Tim Duncan vs Kobe Bryant [in terms of accomplishments]

[dn0774]

The Magic had 3 All-Stars plus Hedo. Utah had Deron, Boozer, AK47, Milsap, Okur, Harpring, Korver. Phoenix had Nash, Shaq, Amare, Barbosa, J-Rich, and Grant Hill.

All of those are as good or better than Pau, Odom, Ariza, and Fisher.

You kinda completely left Kobe out of that comparison. Y'know, if you're gonna compare an entire roster from 1 team (Magic/Jazz/Suns in this instance) against the roster of another team (Lakers) minus their best player (Kobe) what do you expect to happen? At least drop the best player off the other teams for the comparison. Also, Bynum should be listed as well (granted his playoff impact was small that year).

I figured you guys were smart enough to subtract the best player (and the best player on some of those teams is disputable ala Deron vs Boozer or Nash vs Amare).

You consider Deron vs Boozer and Nash vs Amare "disputable"? k take care.

[Bgil]

Pau was leaps and bounds beyond anything Duncan had that year...he alone tilts the entire argument by himself. If you honestly cant acknowledge that fact then we're just wasting each others time. For you to attempt to completely trivialize what LO brings by just saying hes "EXTREMELY INCONSISTENT" as if that totally nullifies his place in this comparison shows you have an agenda to push here and nothing to contribute in terms of intelligent basketball dialog.

David was an 8pts/6rebs a game shell of his former self essentially playing backup minutes. Steve Smith was done, he barely saw the floor in the playoffs that year. Manu was a rookie who shot a lights out .386 over the course of that playoff run. Parker wasn't much better with a blistering .403 shooting percentage. In fact, the highest shooting % from a rotation player besides Duncan and Robinson was a paltry .414 from Stephen Jackson.

You want to rethink your stance on Manu/Parker/Steve Smith/Robinson/Jackson's contributions that year? They were mediocre at best. Duncan however was not...he put up 25/16/5/3 a game on .529 shooting and carried the Spurs to a championship in what was considered a transition year for an aging team (Robinson/Smith/Willis/Kerr) trying to integrate/develop younger and unproven talent (Parker/Manu/Jackson).

Pau and Odom are easily better than anyone on the Spurs team that year outside of Duncan. Pau shot .580 and Odom shot .524. Yea, Kobe definitely had some help, downplaying that fact only pisses people off.

Given their past performances it's pretty clear Pau and Odom only shot those percentages because of Kobe. Neither one has ever come remotely close to those percentages elsewhere.

Also, it's been a while since I've seen the LAL-Spurs 2003 series (just found it on youtube) but I remember Duncan's supporting cast killing us on both sides of the ball.

[dn0774]

I remember that series pretty well actually. Bowen blew up in G1 or 2 for like 28 points out of nowhere lol. Horry had the worst series of his career (evening out what Fisher did in '01 to us?) and I seem to recall Slava Medvedenko playing meaningful minutes...scary thought. That series really mirrored the series we had in '04 with both teams winning out at home for the first 4 and then game 5 coming down to a last second shot (Horry clanged it in 2003/Fisher ripped our hearts out in 2004) with the winner of G5 wrapping it up in 6.

All i'm saying is rather than looking at the roster and seeing names like Manu and Tony and DRob and just assuming they were the players we typically think of them as actually go back and check the stats to confirm. They were all at different points in their careers in 2003 and at the time they did not compare favorably to Pau and Lamar of 2009.

[Bgil]

Better idea: why not actually watch the game to confirm? The entire series is on youtube.

Box scores can be deceiving.

[initiald]

Pau was leaps and bounds beyond anything Duncan had that year...he alone tilts the entire argument by himself. If you honestly cant acknowledge that fact then we're just wasting each others time. For you to attempt to completely trivialize what LO brings by just saying hes "EXTREMELY INCONSISTENT" as if that totally nullifies his place in this comparison shows you have an agenda to push here and nothing to contribute in terms of intelligent basketball dialog.

David was an 8pts/6rebs a game shell of his former self essentially playing backup minutes. Steve Smith was done, he barely saw the floor in the playoffs that year. Manu was a rookie who shot a lights out .386 over the course of that playoff run. Parker wasn't much better with a blistering .403 shooting percentage. In fact, the highest shooting % from a rotation player besides Duncan and Robinson was a paltry .414 from Stephen Jackson.

