Would a Rookie Tim Duncan Be the Best Player in Today's NBA?

[spurs1990]

Really wish high speed internet was around in 1998 to be able to stream every game. Those of us outside SA didn't really get to see TD much outside a handful for TNT games

[azarel]

Really wish high speed internet was around in 1998 to be able to stream every game. Those of us outside SA didn't really get to see TD much outside a handful for TNT games

and there was no 'Youtube' or any websites with highlights... i actually had to read the sport column of my local newspaper just to see Spurs fared in their games. haha those were the days.

[DMC]

I don't think Tim Duncan gets as many touches in today's game as he did in his day. He can't shoot the 3, but he can rebound and score in the paint. He'd get a lot of offensive boards and probably do some damage early in games until the 3pt line opened up, then he could eat a sandwich and take a nap before he ever sees another pass from the chuck happy PGs of today's NBA. The fact that no one is really doing any real damage in the paint these days isn't because there are no big people capable of it. It's because they don't make it though the filters. You have to shoot the 3 or have some freakish athletic ability. The fundamentals are just not there for most of these guys. You look at Embiid, he's a great player in today's NBA. He would be destroyed by Ben Wallace in his prime. Ben Wallace who couldn't hit a FT to save his life.

There's a reason the high draft picks are often 3pt shooters. Even someone like Zion who will be a poor man's Westbrook won't scratch the surface of the NBA 3pt shooting elite so he'll get oooh and aaah like Blake, and in a few years and a torn ACL later, he'll be mopping up long rebounds from people like Kryie Irving, maybe get a putback dunk. Basically he'll be the Vince Young of the NBA... the NFL version.

[Thomas82]

Really wish high speed internet was around in 1998 to be able to stream every game. Those of us outside SA didn't really get to see TD much outside a handful for TNT games

I'm one of those......I was living in Cleveland at that time. In fact, the same night TD played his first regular season game, I was playing in my last high school football game. But I'm sure that game against the Nuggets wasn't on TNT that night.

[Thomas82]

and there was no 'Youtube' or any websites with highlights... i actually had to read the sport column of my local newspaper just to see Spurs fared in their games. haha those were the days.

I either had to call the local newspaper's hotline, which got updated every 15 minutes, or just wait until the next day when the paper came out.

[BSfromTX]

Today's rules aren't really different for post players, tbh..you can abuse the out of anybody in the post and you probably won't get called for it..

I realize that, but young Duncan and Dave could face up, in fact that was David’s strength along with running the floor. How would you defend David 20 feet out faced up today?

[Sec24Row7]

How could you defend Dave with a Eurostep?