Kobe Bryant vs. Tim Duncan: Which Hall of Famer had the better career? | First Take

Who had the better career?

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murksiderock

murksiderock

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sosa chamberlain said:
This has more to do with marketing and personality, Tim Duncan just was never that cool guy to be people’s Personal GOAT; not really saying much about him as a player

with all due respect Kobe being a top 3 player in NBA history really isn’t a unanimous thing, you’ll get all types of answers from different eras of basketball fans
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Rely even for those of us who grew up under Kobe there's wide variance on where we place him. I think about the only thing that's close to unanimous is we agree he's Top 10. Other than that, when it comes down to debating how high in that Top 10 Kobe is, there's broad disagreement...

No one outside of a relatively small percentage of heads were calling Kobe the best ever or Top 5...

For Duncan, there's always been this weird "is he a power forward, is he a center" thing going on. I didn't much pay attention to exactly what he was playing on the floor, so I assumed he was a PF but in retrospect you can question that as well as question if there was an agenda to label him a 4 so he wouldn't look poorly compared to legendary 5's...easier to say you're the greatest PF than the greatest C...

Few questions:

1)how heavily do we weigh the fact that Duncan has a losing playoff record vs Kobe (2-4)?

2)do you place any significance on the fact that Kobe was greater for longer, Duncan broke down sooner?

3)how much significance do you place on Duncan being a top 3 seed and being upset 4 times by a seed at least two positions lower?

4)even though Parker was the best player on those late Spurs teams, if SA won in '13 do you think there would be a push to call Duncan the #1 GOAT if he was 6-0?
 
Dwight Howard

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<<TheStandard>> said:
Kobe's my favorite player in any sport but honestly Tim Duncan is the better player and just has a bigger impact.

For all of Kobe's scoring prowess and ability, he's never been able to win without an elite Big. Whether that be Shaq or Pau/Bynum. Lakers had the best frontline in the league for all of the Lakers championships.

In general, you need an elite big to win in the NBA. If one were to look at 95% of NBA champions, the common theme you’ll find is that they had an all star caliber/dominant big man.

Of course the few exceptions were MJ's bulls, Lebron, and Curry's warriors teams who happen to have the greatest combination of shooting between him, Klay and Durant this league has ever seen.
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Kobe cant be your favorite player with this take. You can argue tim may have had a better career but Kobe's peak as a player is absolutely higher. And he held that peak much longer than timmy. And the part about him not being able to win without an elite bug man isnt neccesarily true. He's never played with all-star caliber players on the perimeter. The best PG and SF he played with were probably Derek fisher and ariza/artest. Kobe was dragging bums in west before pau even came into the picture.
 
Remote

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Sccit said:
OF COURSE HE WAS JEALOUS

CUZ HE KNOWS IF HE PLAYED ON THE SPURS HE’D HAVE WON 8-9 RINGS WITOUT NEEDING TO STRAIN HIMSELF.

THATS A DISS TO DUNCAN FOR HOW EASY HE HAD IT DUMMY.
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Is this the new narrative?
Poor Kobe. He only had Shaq and Phil for 3 of his titles.

If only he had Bowen and Parker and Manu. :mjcry:

Lol, you guys....:skip:
 
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Remote said:
Is this the new narrative?
Poor Kobe. He only had Shaq and Phil for 3 of his titles.

If only he had Bowen and Parker and Manu. :mjcry:

Lol, you guys....:skip:
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WHAT THE FUCC DID U THINK HE MEANT? U SLOW??

DUNCAN DIDNT SPEND HALF HIS PRIME PLAYIN ON REBUILDING D-LEAGUE SQUADS.........
 
Remote

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Sccit said:
WHAT THE FUCC DID U THINK HE MEANT? U SLOW??

DUNCAN DIDNT SPEND HALF HIS PRIME PLAYIN ON REBUILDING D-LEAGUE SQUADS.........
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Maybe because his unselfish play and leadership allowed his teammates to flourish.

:coffee:
 
<<TheStandard>>

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Dwight Howard said:
Kobe cant be your favorite player with this take. You can argue tim may have had a better career but Kobe's peak as a player is absolutely higher. And he held that peak much longer than timmy. And the part about him not being able to win without an elite bug man isnt neccesarily true. He's never played with all-star caliber players on the perimeter. The best PG and SF he played with were probably Derek fisher and ariza/artest. Kobe was dragging bums in west before pau even came into the picture.
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yeah I can't cap, the Lakers certainly wasted Kobe's peak years......

I still don't think his teams have a high floor like Lebron led teams have and given that, I'm going to take the Big over the perimeter player.
 
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Remote said:
Is this the new narrative?
Poor Kobe. He only had Shaq and Phil for 3 of his titles.

If only he had Bowen and Parker and Manu. :mjcry:

Lol, you guys....:skip:
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Yeah these dudes crazy.

Give duncan shaq starting in 1997 and when Michael retires in 99 the lakers easily win the next 7 ships assuming phil coaches or hell me and you can coach them to rings
 
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