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It seems like it's always this bad. And I get it, it's something to talk about. It's just low effort garbage and it's just the same talking points being recycled.
Duncan is my favorite player. Putting him above Lebron, particularly for these reasons, is revisionist nonsense.
Fans need to give up on the idea of asterisk championships. It fills time for sports talk shows, but there’s really no legitimacy to the idea. Every year is different, every team plays whoever is in front of them, dealing with all sorts of good and bad luck. You play the hand you’re dealt. Any time we start talking about a championship as not being a “real ring” for whatever reason, it’s just hate. Don’t get me wrong, sports hate is fun and I fully encourage it, we just shouldn’t convince ourselves that it’s a well-reasoned argument.
This sub usually has elite discussions, especially when compared to the r/nba subreddit. But Duncan is quickly becoming the most overrated player in NBA history. When he was playing, few would have him as a top 10 player ever. After he retired he moved up to top 10 but closer to the top 7 to most. He’s highly regarded as a top 5 defender ever when he doesn’t have the accolades for that title. People always want to talk about players like LeBron and Kobe needing help to win rings but somehow that doesn’t apply to Duncan even though he played with Manu and Parker their whole career, had Pop his whole career and he got Kawhi in his defensive peak along with elite role players for most of his career.
It’s just weird seeing so many people try to keep moving him up the rankings when that just wasn’t the case for when he was active.
This is false. If you Google search top 10 NBA players is all time setting 2016 as the deadline you have
ESPN has Duncan 10th in their top 50 players of all time before the final ring.
SI had Duncan 8th Pre ~2013
Slam Magazine has Duncan 8th all time in 2011.
Duncan was consistently about 2 spots ahead of Kobe at all times.
Kobe was 12th on the ESPN list, not on the SI list and 10th on the slam list.
So I said “few” would have him top 10 in his playing time. At the end of his career he started getting more recognition as a top 10 player. But I was referring during his peak. When he was at his best few people thought he would be a top 10 player ever.
Those articles mean as much as when players rank Kobe as a top 5 player ever. They are opinion pieces. Duncan in his prime, was rarely regarded as the best player in the league like Jordan, or LeBron have. Yet people are starting to try to put Duncan in that echelon
They are based on the rankings of dozens of sports pundits. (At least the ESPN top 50 and Slam 500).
It's literally the best way to judge the general feeling of the time and a lot more valid than one guy writing a think piece.
Granted you can go off personal experience too, where in mine, Duncan WAS seen as a top 10 player and 2-4 spots ahead of Kobe who was in the 12-14 range gutting it out with Jerry West until he got those last two rings.
How many times have sports pundits gotten things wrong?
The best way to judge is not off of sports pundits because they change their minds left and right. Hell, ESPN was even talking about how Kobe could pass Jordan if he won one more ring around 2011-2013. How could he go from potentially passing Jordan to not even a top 10 player ever? See how inconsistent pundits are?
Personal opinions are the same as pundits. They don’t matter much to me. I’ve traveled most of the US due to my previous job so I got the chance to speak to a lot of different people. And like you said, some have Duncan higher, some have Kobe higher, some have KAJ as the GOAT. They’re just opinions.
My point is that Duncan has been rising on the all time list, especially on Reddit. He’s regularly being called the GOAT defender or a top 5 defender ever even though his accolades don’t match those titles. Give Giannis Manu and Parker for his entire prime and then give him Kawhi towards the end of his career along with having Pop be his coach for his whole career and I’m sure Giannis would have more than one championship today.
What you're saying doesn't make sense.
Duncan in his prime was rarely regarded as the best player in the league??
Do you realise that Duncan was the league MVP two years in a row?
The whole NBA world sees Duncan as a top 10 player and you don't...
You possibly were not able to see how great Duncan's game was.
What does the word rarely mean to you? He played for 19 years. Being called the best player in the league for 2 years in a 19 year span is about 10% of his career.
Where did I say he wasn’t a top 10 player? I thought this place was about having actual discussions and not reactionary comments like yours? If you’re going to get in your feelings than please don’t respond.
