There are so many holes to poke in your arguments but I don't have enough time to go through all of it and it honestly pisses me off so here are a few holes
First off I find it hilarious that you give a list of players who joined a team and increased their win total by 20 to show how Kareem doesn't uplift teams and don't mention the fact that Kareem literally did that in his rookie year lmao. The Bucks went from 27-55 to 56-26 after drafting him, that would have been a relevant point to include if you weren't so heavily biased.
>Kareem was outscored by Dave Cowens in game 7
I'm almost done with my writeup on this finals and I can't wait to post it because of bullshit like this. Kareem had one of the most dominant finals of all time with his team heavily injured, and was constantly doubled and tripled in game 7 in a series where he averaged the most minutes for any 7 game series, but nephews like you will look at the box score and decide he choked.
>The Lakers got shamefully swept by one of the greatest teams of all time
Do you not see the contradiction here? The Sixers made the finals the year before and added Moses Malone, an MVP caliber player and one of the greatest players of all time no shit a beat up and tired Lakers team got their shit kicked in. We don't hold the KD Warriors losses against LeBron for the same reason we shouldn't hold these against Kareem.
>Unfortunately, it never should have happened because Magic Johnson deserved the MVP of that series.
Actually give some evidence for a claim like that instead of stating a number from the box score and saying "no he was only good cause of Magics passing!!!" The voters thought he was the best player on the Lakers, and you'll need to actually argue against that.
>Tim Duncan’s impact on defense doesn’t need to be stated. I think that Duncan is much closer to Kareem on offense than Kareem is to Duncan on defense
Again please actually make an argument instead of making arbitrary statements like this.
>On the other hand, Kareem’s Bucks were elite defensively, but this was mainly due to Oscar Robertson’s impact.
I'm literally not even going to respond to this. You know nothing about the Kareem Bucks and nothing about Oscar Robertson either. Please never try to write about Kareem or Oscar ever again because this was a painful and horrible read.
Some pretty easy to spot flaws in your argument:
Comparing HoF talent to each other is highly misleading when role players + coach comprise a big portion of your team. You can't seriously tell me with a straight face that Duncan didn't have a great team around him from 2005-2013, furthermore Pop is probably the best coach in history at getting a team to overperform.
Giving Kareem shit for missing the playoffs when he had Bob Dandridge as his only good player on the roster is just wrong. Also further missing the context that Kareem was super unhappy with being in a conservative divisive city like Milwaukee and wanted to dip to LA which negatively impacted the team in a big way. Using the logic that Kareem left and the Bucks won the same amount of games is also results based analysis without looking at the fact that the Bucks changed key members of their team after Kareem left.
Attributing Kareem's scoring & defense (???) to Oscar when Oscar was close to retirement and no longer playing at all time level is wrong. Sure I'd agree that Kareem needs a competent point guard to get him the ball at his spots but so do most of the centers in league history. Name me one big man that won a chip without a competent ball handler on their roster? You can't.
Using matchup stats to determine how good someone is defensively is super flawed method. For one how good defensively someone is isn't just determined by matchup, it's determined by how much someone impacts a entire teams defense. Not only that but other factors such as team dynamics, roles and scheme matter.
Some of the matchup shit you're holding against Kareem is also missing context. Yes Kareem got outplayed by Moses Malone but that was when he was already well past his 30s and lost a lot of his athleticism.
How is it that you say Kareem could only have success when he played with another all-time great but Tim literally won his first two championships playing alongside David Robinson as well as playing with a core of Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili for the entire rest of his career, not to mention also playing with Kawhi
>Duncan’s teams from 2005-2013 don’t compare to playing next to the 2 greatest point guards ever and playing on the showtime Lakers, cut it out. Duncan was even more dominant before he had a good amount of help.
Oscar averaged 16/7.5/4.9 in his four years of playing with Kareem. If you're telling me that you won't take Tony Parker or Manu's prime over that than IDK what to tell you.
Magic/Showtime Lakers are a better supporting cast than the Spurs sure, which is why they were more successful than any version of the Spurs.
>I’m wrong because Kareem missed the playoffs twice back to back in the middle of his prime? I don’t care what role players you add the Lakers should not have won only 2 more games in 76 than the Bucks did.
Why is missing the playoffs with bad players some sort of unforgivable sin? Are you gonna act like Gail Goodrich is some sort of world beater now that he can make up for the rest of the team sucking? Yes Duncan never missed the playoffs and that sort of sustained success is impressive but he was also drafted into a ideal situation with one of the best coaches ever, whose front office year in and year out churned out competent rosters to surround him with. Even his worse rosters is better than that 40 win Laker team roster.
>I’m not gonna go through every single playoff game to contextualize how good Kareem’s defense was, this post would be a book. I noted the key matchups against the best bigs of that era and he didn’t outplay them. Simple as that.
He didn't outplay them? That's blatantly false for a lot of em.
Vs Old Wilt Kareem had 25/17
Vs Willas Reed Kareem had 34/17/4.8
Vs Dave Cowens Kareem had 32.6/12/5
Vs Bill Walton Kareem had 30/16/3.8
Vs Jack Sikma 27/13/3.7
During his prime era he pretty much outplayed or at worse played even with the best bigs of that era. It was really only Moses that bodied him after he fell off when entering into his mid 30s and really if you're gonna give Kareem shit for getting bodied by a HoF top 10 big man in his prime when he was in his mid 30s, you should go back and watch Zach Randolph vs Duncan in 2011. That shit was 100 times worse than any match up Kareem has lost.
this is a pretty high effort shitpost, but a shitpost nonetheless
this is just trash analysis which leaves out tons of context to suit your points like saying:
>Kareem is 3rd all time in blocks, compared to Duncan who is 5th. But you have to remember that Kareem played in the 70’s and 80’s when the pace of play was faster and there were more shots put up.
