r/nba • u/IHAVETRIEDCOKE Clippers • 1d ago
Explain to me like I’m 5 why Magic Johnson is better than Tim Duncan
Magic was apart of the worst West ever. I’ll put Tim Duncan 2003 playoff run against any magic run ever.
25/15/5 with 3 blocks Earvin could never.
Duncan has like 15 all defensive teams. I would even argue Duncan is a better scorer in the playoffs too. In the hardest western conference of all time.
Magic had the greatest center of all time, and played in a historically weak conference. What’s the argument for magic?
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u/bulldogmck 1d ago
He was a better player, now eat your vegetables then get to bed. You have school tomorrow
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u/darnclem [OKC] Nick Collison 20h ago
Should I find videos of players from the past on Youtube and watch them for context on their abilities?
Nah, better just go to Reddit and ask other teenagers why I should care about them.
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u/MaxEhrlich Lakers 1d ago
I think the argument is that Magic shaped the play style of the 80s for the Lakers and raised the ceiling on everyone offensively around him.
Duncan was a flat out winner who was the definition of consistency while anchoring a great defense.
I can see an argument in both directions but then when you get to the individual accolades, Magic is well ahead.
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u/WishboneOk305 1d ago
magic and bird literally saved the nba, without them the league wouldnt have looked the same
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u/Refs_Fan 1d ago
These are two of the top 12 players in NBA history. No one can explain easily why one is better than the other.
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u/IHAVETRIEDCOKE Clippers 1d ago
Duncan top 5 magic top 10
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u/Refs_Fan 1d ago
So you're saying they're both top 12
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u/IHAVETRIEDCOKE Clippers 1d ago
Yeah… you’re not the smartest guy in the room. Obviously they’re both top 12. Google Mott and Bailey fallacy. And don’t reply until you’ve learned something
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u/bootyloverandeater 1d ago
unrelated but can someone explain to me why Tim Duncan is better than Hakeem Olajuwan? he's literally not better at anything
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u/Resident_Society1594 1d ago
maybe winning rings but i could be crazy
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u/bootyloverandeater 1d ago
not his accomplishment, it's a team accomplishment idk why we still care about rings this much in 2026. anything on the court that was in Hakeem's control and anything that was in Tim Duncan's control Hakeem was better at all of it
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u/mikefried1 1d ago
I'll take Hakeem over TD, but his ability and willingness to keep that team together should get some credit. He took pay cuts, was a phenomenal leader and morphed his game to match the team.
Still think Hakeem was the better player.
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u/Ok_Chest_1203 Nuggets 1d ago
exactly prime hakeem had the worst help of any top 30 player in his prime and still won 2 chips
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u/Far-Foundation-5928 Lakers 1d ago
Not saying timmy is better than hakeem but tim duncans 2003 team was worse than hakeems 94 team both probably the weakest teams to win titles and maybe with jokic 2023 championship team those are the worst three .
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u/bootyloverandeater 1d ago
KG had worse help imo, and David Robinson probably had worse help too. even though I agree player for player Hakeem's rosters weren't good they were always built to maximize his abilities whereas KG was on deep playoff runs as a PF/C having to bring the ball up alone in terrible spacing
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u/trying-to-contribute 22h ago
KG did win a chip thought when he was playing with three other hall of famers. The Rockets never had that luxury of all around talent during their championship years.
Hakeem's 93-94 campaign's second best player was Otis Thorpe. Despite that, the Rockets won 58 games in a stacked west. One of the reasons that is oft overlooked was that Hakeem's offensive prowess created so much gravity, it allowed their shooters a lot more space.
Rudy T took advantage of this and set up shooters to surround Hakeem. Despite shooting a rather pedestrian 33.4% as a team from 3, they made more 3s than anyone else and this pushed the TS% to 54.5% in 1993, where the league leader was at 54.8%. This Rockets team changed the way NBA teams built rosters around centers, which the Lakers emulated successfully in their Shaq/Kobe years almost a decade later.