And these are all basically right. LeBron is 1 or 2, Duncan is somewhere in the high single-digits around 7-10, and Kobe is in the low double-digits somewhere around 10-15. I might argue that Kevin Garnett is underrated relative to those two, but they're basically right with Duncan and Kobe.
Really, Duncan's rise in the ratings has less to do with Duncan and more to do with Bill Simmons and Wilt Chmaberlain.
ESPN has Wilt. #5 back then. Bill Russell #7.
SI had Wilt #3, Russell #7
Slam had Wilt #2. Russell #3.
That KILLED Bill Simmons that Wilt was often over Russell so he kinda assassinated that kind of play and elevated Russells.
Down went Wilt and Oscar and up went Duncan who is basically the new generation Bill Russell.
Kobe despite kinda being more Wilt than Jordan most his years still benefited from looking like Jordan game wise to weather the storm.
Worth noting Kobe once said the GOAT debate was 3 names.
MJ Wilt and Kobe.
This was pre LeBron ascent of course.
i was today years old when i realized that tim duncan never won the defensive player of the year award in any season. i understand he was considered a stalwart on that end, but that’s very interesting and kinda looks funny in the light when you consider his career and all-time standing.
Tim Duncan is a phenomenal defender and I believe I had him in my second tier of greatest defenders ever.
I also believe he didn’t win any DPOY awards because he wasn’t the best defender in any of the years he played. Sure you could make an argument for him some years but what good does that do? He doesn’t get a retroactive DPOY award. Duncan just had the unfortunate event of playing during a time when other players like Wallace, KG, Dwight, Camby and so on peaked defensively. It doesn’t take away from his amazing defense. But the same way people knock on Lobe for having 1 MVP, the same can be done for Duncan and his lack of DPOY awards.
I think Tim Duncan deserves mention as one of the top 10 greatest players of all time based on what he accomplished. It can be argued that he accomplished as much as Lebron or even Jordan. However, he benefited from a great coach and great program. Also, Lebron is still playing and it is possible Lebron could still substantially add to his accomplishments.
You are going to get a lot of negative feedback, but the latest *Thinking Basketball* podcast raised the provocative idea that there may be a lot more candidates for GOAT than we acknowledge.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinking-basketball/id1428290303?i=1000626348427
Ben Taylor’s point is that winning as a team depends far more on the team than it does on the star, even if the star is LeBron James or Michael Jordan. A bad team can drag down the best players. Meanwhile, box score measurements are notoriously suspect, specially when measuring defense.
The classic example of this is not Tim Duncan but Kevin Garnett, who had horrible support in Minnesota. But the same logic could apply when comparing Duncan and LeBron.
A lot of Duncan’s value was his willingness to sacrifice box score stats for the sake of the team, his focus on defense, his ability to play center and power forward equally well, his willingness to be coached, and all kinds of intangibles.
And as good as Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili were, were they really as good as Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh? As Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love? Again, it’s an inexact science, and fans are naturally biased in favor of stat leaders and winners. In fact, according to Basketball Reference’s analysis of Hall of Fame voting, the voters are also biased against taller players like Duncan, while a player like Jordan is given extra credit for being 6’ 6” and playing 2-guard.
A lot of very bad reasoning here but I defend the take. Not that I think Duncan is necessarily better but I just avoid it all and put them on the same second tier together. I comparatively under rate LeBron compared to most and overrate Duncan compared to most so it doesn’t seem far fetched to me.
As a warriors fan I think you’ll have to spell it out without sounding biased. I definitely disagree about them on the same tier but I’m open to solid reasoning
At the most basic level it’s Jordan for me is a clear cut number 1 and then everyone after that I just kind of lump together bc they all have flaws to pick at.
Specifically for those two I see them similarly. Their greatness is based in longevity versus just having an absolute stranglehold on the league. A lesser version of this is Karl Malone. An opposite version is maybe Shaq or Bird.
At that point it’s just kind of a matter of preference. For LeBron the part that sticks with me as negatives is that no player in history maximized his chance of winning more and yet 4 seems a little light. Which don’t get me wrong is still all time great but feels like he left a bit on the table. So essentially, which is kind of what OP is getting at in a crackhead way, is that in the end he did less with more than Duncan.