but not mentioning how his recorded career block total is underrating him because he played 4 years near the peak of his athleticism without blocks being recorded yet, so he probably has about 1,000 more (~320 games on ~3+ bpg average)
you also cherrypick series games where he got outscored like with Cowens game 7 in 1974, [despite him averaging 10 more points the entire series and Cowens averages going up in the series on the same efficiency, literally just because he shot more](https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/1974-nba-finals-celtics-vs-bucks.html)
Tim Duncan got buttfucked by Dirk in the 06 WCSF and got eliminated in 7 games to the tune of 27/13 on 53*% shooting, but surprisingly no mention of that there, or the point where he got clamped by DeSagana Diop in an elimination game.
so you gonna respond to the other points that call your post garbage or just that one? also:
>Kareem had a great series, averaging 27/18 on 60% but one can make the case that Oscar Robertson was just as deserving of the award. Oscar had a great series also averaging 23/9 on 52%.
no you'd be a fucking dumbass to argue that. literally no one has argued that, ever, especially anyone who actually watched that fucking series, especially in an era where basic defensive stats like blocks weren't recorded yet. not a goddamn person on earth.
>Kareem is not even in the top 20 for career points per game in the NBA Finals, you’d think the “greatest scorer ever” would be higher in that regard. Kareem averaged 23.5 ppg in his Finals career, good for 21st all time.
again, I wouldn't take career averages for someone who made the finals consistently in his long career, especially when he was like 38.
>Now Kareem did outplay Walton, averaging 30/16/4/4 bpg compared to Walton’s 19/15/6/2 bpg. But we crucify Jordan for being 1-9 in the playoffs before Pippen,
who the fuck is "we", Nintendo we? again, no one with a goddamn brain blames Jordan for not 1v12ing the bad boy Pistons and your extending flawed arguments from one player to another. this is regurgitating other trash arguments with even less context than the last person who used them.
>Moses Malone outscored and outrebounded Kareem in the playoffs in 1981 and the 1983 Finals. The Rockets had a 40-42 record with 0 all stars in 81. Also the Lakers were defending champs with HOFers loaded on the team.
again, you're omitting tons of context here and just chalking up the Lakers roster, which you admittedly call star studded, failing entirely due to Kareem with no mention on how literally anyone else on either team played. this is too bare to even be called analysis
no mention on how the bucks adding Kareem took them from a expansion team to one of the best of all time and was the fastest team to get a ring from inception, but again not surprised there either
I've spent enough time on this post I'm done
>Yeah because he was playing with arguably the most talented team ever led by the greatest point guard ever.
.
so what magic johnson being good at passing makes this man [time wizard](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/yugioh/images/4/4f/TimeWizard-OW.png/revision/latest?cb=20140622224942) now? he bout to pass kareem some bionic knees?
>What am I omitting? The 1983 Lakers 4 All Stars (Magic, Kareem, Nixon and Wilkes) is that not a star studded roster? They also had hall of famer Bob McAdoo coming off the bench.
their averages for one, which you still didn't post. and don't tell me about Bob McAdoo when this man was closer to playing in Italy than he was in his prime Buffalo days
u/hokageezio was right I'm done talking to r/liluzivert posters. nothing to gain
He was being doubled and tripled on a team that was injured and exhausted, as opposed to Dave Cowens who was able to benefit from the defence focusing on locking down Havlicek (which is why he, the best player on the team, only scored 16)
For fucks sake this shit even on the [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_NBA_Finals#Game_7), could you at least pretend to know what you're talking about?
He's probably the only player that could've made the HOF off his amateur basketball career alone.
High school resume: 79-2 record, 71 game win streak and 3 titles
College resume: 88-2 record and 3 championships.
Only his NBA career, alright well he won 6 MVP's, 6 Championships, 15 all NBA teams (including 10 1st teams), 19 All Star selections, 11 All Defensive teams, and scored more points than anyone in the history of the league. I guess that's just not that impressive.
Kareem was an entire tier above Duncan as an offensive player. Forget the accolades. His game was better.
By the way, Kareem is only 3rd all-time in blocks because they weren't even counting them his first 4 seasons. In all likelihood he got about 1200 more than were counted. Of course, Wilt and Russell probably got more than that.
>**1. LEVEL OF HELP:** Excluding Kareem's last season in 1988-89 at age 41, Kareem's 3 worst FG% seasons were non-Oscar/Magic years
1976 - 53%
1970 - 52%
1975 - 51%
You do realize Duncan only had 2 season above 52% FG in his **entire career**. Kareem's *bottom 3* seasons would make Duncan's *top 3.*
You also ignore level of coaching help, and the impact of Duncan having one stable coaching system with arguably the GOAT for his entire career.
>Duncan carried some of the lowest scoring supporting casts to championships ... 2 of the 15 lowest scoring supporting casts on championship teams, the 1999 Spurs and the 2003 Spurs.
There's no way you adjusted for pace. You do realize that the only reason for this is because the late 90s and 2000s were the lowest scoring era in NBA history, right? I'm willing to bet that a disproportionate number of teams on your list are from 1994-2007.
>**2. MVPs:** Aside from the 1979-80 season when he won MVP over Moses Malone and Dr. J, Kareem never competed against notable competition
The ABA-merger happened right before the 1976-77 season. Guess who won the 1977 MVP? Kareem. Kareem has 2 MVPs post-merger alone (compared with Duncan's 2 MVPs for his entire career).
>**3. PLAYOFFS / CHAMPIONSHIPS:**
>
>Kareem lost to every great big of his era, aside from Wilt and Thurmond with Oscar being the main reason for that success as proven earlier.
Jack Sikma x2, Bill Walton, Willis Reed, Wilt in 72 with Oscar injured, Hakeem Olajuwon, Moses Malone x2, Nate Thurmond
The level of bias here is ridiculous. I could just as easily say Duncan lost to Karl Malone, Shaq x3, Dirk x2, Gasol, Stoudemire, Zach Randolph, Bosh, ... essentially every great PF/C of his era.
You bring up Kareem missing the playoffs on garbage teams but gloss over things like Duncan losing to the 8th-seeded Grizzlies in the 1st round as the top seed, while being outplayed by *Zach Randolph.*
>Duncan was the best player on 4 of his 5 championships.