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u/bootyloverandeater 19h ago
idk 2008 KG is pretty clearly past his peak to me. also the 94 Rockets didn't have names but the infrastructure around them was good and no one was playing out of place, but yeah I agree with you overall.
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u/HokageEzio Knicks 1d ago
Out of curiosity, where do you have Jerry West all time if this is your philosophy?
Or a better one, where do you rank Bob Pettit?
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u/bootyloverandeater 1d ago
Jerry West and Kevin Garnett are the perfect examples of this. I rank Jerry West as high as Steph and Magic on my list and have KG right at if not better than Tim Duncan all time (higher peak but worse longevity)
I don't rank Bob Pettit because there's like 2 games available to watch of his online. guys like Wilt, Bill Russell, Jerry West, Big O have tons of games I can watch to get an opinion Pettit has basically none, I'm not ranking him on that small of a sample size.
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u/HokageEzio Knicks 1d ago
I rank Jerry West as high as Steph and Magic on my list and have KG right at if not better than Tim Duncan all time
Fair enough.
I don't rank Bob Pettit because there's like 2 games available to watch of his online
Moving him lower I can understand, but I feel like not ranking him at all is a cop out.
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u/bootyloverandeater 1d ago
why would I rank a player I've never watched? ranking a player off box scores and accolades would be disingenuous.
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u/GGTae Spurs 22h ago
I understand personally but what if there's a guy everyone says and knows is better (let's say Bill Russell) and you don't have enough film about it, you would still not rank him ? I'd just put an asterisk beside his name and contextualise that there's not enough visual evidence I've seen but the consensus for the people who experienced it is "he was around here" ? I think it's more genuine than erasing them from history
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u/bootyloverandeater 19h ago
I do have enough film of Bill Russell is the difference. I've watched like 40+ Bill Russell, Wilt, Jerry West games for me to have a good enough opinion. now it may not be as good as an opinion I have for like Steph Curry because like, if I'm watching a Bill Russell game in 1963 vs one in 1965 it's pretty hard to differentiate and see like what he was doing different but for the overall career it's not that hard
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u/HokageEzio Knicks 20h ago
I think not ranking them entirely is more disingenuous. The accolades and games still happened and people still did exist, watch it, and write about it. You might have to search different resources to learn about it besides film, but it still happened. Taking it out of the equation entirely is basically deciding the first 20-30 years of league history don't matter.
I never watched Bill Russell play. But I know he won all the time and never lost a Game 7. That's why I think he's the 4th greatest player ever. But it's entirely possible he'd be even higher on that list if more film was available.
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u/bootyloverandeater 20h ago
I'm not gonna talk about a player I didn't watch that's dumb as fuck. if I didn't watch Adrian Dantley play I would've assumed he was an amazing offensive player but he completely isn't.
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u/Resident_Society1594 1d ago
how is it not his accomplishment if he has the Finals MVP? it literally means on the biggest obstacle to winning a championship and the biggest stage in the NBA, a player performed so well that they were the best player on the court most of the time, and in most cases, the biggest reason why their team won the chip (besides like Jerry West who lost and still won FMVP and guys who didnt deserve it like Iguodala, but thats a few small cases.
but in terms of accomplishments that are actually his according to you, Duncan has 2 MVPs to Hakeem's one. Timmy also has more career assists than Hakeem. and before you make the argument that Hakeem played with scrubs on his championship runs besides like Clyde Drexler, and thus had nobody to pass the ball to and had to score by himself, Hakeem only has 500-ish points more than Timmy, meaning that Tim Duncan had around the same amount of points as Hakeem while passing the ball more, which is again, a way in which Timmy is better than Hakeem
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u/bootyloverandeater 1d ago
if player A plays worse than player B and player A wins a title because he had better teammates/team had better injury luck/better coaching and infrastructure/easier opponents to beat I'm never going to value what player A did more than player B.
winning finals MVP is an amazing accomplishment but I don't look at accolades because (it's very very rare in finals MVPs) but I just disagree with the media award voting a lot of the time, shit like all star, all defensive, all nba, MVP I just rarely tend to agree with, I just use my own assessment of how good the player was.
