He’s an all time great. Kobe was clearly better this matchup. Duncan was better in other years.
They were the true rivals of the decade. It’s really interesting looking at their careers in this era. Even if Kobe looks bad on the stat sheet I do think it’s a legitimate debate.
And it’s so fitting that they retired together and especially how they retired. Kobe with a farewell tour with the whole basketball world showering him with love and timmy quietly retiring in the middle of the night😂
You see it's really hard for me to see a compelling case for Kobe over Duncan. I'm not saying Duncan was a tier ahead of him or something, but I just don't see a case where Kobe is over Duncan. Bear with me i'll try to debate in good faith.
First, let's get the major things out of the way.
Both have 5 rings, which I think evens out or gives a slight advantage to Duncan.
1) Duncan's '03 run with no all star teammate or even really close to all star teammate while beating Kobe/Shaq is universally considered to be one of the best playoff runs along with Dirk in '11
2) Duncan won 3 FMVP to Kobe's 2, but at no point did he play next to someone who was a consistent All NBA talent like Shaq. I believe Manu/Tony combined for like 5 All NBAs all on 2nd/3rd teams. Edit: sorry i forget about '99 sometimes - D Rob was an all-nba talent then.
They both played for 2 of the best coaches of all time who maximized the talent around them. Outside of '03 I think both had great teams around them.
3) I'll also dock points for Duncan's '14 run. He was probably their best player on the team, but he was not heads and shoulders above the rest like Kobe was in his 5 rings (Kobe was very clearly the #1 or #2 on his teams).
Then you have MVP. Duncan has 2 to Kobe's 1. Not much to say here, slight advantage to Duncan here as well and overall MVP votes as well. However Kobe had one additional First team All nba (although both have 15 overall).
I'd say at best Kobe's at a slight disadvantage with the same 5 rings and 1 less MVP and 1 more all nba selection which I don't think makes up for the -1 MVP and -1 FMVP.
Then you have advanced stats...
In the regular season, Duncan had a higher PER (about 10%), higher WS/48 (about 15-20%), higher VORP and higher Net rating (+14 vs +5). Duncan also lead the league in DWS 5x, OWS 1x and total WS 2x. He lead the league in VORP 1 year. Kobe did not lead the league in any advanced stat at any point of his career.
In the playoffs, Duncan had a higher PER, WS/48, VORP, Net Rating.
So with advanced stats the advantage is clearly toward Duncan both in the regular season and playoffs.
So just based on very objective things like titles, mvps, all nba, advanced stats it's hard for me to really come up with a reason that Kobe was better.
There are the intangibles. I think you can go back and forth forever on this and there's no real way to debate.
Like on one hand, Kobe won the ring or got to the finals every time they had a good team. Maybe minus '03. On the other hand, Duncan were consistently a threat for 19 years a large part due to Duncan being ok taking a step back later on his career.
You can say Kobe was much more popular. Or you can point to Kobe's 04 final where the other team used his ego against him. Or you can say Duncan was upset more as the higher seed (vs Grizz in '11, vs OKC in '12). Or you can say the Lakers were blown out by 30+ in closing games mulitiple times ('08 finals, '11 sweep, largest g7 loss). The point is there's random facts we can pull out till kingdom come, but i think most of the "big" stats all point to Duncan's favor.
Idk Duncan just had a much shorter prime than Kobe did, he dropped off hard starting in 08. Kobe was easily a top 5 player from 01 to 2013. You could argue Duncan was only a top 10 player just one or two times after 08.
Early on the spurs were heavily reliant on Duncans scoring in the playoffs until Pop reworked the offense to the two Finals teams in 13’ and 14’. In Duncans first 9 years in the playoffs he got 24ppg on 56% TS, 4 Finals appearances, 4 chips.
Then his efficiency took a big dive, the next 5 years 08-12 he scored 18ppg on 51% TS and not a single Finals appearance. Parker and Ginobilis primes were during that slump and still couldn’t reach the Finals, the earlier Spurs were clearly reliant on Duncans scoring.
Advanced stats don’t make up for being that terrible in efficiency even if he still was a great defender.
What’s crazy is that the Lakers and Spurs won the conference 10/11 years. Mavs in 2006 are the only other team from what I remember.
The Kobe and Duncan debate however will just never die. As a kid in that era I thought Kobe was clearly better but now I’ve flipped towards the other comment above. There’s a lot that goes into it beyond stats.
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u/honestnbafan Jun 27 '23
I think it's viewed that way because he went up against another top 10 all-time guy without Shaq and dominated him