Bill Simmons has Tim Duncan ranked over Kobe Bryant all-time and says it’s ‘outrageous’ when people say Kobe is better
Tim Duncan is the greatest power forward to ever play this game. I mean I’m not mad about this lol.
The only part of this take that is offensive is Bill Simmons’ continued Wilt slander.
The worst thing about Bill Simmons is that he has this constant need to shit on great players who are frequently compared to Boston players. He shits on Wilt because he wants to say that Russell is the GOAT, and shitting on Wilt helps him do that. I don’t expect analysts to be totally objective, but Simmons takes it to an insane level.
Why isn’t Bill ranked higher on anyone’s list? Dude went 11⁄13 and shutdown one of the greatest offensive players to ever lived.
Edit to respond to all the Wilt comments: my personal and probably wrong opinion is that if Bill isn’t in the league -> Wilt has half a dozen my rings. Bill’s got half an MVP to go with (almost) each of his rings.
Because practically nobody alive watched him play, and it isn’t any fun to discuss something nobody actually witnessed. Nobody remembers a single Finals series, a special shot, a block, nothing. The league also had 8 teams, so it wasn’t as crazy to win 2 series and get to the Finals.
Bill is consistently the highest ranked player from his era on everyone’s list. People will put MJ/LeBron/Kareem ahead of him, but he’s always first from his era which is plenty of respect.
He also played in the pre merger era with less than 10 teams; professional basketball was in its youth stages then and it wasn’t until the 80s, after the merger, with expansion to about 30 teams, that the NBA became the undisputed best professional basketball league in the world with the best talent. Bill Russels league is very different from Kareem’s, or MJs or Lebron’s.
Kareem entered the league in 69, and won all of his MVPs in the 70s
Sure but there were twice as many teams and real playoff brackets when Kareem was playing. It was becoming a much more relevant sport during his era vs Wilt and Bill’s era.
Kareems NBA was pre merger (and some very good players even went to the ABA) but had double the amount of teams.
These eras are different, if you’re going to compare then you should at least acknowledge the different context they played in.
Kareem won 5 championships in the 80’s with the Lakers that was post merger. The first half of his career was with the Buck and per merger but his second half was extremely competitive.
Yeah but he showed he was a championship level player at damn near 40 in the late 80s
Except the majority still touts babe Ruth as the best baseball player ever, even though he played in a segregated league. No one saw him play either but it’s somehow just accepted.
Edit: spelling
I’m not as in the weeds with baseball, but there were a lot more people watching the Major Leagues when Babe was playing than the fledgling NBA when Russell was playing and it was hardly being covered, there are barely even box scores from the era.
There were people to pass down Ruth’s legend, the NBA was barely an organization so there really were hardly any witnesses to what was going on.
You can’t be the best player even when the league was segregated, Babe Ruth was head and shoulders above his peers, but his peers was a very select group.
Babe Ruth is basically folklore now and it helps that baseball was the most popular sport in the country at that time.
Jordan is pretty much in that category too though now. I’m not saying he isn’t the GOAT, but we are getting to the point now where there are more and more fans who have never seen him play live, but they still just put him at the top of the list based only on highlight videos and what others say.
Kinda but we have full footage of Jordan and plenty of people alive who saw him play. But I do think he will become kinda semi mythical like Ruth in a few decades time
Anyone in their right mind these days knows that Ohtani is the GOAT
Barry Bonds young friend
Yeah, Bonds is head and shoulders above everyone as an offensive player and was outstanding for a portion of his career defensively as well.
But steroids…as if that’s an actual thing anyone gives a shit about.
Didn’t Bonds only start doing steroids after the Sosa/McGwire homerun race that involved ALL the steroids? He was the best hitter in the world for years before that point and was (rightfully) annoyed that a couple of scrubs did a bunch of drugs and stole a record
He needs to maintain this peak for a few more seasons before I’m ready to crown him
Also I think Simmons arguement for Russell being better than Wilt is every player in the league unanimously felt like he was. While his bias plays a part, it’s not the only reason he feels that way.
Russell said Wilt was not only the best player in the league, but that he was a lot better than everyone else.
Yes because rivals giving each other flowers is extremely common. There are very few people who were at the top of the game who feel the need to say how great they were constantly.
I mean, you’re deliberately not taking Russell at his word while taking other players at their word.
Wilt was also notoriously kind of a dick and a weirdo - that impacts how pundits and other players (both opponents and teammates) talked about him. If anything, Russell is the guy who could have been the most unbiased and realistic about him because, regardless of Wilt’s personal greatness, Russell and his teams beat Wilt over and over and over again. He doesn’t need to hype Wilt because he’s the “greatest winner ever” regardless, and he chose to do so anyways.
Thank you lol. Bill Russells opinion doesn’t count but these other nameless former players opinions are 100% admissible.
You ever see Jordan say anyone else was “a lot better than him”? 😂
No but Jordan is also a dick. He was and still is I guess I should say
Are you talking about Wilt? Because Wilt averaged more than 30ppg against Russell, literally double what Russell scored against him.
If you’re someone who considers rings to be the end-all/be-all, then yeah, Russell is your guy. I just happen to think those Celtics teams were loaded with talent and had the best coach, and calling Russell the literal greatest player in history when he was a pretty unremarkable player on offense is questionable. Even Russell thinks Wilt was the better player.