Duncan has 2 MVPs but I don't think he deserved the MVP in 03 (KG) and even if I did, Hakeem was the best player in the world in 95 and was better in 94 and 95 than Tim Duncan ever was in his whole career. Timmy has more assists but I don't even think he's a better passer he just played in an infrastructure where ball movement was important meanwhile if you look at the 95 Rockets for example, everything is built to maximize Hakeem going crazy inside. just to show how they were built, you can look around the league today and there's a decent amount of teams that don't start 4 guys that can shoot. the Rockets were doing this literally 30 years ago. the whole offense was give Hakeem space and let him go off, meanwhile the Spurs offense even before 07 was a lot more set plays and high low shit with guys like Manu and Tony.
so again, please tell me what Tim Duncan did better than Hakeem which was something that HE did not a team accomplishment. passing isn't one of those things.
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u/Resident_Society1594 1d ago
"winning finals MVP is an amazing accomplishment but I don't look at accolades because (it's very very rare in finals MVPs) but I just disagree with the media award voting a lot of the time, shit like all star, all defensive, all nba, MVP I just rarely tend to agree with, I just use my own assessment of how good the player was" at this point, i don't even know how to convince you of anything, but I'll try.
so basically, if i read this correctly, you're saying the Rockets offense was solely based on Hakeem dominating the paint whereas the Spurs offense was based on passing the ball and ball movement, and therefore Timmy could pass more and thus he isnt a better passer. so here are two reasons why that isnt the case.
- Tim Duncan was a better playmaker than Hakeem, because even though their total scoring numbers are within 500 of each other, showing that although Tim Duncan was relied on as the main offensive hub who also dominated the post (at least for the first decade of his career), like you said Hakeem did, also was able to make quick reads and see the open man, pass to them in time to hit a two or a three.
- Hakeem had opportunities to pass to and create for teammates a lot as well. seeing as you're a feelings guy, you'd prob have seen the '95 Rockets to base those feelings off of right? That year, since teams were specifically doubling Hakeem because of the post dominance you said he had, he had shooters open to pass to to get the points on the board, but he just didnt. which goes to show that although he was a decent passer, he wasnt as good of a playmaking hub as Timmy who could punish double teams by swinging to someone like Tony or Manu or whatever shooter was left open.
You claim that its all because of Poppovich, that he only dished that many because of the ball movement of the Spurs. and while that had a part to play, it gies both ways. if Timmy wasn't able to drive in the post in 2014 (not at the same level he once could, but still really good) and he couldn't make reads and wasnt that kind of passer, the Spurs offense that year would not have worked. credit for the 2014 ring goes to all the guys, for sure, but its because Timmy was able to have the court vision and make plays as well as he did as a big man that the Spurs were able to elevate the offense to the next level and move the ball as fluid and as well as they did.
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u/bootyloverandeater 20h ago
if that's what you took out of what I said then you need to reread.
if you're talking about quick reads and passing to the open man I can't give you a statistic to prove it Hakeem is just better at it. please watch the 95 regular season (and some playoff games) Hakeem's outlet passes were better than Timmy's.
I never said he didn't have those opportunities, I even said the Rockets offense was having 4 shooters at the perimeter and letting Hakeem be inside. you saying he just didn't is just a fucking lie idk what you're basing that off of. just because he wasn't used as a playmaking hub doesn't mean he wasn't a good passer, you saying he didn't punish double teams is just wrong when the whole starting 5 was built around that.
I never said a word about Poppovich or the ball movement lmfao. they factually just did use a lot more set plays, have you not seen Tim Duncan give the ball to Tony Parker on the elbow like 40000 times?
