Aldridge ball is not winning ball

[daslicer]

Never said that. Read again, and read it well. No wonder people here don't get what I'm saying.



I agree with the premise that teams tend to hold the forth without its superstar for short periods of time. So if you want, we can take the whole "Spurs won 60+% of the games when Duncan didn't play" argument our of the way. You will still have a hard time getting people to agree with you on the idea of a Spurs team with three hall of famers on their primes (Pop, Manu and Tony) winning just 30 games. That's beyond re ed, tbh.

Ahh shut the up you dumbass Manu . Down below is my original post that you responded to.

Take the best player off of a championship team and they will most likely be average to terrible. Imagine if Duncan missed a full season from '02-'07 how bad the Spurs would look with Manu and Tony. I feel a Manu-Tony team without Duncan even in that era would be a 30 win team.

Notice how your stupid ass did not bring up that I also mentioned the seasons before Manu-Tony's prime. Of course I believe the Spurs would not have won more than 30 games during the '02-'03 season if Duncan missed the whole entire year. Do you honestly believe rookie Manu and second year Parker could lead the Spurs to more than 30 wins? I feel the same way about the '03-'04 season because even during that season both Manu and Parker were not all-star caliber players. From '04-'07 without Tim I will actually admit I was wrong and they could win more than 30 games but their ceiling as a team is around 35-42 wins tops. They are still pretty ty without Duncan and would miss the playoffs.

[Phenomanul]

Never said that. Read again, and read it well. No wonder people here don't get what I'm saying.



I agree with the premise that teams tend to hold the forth without its superstar for short periods of time. So if you want, we can take the whole "Spurs won 60+% of the games when Duncan didn't play" argument our of the way. You will still have a hard time getting people to agree with you on the idea of a Spurs team with three hall of famers on their primes (Pop, Manu and Tony) winning just 30 games. That's beyond re ed, tbh.

Yeah, pretty re ed.

Especially when you consider that Duncan's salary hold (in a hypothetical scenario where Duncan doesn't exist) would likely have been used to procure the services of an NBA caliber big.

Duncan is top-5 all-time and his intangibles, fundamentals, consistency and talent are not replaceable. But if both Manu's and Parker's usage rates had increased and Duncan had been replaced with a serviceable big there's no way they don't win at least 50 games. I don't necessarily think they would've rang (Duncan was absolutely necessary for that). But people seriously downplay how great Manu and Parker were from 2004 - 2010. There was that game in 2008 where Ginobili almost singlehandedly beat LeBron in his prime (46 points on 15/20 shots). A game where Ginobili outdueled both Ray Allen and Paul Pierce during Boston's brief stint at the top of the NBA. A game where Ginobili out-dueled Kobe. Etc... The point is that they had enough stellar gravities of their own but chose to (wisely I might add) play subserviently in schemes that featured the brightest star of all (Duncan).

daslicer basically equated Ginobili with the Kemba Walkers of the NBA. Good but not great. Parker with the Mario Chalmers of the NBA. Good but not great. No... Ginobili was winning everywhere else he played before pairing up with Duncan. Winning back-to-back Italian League MVPs, a Euroleague MVP. He led an unlikely dethroning of the US Men's National team from 2002 - 2006 (managing 4 victories against the U.S. culminating with a Gold Medal in 2004) - with great team play, but most of all, with Ginobili's talent, flair, and his unmatched compe ive fire.

[SAGirl]

It’s become a 3 pt chucking league. That’s no indictment of Aldridge or anything.

You need volume 3 pt shooting bc you won’t be able to stop the barrage from GSW all the time. Those guys can have just one insane quarter and bury you unless you can somewhat keep up with a barrage of your own.

So it’s not an indictment on Lamarcus. GSW has been starting slow in terms of teams getting a lead on them in first halves. Spurs have been able to build leads against them each game even with their B/C squad. Many teams do the same. If you have someone on your team that can keep up when they come out with more intensity in the 3r Q and actually decide to play defense you can take them. Portland did it last night and Kiwi was on his way to steal game 1 on the road in the WCF. But you do need someone who is going to be a threat from 3 and off the dribble. A truly ungardable guy. That’s Kiwi.

[daslicer]

Yeah, pretty re ed.

Especially when you consider that Duncan's salary hold (in a hypothetical scenario where Duncan doesn't exist) would likely have been used to procure the services of an NBA caliber big.

