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Yeah Hollinger has a really nice quip on Duncan....
John Hollinger:
The coaches have voted Tim Duncan first-team All-Defense six of the eight seasons he's been in the league, but the writers have this giant blind spot toward him when it comes to Defensive Player of the Year voting. Last season, for instance, Duncan got only six votes for the award and finished fourth in the voting. Marcus Camby, who played fewer minutes and was less effective when he played, got 19 votes. Huh?
The past two years Duncan has been the linchpin of two of the best defensive teams in history, and yet he has never won the Defensive Player of the Year trophy. He wasn't even the highest-finishing Spur, as teammate Bruce Bowen beat him in the voting for two straight seasons. I realize Duncan isn't as spectacular as some other players and doesn't come flying in from left field to swat shots into the 12th row, but is that really our criterion? If the writers are covering teams for 82 games they should be able to see beyond this. The guy is a one-man roadblock.
What people fail to understand about Duncan is how hard it is to combine dominant shot-blocking with dominant rebounding. Most players who block shots do so in part by leaving the defensive boards exposed. If a player leaves his man to go for a block and jumps as high as he can to get it, his man has an open path to the basket. Thus, if the player fails to block the shot, his man can easily get an offensive rebound and score.
Duncan almost never gets out of position like this. He blocks some shots without jumping at all, and on others he uses his long arms and timing to deflect the shot with just a quick hop. As a result, he never leaves the offensive boards exposed even as he's blocking shots at a prodigious rate. Last season Duncan blocked 3.1 shots per 40 minutes while posting the third-best Rebound Rate at his position, both of which were better rates than Wallace's.
Duncan had the league's best Defensive PER by far, and his numbers the year before were just as dominant. Over the past two seasons, the Spurs gave up 7.3 points more per 48 minutes when Duncan left the court. The same numbers for Bowen, Ben Wallace and Ron Artest are 3.0, 3.3, and 4.6 respectively. No disrespect to those three, but Duncan is clearly the best defensive player in the game. Maybe some day the writers will notice.
Offensively, he's no slouch either. His trademark bank shot from the left block is the centerpiece of a diverse post game. Duncan has markedly cut his Turnover Ratio the past two seasons, but he needs to develop more moves going to his left, and it would be nice if he'd learn how to shoot a lefty layup. Otherwise, the only noteworthy accomplishment is Duncan's incredible consistency. His past three seasons are virtual carbon copies, and it seems he can keep producing them ad infinitum.
its all Spurs
