I was reading the Bill Simmons chat yesterday and came upon a quote saying that Tim Duncan is the greatest power forward of all time... What? Does anyone else think that Bill was jumping the gun a bit? Granted, Duncan is a great player and one of the best big men in the game today, but of all time? I just can't agree with this for the following reasons:
1) Is Duncan really a power forward? He's a 7 footer that plays either position depending on match-ups and/or injuries. Many times he's on the roster as forward, but matched-up with the other team's center. I saw a lot of Mavericks games this year and not once when they played the Spurs was Duncan matched up with Dirk. I would argue that Duncan's more of a center than a power forward for this reason. Then the argument ends because he's not even the best center in the league today.
2) OK, for arguments sake, let's call Duncan a forward. Even then, you cannot convince me that Duncan is a better player than Charles Barkley. Barkley was a force in the league and led both the Sixers and the Suns to the championship series with no help (sorry to all the Hornacek fans out there). He was great offensively and defensively and had the ability to intimidate his opponents. Duncan is a well rounded player, but far from intimidating. Another better forward was Kevin McHale. He did have a lot of help (Parrish and Bird), but he was a defensive and rebounding presence who was still deadly from 15 feet. Thirdly, everyone forgets about Maurice Lucas from the Blazers. He was overshadowed by Bill Walton's personality, but he also was an intimidator that averaged 15 points and 8 boards over a 14 year career.
3) What about Kevin Garnett??? Garnet is an amazing player that is stuck in Minnesota with no supporting cast and a GM that refuses to help him (sorry McHale, great player, terrible GM). If you flip-flop those players for those teams, Garnett would be the one with all the rings and we'd be having this discussion about him. Garnett is more athletic and has better range than Duncan, too. I don't know, am I missing something?
4) OK Brent, I gotta bring it up - Duncan has turned into a whiny little girl! Maybe Ginobili is rubbing off on him, but he bitches constantly. I just don't think that the greatest forward of all time would need to piss and moan after every whistle. He loses a lot of credibility with me for this reason. In this the sissified version of the NBA, he fits right in, but I'm pretty sure that Laimbeer would have knocked him out in the early '90's for crying so much.
Tim Duncan is a good player and a good person, from what I hear. But I think crowning him the greatest is over the top. There are a lot of great players out there that played in the hay-day era of the NBA that can be, or possibly should be, ranked higher. Obviously, I'm always up for debate on this...
Sidebar - Simmons also said that Robert Horry can be considered for the Hall of Fame. WHAT??? Yes he has 7 rings (after they beat Cleveland), but his career averages are 7 points and 4 rebounds per game. If this happens, they should burn the HOF down. That's like giving me a Super Bowl ring because I watched the Patriots win 3 of them on TV. Ridiculous.
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I agree 100%. They have had this conversation a few times in the last couple of weeks on Mike and Mike.
Granted, he's good, but he's always had help. Whether it's the Admiral, Frenchy Parker, Gaynobili, or Big Shot Bob Horry, he's always been surrounded with talent. Speaking of Horry, that whole HOF talk is a crock. To me, that's like putting Scotty Pippen in the top 50 of all time. It's a joke. Honestly, I've tried to watch NBA basketball for a couple of years now and just can't do it. Not even the finals. It's just not the basketball that I grew up watching.
Sidebar: How 'bout Justin Verlander last night?? That dude was sick on the mound! Who's got him on their fantasy team?
Ok, I am dying to weigh in on this. While it might be a little much to declare Duncan "the best PF of all time", you can at least make an argument for it.
Let's face it, Duncan in his prime would tool Barkley. The ONLY thing Barkley has on Duncan is his mean streak. That's it. Barkley was like 6'6", a true freak of nature that nobody will ever equal, but still, what could he do against a guy like Duncan who has 6 inches on him?
How can you state that Duncan played around great talent, but then declare a guy like McHale a better forward? The guy played with Bird AND Parish. Find a better frontcourt than those 3 in the past 25 years.
I've done some digging on this, and Duncan's frontcourt mates in 2003 were David Robinson (a great player in his prime, but he was a soft player and his teams always choked in the playoffs) Malik Rose, Danny Ferry, Bruce Bowen and Kevin Willis's corpse.
In '05, you had Rasho Nesterovic, Nazr Mohammed, Glenn Robinson, Robert Horry and Bowen again. Seriously, I could go on, but how in the world does this compare to what McHale played with? The only *good* player on either roster here is Robinson. Horry is a clutch guy, but as you pointed out, he doesn't exactly fill up a stat sheet.
KG is a bad comparison for Duncan. He's more of a 3/4 tweener and Duncan is more of a 4/5. Who cares if you could count him as a center anyway? How many teams even have true centers anymore? With a few exceptions, it's hard to define the difference between a center and a power forward. There's Yao, Shaq, and a bunch of stiffs. That's really all there is. Ben Wallace plays center for Chicago and he's 6'9".
Duncan might not be the best ever, but he has 4 rings. San Antonio never won a championship with Robinson until Duncan showed up.
Yeah and Jordan never got a ring until Pippen showed up either. That blows that one.
