Replace Tim Duncan with Bob Pettit (1997 - 2008)... how many titles we do win?

[mute]

Hypothetically, how many titles would we have won if we replaced Tim Duncan with Bob Pettit? Bob Pettit played for the St. Louis Hawks, won 2 mvp awards and one title, 10 All NBA First team selections, and averaged 26 ppg and 16 rebounds for his career (for comparison, Duncan only averaged over 25 ppg once in his entire career).

[Darius Bieber]

Apples and oranges, to be honest. It was a different game back in the 50s and 60s. Can't be sure about the production he would have in the 2000s.

[Boomersgold]

Petit's the only player from the 50s who could be an all-star in today's game! He was the Charles Barkley of the 1950s.

[Juggity]

Has anyone on spurstalk actually seen Pettit play? His career was fifty+ years ago.

I don't think anyone here can actually make an informed comparison

[mute]

Has anyone on spurstalk actually seen Pettit play? His career was fifty+ years ago.

I don't think anyone here can actually make an informed comparison

Well unless you're my Dad's age, we never saw young Kareem, Oscar, Wilt, or Russell but people still make top ten all-time lists.

[Boomersgold]

Has anyone on spurstalk actually seen Pettit play? His career was fifty+ years ago.

I don't think anyone here can actually make an informed comparison

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdeiZRW7gSo&feature=c4-overview&list=UUFfDF7oCw7sVL7PzEg57E4g

[phxspurfan]

Has anyone on spurstalk actually seen Pettit play? His career was fifty+ years ago.

I don't think anyone here can actually make an informed comparison

There are Youtube videos. I went and commented that he's a fat slug on one awhile back, and got mad hate for it :P

[Mikeanaro]

:downspin:

[Oh, Gee!!]

probably none, because pettitt would have been in 60's or 70's already.

[J_Paco]

Pettit would be a hybrid forward - think Antawn Jamison, Michael Beasley and Anthony Bennett - and would have trouble defending today's athletes in the league. We would have seen far less success with a player of his size and physical ability replacing Duncan's superior size and (underrated) strength. Guys like Bob, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Wilt and Russell would likely still be all-stars in today's fundamentally challenged game, though.

[polandprzem]

3

[Maddog]

It was a completely different era and game. Players today are bigger/faster
The Celtics the dominant team through Pettit's career rarely had more than 1 or two players > 6'7" (Russell and one or two others)

[polandprzem]

It was a completely different era and game. Players today are bigger/faster
The Celtics the dominant team through Pettit's career rarely had more than 1 or two players > 6'7" (Russell and one or two others)

yea but talent is talent no matter the era

[Spurs da champs]

Give Manu a brain 2003-present, how many titles do the Spurs have?

[rascal]

Duncan was better. Pettit was only 6' 8" and played during the NBA's white mans league years.

Zero titles.

[dbreiden83080]

Yeah those are some very impressive stats he put up playing amongst a group of unathletic white guys.

[dbreiden83080]

Pettit would be a hybrid forward - think Antawn Jamison, Michael Beasley and Anthony Bennett - and would have trouble defending today's athletes in the league. We would have seen far less success with a player of his size and physical ability replacing Duncan's superior size and (underrated) strength. Guys like Bob, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Wilt and Russell would likely still be all-stars in today's fundamentally challenged game, though.

Wilt in my opinion would still be the best player in the NBA if he played today. He was a physical freak of nature. Not putting up 50 points per game obviously but he would be capable of 30 and still be the best in my opinion.

[spurraider21]

hold up lemme go check basketballreference.com to determine the better player

[Obstructed_View]

Bob Pettit was 65 years old in 1997. I gotta give the edge to Timmy on this one.

[mute]

Bob Pettit was 65 years old in 1997. I gotta give the edge to Timmy on this one.

Obviously... I meant the 11 years that Pettit played...

Food for throught, Duncan never averaged more than 13 boards a game and anymore than 26 points per game. Pettit averaged 26 and 16 for his entire CAREER. Let that sink in for a second. He was arguably one of the greatest players of all time (hof)

[rascal]

He would not be putting up those numbers in this age NBA.

[Russo21]

How bout George Mikan? You can't compare era's in sports as much as we all try.

[Obstructed_View]

Obviously... I meant the 11 years that Pettit played...

Food for throught, Duncan never averaged more than 13 boards a game and anymore than 26 points per game. Pettit averaged 26 and 16 for his entire CAREER. Let that sink in for a second. He was arguably one of the greatest players of all time (hof)

You know that Duncan would have put up 45 and 25 in that era, right?

