ESPN: Duncan Greater than Kobe

[RD2191]

Kobe's legacy would have remained intact had he retired after the Lakers most recent back to back to les. Instead he proceeds to embarrass himself and show the the world how toxic of a player he really is.

[Mikeanaro]

Thats the truth but PENIS are sellouts, they were cheerleading for big market Lakers and now that they are done with no hope it seems cool and intellectual to say Duncan is greater and blablabla, how so?

[100%duncan]

These are things we know

[DAF86]

"Kobe most unstoppable offensive force of our era without question" The ? Didn't this guy saw the freak that baby-sitted Kobe during his first three championships play? Shaq and unstoppable should be synonyms.

[LoneStarState'sPride]

Duh

[Mikeanaro]

"Kobe most unstoppable offensive force of our era without question" The ? Didn't this guy saw the freak that baby-sitted Kobe during his first three championships play? Shaq and unstoppable should be synonyms.

I bet they are weighting all the scoring because he surpassed MJ, but they wont talk about the bricks thats bad for the business... #24 jerseys saying KOBRICK.

[Obstructed_View]

I'm just not seeing how this is a difficult conclusion to come to. Put any of a half dozen shooting guards on the Lakers with the same teammates and it's pretty likely that they have the exact same number of rings. Put any power forward other than Duncan on the Spurs and they have maybe one. Kobe's a hall of famer for sure, and a great player, but he's never made teammates better, he's been really lucky to have a lot of good players next to him when it counts.

[DarrinS]

Kobe was a scoring machine 8-9 years ago, but a consistent double-double big is more impressive thane a couple of scoring les on non-championship teams, imo.

[DarrinS]

kobe was a really, really, really great player

Yep. It's sad to see great players go out with a whimper.

[Russo21]

No ESPN

[Kidd K]

Duncan has been greater than Kobe literally almost forever. Kobe temporarily got carried to a higher status by Shaq but imo the moment Duncan carried the Spurs to #2, he went back on top. Cemented himself as better with #3, and Kobe has never come close to matching Duncan since. Now Duncan has 5 and is still going and in contention for 6 while Kobe is an overpaid bum who has no chance at a #6 unless he ring chases.

Is there anyone outside of Los Angeles that even thinks this is an argument anymore?
I will say though, living in LA, this is a conversation you never want to get into. Laker fans are delusional. They're still having a Kobe/MJ argument.

Most of those ters didn't watch 90's basketball. They became fans after the first or second le Shaq brought them. Same with the sudden crop of delusional Heat fans. Any team winning 2 les will spawn super delusional bandwagon fans.

[milkyway21]

Another milestone tonight
And many more this season.

[Horry Hipcheck]

ESPN will eventually say they considered it all along

[Cry Havoc]

There is no doubt Duncan is > Kobe

As an individual player and as a teammate. Seriously, i really wonder how many would rather play with Kobe the ballhog than Duncan the unselfish.

And of course If we win it all this year, his ring count will even be higher. Oh please Lord let us win this year!

If Duncan gets a ring as a starter this year, he's the 3rd best player in history, period.

[james evans]

why is this even a debate? He's always been better than kobe. People forget, back in the early 2000s, kobe wasn't even a top 5 player in the league. He wasn't even the best on his team. Shaq, duncan, tmac(who had a ty team in which Grant HIll robbed the Magic of damn near $100 million), Paul Pierce, KG, Iverson, J Kidd were all better for years during the early 2000s. But most of those guys had some ty teams. All kobe had to do was pass the ball to shaq and take bad shots. We knew kobe could score. We always knew he could, but we REALLY saw what he was made of the 3 years after Shaq left. He misses the playoffs, gets bounced out of the 1st round twice by phoenix and then throws his teammates under a bus and es for a trade until they brought in Gasol for Kwame Brown(which would be the 2nd worst trade in nba history had not Marc Gasol been involved in it) and he goes to 3 straight finals and wins 2 with Gasol getting jerked out of a finals mvp in 2010. So no, I've never bought into the Kobe hype.

[Yuixafun]

I'm just not seeing how this is a difficult conclusion to come to. Put any of a half dozen shooting guards on the Lakers with the same teammates and it's pretty likely that they have the exact same number of rings. Put any power forward other than Duncan on the Spurs and they have maybe one. Kobe's a hall of famer for sure, and a great player, but he's never made teammates better, he's been really lucky to have a lot of good players next to him when it counts.

Put Manu instead of Kobe on that team and they would probably have at least 1 more ring

[Obstructed_View]

Put Manu instead of Kobe on that team and they would probably have at least 1 more ring

Lakers are a different team if Shaq, PJ, Horry and Fish never leave town.

