Hoops Tonight - Top 25 Players of Last 25 Years: How Tim Duncan became the best PF of all time

for the end of the show as well. You guys know the jow before we get started. Subscribe to the volumes YouTube channels. You don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter at underscore JSNLTS. You guys don't miss anyhow announcements. And for whatever reason you miss one of these videos and you can't get back over to YouTube to finish, don't forget you can find them wherever

you get your podcasts. Under Hoops Tonight also need mail back questions for tomorrow as well as moving into the future. We're gonna continue that into next week and bear with me today. I'm still dealing with some some stuff with my voice so struggling a little bit there. All right, let's talk some basketball. Number two, Tim Duncan zaccholades, five

time NBA champion, best player on five championship teams. Now in twenty fourteen, he wasn't the same top tier superstar that he was in the earlier part of his career. But I still believe he was the best and most important player on that Spurs team. But at that point, Tony Parker was basically right underneath him and kind of

at the same level. Right, But when you think of Duncan as the defensive full crum of the team as well, especially the role he played in soling down those heat teams over those two years with his rim protection, I still think he was the best player on that team. Ten time First Team All NBA, that's second most in NBA history. Fifteen times All NBA overall. That's tied with Kobe and Kareem for second most all time. Fifteen All Defense selections most all time. We're gonna get to that

in a minute. Two regular season MVPs in two thousand and two and two thousand and three, three NBA Finals MVPs in nineteen ninety nine, two thousand and three and two thousand and five. His two thousand and seven season should have one finals MVP as well, not as egregious as the ones that we saw in twenty fourteen. In twenty fifteen, which we're going to role players, right, because Tony Parker was considered one of the folkrums of that team.

But I thought that Tony Parker kind of got the benefit of box score watching again because he put up big numbers against the Cavs. But I thought Tim Duncan was far and away the best player on the two thousand and seven Spurs and deserved Finals MVP that year as well. We've gone into that in the past, But basically, to me, finals MVP should be more representative of the best player on the team rather than who played the best in that two week period. It just doesn't make

any sense to me personally. Tim duncans claim to fame he's the greatest power forward to ever touch a basketball court. We're gonna dive into it on both ends of the four starts. On the defensive end, he was the very best rim protector in the league during his era. He averaged at least two blocks per game for ten consecutive seasons starting right when he was a rookie, so he came in the league and immediately put up a decade

straight of at least two blocks per game. He finished his career averaging two point two blocks per game, and then he averaged two blocks a game again as a thirty eight year old in twenty fifteen, which is crazy when you factor in that was in the more spread out and higher pace NBA in the time that this list covers, which again goes from nineteen ninety nine to twenty twenty three. Tim Duncan leads everyone in blocks by a mile. He has twenty eight hundred and fourteen blocks

in that span. Second place is Dwight Howard with twenty two hundred and twenty eight, so almost six hundred more blocks than anybody else during the time period of this list, and his fifteen all defense selections is the most in NBA history and it's probably an unbreakable record. KG and Kobe are in second place with twelve, but at this point it's hard to even imagine a potential player getting

that many. Maybe Victor Womenyama can come in and do it, but at fifteen all t defense elections may very well end up being a record that stands the test of time. He's one of the very best defensive players in NBA history, and him being able to anchor that spurs defense kept them consistently relevant basically from nineteen ninety nine all the way through to two thousand and sixteen. It's as impressive a or twenty fifteen, excuse me, as as impressive a

streak of consistency and longevity that you'll find in the NBA. Now. On offense, there was a very specific reason that they called Tim Duncan the Big Fundamental. There wasn't anything particularly exciting about it. Tim Duncan post up. It wasn't, you know, extravagant footwork, It wasn't extravagant shot making, but it still worked every single time. It started with his size and strength.

It was six feet eleven. He weighed over two hundred and fifteen pounds, so other post defenders had two hundred and fifty pounds excuse me. Other post defenders did not have any luck pushing him off of his spot. It was very difficult to disrupt his BA. Remember, when it comes to postplay, disrupting the base is arguably the most important thing. These big guys are working on. These shots over the top and in post offense. They're used to contests.

