Duncan > Kobe

*I wrote this a while ago, but wanted to wait to make sure that the Spurs made the finals before I did*

 

I’ve held firmly for quite a while that the best player of the past fifteen or so years in the NBA was Tim Duncan, not Kobe Bryant.*

*Of course, LeBron’s presence hangs over everything, but Duncan and Kobe were already solidly on a HOF-bound track before LeBron entered the league. Let’s pass over LeBron for being the best player of the post-Duncan and Kobe era*

Only one famous person of note agreed with me, Bill Simmons. Of course, he has no idea who I am, so it’s more that he too believes it more than he ‘agrees with me’. He had Tim Duncan rated one spot higher in his original Book of Basketball (Kobe at #8 and Duncan at #7), and he kept those rankings the same in the updated version for paperback. Recently, right before the start of the Western Conference Finals, he repeated his claim of Duncan’s superiority, and then even had a good debate on his podcast about it.* I want to lay out my case for why Duncan has had the better career and is the better historical player.

*-One last side note, I was talking here about Simmons' podcast with Joe House a few weeks ago. He's since basically brought this point up in every podcast of his since. This is the 2nd greatest recurring theme in the BS Report, after when he somehow, to my delight, managed to bring up Super Bowl XLII for about 10 straight podcasts after the game*

Argument #1: The Titles and the Help

One common defense for the Kobe supporters is that Kobe has five titles to Duncan’s four. Of course, that’s true, but then Robert Horry has seven titles. No one thinks he’s even a HOFer. To me, titles won doesn’t matter. What does is titles won as the best player on your team. One NBA player can have a bigger impact than one player in any other sport (with the possible exception of goalie in hockey). It’s simple math, there are only five players on the court at any time and they play offense and defense (unlike a QB in football). That’s why it was meaningful that LeBron hadn’t won a title until last year. So, how many times has Kobe been the best player on a title winning team. Two. Duncan’s been the best player on at least three, and you can make the argument for the fourth. Tony Parker may have won the Finals MVP in 2007, but Duncan was still the most important player. A similar case could be made for Gasol being the best performer in the 2010 Finals (and definitely in Game 7, where Kobe went 6-24), but Kobe was still the most important player. Either way, the count is 2-3, at best.

Kobe Bryant was definitely not the best player on the 2000-2002 Lakers title winning teams. Those were Shaq’s teams. They won because of Shaq. They dominated the 2001 playoffs because Shaq decided to finally give a shit that season after mailing in most of the regular season. They swept the Nets because Shaq abused Todd McCullogh. Shaq deservingly won the Finals MVP each time because he was the best player on those teams. Kobe had great years, but he was still the support. Teams were gameplanning to stop Shaq, and if that meant Kobe getting 30 every now and then, fine.

Duncan definitely had good players on his title winning teams, but he was definitely the best player on the first three, and probably the 2007 team as well. He’s played with one of the greats in David Robinson, but Robinson was the Kobe to Duncan’s Shaq in 1999 and Robinson was a glorified big-man-off-the-bench type in 2003. Actually, look at the 2003 Spurs roster for a second. That team had no right winning 60 games and a title. They had David Robinson who was aging. Terry Porter and Kevin Willis, who were beyond aging. Malik Rose and Anthony Johnson, who were basically role players. A not-as-cray-as-he-would-become Stephen Jackson, and the young duo of Parker and Ginobili. Those two bring up problems because Parker is a likely HOF, and if you factor in the international success of Ginobili on Argentina, he is too, but in 2003 they were basically first-year starters. Parker was so up and down there was serious talk of them getting Jason Kidd that offseason and replacing Parker. Parker and Ginobili’s best years have really been at the tail end of the Spurs title runs (2007) and since the last title when the Spurs shifted to a more offense-heavy approach. They are HOFers for the work they did after the Spurs stopped winning titles.

So, both played with HOFers, but out of the top-4 supporting cast, I would give Kobe the best support member in Shaq (who was actually the best player on those title teams), and Duncan had the relative worst in Ginobili. Parker vs. Gasol is interesting, but either way, Duncan never had a Shaq v.2000-2002 like figure to play with.

