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He never had a go to move at the low post that he could fall back on. As great as he was, that would be his weakness.
He was a traditional center in every way, but he could handle the ball and cut like a guard.
He never had a go to move at the low post that he could fall back on. As great as he was, that would be his weakness.
A go-to move can still be rendered ineffective against double and triple teams.
And how many of these guys with go-to moves have scored 71 points in a single game against double team coverage? Or registered a quadruple double?
A prime, multifaceted Robinson in today's Spurs setup will be absolutely devastating!
I'm not saying he wasn't a scoring machine. I had season tickets 90-95 so I know what kind of player he was. I was just pointing out his weakness and why he is one notch below Hakeem, Kareem, Shaq and Duncan as a low post player. But he was a great great player who could have won championships if he had better support. Vinny Del Negro and mid 90's Avery were a pathetic backcourt for a team trying to win a championship.
David's skillset would be far more suited to today's rules and fast paced NBA, not the 90s grind, just like some of today's players would have fared much better in the 90s era but untimately he was a good enough 1st option on a championship team, he just had a very incompetent FO behind him and was loyal enough not to bolt.
i dont think david had problems scoring tbh
What's also underrated is how tremendously awesome Olajuwon was that playoffs, and that series. Dave played great, notwithstanding that Hakeem transformed into a being of pure basketball light.
Robinson a game couldn't really be defined by position. His defense is classic nba center defense, but his offense is a hybrid of many. He has the face up game of a power forward, the ability to drive and run the break like a small forward, but he takes up the low post like a power forward and center. That's one of the reasons why he's so hard to build around, the front Office just don't know what kind of players would fit with him.
In today's game, Robinson would be goat. His first step would devastate any big man trying to guard him, and he can shoot over smaller defenders.
People forget that Robinson missed the first two games of the LA series in 02 because he couldn't feel his ing legs. If that's not a serious injury I don't know what is. And yet he still came back to bang with Shaq the rest of the series.
I don't like ranking players. I believe it is just too subjective.
But I don't think David is underrated. He is making anybody's top 10 centers list (rank somewhere between 5 and 8).
Sure he didn't have that much help, but this is also a reason for his inflated statistics.
When people look at Duncan statistics, they are probably not that impressed. It sounds fair to look at his playoffs performances, team success and rings. Because if you don't... He is not really better than Kevin Garnett.
It is the same for Ginobili and Parker who never had the statistics they could have. But when you count the rings...
David should just be prood of his career... And who care if he is ranked a shade behind a couple of guys.
Duncan have more PPG, RPG, BPG, and FG%. Garnett is better in APG, SPG, and FT%, all while Duncan played less MPG under a slower paced system.
Comparing Duncan's per 36 and per 100 possession stats to Garnett, it's quite clear Duncan > Garnett, even strictly from a statistical stand point.
Then you can look at advanced stats like WS, PER, TS%, eFG%, REB%, Drtg (tied for Ortg), and BLK%, and Duncan pretty much trumps Garnett in every single one (except AST% and TOV%).
Then you look at the playoff numbers.
People wants to make a case for Garnett saying that he is close to Duncan. Yes, he is close, but he's still worse, in almost every significant big man stat.
I know that. But the common perception is that they are about the same. The difference in how people rank them comes from team success, not from advanced statistics (I am not talking about hardcore fans or stats geeks).
But then that's directly tied to why Robinson was underrated, because people do not directly look at stats, advanced stats, and most importantly, cir stances.
It's like the general population is too stupid to take more than 1 number into account, and only has to ability to look at # of rings, which is just re ed because it's evaluating an individual player using a largely team-based statistic.
david was a center and would be a center today. he would defend opposing centers and would be defended by opposing centers. most PF's today wouldn't really have enough length to disrupt his offensive game. the only PF's i could think of from this era that would match up with D-Rob would be guys like Garnett and Anthony Davis. often times the big-man positions get blended anyway to the point where we just refer to a PF or a C as "a big" without necessarily designating them.
while robinson might be physically fit to defend 4's, his legendary weakside defensive would be much more useful if he was defending guys closer to the rim
I'm beginning to think you're a bad bball fan. Another guy who would be easy to build around is dirk. What are you smoking? Look what both did w/pretty limited talent surrounding them, that in itself makes your opinion invalid. Tell me this what type of player and this would be in any era is always in short supply?