Contests barely bother them. But if you can push them off their base, it disrupts their lift, it disrupts their energy transfer. They don't get to their release the way they want to, and that's where you can force missus and Tim Duncan was an incredibly sturdy player at his six ' eleven two hundred and fifty pounds. His foundational skill was his right handed hook shot. He had the best hook shot in the league during the two thousands. It was jokic Esk. He made it damn near two

out of three times. Now, it's tough to find tracking data for this because Synergy didn't start tracking hook shots until two thousand and seven, which was more towards the end of Tim Duncan's prime. But even at that point he was still the best hookshooter in the league. He led the leagues in hook shots. He led the league in hook shots made in two thousand and seven and made sixty five percent of them. He led the league and hooks made again in two thousand and eight. He

was second place in two thousand and nine. So now from there there was a little bit of a decline as he entered into that second phase of his late prime right, but he was the very best player in the league at making that right handed hook shot. Now, it wasn't out of complicated footwork like Nikola Jokich is kind of more of an extravagant footwork type of player. With Tim Duncan, it was very simple. From that right block, he would dribble with his left hand, drop towards the

baseline and make that hook shot along the baseline. From the left block, he would make that drop step towards the middle of the lane and shoot that right handed hook in the lane. That was the vast majority of his hook shots. He would occasionally mix in something more complicated right like occasionally from the left block he'd come across with a sweeping right handed hook off of one foot.

Occasionally from the left block he'd do a rip through to the baseline and then spin back towards the middle and make a right handed hook, but those were somewhat rare. For the most part, it was just pretty standard drop step hook shots over his left shoulder, either towards the baseline or towards the middle, depending on which block he was on. It's kind of like I talked about Nikola Yokich all the time. There's a simplicity to that hook shot like Yokic makes it at damn near seventy percent,

and that just fundamentally causes problems for the defense. They have to either accept a points per shot around one point three, or they can send drastic measures like send multiple defenders right, which then brings the passing into the equation. And that was the thing with Duncan. It wasn't anything exceptional looking, but in terms of effectiveness, it could be downright damaging to a defense. Can you believe we've had

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Bonus bets expire seven days after issuance. Eligibility and deposit restrictions apply. Now one of the most Now he had a couple of other little counters. He had a really nice face up bank shot, particularly from the left block. When he would get pushed further away from the basket, he would turn in face and he had a little bank shot there. Also, his counter to his right handed hook shot was a right handed fade away over his right shoulder. When he was further away from the basket,

it looked more like a jump shot. When he was closer to the basket, it looked more like that shaquill O'Neal like kind of one handed push shot, turnaround jump shot thing. But that was kind of his counter. But again, he liked to try to get to his hook shot if he could. Now, one of the most important parts of the Spurs offense was cutting off of the post. You may have heard this referred to as a Spurs cut by you know, one of your coaches growing up,

or something along those lines. But basically, Duncan would catch the ball. Let's just envision Duncan catching the ball about ten feet away from the basket, or anywhere from ten feet away from the basket to the high post, because would play from the high post sum as well and catching and just holding with his back to the basket. Now, the person who makes the post entry from the right wing, let's call it Tony Parker. He makes the post entry

from the right wing. Duncan catches from there. The Spurs were really good about cutting off of the post, so Tony would basically fake a cut towards the middle and then cut off of Tim Duncan on the baseline side off of his left hand. Now just imagine Tony Parker's defender, here's Duncan, Here's Tony Parker. Tony Parker's defenders right in the middle, and so as he cuts off, Tim Duncan

has an opportunity to set a screen there. One of the things he would do is he would establish his left foot as a pivot foot, and then as Tony Parker's cutting, he would pivot back this way with his right foot, effectively shutting the door on that defender, and then Tony would find an opening on the backside. And Tim Duncan was really good at after he kind of pivoted, just throwing that over the top pass to a mana Ginobili or to a Tony Parker as he's cutting off

of the post. One of the reasons why it's so important to cut off the post is it makes it harder to double team. So if you make a pass from the right wing into the post on the right block and Timmy's there and you just stand there. Then we have that same dynamic right Timmy Tony defender in

the middle. That defender is in a really easy position to be able to dig down and cause problems for Tim Duncan and still be in a position to close out to Tony Parker once you cut through, and the defense and your offensive the other three offensive players kind

of rotate around when that happens. It makes it harder to double team because the defender that's supposed to double is coming from another spot on the floor and is more interested in chasing his shooter to where he's going before he can get into a double right that was you know, moving and cutting off of the post is

