I can't believe the hatin on these Duncan threads. I agree Duncan didn't dominate but he was the most consistent Spur and the MVP goes to someone on the winning team. As for asterisk series I presume you're speaking of the strike year. If the Quitten and the Rockets had one that year I doubt there would be anyone here complaining about the Rox winning an asterisks series. I know I wouldn't and I hate Quitten.
Give me a break. Duncan has more rings than Hakeem because they played in different era's. Hakeem had to face the 86 Celtics, the best team ever, in his first finals appearance. Duncan faced the 99 Knicks, the 8th seeded worst team ever to make the Finals. In just his 2nd year in the NBA, hakeem was the main reason the Rockets took down the LA Lakers and showtime and you say it took him till 92-93 to dominate? Asinine. No way does Tim Duncan ever beat a team with Kareem and Magic. Put a guy like Hakeem in today's diluted, sorry big man league and he'd dominate even moreso than he did in his time. Duncan was pitiful this series shooting the ball. He shot an Iversonesque shooting % and flat out choked in crunch times of Game 5 and 6. Maximizing potential doesn't include hitting FT's in crunch time? Why are the standards so low for Duncan? He has a very underrated supporting cast. Horry bailed him out from a colossal choke and Ginobili had a much better series than Duncan did. I don't care if Duncan wins 10 more titles, he will not ever step into the league of a Hakeem or Shaq or MJ until he shows he can dominate elite players (his level of play declines considerably when he faces a Karl Malone or Rasheed Wallace as in the last 2 yrs playoffs) and produce consistently in crunch time. Compare hakeem's supporting cast from 89-92 with Duncan's and you'll get a better picture. There's also 0 comparison between Duncan and hakeem defensively. Hakeem was the better athlete, better scorer, better defender, better free throw shooter, and more accurate shooter from the field. He's better in just about every phase of the game besides passing. It's really sad how underrated hakeem is by fans today. comparisons to guys like amare and duncan are just crazy. the only guy in the hakeem tier in today's NBA is shaq (careerwise). Your post also makes it seem like you are basically saying hakeem at his peak= duncan right now which is just crazy. duncan hasn't ever sniffed the level of play hakeem showed from 93-95, esp in the playoffs when hakeem just dominated his contemporaries shaq, drob, and ewing. Duncan can't even dominate rasheed wallace or a 40 year old karl malone! This is a guy who was dominated by amare stoudemire and held him to 37 ppg.
To quote Rudy T "You can never under estimate the heart of a Champion" Duncan has shown he has the heart. I guess three Championships showed and especially this game seven. I find it quite humorous that people take a Duncan thread and try to compare him to Dream. Really it is hard to judge players when they really didnt play against each other. I dont disagree that dream was one of the greatest big men of his era but I think duncan is the best big man of his era. As for Duncan not being MVP worthy, I think that is a bunch of crap. The guy for the series scored more than had 2 rebound less than the Wallaces COMBINED. Horry did save Duncans ass in game five. If it wasent for Duncan's 26/19 games would have never had an oppurtunity to have his shot. I just think there are just some people that never give people credit and will always tear people down. I see this as the case.
I wish Yao could average 20 points and 14 boards in a winning playoff series. Damn his fg% (since they WON).
Yeah, you just need to put on the fiesta colored glasses that nateb40 is wearing & you will see it too.
Shaq hasn't done anything Duncan hasn't done. And Duncan never played with a player of Bryant's caliber, except maybe Robinson early on.
Bingo. The accomplishments are the same, but Duncan hasn't had the closer to single-handedly take over playoff games in the fourth quarter like Shaq had with Kobe. Remember the Laker playoff games where Shaq was taken out of the game in the fourth quarter until the two minute mark (where teams couldn't foul him away from the ball)? That would seem to be even worse than Duncan's collapses... at least Tim could stay on the floor. Duncan, like many historical big men, is inconsistent from the line and as a result can hurt his team when he has the ball down the stretch. But it's not like this is some new phenomenon... the same thing happened with Shaq and a number of others. This is also why I rate Hakeem ahead of both Shaq and Duncan... Hakeem could consistently be trusted in the final minutes of big games. He didn't have the woes from the free throw line and the lack of hands to catch tough passes which have plagued many big men late in games and forced perimeter players to be the closers. As far as Duncan's legacy without the comparisons, the hate is weak. He has two regular season MVPs, three NBA championships and three NBA Finals MVPs. He's not even 30. Neither is Ginobili. Parker isn't close. They're all signed for at least the next five years. They've still got Scola coming over, one of the elite big men in Europe. They've got one of the best management teams in the game, consistently finding servicable players at the end of the first round. If he retired today, there are few players in the history of the game with legacies to match his. And he's still got 7 or 8 years to go, at least! Love him or hate him, if anyone is going to approach the records of Jordan and the 90's Bulls, it's Duncan and this team.
