Timmy, Shaq, Moses, Hakeem, Duncan, Garnett

[Marchesk]

The Tier 2 GOAT Bigs is what I'm talking about. How do you rank them and why? Often, you see Duncan ranked first among the this tier. Or you see Moses outside the top 10.

* I added Garnett, although he might be Tier 3.

[Spurs5Rings2014]

Wilt tops my list for tier 2 GOAT bigs, not quite making the cut for tier 1 bigs featuring GOAT's like Duncan, Russell, Kareem, etc.

[JohnnySic]

Hakeem
Duncan/Timmy :oldlol:
Shaq
Moses
Garnett

[Marchesk]

Wilt tops my list for tier 2 GOAT bigs, not quite making the cut for tier 1 bigs featuring GOAT's like Duncan, Russell, Kareem, etc.

Seriously though, what does Duncan have over Wilt other than team success? And that's like saying Hondo was better than Dr J because his teams won more.

[Dr Hawk]

Interesting topic:


1. Shaq
2. Hakeem
3. Duncan
4. Garnett
5. Moses

I'm not sure about Garnett and Moses.

I rank Shaq 1st here because he has great longevity, amazing dominance throughout his career and best peak.

Hakeem second because he is the greatest two-way center of all-time, he has 14 years of superstar play on both ends and an amazing two-year peak. One of the greatest peaks of all-time

Duncan third, he is the least dominant among the first three players, but has the best longevity. His 03' peak was off the charts too, amazing peak.

[retaxis]

Tiers must be an American thing because most knowledgable nba owners will draft hakeem and Shaq before any centres of all time

[Marchesk]

Hakeem second because he is the greatest two-way center of all-time, he has 14 years of superstar play on both ends and an amazing two-year peak. One of the greatest peaks of all-time

Hakeem's early Rocket teams looked like they were on the verge of a dynasty, or at least yearly contenders with the Lakers until Sampson proved injury prone and another starter got banned for drugs. He was kind of unlucky there. I say that, because he gets criticized for first round exits and winning titles when Jordan first retired.

[Marchesk]

Tiers must be an American thing because most knowledgable nba owners will draft hakeem and Shaq before any centres of all time

Shaq maybe, but no way in hell Hakeem is drafter over Wilt or Kareem. And Shaq is a maybe.

[Dr Hawk]

Hakeem's his early Rocket teams looked like they were on the verge of a dynasty, or at least yearly contenders with the Lakers until Sampson proved injury prone and another starter got banned for drugs. He was kind of unlucky there.

Yes, Hakeem was definitely unlucky. He would be viewed so differently had he played in a better team... :(

[feyki]

Duncan and Hakeem on the Bird-Magic level . Shaq on the Kobe-West-Erving level . Moses on the Elgin-Oscar-Pettit level . Garnett on the Dirk-Hondo-Karl-Wade-Barkley level .

[jlip]

Shaq
Duncan/ Hakeem
Moses
Garnett

[Odinn]

Offensively;
Tier 1; KAJ - Wilt - Shaq - Hakeem
Tier 2; Duncan - Moses
Tier 3; Ewing - Nowitzki
Tier 4; Admiral - Garnett - Russell

Offense; I do not think there is not much to explain. What seperates Moses and Duncan from Tier 1, Tier 1 is all-time great scorers and all-time great big passers. Moses wasn't an all-time great big as for passing. And Duncan wasn't good enough to be called all-time great scorer. And what seperates Duncan and Dirk, Duncan drew much more attention and face much more double-teams. Scoring wise, Dirk is better. But not for overall offense.


Defensively;
Tier 1; Russell - Hakeem - Duncan - Wilt
Tier 2; KAJ - Shaq - Garnett - Ewing - DRob
Tier 3; Moses - Dirk

At their best KAJ and Shaq can match Tier 1's defensive level. But they weren't that consistent through their career. And I believe you'd highlight that I put Duncan into Tier 1 and Garnett into Tier 2. When you have 7 footer, you'd expect better rim protecting. Garnett was more versatile. But Duncan was a more impactful player. Ewing can be put into Tier 1 but I couldn't convince myself.


Rebounding;
Tier 1; Russell - Wilt - Moses
Tier 2; Duncan - Garnett - Shaq
Tier 3; Hakeem - DRob - Ewing - KAJ
Tier 4; Dirk

I expect a debate about Hakeem. But when we look at his career, we see that in his best days (93-95 span) he wasn't that great rebounder. He focused much more on offense and scoring. Kareem's number are inflated by 70s and 80s basketball but he was still on par with Tier 3 and I ranked him as Tier 3.


Overall impact on the court(much like a peak list);
Tier 1; KAJ - Wilt - Shaq - Hakeem
Tier 2; Duncan
Tier 3; Russell - Moses
Tier 4; Nowitzki - Garnett - Ewing
Tier 5; Admiral


But when it comes to making a goat list, that's my order;
1. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
2. Bill Russell
3. Shaquille O'Neal
4. Wilt Chamberlain
5. Tim Duncan
6. Hakeem Olajuwon
7. Moses Malone
8. Dirk Nowitzki
9. Patrick Ewing
10. Kevin Garnett or David Robinson
11. David Robinson or Kevin Garnett
:cheers: :cheers:

[oarabbus]

Tiers must be an American thing because most knowledgable nba owners will draft hakeem and Shaq before any centres of all time


Which knowledgeable NBA owner is drafting Hakeem over KAJ :kobe:

[SsKSpurs21]

Interesting topic:


1. Shaq
2. Hakeem
3. Duncan
4. Garnett
5. Moses

I'm not sure about Garnett and Moses.

