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Yes
And if yes, in which year?
I'm curious because the Spurs have always had a top 3 defense in their championship years, and even now in their run-and-gun stage they're a top 10 defensive team.
Yes, I know, 13 All-Defensive teams. But even the Admiral had a DPOY.
Yes
Bowen should have
He should have won the one Marcus Camby stole from him
Or one of Ben Wallace's.
03/04
cambys
KGS
No, but Bruce should have won multiple DPOYs.
It's debatable whether he was technically the single best defender in the league during any one year of his career. His two-way play definitely earned him his due plaudits with the two MVPs, but I'm not sure it would have been correct to award him a DPOY for any particular year.
03/04 was best chance for him or bowen, when their 2 main rivals for the award aka artest and ben wallace were all out for majority of the season..., hence even 04/05 was questionable
DPOY award seriously needs some stat geeks to reimagine it and breathe some legitimacy into it. Usually getting the most blocks is all you need to win. The Spurs were the best defensive team/dynasty of the modern era and Tim was the best defensive player on those teams (yes, better than Bowen - Tim was the foundation). Tim not winning DPOY at least once seems like a sham...until you realize how they award the prize.
Where the heck is your bias spirit?
What makes you so sure on Timmy not deserving one? I was always under the impression that Bruce's success largely depended on having Tim being an excellent help defender and anchor to the team. You can stay out on the perimeter guarding Kobe because if he gets by, there's Tim Duncan guarding the rim.
Probably, but DPOYs aren't usually awarded to players who dominate both ends of the court. Bowen definitely should have won one, though.
What do you mean even the Admiral? He was one of the nba's best defenders ever and you could argue even better than Duncan.
People didn't get by Bruce; he was easily the best since maybe Pippen at staying in front of his man. Tim wasn't even the best defender on the team until '08-'09 or so.
Apples and oranges.
Tim was as good of a low post defender as there was in his prime.
Bruce was the best perimeter in his prime.
Unfortunately, due to his recognition through his idiocy, Artesticle and the media cheated Bruce out of dpoty honors.
As already stated, Timmy lost out to Wallace because dpoty often goes to offensivey challenged bigs. Wallace did not have to expend as much energy on offense and thus was allowed to focus on defense. Timmy was the focal leader on offense, and was still deserving of dpoty honors.
Timmy and the Spurs quiet, under the radar nature prevented him getting dpoty. Maybe if Tim would have grown a fro like Wallace, or acted like an utter fool and pounded his chest like Garnett, he would not have been passed over.
Last edited by callo1; 08-13-2012 at 02:54 PM.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This
Drob was a defensive force for sure, but I don't think he was as good at preventing low-post position as Tim was. Dave's base wasn't as strong.
If you define defensive prowess by shot blocking, then yes, Drob was better than Timmy.
Ben Wallace could get up and press guards in the backcourt and thus could really limit transition opportunities. I thought this Ben Wallace is overrated meme died once we saw him up-close in the 05 Finals.
Duncan not having a fistful of DPOY's is probably the biggest travesty in the history of the game. He not only anchored the greatest single season defense (in terms of efficiency) in history, but he's anchored a boatload of teams that were among the greatest single season defenses in history and I believe co-anchored the best opponents field goal percentage defense in modern history. And though win shares are often ridiculed, consider this: he's led the league in defensive win shares 5 times and is 6th all time in them. Barring injury, he'll likely end up 2nd. Despite never getting the amount of hype as the more intimidating, physical specimen types, an argument could be made that no one's had more of an impact defensively since Russell, who obviously accomplished what he did against far weaker compe ion.
Bowen is obviously on the short list of greatest perimeter defenders of all time. But make no mistake, having prime Duncan (and Robinson, for a while) behind him made it far easier for him to be as aggressive as he was. This is not a knock on Bowen, but I'm not sure a perimeter player should ever win it. No matter how good they are, they flat out can't affect the game defensively like an elite defensive center can.
Bigs can have a much bigger impact on defense than guards. Despite how great Bowen was, Id still give Duncan the edge.
I always remember that stretch in 01-02 when they started off hot, then dropped to below .500 for a stretch without Bowen when he got hurt for about 20 games. The defense was awful without him, and it went back to being horrible again in 2008-09 when he lost his spot in the rotation. Duncan is an awesome defender, but he was never in the class of Robinson nor Bowen.
+1000000
You're nuts dude. You take Duncan off those teams with Bowen and teams are ting on us on the defensive side of the ball. Bowen is one of my favorite Spurs and I do think he was the best defender on the team at a point but to say he was clearly ahead of Duncan is just silly. Tim Duncan used to be one of the greatest positional/help/weakside/post defenders I've ever seen. How many times have you seen someone get swatted 2-3 times consecutively under the basket by him? His timing and positioning were impeccable.
Our defense fell off in 2009 not only because of Bowen but moreso because Tim Duncan is past his prime and his last season where I can remember him being an elite defensive player was in 2007, imo (also replacing Bruce with a player as listless and ty as didn't help, neither did Bonner being Tim's #2 bigman). Him and Bruce may have been the greatest post-wing defensive combo in NBA history though
Truth
I think you said it best. Timmy was all about position. TD had a stronger base than Drob did. Look at how Timmy was able to play Shaq as an example...Dave didn't have the strong base to defend Shaq.
Hey, don't get me wrong, Dave was a beast, but he went about it differently than Timmy, he did it with more length and athletic ability. As a disruptive shot blocker, Dave was unbelievable.
I think the fans and the league tend to place emphasis more on shot blocking than they do position defense...it is more entertaining than watching a guy use position defense.
I only wish we would have had a Drob with a healthy back for his entire career.
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