[Boomersgold]

Yeah those are some very impressive stats he put up playing amongst a group of unathletic white guys.
Same could be said for Russell and Wilt.

[barakz21]

How many titles do you think the spurs would win if you replace DRob with Shaq and Kobe with Manu?

[mute]

You know that Duncan would have put up 45 and 25 in that era, right?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQnu83R5CuM

You realize kids are gonna be saying the exact same thing about Duncan and his generation in 2060 right? Don't be so disrespectful.

[Sean Cagney]

It was a completely different era and game. Players today are bigger/faster
The Celtics the dominant team through Pettit's career rarely had more than 1 or two players > 6'7" (Russell and one or two others)

.... PERIOD.

Mute just do what your name says, keep mute and stop making stupid threads.

[Arcadian]

You realize kids are gonna be saying the exact same thing about Duncan and his generation in 2060 right? Don't be so disrespectful.

Well, there are two possibilities. Either athletes can't get much more athletic than they are today, in which case there won't be as much of a disparity between now and 2060; or athletes will improve greatly in the next 50 years, in which case these hypothetical kids would be correct in their hypothetical assertions.

Either way, you failed to rebut the point.

[Obstructed_View]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQnu83R5CuM

You realize kids are gonna be saying the exact same thing about Duncan and his generation in 2060 right? Don't be so disrespectful.

:lol Tim Duncan is 37 years old, having his worst shooting year as a pro, and is still shooting better than Pettit's career average. A 6'9" center taking 21 shots per game and shooting 43 percent from the floor would get cut from his team. Army and Navy used to field strong college football teams, too. It's not because they're great recruiters.

[TheGoldStandard]

Probably none, wouldn't have worked in Pop's system and Spurs would have been outclassed in the early runs 1999- 2003 because Duncan was that cornerstone who had size and skill. I doubt we get Parker or Manu because they would still be searching for that Big man center, Robinson would have retired much earlier.

[mute]

Probably none, wouldn't have worked in Pop's system and Spurs would have been outclassed in the early runs 1999- 2003 because Duncan was that cornerstone who had size and skill. I doubt we get Parker or Manu because they would still be searching for that Big man center, Robinson would have retired much earlier.

I was thinking more of if we kept the same players but swapped Duncan and Pettit. In my opinion, Chicago takes 98, we take 99, LA wins 4 in a row, Detroit takes 04, LA breaks up, we take 05, 06 (this was Duncan's down year and we almost beat DALLAS), and 07.

[SpursFan86]

People really need to take into account pace. There were WAY more possessions in a typical 50s/60s basketball game.

The '61 Celtics scored 118+ ppg (would be insane in today's league)...however they shot under 42% as a team (would be 2nd to worst in today's league). Were they some historic offense that is leaps and bounds better than the offenses of today's league? Of course not. The game was simply different back then...we don't have exact pace numbers for the earliest eras, but we know the game was WAY faster paced than it is now.

So far this season, the league-average pace is 94.2. For those unfamiliar, this means that the average NBA team will have 94.2 possessions during the course of a game. In 1980, the league-average pace was 103.1. So teams in 1980 were averaging nearly 10 more possessions per game than current teams. It's no wonder why the league-average PPG in 1980 was 109.3, while the league-average PPG in the current season is 99.4. What, nowadays people are just worse scorers and aren't as good offensively as the players in 1980? No.

This trend continues into the 50s/60s. 1950s basketball was even FASTER paced than basketball in 1980. To sum it up:

faster pace = more possessions per game = more opportunity to put up stats. Give Duncan 15 more possessions per game: you think his scoring remains the same?

I'm not trying to take away from older era players. But you can't just pull up two sets of stats and solely look at the numbers to make a judgment. As with basically every statistic in sports, you must always use context. Also, as others have mentioned, the athleticism/size of players has increased as a whole. Obviously a guy like Wilt would be a freak physical specimen no matter what era you put him in. But there's no denying that there were much fewer 7 footers running around playing against him compared to today's league. He would still dominate, but it's really not far-fetched to assume his production would go down if he was constantly facing guys like Duncan, Marc Gasol, Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, Olajuwon, etc instead of 6'8, less athletic guys.

edit: one more thing that even further proves what I'm getting at. In 1965, the league-average for team field-goal attempts over the entire season was 7987. Today? 1476. So teams are taking ~6500 less shots over the course of a season. Think that might result in inflated scoring/rebounding/assist numbers?

[rascal]

People really need to take into account pace. There were WAY more possessions in a typical 50s/60s basketball game.