vital for post up spacing. You've seen a kind of an inverted version of this with the Warriors in recent years of split cuts right, and it's less about actually trying to score out of the post than it is taking advantage of that spacing dynam that defender in between the guy in the post and the guard. It makes it really hard to see the ball behind you while

tracking the shooter in front of you. And then the Warriors just add screening actions off of the post, so like instead of using the post up player as the screener, they'll bring a second player over and they'll screen across and try to find a shot or vice versa, and then the guy who sets the screen will slip to the basket. That's how the Warriors do it. But there it's really hard to guard screening actions out of the post, and the Spurs did it more using the post up

as the threat. The Warriors do it more using the shooters as the threat. But the fundamental concept of having to identify man and ball and when they're on opposite sides of you, which makes it hard to see, is what makes it so hard to guard. But to make a long story short, that combination of the Spurs movement and cutting, Tim Duncan's passing and his unstoppable post moves made him an incredible anchor for the Spurs on the

offensive end. We already talked about how he was an incredible anchor on the defensive end, and that's how the Spurs won. To make it simple, they were consistently great on both ends of the floor year in and year out from nineteen ninety nine to twenty fifteen. So as a result, were they as dominant as some of the other teams, or they as dominant as the Lakers. No, were they as dominant as the Lakers again in the late twenty ten tens. No, were they as dominant as

the Minumi Heat. No, they never won two championships in a row. But they were always there and that's the key. When things broke up, broke right, excuse me, they would end up on top. And that's the value of longevity and consistency. It's like, there's odds at play, right, Like winning money on the slot machine is not easy, but if I give you a million chances at it and it doesn't cost you anything, you're gonna eventually win. And

that's kind of the thing. Like the Spurs were just always there and so when things broke right, they would win. That's why they never won two in a row, but that is why they won five. The last thing I wanted to hit here was Tim Duncan's leadership compaired him

a lot on this show to Steph Curry. Obviously they're very different players, but in terms of consistency within the organization, a complete lack of ego, only caring about winning and keeping an even keel emotionally, not getting down when things are bad, not getting too high when things are good. Steph Curry's the best player in the NBA at that

right now. That was Tim Duncan, though in his era he was as stoic as it got, as unexpressive as it got, but he was dependable and consistent, and as a result, he was able to maintain organizational consistency over a decade and a half, which directly led to their success. His crowning achievement. It's tough to pick just one for Tim Duncan, but I'm gonna go with the two thousand and three season, he averaged twenty three points, thirteen rebounds,

and four assists with three blocks per game. He made First Team All NBA, made First Team All Defense, won regular season MVP, then went up to twenty five fifteen to five with three point three blocks per game. In the playoffs, he dropped thirty seven and sixteen on the Lakers in the Western Conference SEMIS to knock out Kobe

and Shack. This was back in the Twin Towers era and they were using Shack to guard David Robinson, and so Tim Duncan just absolutely abused Robert Orri in that series and put up thirty seven and sixteen to win that series. In advance, they end up winning over the New Jersey Nets in the NBA Finals. Tim ties it off with his second Finals MVP. Hard to put together a more dominant season from start to finish than that.

The biggest what if of Tim Duncan's career. I'm gonna go with the Ray Allen shot in the corner of Game six of the twenty thirteen NBA Finals. Now, I'm just kind of set the stage here. One of the best indicators, in my opinion, of an NBA player's greatness is how well he performs against his peers. It's really hard to gauge across position. I mean, we've run into this problem with Lebron and Steph. It's like it's hard to argue their basketball skill sets because they're so different.

Like obviously, Steph's perimeter gravity in his three point shooting and his shot value is so much higher than what

Lebron does from the perimeter. But Lebron's downhill dominance and his incessant rim pressure and his passing ability, what he can do defensively and as a rebounder is something that Steph can't touch, right, and so like you're arguing apples and oranges, and it really is just about personal preference, right, But when you start to look positioned to position like you can you can look directly at the way Steph Curry has performed compared to Russell Westbrook, or compared to

