easily.

He was the most valuable to his team than the other four players and I'd argue his prime/peak was also better. It's a shame he'll never get the credit he deserves because those Timberwolves teams usually weren't good enough to win it all and he didn't get a ring until the super team in Boston.

KG's peak was incredible, the guy had 3 consecutive seasons of 9.0+ VORPs and posted many 6.0+. Shaq, despite his dominance only had one VORP of 9.0+ and many below 5.0, and Duncan's highest was 8.1.

As much as I couldn't stand him in his later Boston years, he was one of my favorite players in his prime years, and was an absolute joy to watch. That 03-04 season was crazy. Minnesota KG was unreal; he was LeBron-esque in how he meant EVERYTHING to that team. Other than LeBron, I haven't seen a player mean so much to his team on net overall offense and defense in the past decade.

 

Back in the day lots of teams had tremendous organizations behind them, I mean Lakers were Lakers, Sacramento (RA), Utah, PHX etc. lots of teams had great talent and amazing coaches esp. during TD's peak almost every team in WC was a powerhouse in its own right even the Rockets although not getting past the first round at least had Tmac, Yao and JVG. So before almost every WC team was a tremendous or at least decent organization, but none of his contemporaries except Kobe has shown the same kind of consistent succcess he's had.

And while the coaching in SA is indeed the best ever (IMHO Pops is coach GOAT), TD was also basically the only lottery pick SA has ever had since Kawhi, this meant that fundamentally Spurs had a weaker supporting cast they always had to resort to getting low picks and cast offs from other teams and turning them into diamonds and TD keeping these band of misfits in line and following Pops' demanding coaching style is a big part of that. Even the Spurs Big 3, nobody really considered Manu or Parker as franchise superstars especially when you compare them to other big 3 casts. I mean take out TD, Kobe and KG which would you rather have? Pierce and Allen, Gasol and Odom or Parker and Manu? Spurs may be a great organization but that reputation really only started when TD got there LOL if they were so amazing by themselves why where the Spurs so bad they got the number 1 pick in the first place? And now look at them last season, they got eliminated by a team many had ranked as weaker than them. I think this is the first time that has happened, and that's because this is the season TD finally succumbed to old age, if Spurs had prime TD instead of LMA I guarantee they would beaten OKC and faced GSW in the WCF instead.

 

Yao Ming and Steve Franchise.

 

A lot of KG's statistical accomplishments were tied to the fact that his team paid him around 80% of the salary cap, if you are a true franchise player and the rest of your team are rookies and minimum guys your advanced stats would be amazing because the moment you step out your team will be smacked to high heaven because you got replaced by a scrub. Not saying KG wasn't good, he was amazing, but he also benefited from artificial stat increase its like when Dwight Howard was in his prime back in Orlando and would get 20 rebs a night, that's because he was the only guy in the paint Rashard Lewis and Turkuglu were on the perimeter so he got all the defensive and offensive reb opportunities.

In the same way, KG was always the only good player on his team apart from one year when he had Cassell and Sprewell. Since he was always the focus of his team on both offense and defense it's not a surprise KG would have ridiculous statistical performances.

 

The choices in this poll are all big men (Shaq, Duncan, Dirk, and KG) and then Kobe. You can always find stats or awards to discredit Kobe's accomplishments, but even Shaq has said that Kobe is the greatest Laker of all time and that, as a big man, he can't really succeed unless he had a do everything guard like Kobe or Wade to get him the ball in the right spots. On the flip side though, Kobe is a scoring guard which is a much more exciting position for fans and I'm not sure if anyone can argue that Kobe is the most exciting player in this group and that is why he will be remembered as the player of this generation. Duncan is just about the most boring player there is. Effective and efficient, but boring as hell. To me, the player of the generation is the one that demands the biggest crowd. And no player since MJ has put the wow into the game like Kobe. I mean, to the fans, the sport is ultimately about entertainment. So by that measure, if you rate all of these players by the endorsement value and I'm pretty sure Kobe's endorsements far overshadow Duncan, Shaq, KG, and Dirk.

From a generational player standpoint in the last 25 to 30 years, it goes Magic/Bird to MJ to Kobe to Lebron to Curry. Sure, there are a lot of players that may be way better than these guys from whatever statistical standpoint you want to look at, but from the standpoint of who brings the crowd, these are the guys that are the generational players.

 

This posts explains why you are such a Kobe fan. Style over substance.

It does not matter if you win. As long as you look good doing it.

I disagree of course.