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What if I told you he already has?
pretty solid article by Andrew last year..There’s been a lot of talk lately about who the best player of this current era was and much of that has to do with Tim Duncan and the Spurs being back in the NBA Finals for the first time since 2007. Some were genuine in their support for Duncan and others just seemed to be inflating his accomplishments and downplaying his shortcomings in what seemed like a blatant attempt to diminish Kobe Bryant’s legacy more than trying to make the case for Duncan’s.
The truth is that I have the utmost respect for Duncan as a player, a teammate, and as a champion. I would not hold it against anyone who would rather have Duncan on his team over Kobe. And while you won’t find many Lakers fans who would trade what either Kobe or his teams have accomplished for what Duncan and the Spurs have accomplished, you probably won’t find many Spurs fans who would do the reverse either.
That being said, there isn’t a stronger argument that can be made for either the Lakers vs. the Spurs or for Kobe vs. Duncan than that made by the amount of dust that had to be cleaned off of it. When was the last time we were having this debate, in 2009? Between then and now, was anyone outside of Texas trying to make the argument that either Duncan was the best player of this era or the Spurs were the better team?
The case for the Lakers and Kobe Bryant is a very simple one. Kobe’s Lakers made it to seven NBA Finals, winning five, and repeated as champions three times. In the two Finals that Bryant lost, in 2004 and 2008, the Lakers defeated Duncan’s Spurs en route to the NBA Finals. I’d welcome anyone who wants to refute and make the case that a year in which the Spurs were defeated by the Lakers was a more successful one than one in which the Lakers lost in the NBA Finals after beating the Spurs.
The argument made most often in favor of the Spurs and Duncan is that they’ve won at least 50 games in each of Duncan’s seasons as a pro, except for the abbreviated 50-game season in 1999 when they won 37. That’s an incredible feat. The problem is that it’s a diversion. You know who touts 50-win seasons? Teams and fans who want to distract you away from what it is they failed to do. In the Spurs case, what they don’t want you to notice is just how many times they were eliminated from the playoffs and failed to meet expectations.
Even if you exclude the playoff that Duncan missed in 2000 with a torn meniscus, there are still six other instances in which the Spurs were eliminated from the playoffs with home court advantage: in 2001, 2004, 2006, 2009, 2011, and 2012. Look closer at those six series and you’ll see that they were swept in 2001, lost a Game 7 at home in 2006, were eliminated 4-1 in the first round to sixth-seeded Dallas in 2009, lost to the 8th-seeded Grizzlies in 2011, and were defeated in both 2004 and 2011 in series in which they led 2-0 before losing four straight games. It would be irresponsible for me not to mention that the sweep in 2001 and their six-game loss in 2004 both came against the Lakers, but the one in 2001 was the only one that came against a team that went on to win a championship.
I’m not trying to make the case that the Spurs weren’t great or that Duncan isn’t one of the greatest players in the history of the game because both would be untrue. I’m just trying to remind people that more often than not, and especially over the last five years, they have underachieved. I don’t care how you spin it. Losing a series with home court advantage in a season in which you won 58 or more games and were the first or second-seed is underachieving. And it happened far too often during the Tim Duncan Era to give him a pass.
Now compare that to Kobe and the Lakers who were only defeated in the playoffs with home court advantage twice — first to the Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals and then to eventual champion Dallas in 2011 — a sweep that came after three consecutive NBA Finals appearances.
**So if you’re scoring at home, Kobe’s Lakers teams have not only repeated as NBA Champs three times but have also repeated as Western Conference Champions four times — both feats the Spurs have failed to accomplish even once.
Going back to Duncan’s rookie year and excluding this year’s Kobe-less series, the Lakers and Spurs have met in the playoffs six times, with the Lakers winning four of the six meetings. So while Duncan’s Spurs can boast a 39-38 edge in regular season wins, Bryant’s Lakers hold a 16-12 lead in playoff games. If you exclude the Spurs sweep of the Lakers in the 50-game season of 1999 with Kurt Rambis as interim coach, they are 16-8 vs. the Spurs in the playoffs since 2001. That’s eight total victories in six series against the Phil Jackson-coached Lakers, an average of 1.33 wins per series.
So even if the Spurs win a fifth le, you’d still have to give the edge to the Lakers because they’re the only team to successfully defend their le this century and they did it three times. You also can’t ignore that, unlike the Spurs, all five of their les came during 82-game seasons.
As for the Kobe vs. Duncan debate, that one seems crystal clear to me. And again, I’m not diminishing Duncan. But Kobe has finished in the top-5 in MVP voting every year but one since 2002. As for Duncan, even though he finished in the top-5 nine times from 1998-2007, it hasn’t happened since. He finished seventh in 2008 and 2013, 11th in 2009, and 14th in 2012. When comparing their careers, are we supposed to forget about everything that happened between 2008-13?