I don’t there’s a reasonable argument about who the more talented player was - it was very clearly Wilt and I think talent wise Wilt’s still got an argument for best ever (if he was allowed to bully people the way Giannis is he’d be even more of a menace).
What made Russell special was that he figured out the analytics of efficiency before anyone else and had the talent to warp the game to maximize that for his team. Wilt scored a ton against Russell, but his efficiency was way down and Russell talked a ton about how that was by design, and he would force Wilt into tough shots and not worry about him scoring 30+ as long as it was taking him more shots to get there (meaning less shots for the rest of the team and fewer points scored overall).
There was just an article about how OKC “figured out” that a chance of an extra possession from a steal is more valuable that a risk of a foul, but there’s quotes from Bill in the 60s talking about the same concept, but also he had the ability to take it another level where he would direct his blocks to make sure his team got possession because the extra possession was what made the block truly valuable, not just preventing the made basket.
Except he never actually shut him down.
Bro could literally consistently shave 10 points and 10-15% efficiency off of his scoring in head to head match ups. It’s the closest we could possibly get to at the very least, slowing Wilt down.
Doesn’t he have Magic over Bird? And Kareem third behind only MJ and LeBron? I feel like ranking Russell over Wilt isn’t even that crazy
I hate the Celtics but Russel is one of the winningest players to play basketball or most any sport really. Wilt has great stats but only managed to win two rings? What’s with everyone’s hard on for wilt? He scored a hundred in a game? Great if I was that much more physically gifted than every other player in the league, you’d think I would find a way to win more.
You act like two rings is a joke. He was the best player of the only team to beat Russell’s Celtics when Russell was healthy. So often I see people talk about how great of a winner Russell was and then dismiss the only guy to ever beat him as a loser. Hakeem’s two rings don’t have either beating Jordan.
Wilt won the 2nd most rings of any 60s superstar, yet somehow is painted as not a winner.
Exactly. I have no issues with having Russell over Chamberlain (I have him #3 all-time). I just don’t like the arguments people use against him. I don’t think the loser brush was fair in his day and it’s not fair now. Wilt was prickly at times and it translated itself as a poor relationship with the media (particularly the Boston press, which was hardly neutral). They spun some narratives that stuck.
He’s working in Mahomes digs every episode now, replacing or supplementing his LeBron digs.
It’s not just Boston guys, it’s whoever is HIS guy. It’s not even conspiracy theory stuff, he flat out says Curry or Jokic are his guys and he can’t wait to trash others.
I always thought that is what made everyone like Simmons, he’s a fan, he doesn’t go on and try to prop everyone up and never say anything bad. He likes and dislikes teams/players and let’s everyone know, just like you and I do, only his platform is larger.
All the people from Wilts era “slandered” him as well. That’s where Bill gets it from if you read his book. Wilts peers didn’t really respect him either. They all preferred Russell.
I wouldn’t like him either if I was playing in a league with a guy that averaged 50 and 20.
And you know
The 20,000 women thing or whatever
I’d bet there was some conflicts of interest
Fwiw Jerry West wrote in his autobiography that wilt was the loneliest person he ever met, and he didn’t see him with a women once during all their years on the road
Tbh I’m willing to bet most men who go through hundreds, never mind thousands of women and brag about it have some deep loneliness and attachment trauma or something close to it for sure
A lot of these celebrity womanizers were molested as children. Look at Lil Wayne and Nick Cannon. They’ve both talked about having sexual experiences with older women when they were 12 or 13 and it clearly had a negative impact on them
Incredibly sad and a huge issue but we’re men so fuck it we ball
Wilt was also a Republican and known conservative during the civil rights era. This certainly soured his relationships with Bill and Kareem who were both outspoken civil rights activists.
In such a tumultuous political climate and in a league that quickly grew from almost entirely white players to majority black players during Wilt’s career, it would not be surprising if Wilt’s political views tarnished his reputation among other players during his career
That’s a really good point, no way they would respect that stance
Wilt vs Russell will be like one of those age old philosophical debates like free will vs determinism or the trolley problem where nobody will be able to agree till the end of time. Stats vs winning? Was Russell’s teams stacked or did they all become hall of famers because they had bill Russell spearheading them? Was wilt so statistically great that he must be the best or did he achieve stats at the cost of winning? We’ll never know. That said the consensus of those who played during that era seem to lean toward bill.
I’ll never be mad about someone having Duncan over Kobe, that’s a totally reasonable take. But saying it’s outrageous to have Kobe over Duncan is wild to me
As someone who feels Duncan is perpetually underrated and Kobe is perpetually overrated, I agree. I believe Duncan is above Kobe…Kobe is also one of the inner-circle All-Time greats and it’s not unreasonable for people to think he’s above Duncan.
You’ll never get clicks with that attitude though lol
I have them linked together like Bird and Magic. I have Kobe over Duncan for biased reasons but someone else can have Duncan over Kobe and I respect it.
It feels wrong to me when people don’t have Bird and Magic together and Duncan and Kobe together in any ranking or pyramid .
Their individual greatness magnifies the other’s greatness. They defined their respective eras of basketball and they were constant counterpoints to each other. They also had prospective GOAT arguments but came either just before or just after (in terms of their athletic primes) the actual GOATs - Larry and Magic had to give way to MJ in the popular consciousness, and Kobe and Duncan had to give way to LeBron (and they started their careers right as MJ’s was coming to a close).
