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2013 Parker was the most unstoppable point guard of the last 20 years not named Curry. Suck a OP
This forum was ever stable?
Thanks for the chuckle.
Now, go back to your catfight, little girls.
2013 Parker was the most unstoppable point guard of the last 20 years not named Curry. Suck a OP
This forum was mainly Spurs fans and trolls. Now it's divided into former Spur fans who are now Raptor fans and trolls. So yes it's become more destabilized. Anyways nothing more pathetic then a who hides behind an alt which you are.
And the proportion has not changed.
I couldn't stand to watch Mason/Bogans/Jefferson get torched on the perimeter. Those were some pretty bad years. It seemed like all the perimeter players would have career nights against the Spurs. In fact that's what got Danny into the rotation. Monte was torching us and injuries forced Pop to play him.
........until he got outplayed by Rio in the winner takes all.
You mean after he had a knot on his calf the size of a tennis ball after the Memphis series, and then got injured Game 3 because him and Tim missed warmups due to traffic? https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/n...se-of-traffic/
Forgot to include those cuck.
Nephew got cucked by Matt ing Barnes in 2015. Let that sink in.
I don't like this answer, and I hate the direction it took the thread. Tim didn't magically get better in 2012. The team figured out how to work with Tim's limitations. They got/lucked into wings who could funnel to Duncan (and a whole bunch of other things that aren't relevant). The entire defense between 2012-2015 worked because of Green and Leonard. Tim excelled there, true, and I hope I don't have to say he is arguably the defensive GOAT. But we're talking about a defense that has been elite with Tim leaving too. To act as if Duncan HAS to be the fulcrum for the team's improvement seems off-base to me.
All of the Big Three had great stretches in that span. , Parker played like an MVP candidate for 2012 and 2013. That certainly correlates with the team becoming a true contender again. But they were able to do that because of the Medium Three and the guys supporting them. Tim looked DONE in 2010. He was a Gasol-level liability in space. Despite what some fans think, that wasn't some new that happened in Tim's last year. He never really got better during his "resurgence". Yes, he lost some weight, but when he played, the team shied away from any sort of switch-based scheme, because that was just asking the other team to abuse Tim. Tim was a great defender still, but he was great in the same way that Gasol is extremely underrated defensively. It was a lot less noticeable back then, because a) WS covered up a ton, b) Splitter often took the more mobile assignments and c) the NBA was way different back then in terms of how front-court units played.
If you replaced Gasol with, say 2014 Tim, I think the team would have a higher ceiling, but they'd also have a lower floor. Duncan was a much better post player, so he'd do a better job at exploiting smaller teams on offense. But his lack of spacing would really hurt. And the D wouldn't look a much different at all. Tim would try harder and more frequently than Pau does. But teams would attack him just as much.
I agree with Harlem: The Spurs don't win a le in 2014 without Tim (or Tony or Manu), but had they never gotten Lock-n-Lock (and Splitter, for Tim), you would have seen a descent into obvious non-contending status and earlier retirements for all three of them.
spurs basically gave away that perimeter defense lineup that made them contenders to the raptors who all of a sudden made them finals or busts
I believe the finals is theirs to lose as they're one of the few teams that can defend the Warriors at every position.
Well, realistically they are guaranteed to get to the finals with the weak east.
They've got the personnel to give the Warriors problems. There is a chance that they could win it all.
PATFO actually gifted them Danny Green for that cause.
Wing stop was indeed great.
Kawhi doesn't win DPOY without Duncan
Duncan experienced a slight drop in his defensive effectiveness during the '09-'11 and still was able to keep the Spurs amongst the top 10 defensive teams. So duncan being a defensive liability is completely unsustainable as an opinion, especially compared to a career-long mediocre defender as Pau. They're tiers apart defensively. Post-'09 Duncan was still amongst the top 5 defenders in the game. He still has an average of 3+ in DRAPM during that period until 2013-14 whereas Pau barely touched 1+ some seasons in his career.
Now, I agree with you that Green and Leonard were instrumental in the revival (no championship,no finals without them). Having said that, Duncan's ability to transition in a completely different role (minor offensive hub/secondary passer and scorer + defensive anchor) while still retaining his effectiveness with less USG and touches is underrated and always completely ascribed to Pop's system. He also had an amazing year as a midrange shooter and FT shooter in that 2 years window ('12-'13) period if you recall.