Duncan is top-5 all-time and his intangibles, fundamentals, consistency and talent are not replaceable. But if both Manu's and Parker's usage rates had increased and Duncan had been replaced with a serviceable big there's no way they don't win at least 50 games. I don't necessarily think they would've rang (Duncan was absolutely necessary for that). But people seriously downplay how great Manu and Parker were from 2004 - 2010. There was that game in 2008 where Ginobili almost singlehandedly beat LeBron in his prime (46 points on 15/20 shots). A game where Ginobili outdueled both Ray Allen and Paul Pierce during Boston's brief stint at the top of the NBA. A game where Ginobili out-dueled Kobe. Etc... The point is that they had enough stellar gravities of their own but chose to (wisely I might add) play subserviently in schemes that featured the brightest star of all (Duncan).

daslicer basically equated Ginobili with the Kemba Walkers of the NBA. Good but not great. Parker with the Mario Chalmers of the NBA. Good but not great. No... Ginobili was winning everywhere else he played before pairing up with Duncan. Winning back-to-back Italian League MVPs, a Euroleague MVP. He led an unlikely dethroning of the US Men's National team from 2002 - 2006 (managing 4 victories against the U.S. culminating with a Gold Medal in 2004) - with great team play, but most of all, with Ginobili's talent, flair, and his unmatched compe ive fire.

Yeah because it's really easy to get a good big man. Great job of deflecting with that comment. I'm speaking of the way the roster was set up and not some imaginary situation where they could get a big on the level of a young Pau Gasol. Your sighting a few games Manu held his own against the best and I have to say so what. Joe Ingles had a game where he dropped 30 on Kevin Durant this year, Parson had a game where he had 30 plus on Lebron a few years back. Prime Manu is clearly better than those two guys I mentioned but I doubt he could hold his own against prime Kobe, Pierce for a full 7 game series without Duncan's help. In fact with prime Duncan he never held his on with Kobe during the playoffs. It's very laughable when you said the spurs could increase Manu's usage rate. One of the biggest problems with Manu was that he never had the stamina to play a lot of minutes. Manu was only able to play 2 season in his career of 30 plus minutes. I actually believe Manu was fortunate to play for the Spurs because if he played for a coach like Thibs or D'Antoni his body would have broken down a lot faster due to playing heavy minutes.

Manu and Parker were not all-star caliber players their first 2 years in the league. They didn't reach all-star caliber levels until '04-'05. You don't win a lot of games in this league without all-star level players which both clearly were not during their first few years in the league. Take Duncan off of the '02-'03 spurs and '03-'04 Spurs they are 30 win caliber team. Now if you want go after '04-'10 I would say the Spurs ceiling with them without Tim would be 30-40 plus win team depending on the season. If it's '09-10 season that team is definitely only winning around 30 some games without Tim. If you go back to the NBA era of '00-'10 there was no team back then that had won 50 games with an all-star back court without having an all-star big to compliment the back court. The closet you get is the '02-'03 Pistons that won 50 games.

[Chinook]

I do think lumping Tim in with Manu and Tony to call them all "Hall-of-Famers" does sell Duncan short. He was an order of magnitude better than his co-stars. That said, I actually do believe the Spurs could have adjusted to losing Tim for a season and win a number of games, even in the playoffs. But that is a scenario where Tim tears his ACL in like June, and the team can prepare a whole summer for not having him. If that had happened with Kawhi, you would have seen a different Spurs team than the one you got this year as well. That's even more true in a scenario where Tim would be completely off the books all season, freeing up that money for someone else. Guys like Dave, Webber, Malone and O'Neal were options around that time, and any one of them would have made the Spurs a respectable playoff team. In that same way, I strongly doubt SA goes into the summer looking to reup Mills if they had a potential max slot available. A number of perimeter-oriented stars would have been available for trades or signings, and any of them added to this basic core would have solidified the Spurs as a second-tier playoff team.

However, both of those species of scenarios are fantasies. SA is dealing with a -ton of uncertainty over when or if Kawhi is going to be back. Not only has that prevented them for making an aggressive move to replace him, but it has hurt chemistry with all the waiting and dashed hopes. In a similar situation, I do think the team would have underperformed their potential had Tim been similarly unavailable. There wouldn't be any "serviceable" big to replace Duncan (have people forgotten that PAFTO failed to get a serviceable big to play NEXT to Duncan?). There would have just been a team with high-potential guards in a league where bigs still dominated. I don't know enough about the specific landscapes of the league those years to say exactly how well they'd do, but it probably wouldn't be an obvious 50 games. Tony and Manu are HoFers, but Tim was a GOAT candidate. It's disingenuous to put them on his level, and it's damned disrespectful to put Kawhi there by comparing the scenarios.

