Tim Duncan Took a Paycut to Lower the San Antonio Spurs’ Tax Bill

John Amaechi
he s gotta be one of the all time greats.after playing 28games with the cavs he opted for less money so he could play for a winning team (panathinaikos athens) and give them the financial flexibility to sign other high profile fas (cant remember their names)…and athens kicked out dominique wilkins so they could sign john.
hmmm…okay…cant think of more bs to write, but cant be worse than the pposse-stuff

it doesnt make any sense to compare a power forward with a shooting guard. the positions require different skill sets and tasks on the court so where is the point? both players made the most of what their talent and bodies allowed them to do. both did that extremely successful and both of them used to be (duncan) or are (kobe) the best players on their respective position throughout most of their carreers. so you cant say that kb or td is better or worse, it could just be argued which position is more important in basketball. but this also wouldnt make any sense

Sure “nobody talked about Duncan’s defense” in the Finals after he avg. 5.3 blocks a game (most since the merger) during the 03 Finals and fell 2 blocks shy of a quadruple-double in the clinching Game 6.
Howard sends two shots to the stands and everyone loses their collective minds but TD blocks 5+ during a Final series and he’s considered overrated?
Lord help us all.

^^Sam Perkins is the first and only player to wear a dew-rag during a game….

TD and KG doing “team first” for over a decade in their own ways…

i wont touch perkins here, tht guy is holy.

sure, the center position is also a very exciting position and was my only joy for most of the 90s coz im a knicks fan. but to me that pf position is at leats more interesting because of the different player types. tweeners like johnson, (mason), barkley or unseld were able to dominate players much taller than them down low where normally height is considered the most valuable good of a player. the combo skill sets of power, passing, slashing, outside shooting like nowitzki, garnett, coleman or webber let the position look extremely versatile and unique to me. the center position maybe represents more greats of the game but doesnt contain that diversity in my opinion.

Jordan, duncan, olajuwon, the tree best prayers of arr time.

@dan I can respect that, but let me counterpoint. Ewing great defensive player in college evolved into one of the best jumpshooting centers of all time. Olajuwan’s footwork was off the charts. Dwights athleticism is amazing. Shaq’s raw power, Wilts unparalleled scoring ability. KAJ sky-hook, Dikembe and Mournings defensive abilities. Dudes at 7’6″ with better jumpshots than the avg NBA player- Smits and Yao. Undersized centers making a name for themselves, Ben Wallace, Okafur and Horford. Look at Rasheed Wallace for versatility at the center position. Noah’s hustle, Zach Randolphs left hand.all very different aspects of the game. all of them brought something different to the party.

@shutup: also a good point. but randolph, r. wallace and horford are naturally power forwards while randolph and r. wallace play / played pf for most of the time. sure there are many different styles of play, its just a position where youre undersized at 6’9” while guys like barkley or johnson also went against 7 footers at times below a height of 6’7” and kicked a**s thats whats so fascinating to me. but i think its just a matter of taste what fascinates you more

AS for undersized pf’s Adrian Dantley and Bernard King are my faves, besides Barkley. Never said I didn’t like Webber, I hold him in high regards, just his lack of overall success (not all his fault) holds him back in my eyes.

ahwwww yes @shutup. i dont know much about dantley but how could i forgot about king? shame on me! and yes, its rlly tragic that webber had to deal with all this injuries, same with lj.

even with injuries LJ was one of my favorite players. unfortunately I was a knick fan growing up. The way he adapted his game was remarkable, his post game was solid, he laid the blueprint for what Blake or Howard should do if they end up losing that athletic edge.

The only man to I ever saw do a credible job guarding prime Shaq was Tim Duncan. Only man. Overrated. Good Lord. Dude was a shotblocker great individual pos defender and anchored the team defense. This is sad.

