Malone is in many opinions THE best PF to ever play, played with one of the best passers ever, under a great coach, and doesn't really see all that much criticism for not getting a ring. It's tough, especially when you're playing with below average talent. And YES, those Wolves teams qualify as such. I mean, you can argue the ability of the guys around KG for the sake of this argument, but outside of it? Doubtful, dell. Just being honest.
The people who feel Malone is best PF ever do so based mostly on stats. The rest of us in fact, do penalize him for not winning anything by ranking him below Duncan. Duncan was by far the best player on 4 championship teams. Fine, you can say he played with better players than KG (I'll get back to this again in a minute) but it's not like his teams were always the most talented. He won titles when Shaq & Kobe were together and it's certainly arguable that his teams were also less talented than the ones Sacramento, Portland, Phoenix and Dallas ran out there at various times during his career.
Quit with the ASSumptions, dell.
To compare, Kobe and LeBron are 1A and 1B players in the league, both carry their teams in clutch time. Kobe has Gasol and Odom, LeBron has Varejao and JJ Hickson in similar roles. Kobe won a ring this year, he was the catalyst for that team, MVP, all time great, the whole nine. But OUTSIDE of him, does anyone think the guys in Cleveland are comparable to the guys in LA? No. Thats not to say "Oh Kobe only won because...", thats just not burying your head in the sand for argument's sake.
Again, the difference here is arguing swing players as opposed to big men. Winning titles without a dominant big man is rare. Winning titles without at least an all-star caliber big man is practically unheard of. Therefore, Kobe having Gasol is a huge advantage over every big man LeBron has ever had. I'm not denying this at all.
When comparing Duncan and Garnett, they ARE the big men. They're supposed to be the ones who lead their teams to titles because their dominance makes the game much easier for their teammates. In my opinion, Duncan has done this, KG has not.
The Spurs were a well run franchise. They were a good team prior to winning that lottery. They drafted well internationally. The Wolves were a hapless franchise, by and large, outside of drafting KG. They lost 5 first round picks while the Spurs made the most out of theirs. You have Flip Saunders who has turned into a punch line, Kevin McHale who is a joke of a GM himself (or a joke of a coach now). Then you have Popavich who is incredibly highly thought of around the league.
I don't understand why these are facts outside of this argument, but contested here for whatever reason.
Those facts aren't outside the argument but I prefer to give more credence to what a guy actually did rather than come up with reasons why he didn't.
By the logic you're using I'd have to say that Allen Iverson is historically a better player than Kobe (to drag him back in) because he really has played with an 8 man rotation of guys named Joe for most of his career and consistently led them to the playoffs (once to the finals) while Kobe has had the luxury of playing with far better players.
Crazy idea: you're a list guy. Let's say you make a list of the top 5 or 10 coaches in the NBA. Do you leave Pop off? Likely not, you're probably going to put him top 3. But in this topic, we're supposed to act like he's not?
This is true but great coaches in the NBA don't win without consistently having great players. I just don't see why that's part of the equation. Do we downgrade Bill Russell & all those Celtic greats of the 60s for having Red Auerbach? Or Jordan, Pippen, Shaq & Kobe for having Phil Jackson? Of course not, so why should we do that to Tim Duncan for having Pop?
For the record, I think Duncan is slightly better than Garnett. BUT, the argument I got into from the start of this page was the Spurs being better because of Duncan. Tony Parker isn't magically better than a busted up Sam I Am because The Big Fundamental is passing him the ball. He's just better. I don't think acknowledging as much is expecting a lot, but people seem to disagree for whatever reason.......
The thing is, I do believe he's better because Duncan is passing him the ball. It's because Duncan is passing the ball to him as a wide open shooter or only having to deal with one defender because most of the attention is on Duncan. Even on plays Duncan doesn't touch the ball he's getting guys open because he's still commanding attention. That's the aspect of his game that wins championships and it's the aspect most missing from KG's game.
Call it an ASSumption if you want, but I don't think you honestly believe that the Spurs team, as it has been comprised during Tim Duncan's career, would be anything other than mediocre without him.