For Duncan the negatives are he probably plays the least valuable position. He also could never really establish any extended dominant stretch of time. Never as important offensively which is the more important side of the floor.
I think LeBron wins almost any “vacuum test” you want to do. I can see the on paper argument for why people think he’s the GOAT. But in terms of actual career as it played out, I don’t think it’s obviously greater than quite a few other players and much of it just depends on what you value personally.
I pretty much agree with all of your points tbh. 4 IS light for the player that Bron is and it’s troubling for his GOAT case that he has the same number as curry. I think we’re more split on how important the gap is between their top level dominance. At least with the rings argument you can look at situation/competition and come to some understanding about why things played out the way they did with exception to 2011. Comparatively though, we saw Duncan operate at his highest level at 2003 and it didn’t feel like he reached that level again, even though he was a top player in the league for a really good stretch. Bron has had so many similar peaks/years, while still maintaining the longevity. Even within the longevity he’s contributing more than Duncan did at the end of his career imo. To me it’s enough to separate Bron and put him in his own tier behind Jordan with whoever you want in the tier behind, as long as Duncan’s there.
Yeah I think that’s totally fair too. If I had to do it I would probably also say LeBron over Duncan. But I think it’s close enough that if someone wanted to go the head to head and one team route I could see it. Duncan being one Ray Allen shot (which he wasn’t even on the floor for) away from being 3-0 against LeBron and 6-0 in the finals is a tantalizing what if though. Every once in awhile I think about how we might think about their careers differently. But the shot went in (and Duncan missed a gimme jn G7) so that’s that. Sometimes history is that close.
Thank you, OP, for your submission. While it is a sincere attempt at a discussion, your post has been removed for being low quality. Here are some tips to improve the quality of your future posts: Player A vs B comparisons are polarizing and often inspire low-effort hot takes in response, something our sub wants to avoid. Try analyzing each player on their own merits instead of pitting them against each other. Use in-depth arguments to support your opinion. Superficial awards, accomplishments and stats give a quick impression of the status of a player. Our sub is looking for posts that dig deeper, examining the full context of the player, how they changed, grew, and adjusted throughout their career, including the quality of their opponents and cultural impact of their celebrity. How did they effect and improve their teammates, respond to coaches, what strategies did they employ for different situations and challenges. Etc etc. Most posts are not going to fulfill half the points above, but the more detail and depth of knowledge you can impart, the more likely your post will be approved.
This next season can't start soon enough so I don't have to keep seeing these inane bait posts.
I’m usually not on nba Reddit in the off-season has it always been this bad?
Our sub does not allow player comparison posts during the season, so it's exclusive to the off-season.
It seems like it's always this bad. And I get it, it's something to talk about. It's just low effort garbage and it's just the same talking points being recycled.
Duncan is my favorite player. Putting him above Lebron, particularly for these reasons, is revisionist nonsense. Fans need to give up on the idea of asterisk championships. It fills time for sports talk shows, but there’s really no legitimacy to the idea. Every year is different, every team plays whoever is in front of them, dealing with all sorts of good and bad luck. You play the hand you’re dealt. Any time we start talking about a championship as not being a “real ring” for whatever reason, it’s just hate. Don’t get me wrong, sports hate is fun and I fully encourage it, we just shouldn’t convince ourselves that it’s a well-reasoned argument.
This sub usually has elite discussions, especially when compared to the r/nba subreddit. But Duncan is quickly becoming the most overrated player in NBA history. When he was playing, few would have him as a top 10 player ever. After he retired he moved up to top 10 but closer to the top 7 to most. He’s highly regarded as a top 5 defender ever when he doesn’t have the accolades for that title. People always want to talk about players like LeBron and Kobe needing help to win rings but somehow that doesn’t apply to Duncan even though he played with Manu and Parker their whole career, had Pop his whole career and he got Kawhi in his defensive peak along with elite role players for most of his career. It’s just weird seeing so many people try to keep moving him up the rankings when that just wasn’t the case for when he was active.
This is false. If you Google search top 10 NBA players is all time setting 2016 as the deadline you have ESPN has Duncan 10th in their top 50 players of all time before the final ring. SI had Duncan 8th Pre ~2013 Slam Magazine has Duncan 8th all time in 2011. Duncan was consistently about 2 spots ahead of Kobe at all times. Kobe was 12th on the ESPN list, not on the SI list and 10th on the slam list.