As for All-NBA selections, Kobe has been a first-team selection in 11 of the past 12 seasons. Duncan earned his 10th first-team selection this season, but it was his first since 2007. For argument’s sake, we can all pretend that Dwight Howard’s surgically-repaired back and torn labrum had nothing to do with that.
What if I told you he already has?
https://twitter.com/DrewUnga
Very objective, unbiased writer.
Can't ignore that D. Rob was injured in 2001. Then 2004 and 2006 were just bad luck tbh.
2008-2011 were a mix of bad contracts and Manu injuries.
Damn, I miss the Richard Jefferson, Roger Mason Jr. days..
Dark times. Really dark times.
Lakers fans lying to themselves to try to fight the inevitable.
The writer seemingly forgot about the tanking, or the asterisk, or the Donaghy series.
ROFl. No, its not like Timmy got injured on his way to his first le defense and its not like that s bag Juwan Howard took out Derek Anderson in 00-01 season. That never happened.
You mean 2014, 2002 and 2002?
Nothing, NOTHING can ever top the asterisk. Somebody made a reference to that le like having a gay son. It's a disgrace, but it's yours.
If you have four sons, one of them a sexual, you don't go around telling people you have four sons.
I agree, 2002 left a stain on the league that's never coming off. Christ almighty!
Phil can attest to that criminal 1999 " le".
Make the playoffs
Win your last game
right ?
I have my doubts is a Lakers fan, or it could just be a DD alt trolling for laughs, but if he is a Lakers fan, you know they're hurting when they resort to asterisk smack and Tim Donaghy.
Anyhow, Lakers fans, the future is bright. Byron Scott coming to coach and a game changing 7th pick that will transform the team from a lottery team into a slightly better lottery team.
Good luck in 2014-15
“Tim Duncan making the salary he’s making after being part of a dynasty — not a dynasty, I wouldn’t call San Antonio a dynasty — a force, a great force,” Jackson said, via the New York Daily News. “They haven’t been able to win consecutive championships, but they’ve always been there. San Antonio has had a wonderful run through Tim’s tenure there as a player. He’s agreed to take a salary cut so other players can play with him so they can be this good. And that’s the beginning of team play.”\
“You want to have a season that is comparable to what it is like to play a season of basketball,” Jackson said. ” The year they patched together [1998-99 season] when they played 50 games they lost more than a third of the season and then they rushed to play those games into a magnified schedule and it questioned the teams that were really going to have a chance to win it like Indiana and Utah.
“New York finished 8th that year and obviously an up-and-coming San Antonio team, which turned out to be quite a great team, but those were the teams that ended up in the finals. When teams would play 18-19 games in the last month of the season it broke down some of the older steady teams because of that impact of a heavy schedule.
“I always kind of term that as an asterisk season out of this fun at poking fun at San Antonio. In reality it changes the complexity of how you play the game and what you make your team up with. You have to have young players and you have to have healthy players to win. So they want to have a representative season and we have some terrific teams in the NBA right now and there are some teams that are very, very good. It should be interesting to see how a lot of them come out and a lot of teams don’t want to lose that opportunity.”
Phil
Phil can attest to that criminal 2002 " le," too. Christ!
I don't think its DD. I've seen and nono go back and forth for pages at a time over the course of 20 minutes. i don't think that's DD's style at allI have my doubts is a Lakers fan, or it could just be a DD alt trolling for laughs, but if he is a Lakers fan, you know they're hurting when they resort to asterisk smack and Tim Donaghy.
Anyhow, Lakers fans, the future is bright. Byron Scott coming to coach and a game changing 7th pick that will transform the team from a lottery team into a slightly better lottery team.
Good luck in 2014-15
Kobe has 5 rings already...so what exactly is your case?
Duncan being the better player.
Yeah, I agree. DD is a hit and runner and doesn't have this disturbing obsession with Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs. I don't think has ever discussed anything else on the forum. I don't mind it. Kool, Luva, and Cully have a similar obsession, but just isn't entertaining like those 3.
At first I thought it was Deuce, but Deuce struggles to write coherent sentences, while is more polished.
Like last year let's drop Kobe vs. Duncan.
"Tim was more Shaq's rival than mine."
- Kobe
Case closed.
Good vibes. Good vibes.
We need to stop this 3-peat.
"Referees A, F and G were officiating a playoff series between Teams 5 and 6 in May of 2002. It was the sixth game of a seven-game series, and a Team 5 victory that night would have ended the series. However, Tim learned from Referee A that Referees A and F wanted to extend the series to seven games. Tim knew referees A and F to be 'company men,' always acting in the interest of the NBA, and that night, it was in the NBA's interest to add another game to the series. Referees A and F heavily favored Team 6. Personal fouls [resulting in obviously injured players] were ignored even when they occurred in full view of the referees. Conversely, the referees called made-up fouls on Team 5 in order to give additional free throw opportunities for Team 6. Their foul-calling also led to the ejection of two Team 5 players. The referees' favoring of Team 6 led to that team's victory that night, and Team 6 came back from behind to win that series."
Tim
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