myhc
06-05-2007, 01:29 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/04/AR2007060401937.html
Duncan's Exclusive Company
By Mike Wise
Tuesday, June 5, 2007; E01
Now that LeBron James has become ABC's savior of the NBA Finals -- and LeBron says he is honored to be compared to Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Oscar Robertson and Gandhi -- we interrupt this homeroom crush for some genuine education.
The San Antonio Spurs are going to school Cleveland and win their fourth title, in six games or fewer, because they have the best player on the floor in the series. Tim Duncan, despite getting less love than jury duty, is maybe the largest difference-maker since Jordan. Shaquille O'Neal is the only other big man from Duncan's generation who's won more.
It's nice that LeBron has evolved so quickly, overtaking Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade from his draft class. But filling Kobe's excitement void from the playoffs is not the same as being on the verge of winning more titles than Larry Bird.
When the Spurs are finished polishing off Cleveland, Duncan will not only eclipse Bird's three rings, he will join Magic and Michael as the only leading men with more than three championships with the same franchise since Bill Russell. Four decades after Russell, Duncan would join a class of three.
When the Cavaliers' nice, little run is done, Duncan will be 4-0 in the Finals, leaving him two short of Michael's perfect 6-0 mark. And Duncan's team might have two more left in them after this season. Magic was 5-4 and Bird 3-2 on the game's grandest stage. Shaq is 4-2, has participated in six of the last 13 Finals and is the only player in league history to lead three different franchises to championship series.
But San Antonio winning will give Duncan as many titles as Shaq. Many observers believe this fact vaults Duncan past O'Neal as the greatest player of his generation. That might be a bit much, given that only two players in NBA history have better winning percentages than the teams O'Neal has played on: Magic and Bill Russell, considered the greatest winners of their respective eras.
But it would put Duncan on par with Shaq. Given that he has more tread on his tires left than the big fella, it's not hard to envision the 31-year-old Duncan leading the Spurs to at least two more Finals.
While Cleveland is deservedly being celebrated for slaying the Philistines from Detroit, Duncan led the Spurs out of a Western Conference very few believed they could navigate at the beginning of the season.
After Dallas beat them in Game 7 of the semifinals in San Antonio a year ago, the Spurs and their star were viewed as that old, creaky team spiraling downward. No way they were supposed to get by Phoenix when Amare Stoudemire was healthy. No way anyone would stand in Dallas's path to a title it should have won a year ago.
Before the playoffs began, the Spurs were generally thought of as no better than the third-best team in the West behind the Suns and Mavericks. Their style was thought of as too plodding and predictable to stay with Steve Nash and Shawn Marion and Jason Terry and Josh Howard in the open court.
The perception of Duncan mirrored his team; he was coming off a season in which his body was breaking down and there simply were too many quick, young big men to rise over.
As usual, his detractors missed the importance of Duncan. His game has never been about explosiveness; it's about efficiency. His degree of difficulty has nothing to do with hang time and more to do with angles and trajectory, all the skill-level amenities missing from contemporary front-court players.
Even his position -- a center-power forward hybrid -- prevents flat-out comparisons to other great pivots. Kevin McHale and Karl Malone are all-time greats on the blocks, but McHale played with Bird and Robert Parish in his prime, as did Malone with John Stockton. David Robinson was winding down when Duncan joined the Spurs.
Drama is at a premium for Duncan, too; he's had the same coach, Gregg Popovich, his entire career. Often expressionless and unemotional since his days at Wake Forest, where the Duke student section referred to him as "Spock," there is a monotony to the way Duncan plays and carries himself that doesn't resonate in a culture run by celebrity.
He gets penalized for consistently playing and living between the lines while so many of his look-at-me peers obliterate the boundaries and become more popular for it. Polarization sells; professionalism is so '90s.
That's how the guy who kept his head down, motored forward and did nothing but win and put up numbers -- while silencing the conversation about him and his team being too old -- is cast as the black hat next to the young, fresh gun in the NBA Finals. That's why Tim Duncan's journey to scaling Shaq as the most important player of his generation is nothing more than a subplot going in.