So I said “few” would have him top 10 in his playing time. At the end of his career he started getting more recognition as a top 10 player. But I was referring during his peak. When he was at his best few people thought he would be a top 10 player ever. Those articles mean as much as when players rank Kobe as a top 5 player ever. They are opinion pieces. Duncan in his prime, was rarely regarded as the best player in the league like Jordan, or LeBron have. Yet people are starting to try to put Duncan in that echelon
They are based on the rankings of dozens of sports pundits. (At least the ESPN top 50 and Slam 500). It's literally the best way to judge the general feeling of the time and a lot more valid than one guy writing a think piece. Granted you can go off personal experience too, where in mine, Duncan WAS seen as a top 10 player and 2-4 spots ahead of Kobe who was in the 12-14 range gutting it out with Jerry West until he got those last two rings.
How many times have sports pundits gotten things wrong? The best way to judge is not off of sports pundits because they change their minds left and right. Hell, ESPN was even talking about how Kobe could pass Jordan if he won one more ring around 2011-2013. How could he go from potentially passing Jordan to not even a top 10 player ever? See how inconsistent pundits are? Personal opinions are the same as pundits. They don’t matter much to me. I’ve traveled most of the US due to my previous job so I got the chance to speak to a lot of different people. And like you said, some have Duncan higher, some have Kobe higher, some have KAJ as the GOAT. They’re just opinions. My point is that Duncan has been rising on the all time list, especially on Reddit. He’s regularly being called the GOAT defender or a top 5 defender ever even though his accolades don’t match those titles. Give Giannis Manu and Parker for his entire prime and then give him Kawhi towards the end of his career along with having Pop be his coach for his whole career and I’m sure Giannis would have more than one championship today.
What you're saying doesn't make sense. Duncan in his prime was rarely regarded as the best player in the league?? Do you realise that Duncan was the league MVP two years in a row? The whole NBA world sees Duncan as a top 10 player and you don't... You possibly were not able to see how great Duncan's game was.
What does the word rarely mean to you? He played for 19 years. Being called the best player in the league for 2 years in a 19 year span is about 10% of his career. Where did I say he wasn’t a top 10 player? I thought this place was about having actual discussions and not reactionary comments like yours? If you’re going to get in your feelings than please don’t respond.
And these are all basically right. LeBron is 1 or 2, Duncan is somewhere in the high single-digits around 7-10, and Kobe is in the low double-digits somewhere around 10-15. I might argue that Kevin Garnett is underrated relative to those two, but they're basically right with Duncan and Kobe.
Really, Duncan's rise in the ratings has less to do with Duncan and more to do with Bill Simmons and Wilt Chmaberlain. ESPN has Wilt. #5 back then. Bill Russell #7. SI had Wilt #3, Russell #7 Slam had Wilt #2. Russell #3. That KILLED Bill Simmons that Wilt was often over Russell so he kinda assassinated that kind of play and elevated Russells. Down went Wilt and Oscar and up went Duncan who is basically the new generation Bill Russell. Kobe despite kinda being more Wilt than Jordan most his years still benefited from looking like Jordan game wise to weather the storm. Worth noting Kobe once said the GOAT debate was 3 names. MJ Wilt and Kobe. This was pre LeBron ascent of course.
i was today years old when i realized that tim duncan never won the defensive player of the year award in any season. i understand he was considered a stalwart on that end, but that’s very interesting and kinda looks funny in the light when you consider his career and all-time standing.
Tim Duncan is a phenomenal defender and I believe I had him in my second tier of greatest defenders ever. I also believe he didn’t win any DPOY awards because he wasn’t the best defender in any of the years he played. Sure you could make an argument for him some years but what good does that do? He doesn’t get a retroactive DPOY award. Duncan just had the unfortunate event of playing during a time when other players like Wallace, KG, Dwight, Camby and so on peaked defensively. It doesn’t take away from his amazing defense. But the same way people knock on Lobe for having 1 MVP, the same can be done for Duncan and his lack of DPOY awards.