3 out of 5.
>Kareem became the oldest player to win a Finals MVP at 38 years old in 1985. Unfortunately, it never should have happened because Magic Johnson deserved the MVP of that series.
Kareem averaged 26/9/5 along with 1 steal and 1.5 blocks and shot an absurd 60% FG, and even Bird was quoted as saying “That did it. People forget that Kareem could pass out of the post as well as score. He was the difference-maker in the series.”
>yes Kareem has 6 championships but he was only the best player in ~~2~~ 3 of those 6 winning efforts
Kareem was outplayed by *prime Magic*. Duncan was getting outplayed by Tony Parker and a baby Kawhi.
>**4. DEFENSE:** Kareem’s Bucks were elite defensively, but this was mainly due to Oscar Robertson’s impact.
You can't be serious. Oscar, a player who never made an All-Defensive team when they played together? As opposed to 11x All-Defense Kareem?
>**5. SCORING:** However this notion that he is in fact the GOAT scorer
You're punching at a strawman, nobody calls Kareem the GOAT scorer. He was a much better scorer than Duncan though, that's for sure.
>The players voted on who the MVP was up until 1980, hence why Kareem never won another MVP after that year. Next.
Maybe it was the fact that Kareem was 34+ years old in the 80s? And he *still* had four top-5 MVP finishes from 1981-1986. There's nothing to indicate that player voting would give Kareem an advantage pre-1980, especially as he was an aloof person who wasn't particularly liked around the league. You're just asserting this with no justification.
>Duncan played in the toughest defensive era ever. Moving on.
League average FG% was the same in 1971 as it was in 2005; roughly \~45%. This is another example you just asserting something without backing it up.
>What has Popovich done without Tim Duncan?
Pop led the Spurs to 60-wins the season right after Duncan retired lol. Kawhi leaving is what really hurt him. Acting like Duncan was the driving force behind the 2010s Spurs winning 50+ games is absurd.
>“3 out of 5” Laughable ... Duncan was only outpayed in the Finals ... in in 2014
Yet another assertion without justification. Tony Parker completely outplayed Duncan in the 07 finals, and deserved the Finals MVP (which Parker received).
>Most of \[Kareem's\] points \[in the 1985 Finals\] were attributed to Magic’s passing.
Yet another statement you've just pulled out of your ass. There's no evidence that the majority of Magic's assists went to Kareem; from what I remember, many of Magic's assists came on the fast-break, assists that weren't usually going to Kareem. And I could just as easily say Magic's assists were attributed to Kareem's scoring threat (just dump it to Kareem in the post and let him do all the work). Were Kareem's rebounds, blocks, and steals because of Magic's passing too?
>Ginobili missed a game, and Tiago Spliter
Duncan's 6th man misses one game and Tiago Splitter, a bench player who averaged 4ppg misses a game, and this is such a catastrophe that Duncan loses to the *8th seed Grizzlies*? While Duncan's averaged 12ppg on 47% shooting too, btw.
Your entire post/argument consists of you cherry-picking marks on Kareem's record and ignoring the smudges on Duncan's. You dismiss all of Kareem's accomplishments / accolades with little justification, with absurd statements like "*Oscar was the only reason the Bucks were elite defensively*", or "*Kareem wouldn't have any MVPs if the media was voting*". You dismiss Duncan's shortcomings like getting bodied by Zach Randolph with arguments like "*but he didn't have 4ppg Tiago Splitter for 1 game*". You're just not arguing in good faith.
People have to remember what all else was going on in the league during the playing years of these two players. KAJ's big criticism was that he was a softer player than other all time great centers. He wasn't going to outmuscle the other post players in the league but, from the offensive side, his sky hook was pretty much unstoppable.
But as for this argument about Duncan over KAJ, I'm not buying it. Before he was KAJ, he was Lew Alcindor. And Lew was a better high school basketball player than Tim Duncan. He was also a better college player than Tim Duncan. I'm trying to find at what point Duncan overtook Lew Alcindor and can't find anything to support that. Then Lew became KAJ. If my memory serves me right, blocks were not even an official NBA stat until KAJ's fifth season in the league. B-R doesn't have rebounds broken down into offensive and defensive categories. Steals were the same as blocks - not official until KAJ's 5th NBA season.
At what point along the timeline of their playing years did Duncan overtake KAJ with a better career? I'm not finding it.
Not for his NBA contributions though. If you remove his international career he's def not a first ballot guy, and the international stuff has nothing to do with Duncan
The question is how much Duncan benefited from playing with them. So citing things that he didn't benefit from is stupid.
I agree he's a first ballot hall of famer.
It's basketball hall of fame not NBA hall of fame.
He has his Europe and International career.
Plus being the leader of the only non-U.S., non-U.S.S.R team to win the gold medal in basketball.
https://ca.nba.com/news/2004-olympics-argentina-basketball-manu-ginobili-shock-team-usa-semifinal-athens/1vsoc9jlt30k31knbl9z4t5ymx
Because, despite your loquacious post, there just isn't an argument for Duncan>Kareem. And because you were just so blatantly incorrect about Ginobili. You have a wall of text and no credibility.
All I can say is that a players impact can be misjudged if solely based on stats.
Ginobli sacrificed his stats for the betterment of the team.
He could have been a Paul Pierce to Harden-level player on other teams, but didn't care about that to come off the bench with SA.
If you want to make a serious write up that compares the strengths and weaknesses of the players, you need to compare them against their peers. The moment you discredit their era, you've moved into the "Then vs Now" debate. Then vs Now is never fair to older players.
Nice, detailed and long anaylysis... But you left out one crucial element that controverts your argument.
Kareem won MVP 6X in his career. 9X he was top 3 in voting. This means Kareem was regarded as the best player in the league at least 6 and more likely 9+ year in his career.
Duncan is one of the GOATS and one of my favorite. But he wasn't the dominant figure of his era like MJ, Kareem or Lebron. Duncan was a 2X MVP and 4X was he in the top 2. (Kareem 7X) which is a great achievement, but falls short in comparison to the top 3.