[letmk]

Bill Simmons and Michael Rapaport just had a podcast few days ago.

"We would take 20 years of Tim Duncan over 20 years of Kobe Bryant. I have him one spot higher on my pyramid." He also went on to say that lebron is in top5, ahead of Duncan.

Talent wise, maybe. Among all the next MJs, LeBron is the only one who has the real talent close to be the one. However, the ranking of all-time greats have to be based on both talents and achievements. It's always that way, and correctly so.

So far, LeBron has gone to 6 finals and won two of them. But at least 3 of those finals teams had no chance at the championships, and were not top 3 (or not even top 5) teams in the whole NBA. Now if he could win another one or two championships, it makes sens to put him among top 5 (deservedly so based on talent). But not now.

[BillMc]

Talent wise, maybe. Among all the next MJs, LeBron is the only one who has the real talent close to be the one. However, the ranking of all-time greats have to be based on both talents and achievements. It's always that way, and correctly so.

So far, LeBron has gone to 6 finals and won two of them. But at least 3 of those finals teams had no chance at the championships, and were not top 3 (or not even top 5) teams in the whole NBA. Now if he could win another one or two championships, it makes sens to put him among top 5 (deservedly so based on talent). But not now.

LeBron is an all-time great, obviously, but as you and others say achievement is part of the final rankings. And he's got a long way to go to match Timmy. Also, LeBron's best days on d are already behind him, while Timmy, at nearly 40, is still a beast on that side of the ball.

But the narratives of these things are always affected by whomever captures the public's imagination. LeBron and Kobe have done that much more than Duncan, so to the casual fans, they may always be "the best." It's why people still wear Mike Tyson shirts 30 years later, even though Iron Mike's prime was pretty short, and other less "savage" fighters had better careers. As they famously said "When legend eclipses truth, print the legend."

Timmy is truth living in a hype, short-attention span world.

It is interesting how the perception of who are the best players in the NBA changed by the media coverage. When my dad was growing up he said you rarely saw the games on TV, so you just checked the box score, saw that bigs like Chamberlain and Kareem were shooting the best percentage, and you concluded they were the league's best.

Then, in the era of ESPN sportscenter, but before league pass, you'd just get the 20 second compressed highlights, which would show the most spectacular plays. And the casual fan sees Iverson or Kobe make some miraculous shot, the one you're talking about at the watercooler the next day, and everyone concludes those are the best players in the game, not noting that those miraculous shots are usually bad shots, and that Kobe and pals bricked many times more than they made. These highlights, for example, are the only way one could conclude that Kobe was somehow more dominant on those Laker teams than Shaq.

Now, in the league pass and statistical analysis days, the fans are more educated, and its a little fairer to players like Timmy. It's neither the strict numbers of the box score, nor the misleading wonder of the highlights plays. But the casual "Sportscenter" fans still exist, unfortunately, ones who only know the latest Vine or Youtube shot going about. To those guys Duncan doesn't mean much. They probably think his best moment was the 3 against phoenix in 08 or that shot over Shaq on the play BEFORE Fisher's .4.

Well, , I've gotten off topic... Sound like grandpa mumbling himself to sleep.

[YGWHI]

LeBron is an all-time great, obviously, but as you and others say achievement is part of the final rankings. And he's got a long way to go to match Timmy. Also, LeBron's best days on d are already behind him, while Timmy, at nearly 40, is still a beast on that side of the ball.

But the narratives of these things are always affected by whomever captures the public's imagination. LeBron and Kobe have done that much more than Duncan, so to the casual fans, they may always be "the best." It's why people still wear Mike Tyson shirts 30 years later, even though Iron Mike's prime was pretty short, and other less "savage" fighters had better careers. As they famously said "When legend eclipses truth, print the legend."

Timmy is truth living in a hype, short-attention span world.

It is interesting how the perception of who are the best players in the NBA changed by the media coverage. When my dad was growing up he said you rarely saw the games on TV, so you just checked the box score, saw that bigs like Chamberlain and Kareem were shooting the best percentage, and you concluded they were the league's best.

Then, in the era of ESPN sportscenter, but before league pass, you'd just get the 20 second compressed highlights, which would show the most spectacular plays. And the casual fan sees Iverson or Kobe make some miraculous shot, the one you're talking about at the watercooler the next day, and everyone concludes those are the best players in the game, not noting that those miraculous shots are usually bad shots, and that Kobe and pals bricked many times more than they made. These highlights, for example, are the only way one could conclude that Kobe was somehow more dominant on those Laker teams than Shaq.