They are both firmly 5-15 range it isn’t heinous to put either of them ahead. This hot take sports culture is actually so cancerous to any form of real debate about players/teams/eras.
That’s why I think numbered rankings lists are more or less just clickbate debate fodder. Tier em.
Bill Simmons pretty much does that, he has certain guys that are in the pantheon. His basketball book is actually a really great read on pretty much this exact thing
He rates em too
I feel that way about Duncan vs Kobe, MJ vs Bron, Magic vs Bird, Shaq vs Hakeem and Wilt vs Russell etc.
Pick your side of each debate you want and I’m all good. My problem is if you wanna pretend it isn’t even a debate.
I’ll get hate for this but the Duncan GOAT power forward thing is going out of its way to give Duncan a title. Duncan was a center for half of his career and Larry Bird played as much power forward as he did, LeBron played the four a ton etc
And if you consider Duncan a center you probably rank 2-5 guys ahead of him
Duncan was the PF when he won 3 rings and multiple MVPs/FMVPs. He was more of a C from 31-38 but 80% of his resume was made before then.
He played a ton of center before that as well. From 2005 on at the very least he was the Spurs’ primary center
He was also the backup Center when Robinson sat because Robinson didnt play as much minutes post 99
I see people say this a lot and it’s not really true. He started at PF next to guys like Rasho Nesterovic, Nazr Mohammed, and Fabricio Oberto up until his mid-30s and then spent several later years starting next to Splitter. None of those guys were capable of playing any position other than C. Tim DID still play a lot of C when Malik Rose or Robert Horry or Kurt Thomas or Boris Diaw or whoever subbed in early for the second big. And sometimes that was the closing lineup. But he still spent huge stretches at the 4 up until we signed Aldridge when Tim was at the end of his career and couldn’t move laterally anymore.
I mean “big man who can hit a jumpshot” meant he wasnt a C back then lol.
We’re much better at this now, but up until a few years ago, you couldn’t be a PG unless you were *listed* as a PG and under 6’3” (i.e. Harden being called a SG).
I’m not saying that it’s correct, just that it follows the same logic as every other position-based award/argument
Bro, Magic is the greatest PG of all time. He played in the 80’s and is 6’9”. Penny Hardaway was like 6’8”. Jason Kidd is 6’5”. There were lots of reasons Harden was considered a SG, and none of them were his size.
Tim, KG, and Dirk all played PF for one reason, and that reason is Shaquille O’Neil. Every team needed a few huge dudes to get in Shaq’s way, and having him match against another skilled big was just a waste. So teams would put a lurch at centre and move the skilled big to PF. After Shaq regressed, it took a while for teams to realize big, slow, unskilled centres were a liability.
Nah, Duncan was a center for most of his career. Even Pop admits that https://uproxx.com/dimemag/gregg-popovich-tim-duncan-center-not-power-forward/
“So there you have it, straight from the mouth of the man who has set the lineups for the Spurs during Duncan’s entire 19-year career, although Pop has also been known to deploy that acerbic wit of his to have a little fun with the media from time to time. Regardless, it’s merely a question of semantics that in no way affects Duncan’s stature or positioning on the list of all-time greats.”
Who cares - he was MUCH more valuable than Kobe no matter what you call him
The real positional fudge is that LeBron is the best PF of all time. He literally lost to the Mavs and was regarded by most as choking in the 2011 series at the 3, then moved to the 4 (Battier had 3 rebounds a game, then Mike Miller took his job, they were wings, while Lebron was grabbing 10 boards a game and blocking shots) and won the next 2 titles.
And as a LeBronto Raptors fan, he was completely unstoppable at the 4. It was his best position. LeBron, 2 wings, a guard and a big man is a better team than LeBron, a wing, a guard and 2 bigs.
Carmelo is an interesting version too in that he was much better as a 4 but hated playing it and wasn’t forced to apart from Woodson’s Knicks. He might have snuck a title if he had been a 4 his whole career. Probably 1 or 2 of other starting 4 guys around him in Denver and NY would have been different, so it’s tough to say.
The Spurs always kept a random assortment of less skilled big men that allowed Duncan to be nominally a power forward even though Duncan was doing the role of a center. I would go even further and say Duncan essentially did center stuff from the moment he was drafted (low post scoring, rim protection) even playing next to David Robinson.
Duncan’s game and build to me really mirrored several of the iconic non Shaq centers of that era like Ewing, Olajuwon, and Robinson himself, who could all face up and shoot a jumper as well as operate in the low post.
Beyond the positional labels, I think it shows an interesting contrast between the Lakers and the Spurs, though in somewhat different eras. The Spurs essentially gave Tim Duncan exactly what Anthony Davis wanted as a Laker (and was at times ridiculed for). Big bodies so as not to play center (or be labeled as one) all the time that would save his body but still let him close at center when necessary.
This isn’t really a hot take tbh
The only hot take I hear is saying Kobe is 11th and Duncan is 7th and that’s “not debatable”. Lmao those rankings are so close, how is it not debatable. These all time lists are so dumb
It’s become common practice to say something that is clearly your opinion is a “fact” that can’t be debated. People have forgotten what some words mean
“Not debatable” and “Can’t change my mind” are entirely different things but some people use them the same.