I’ll say this: Shaq is vastly more overrated than Tim Duncan. And I would much rather build a team around Duncan than Shaq. I also have Duncan ahead of Shaq on the All-Time list. IMO Hakeem > Shaq as well.
Also, Pposse is wrong about Timmy but he’s a good sport–no need for the insults.

as a knick fan ive never been a big fan of the diesel and i really hated him back then. but you got to admit that he was unstoppable in his prime. that guy was a force of nature in a class of his own. he would even bully dwight howard or blake griffin in the paint as if they were children in todays nba. olajuwon was even or maybe a little bit better than prime shaq in his two championship seasons but shaqs reign / dominance lasted longer than olajuwons. if olajuwon was that dominant, he wouldve had reached the finals a bit more often. shaq had 5 appearences (1xorl and 4xlak) as the first offensive option of his team and one as the second best player (1xmia) to win it all 4 times while olajuwon reched the finals 3 times to win it all 2 times. so how can you say a guy with 4 rings and 3 finals mvps could be overrated while some of the greatest players to ever play the game had to end their careers ringless?

@z: nobody would doubt god. but kobe and the dream over larry bird, kareem abdul jabbar, shaq, bill russell, jerry west, chamberlain and magic? why that? at least tell us why you got em over bird and magic.

MJ Shaq lebron = top 3 ever

As good as Hakeem was and believe me he is high on my list of favorites, its hard to put him in the convo for top 3 centers of all time let alone top three players. Wilt, Kareem and Russell, ahead of him and Shaq, Hakeem and Moses Malone round out top 6.

@ dan: I would say overrated in comparison to Hakeem or Duncan, who actually aren’t overrated at all. For the reasons listed above. Also Shaq did have weaknesses in his game. Glaring ones. He was just so damn good at what he did that his dominance overshadowed everything else.

I think Dirk Nowitzki is the most overrated PF in the game. He has one move, his fadeaway. That’s it. And if he proved his greatness in the finals last year, then why didn’t he come back hungry for more. True legends taste that championship glory and they want more (Kobe, Jordan, Magic, Bird, to give some examples). But this guy finally gets one and is just happy with it. That’s not what a true champion does. True champions have the hunger for greatness. Lets not forget his choke job in 2006. And that in 2011 he was guarding Chris Bosh, Udonis Haslem, and Juwan freaking Howard. All of which he had a significant height advantage over.

@teddy-the-bear: sure, shaq had more flaws in his game than most other greats of the nba. but what was so special about him, he was still unstoppable and so strong, that no team or player was able to stop him when he was at his best. it wasnt even close. he bullied people like nobody b4 and nobody after him. i wonder if there will ever be a big with this mobility, power, quickness, ballhandling and finishing skills. we rather see another olajuwon or duncan bevor we see another shaq. i allways felt like “this isnt fair that guy is just too much physically” and i wanted to see shaq fail. i think many of us, even writers / journalists feel like this and were, to put it in stupid kids words “hating” on him back them because he bullied all our teams. now most of us write and talk him worse than he actually was also because we remember his regression like his post championship yr in miami, his big mouth small game time in phoenix and his time with boston when he played the teams clown instead of the teams pivot. that cant erase that he was the most dominant guy of all time in his laker days. now you say wilt was dominant too, but wilt was the only one of his kind. put wilt into the 90s and he will be even with guys like ewing, robinson, olajuwon, mourning, etc but he wouldnt put up his inflatious numbers. the number of his rings also says alot about his kind of dominance.

@black mamba: nowitzki got just one move? the mavs didnt repeat because they didnt really want it? lol

the teams devensive anchor left, key bench guys left, everybody got another yr older – how was a batteled nowitzki able to carry that team to the finals again? that chip was his very last chance to win it all imo and he delivered. i am not a big nowitzki fan even tho i am german but everybody saw that the mavs got robbed in the 2006 finals. lets give him 1 1/2 rings but if you think that nowitzki only got one lethal move, please read an nba scouting report about him or just watch him play for one single game.

well, if somebody accidently stood too close to wade he got a foul call. if thats not unfair, what is? basketball is a team sport, no star, not even jordan wouldve won a title without a supporting cast. if dirk doesnt have the mindset of a champion, where did he get his ring and finals mvp trophy from?

loyola wtf are you talking about?

Dan Powers
You need to go back and look at Shaq’s numbers against Ben Wallace in that Finals. he had one bad game because of foul trouble. Other than that, the only person who stopped Shaq in that Finals was Kobe Bryant.
Check the tape homie.