[DAF86]

Ahh shut the up you dumbass Manu . Down below is my original post that you responded to.



Notice how your stupid ass did not bring up that I also mentioned the seasons before Manu-Tony's prime. Of course I believe the Spurs would not have won more than 30 games during the '02-'03 season if Duncan missed the whole entire year. Do you honestly believe rookie Manu and second year Parker could lead the Spurs to more than 30 wins? I feel the same way about the '03-'04 season because even during that season both Manu and Parker were not all-star caliber players. From '04-'07 without Tim I will actually admit I was wrong and they could win more than 30 games but their ceiling as a team is around 35-42 wins tops. They are still pretty ty without Duncan and would miss the playoffs.

[Phenomanul]

I do think lumping Tim in with Manu and Tony to call them all "Hall-of-Famers" does sell Duncan short. He was an order of magnitude better than his co-stars. That said, I actually do believe the Spurs could have adjusted to losing Tim for a season and win a number of games, even in the playoffs. But that is a scenario where Tim tears his ACL in like June, and the team can prepare a whole summer for not having him. If that had happened with Kawhi, you would have seen a different Spurs team than the one you got this year as well. That's even more true in a scenario where Tim would be completely off the books all season, freeing up that money for someone else. Guys like Dave, Webber, Malone and O'Neal were options around that time, and any one of them would have made the Spurs a respectable playoff team. In that same way, I strongly doubt SA goes into the summer looking to reup Mills if they had a potential max slot available. A number of perimeter-oriented stars would have been available for trades or signings, and any of them added to this basic core would have solidified the Spurs as a second-tier playoff team.

However, both of those species of scenarios are fantasies. SA is dealing with a -ton of uncertainty over when or if Kawhi is going to be back. Not only has that prevented them for making an aggressive move to replace him, but it has hurt chemistry with all the waiting and dashed hopes. In a similar situation, I do think the team would have underperformed their potential had Tim been similarly unavailable. There wouldn't be any "serviceable" big to replace Duncan (have people forgotten that PAFTO failed to get a serviceable big to play NEXT to Duncan?). There would have just been a team with high-potential guards in a league where bigs still dominated. I don't know enough about the specific landscapes of the league those years to say exactly how well they'd do, but it probably wouldn't be an obvious 50 games. Tony and Manu are HoFers, but Tim was a GOAT candidate. It's disingenuous to put them on his level, and it's damned disrespectful to put Kawhi there by comparing the scenarios.

I clearly stated that Duncan is what made the Spurs perennial contenders in my argument. To suggest that the team without him could still reach 50 wins doesn't sell him short at all. To suggest that they could've made deep playoff runs without him is what IMO would be selling him short.

I think the problem is that you are selling both Manu and Parker short.

daslicer said that teams with Manu and TP in their primes were good for only 30 win seasons... that statement is simply ridiculous.

Again, Ginobili (without Parker) did a lot of winning on his own. He led an Argentina squad with good but not great players (Nocioni, Oberto, Sanchez, Prigioni, Delfino, Scola) to accomplish more than anyone expected; he was clearly the star player. He consistently demonstrated the capacity to win.

In any hypothetical scenario where you remove Duncan from the team for entire seasons, I'm sure the Spurs would not have operated 20 million below the cap, just 'cause. It's not just Tony and Manu and scrubs... 20 million would've given the team serviceable bigs. Furthermore, the type of offense they shifted to after the Spurs moved away from '4 down' is likely what they would've run without a big of Duncan's interstellar gravitas. It would've been a higher pace offense.

[DAF86]

Llilard and McCullum, Jokic and Millsap, Dragic and Waiters, De rozan and Lowry. Just some of the pairings that will get more than 30 wins this season and make the playoffs. And that's without a hall of fame coach on the sidelines.

Thinking Manu and Tony on their primes wouldn't win more than 35/42 games. How ing dumb do you have to be to believe such a thing?

[Chinook]

I clearly stated that Duncan is what made the Spurs perennial contenders in my argument.

I wasn't rebutting or supporting your specific argument. I was merely giving my theory on whether the Spurs could have been a compe ive team without Tim during the first half of the Big Three era. 30 games is an extremely low bar for any not completely awful team, so I wouldn't assume the Spurs would fail to clear it even if Tim were exactly like Kawhi now. I'm not sure if they would have been as good as they've been this season, though.