You want to rethink your stance on Manu/Parker/Steve Smith/Robinson/Jackson's contributions that year? They were mediocre at best. Duncan however was not...he put up 25/16/5/3 a game on .529 shooting and carried the Spurs to a championship in what was considered a transition year for an aging team (Robinson/Smith/Willis/Kerr) trying to integrate/develop younger and unproven talent (Parker/Manu/Jackson).

Pau and Odom are easily better than anyone on the Spurs team that year outside of Duncan. Pau shot .580 and Odom shot .524. Yea, Kobe definitely had some help, downplaying that fact only pisses people off.

Stop trying to revise history. Since when did Pau Gasol really becoming a perennial superstar??

Even if Pau Gasol is the 2nd best player in both teams, it doesn't take away Duncan got a better supporting CASTS. I need to emphasize this bold word CASTS. Basketball is a team-game. Outside of Pau Gasol, you can go through the lists and Duncan's supporting cast is superior to Kobe's in every way during that playoff run.

D-Rob, as old as he is, is still a much better factor in that playoff than Bynum.
Malik Rose off the bench bring the same thing LO bring, with exception he's a better at hustling. Both guys can put up 20/10 in one night and then disappear the next.

Tony Parker/Claxton is wayyyyy better than Fisher/Farmar/Shannon
Stephen Jackson/Steve Smith is way better than Luke Walton/Adam Morrison
Bowen = Ariza.
Pau >> Manu.

Not to mention, almost 5 Spurs averaged closed to double-digit in the regular season IN A VERY SLOW OFFENSE that Pop ran, unlike the Lakers whose played at much quicker pace. That attribute to more scoring in the stat sheet.

[Bucksfans1and2]

Duncan.

He was the best player on every championship team he was on.

Yeah, lets ignore the fact that Tony Parker won Finals MVP in 07. I don't get how people can be so blind to this fact. When its Kobe, the argument is..."OH he had Shaq, he didn't really win anything." Without Kobe, does anyone really think those championships even happen?

Really? Really? Finals MVP is how we judge who's the best player on teams? Please don't mention Eva Longoria's husband in the same breath as the greatest PF of all time.

Was Paul Pierce the best player on the 08 Celtics? No, that was KG

[Bucksfans1and2]

Pau was leaps and bounds beyond anything Duncan had that year...he alone tilts the entire argument by himself. If you honestly cant acknowledge that fact then we're just wasting each others time. For you to attempt to completely trivialize what LO brings by just saying hes "EXTREMELY INCONSISTENT" as if that totally nullifies his place in this comparison shows you have an agenda to push here and nothing to contribute in terms of intelligent basketball dialog.

David was an 8pts/6rebs a game shell of his former self essentially playing backup minutes. Steve Smith was done, he barely saw the floor in the playoffs that year. Manu was a rookie who shot a lights out .386 over the course of that playoff run. Parker wasn't much better with a blistering .403 shooting percentage. In fact, the highest shooting % from a rotation player besides Duncan and Robinson was a paltry .414 from Stephen Jackson.

You want to rethink your stance on Manu/Parker/Steve Smith/Robinson/Jackson's contributions that year? They were mediocre at best. Duncan however was not...he put up 25/16/5/3 a game on .529 shooting and carried the Spurs to a championship in what was considered a transition year for an aging team (Robinson/Smith/Willis/Kerr) trying to integrate/develop younger and unproven talent (Parker/Manu/Jackson).

Pau and Odom are easily better than anyone on the Spurs team that year outside of Duncan. Pau shot .580 and Odom shot .524. Yea, Kobe definitely had some help, downplaying that fact only pisses people off.

Given their past performances it's pretty clear Pau and Odom only shot those percentages because of Kobe. Neither one has ever come remotely close to those percentages elsewhere.

Also, it's been a while since I've seen the LAL-Spurs 2003 series (just found it on youtube) but I remember Duncan's supporting cast killing us on both sides of the ball.