Chris Paul, or compared to Damian Lillard, some of his peers in the league. They play the same position, they do a lot of the same things, and Steph's just better at all those things. Right, So that's that's kind of position to position in the way that those comparisons can actually help us see the greatness of a player. Well, let's look at the twenty thirteen twenty fourteen NBA finals. Like Chris Bosh was one of the best power forwards

in the league at the time. Not only that he was in the heart of his prime, he was twenty eight years old at the most athletic version of himself who had the experience to understand he had already won a championship and had two deep playoff runs at that point in his career. Tim Duncan was thirty six and had a bad knee and whooped his ass like absolutely cooked Chris Bosh on both ends of the floor in those two NBA Finals series, just threw him around like

a rag doll. But as we look at a particular game, it's game six of the twenty thirteen NBA Finals. The Spurs are up three games to two on the road in Miami. Right, Miami's feeling a good amount of pressure, but they're obviously gonna come out desperate. They've lost a game six at home to lose an NBA Final series before in twenty eleven, Right, so it's a tough game

to win. Tim Duncan goes throwback. Timmy drops thirty and seventeen in Game six, has them in position to win, but a miss Kawhi Leonard free throw, a Mismaan wher Genobli free throw, and a maid Lebron James three and a made Ray Allen three send it to ot where they end up winning. Then he almost does it again in game seven. He had twenty four and twelve. In Game seven, he had an easy hook shot in the middle of the floor at the end that could have

tied it that he smoked. That's the one where Tim Duncan got super mad at himself and slapped the floor if you guys remember, Obviously, I'm sure it felt great for him to come back and win the title the following season, But man, he everged eighteen and ten in that playoff run, which is pretty standard. Tim Duncan dominant numbers thirty and seventeen and what would have been a closeout game to win the trophy, that would have been a hell of a feather for him to add to

his cap. It's kind of tied it all together. Look, Tim Duncan wasn't the most exciting player in NBA history. It's hard for me even to sit down and break down his skill set because I was more of a perimeter player, right and so like as a kid, I wasn't watching Duncan trying to learn how to play right. Like. I appreciated how good he was, but he wasn't one of the players that you love to talk about or

love to watch right. But make no mistake, he was one of the most dominant players at his position in NBA history. In his consistent greatness in leadership led to his franchise consistently being relevant for far fifteen years, which led to them having the opportunity to win five NBA championships. It is hard to ignore those results. So I have Tim Duncan as the second best player of the last twenty five years. All right, two mailback questions before we

get out of here. This is from Freeman. What is your honest analysis on Victor Webbin Yama and what would your prediction be for his performances this season? For example? Do you agree with Draymond and others who said he will struggle with strength, etc. So Draymond's right, and a lot of people are right. He's going to struggle with strength stuff. I think he also is going to get exposed a little bit in that first season, is needing to go up a level as a jump shooter. He's

not a perfect basketball player. He's one of the most interesting prospects in NBA history, but obviously it has more to do with what he's capable of than what he is right now. I'm not expecting him to come in and be an All Star. I'm not expecting him to come in and lead the San Antonio Spurs to the playoffs. But he has elite skills right off the bat. He's

already more skilled than most bigs in the NBA. That's a great foundation right, He's already going to be one of the five best rim protectors in the NBA, right so, right off the bat. That makes him a very good role player, and especially at that specific position, which is important, excuse me, which is important for his ability to anchor a defense in the NBA. Having a defensive anchor is one of the most important elements to constructing an NBA team.

I expect him to immediately make the Spurs better. I'd expect him to average somewhere around seventeen points and ten rebounds a game. I expect him to average two to two and a half blocks per game, potentially even more. Wouldn't be surprised if he led the league's in league in blocks right away. He's going to be at least in the conversation to make an all defense team, that'll one hundred percent come down to the statistical performance, because I think if he puts up, you know, three blocks

per game, I think it could happen. Here's the reality. Regardless of how good or polished he is, he is a freak in terms of his length and mobility In the NBA. That's just a fact, and so NBA players will struggle to adjust to what it's like to play against Victor webbin Yama, and they're not gonna see him every single night. They're gonna see him on a random Tuesday in the regular season, and so they won't have time to get used to it, right like they're over

a playoff series. You might be able to figure out some of his quirks defensively, but in the regular season, I expect him to be pretty damn impactful. All Right, One last mail back question. How much emphasis do you put on repeats? You spoke about journeys and sacrifices. How much credit do you think you should give to those

who repeat or threepeat? So here's the deal. I don't necessarily think it should earn bonus points in these discussions, because, in my opinion, a championship is a championship is a championship. Like if you win four of them in an eight year span by going win loss, win loss, win loss win loss, versus going loss loss, win, win, win, win lost loss like, that doesn't matter to me at all. It's four championships as four championships. But there is an