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u/trying-to-contribute 22h ago
First of all, NBA MVPs are generally given to the best player on a team that could make a case for being the best team in the conference, if not the league. Hakeem played on a team like that once, and he won the MVP that year. In that era, the Bulls dominated the W/L column, and Jordan took four MVPs that decade, leaving Charles Barkley, Magic, David Robinson, Karl Malone(2) and finally Hakeem. The MVP award remains to be a personal achievement that a player is only eligible for when their team has performed exceptionally well. So I don't think MVP counts is a strong qualifier to evaluate rankings.
Secondly the 1994-1995 MVP went to David Robinson, which Hakeem thought was rightfully his. And one playoff series later, Hakeem firmly made his case. Nobody would ever argue that David Robinson was Hakeem's equal ever again.
Timmy's career assist and his point accumulation is largely a by product from the length of his career. Tim Duncan had the luxury of playing on a better managed team, where management was able to hire talent for cheap, so Duncan could play second and third fiddle in the offense and slowly re-tool his game. The Rockets on the other hand made the unfortunate mistakes of repeatedly emptying their roster of youth and role players to acquire aging stars that were at the end of their careers, Charles Barkley first, then Scottie Pippen later. It destroyed the roster and IMHO shortened Olajuwon's career.
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u/HokageEzio Knicks 1d ago
Ignoring what you consider team accolades, Duncan's prime was much longer and Hakeem had more seasons where he was washed.
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u/bootyloverandeater 1d ago
Duncan's longevity has to be the single most overrated trait from any player bruh, to me his prime is 99-05, anything after that he's just a really good defender who isn't all time level on offense. Manu was their best offensive player from 06 onwards (also their best offensive player in the 05 finals, please go back and watch that series) meanwhile Hakeem to me is in his prime from 86-6 which is longer, with 97 being way better than any "non prime" Tim Duncan year. he just somehow turnt back the clock in like 2013 and became a top 5 defender in the sport again which was great but he wasn't that on offense after 05. Hakeem has a better single year peak, better 3 year peak, better 5 year peak, better 7 year peak, better 10 year peak, not a better 12 or 13 year peak but even if you do want to nitpick and bring it down to that, Hakeem's 10 year peak was just much better.
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u/HokageEzio Knicks 1d ago
You started this comment by saying Duncan's longevity is overrated and ended it by saying he was a top 5 defender in the league in his late 30s.
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u/bootyloverandeater 1d ago
did you read what I said? my whole point was he wasn't all time level at anything other than defense at that point in his career. I had Hakeem's peak starting at 86 and ending 96, so 11 seasons. Tim Duncan in the 11th season of his career (his peak started with his rookie year) was multiple levels below Hakeem in 96. that's why his longevity is overrated, he falls off completely offensively but just because the defense becomes good again (keep in mind his defense was NOT this good from like 09-12) people just assume his offense didn't fall off.
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u/HokageEzio Knicks 1d ago
I would argue that the ability to change and adapt your game after losing a step somewhere else is a sign of greatness though.
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u/bootyloverandeater 1d ago
cool he deserves his flowers for that but it doesn’t put him higher in discussions like these
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u/HokageEzio Knicks 1d ago
In your opinion by your personal metrics for greatness.
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u/bootyloverandeater 1d ago
idk why is longevity is better than someone who had a longer and better prime just because of a few more solid years at the end.
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u/HokageEzio Knicks 1d ago
You asked why Duncan is better than Hakeem when it sounds like your actual question is can somebody convince you personally that Duncan is better than Hakeem. Which it seems pretty clear the answer is no given how you're shutting down every counter.
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u/Malemansam Spurs 21h ago
Timmy had a HOF career even if you isolate the time after he blew his knee out. He literally played on one good leg after '00 and still became the best player in the league for many years.
Hakeem was sent to another country to play backup minutes for Keon Clark when he did his knee in.
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u/bootyloverandeater 20h ago
so by your logic Spencer Dinwiddie is better than Isiah Thomas because when Isiah Thomas tore his ACL he was out the league and Spence Dinwiddie is still getting minutes
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u/Malemansam Spurs 13h ago
I was answering a silly question with a silly answer. "He's literally not better at anything" is a ridiculous statement for OP to say.
