Tim Duncan and Kobe Bryant — along with Kevin Garnett — have been elected to the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in one of the most star-studded Hall of Fame classes in NBA history.
We know that Duncan and Bryant are two of the greatest players of their era and two of the greatest players to ever step on the hardwood, period.
But who had the better career? Is Duncan better than Kobe? Is Kobe better than Duncan? Is Duncan better than Bryant? So many of the same questions, all with different answers. I. Am. Shivering.
Both players won five championships. Both players earned 15 All-NBA selections. Bryant has the edge in All-Star appearances, 18 to 15, but Duncan has the edge in regular-season MVPs (two to one) and NBA Finals MVPs (three to two).
Obviously, the two legends are very close, and you can't really go wrong picking either one of them.
But with all due respect to the late Kobe Bryant, I'm rolling with Tim Duncan, who I consider to be the best player of the post-Michael Jordan era and a top-three-to-five player of all time in general. So, yes, in short: Duncan better than Kobe!
Duncan never missed the playoffs. He won 50 games in every season that wasn't shortened by a lockout. He won championships in three different decades. He is the greatest power forward ever.
Yes, he wasn't flashy and he wasn't a box-office draw. That's why he was called The Big Fundamental rather than something ear-opening and eye-catching like The Black Mamba. But he was incredible, and he was one of the most consistent superstars the game has ever seen.
Duncan's San Antonio Spurs teams were title contenders year in and year out. There were only a couple of times during his 19-year run where you could honestly say that the Spurs weren't competing for a championship.
And they were contending because of him.
Let's also keep something in mind here: while Duncan certainly had fine supporting casts throughout his career, he was always the best player on his championship teams.
The same cannot be said for Bryant, who was clearly the No. 2 guy behind Shaquille O'Neal during his first three title runs with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Duncan, on the other hand, was always the best player. Remember: David Robinson was not quite David Robinson anymore during Duncan's first couple of championship quests in 1999 and 2003. Yes, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili were fantastic, but neither player was ever on Duncan's level. Also, say what you want about Kawhi Leonard's brilliant NBA Finals performance in 2014, but you are kidding yourself if you thought a 22-year-old Leonard was better than Duncan.
Heck, Duncan's playoff run in 2003 may very well have been the best individual run of any player since Jordan. We love to talk about Dwyane Wade in 2006 or LeBron James in 2016, but because Duncan wasn't posterizing people or putting together highlight reels of incredible athletic feats, we tend to forget just how dominant he was in 2003.
That season, Robinson was on his last legs (he retired that summer). Ginobili was just a rookie. Parker was in his second season. San Antonio hung a banner that year because of Duncan, who averaged an insane 24.2 points, 17.0 rebounds, 5.3 assists, 5.3 blocks and a steal per game during the club's six-game Finals victory over the New Jersey Nets.
Kobe Bryant unquestionably had some phenomenal postseason runs, but none of them quite matched what Tim Duncan did in 2003. Today, we look at all of the big names on that 2003 Spurs team and automatically assume that Duncan's supporting cast was great. But people tend to forget who those players were at that specific juncture. Outside of Duncan, that Spurs roster at that point in time was questionable.
Whereas, in the case of Bryant, he won three titles with Shaq. He won the other two with Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom.
Again, this is not to take away from anything Kobe did, because he is undeniably one of the greatest players ever and deserves all of the recognition in the world for his accomplishments. But we are comparing him to one of the only guys whose resume legitimately measures up to his and, in my mind (and the minds of plenty of others outside of Los Angeles), actually surpasses it.
Another thing that really needs to be said is that Duncan remained an elite two-way player throughout his entire career. Heck, even in his final season in 2015-16, he remained one of the best defensive players in basketball. (I still say the fact that he did not receive any Defensive Player of the Year consideration that year is an absolute joke.)
Kobe Bryant, on the other hand, clearly faded as a defensive presence during the latter half of his career. He was an elite defensive wing early on, no doubt, but he didn't quite maintain that level of play as time passed.
Finally, Duncan was unquestionably the better teammate, and not even the most die-hard Lakers fan would deny this. You never heard of Duncan having any rifts with his teammates or coaches. He was the quintessential leader.
I'll say it for the second time: I consider Duncan to be the best player of the post-Jordan era. Duncan better than Kobe. Better than Shaq. Better than LeBron James or anyone else you can think of.
Tim Duncan will forever be underappreciated because of his lack of flash, but that doesn't diminish what he achieved on the basketball court in the NBA.
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