I completely disagree with you on the Barkley comparison. I think Barkley would have taken it to him. I know he gave up some height, but he did that his whole career. Athletically, Barkley was much more of a pure athlete than Duncan too.
And I don't like the ring comparison either. Duncan has 4 rings. OK. Horry has 7. So is Horry Hall of Fame bound? I hope not! Different sport, but Marino and Kelly never got rings, but I'd pick them both in the top 10 QB's ever. Trent Dilfer has a ring.
I heard Eric Kuselius argue last night that Duncan is a better basketball player than Lebron. No f-ing way. Tim Duncan is one of the best fundamental players in the game. He is very basketball smart, no doubt. Lebron James is the total package. He can pass, run the floor, and jump out of the arena. He needs to have a little more confidence in his jumper, but he's amazing.
We can argue this stuff all day. Aren't sports awesome?
Of course Horry is not hall of fame material. He has been very fortunate in his career. He started out in Houston with Hakeem Olajuwon at the absolute apex of his career. He was always a really good player, but he had a stretch of about 5 years where he was an absolute menace on both ends of the floor. People probably forget, but Sam "I Am" Cassell was actually more clutch than Horry was in either playoff run for the Rockets.
Duncan vs Barkley...ok, let's do some statistical analysis first.
Career averages are misleading. Barkley definitely tailed off at the end of his career (he was a solid 20-25 ppg game guy until the 97-98 season, when he dropped to 15.2 ppg). Duncan has pretty much been in the same neighborhood as Barkley in this respect, but Barkley's peak years of 28.3 and 27.6 in Philly are higher than Duncan's best single season scoring average of 25.5 back in '01-'02. We'll give the edge to Barkley here. The guy could pour in the points.
They also didn't call him the round mound of rebound for nothing. He averaged 11.7 rebounds/game for his career. His rebounding never really fell off the way his scoring did. In 98-99, his penultimate year in the league, he averaged 12.3. Duncan has been pretty consistent here. He's averaged 11.9/game on his career. His best season rebounding was 12.9 in 02-03. Barkley averaged 14.6 in his 3rd year in the league. Another slight edge to Barkley. But let's face it, this one is almost a wash.
The thing I like about Duncan is what he gives you on defense. For his career, he's average 2.5 blocks per game. Barkley only got over 1/game during his first three years in the league, although he was close a few other times. Having a shotblocker on the defensive end is a huge bonus for any team. While Barkley has a definitive advantage on the offensive end, I would still take Duncan over Barkley if I'm building my team.
In addition, Barkley only made the finals one time. Duncan has made it 4 times now and won every time. There have been plenty of guys who put up great numbers on lousy teams. You hear everyone talk about making the other guys around you into better players. Duncan clearly does that. Barkley didn't. End of story.
I've always hated that arguement about one person making another person better. That's crap. It's up to each individual, sports or real life, to make themselves what they want to be. Duncan doesn't make anyone better. He's already got good players around him. Who did Barkley have around him? His teams were all very average other than him. Jordan didn't make people better. He gave them the opportunities to do what they are paid to do. He didn't make Luc Longley a better player.
You are right, Duncan's a better shot blocker, but I would be interested in seeing how many steals he had as opposed to Duncan. Defense isn't all blocks, if you just flat out take tha ball away.....I'll take that any day. He had pretty quick hands for a big man.
Charles was the same height as Jordan, who played GUARD, yet he continually SHUT DOWN the world's best players, night in and night out.
Duncan is a 7 foot pillow. He's soft and he cries. Great skills, but shouldn't be in the arguement as best ever at his position. End of story.
You're right, I should have checked steal numbers as well. I forgot to factor that in. I have no idea how they stack up against each other in that respect.
Let's not lose sight of the fact that about 3 years ago, everyone was wondering if the Spurs could win a title in spite of Tony Parker. They were openly pursuing Jason Kidd, but he ended up resigning with New Jersey. How good would Manu Ginobili be if he didn't have Duncan to get the transition game started? How effect would Finley be if Duncan wasn't constantly drawing double teams, leaving him wide open for three pointers?
You're right, it is ultimately the responsibility of each individual player to play at a high level, but some players definitely make their teammates better.
Let's look at Jason Kidd. New Jersey was an NBA black hole before he got there, and all of a sudden, they're in the finals 2 years in a row. Even when Kidd first came into the league, he turned a DREADFUL Mavs team into something respectable.
See, you did it. You got me sucked in to an arguemant that I don't even care about that much!! Good work!
Let's talk about something that really matters. Ultimate Fighter is getting down to the nitty gritty. June 23rd is the finale and Jens Pulver and BJ Penn are going to duke it out again.
You guys missed a great fight Tuesday night. Spencer "The King" Fisher and Sam "Hands of Stone" Stout battled it out. Fisher won unanimously with some precision striking and really mixing up his style.
UFC is the future gentlemen. You better get into it.
Mission accomplished. Actual dialogue on our God-forsaken blog. I love it!!! Too bad it's just the 3 of us...
Does Morris know that we're back? I really miss his grammatical corrections.
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