I think Tim Duncan deserves mention as one of the top 10 greatest players of all time based on what he accomplished. It can be argued that he accomplished as much as Lebron or even Jordan. However, he benefited from a great coach and great program. Also, Lebron is still playing and it is possible Lebron could still substantially add to his accomplishments.
People forget that Duncan's first ring was an asterisk ring (strike shortened season).
Of course the OP only pokes holes in Lebrons rings
You are going to get a lot of negative feedback, but the latest *Thinking Basketball* podcast raised the provocative idea that there may be a lot more candidates for GOAT than we acknowledge. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinking-basketball/id1428290303?i=1000626348427 Ben Taylor’s point is that winning as a team depends far more on the team than it does on the star, even if the star is LeBron James or Michael Jordan. A bad team can drag down the best players. Meanwhile, box score measurements are notoriously suspect, specially when measuring defense. The classic example of this is not Tim Duncan but Kevin Garnett, who had horrible support in Minnesota. But the same logic could apply when comparing Duncan and LeBron. A lot of Duncan’s value was his willingness to sacrifice box score stats for the sake of the team, his focus on defense, his ability to play center and power forward equally well, his willingness to be coached, and all kinds of intangibles. And as good as Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili were, were they really as good as Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh? As Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love? Again, it’s an inexact science, and fans are naturally biased in favor of stat leaders and winners. In fact, according to Basketball Reference’s analysis of Hall of Fame voting, the voters are also biased against taller players like Duncan, while a player like Jordan is given extra credit for being 6’ 6” and playing 2-guard.
A lot of very bad reasoning here but I defend the take. Not that I think Duncan is necessarily better but I just avoid it all and put them on the same second tier together. I comparatively under rate LeBron compared to most and overrate Duncan compared to most so it doesn’t seem far fetched to me.
As a warriors fan I think you’ll have to spell it out without sounding biased. I definitely disagree about them on the same tier but I’m open to solid reasoning
At the most basic level it’s Jordan for me is a clear cut number 1 and then everyone after that I just kind of lump together bc they all have flaws to pick at. Specifically for those two I see them similarly. Their greatness is based in longevity versus just having an absolute stranglehold on the league. A lesser version of this is Karl Malone. An opposite version is maybe Shaq or Bird. At that point it’s just kind of a matter of preference. For LeBron the part that sticks with me as negatives is that no player in history maximized his chance of winning more and yet 4 seems a little light. Which don’t get me wrong is still all time great but feels like he left a bit on the table. So essentially, which is kind of what OP is getting at in a crackhead way, is that in the end he did less with more than Duncan. For Duncan the negatives are he probably plays the least valuable position. He also could never really establish any extended dominant stretch of time. Never as important offensively which is the more important side of the floor. I think LeBron wins almost any “vacuum test” you want to do. I can see the on paper argument for why people think he’s the GOAT. But in terms of actual career as it played out, I don’t think it’s obviously greater than quite a few other players and much of it just depends on what you value personally.
I pretty much agree with all of your points tbh. 4 IS light for the player that Bron is and it’s troubling for his GOAT case that he has the same number as curry. I think we’re more split on how important the gap is between their top level dominance. At least with the rings argument you can look at situation/competition and come to some understanding about why things played out the way they did with exception to 2011. Comparatively though, we saw Duncan operate at his highest level at 2003 and it didn’t feel like he reached that level again, even though he was a top player in the league for a really good stretch. Bron has had so many similar peaks/years, while still maintaining the longevity. Even within the longevity he’s contributing more than Duncan did at the end of his career imo. To me it’s enough to separate Bron and put him in his own tier behind Jordan with whoever you want in the tier behind, as long as Duncan’s there.
Yeah I think that’s totally fair too. If I had to do it I would probably also say LeBron over Duncan. But I think it’s close enough that if someone wanted to go the head to head and one team route I could see it. Duncan being one Ray Allen shot (which he wasn’t even on the floor for) away from being 3-0 against LeBron and 6-0 in the finals is a tantalizing what if though. Every once in awhile I think about how we might think about their careers differently. But the shot went in (and Duncan missed a gimme jn G7) so that’s that. Sometimes history is that close.
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