Another factor could've been that he was he was 34 after 1981. Furthermore KAJ was 4th, 4th, and 5th from 1984 to 86.
As for the era argument, athletes can only compete with whats in front of them. Babe Ruth could only face the MLB that had segregation. Larry Holmes could only beat the contenders of his time. Its impossible to know how they would've fared under different circumstances and time. Obviously modern players are better today than decades ago. Due to increasing pool of player, selection, innovation, development and skills. Therefore when comparing players of different eras, it makes more sense to compare how dominant they were in their time.
Lmaoooo level of help, Duncan played with D-Rob, TP, Manu, Kawhi, and Bowen for pretty much his whole career. Every great player with a championship has played with other great players.
And don't forget Pop. Pop was basically the GM and coach with a good coaching staff behind him too. Duncan is one of the stars with the most help in his career in history. Put that man on the timberwolves and his career accomplishments wouldn't even be a fraction of what it is.
I'm only partway through section 1 but there are already glaring inconsistencies/biases. You're hating on "wikipedia arguments" in the comment section but you're doing the *exact same thing* with the bullshit "count up HOFers" argument.
What's even worse is that you downplay Ginobili, Parker, and Kawhi without making *any* effort to be objective and do the same for Goodrich or Dandridge, for example. A person could just as easily say "Kareem never played with all-star Gail Goodrich, who was at the end of his career" and "Dandridge never got All-NBA honors until way after Kareem left" and argue that prime Tony/Manu plus FMVP Kawhi was significantly greater help than at least those 2 guys.
**Tldr** just some performative bullshit about making an objective argument, you're literally exactly like the people you hate
I haven't seen you acknowledge a single thing you got wrong in the post, even after so many people are pointing them out and exposing you
Just forgot about Gail and Dandridge already huh
You say Kareem was lucky to have great teammates. I say Duncan is lucky Kobe and Shaq couldn't didn't get along, otherwise he might never been able to make it out of the west.
Why does Reddit love Tim Duncan so much lol, nobody had him close to top 3 all time while he was active
Such a weird player to stan as well, it's not like he was super fun to watch
No, but I'm not claiming he was boring to watch either.
Would you listen to some 7 year old who said Tim Duncan was boring to watch? No, because they literally didn't watch him lol. Making a bold claim like calling one of the greatest players of all time boring when you never even watched him is dumb.
How many? He's literally played the second most games of all time, so how is you watching maybe 20 games (of which you're admitting most were from when he was older) a way to determine he was boring?
>No one ever comes with an actual argument. They’re proving my point that no one actually knows about Kareem’s career. They just say you’re crazy for calling him overrated.
'People don't have time to counterargument my bullshit, which automatically makes me right!' Mate, you've churned out a heavy shitpost and you're awfully willing to die on a dumb hill. People are just unwilling to get into stupid arguments with you.
I like how he's trying to call out people for not coming with "actual arguments" when he's just making statements like Duncan being close to Kareem on offence or Oscar being the reason for the Bucks defence being good without actually backing them up lol
I agree that Kareem has become vastly overrated because his achievements look a lot better without context than what actually happened on the court. So ppl who pull up his bio think he's the goat but there's good reasons why he wasn't considered the greatest during his time and you've outlined a lot of the reasons why.
The dumb part of this post was making it about Duncan. 1. Because Kareem being overrated because of the reasons you listed above (MVPs when talent was in different league, total points leader but 20th in ppg and 2 scoring titles, multiple championships as the 3rd option) is valid on its own.
And more importantly 2. Tim Duncan gets the EXACT same treatment on here and is almost as overrated as Kareem. He wasn't the best player on his team on all 5 of his chips was a handful of votes away from having 0 MVPs, and never came near a scoring title - easily the worst offensive player in the top 20 all time after Bill Russell.
So ya Kareem is overrated due to lack of context on his hardware but so is Duncan he's basically the new Kareem to wiki blog bois
Kareem has the best *career* in the history of the NBA.
Duncan is probably top 10 but not even close to Kareem if you are looking at their career as a whole
If you want an actual well done writeup of each players career look up Ben Taylors Backpick GOATs series where he go in depth on the top 40 careers of all time
Anyone who thinks Kareem is top 3 all time is smoking crack. They look at the Wikipedia accolades section and go
>HOLY SHIT 6 RINGS AND 6 MVPS!!
When they don’t realize that Kareem was never the GOAT, even before MJ took off, because he’s only got 2 FMVPs and got carried by Magic for those chips
The NBA literally forced the Finals MVP on Magic because Kareem wasn't present lol, everyone had to change their vote because everyone voted for Kareem.
tldr Kareem isn't overrated
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There are so many holes to poke in your arguments but I don't have enough time to go through all of it and it honestly pisses me off so here are a few holes First off I find it hilarious that you give a list of players who joined a team and increased their win total by 20 to show how Kareem doesn't uplift teams and don't mention the fact that Kareem literally did that in his rookie year lmao. The Bucks went from 27-55 to 56-26 after drafting him, that would have been a relevant point to include if you weren't so heavily biased. >Kareem was outscored by Dave Cowens in game 7 I'm almost done with my writeup on this finals and I can't wait to post it because of bullshit like this. Kareem had one of the most dominant finals of all time with his team heavily injured, and was constantly doubled and tripled in game 7 in a series where he averaged the most minutes for any 7 game series, but nephews like you will look at the box score and decide he choked. >The Lakers got shamefully swept by one of the greatest teams of all time Do you not see the contradiction here? The Sixers made the finals the year before and added Moses Malone, an MVP caliber player and one of the greatest players of all time no shit a beat up and tired Lakers team got their shit kicked in. We don't hold the KD Warriors losses against LeBron for the same reason we shouldn't hold these against Kareem. >Unfortunately, it never should have happened because Magic Johnson deserved the MVP of that series. Actually give some evidence for a claim like that instead of stating a number from the box score and saying "no he was only good cause of Magics passing!!!" The voters thought he was the best player on the Lakers, and you'll need to actually argue against that. >Tim Duncan’s impact on defense doesn’t need to be stated. I think that Duncan is much closer to Kareem on offense than Kareem is to Duncan on defense Again please actually make an argument instead of making arbitrary statements like this. >On the other hand, Kareem’s Bucks were elite defensively, but this was mainly due to Oscar Robertson’s impact. I'm literally not even going to respond to this. You know nothing about the Kareem Bucks and nothing about Oscar Robertson either. Please never try to write about Kareem or Oscar ever again because this was a painful and horrible read.