Argument 2: The Dominance

Another common defense is how dominant Kobe has been for such a long period. He was just 3^rd in the NBA in scoring this past season. People say that Kobe’s had the higher peak, the more dominant career. To that, I say that’s true if you are only considering their scoring value. Basketball is about a lot more than just scoring, but the number of points stands out more than anything else. Kobe supporters say that Duncan never had seasons like Kobe’s in 2006 (where he averaged 35, had the 81 point game),and while Kobe might have had a better peak, there are a lot of ways to measure players without simply looking at their PPG.  Tim Duncan did everything, and did it all well. If you want to go playoffs, just look at what Sir Duncan did in the 2003 Playoffs, again with a team whose roster really wasn’t all that good outside of Timmay. He started his run in Game 5 of the 2^nd round against the two-time defending champ Lakers, with the series tied at 2-2:

Game 5 vs LA: 27-14-5-1 (pts-reb-ast-blk), Spurs win  by 2
Game 6 vs LA: 37-16-4-2, win by 28

Game 1 vs DAL: 40-15-7-1, lose by 3
Game 2 vs DAL: 32-15-5-3, win by 13
Game 3 @ DAL: 34-24-6-6, win by 13
Game 4 @ DAL: 21-20-7-4, win by 7
Game 5 vs DAL: 23-15-6-1, lose by 12
Game 6 @ DAL: 18-11-4-3, win by 12

Game 1 vs NJN: 32-20-6-7, win by 12
Game 2 vs NJN: 19-12-3-3, lose by 2
Game 3 @ NJN: 21-16-7-3, win by 5
Game 4 @ NJN: 23-17-2-7, lose by 1
Game 5 @ NJN: 29-17-4-4, win by 10
Game 6 vs NJN: 21-20-10-8; win by 11.

So, to recap, that averages to this:

26.9-16.6-5.4-3.8 per game. 

Which is ridiculous. He had a  34-24-6-6 in game 3 against Dallas in the WCF, and that was his 4^th best game in that stretch (his epic Game 6 of the finals is probably his magnum opus, but Game 1 of the finals and Game 1 of the Conference Finals are about as good). The advanced stats of Duncan’s 2003 playoffs make that stretch one of the most dominant postseason of all time. It was like LeBron’s 35-8-8 postseason in 2008-09, except the Spurs won the title. Please, don’t tell me that Kobe was more dominant than Duncan at his best.

Argument 3: The Ridiculous Consistency

Duncan’s Spurs have only once not won 50 games. That’s because that season they only played 50 games. Of course, that year they went 37-13, tied for the best record in the NBA, which translated to a 61-21 record in an 82 game season. Even in the other strike-shortened season, where they played 66 games, the Spurs managed to win 50. The Spurs have gone, in Duncan’s career, gone:

1997-98: 56-26 (68.3%)
1998-99: 37-13 (74.0%)
1999-00: 53-29 (64.6%)
2000-01: 58-24 (70.7%)
2001-02: 58-24 (70.7%)
2002-03: 60-22 (73.2%)
2003-04: 57-27 (69.5%)
2004-05: 59-23 (72.0%)
2005-06: 63-19 (76.8%)
2006-07: 58-24 (70.7%)
2007-08: 56-26 (68.3%)
2008-09: 54-28 (65.9%)
2009-10: 50-32 (61.0%)
2010-11: 61-21 (74.4%)
2011-12: 50-16 (75.8%)
2012-13: 58-24 (70.7%)

Total: 830-368 (69.3%); 56.8-25.2

That’s kind of insane. Kobe, in the prime of his career, missed the playoffs once, finishing below .500 in 2004-05, and was the 7^th seed in 2005-06 and 2006-07. Kobe’s team may have made more finals, but they weren’t as relentlessly consistent. They didn’t make winning seem boringly efficient. They didn’t have the Spurs robotic existence. The Spurs also did this during the iso-era, the defense-heavy era, the offense-heavy era, and then the superteam era.

Duncan has had to battle injuries and, more importantly, battle reduced minutes and Popovich tried to keep him fresh, which puts his volume numbers down the last few years, but I love Bill Simmons’ point that his per-36 minutes stats are ridiculously consistent. Now, in Kobe’s defense his per-36 numbers are about the same as they’ve been throughout the past five or six years. But he’s fallen off from his ridiculous peak. Duncan’s fall is more just less minutes.

Conclusion

It isn’t clear-cut. My argument delves into areas I don’t like entering in other sports, namely  QB-wins in the NFL. But basketball players have a disproportionate impact on games. Singular NBA players are just more valuable than their counterparts in other sports. But, I think it comes down to the Shaq factor. Shaq was the primary force on the Lakers three-peat. Shaq is himself one of the 15-20 best players ever, and a healthy, motivated Shaq (like he was throughout 1999-2000 and became again in the 2000-01 playoffs) was even better than that. Kobe got to play with that. The best player Duncan got to play with was either Robinson in Duncan’s rookie season, or Parker in recent years. That doesn’t approach Shaq in his prime. Their careers are both winding down, and this debate will probably rage on for years. It doesn’t have the fire and intensity of Manning vs. Brady, but it really should.