Yep exactly. It’s like people default to using childish stubborn tantrum language to get their point across these days
That’s my problem too, you can pick whichever guy you want but if you’re one of those “it’s Duncan and it’s not even close, you’re a moron if you think it’s Kobe” then you’re a fucking loser
I mean, Jordan/LeBron are only about that far removed from the likes of Tim Duncan. Can you really debate that Duncan is the GOAT?
4 spots can be pretty huge when we’re talking about the best of the best. The outliers are so rare that there’s going to be more room between, say, #5 and #6 than there is between #1,475 and #1,485.
I don’t think there’s a reasonable debate to say Kobe was a better player than Duncan.
I’m a huge Spurs fan and I don’t agree with this, they’re both all time greats, how can there not be any reasonable debate? Duncan isn’t so perfect that he’s above reproach, Kobe isn’t some scrub who can’t compare to the greats, I feel like there’s definitely a reasonable debate to had here. They’re great players that played very different games and came with different strengths and weaknesses
Take away this man’s HEB card immediately!
Its a hot take to say its outrageous. They are side by side just like Magic and Bird.
Eh I’d say they’re slightly different from Bird and Magic but I absolutely agree that they’re pretty much neck and neck. It’s more personal preference than objective truth separating them.
Everyone rates Magic higher due to Bird’s injury.
But everyone says pre injury Bird was better
I think that Bird is the better player in terms of pure skill and Magic played in a weak conference with an outrageously stacked team but some of those celtics teams were pretty damn good
frankly, 85 settles the debate for Magic and that’s like the only thing I can come up, if the C’s win that one they are 4-4 on chips, they win the head to head in the finals and I comfortably have Bird on top
he was in the middle of the most impressive run for a player in a couple decades and the lakers stopped them (still, Kareem got the FMVP, not magic), by 87 it wasn’t the same celtics and the Lakers got another player step up to FMVP
in longevity terms they are similar, Magic played at top level a few seasons more but had to retire, I don’t think there’s that much difference, both retired young
I agree. Apt comparison.
I’m tired of rankings grandpa
Things I’m tired of
Ads
Old vs new
Adam Silver
Spurs not defending the 3 point line
Ranking things in lists
And if you disagree with my rankings then you are obviously a poo poo head
Absolutely ridiculous and insane to have Adam Silver ranked below Old vs New. Stop thread watching and actually start getting involved in tired arguments or youre gonna keep coming back with asinine rankings.
Horrible rankings,. Where is NBA League Pass? Just outside of the top 5? How on Earth? They have been putting numbers for YEARS: shit streaming quality, bad connections to other devices (no LG app!), inept costumer service and pathetic video players (besides the whole blackouts for people in the US))… keeping up its level even while changing the people behind it (now Microsoft, i think). They deserve a top three consideration.
Where do you guys think this list sits all time?
Top 30, definitely not top 20
Would be higher if not for the take on lists. Lists are fucking awesome.
EMPHASIS ON #4
That’s too damn bad
Comparison is the thief of joy
Yea it’s just low hanging fruit for social media engagement and views and clicks. I admit to engaging with this a lot in the past year or two, but i give up. I don’t care, hah. Ppl will have this debate, every day, for the rest of time, let them enjoy it (or waste their time)
Kellerman saying Judge was a better player than Ohtani later in the pod was a much more egregious take
Judge puts up more WAR than Ohtani and doesn’t pitch, so I don’t think it’s THAT crazy.
Ohtani loses 1.7 WAR every year because he’s a DH. Aaron Judge is a generational monster but Ohtani is a once in a hundred years player.
If every gm in MLB had the choice between Ohtani and Judge, my guess is that at least 90% of them would take Ohtani.
Ohtani is a once in a hundred years player.
As crazy as this is, it’s the rare time when it is not hyperbole. This literally hasn’t happened since Babe Ruth, and he stopped pitching completely for most of his famous years. I’d love to make the case for Mays or others being the GOAT, but until Ohtani no one had done what Ruth did. Dude won over 100 games as a pitcher, and is still highly ranked in various home run charts after a century.
Yeah Ohtani vs Bonds is debatable IMO. I’m not entertaining any Judge vs Ohtani talk
They’d actually probably take Bobby Witt Jr.
The entire point of WAR is that it adds up your value into a single number. For Ohtani in 2023 (his last full two way season) he was worth 6.1 rWAR as a DH, which is added to his 3.9 WAR as a pitcher to give him 10.0 WAR. He’s not getting penalized for being a two way player; he’s getting value from both hitting (as a DH) and pitching.
Judge in 2024 (his best season), by virtue of being a significantly more valuable hitter as well as a decent outfielder, accumulated 11.7 rWAR from hitting and lost .9 from being a below average center fielder. Basically, WAR says that Judge’s offense added to his defense (in this single season case) is (slightly) more valuable than Ohtani’s offense and pitching combined because Judge is that much better at hitting than Ohtani.
You can make a valid argument that Ohtani frees up a roster spot and that has some value, but realistically we’re talking about the last AAAA reliever on the roster who is by definition a replacement level player.