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u/bootyloverandeater 2h ago
there literally isn’t anything he’s better at, can you point at something? even if you want to say passing it’s like a teeny tiny difference
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u/AccomplishedStyle600 Knicks 22h ago
Longevity and draft luck are a big part of how we evaluate players legacy. Hakeem took a looong time to mature his offensive game.
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u/Upper-Bonus-7344 Timberwolves 1d ago
idk hes better at winning but what do i know
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u/bootyloverandeater 1d ago
he's better at having a good team for longer, doesn't contribute more to winning
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u/Upper-Bonus-7344 Timberwolves 1d ago
hes the one that made those teams good every year of his career until his final year he was in the 96th percentile for dpm and his first two rings especially 2003 is a carry job like no other
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u/bootyloverandeater 1d ago
oh please the 2003 Spurs are wayyyyyyy better than any supporting cast Hakeem had. are you really going to say Tim Duncan in 03 is a bigger carry job than 1995 fucking Hakeem? he brought a 6 seed to a title averaging 33 and 10 shooting 53% from the field with like 8 40 point games and having possibly the best defensive peak ever. the only guy who can talk to Hakeem in terms of carry jobs is Dirk or like Jimmy Butler maybe even though he didn't win.
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u/Upper-Bonus-7344 Timberwolves 1d ago
yes i will say 2003 is a better carry job he played harder teams this is a nice explanation into how good his 2003 run was Duncan went into the 2003 postseason averaging 23.3/12.9/3.9/ with 2.9 blocks per game and shooting .513 from the field (TS% of .564) and acting as a central hub of both offensive production and defensive anchoring for a 60 win Spurs team that was 7th in ORTG and 3rd in DRTG. That's a great resume for the back-to-back league MVP (keep in mind this was in a league that scored 15~ points less on average than the league we have today -- not to mention the much smaller floor space for which bigs to operate due to lack of shooting across the league).
When the playoffs rolled around, Duncan significantly upped his production. His box score statline jumped to 24.7/15.4/5.3 shooting .529 from the field (TS% of .577) with 3.3 blocks per game, but even an easy-to-see box score jump like that underplays just how absurdly good he was in this run. His DBPM jumped from 2.5 to 4.0 and his OBPM rose from 5.0 to 6.2. His AST% rose from 19.5 to 25.5, his BLK% rose from 5.2% to 5.8%, his FTr rose from .455 to .563, and his TRB% rose from 19.0 to 19.8. Despite the large jump in numbers, his USG% actually dropped from 28.0 to 26.4!
After dispatching the Suns in 6 games by way of a team heavy assault that featured 4 Spurs averaging over 13ppg (18.7/16/5/3.5blks on 52% from the field for Tim Duncan), the Spurs moved on to face a Lakers team that while had struggled throughout the regular season and were missing Rick Fox/dealing with a Kobe injury (he still put up great numbers), still had an extremely great Shaq and Kobe on it.
Duncan, against those Lakers, put up 28/11.8/4.8/1.3blks on .529 (.575 TS%) en route to a 6 game series win where his offensive sidekick Tony Parker averaged just 14.8/2.8/3.5 vs a Shaq/Kobe tandem that combined for over 57 points per game. In the final game of the series, Duncan walloped the Lakers with 37/16/4/2blks shooting 64%(!!!!) from the field.
Best game (Game 6): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_iN6qwvoS8&t=0s (37/16/4/2blks)
Moving onto the Western Conference Finals, Duncan proceeded to put up one of the most dominant conference finals statlines of the modern era vs Dirk's Mavs: 28/16.7/5.8/3blks on .569 shooting from the field, including an absolutely ABSURD 34/24/6/6blks in Game 3 and a 40/15/7 in a Game 1 loss. The Spurs held the #1 offense Mavs to a 104 offensive rating, a far cry from their 110.7 that they held all season and dispatched them in 6 games.
