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is he in the top 5
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nozir
1. Wilt
2. Kareem
3. Russel
4. Hakeem
5. Tim
You could argue Tim as 4 and Hakeem as 5.
So...yes. He's top 5.
Why?
Tim's a power forward.
I have him as a top 10 player ever
Lets leave it at that..
He wouldnt even be on the list if you are ranking centers.
lol @ spurs fans wanting Duncan as a center when Yao Ming is injured, but wanting him as a power forward when Yao Ming is healthy and will clearly get the start at center.
Timmy 'as a center' would rank at around 10~12 in the all-time centers list.
You already have Kareem, Russell, Chamberlain, Olajuwon, Moses Malone, Shaq, Willis Reed... clearly ahead of him in that position.
What about David Robinson and Patrick Ewing?
Of course, he is the greatest by far in the PF position.
You cannot rank Tim with David when they played together and Tim played PF, if you are ranking centers. That's silly. Tim is a PF, period end of ing story.
I think maybe Michael was the best center.
I rate centers in blocks of 4
Tier one in the order I have them: Kareem - Chamberlain - Russell - Hakeem
Tier two in the order I have them Shaq - Robinson - Moses Malone (one of the most under-rated great ever - he went head to head with many of the great ones and outplayed many of them) and if you put Duncan as a center he is ahead of Shaq and Robinson IMO. Otherwise, Ewing and Mikan are the ones in consideration right now but if Howard develops more of an offensive game and gets a couple of les he may move into that group someday and past Ewing who never earned a le but was still a pretty fine center.
You can put any great big in this and as one example in limited play 5 games Moses outplayed Karreem statisically.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...1&p2=abdulka01
I can't speak of Wilt, Russel or Reed as I never saw them play. The game has changed too much since those players played the game.
About defense, when the '03 Spurs needed to shut down the Lakers, by that time TD was strong enough to take Shaq 1 on 1 late in the games and to dominate over Shaq and Horry ofensively. Shaq was near his prime and at the time it was thought, that no one can stop him. IMO, TD could have guarded DRob and Ewing as well. Hakeem and Kareem would have been complicated, the first because of the dream shake and the fade-away jumper, the second because of the sky hook.
Offensively, prime Duncan was frightening. 'Sheed was the only player with the size and skill to give him problems. Of the all time great centers, I think that DRob could have guarded Duncan well too. Duncan would have been a tough cover for Hakeem, because he wasn't big enough. However, Kareem and Shaq were more dominant offensively speaking. Duncan is as good as any other all time great center in assists too.
Kareem, Hakeem and DRob were better shot blockers.
Duncan is near the top in rebounding.
Hakeem was in his own class in steals.
In leadership Duncan is the best.
When all is taken in to account, Duncan is one of the best.
Moses Malone has got to be somewhere up there. Ranking Duncan with the top centers is like ranking LeBron with the top point guards. He's a SF and Duncan is a PF. Let it be as it is.
See my rankings right above as yes MM was a of a big man!
The top six big men of all-time are (in no particular order) Russell, Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar, Olajuwon, O'Neal and Duncan. After those six, I'd add M. Malone and Robinson and if we're considering true power forwards, then K. Malone, as well. As far as the positional distinction for Duncan goes, I don't see him as a natural power forward or center, but rather a power forward/center. A hybrid, a 4.5.
I'll say this for Robinson. If you look at advanced stats, an argument can be made that he was the second best player of the Jordan era. Had he not suffered a significant injury and the Spurs not drafted Duncan, sure he probably doesn't go on to win one championship, let alone two, but he could have piled ridiculous numbers. He piled up ridiculous numbers as is and that was despite not playing that long and really only playing seven seasons as the clear cut sole focal point on his team.
I never saw Russell, Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar or M. Malone play, but have seen some clips of each, heard a lot about each and know all about their accomplishments. Without knowing for certain, I've got a fairly good idea about their games. That being said, I have a tough time buying that Russell and Chamberlain were better than Duncan. I'm not saying definitively they weren't, but I'm not sold that they were either, just because that's the general consensus.
Out of big men I've seen, Duncan is the best. It's close between him and Olajuwon, but Olajuwon has benefited from revisionist history and become slightly overrated in time. Sure, he scored a lot more than Duncan, but he also fired away at a rate Duncan never came close to and did so in a much more post-centric era. He also blocked a lot more shots, but did so in an era where there were more blocked shots. Today, the best don't even average 3 a game, let alone 4+. He was a very good rebounder, but never quite the glass eater that Duncan is.
But here's the clincher for Duncan. While Olajuwon never got to, let alone defeated, the best of his era, Duncan got through the (other) best of his era twice. True, they played in the same conference, but he still got through them twice and neither time did he have a stacked team. Far from it. In fact, he didn't have a go-to perimeter player in either case and the second time, no true second star for a team with championship aspirations.
Great post. If the OP replaces center with "big man", Tim is up there sure.
though always listed as a PF, dude actually plays C all the way to date since Rob left. duncan has gained every honor a basketballer can get, however, he shouldn't be considered a top 5 neither as a PF nor C. Dude won more rings than the likes of Malone/Bird/Hakeem/Ewing but they were all better players at their primes than duncan has ever been.
Offensively, Duncan has always been a C. Robinson immediately ceded the low post to him, calling him "a better low post player than me". But defensively, Duncan was a PF. Duncan didn't start playing C full-time until 08-09. Before that and after Robinson, Nesterovic, Mohammed and Oberto, among others, played C. When he was paired with Rose, sometimes he'd guard the C, sometimes Rose would. The only time before 08-09 when he played C consistently was when he was paired with Horry. His full time move to C was more necessity than anything. The game has gone smaller and faster, his mobility has declined and it's easier to find competent PF's than it is a starting C.
You might say, "if he was always offensively a C, then wasn't he always a C?". But, to me, you are what you primarily guard. He primarily guarded PF's, therefore he was a PF. Now he strictly guards C's, therefore he's a C.
I've never understood why people pretend "he's always been a C", or "he's always played C", yet they never say the same about Gasol, who also does everything a C does and is well over 7-feet.
Moses Malone is one of the 10 best ever bigman. One of few bigs that perhaps rebounded better than Duncan, he was also more aggressive on offense, but Duncan is more skilled with better fundamentals and his defensive impact is much better. Malone also seldom passed the ball back.
Duncan would have been a good center as well. I have these guys ahead of him though.
Kareem
Hakeem
Wilt
Moses
Ewing
Duncan
Shaq
People should stop confusing Russell's legacy with his skill play.
Problem here is that people are using Duncan's PF play to grade him at center. A good number of Duncan's shots are the midrange jumpers and bank shots. His defense starts at the top of the key, and when he's in, he's rarely if ever guarding the other team's center.
Ewing; are you people serious? Ewing is not in the same stratosphere as the elite of the elite. He's clearly a second tier all-time big man.
To give you an idea of the gulf between him and Duncan, Ewing had one season where his PER eclipsed 23.7. Duncan's career PER is 24.9.
I also think that Wilt is the best Center of all time and maybe the best player of all time. I remember watching ESPN's top 5 reasons you can't blame Wilt for losing to Russell" and those in favor of Russell were just over-rating him beyond belief and lumping in his amazing HOF team with Russell's individual talent. Was Russell great? Of course he was. But was he better than Wilt to the point that you can point too his individual play as the main reason his teams had success over Wilt's? no.. Wilt was so great they had to change the rules to have any chance to stop him. He played for tons of coaches and numerous teams. And at the end of the day he still won 2 les.. People called him a loser because he didn't win like Russell. He never played with a team that stacked for such a long period of time..
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