In terms of the post season, I definitely feel like Ohtani shows up in a bigger way, although he has a team of good hitters to back him up. I can’t say that judge had good hitters on his team this year, although he did pretty well in the playoffs this year. Ohtani definitely benefits from being on the dodgers but I still think he’s probably the best baseball player of all time. I mean his 3 homer 10 strikeout game will be stuff of legends
Kellerman specified that he was talking about the regular season.
If the Phillies could play defense Ohtani would’ve finished the postseason with one hit
Lol Ohtani put up a 10 WAR season only DHing. Judge gets added WAR from playing CF. It’s an insane take to say that Judge is better than Ohtani. Both these idiots are hot take merchants. Bill hates the Lakers and does whatever he can to piss on them, and Max, who I love mostly, LOVES the Yankees to an insane degree. Neither one is able to be objective in this convo.
Judge had on oWAR of 11.7 that season (compared to Ohtani’s 9.2).
Ohtani is otherworldly because he’s a complete package: top 2 power hitter, elite pitching, capable of stealing 60 bags etc. But saying Judge is a better offensive player at this point is just a fact.
Just blatant misinformation considering Judge played RF last year and about 1⁄2 his games at DH bc he was injured and still hit 10 fWAR and 9.7 bWAR lmfao
Judge is easily the better offensive player. Whether Ohtani’s pitching is enough to overtake the difference should be up for debate but I think people don’t know how to judge his being the only successful two way player in the modern era. Nobody knows how difficult that is and I think a lot of people just assume that it’s impossibly difficult. But nobody actually knows but Ohtani.
What? Of course it’s incredibly difficult? Otherwise we’d have it happen more than once every 100 years that a player is this good at both?
Yeah the comment was going great until that finish. Pretty sure Ohtani isn’t the first pitcher to also be a successful hitter at the lower levels of baseball, but he is the only one who has been good enough to continue it into the big leagues. Every pitcher in the MLB knows how difficult and insane what he does is. They talk about it all the time, lol
Ohtani went 50⁄50
Easily carries a lot of weight. Better hitter overall maybe
with back to back 50 HR seasons including that year lmao
Easily? Come on lol he’s better offensively but not by THAT much. 50⁄50 club I mean wtf lol we’re all just taking it for granted now.
You get the number 1 pick tomorrow in a redraft of the mlb, who you taking? Judge or Ohtani?
Whether Ohtani’s pitching is enough to overtake the difference should be up for debate
lol this is no debate. ohtani also pitching at the level he pitches at puts him way above judge
Anyone that has played baseball at any competitive level knows how hard it is? Takes like this are ridiculous, it’s baseball not quantum physics
Who would you rather have on your roster, just curious.
Not egregious at all. You can make a strong case for either side pretty easily. Judge led the MLB in fan graphs WAR 3 of the last 4 seasons (not in 2023, missed 50+ games). His recent run has been historic.
Entirely egregious, and just as egregious to say that a single statistic can resolve the argument. Ohtani is, in addition to being a comparable hitter, a world class pitcher and better at every other facet of the game. That WAR doesn’t account for that means WAR is a limited statistic.
Same thing happened with the mvp this season. Judge is a great hitter, but not very good at defense while playing the easiest position. Cal played the hardest position in the sport at an elite level while being very close to Judge’s level at hitting, but oh no look at his WAR!
Its also why Jokic is treated as if he’s better than Giannis despite Giannis being a world class defender and Jokic being decent. Jokic has efficiency stats and ppl treat it like thats all that matters.
I’m not taking anything away from Cal’s season but Judge put up a 215 OPS+ compared to Cal’s 169 and his OPS was 200 points higher. As good as Cal was, his hitting stats were not very close outside HRs and RBI
My friend, a former pitcher at FSU who knows Cal and an FSU die hard, straight up told me that Judge just had one of the best seasons ever and should win every award he’s up for over Cal. That’s telling lmao. If you look at the numbers, they don’t lie: Aaron Judge had a better year than Cal did. And I’m a fucking Red Sox fan who is saying this.
Cal played the hardest position in the sport at an elite level while being very close to Judge’s level at hitting, but oh no look at his WAR!
Their hitting stats weren’t as close as you would think.
Cal had 7 more homers (13% more, 60 vs 53)
Cal had 11 more RBIs (1% more)
Cal had 2 more SBs (14 vs 12, basically negligible)
Judge had 32 more hits (22% more)
Judge’s BA was 82 points higher (33% higher)
Judge’s OBP was 98 points higher (27% higher)
Judge’s SLG was 99 points better (17% better) - this being the case even though Cal had 60 HRs is crazy to me
Judge’s OPS was 196 points higher (20% higher) - by OPS+ Judge was a 46% better hitter (215 OPS+ vs 169 OPS+)
By these metrics, Judge was better in about every facet of offense except homers. 7 more homers does not have as much value as 2 more triples, 6 more doubles, and 31 more singles.
Judge is […] not very good at defense while playing the easiest position. Cal played the hardest position in the sport at an elite level[…]
Judge is a good RF, and a below average CF. I wouldn’t call him “not very good” at defense.
And while Cal does play the hardest position, WAR accounts for that. Catcher gets a +9 positional value adjustment, while RF gets -7. By this, the gap in their WAR is even more telling. It shows Cal has the WAR advantage and still fell significantly below Judge’s value. And it’s not like the difference is marginal. Judge has 2.3 more bWAR. The difference between the two of them is equal to an average player.