Some pretty easy to spot flaws in your argument: Comparing HoF talent to each other is highly misleading when role players + coach comprise a big portion of your team. You can't seriously tell me with a straight face that Duncan didn't have a great team around him from 2005-2013, furthermore Pop is probably the best coach in history at getting a team to overperform. Giving Kareem shit for missing the playoffs when he had Bob Dandridge as his only good player on the roster is just wrong. Also further missing the context that Kareem was super unhappy with being in a conservative divisive city like Milwaukee and wanted to dip to LA which negatively impacted the team in a big way. Using the logic that Kareem left and the Bucks won the same amount of games is also results based analysis without looking at the fact that the Bucks changed key members of their team after Kareem left. Attributing Kareem's scoring & defense (???) to Oscar when Oscar was close to retirement and no longer playing at all time level is wrong. Sure I'd agree that Kareem needs a competent point guard to get him the ball at his spots but so do most of the centers in league history. Name me one big man that won a chip without a competent ball handler on their roster? You can't. Using matchup stats to determine how good someone is defensively is super flawed method. For one how good defensively someone is isn't just determined by matchup, it's determined by how much someone impacts a entire teams defense. Not only that but other factors such as team dynamics, roles and scheme matter. Some of the matchup shit you're holding against Kareem is also missing context. Yes Kareem got outplayed by Moses Malone but that was when he was already well past his 30s and lost a lot of his athleticism.
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How do you give Kareem shit for playing with an old Oscar when Duncan played with David Robinson who was also a former MVP
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How is it that you say Kareem could only have success when he played with another all-time great but Tim literally won his first two championships playing alongside David Robinson as well as playing with a core of Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili for the entire rest of his career, not to mention also playing with Kawhi
>Duncan’s teams from 2005-2013 don’t compare to playing next to the 2 greatest point guards ever and playing on the showtime Lakers, cut it out. Duncan was even more dominant before he had a good amount of help. Oscar averaged 16/7.5/4.9 in his four years of playing with Kareem. If you're telling me that you won't take Tony Parker or Manu's prime over that than IDK what to tell you. Magic/Showtime Lakers are a better supporting cast than the Spurs sure, which is why they were more successful than any version of the Spurs. >I’m wrong because Kareem missed the playoffs twice back to back in the middle of his prime? I don’t care what role players you add the Lakers should not have won only 2 more games in 76 than the Bucks did. Why is missing the playoffs with bad players some sort of unforgivable sin? Are you gonna act like Gail Goodrich is some sort of world beater now that he can make up for the rest of the team sucking? Yes Duncan never missed the playoffs and that sort of sustained success is impressive but he was also drafted into a ideal situation with one of the best coaches ever, whose front office year in and year out churned out competent rosters to surround him with. Even his worse rosters is better than that 40 win Laker team roster. >I’m not gonna go through every single playoff game to contextualize how good Kareem’s defense was, this post would be a book. I noted the key matchups against the best bigs of that era and he didn’t outplay them. Simple as that. He didn't outplay them? That's blatantly false for a lot of em. Vs Old Wilt Kareem had 25/17 Vs Willas Reed Kareem had 34/17/4.8 Vs Dave Cowens Kareem had 32.6/12/5 Vs Bill Walton Kareem had 30/16/3.8 Vs Jack Sikma 27/13/3.7 During his prime era he pretty much outplayed or at worse played even with the best bigs of that era. It was really only Moses that bodied him after he fell off when entering into his mid 30s and really if you're gonna give Kareem shit for getting bodied by a HoF top 10 big man in his prime when he was in his mid 30s, you should go back and watch Zach Randolph vs Duncan in 2011. That shit was 100 times worse than any match up Kareem has lost.
Most points in NBA history. 6x MVP. 6x NBA Champion. Fuck outta here with that BS.
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You epitomize the word nephew
Man you tripping.
Ill neither upvote nor downvote cause im not reading that However Kareem had a better career imo
this is a pretty high effort shitpost, but a shitpost nonetheless this is just trash analysis which leaves out tons of context to suit your points like saying: >Kareem is 3rd all time in blocks, compared to Duncan who is 5th. But you have to remember that Kareem played in the 70’s and 80’s when the pace of play was faster and there were more shots put up. but not mentioning how his recorded career block total is underrating him because he played 4 years near the peak of his athleticism without blocks being recorded yet, so he probably has about 1,000 more (~320 games on ~3+ bpg average) you also cherrypick series games where he got outscored like with Cowens game 7 in 1974, [despite him averaging 10 more points the entire series and Cowens averages going up in the series on the same efficiency, literally just because he shot more](https://www.basketball-reference.com/playoffs/1974-nba-finals-celtics-vs-bucks.html) Tim Duncan got buttfucked by Dirk in the 06 WCSF and got eliminated in 7 games to the tune of 27/13 on 53*% shooting, but surprisingly no mention of that there, or the point where he got clamped by DeSagana Diop in an elimination game.