In any hypothetical scenario where you remove Duncan from the team for entire seasons, I'm sure the Spurs would not have operated 20 million below the cap, just 'cause.

This is a big problem with your argument, though. Tim tearing up his knee and missing seasons doesn't give the team cap space to replace him. It definitely doesn't give them cash to do so. At best, they would have gotten a DPE for half his salary, and I'm not sure if a team that constantly dodged the tax like SA did during that time would have hopped over by that much. In a scenario completely disjointed from reality where Tim did come off the books, yes, they could have added to the rotation. But that's so far from a reasonable line of argument that it feels out of place in any thread pertaining to Aldridge or Leonard.

Tony and Manu were great and would become greater, but in the first few years of the Big Three era, it would have been harder for them to carry a team to the top half of the playoff bracket. The game was much friendlier to perimeter defenders and offensive big men then. If Tim were out the same way Kawhi is now, I don't think they would have made the waves their potential and future impact would suggest. You seem to be overlooking that this is the same era where Prime Kobe couldn't get to the playoffs without Shaq and/Pau. They'd win more than 30 games, but I don't think anyone would be talking about them for a top-five record in the league.

[Chinook]

Llilard and McCullum, Jokic and Millsap, Dragic and Waiters, De rozan and Lowry. Just some of the pairings that will get more than 30 wins this season and make the playoffs. And that's without a hall of fame coach on the sidelines.

Thinking Manu and Tony on their primes wouldn't win more than 35/42 games. How ing dumb do you have to be to believe such a thing?

This is sort of hilarious given the entire premise of your thread. As much as Aldridge-ball isn't winning ball now, Manu-ball and Tony-ball would have struggled a dozen years ago. It's like you can't even keep up with your own "Today's era" argument.

[DAF86]

I wasn't rebutting or supporting your specific argument. I was merely giving my theory on whether the Spurs could have been a compe ive team without Tim during the first half of the Big Three era. 30 games is an extremely low bar for any not completely awful team, so I wouldn't assume the Spurs would fail to clear it even if Tim were exactly like Kawhi now. I'm not sure if they would have been as good as they've been this season, though.



This is a big problem with your argument, though. Tim tearing up his knee and missing seasons doesn't give the team cap space to replace him. It definitely doesn't give them cash to do so. At best, they would have gotten a DPE for half his salary, and I'm not sure if a team that constantly dodged the tax like SA did during that time would have hopped over by that much. In a scenario completely disjointed from reality where Tim did come off the books, yes, they could have added to the rotation. But that's so far from a reasonable line of argument that it feels out of place in any thread pertaining to Aldridge or Leonard.

Tony and Manu were great and would become greater, but in the first few years of the Big Three era, it would have been harder for them to carry a team to the top half of the playoff bracket. The game was much friendlier to perimeter defenders and offensive big men then. If Tim were out the same way Kawhi is now, I don't think they would have made the waves their potential and future impact would suggest. You seem to be overlooking that this is the same era where Prime Kobe couldn't get to the playoffs without Shaq and/Pau. They'd win more than 30 games, but I don't think anyone would be talking about them for a top-five record in the league.

It is also the era where Ray Allen and Lewis made it to the second round. Where Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer made it to the WCF, where Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson beat a 60 something win Mavs.

Pop, Manu and Tony was more than enough to win around 50 games.

[DAF86]

This is sort of hilarious given the entire premise of your thread. As much as Aldridge-ball isn't winning ball now, Manu-ball and Tony-ball would have struggled a dozen years ago. It's like you can't even keep up with your own "Today's era" argument.

Except Tony's and, specially, Manu's ball was efficient ball for all eras.

[DAF86]

I mean, the ing SSOL Phoenix Suns ran a ing train over the entire league for two straight regular seasons.

But good try son, I guess.

[Phenomanul]

It is also the era where Ray Allen and Lewis made it to the second round. Where Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer made it to the WCF, where Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson beat a 60 something win Mavs.

Pop, Manu and Tony was more than enough to win around 50 games.

Add Parker to Manu's Argentina National Team squad and call them the Spurs... coached by Pop. NOW THAT would be an interesting hypothetical. Championship pretenders perhaps, but even they would've won more than 50 games.

I haven't even mentioned how Tony's one man fast break, and his tear drops were so efficiently deadly that opponents would literally game-plan against trying to stop him. And most teams failed to. Those two aspects of his game translate to ANY era.