I was all aboard the Big Dumper train, but he was not better than Judge in 2025. 60 homers is just rad as hell
That’s crazy how you think WAR doesn’t account for it. It literally does and it shows ohtanis contributions to wins as a pitcher and hitter do not overtake judge’s win contributions as just a hitter.
Just because stats don’t get trapped by hype doesn’t mean it’s wrong.
You’ve yet to explain anything other than “this is cool. He can do two things!” That doesn’t necessarily contribute to more value to someone doing one thing really well.
Why exaggerate?
Judge is actually a pretty good fielder and was downright great earlier in his career (+56 fielding runs lifetime, fwiw). Right field is tougher than left and first base, so it definitely isn’t “the easiest position.”
Ohtani is an elite pitcher, sure — when he pitches. But he’s only averaged about 70 innings a year in his career, and when he’s in the lineup he’s in there as a DH, rather than a good-fielding RF (with that good-fielding RF being the much better hitter!)
Definitely arguments for both.
while being very close to Judge’s level at hitting.
Lol, what the hell.
Judge is a pretty good fielder, and the gap between him and Ohtani as hitters is as big as Ohtani and like the 10th best guy. I think Ohtani is better, but it’s a real debate. Judge is in the circle of best hitters ever, while Ohtani is an elite hitter and pitcher (which is historic) but not close to an all time great as either.
I agree with him, but this guy having Tim Duncan over a Laker should not be surprising.
I mean Bill has Kareem at 3 and Magic at 4 so that’s not really an argument
Bill has some wild takes over the years but overall he takes his all time player ratings VERY seriously.
Bill’s take in the course of a season are often ridiculous. His big picture all nba and all time takes are super thought out.
It really boggles my mind that he puts Magic above Bird… yet everyone calls him a homer and laker hater. (He is those things to an extent, but a true homer/hater would never do that.)
Bird was better as an individual player and had nearly the same team success. MVP vote shares went to Bird by a mile. All-nba was about even. Scoring/shooting and defense, Bird. Passing almost even. Both made teammates better. Bird and Magic should always be together in my opinion, but Bird gets the top spot.
I mean he totally is a homer and Laker hater, but he also really values the fact that Magic has five titles compared to Bird’s three
Passing almost even is blasphemous lol
Bird was more mercurial, and his peak years are literally GOAT-level. You just need the context to explain why he’s not.
Saying passing was almost even is an insane take.
im a lakers fan and i think duncan was better than kobe. was kobe more impactful to the culture? sure. but duncan was the better player.
He’s wrong about it not being debatable since you can pretty much debate anyone outside the top few, but I think having Duncan ahead of Kobe is fine.
BS even said they’re #7 and #11 for him, so that’s pretty close, and I wouldn’t call that outrageous for any alternate comparison.
I’m a Spurs fan but I now feel as if the Kobe slander is too much. There is no one that struck more fear in the hearts and minds of Spurs fans. Any all time list should have them damn close to each other for different reasons. With that being said, fuck the Lakers!
Yeah this sub thinks Kobe was nothing more than an inefficient chucker who got carried by Shaq. That’s cool, but its also just a moronic argument. I don’t necessarily like the guy for not only the allegations but just all around being a prick at least from what I have seen, but the way people talk about the guy is insane. Soon people are going to say he was not top 20. The guy was a top 3-5 player for 10-15 years, in most of those years had an argument for the best, not just one of the best offensive players for most of that but also on the defensive side. The stats don’t reflect the level he was playing in. And you know that when AR is currently averaging about as much as he did in his MVP year. It’s easy to be like “player X was better because of this stat Y, advanced metric Z, etc….” but that’s just bs.
Yeah this sub thinks Kobe was nothing more than an inefficient chucker
Same TS% as big man Tim Duncan.
As a Laker fan of 40 years who has to listen to the 15 year olds who dominate this sub paint Kobe as a slightly better Bradley Beal, I appreciate your comment. Thanks. 🍻
It’s really a coin flip between the two. As you said, Kobe put the fear of god into the spurs and was as successful against the playoff spurs as anyone could be really. The people acting like it’s not close are people who didn’t watch these teams duke it out at the height of their powers. It’s a virtual toss-up between the two, and it really comes down to preference and what you value. Kobe is also one of the most polarizing athletes in NBA history, so his detractors are equally as loud as his supporters. Meanwhile Tim Duncan is one of the nicest dudes who nobody has a bad thing to say about ever lol
Fuck you guys too ;)
Wholesome Spurs-Lakers hate ;)
Yeah, it’s perfectly fine to rank Duncan higher, but they’re in that same all-time tier of guys ranked 8-13 that are pretty interchangeable. Anyone saying it’s outrageous to compare them or that it’s not even close is just plain insane and should be ignored.
Thank you
This isn’t an unpopular opinion, and I think Bill was already saying this in his book, which came out like a decade ago.
It’s been like 15 years 😭
That books closer to being 20 years ago than a decade at this point lol.
Came out 2009
It reached a point where people rate Duncan so high that he became overrated at this point not underrated anymore tbh. I mean if you ask this sub Kobe or Duncan, 90% of people here say Duncan, he is consistently ranked top 6-8, Bill is saying its outrageous to say they are close. How is he still underrated I don’t get it, what is he, top 3? Maybe when he released the book he was more underrated, I am not sure but definitely not now
He had Duncan 7th and Kobe 8th and now he’s acting like it’s insanity to even consider the possibility of having Kobe ahead of him.