Now, in the league pass and statistical analysis days, the fans are more educated, and its a little fairer to players like Timmy. It's neither the strict numbers of the box score, nor the misleading wonder of the highlights plays. But the casual "Sportscenter" fans still exist, unfortunately, ones who only know the latest Vine or Youtube shot going about. To those guys Duncan doesn't mean much. They probably think his best moment was the 3 against phoenix in 08 or that shot over Shaq on the play BEFORE Fisher's .4.

Bill...

[letmk]

LeBron is an all-time great, obviously, but as you and others say achievement is part of the final rankings. And he's got a long way to go to match Timmy. Also, LeBron's best days on d are already behind him, while Timmy, at nearly 40, is still a beast on that side of the ball.

But the narratives of these things are always affected by whomever captures the public's imagination. LeBron and Kobe have done that much more than Duncan, so to the casual fans, they may always be "the best." It's why people still wear Mike Tyson shirts 30 years later, even though Iron Mike's prime was pretty short, and other less "savage" fighters had better careers. As they famously said "When legend eclipses truth, print the legend."

Timmy is truth living in a hype, short-attention span world.

It is interesting how the perception of who are the best players in the NBA changed by the media coverage. When my dad was growing up he said you rarely saw the games on TV, so you just checked the box score, saw that bigs like Chamberlain and Kareem were shooting the best percentage, and you concluded they were the league's best.

Then, in the era of ESPN sportscenter, but before league pass, you'd just get the 20 second compressed highlights, which would show the most spectacular plays. And the casual fan sees Iverson or Kobe make some miraculous shot, the one you're talking about at the watercooler the next day, and everyone concludes those are the best players in the game, not noting that those miraculous shots are usually bad shots, and that Kobe and pals bricked many times more than they made. These highlights, for example, are the only way one could conclude that Kobe was somehow more dominant on those Laker teams than Shaq.

Now, in the league pass and statistical analysis days, the fans are more educated, and its a little fairer to players like Timmy. It's neither the strict numbers of the box score, nor the misleading wonder of the highlights plays. But the casual "Sportscenter" fans still exist, unfortunately, ones who only know the latest Vine or Youtube shot going about. To those guys Duncan doesn't mean much. They probably think his best moment was the 3 against phoenix in 08 or that shot over Shaq on the play BEFORE Fisher's .4.

Well, , I've gotten off topic... Sound like grandpa mumbling himself to sleep.

Agreed with the part about casual fans checking only box scores (mainly points) and Sports Center highlights. This gives the extreme hypes to KBs and AIs. To me, KB is not EVER close to Tim. But LeBron is not like that. Let's forget about personal statistics and performance, instead, just look at what they bring to the team. Like Timmy, a team with LeBron (sans the first couple years when he was so young and without the luck of Timmy) would automatically get 50 wins, and would contend for championships with a little bit of decent support. This is never the case with KB.

For their first three championships, KB indeed contributed a lot to the success. But we all know that those Lakers teams would not even be in the equation without the existence of Shaq. Granted, Shaw might not have won those championships without KB, but a KB-led team at early 2000s would not be much better than a Anthony-led Nuggets/Knicks. While he was arguably the best players for the latter two championships, it was the three bigs (Gasol, Bynum & Odom) who gave the advantages to the Lakers.

All great players need help, as basketball is a 5-man game (or maybe a 9-10 men game) after all. MJ needs Pippen and Rodman; Tim needs David, Manu, Tony and now Kawhi; LeBron needs Wade and Bosh. And even Kerrs, Bowens, and Allens are indispensable to some extent. Also luck plays an extreme role during the process (See those Kings and Suns teams). But after MJ, only Shaq, Tim and LeBron can make the claim that their mere step-onto the court makes their team a contender. Not KB, not KG, not Durant.

Now we have a curious case of seeing whether Curry has evolved into that kind of truly elite group, although he is not your typical once-in-ten-years superstar who excels from day 1 of their career.

[spurs10]

Duncan needs another ring to make it official.

Excellent idea!

[Sean Cagney]

Lebron has said Duncan is the greatest of his generation, maybe Wade was a little offended..

Lebron knows better than Wade then

[horsielove]

I want to have sex with that chick, tbh.

[Clipper Nation]

Kobe had league collusion, refs and their whistles, and Pau Gasol on his side. He chased away Shaq, and chased away Pau, not to mention free agents and other teammates. Duncan had a good team and management, and has been nothing if not the model teammate. Unfortunately, people won't bring up how the NBA wanted to make Kobe into the next Michael Jordan, and shoved him into contention and past series a few times, but glad to see Duncan getting recognized.