[Chinook]

It is also the era where Ray Allen and Lewis made it to the second round. Where Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer made it to the WCF, where Baron Davis and Stephen Jackson beat a 60 something win Mavs.

Pop, Manu and Tony was more than enough to win around 50 games.

The Spurs were not the Warriors back then. During the first half of the Big Three era (02-03 to 08-09), Tim played 35 minutes at night, averaged 21/11/3 with three combined blocks and steals, carried a DRtg of 95 a PER of 25 and a BPM of six. You don't just take that away and assume the team will be fine.

Except Tony's and, specially, Manu's ball was efficient ball for all eras.

Ever since the three became a thing, it was more efficient than the two. However, heavier perimeter defense combined with better rules for bigs in the paint prevented the three from taking over for years. Like yeah, if you put Curry back in the 80s, he would have set a ton of scoring records, and provided they didn't injure him, it could have broken the whole system. However, if Curry grew up in the 80s, the three would have been a much smaller part of his game. In that same token, Manu and Tony both had games that were defined through their relationship with bigs (especially Tony). From Nash to Stockton, guards depended on competent to elite bigs complimenting their games. Playing "efficient ball" in Tim's shadow was never the point.

[Chinook]

I mean, the ing SSOL Phoenix Suns ran a ing train over the entire league for two straight regular seasons.

But good try son, I guess.

It's sort of odd that you think the Spurs without Duncan were anything similar to the Suns. Pop is a better coach than D'Antoni, but he wouldn't have come up with that system, especially not on the fly, and the personnel was so different between the teams that it's not comparable (not the least of which is the fact that Phoenix had a strong front court during that time).

[DAF86]

It's sort of odd that you think the Spurs without Duncan were anything similar to the Suns. Pop is a better coach than D'Antoni, but he wouldn't have come up with that system, especially not on the fly, and the personnel was so different between the teams that it's not comparable (not the least of which is the fact that Phoenix had a strong front court during that time).

I didn't bring the Suns up to say the Spurs could play like them. I brought the Suns up to prove that perimeter oriented teams were doing just fine on that era.

[TD 21]

At DAF86, clearly believing that Ginobili was better than Duncan, yet not having the intestinal for ude to say it for fear of criticism on a message board.

Also, ignoring that Duncan was the best defensive player in the league back then, before the league had attempted to outlaw defense and minimize traditional bigs because they couldn't sell either to your ilk.

[tholdren]

At DAF86, clearly believing that Ginobili was better than Duncan, yet not having the intestinal for ude to say it for fear of criticism on a message board.

Also, ignoring that Duncan was the best defensive player in the league back then, before the league had attempted to outlaw defense and minimize traditional bigs because they couldn't sell either to your ilk.

Tim great manu great

[DAF86]

At DAF86, clearly believing that Ginobili was better than Duncan, yet not having the intestinal for ude to say it for fear of criticism on a message board.

Also, ignoring that Duncan was the best defensive player in the league back then, before the league had attempted to outlaw defense and minimize traditional bigs because they couldn't sell either to your ilk.

What?!

[daslicer]

Not surprised I didn't expect a good comeback from you Manu . Manu do you honestly believe the '02-'03 Spurs could have won more than 30 games without Duncan?

[daslicer]

I mean, the ing SSOL Phoenix Suns ran a ing train over the entire league for two straight regular seasons.

But good try son, I guess.

They also had Amare Stoudemire you dumb but you ignore that fact to sell your ty argument.

[DAF86]

Not surprised I didn't expect a good comeback from you Manu . Manu do you honestly believe the '02-'03 Spurs could have won more than 30 games without Duncan?

Tony, Manu, Jackson, Bowen, Robinson, Malik, Pop. I don't know, maybe. But I was clearly referring to the Manu and Tony prime years.

[DAF86]

They also had Amare Stoudemire you dumb but you ignore that fact to sell your ty argument.

Dude, where does this animosity towards me comes from? I don't remember having any hard discussion with you. In fact, I hadn't even noticed you up to this point.

[YGWHI]

You are wrong, Pop tried to use him differently last year and all that did was take away his strengths and make him want a trade. Pop is using him how he should be used.

I wonder since when LMA strengths were being a post-up big.

Anyway, with other healthy scoring options or not on the court, I doubt a bigman posting-up 45% is a winning formula in today NBA, esp against good playoffs teams.