In post game interviews: Duncan:9 seemed humble and realistic about play. Somewhat happy. Ginobli:10 seemed very down to earth and humble, very happy (offset his antics on the court) Parker: 6 Seems kinda taken aback by the media and on the defense. Horry: 10 Very happy and celebrating like first time
TD has more rings and and playoff MVPs than Hakeem and Wilt too, does it make him better? Not on your life. If you remember Hakeem at all you would recognize he would destroy Duncan on the offensive end (Duncan wasn't as good as DR or a young Shaq defensively) and make Duncan's own points hard to come by. (He would still score, great players like DR, Ewing and a young Shaq could still score 1 on 1 on Hakeem or any other player, but it was tough going against Hakeem) Hakeem and Shaq had seasons Duncan simply won't get close to (about 27+PPG, 13+RPG, 3+BPG). Duncan is the best player in the game today, but those guys in their prime were defintely better. Heck, the Lakers and Shaq may have got more rings with a slightly less talented, but far more team oriented, wing player in Manu than they got with Bryant.
Hakeem was so much better than Duncan that it isn't even worth discussing and neither is Hakeem vs Shaq. Duncan vs Shaq is another story though, it just depends on what you rate higher, dominating offense and defense that is never consistent, or great offense and great defense. Shaq himself would tell you that he thinks of himself as an offensive player first and foremost, especially when he was in foul trouble, he just didn't think a rebound or block was worth picking up another foul. Phil Jackson thinks the reason for that is that Shaq's coaches always drilled him on doing whatever he could to stay on the court and out of foul trouble, so he always worried about his offense first. That's fine if all you want to do is score and contend, but to win BIG as a BIG man your biggest impact has to be on the defensive end and rebounding, every great coach from Red Auerback to Phil Jackson and Larry Brown believe that. Shaq's only problem and true weakness is that his mentality is to dominate on the offensive end of the floor, how many times has he said he needs to get the ball more after a game where he takes 10 shots and fails to get 12 rebounds? Why did he once say that he won't play defense and rebound if he doesn't get the ball? It's just something he has in his head, dunks are more valuable than rebounds and protecting the paint, he has a shooting guards mentality or something. It's going to be interesting to see how he plays in next season's playoffs, will he complain about not getting the ball while being outrebounded by Udanis Haslem or will he bust his butt on defense while Wade carries the offensive load? Because the number of points Shaq scores will NEVER matter as much as they used to, they haven't mattered since 2001 or so. Prime Shaq vs Prime Duncan (he's not even 30 yet so we don't really know how good he'll get), I would take Duncan's all around game over Shaq's heavy offense light defense game. I don't think there's any way Duncan loses to him if he always had a 30 point clutch scorer on his side.
No it doesn't. But I was comparing him to Shaq. The big difference here is that Duncan went head-to-head with Shaq and beat him twice on the way to two championships. That's what makes him at least equal to Shaq in my mind. Speculation. I'll take the better player - you usually argue the same, iiirc. And there's no 'slightly' about it; Bryant is MUCH better.
