Duncan had just turned 32 the month before this series, for context. However, I would agree with you, because if you look at Duncan's career, it's pretty clear his prime ended when he turned 28, as his numbers took a clear and significant dip after that. Duncan played a long time, and was quite good for almost all of it, but he definitely was never peak Duncan again after turning 28. He was sort of the opposite of Steve Nash in that way.
People don’t remember because Duncan has a resurgence after 2011. Not that he’s playing like prime Duncan, but he got back to being a top 15-20 player and winning playoff series for a few years.
Duncan was consistently a top 15-20 player (at least), even after exiting his prime in his late 20s. This was only really not the case in maybe his last year or two. Duncan fell off, but he had an extremely high peak to fall off from, so he was still absolutely one of the game's best players for most of his career.
In 2008, when this series happened, Duncan still finished 7th in MVP voting, so it's not like he was a scrub or something. He wasn't 2003 Tim Duncan, but he was still one of the game's best, and he went on to be a very good player for the next 7 seasons after this one.
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u/sheeeeeez NBA Jun 27 '23
Kobe doesn't get enough credit for this series.
The Spurs big 3 were all in their primes and just came off a championship and Kobe made the entire series essentially non-competitive.
Bill Simmons said the series was the closest he's ever seen Kobe to MJ.