interesting element to winning an NBA championship. After winning an NBA championship one, it's there's a luck element. Like it's really hard. You know, a lot of things have to go right for you to win a championship. I talked

about this in the stapt video. But like every championship team catches a break, right, Like even as you look at this year's Nuggets team, like they didn't have to face Milwaukee or Boston, the two best teams out East, because of a ankle injury to Jason Tatum and some overall dysfunction with the Celtics, and with the Bucks, you had the Yannis injury, right, and so you get to

face a lesser Miami Heat team. You also caught the Lakers and the Suns in kind of transition seasons, right, Like, the Lakers and Suns both got significantly deeper on the margins.

This summer might be a little bit harder next year, right, those that's the break that the Nuggets cost you go into last season, and the break that the Warriors caught by once again getting to face the Dallas Mavericks and their limited roster in the Western Conference Finals versus a more talented Phoenix Suns team because they all caught COVID and they all crumbled under Luca's personality, right, like these are just examples, or the Warriors caught Denver Nuggets team

in the first round that didn't have two of their

top four players. You go back to twenty twenty one, and he gets to Giannis gets to face Paul George in the conference finals as the best player on his team in the lone star and gets to face or excuse me, I'm sorry, I butchered that he gets to face the Atlanta Hawks and Trey Young in the conference finals on one end, and then in the on the other end of the bracket, you have a team where the best player on the team on the team is Devin Booker, who's not a top ten player in the league.

So in your conference finals and NBA Finals, you didn't have to play a single top ten player. That's a pretty big break, right. Going to twenty twenty, you got a older, aging superstar who got to take a few months off before the playoffs. He got to play a playoff run that did not include Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, the other two best players in the league at the time, because they were both on their couches for various reasons. Right, KD was hurt Steph Curry was hurt, right, So that's

a break, right, that doesn't take away the championship. Lebron still had to go through a lot of really good teams. So did Giannis, so did Steph, so did Nikole Jokic. I'm not undercutting them, but the point is is you catch breaks when you win an NBA Championship. The twenty nineteen Raptors got to play their NBA Finals series against a Warriors team that lost Kevin Durant. The ty eighteen Warriors got pushed up against the wall by the Rockets

and then Chris Paul gets hurt. Right, twenty seventeen Warriors, obviously they would have won no matter what, but they were down, down big in Game one against San Antonio before before Kawhi Leonard Sprains's ankle. Twenty sixteen you have the Draymond Green suspension in Game five of the NBA Finals. You know, twenty fifteen you have Kyrie Irving and Kevin

Love getting hurt. Like I could go on and on and on and on, but the reality is is you have to catch breaks to win an NBA championship, and so catching breaks two years in a row hard to do, and That's why I don't necessarily attribute you repeats or three peats as extra credit. They are impressive because it's a motivational thing. All of the other twenty nine teams are more motivated than you because you're currently sitting on the mountain top. It's a fatigue thing. You played a

really long playoff run the previous year. There are definitely things you have to overcome. But generally speaking, as we go back through NBA history, the teams that repeat were freakishly talented. The last team that repeated was the most talented roster in NBA history, the Golden State Warriors. The team before that was by far the most talented team in that era, the Miami Heat with Dwayne Way, Chris

Bosh and Lebron James. The team before that was a Los Angeles Lakers with Pau Gasol, Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum. Right like, that was a really talented basketball team. Before that, we have the Kobe Shack Lakers. Before that, we have the MJ. Pippin' Bulls. Before that, we have Hakim Olajuan right who was the best player in the league at the time not named Michael Jordan, who was retired before that,

Michael Jordan. Again, you guys get at the point, you know, so like you're gonna have to be a pretty damn talented team to repeat, especially in the modern era with how much talent there is in the league. So it's an impressive accomplishment, but impressive in a different way. And generally speaking, I'm not going to factor that in as any sort of, you know, differentiator between players, because in my opinion, a championship is a championship is a championship,

regardless of when or how you won it. All right, guys, that is all I have for today is always I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting the show. One last guy tomorrow, mister Lebron James, my favorite player in NBA history. I'm very very excited to put that video together for you guys. And then next week we're gonna get started with our season previews for the top twenty teams in the NBA. How so, you guys Tomorrow the volume