Bryant is much better than Ginobili but what about the rest of the LA supporting cast vs. the Spurs supporting cast? Bowen is much better than Rick Fox Tony Parker is light years better than Derek Fisher David Robinson in his twilight or Nazi Muhammad is much better than Horace Grant The Lakers besides Shaq and Kobe were really weak. The question shouldn't be just "who played with the best #2 option" but "who had the better overall supporting cast." I'd say Duncan was blessed to play with better overall support than Shaq. Reason being is simple: Duncan definitely struggled vs. the Pistons and the Spurs were STILL able to win thanks to Ginobili scoring over 20 a game, Bowen totally shutting down Rip and then Billups, Horry's clutch shooting, and Parker's dribble penetration. Could you ever imagine a Shaq led team winning a title if he was held to 20 ppg and 41.8% shooting? Not a chance. Name me one series where Shaq played as poorly as Duncan did in this yr's finals and his team was good enough to still win. Shaq in his prime reached a level of play that Duncan can't even dream of. I'm not even sure if I'd take Hakeem in his prime vs. Shaq in his. Duncan meanwhile is just not super dominant. Very good, but not top 10 all time good like hakeem and shaq are. Also, I don't see how you can use head to head if you are pro-duncan. Duncan is 2-3 head to head vs. Shaq in their 5 playoff battles. Spurs were beaten by LA in 2001, 2002, and 2004. In those series, Shaq had to contend with David Robinson and Duncan faced Horry and Horace Grant. Shaq had the tougher matchups and still outplayed Duncan and his teams beat Duncan 3-2.
I completely disagree re: Bowen v. Fox and Parker v. Fisher. David Robinson was better than Grant, but that's not the right comparison to make - it should be Robinson v. Bryant. Don't go by positions, go by importance. Any team that has two top 10 players on it is not going to be able to surround them with the best quality. Duncan was not 'blessed' at all, Shaq was. Having another go-to guy is much more important than having a better 3-4-5 option - and I don't even think Duncan had that. The team with the best player is going to win more often than the team with 5 above-average players; history proves that. The only thing this proves is that Duncan doesn't have to dominate offensively to be successful. I don't agree with your assertion that he played poorly - I think those that vote on the MVP would share my view. What a joke. Duncan 3 titles - Shaq 3 titles. Had Hakeem been able to play with another all-NBA player, you would be foolish not to take him over Shaq. Best player in the league, 3 titles, 3 Finals MVPs = dominant. How can you even attempt to argue this? Oh yeah, Duncan was lucky to have Parker's dribble penetration. Duncan didn't even get a chance to defend his title in 2000. Shaq didn't outplay Duncan everytime LA won, go look it up. Shaq went against Duncan/Robinson, Duncan went against Shaq/Bryant. Had Shaq been good enough to beat Detroit this year, it would've been 3-3. Not Duncan's fault Shaq wasn't up to it.
Both Rockets champs and all but the middle modern Lakers champs needed every point from Hakeem or Shaq to win. If either guy played like Duncan did this year (very good but not legendary) their teams don't win given their level of competition. Hakeem and Shaq at their peak in understanding team ball were very close, it is very hard to determine who was better. Shaq in his 2nd year still learning some moves played an in his prime Hakeem better than any other modern center played Hakeem in crunch time, including some fine ones in DR and Ewing. There is no way Duncan would have fared as well as Shaq. I know we disagree who was better in his prime between Shaq and Hakeem although seeing Back to Back recently I can see a strong case can be made for Hakeem. In truth a 94 or 95 Hakeem versus a 00 or 01 Shaq, overall I am not sure who would get the best of it. But there is no way Duncan can stand with either of them if the rest of the secondary stars and role players were equivalent, no way at all. Hakeem and Shaq had seasons (PPG, RPG, BPG, APG, efficiency) just far superior than what Duncan has done and were far more unstoppable. And they did it being the anchors to great defense teams to, people forget Shaq in his prime though not Hakeem level--perhaps best ever level--was a better shot blocker and more intimidating defensive force than TD. TD is a great player, the best overall player today. But it takes a very onesided view to have him ahead of Hakeem or Shaq on the best ever list or compare him to the "legendary" dominant runs of those guys. Hakeem was better in ever way, and Shaq was better in about every category except some 10% in FT shooting, which was more than offset by Shaq being far superior in FG% and overall offensive efficiency. Shaq has been to 5 finals and what 7 conferences finals, along with 3 rings. Duncan is what, 3-3-3? Shaq has done a better job advancing his team overall with equal playoff MVPs/rings. I can tell you SA should be relieved Shaq and Wade were not healthy, because they were better than Detroit when that team was fully together and I don't think SA would like to retake their chances with any team better than Det. It is too bad we didn't get Mia-SA, like we never got Hou-Chi, but oh well, those are the breaks. You can't discount the failed efforts of Duncan's teams during Shaqs 3 strait championships all during TD's prime than not give Shaq's teams the same leeway (this year and 03--though Shaq is some past his prime). Either consider the injuries to the players and their teammates in context or don't, but be consistent.