The '61 Celtics scored 118+ ppg (would be insane in today's league)...however they shot under 42% as a team (would be 2nd to worst in today's league). Were they some historic offense that is leaps and bounds better than the offenses of today's league? Of course not. The game was simply different back then...we don't have exact pace numbers for the earliest eras, but we know the game was WAY faster paced than it is now.

So far this season, the league-average pace is 94.2. For those unfamiliar, this means that the average NBA team will have 94.2 possessions during the course of a game. In 1980, the league-average pace was 103.1. So teams in 1980 were averaging nearly 10 more possessions per game than current teams. It's no wonder why the league-average PPG in 1980 was 109.3, while the league-average PPG in the current season is 99.4. What, nowadays people are just worse scorers and aren't as good offensively as the players in 1980? No.

This trend continues into the 50s/60s. 1950s basketball was even FASTER paced than basketball in 1980. To sum it up:

faster pace = more possessions per game = more opportunity to put up stats. Give Duncan 15 more possessions per game: you think his scoring remains the same?

I'm not trying to take away from older era players. But you can't just pull up two sets of stats and solely look at the numbers to make a judgment. As with basically every statistic in sports, you must always use context. Also, as others have mentioned, the athleticism/size of players has increased as a whole. Obviously a guy like Wilt would be a freak physical specimen no matter what era you put him in. But there's no denying that there were much fewer 7 footers running around playing against him compared to today's league. He would still dominate, but it's really not far-fetched to assume his production would go down if he was constantly facing guys like Duncan, Marc Gasol, Dwight Howard, Kevin Garnett, Olajuwon, etc instead of 6'8, less athletic guys.

edit: one more thing that even further proves what I'm getting at. In 1965, the league-average for team field-goal attempts over the entire season was 7987. Today? 1476. So teams are taking ~6500 less shots over the course of a season. Think that might result in inflated scoring/rebounding/assist numbers?

This sums it up. Petitt's stats come down in todays NBA.

[Mel_13]

In 1965, the league-average for team field-goal attempts over the entire season was 7987. Today? 1476. So teams are taking ~6500 less shots over the course of a season.

Your points about pace are correct in general, but your numbers about current field goal attempts per season are way off. 1476/82 = 18. The Spurs have already taken 1490 shots this season. You may have looked at the average number of attempts so far this season. Last season the average NBA team attempted 6720 shots.

[Cry Havoc]

Wilt leads the league in career 20/20 games with over 500.

And yet Dennis Rodman has a much higher effective rebounding rate than chamberlain did.

That should tell you all you need to know about stats from that era. Duncan. Would. Have. Smashed. He would have made absolute fools of defenders in the 60s.

[SpursFan86]

Your points about pace are correct in general, but your numbers about current field goal attempts per season are way off. 1476/82 = 18. The Spurs have already taken 1490 shots this season. You may have looked at the average number of attempts so far this season. Last season the average NBA team attempted 6720 shots.

Ahhh, don't know how I didn't realize that. That's what I get for posting early in the morning :wakeup Should've figured those numbers were way too far apart. Regardless, as you said, the points about pace still stand.

[disciple]

I'm old enough. No comparison. Earlier post was right on. Bob Petit equals today's Antawon Jamison.

So, zero titles. Also, no Parker or Ginobili because we would still be looking for a big. Keep in mind we wouldn't get all the other additions to title teams because no Duncan to attract them to San Antonio.

To end the discussion altogether .................. Having Petit rather than Duncan would result in ............................... No more Spurs in San Antonio.

I know we all love Mr Robinson for his character and play. I will always be the first to applaud him. However, AT&T Center is the house that TD built. If he didn't come here we were done. It all started with David but Timmy set it in stone with Pop as the atmosphere setter with Tim's approval. Even after they are both gone the winning atmosphere is set and will be carried on by Pop's home grown predecessor.

Bank it !!!!!!

[Mel_13]

I'm old enough. No comparison. Earlier post was right on. Bob Petit equals today's Antawon Jamison.

So, zero titles. Also, no Parker or Ginobili because we would still be looking for a big. Keep in mind we wouldn't get all the other additions to title teams because no Duncan to attract them to San Antonio.

To end the discussion altogether .................. Having Petit rather than Duncan would result in ............................... No more Spurs in San Antonio.

I know we all love Mr Robinson for his character and play. I will always be the first to applaud him. However, AT&T Center is the house that TD built. If he didn't come here we were done. It all started with David but Timmy set it in stone with Pop as the atmosphere setter with Tim's approval. Even after they are both gone the winning atmosphere is set and will be carried on by Pop's home grown predecessor.

Bank it !!!!!!

successor