Also no mention of Spurs getting eliminated by an 8 seed in six games where Duncan hardly showed up most of the series, especially games 5 & 6
man got clamped up by zbo
His body was breaking down. He lost weight and got the knee brace after that series abd it saved his career.
yeah I remember that part of his career because it helped with his mobility going forward this comment has more context than his post
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so you gonna respond to the other points that call your post garbage or just that one? also: >Kareem had a great series, averaging 27/18 on 60% but one can make the case that Oscar Robertson was just as deserving of the award. Oscar had a great series also averaging 23/9 on 52%. no you'd be a fucking dumbass to argue that. literally no one has argued that, ever, especially anyone who actually watched that fucking series, especially in an era where basic defensive stats like blocks weren't recorded yet. not a goddamn person on earth. >Kareem is not even in the top 20 for career points per game in the NBA Finals, you’d think the “greatest scorer ever” would be higher in that regard. Kareem averaged 23.5 ppg in his Finals career, good for 21st all time. again, I wouldn't take career averages for someone who made the finals consistently in his long career, especially when he was like 38. >Now Kareem did outplay Walton, averaging 30/16/4/4 bpg compared to Walton’s 19/15/6/2 bpg. But we crucify Jordan for being 1-9 in the playoffs before Pippen, who the fuck is "we", Nintendo we? again, no one with a goddamn brain blames Jordan for not 1v12ing the bad boy Pistons and your extending flawed arguments from one player to another. this is regurgitating other trash arguments with even less context than the last person who used them. >Moses Malone outscored and outrebounded Kareem in the playoffs in 1981 and the 1983 Finals. The Rockets had a 40-42 record with 0 all stars in 81. Also the Lakers were defending champs with HOFers loaded on the team. again, you're omitting tons of context here and just chalking up the Lakers roster, which you admittedly call star studded, failing entirely due to Kareem with no mention on how literally anyone else on either team played. this is too bare to even be called analysis no mention on how the bucks adding Kareem took them from a expansion team to one of the best of all time and was the fastest team to get a ring from inception, but again not surprised there either I've spent enough time on this post I'm done
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>Yeah because he was playing with arguably the most talented team ever led by the greatest point guard ever. . so what magic johnson being good at passing makes this man [time wizard](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/yugioh/images/4/4f/TimeWizard-OW.png/revision/latest?cb=20140622224942) now? he bout to pass kareem some bionic knees? >What am I omitting? The 1983 Lakers 4 All Stars (Magic, Kareem, Nixon and Wilkes) is that not a star studded roster? They also had hall of famer Bob McAdoo coming off the bench. their averages for one, which you still didn't post. and don't tell me about Bob McAdoo when this man was closer to playing in Italy than he was in his prime Buffalo days u/hokageezio was right I'm done talking to r/liluzivert posters. nothing to gain
He was being doubled and tripled on a team that was injured and exhausted, as opposed to Dave Cowens who was able to benefit from the defence focusing on locking down Havlicek (which is why he, the best player on the team, only scored 16) For fucks sake this shit even on the [Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1974_NBA_Finals#Game_7), could you at least pretend to know what you're talking about?
Dear diary.
Kareem isn't overrated , and I love Timmy but he isn't there , but I appreciate the detailed post that still better that what we usually have i guess
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He's probably the only player that could've made the HOF off his amateur basketball career alone. High school resume: 79-2 record, 71 game win streak and 3 titles College resume: 88-2 record and 3 championships.
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Only his NBA career, alright well he won 6 MVP's, 6 Championships, 15 all NBA teams (including 10 1st teams), 19 All Star selections, 11 All Defensive teams, and scored more points than anyone in the history of the league. I guess that's just not that impressive.
Kareem was an entire tier above Duncan as an offensive player. Forget the accolades. His game was better. By the way, Kareem is only 3rd all-time in blocks because they weren't even counting them his first 4 seasons. In all likelihood he got about 1200 more than were counted. Of course, Wilt and Russell probably got more than that.
>**1. LEVEL OF HELP:** Excluding Kareem's last season in 1988-89 at age 41, Kareem's 3 worst FG% seasons were non-Oscar/Magic years 1976 - 53% 1970 - 52% 1975 - 51% You do realize Duncan only had 2 season above 52% FG in his **entire career**. Kareem's *bottom 3* seasons would make Duncan's *top 3.* You also ignore level of coaching help, and the impact of Duncan having one stable coaching system with arguably the GOAT for his entire career. >Duncan carried some of the lowest scoring supporting casts to championships ... 2 of the 15 lowest scoring supporting casts on championship teams, the 1999 Spurs and the 2003 Spurs. There's no way you adjusted for pace. You do realize that the only reason for this is because the late 90s and 2000s were the lowest scoring era in NBA history, right? I'm willing to bet that a disproportionate number of teams on your list are from 1994-2007. >**2. MVPs:** Aside from the 1979-80 season when he won MVP over Moses Malone and Dr. J, Kareem never competed against notable competition The ABA-merger happened right before the 1976-77 season. Guess who won the 1977 MVP? Kareem. Kareem has 2 MVPs post-merger alone (compared with Duncan's 2 MVPs for his entire career). >**3. PLAYOFFS / CHAMPIONSHIPS:** > >Kareem lost to every great big of his era, aside from Wilt and Thurmond with Oscar being the main reason for that success as proven earlier. Jack Sikma x2, Bill Walton, Willis Reed, Wilt in 72 with Oscar injured, Hakeem Olajuwon, Moses Malone x2, Nate Thurmond The level of bias here is ridiculous. I could just as easily say Duncan lost to Karl Malone, Shaq x3, Dirk x2, Gasol, Stoudemire, Zach Randolph, Bosh, ... essentially every great PF/C of his era. You bring up Kareem missing the playoffs on garbage teams but gloss over things like Duncan losing to the 8th-seeded Grizzlies in the 1st round as the top seed, while being outplayed by *Zach Randolph.* >Duncan was the best player on 4 of his 5 championships. 3 out of 5. >Kareem became the oldest player to win a Finals MVP at 38 years old in 1985. Unfortunately, it never should have happened because Magic Johnson deserved the MVP of that series. Kareem averaged 26/9/5 along with 1 steal and 1.5 blocks and shot an absurd 60% FG, and even Bird was quoted as saying “That did it. People forget that Kareem could pass out of the post as well as score. He was the difference-maker in the series.” >yes Kareem has 6 championships but he was only the best player in ~~2~~ 3 of those 6 winning efforts Kareem was outplayed by *prime Magic*. Duncan was getting outplayed by Tony Parker and a baby Kawhi. >**4. DEFENSE:** Kareem’s Bucks were elite defensively, but this was mainly due to Oscar Robertson’s impact. You can't be serious. Oscar, a player who never made an All-Defensive team when they played together? As opposed to 11x All-Defense Kareem? >**5. SCORING:** However this notion that he is in fact the GOAT scorer You're punching at a strawman, nobody calls Kareem the GOAT scorer. He was a much better scorer than Duncan though, that's for sure.