Can someone tell me why Kobe gets docked 3 rings cause he played with Shaq but Magic and Kareem don’t?
People like Magic and Kareem
Yeah Kareem is a legend but I truly believe he gets overrated today he was only the clear best player on 2 of his 6 rings and could only win 1 before Magic came in. He also won almost all his mvps in a weaker era because ABA talent wasn’t in the league.
The answer is cause people don’t like Kobe
I have a hard time with rapists personally, tends to make me see them in different ways
Personally, I don’t dock him 3 rings for playing with Shaq, but I do dock him for how he and Shaq ended and, more importantly, just how bad he was in the 2004 Finals.
As a Pistons fan, I’m grateful that it happened, but when you go 43-113 from the floor because you can’t stand to see your all-time great teammate playing better than you, I can’t have you top 5 of all time. The Pistons had the greatest defense of all time and Kobe’s pathological need to be the hero was their 6th defender
It’s insane how much people just incept shit into their own brain just because they want it to be true. This is just not even close to true.
Pistons made it hell to throw the post entry to Shaq and Ben Wallace made him work for post position harder than anyone else ever had. Shaq taking so few shot attempts is not because Kobe was out there chucking. It’s because he couldn’t do jack without a post entry pass and the Pistons were making it impossible to do so. And the rare times they could get him the ball, half the time he was too far out to do anything and just passed it back out.
Go back and WATCH THE GAMES Shaq’s scoring volume was just as low in the few minutes Kobe sat. Kobe took that many shots because they couldn’t get the ball to Shaq and he was the only player on the team who could generate a shot for himself from the perimeter.
This is how Detroit guarded Shaq all series. One guy fronting the post, and the defender of whichever Laker was closest just ignoring his man to help on Shaq and prevent the lob over the front.
https://youtu.be/uaRdVj8Dx98?t=4214
https://youtu.be/uaRdVj8Dx98?t=4357
When the Lakers were able to move around enough to generate space for Shaq, Kobe would feed him more than anyone else on the team
https://youtu.be/uaRdVj8Dx98?t=4573
https://youtu.be/uaRdVj8Dx98?t=4779
https://youtu.be/uaRdVj8Dx98?t=4823
https://youtu.be/uaRdVj8Dx98?t=4918
Kobe could have been the most unselfish player of all time, Shaq still wouldn’t have gotten 20 shots a game.
I’ve watched a few of those games and the Lakers’ role players deserve way more of the blame for that loss than Kobe. GP spends the series walking around and aimlessly pushing the ball with zero intention to score; Malone was cooked and coming off an injury. Kobe did shoot a horrible 38% from the floor, but that’s actually the second-best shooting percentage any non-Shaq starter averaged for the Lakers (Devean George beat him with 39%, so he wasn’t exactly lighting it up either). Nobody could buy a bucket against that Pistons perimeter defense and Chauncey was killing everyone on the other end
Hey man, this will get flagged. Might even get you permabanned.
It goes against all the Kobe narratives!
It’s pretty sad how people really do form narratives and try to rewrite history of things that are documented like this.
I would like to know too, how he gets docked for those 3 but doesn’t get a boost for winning two back to back and almost threepeating.
Also why does Kobe get knocked for losing 3 FMVP to Shaq, who would have won it over anyone in that period even Jordan or LeBron. But Duncan doesn’t get slandered for losing it to Parker who’s a far inferior player all time, and Kawhi when he was still a role player. Had they also won in 2013 Danny Green would have been it as well.
Yeah, that’s pretty normal
The outrageous take is that it’s not close. They’re very very close and I can think of arguments for both. Basically identical number of rings, all nba teams, and all defensive first teams
The all defensive teams is interesting bc of how their reputation for Defense has changed over the years. Kobe’s later years get mocked while Duncan’s defensive impact has aged very well
Sure but prime Kobe was a great on ball defender. Duncan’s best argument is actually his defense because offensively he wasn’t close to Kobe but defensively he was maybe best defender in league. It’s an interesting convo because they’re such different players but people imo don’t give Kobe enough credit for his defense
What’s funny is Bill tried floating this Duncan Vs Kobe argument to even players who have played against and with these players and they all say Kobe and Bill is surprised no one agrees with him on it. Duncan being higher is not a hot take and if someone had Kobe higher that’s not a hot take either.
The issue is with people like Bill who want to constantly bring up Kobe’s 6-24 shooting in Game 7 but won’t mention Duncan’s 10-27 shooting game against the Pistons in 05 with 5 turnovers or Duncan missing a lay up in the 2013 finals the way he does with Kobe’s poor game. It makes it evident he has a bias. He’s never liked Kobe despite what he says
Kobe’s strongest points as a top 10 player are his skill set/basketball talent, accomplishments and the underrated aspect of this all was the level of competition Kobe took down in the playoffs knocking out so many 50+ win teams which I believe is still more than any other player? Idk if LeBron finally surpassed him but those things cannot be denied
I agree with Bill but it’s not clear cut. If someone had Kobe over Tim that isn’t outlandish. 5 championships each, both amazing - kind of splitting hairs when it comes to those two.
2 notorious Kobe haters throughout their career discussing Kobe. Should be no biases in this conversation.