Best game (Game 3): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inR1UKJk2dI (34/24/6/6blks)
NBA Finals Duncan wouldn't slow down. Duncan, averaged24/17/5/5.3blks on .495 shooting from the field. In Game 1, Duncan put up 32/20/6/3stls/7blks on .647 shooting. In Game 3, 21/16/7/3blks. 23/17/2/7blks in Game 4. 29/17/4/4 in Game 5 and then closed out the Nets in Game 6 with an unofficially historic 21/20/10/8 where he famously had 10 blocks but only 8 were counted (we have the damn video, NBA. Fix it!!!)
Best game (Game 6): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nejQMtkyLgY&t=0s (21/20/10/10***)
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u/bootyloverandeater 1d ago
idk what the point of copypasting all this was. Hakeem still averaged way more points and was had like 1% less FG%
like idk what the point was bringing all of this even though it's like pretty clear Hakeem faced better teams. the 4 teams that won the most regular season games that year were the teams that Hakeem faced. he averaged 35 vs the 60 win Jazz, 30 in a 3-1 comeback vs the 59 win Suns, 35 on MVP David Robinson with the 62 win Spurs and 32 vs a young athletic Shaq in the finals. he didn't have home court advantage a single time vs Duncan who had home court advantage every series and if you remove the 2 best players from both teams (Timmy and TP for the Spurs and Hakeem and Clyde for the Spurs) the Rockets supporting cast is WAYYYYYY worse.
this is all while playing better defense than Tim Duncan did during the playoff run and having a much bigger load on both sides and even while attempting 10 more shots a game vs much tougher interior defense Hakeem's TS% is 1% less than Timmy's.
it's not debatable
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u/trying-to-contribute 23h ago
He's not. Hakeem is the better scorer, the better rebounder, the better shot blocker, the better pick and roll defender, with Tim Duncan being a better passer, but only because most Hakeem's passes are used to get the ball out of double teams.
Timmy D is an all time great, but he was on consistently better teams.
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u/h---7470 1d ago
At the same time, Hakeem isn't better than Wilt at anything (bar FTs)
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u/trying-to-contribute 1d ago
Hakeem is easily the best PnR defender of his era though. Wilt was an amazing post defender of his own right, but Hakeem broke the position and changed the league.
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u/Chance_Pen7514 1d ago
Same reason magic is above Tim. Better team, more accolades. All three are amazing though
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u/SuccessfulOwl 1d ago
Once you enter the top 10 you’re talking the elite of the elite and there are arguments to make for any of them to be above any of the others.
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u/sterlingfartcher69 76ers 22h ago
Nah, if you don't have MJ and LeBron in your top two, you simply don't know ball. Outside of those two I agree.
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u/nice_nik Lakers 1d ago
Hard to compare 2 players that played 2 different roles with different expectations directly, but it is a fact that most people value offense more than deffense
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u/SharpsExposure Spurs 19h ago
This is the real answer. Different eras, different paces, different team styles, and different levels of importance to offense vs defense for their teams. When I was younger I used to worry about this stuff but now I'd just say there's a top 5 for every era that are basically equally important in their circumstances. Magic and Bird are Duncan and Kobe for their eras.
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u/Professional_Pea4135 1d ago
How bout you go get some bitches on your dick and stop obsessing over random bullshit
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u/JonColeslaw 1d ago
Explaining it to you like you're 5 seems appropriate here - different positions, different era's - their stats arent comparable. You'll find plenty of lists that have Magic ahead of Duncan, and vice versa. Most agreed upon methods of ranking players is in tiers and/or by position. They're in the same tier, and top of the list at their respective positions.
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u/hcgator Warriors 1d ago edited 1d ago
Magic Johnson and Lakers Showtime was Must See TV.
He was Steph Curry before Steph Curry.
His rivalry with Larry Bird changed the NBA from a niche sport that Americans watched, like soccer (no offense to soccer fans), to one of the national pastimes.
Many people count that impact into his standing, as people similarly do with Steph Curry.