LeBron James reinvigorates the "Next Michael" debate after a sterling week of basketball. Meanwhile, if anyone wanted to look long and hard, Tim Duncan belongs at the top of that class more than Kobe, more than Dwyane Wade and certainly more than LeBron. More than any of them, he's won at a higher level
Duncan's Exclusive Company
By Mike Wise
Tuesday, June 5, 2007; E01
Now that LeBron James has become ABC's savior of the NBA Finals -- and LeBron says he is honored to be compared to Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Oscar Robertson and Gandhi -- we interrupt this homeroom crush for some genuine education.
The San Antonio Spurs are going to school Cleveland and win their fourth title, in six games or fewer, because they have the best player on the floor in the series. Tim Duncan, despite getting less love than jury duty, is maybe the largest difference-maker since Jordan. Shaquille O'Neal is the only other big man from Duncan's generation who's won more.
It's nice that LeBron has evolved so quickly, overtaking Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade from his draft class. But filling Kobe's excitement void from the playoffs is not the same as being on the verge of winning more titles than Larry Bird.
When the Spurs are finished polishing off Cleveland, Duncan will not only eclipse Bird's three rings, he will join Magic and Michael as the only leading men with more than three championships with the same franchise since Bill Russell. Four decades after Russell, Duncan would join a class of three.
When the Cavaliers' nice, little run is done, Duncan will be 4-0 in the Finals, leaving him two short of Michael's perfect 6-0 mark. And Duncan's team might have two more left in them after this season. Magic was 5-4 and Bird 3-2 on the game's grandest stage. Shaq is 4-2, has participated in six of the last 13 Finals and is the only player in league history to lead three different franchises to championship series.
But San Antonio winning will give Duncan as many titles as Shaq. Many observers believe this fact vaults Duncan past O'Neal as the greatest player of his generation. That might be a bit much, given that only two players in NBA history have better winning percentages than the teams O'Neal has played on: Magic and Bill Russell, considered the greatest winners of their respective eras.
But it would put Duncan on par with Shaq. Given that he has more tread on his tires left than the big fella, it's not hard to envision the 31-year-old Duncan leading the Spurs to at least two more Finals.
While Cleveland is deservedly being celebrated for slaying the Philistines from Detroit, Duncan led the Spurs out of a Western Conference very few believed they could navigate at the beginning of the season.
After Dallas beat them in Game 7 of the semifinals in San Antonio a year ago, the Spurs and their star were viewed as that old, creaky team spiraling downward. No way they were supposed to get by Phoenix when Amare Stoudemire was healthy. No way anyone would stand in Dallas's path to a title it should have won a year ago.
Before the playoffs began, the Spurs were generally thought of as no better than the third-best team in the West behind the Suns and Mavericks. Their style was thought of as too plodding and predictable to stay with Steve Nash and Shawn Marion and Jason Terry and Josh Howard in the open court.
The perception of Duncan mirrored his team; he was coming off a season in which his body was breaking down and there simply were too many quick, young big men to rise over.
As usual, his detractors missed the importance of Duncan. His game has never been about explosiveness; it's about efficiency. His degree of difficulty has nothing to do with hang time and more to do with angles and trajectory, all the skill-level amenities missing from contemporary front-court players.
Even his position -- a center-power forward hybrid -- prevents flat-out comparisons to other great pivots. Kevin McHale and Karl Malone are all-time greats on the blocks, but McHale played with Bird and Robert Parish in his prime, as did Malone with John Stockton. David Robinson was winding down when Duncan joined the Spurs.
Drama is at a premium for Duncan, too; he's had the same coach, Gregg Popovich, his entire career. Often expressionless and unemotional since his days at Wake Forest, where the Duke student section referred to him as "Spock," there is a monotony to the way Duncan plays and carries himself that doesn't resonate in a culture run by celebrity.
He gets penalized for consistently playing and living between the lines while so many of his look-at-me peers obliterate the boundaries and become more popular for it. Polarization sells; professionalism is so '90s.
That's how the guy who kept his head down, motored forward and did nothing but win and put up numbers -- while silencing the conversation about him and his team being too old -- is cast as the black hat next to the young, fresh gun in the NBA Finals. That's why Tim Duncan's journey to scaling Shaq as the most important player of his generation is nothing more than a subplot going in.
LeBron James reinvigorates the "Next Michael" debate after a sterling week of basketball. Meanwhile, if anyone wanted to look long and hard, Tim Duncan belongs at the top of that class more than Kobe, more than Dwyane Wade and certainly more than LeBron. More than any of them, he's won at a higher level