Just No

[jaypo]

Initiald- I, for years, have been arguing with people about Duncan's supporting cast. They are severely underrated here (by people propping up Duncan to show that he lead a bunch of scrubs to 4 titles), but to say that he had a better cast than Kobe's title teams? You're the one revising history. You are doing what everybody around here does- comparing apples and oranges. You can't compare Duncan's cast in 00 to Kobe's in 10 because the competition was different. In 00, Duncan was facing the 3peat Lakers and teams like Portland and Sacramento (and Utah, etc.). This year, Kobe faced the Thuggets and Rocets. And Suns. Not exactly the gauntlet that the 00 Lakers had to go thru. (And I'm not necessarily talking about their playoff opponents- just listing competition). In the years that Duncan won titles, he had a great team around him, but he didn't have the consensus "best team in the league" surrounding him. In 09 and 10, BEFORE THE SEASON EVEN BEGAN, pretty much all the experts picked LA as having the best supporting cast around Kobe. And that is relative to his competition THOSE YEARS. They weren't comparing Kobe's 2010 supporting cast to the league in 2002!

And Pau was given the label as "soft" a few years back, but after he took it to Dwight last year, that label was removed. He proved to be the best active big in the league last year (all around talent). And if you think that DWade or Lebron OR Duncan couldn't win DFish (5 time champion starting PG), Artest (best on ball defender in the league), Gasol, Bynum, Odom off the bench, and Phil Jackson coaching? Well, you are in denial. (Although I'm inclined to remove Lebron from that list due to his lack of heart displayed against Boston!)

[dn0774]

Pau was leaps and bounds beyond anything Duncan had that year...he alone tilts the entire argument by himself. If you honestly cant acknowledge that fact then we're just wasting each others time. For you to attempt to completely trivialize what LO brings by just saying hes "EXTREMELY INCONSISTENT" as if that totally nullifies his place in this comparison shows you have an agenda to push here and nothing to contribute in terms of intelligent basketball dialog.

David was an 8pts/6rebs a game shell of his former self essentially playing backup minutes. Steve Smith was done, he barely saw the floor in the playoffs that year. Manu was a rookie who shot a lights out .386 over the course of that playoff run. Parker wasn't much better with a blistering .403 shooting percentage. In fact, the highest shooting % from a rotation player besides Duncan and Robinson was a paltry .414 from Stephen Jackson.

You want to rethink your stance on Manu/Parker/Steve Smith/Robinson/Jackson's contributions that year? They were mediocre at best. Duncan however was not...he put up 25/16/5/3 a game on .529 shooting and carried the Spurs to a championship in what was considered a transition year for an aging team (Robinson/Smith/Willis/Kerr) trying to integrate/develop younger and unproven talent (Parker/Manu/Jackson).

Pau and Odom are easily better than anyone on the Spurs team that year outside of Duncan. Pau shot .580 and Odom shot .524. Yea, Kobe definitely had some help, downplaying that fact only pisses people off.

Stop trying to revise history. Since when did Pau Gasol really becoming a perennial superstar??

Even if Pau Gasol is the 2nd best player in both teams, it doesn't take away Duncan got a better supporting CASTS. I need to emphasize this bold word CASTS. Basketball is a team-game. Outside of Pau Gasol, you can go through the lists and Duncan's supporting cast is superior to Kobe's in every way during that playoff run.

D-Rob, as old as he is, is still a much better factor in that playoff than Bynum.
Malik Rose off the bench bring the same thing LO bring, with exception he's a better at hustling. Both guys can put up 20/10 in one night and then disappear the next.

Tony Parker/Claxton is wayyyyy better than Fisher/Farmar/Shannon
Stephen Jackson/Steve Smith is way better than Luke Walton/Adam Morrison
Bowen = Ariza.
Pau >> Manu.

Not to mention, almost 5 Spurs averaged closed to double-digit in the regular season IN A VERY SLOW OFFENSE that Pop ran, unlike the Lakers whose played at much quicker pace. That attribute to more scoring in the stat sheet.

Retire your screen name.

Malik Rose= Lamar Odom? The same Odom who is playing for Team USA as I write this?

I'm not saying Duncan didn't have much help for 4 titles...I am saying he didn't have much help in 2003, nothing more. 2005 and 2007 were entirely different scenarios, Manu and Tony had made significant progress and were much better players than their 2003 versions. 1999 was a completely different team altogether.

Please look up PLAYOFF numbers for that season as those are the only statistics that are relevant to this discussion. Once again, Manu/Tony/Jackson/Bowen shot a combined .400 for the playoff run. Outside of Tim Duncan nobody on the Spurs even had a chance at sniffing the all star team that year.