The only Gasol that would have had the same impact as 2013 Duncan is only 2011 Gasol because 2013 Duncan is better than any version of Pau since 2011! And remember that Duncan still had more defensive impact in 2013 than Green and Leonard combined which means that the Spurs without Duncan are a worse defensive team than the Spurs without Green and Leonard.
2014 Duncan is another discussion. He's obviously worse. The decline is real. His offensive role is severely limited while still being amongst the best defenders on the team. But saying that nowadays Spurs with '14 Duncan instead of the Gasol's corpse wouldn't be any different defensively is quite ridiculous, allow me. 2019 Spurs are in dire need of an above average defender right now because they currently are projected to be among the worst defenses in the league. It doesn't take too much to lift their floor. '14 Duncan was still a net positive, '18 GAsol was the 20th best center in the league playing 23 minutes a game. Duncan was still leading the team in minutes in 2014, 2nd in WS, 1st in PS PER!
Also,the Spurs being still an elite defensive team post-Duncan is a fallacy (also ignoring the historical !! defensive effectiveness of the 2016 Spurs) It only means that PATFO was able to partially compensate with amazing defensive role players (Dedmon and especially Kyle later) and Aldridge becoming a better anchor while Kawhi and Green were getting worse in the past seasons. It doesn't tell anything about Duncan, it tells more about Pop and his assistants.
Salty Spurs fans coming out the wood work after every good game from the Raptors. Hopefully you guys can eventually move on.
The le is misleading and untrue. Parker and Duncan in particular were very good until 2015. Duncan was arguably a DPOY candidate defender to 2015 still and Manu carried Greens offense on many occasions during that time. 2014 beautiful game, LMA efficiency and solid D. Diaw, Splitter. Just so many things wrong with this le.
It's not unsustainable. You throw a whole bunch of numbers out like no one else has seen them while missing the point I was making. Tim was a great defender, but he was terrible in space and relatively easy to exploit there. That's how the Suns swept the Spurs in 2010. That's why Pop had been benching Tim in end-of-game situations long before 2013. No DRAPM results negate that. Tim was a brilliant defender, in a phone booth. He was able to play in a phone booth once he got wings who could keep defenders from attacking him outside of his comfort zone. Gasol is a very good defender in a phone booth, and once he had wings who could funnel to him, he stopped being mediocre.
Yes, Tim is a GOAT candidate. But you keep missing the point here. Tim was able to have the impact he did because he wasn't attacked nearly as often as he would be today. He was able to play next to another center FFS. We're in a league where 1-5 have to be able to space the floor and defend in space. That was starting to chance in 2014 (the Heat play four smalls and a big, for example). But it hadn't caught it. Golden State was still playing Lee and Bogut; Houston took about 60 percent of the threes per game as they do now. Even so, the team was getting pretty abnormal for their front court, and Tim's and Tiago's IQs are the only reason it worked as well as it did for as long as it did. It became situational pretty fast.But saying that nowadays Spurs with '14 Duncan instead of the Gasol's corpse wouldn't be any different defensively is quite ridiculous, allow me. 2019 Spurs are in dire need of an above average defender right now because they currently are projected to be among the worst defenses in the league. It doesn't take too much to lift their floor. '14 Duncan was still a net positive, '18 GAsol was the 20th best center in the league playing 23 minutes a game. Duncan was still leading the team in minutes in 2014, 2nd in WS, 1st in PS PER!
There's no question that 2014 Tim was a better overall player than what Gasol has shown so far this year. But Pau's game fits the era better. If Tim were in the league today, he would be practicing threes. Defensively, Tim did cut a notch above Pau. But his feet moved just as slowly. Duncan gave up a number of open looks because he couldn't get out there on a switch. I shudder to think what it would be like seeing him chasing around Golden State with guys like Forbes, Mills, Beli and DeRozan trying to contain guys.
