Is it really Duncan or was it Pop all along?

[AirFederer]

It is gettin' sadder and sadder for Kobe-stans with each futile attempt.

This.

[bdreason]

Pop is an all-time great coach, and definitely deserves his share of the credit. However, it's the players that play the games... and Duncan is an unbelievable player; even better than his stats and achievements imply.

[Anaximandro1]

OP needs to do his homework.


-David and Tim are the ones who made the Spurs great.

-Robinson kept the franchise alive and Duncan took it to the next level.


-Lakers and Jazz got totally owned by Duncan in 1999. Spurs won the title.

-Duncan missed the 2000 playoffs (knee injury). The Spurs lost 3-1 in the first round ... look at the Spurs' offensive rating.




-The last time the Spurs won a title was in 2007, when Duncan was in his prime.

-Nowadays, Kawhi and Duncan's resurgence are the keys. Of course Parker, Manu, Splitter, Boris, etc. are doing a good job.



-Pop had a coaching record in the NBA of (17 - 47) when Duncan joined the Spurs in 1997.


-Duncan dropped 19 pt / 22 rb in the third game of his NBA career against Jordan's Bulls.

November 3, 1997 -> Spurs 83 - Bulls 87 (Duncan 19 pt / 22 rb)


-Seventeen years later, Duncan dropped 27 pts/7 rb/ 3 as against Durant's Thunder in the WCF

May 19, 2014 -> WCF OKC 105 - Spurs 122 (Duncan 27 pt / 7 rb / 3 as)


Still leading the pack at age 38.




Make no mistake. Pop has done a good job, but he has had Duncan for his entire tenure. A player with team-first attitude ... and incredible talent.

[NumberSix]

Duncan > Kobe

[T_L_P]

But Robinson was still a starter and making all-star and all-nba teams when Duncan first came

98' all-nba second team,all-star,all-defense 2nd team
99' would made the all-star team if they had one
2000' all-star,all-nba third team
2001' all-star,all-nba third team

02 and 03 still was the team second leading rebounder and second in block shots. While being a starter on the squad. Robinson was more of a defensive role during these years with the Spurs.

2003 Finals gave the Spurs 11 and 7 on 61% shooting. Still gave the team 2 blocks a game along with Duncan a frontline average 7 blacks a game in a NBA Finals the close out game to go along with Duncan 21/20/10 game gave him 13/17 on 75% shooting. Hell together they out rebounded the whole Nets team all together.

The fact remain Robinson was still valuable to the Spurs and help Duncan win 2 championships.

Very valuable. Incredibly valuable. Arguably the best defender from '98-''00. But not a superstar.

[Kiddlovesnets]

Its a combination of both, take out either one of them and the Spurs aint winning a title.

[T_L_P]

Why can't more teams by like the Spurs though? Not from a play-style standpoint, just in demeanor. No other team stresses family and hard work like them.

[BoutPractice]

Once he's out of the game, he'll benefit from the retirement boost and get treated like other legends before him. (Might get treated even better if they reveal he was gay all along or something like this ). The good gets emphasized, the bad gets forgotten.

No one cares anymore that Kareem was boring, that he underachieved in the 70s or that he was only the best player on at best 3 out of 6 of his championship teams. They just look at the ring count, MVPs, and scoring totals.

No one cares anymore that Magic didn't defend, few people bring up Tragic Johnson. They just look at the ring count, and a few Showtime assists.

No one cares that Hakeem got out of the first round about as often as Carmelo Anthony, and that he wasn't seen as the best center in the league for most of his career. They just look at that 2 year stretch where he was hyped as perfect in every way, the dream shake on Robinson, and assume Hakeem was always like this.

No one will care that Kobe was a chucker, never quite the clear cut best player in the league, and only the best player on 2 out of 5 championship teams. Kobe will forever be associated with 2 numbers: 5 rings, 81 points. Knowing how our memories work, it'll get muddled in the mind, even, people will start imagining he was scoring 81 points a game in the process of winning these 5 championships. They'll also talk about "clutch", "killer instinct" and similar things.

And of course, no one really cares the details of how Bill Russell got his 11 championships. It kind of speaks for itself. If he had a bad game here and there, if his teammates outscored him, if it was really Auerbach, those things rarely get mentioned.

Similarly no one will care about Duncan's "unexciting" game, or bring up Pop (do you hear people say Phil Jackson was responsible for Jordan or Kobe's success, and use this is a real argument to rank some other player over them?). They'll mainly see the good. And Duncan's "good" is on a whole different level, it's top 5 worthy stuff.

What they'll see in Duncan is simple: 4, maybe 5 titles, in which all things considered he was the best player on the team, and the only guy called Tim Duncan on the team (how many players have 4 rings as the best player or more? 4. Russell, Jordan, Mikan, and Duncan)... add to that the fact he may retire with the best ever winning percentage, or second best, and most playoff wins, of all time... all those playoff totals will look really good in retrospect... finally they'll see the 2 MVPs, and his legendary 2003 run, and assume he was like that for pretty much all of his career (which, in truth, he mostly was, compared to the effect of a similar illusion on other players). Any notion that Duncan is not one of the absolute top tier legends in the game will look ridiculous after he retires, I guarantee that. He's exactly the sort of player who outlasts trends and fans' need for cheap, immediate thrills.