Gr8 comparison bro.
You seem to be confusing greatness with being easy to build a team around. They aren't the same at all. There's a reason why it took Jordan so long to win while Duncan's been playing for les since his second year, and it's not because Tim is better.
Robinson was a lot like Lebron James. Great player, but a really hard piece to use as a foundation.
And it's not because of anything you're implying, either. The '99 Jazz, the second best team in the league that year, would have been about a sixth seed in the Eastern conference in '91.
Since you are a great bball fan, you should have seen that
A) Robinson never won as the best player on his team, and Duncan is a once in a gerneration player
B) dirk required a highly intelligent group of players who played phenomenally well together to win. If it's so easy to build around dirk, why did it take an owner who was willing to win at all cost a dozen years to build around him? Tell me who could have replaced chandler, Kidd, Marion and terry. The type of spacing of that Mavs offense was pure genius from Carlisle and I'm surprised a superior basketball intellect like yourself couldn't understand that. I am even more surprised that someone as good as a basketball fan as you failed to recognize that coaches of carlisles Salinger don't really grow on trees.
Also, try to recognize regular season and post season are two different types of ball. An issue with a team gets exploited in the playoffs, but less so in the regular season. But then again, I'm sure you knew that already.
Eh. I was still crapping my diapers back then, so I won't argue too much. But the narrative that I've heard was that the Bulls needed to get the right players around Michael before they could get over the hump. It wasn't as simple as Jordan being the greatest, so of course Chicago was going to win six les.
No I'm not. Big guys who are elite 2 way players by definition are easier to build around. One of the main keys for having a championship contender is getting a big who can protect the rim. W/jordan you needed to find at least one of those guys along w/another shot creator and some shooters. W/robinson you got your offense and defense. Here's drobs win totals w/sub par supporting casts: 56, 55, 47, 49, 55, 62, 59 and that's in a tough western conference. That's really impressive. I'm sorry dude another relatively easy guy to build around is james. So who is easy to build a team around if james and robinson are a hard guys to build a championship around?
Yeah, that's an oversimplification. Post bigs are easy to build around, because you know what type of players you need to surround them with (shooters, essentially). Face-up bigs are much harder to build around, because it's not quite clear who would compliment them. Shooters help, but because the big is operating away from the basket, there's no "inside" to an inside-out game. But if you park traditional big next to them, then you mess up spacing for the face-up big to do his thing. Robinson's defense wasn't the issue, save for the fact that the Spurs didn't have another legit seven-footer to throw at Dream.
James is extremely hard to build a le team around, which is why he needs so many stars around him to win. His teams have to rely on essentially being able to win their match-ups. It's good enough for him to just have shooters or defensive bigs. He needed an all-NBA guard cut from the same cloth as James was and a stretch-five who is elite at defending the PnR and can carry a team on both sides of the floor on any given night. Not to mention that James essentially plays PG for his teams, so there's little room for a play-making PG next to him.
I don't see the point in listing regular-season win totals. That doesn't mean much when we're talking about building championship-caliber rosters. The Robinson Spurs were pretenders because they couldn't deal with elite teams in playoff series, where match-ups become key. They are not the first glass-cannon team, either. Look at the Nash-era Suns or current Thunder for other examples.
Question -- 1995 Spurs -- If you replace vinny del negro with 2005 era Manu ginobili, would the Spurs have won the championship?
And that's precisely why the spurs under achieved greatly year after year with Robinson leading them, because the spurs management knew that most fans were about as smart as you and thought regular season success = playoff success. So management went all cheap and surrounded robinson with cast offs from other teams and refused to fill in the obvious holes the roster had and got Robinson as a scape goat
What part of the regular season and the playoffs are totally differnt do you not understand?
The 80s Mavs won tons of regular season games and had nothing to show for it, ditto the 00 suns or the 90s Knicks because those teams had huge issues with their rosters that were exploited by the opposition in the playoffs.
2005 Manu wouldn't be able to perform like 2005 Manu because the paint would be totally closed. The 1995 spurs just do no have enough shooters to open up the lane, and rodmans man can basically drift from him and double whoever he wants.
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