Celebrating another team’s asterisk
*Condolences to Giannis signing with the Heat to “learn how to win”
I rank Duncan above Lebron, personally. Mainly because he's the better franchise centerpiece. If you're starting a franchise, there's no better player in history to be your centerpiece than Tim. Also, I think big men are inherently more valuable than wings. Duncan is a better defensive anchor, in addition to quarterbacking the offense from the low post. He's the ultimate two-way superstar.
In terms of "gap" - there is virtually no gap. They're both in the top 5.
More importantly, they're both on the "all-time team." Magic, Jordan, James, Duncan, Kareem. That's your all-time starting five.
Last edited by Arcadian; 10-29-2020 at 12:27 PM.
Celebrating another team’s asterisk
*Condolences to Giannis signing with the Heat to “learn how to win”
In my eyes Duncan,Bird,Russell are the easiest guys to build a team around that are in the top 10. All 3 are low maintenance and are zero drama along with being great leaders.
And Magic
Bird over James. That team severely lacks outside shooting.
rep’ace Jordan with Kobe
Better 3 pt shooter , mote skilled scorer, better passer, taller, longer
You are flat wrong - Kobe was a high volume gunner and way behind Jordan look at Kobe’s much lower PER and Jordan more consistently a great defender.
Jordan had Pippen take on the other team's star
Jordan was allowed to grab and karate kick guys like Craig Ehlo
If we are being honest the most popular stars are always allowed to get away with being physical on the defensive end. That's always been the case. Look at how Lebron was allowed to be physical with Jamal Murray and get away with fouling him.
True true, but nobody in the history of the NBA has gotten more ref protection than MJ, it's not even close, and most of the SG's Mike was guarding were utter
I agree that lineup needs a 3 pt shooter and a clutch player
Historically SG's tend to be one of the weakest positions in basketball. Look at ESPN's top 10 SG's of all time list:
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/pag...ng-guards-ever
1.Jordan
2.Kobe
3.West
4.Wade
5.Drexler
6.AI
7.Gervin
8.Ray Allen
9.Reggie Miller
10. Earl Monroe
I see Klay and Harden taking Ray and Reggie's place on this list when their careers are over.
Tha'ts true
BTW I think Klay is very underrated, makes big shots, great defensive player in an era where you are not allowed to touch the other guard - the only guard who has his number is Kyrie Irving
I felt for years prior to KD coming to the Warriors that he was the Warriors second best player. I still can't believe they were idiots that actually thought Draymond was better than him. Klay is very underrated on both ends of the court. Klay can easily get 20 plus points in any system and doesn't have to be the number 1 option to do it. He still manged to easily get 20 plus points per game playing as the third option. Even in this high pace era that's hard to do as a third option like he did with the Warriors from '17-'19.
holy
I mean don't get me wrong, Dray is probably the best "swiss knife" player in the NBA and is a pretty smart player, but he is not a star
If you dig through some old threads in here you will see people arguing that he's better and more valuable than Klay. They were people who actually believed Dray made Klay better than what he was and that Klay was a system player.
well I’m not surprised
Draymond is a 16 game player, even DeFrozen is a better regular season player especially as a primary or secondary option.
As far as Klay, the Duds wouldn’t have fared any worse in the ‘15 Finals if they replaced him with Ariza. In ‘16, Klay was Playoff P status, disappearing after talking smack to LeBrat, while Draymond was letting his nuts hang & would have won FMVP.
Besides, he had a NEGATIVE net rating in ‘17 & ‘18 despite his team blowing out the Cavs aka a Porker. In ‘19, he had a couple of scoring outbursts but VanVleet/Lowry were giving it to him on the other end ala Kyrie. Basically, his Finals career performances are pretty ordinary....Iggy’s might be superior when you consider all-around impact.
Klay would have been another Micheal Redd on a team like the Suns. Meanwhile a guy like Jrue would be getting the same reverence as Draymond since he’s basically a rich man’s Iggy who can be a second option like Klay. Not sure you’re losing too much replacing Iggy/Klay with Jrue/Ariza.
On the other hand, it’s hard to replace PRIME Draymond with someone like PRIME Softridge even though the latter is a better player in a vacuum which is why Draymond is more valuable than Klay within their system.
Last edited by Kawhitstorm; 10-30-2020 at 06:57 PM.
You might want to add JR Smith to the list as far as the other end
21-15 Reg season
11-5 playoffs
2-1 Head to head in finals should be 3-0 as we know..
It's close, but LeBron has eclipsed him. His sustained greatness has been incredible, and he's probably the most complete player in nba history.
They're both top 5 imo
G. James
G. Jordan
SF. Pippen
4. Bird
5. Duncan
Last edited by FrostKing; 11-04-2020 at 05:06 AM.
I don't think he ever decisively eclipsed him. One thing you'd have to agree with is, Tim had a better career start-to-finish (emphasis on the "start" in this case). Both came into the league and were instantly among the league's best players, but Tim was arguably the best player in the league in his 2nd season, and he obviously started winning rings much sooner than Lebron. Through age 26, Duncan already had 2 rings and 2 FMVPs compared to 0 for Lebron at the same age. Lebron actually had a "legacy scare" in his late 2000s Cleveland years (and even his first year in Miami) when people started whispering, "Will he ever win a ring? Did we crown him too soon?" Now obviously, he went on to win 4 rings (maybe more) and so those questions were invalid - but just the fact that it took him so long to silence those questions makes his career less perfect than Tim's.
The fact that Tim fared favorably against Lebron head-to-head (21-15 overall, 11-5 in playoffs) makes it even less convincing that the latter ever eclipsed him.
Last edited by Arcadian; 11-04-2020 at 03:55 AM.
James has certainly not surpassed Duncan. Tim is simply underrated. And this is because the Spurs did not repeat.
I still have Duncan above James, Kobe, and Shaq. Lebron still has opportunity to overtake though.
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