Quote:
Originally Posted by Five-ofan
One thing people take for granted about Duncan is how long he's gotten to play non superstar minutes. The last time Duncan avged 35 mpg was the same year we had the antwins. That's crazy. Contrast that with dream who avged nearly 37 mpg in 99 as an old man. Dream was a much better defender(not just shot blocker) for the majority of his career.
I just can't see the logic in saying that 3 years of solid play tacked to the end of an outstanding career outweighs 3 years of crap tacked to the end of the a clearly more outstanding career.
Also if you are using last years title to justify anything for Duncan, Russell has to be higher. Because the spurs title last year was every bit as much of an ensemble title as anything russell did.
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Yes, Duncan has arguably been better managed. But so what? Without Nellie, Dirk never becomes the iconic player he is today as some dumbass coach would have bulked him up and told him to go close to the basket. That's how the dice rolls sometimes, and what we have right now is a player whose career has clearly been much better in his latter years than Hakeem's.
Also, I disagree with the "clearly more outstanding career" part. I agree that in terms of skill and ability Hakeem did things for those two years that were a hair above Duncan's peak. However 01-04 Duncan was a true statistical monster in the playoffs too, often doing it against prime Shaq as well. He put up some truly astounding stat lines which gave him two straight MVPs, unlike Hakeem. But beyond that? There is little to suggest that Hakeem had a better career still, as Duncan had much more consistent success even beyond the absolute peak of their careers, as evidenced by him having four rings as the clearly best player of his team compared to two.
As for the comparison with Russell, yes his ensemble titles are what made him so highly remember. But the fact than Duncan and Russell could play that role much later in their career, whereas Hakeem declined very rapidly is still a plus for both players. Russell is penalized, in my very humble opinion, by the fact that he never had anything close to a dominating offensive game like other stars do.