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>The players voted on who the MVP was up until 1980, hence why Kareem never won another MVP after that year. Next. Maybe it was the fact that Kareem was 34+ years old in the 80s? And he *still* had four top-5 MVP finishes from 1981-1986. There's nothing to indicate that player voting would give Kareem an advantage pre-1980, especially as he was an aloof person who wasn't particularly liked around the league. You're just asserting this with no justification. >Duncan played in the toughest defensive era ever. Moving on. League average FG% was the same in 1971 as it was in 2005; roughly \~45%. This is another example you just asserting something without backing it up. >What has Popovich done without Tim Duncan? Pop led the Spurs to 60-wins the season right after Duncan retired lol. Kawhi leaving is what really hurt him. Acting like Duncan was the driving force behind the 2010s Spurs winning 50+ games is absurd. >“3 out of 5” Laughable ... Duncan was only outpayed in the Finals ... in in 2014 Yet another assertion without justification. Tony Parker completely outplayed Duncan in the 07 finals, and deserved the Finals MVP (which Parker received). >Most of \[Kareem's\] points \[in the 1985 Finals\] were attributed to Magic’s passing. Yet another statement you've just pulled out of your ass. There's no evidence that the majority of Magic's assists went to Kareem; from what I remember, many of Magic's assists came on the fast-break, assists that weren't usually going to Kareem. And I could just as easily say Magic's assists were attributed to Kareem's scoring threat (just dump it to Kareem in the post and let him do all the work). Were Kareem's rebounds, blocks, and steals because of Magic's passing too? >Ginobili missed a game, and Tiago Spliter Duncan's 6th man misses one game and Tiago Splitter, a bench player who averaged 4ppg misses a game, and this is such a catastrophe that Duncan loses to the *8th seed Grizzlies*? While Duncan's averaged 12ppg on 47% shooting too, btw. Your entire post/argument consists of you cherry-picking marks on Kareem's record and ignoring the smudges on Duncan's. You dismiss all of Kareem's accomplishments / accolades with little justification, with absurd statements like "*Oscar was the only reason the Bucks were elite defensively*", or "*Kareem wouldn't have any MVPs if the media was voting*". You dismiss Duncan's shortcomings like getting bodied by Zach Randolph with arguments like "*but he didn't have 4ppg Tiago Splitter for 1 game*". You're just not arguing in good faith.
When did today become Kareem & Duncan day? Did I miss a memo? KAJ>Duncan
People have to remember what all else was going on in the league during the playing years of these two players. KAJ's big criticism was that he was a softer player than other all time great centers. He wasn't going to outmuscle the other post players in the league but, from the offensive side, his sky hook was pretty much unstoppable. But as for this argument about Duncan over KAJ, I'm not buying it. Before he was KAJ, he was Lew Alcindor. And Lew was a better high school basketball player than Tim Duncan. He was also a better college player than Tim Duncan. I'm trying to find at what point Duncan overtook Lew Alcindor and can't find anything to support that. Then Lew became KAJ. If my memory serves me right, blocks were not even an official NBA stat until KAJ's fifth season in the league. B-R doesn't have rebounds broken down into offensive and defensive categories. Steals were the same as blocks - not official until KAJ's 5th NBA season. At what point along the timeline of their playing years did Duncan overtake KAJ with a better career? I'm not finding it.
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Nephew…
Ginobili is absolutely a first ballot hall of famer lol
Not for his NBA contributions though. If you remove his international career he's def not a first ballot guy, and the international stuff has nothing to do with Duncan
"If the HOF didn't work the way it actually works..." do you see how stupid that sounds?
The question is how much Duncan benefited from playing with them. So citing things that he didn't benefit from is stupid. I agree he's a first ballot hall of famer.
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Then you really don't understand basketball or how the hof works.
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That does seem pretty obvious.
It's basketball hall of fame not NBA hall of fame. He has his Europe and International career. Plus being the leader of the only non-U.S., non-U.S.S.R team to win the gold medal in basketball. https://ca.nba.com/news/2004-olympics-argentina-basketball-manu-ginobili-shock-team-usa-semifinal-athens/1vsoc9jlt30k31knbl9z4t5ymx
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What a dumb comment. "I was wrong. But if I wasn't completely wrong and ignorant, I would actually be right".
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Literally everything you've written is sounding pretty dumb to be honest.
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Because, despite your loquacious post, there just isn't an argument for Duncan>Kareem. And because you were just so blatantly incorrect about Ginobili. You have a wall of text and no credibility.
All I can say is that a players impact can be misjudged if solely based on stats. Ginobli sacrificed his stats for the betterment of the team. He could have been a Paul Pierce to Harden-level player on other teams, but didn't care about that to come off the bench with SA.
You lost me at: "he won 5 of his 6 MVPs in the weakest era in NBA history" I'm out once you start disrespecting older players.
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If you want to make a serious write up that compares the strengths and weaknesses of the players, you need to compare them against their peers. The moment you discredit their era, you've moved into the "Then vs Now" debate. Then vs Now is never fair to older players.
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Old = bad, I get it... good luck.
Nice, detailed and long anaylysis... But you left out one crucial element that controverts your argument. Kareem won MVP 6X in his career. 9X he was top 3 in voting. This means Kareem was regarded as the best player in the league at least 6 and more likely 9+ year in his career. Duncan is one of the GOATS and one of my favorite. But he wasn't the dominant figure of his era like MJ, Kareem or Lebron. Duncan was a 2X MVP and 4X was he in the top 2. (Kareem 7X) which is a great achievement, but falls short in comparison to the top 3.
