and it was beautiful

the 2005 Finals are fucking hilarious to rewatch now

Duncan’s style of play didn’t help either. There were many players, even other big men who had higher PPGs than him.

The Spurs’ system and Duncan prioritizing efficiency and teamwork led to lower PPG.

facts lmao

Final score 69-73 is different from today’s 120 point average

It has more to do with how Tim Duncan played the game. His style didn’t lead to big scoring nights.

It was glorious. Really miss those times.

And the Spurs were one of the best at it. A credit to Pop’s coaching and why he’s the goat imo is how he’s changed playstyles so well to fit different styles. People remember the beautiful game spurs but those early 2000s teams were hold your team to 60pts and then just throw it into the post for Duncan or Admiral to do something

Duncan also wasnt a noteworthy scorer tbf

One day i hope we can have an era adjusted stat like WRC+ in baseball for box stats

Apparently I’m out of the loop here as I’ve never heard the term “deadball era”. What time period does that refer to and why?

Stop blaming eras. Tim didn’t score a lot because that wasn’t his style. Guys like Iverson, Kobe, LeBron, Melo, Tmac, and Wade played in the same era. Their games lead to more big offensive nights because they can handle the ball when they want.

malachi flynn has the same amount as duncan

Not really unusual per se, two teams averaged above 100 in 2005. Nonetheless—what a shockingly different era. https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/stat/points-per-game?date=2004-06-16

You’re missing a lot of the context that makes this impressive. Here’s another way of saying it:

Garnett had a career block-to-goal-tends ratio of 2037:157, or 13:1.

Wemby’s ratio is slightly better than Garnett’s - 533:29, or 18:1.

Duncan on the other hand… had a career block-to-goal-tends ratio of 3020:15, or 201:1.

Duncan was incredibly clean.

Duncan was a great defensive player but not a leaper like those guys you mentioned

i’ve watched basically every Spurs game this season and i’m sure a handful of those Wemby goaltends weren’t actually even goaltends.

there were definitely two blocks from memory this season that were called as a goaltend even though the ball was at the apex of its ascent. i think one was in a game against the Heat at the beginning of the season and another was in the one Thunder game we lost

The way wemby blocks some high arcing shots makes it look like goaltends it makes sense

It’s crazy until you think about it.

TD played in th deadball era, he has never attempted more than 22 3s in a season and he was never a ‘great’ FT shooter.

Things like like number of 40 point games don’t favor consistent reliable scorers especially in the lowest scoring era. Kinda like the surprising kawhi stats for the same topic. Number of games type stats get compounded when the stat reaches a certain breakpoint. 

He was for the first few years if his career, but after that leg injury, he settled into the ~²⁰⁄₁₀ defensive anchor, team bedrock guy.

Yup.

He’a just a winner.

He absolutely was a scorer. Scoring just looks different when you have the best defense in the lowest scoring era. Look to the playoffs to see how Duncan took a bigger role in the offense. Averaging 25/15/5 in a championship playoff run where spurs games were often 80 point final scores.

And just to show he was about it when it mattered, he only has one less 40 point game in the playoffs compared to the reg season. In a smaller sample of games that matter, he is their scorer. 

By share of team points, Duncan is right around where SGA is this season, and other top scorers typically are (24-26%). It’s not that Duncan wasn’t a scorer, it’s that he wasn’t an explosive scorer in a period where “explosive” also meant less points than they do now. 40 points in 2025-2026 is about 33 points in 2004-2005, by share of total team points.

Timmy won’t go down easy tho. But he might be going down. 

David Robinson too.

Such a weird comment. How is this disrespectful in anyway?

Duncan was also drafted at 21yo. Wemby just turned 22 this year.

The Spurs were really good before he got there. He just also happened to be really good too.

Number of 40 point games isn’t a catching up in scoring in any meaningful way. By that logic, malachi Flynn caught up to Duncan because of his 50 point game.

Duncan has seasons averaging more ppg than Wemby has so far. And he did it in a much lower scoring era. Wemby may surpass in the future, but he hasn’t caught up to Duncan’s scoring in a 19 year career. 

Duncan was the system. He was the main offensive player for over 10 years

Putting Timmy above Kobe is an easy call.

It’s certainly a choice to see it as a slander.

I LOVE Duncan, he’s the #1 Spur and PF in nba history. More about how crazy wemby is right now

How is it slander? Wemby is considered to be the most promising young talent in the entire NBA and he is compared to Duncan because he could be the next legacy franchise player for the Spurs. It’s just to put things in perspective. Wemby genuinely has potential to become a top 5-10 player of all time like Duncan if he continues to show this level of 2 way play.