First, you supported my point at the end here, which is that "Pop and his assistants" were able to shape a defense to fit their personnel. I talked about that in my first post in his thread. When Tim left, the team moved to a switch-based scheme. And yes, they found multiple guys who can play D. None of that goes against what I said, or against the OP. The team was able to compensate for losing their defensive big. They were not able to compensate for losing their perimeter defenders, despite having the same front court as last year. Obviously, losing so many guys at once is the biggest reason, and I've talked about it before (and will again), but with their horses, the team posted a top-10 relative DRtg in franchise history in 2017. Even without Leonard, in 2018, the team posted a better rDRtg than any of those Dark Age years you referenced. This year, they're in the absolute crapper. Schemes can only do so much. Having an elite rim-protector can only do so much. You need defensive wings to be an elite defense, and the Spurs used to have those. Now they don't.Also,the Spurs being still an elite defensive team post-Duncan is a fallacy (also ignoring the historical !! defensive effectiveness of the 2016 Spurs) It only means that PATFO was able to partially compensate with amazing defensive role players (Dedmon and especially Kyle later) and Aldridge becoming a better anchor while Kawhi and Green were getting worse in the past seasons. It doesn't tell anything about Duncan, it tells more about Pop and his assistants.
I understand your point. Against Rockets and GS in particular, '14 Duncan's weaknesses would be exploited (although rim protection is still at the center of defense, a big % of action is still at the rim). Perimeter defense might be more important as a "collective" concept while Duncan individually still would have more defensive weight than Leonard and Green in his 2013 version at least.
As you can see Spurs lack everything nowadays. Kyle Anderson imo is the worst defensive loss since Duncan,even more than this Leonard and this Green.
Gasol is a better floor-spacer but he has bad usefulness if his minutes on the floor are limited and his shooting % are not ideal. Are those skills really enough to match Duncan's ablity to exploit mismatches on the offensive end?
I would love to have 14' Duncan and '14 Splitter's defense and screens instead of Aldrige and Gasol's chucking and softness but unfortunately this Spurs team today needs chucking and production, not ceiling raising abilities.
The Spurs' biggest advantage against GS and Houston recently has been Aldridge's ability to dominate any single defender those teams have to throw at him. Both teams are forced to put centers on him and hope whatever small-ball big they're playing can spot the other guy. When that other guy is Gasol, it works way more than it should. I do think in that situation, Tim would be better. I trusted his ability to beat guys one-on-one down low WAY more than I trust Pau's ability to do the same, and I think Tim's passing ability is way underrated in comparison to Gasol. I don't know if that outweighs the spacing issue. I think it's close, and there would be games where it works flawlessly. That's why I argued the ceiling would be higher. But I also think Aldridge would suffer from having Tim so close to him, and the lanes for DeRozan to attack would be tighter. That's why I think it also has a lower floor.
I think the 2012-2016 stretch synergized great perimeter defense and GOAT-level rim-protection. Green, Leonard and Tim all made each other better, and guys like Splitter, Aldridge and Anderson filled in the cracks. I don't think the thread's le is wrong. It is worded in a way that is combative, but the general point that the team got a shot in the arm by lucking into two elite two-way wings is well-reasoned, and obviously one could argue that Leonard becoming a superstar extended the le window another couple of years. Were LnL the ONLY reason SA was relevant? No. Of course not. They had three HoF players and an HoF coach FFS. But were they the biggest difference between 2012-2015 and 2009-2011? Yes. That's not an indictment against Tim or the other members of the Big Three. They needed help, just like all stars. And they got it.
A lot of y'all seem to forget Boris Diaw...like he wasn't a big part for the Spurs being able to go small, beat small ball teams with post ups and passing and running the best bench unit in the NBA together with Manu...
But he did tho... U forgot he won twice?
He won 14/15 and 15/16. As far as I remember Duncan was on both of those teams and he hasn't won it ever since
This thread is stupid. So you're telling me two good players made the Spurs into a better team? I'm shocked.
Parker got banged up and ran out of steam. Most guards who carry teams happen that way. Its why rarely PGs win Finals MVP maybe. Parker was the focal point of most defenses as well. He was the engine and it allowed others to get better looks. Admittedly when he slowed down it caused the beautiful game to appear but that was largely because of motivation (previous year loss), personnel, and chemistry that year as well.
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