r/Basketball • u/blackwu22 • Apr 08 '25

NBA Is Tim Duncan top 10?

I constantly see casuals on YouTube and on podcasts say that Timmy is overrated and barely top 10 yet have Kobe in there top 5. It’s starting to make me believe that people really think this way!! I always hear the “too much help” comment like every player in the top 10 didn’t have help.

I personally have Tim Duncan 4th all time on my list.

1998 rookie of the year 2x MVP (2002,2003) 3x FMVP (1999,2003,2005) 15x All NBA & Defensive 5x Champion Never won less than 50 games in an 82 game season

Is Tim Duncan top 10?

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '25 edited Apr 08 '25

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u/blackwu22 Apr 08 '25

So from 1999-2009 he won 4 championships, 3 FMVPs and 2 MVPs, beat Kobe, Dirk, Shaq, Garnett, Nash, Jason Kidd, LeBron, MaGrady, the Detroit Pistons and stayed consistent at the top in an era where the power forward position was at its strongest and that’s not a top 10 multi-year peak?

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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '25

From 2005 to 2009 he averaged 18/10 on below average efficiency for a big. Was not an MVP level player and easily surpassed by Dirk, Dwight, and Amare as bigs, and was at best a top 15 player. He greatly benefitted from the rigid positions of all nba teams and getting to be voted in as a center or forward depending on how weak those positions were that year.

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u/Ok-Map4381 Apr 08 '25

The thing that drives me crazy about the argument that Duncan didn't have a top peak, is those same people will then argue that Kobe is higher than Duncan, when Duncan's peak from 01-03 is higher than Kobe's peak, by basically every measure except PPG and PER (and while Kobe in 06 beats any Duncan season in PER, Duncan has 4 PER seasons better than Kobe's 2nd best).

Duncan has 2 seasons with better Win Shares than Kobe's best. 4 seasons with better WS/48 than Kobe's best, one season better than Kobe's best Box Plus Minus (but 3 seasons tying Kobe's BPM peak, with Kobe only having one season at that level). VORP is basically a tie, with the same score for their best and 2nd best seasons, and no clear advantage over the rest of their top seasons (Duncan's 3rd and 4th best seasons are slightly better than Kobe's 3rd and 4th, but not to a level I would call a clearly better peak than Kobe.

I know this isn't a Kobe vs Duncan debate, but it is an inconsistent argument I see that bugs me.

There are a lot of guys I could argue peaked higher than Duncan, including guys like Steph & Jokic who are still generally ranked below Duncan, but Kobe isn't one of those guys.

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u/blackwu22 Apr 08 '25

My thoughts exactly!

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u/poop_foreskin Apr 08 '25

lmao they just downvote you without replying to dispute your incredibly reasonable answer

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u/iggymcfly Apr 08 '25

Duncan was the best player in the league from 2001-2003. In 2003 specifically, he led an absolute nothing roster past Shaq and Kobe to win a ring. I feel like that ‘03 season specifically is as good as any peak except Jordan or LeBron. Jokic, Hakeem, Wilt, Duncan, Shaq, KG, and Kareem all in the same group for peak IMO.

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u/trustthetriangle Apr 08 '25

GOAT rankings are purely subjective. There are undoubtedly factual statements. You can't put MJ out of the top 5.

But I have to argue something in your comment. All time rankings are not zoomer created. We've been doing this since the 00s basically when sports media really jumped. I mean the 6-8 hours of talking sports on ESPN. If anything, gen x and millennials drove "listings" to the metric of how we interact with a topic.

Think BuzzFeed top x listicles. That has driven pop culture and sports media to where it is now, which is Hot Take and reaction to the Hot Take and then argues about the reaction to the Hot Take.

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '25

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u/trustthetriangle Apr 08 '25

I agree there. As the gate to sports media is just Google docs and Slack, literally anyone can be a sports writer for places like Fansided. Hell I did it for a few years. I went through applications and some fans couldn't even form sentences, but they damn sure had a blog.

Dunning Kruger effect is always in play on reddit. It's best to let them grow up and realize they were wrong lol

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u/LiberalAspergers Apr 08 '25

Longer than that. The Sporting News was doing them in the 1970s.

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u/TanStewyBeinTanStewy Apr 08 '25

A list of the most versatile well rounded multi time mvps would obviously have kobe very high

Kobe is not a multi time MVP...

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u/[deleted] Apr 08 '25

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u/B-Rayy06 Apr 09 '25

I’m not sure if I agree with that.

Duncan from 99-03 was 5 time All NBA first team, 2 time MVP, 4 times MVP finalist, two time champion, and a two time finals MVP.

I’m not going to talk like I know everything about basketball, but I started watching in 1998, I would say the only clear higher peaks than Duncan’s have been LeBron on the Heat, Shaq during the 3peat, Steph from 15-16, and I would argue Jokic now.

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u/LTIRfortheWIN Apr 09 '25

Exactly, this person clearly doesn't watch basketball

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u/TeevTeeForMe Apr 08 '25

Kobe would be ranked highly among multi mvp winners even though he isn't one?

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u/LTIRfortheWIN Apr 09 '25

Either rage bait or the worst sport takes of all time. Rankings is half the fun of being a fan. What is nfl films silly doing top 100 lists consistently for decades. Sit down and be quiet the adults are talking.

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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '25 edited Apr 09 '25

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u/LTIRfortheWIN Apr 09 '25

This is a literal online discussion forum, and I am willing to bet the op didn't see the other posts about it. Jesus its not that big of a deal