I love Tim and this has nothing to do with Tim when I say this. The discourse around Kobe is just crazy to me, like he gets no credit for going to three straight nba finals and winning 2 of them without Shaq. A lot of people slotted ahead of him did not win without another superstar, yet Kobe gets taxed for playing with Shaq but no credit for the other 2. It’s not ridiculous to say Kobe is arguably a top 5 player of all time, it can be debated but some folks just dismiss it like he didn’t accomplish the things he did.
It’s wild that the majority of the players from that era all say Kobe, but suddenly it’s egregious and every Redditor will shit on Kobe and act like he was Iverson or Westbrook or something.
Not only players coaches too. Coach K said Kobe was the best player on the 2008 Olympic squad that had bron, Wade, etc in their primes.
I miss Max
Duncan would not be the first option if paired with Kobe
That doesn’t mean he would contribute more overall to winning than Duncan would
Kobe sent the spurs home more times, leave it in the basketball court bill. The proof is in the pudding
There are valid arguments for putting one above the other.
kobe is the better player and won most of their matchups against each other in the playoffs
Most correct opinion
Shocking, coming from Bill.
I do too, but it’s not egregious to have Kobe over Tim
You can tell he’s so biased w his arms all crossed like a child. The fact he says its outrageous to have Kobe above Duncan is way more of a hot take than to say duncan and kobe are close but Duncan gets the nod
I’ve always had them like side by side as far as careers go. Duncan was more consistent but the highs Kobe would reach were insane. That’s why rankings are dumb as hell, because everyone has their own criteria and will conveniently leave certain facts or stats out that hurts their position. It can still be a fun conversation to have but man people take this shit way to seriously.
This comparison isn’t so hypothetical b/c Kobe & Duncan went head to head.
Despite the better record, Kobe is somehow lower…
Celtics glazer and his employees don’t like Kobe….let’s take that at face value.
Kobe was better before the zone defense ban was lifted, even with Duncan more polished as a 4-year college player. Duncan was on a team that had a lot of euro players who were used to playing zone, so when it was lifted he benefited greatly.
The rule change hurt Kobe and Shaq and helped the Spurs. That era is hard to analyze because the game got flipped on it’s head.
Duncan ended up with a superior team when the rule change happened and Kobe ended up double and triple teamed for the rest of his career.
I despise people who ignore this and it’s a big reason why NBA media is a joke to me.
The all time obsession is so fucking tired.
On NBA Reddit and all its corresponding subs, its post after post every single day of this.
Lol, all of this is literally all completely 100 percent subjective. The idea of who is better is again, literally just what you subjectively value more.
Kobe has a winning playoff record against Duncan. Also Duncan is a center that played power forward with David Robinson but eventually went back to center in his career. He was also a center in high school and college. So greatest power forward is funny cause at his true position his rank drops significantly. But reddit hates Kobe and conversations usually turns Vile on here
These guys are annoying drama queens
Having Kobe 11th is insane
The one thing not talked about, which is where I think this gets definitive, is that Kobe was a bad teammate, throughout his career. The Shaq Lakers-era Kobe didn’t have any teammates supporting him through his rape trial because no one liked him near the end of that team’s run.
Phil Jackson, who dealt with Jordan and Pippen’s clashing egos, who wrangled Rodman, who was able to handle Shaq, he couldn’t handle Kobe and left the team for a while about it. He wrote in his book about how much of a pain in the ass it was to coach Kobe and was significantly critical of Kobe.
Obviously, there’s Shaq. There’s also Dwight. I don’t know how post-back surgery Dwight would’ve faired in LA, and he had issues with Nash as well on the team, but Kobe by all accounts beefed with Dwight basically the entire year and was a large part of why he left after only one year.
Even Kobe post-achilles was out there chucking 20 shots a game while the Lakers had a bunch of future all-stars that they had drafted, and probably impeded a lot of those guys’ development rather than take on a reduced role when it was clear he didn’t have it anymore.
Duncan, on the other hand, no drama, no issues, noone has anything bad to say about him. He consistently took a back seat and adjusted his game so that the Spurs would remain a dynasty his entire career. There was never an issue of sharing the spotlight with Tony or Manu or deferring to Kawaii or at the end Lamarcus when he came in.
Even if you want to argue their on the court numbers are similar, just the fact that Duncan had so much less drama and was so much more an effective leader would put him far ahead of Kobe.
I dont care who you have as being better but it isnt outrageous to rank either one over the other
Very similar resumes and accomplishments in the same era competing against each other, 2 of the easiest players to compare due to that but also some of the most difficult due to their accomplishments being so similar
I think acting like one is clearly better than the other means you are vastly overrating one or vastly underrating the other.
Casual fans tend to have Kobe top 5, and a lot of the “niche” basketball “nerds” tend to have Duncan top 5. I feel like placing Duncan top 5 is just something people do to make it sound like they know a lot about basketball.
In reality, Kobe nor Duncan have a particularly strong case for top 5 IMO, and both belong somewhere in the 7-10 range. Bill isn’t wrong to have Duncan higher, he’s wrong for acting like there’s a huge gap between them.
I also think basketball discourse is funny. Like Bill concedes that Kobe is the 10th or 11th best player, but somehow it’s OUTRAGEOUS to have him as the 7th best player. What fool would dare rank him three whole spots higher??