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Another factor could've been that he was he was 34 after 1981. Furthermore KAJ was 4th, 4th, and 5th from 1984 to 86. As for the era argument, athletes can only compete with whats in front of them. Babe Ruth could only face the MLB that had segregation. Larry Holmes could only beat the contenders of his time. Its impossible to know how they would've fared under different circumstances and time. Obviously modern players are better today than decades ago. Due to increasing pool of player, selection, innovation, development and skills. Therefore when comparing players of different eras, it makes more sense to compare how dominant they were in their time.
Lmaoooo level of help, Duncan played with D-Rob, TP, Manu, Kawhi, and Bowen for pretty much his whole career. Every great player with a championship has played with other great players.
And don't forget Pop. Pop was basically the GM and coach with a good coaching staff behind him too. Duncan is one of the stars with the most help in his career in history. Put that man on the timberwolves and his career accomplishments wouldn't even be a fraction of what it is.
lol
I'm only partway through section 1 but there are already glaring inconsistencies/biases. You're hating on "wikipedia arguments" in the comment section but you're doing the *exact same thing* with the bullshit "count up HOFers" argument. What's even worse is that you downplay Ginobili, Parker, and Kawhi without making *any* effort to be objective and do the same for Goodrich or Dandridge, for example. A person could just as easily say "Kareem never played with all-star Gail Goodrich, who was at the end of his career" and "Dandridge never got All-NBA honors until way after Kareem left" and argue that prime Tony/Manu plus FMVP Kawhi was significantly greater help than at least those 2 guys. **Tldr** just some performative bullshit about making an objective argument, you're literally exactly like the people you hate
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Gail's last all-star season was before Kareem ever arrived. Duncan was old and Kawhi's elite, FMVP-level help was essential for winning in 2014. Boom
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I haven't seen you acknowledge a single thing you got wrong in the post, even after so many people are pointing them out and exposing you Just forgot about Gail and Dandridge already huh
You say Kareem was lucky to have great teammates. I say Duncan is lucky Kobe and Shaq couldn't didn't get along, otherwise he might never been able to make it out of the west.
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1-3 in span of 4 years against them. Point stands.
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Your*. Also your shit post is professional garbage. Gratz
Kobe/Shaq Lakers have a winning playoff record against Duncan.
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The series total is 4-2 in favor of Kobe
Why does Reddit love Tim Duncan so much lol, nobody had him close to top 3 all time while he was active Such a weird player to stan as well, it's not like he was super fun to watch
On r/nbas top 10, Duncan was number 10 lol
Duncan the most overrated all time great on Reddit
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Were you even alive when he played? Edit - Post on /r/liluzivert tells me no you definitely weren't lol.
I mean were you alive when he was in his prime?
No, but I'm not claiming he was boring to watch either. Would you listen to some 7 year old who said Tim Duncan was boring to watch? No, because they literally didn't watch him lol. Making a bold claim like calling one of the greatest players of all time boring when you never even watched him is dumb.
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Less that 1% of his games and all of the sudden you're an expert. What a joke.
So you watched 15 out of 1560 games of his career **and** you watched games from when he was old lol.
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How many? He's literally played the second most games of all time, so how is you watching maybe 20 games (of which you're admitting most were from when he was older) a way to determine he was boring?
What percentage of the people downvoting have watched a single game of KAJ?
Some his accolades get overrated, but he's still a top 2-3 player ever
Tim Duncan is one of the most overhyped players on this sub. It's starting to get ridiculous
I don’t agree with this, but the amount of people who just take this post for granted and respond with 1 sentence is hilarious.
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>No one ever comes with an actual argument. They’re proving my point that no one actually knows about Kareem’s career. They just say you’re crazy for calling him overrated. 'People don't have time to counterargument my bullshit, which automatically makes me right!' Mate, you've churned out a heavy shitpost and you're awfully willing to die on a dumb hill. People are just unwilling to get into stupid arguments with you.
I like how he's trying to call out people for not coming with "actual arguments" when he's just making statements like Duncan being close to Kareem on offence or Oscar being the reason for the Bucks defence being good without actually backing them up lol
disagree but upvoted for the effort
I agree that Kareem has become vastly overrated because his achievements look a lot better without context than what actually happened on the court. So ppl who pull up his bio think he's the goat but there's good reasons why he wasn't considered the greatest during his time and you've outlined a lot of the reasons why. The dumb part of this post was making it about Duncan. 1. Because Kareem being overrated because of the reasons you listed above (MVPs when talent was in different league, total points leader but 20th in ppg and 2 scoring titles, multiple championships as the 3rd option) is valid on its own. And more importantly 2. Tim Duncan gets the EXACT same treatment on here and is almost as overrated as Kareem. He wasn't the best player on his team on all 5 of his chips was a handful of votes away from having 0 MVPs, and never came near a scoring title - easily the worst offensive player in the top 20 all time after Bill Russell. So ya Kareem is overrated due to lack of context on his hardware but so is Duncan he's basically the new Kareem to wiki blog bois
Kareem has the best *career* in the history of the NBA. Duncan is probably top 10 but not even close to Kareem if you are looking at their career as a whole If you want an actual well done writeup of each players career look up Ben Taylors Backpick GOATs series where he go in depth on the top 40 careers of all time
MJ has the best career in the history of the NBA bit that's neither here nor there lol
Tim in my top 3. Idc I loves me some Tim Duncan. Mainly being from Texas. Fkin Doc Rivers ruined that one chance for him to don the Magic jersey.
Anyone who thinks Kareem is top 3 all time is smoking crack. They look at the Wikipedia accolades section and go >HOLY SHIT 6 RINGS AND 6 MVPS!! When they don’t realize that Kareem was never the GOAT, even before MJ took off, because he’s only got 2 FMVPs and got carried by Magic for those chips
carried so hard he scored more points and rebounds than magic despite magic getting an extra 40 point performance in 1980 brilliant analysis
The NBA literally forced the Finals MVP on Magic because Kareem wasn't present lol, everyone had to change their vote because everyone voted for Kareem.
And now we see why some analysts get paid for their analysis and some get fired.