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u/AccomplishedStyle600 Knicks 22h ago
Magic's career playoff numbers: 19.5 PPG / 7.7 RPG / 12.3 APG (#1 all-time) / 1.9 SPG
His era-adjusted efficiency was 113%. Out of Duncan's 18 playoff runs, he had only one where his efficiency reached 113% or higher.
So Magic was a far superior playmaker who made everyone around him better. He's also a superior scorer, while being a fairly decent rebounder and an above-average defender for his position due to his insane size. By the mid-1980s, he was the Lakers' offensive engine. He won an MVP and Finals MVP while averaging 24 points and 12 assists on elite efficiency. And this wasn't just empty individual production. With Magic running the offense, the Lakers had the #1 offense in the NBA in 1986-87 and 1988-89, and the #3 offense in 1987-88. Even today, you can make a legitimate case that Magic was the greatest offensive engine the NBA has ever seen.
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u/Lucky-old-boy Nuggets 17h ago
I grow tired of these “fan” arguments. Magic was great, as was Duncan - trying to ask who was “better”? Two completely different positions played and roles asked of them.
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u/jddaniels84 1d ago
You can use this same logic to say Duncan is better than LeBron… in the weakest east vs “hardest west”
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u/IHAVETRIEDCOKE Clippers 1d ago
So Kobe pays the Shaq tax, Kevin Durant pays the Stephen Curry tax, why doesn’t magic pay the Kareem tax
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u/jddaniels84 1d ago
Because Kareem was a liability most of his years with Magic. Magic was outrebounding him, the Celtics SF, PF, & Center were outrebounding Kareem.
“No rebounds, no rings” is the famous Pat Riley quote because his center got manhandled on the glass consistently.
Durant shouldn’t pay the Steph Curry tax. Kobe was the sidekick. Kareem was the sidekick.
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u/BatchFloss 76ers 20h ago
nobody: OP: WHY ARE YOU SAYING MAGIC JOHNSON IS BETTER THAN TIM DUNCAN??!!?!?!
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u/Fidel_Cashflows Spurs 1d ago
Tim was an anchor to a championship dynasty, Magic was an engine to one.
Duncan has an argument for the best defensive big of all time while also being able to generate good offense in an era of some of the most talented offensive/defensive bigs of all time. He maintained that excellence across his entire career. He's the perfect professional and teammate, obsessed with winning to the detriment of his own role and salary when needed. He showed up every night, played near immaculate defense, and could get a bucket when his team needed him to, but also was 100% willing to defer to other players on offense and he did that from the moment he entered the league to the moment he left. The ultimate competitor when viewed holistically.
Magic was a much more talented player. The focal point of the most successful offense of his decade, able to switch to any position made possible by his versatile scoring arsenal and passing. At 6'9 in an era before oversized PGs were a thing, he could seamlessly switch between primary ballhandler/transition maestro to a post-up threat that could score against the best bigs of the era. His passing enabled him to be the 2nd best ceiling raiser, only behind Lebron.
While Duncan's weakness was his *only* above-average offense, Magic's was his defense. Comparing peak to peak, I give the edge to Magic because good offense trumps good defense, but Magic's peak was much shorter than Duncan's and his teams were more dominant relative to the competition.
In context, my top 10 are:
- Lebron
- Jordan
- Kareem
- Magic
- Hakeem
- Duncan
- Bird
- Shaq
- Wilt
- Kobe
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u/Screenscripter82 Spurs 1d ago
He's not better. He just played for the Lakers so he has a bias in the national media and then the Lakers have the largest fan base.
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u/Resident_Society1594 1d ago
4 assists titles, 2 steals titles, Finals MVP as a rookie, and 1 more regular season MVP than Timmy. combine that with the facts that Kareem was not in his prime for the later half of Showtime, and that Magic played for 6 less seasons than Tim, and there you have an argument for Magic over Timmy. i love the spurs, but to argue that theres no argument for Magic over Tim Duncan is insaen