[Doctor MJ]

Again, the typical kids who don't watch enough tape to understand the complexity of a complete team. The Spurs ARE A COMPLETE TEAM. They got every ingredient of a championship team. A young, quick PG in Claxton and Parker. A closure in Manu, a dominant player in Duncan, a serviceable big in D-Rob. Yes D-Rob is not the same player he was but he WAS still more of a factor in the playoff than Bynum in '09.

Nah, the 2003 Spurs' cast was not good. Don't talk about this "complete team" thing - they eventually got there, but they weren't there yet. The cast in 1999 was great, the cast in 2005 was quite good. Not 2003. The young guys were horribly inconsistent, and Robinson spent most of the time on the bench.

If you go and look at the playoff stats for the Spurs in 2003, here are the 5 big minute guys from most minutes to least, with their PER listed by their name:

Duncan 28.4
Parker 11.9
Jackson 12.0
Bowen 8.9
Ginobili 15.0

As I'm sure you know, when Parker & Ginobili hit their prime, their PERs were WAY WAY better than that. Kobe's never come close to a title with a supporting cast as weak as this one.

To be fair though, any of Kobe's championship teams would have killed the '03 Spurs. It's not that Duncan in '03 was so good he could take a crap team and make them beat the current champion Lakers. Luck in what competition you have to face is a factor too.

[chefy]

2003 spurs was not a crap team. they had solid veteran players plus solid up and coming young players that were waiting to burst out. in 08 season before bynum got injured, before the gasol trade; the lakers were number one in the west (correct me if I'm wrong). kobe only had a young up and coming bynum that time plus fisher and odom...no all star players. how come duncan who's better than kobe and had a better supporting cast that time didn't have a better record than kobe?

[kabstah]

2003 spurs was not a crap team. they had solid veteran players plus solid up and coming young players that were waiting to burst out. in 08 season before bynum got injured, before the gasol trade; the lakers were number one in the west (correct me if I'm wrong). kobe only had a young up and coming bynum that time plus fisher and odom...no all star players. how come duncan who's better than kobe and had a better supporting cast that time didn't have a better record than kobe?

No one's really arguing Duncan was better than Kobe in 2008. If you want to compare 2003 Duncan/Spurs to 2008 Kobe/Lakers, however, the 2003 Spurs finished 60-22, which is a higher win rate than the 2008 Lakers with a healthy Bynum (24-11) and pre-Gasol (47-18). Bynum (for the short time that he played), Gasol, and Odom were better than anyone on the 2003 Spurs except Duncan. People are forgetting that TP, Manu, and Stephen Jackson were below average players in 2003. When you get benched for Speedy Claxton, you're not a solid player regardless of what you might become in the future.

[Sabzi]

Duncan all day.....

[DrDavid0425]

Some of you are dumb as ****. Duncan can win with less cast? WTF?? Duncan's game is not much better than KG and we all can see what happen to KG's Mineesota. 1st round exit or not making the playoff. Compare that with Kobe with Smush, Cook, Kwame and got 7th seat and almost upset a superior team? That to me is a better than anything Duncan can do alone.

It's obvious Kobe's career last longer. THe same reason Kobe is still an elite player and Duncan's team is not.

Really? I'd like to see Kobe lead this decade's weakest championship team to a ring? Give me one team in all of Kobe's championship teams that was as weak as 03' spurs? And what does a longer career have to do with their accomplishments? Based on their accomplishments Duncan is better but it's close. And I agree with no-kg-ai. I'd take either KG and duncan before Kobe because they both have shown they can anchor a whole teams defense in their prime.

Your argument is moot as far as defensive anchors are concerned. I would pick duncan or garnett over any small forward, shooting guard or point guard all time as 'defensive anchors', yes even over Jordan.
I think the posters always detract from the intention of the original post on the thread. That post is about 'accomplishments only' it says it in the title. As far as on documented career accomplishments are concerned I would pick Kobe. Duncan is the best Power forward all time and it is not even a contest. I would build a franchise around duncan as apposed to kobe if i were to pick them both from the same draft class as rookies. (Laker fan here)

[Donald Kaufman]

In conclusion

Duncan is not on Kobe's level, it's not just about rings, in 10 years Tim Duncan will be forgotten outside of San Antonio but Kobe will continue to be compared to the up and coming greats

Thanks for playing.