I rank Shaq 1st here because he has great longevity, amazing dominance throughout his career and best peak.

Hakeem second because he is the greatest two-way center of all-time, he has 14 years of superstar play on both ends and an amazing two-year peak. One of the greatest peaks of all-time

Duncan third, he is the least dominant among the first three players, but has the best longevity. His 03' peak was off the charts too, amazing peak.

spot on. i can live with this. :applause:

[Spurs5Rings2014]

Seriously though, what does Duncan have over Wilt other than team success? And that's like saying Hondo was better than Dr J because his teams won more.

Comparing Duncan to Hondo.

:roll:

Well, let's see here. Duncan actually played against large black men, not midget white boys. Duncan wasn't a mental midget, choking in the finals year in and year out. His stats didn't shrink in the play offs and then again even more in the finals. He never had a teammate win FMVP over him... in a LOSS. That automatically should void Wilt from the top 10. Dude didn't only choke and lose in the finals, but he literally had a teammate so ****ing THICK that he still won FMVP even though Wilt choked it away for the team. Let that sink in.

Better intangibles, more clutch, stronger will to win, better leader, better teammate, more loyal, the list goes on and on... and on. Only thing Wilt has over Duncan is better stats in a weak era. Transport Duncan back to the 60's and he dominants as much as Wilt does,, if not more. Wilt didn't care about winning, only about making up stories about slaying poo say to hide his true sexuality. He routinely got owned in the play offs by a 6'9" guy. Duncan met the Bill Russell of the modern day in Ben Wallace, and his team and him couldn't stop praising Duncan for being such a GOAT player when he crushed them.

That's the difference between Wilt and Duncan. Duncan has the most 50 win seasons, the most consecutive 50 wins seasons and has more chips with non-All-NBA teammates than any other ATG (all others have only 1 maximum, Duncan has 3+). He lead the least stacked teams to chips throughout his time playing, lead one of he all-time weakest championship teams to a chip over a dynasty with 2 top 10's of all time. Wilt could barely muster 2 chips over small Caucasian men. There's not even an argument to be had here.

Duncan >>> Wilt, always and forever.

[Marchesk]

Duncan >>> Wilt, always and forever.

With all due respect to Duncan, whom nobody can hate on and everyone respects, imagine Wilt in Pop's system for his entire career. MJ wouldn't be the GOAT.

Wilt had a coach who thought their best chance of beating the Celtics was for him to average 50 points a game. And so what does Wilt do? And how does Wilt's team fare in the playoffs against the stacked Celtics that season? Lose by two points in game 7.

When Wilt had good coaches, his teams won while setting records. When he didn't, they lost in game 7s with Hondo stealing the inbound pass or Sam Jones hitting a clutch shot. Not Wilt's fault.

Give Wilt Auerbach, Phil, or Pop for his entire career.

[Duffy Pratt]

Umm... Hondo is John Havlicek. Or were you just trying to get another dose of Lazeruss' essays???


Comparing Duncan to Hondo.

:roll:

Well, let's see here. Duncan actually played against large black men, not midget white boys. Duncan wasn't a mental midget, choking in the finals year in and year out. His stats didn't shrink in the play offs and then again even more in the finals. He never had a teammate win FMVP over him... in a LOSS. That automatically should void Wilt from the top 10. Dude didn't only choke and lose in the finals, but he literally had a teammate so ****ing THICK that he still won FMVP even though Wilt choked it away for the team. Let that sink in.

Better intangibles, more clutch, stronger will to win, better leader, better teammate, more loyal, the list goes on and on... and on. Only thing Wilt has over Duncan is better stats in a weak era. Transport Duncan back to the 60's and he dominants as much as Wilt does,, if not more. Wilt didn't care about winning, only about making up stories about slaying poo say to hide his true sexuality. He routinely got owned in the play offs by a 6'9" guy. Duncan met the Bill Russell of the modern day in Ben Wallace, and his team and him couldn't stop praising Duncan for being such a GOAT player when he crushed them.

That's the difference between Wilt and Duncan. Duncan has the most 50 win seasons, the most consecutive 50 wins seasons and has more chips with non-All-NBA teammates than any other ATG (all others have only 1 maximum, Duncan has 3+). He lead the least stacked teams to chips throughout his time playing, lead one of he all-time weakest championship teams to a chip over a dynasty with 2 top 10's of all time. Wilt could barely muster 2 chips over small Caucasian men. There's not even an argument to be had here.

Duncan >>> Wilt, always and forever.

[Dr Hawk]

With all due respect to Duncan, whom nobody can hate on and everyone respects, imagine Wilt in Pop's system for his entire career. MJ wouldn't be the GOAT.

Wilt had a coach who thought their best chance of beating the Celtics was for him to average 50 points a game. And so what does Wilt do? And how does Wilt's team fare in the playoffs against the stacked Celtics that season? Lose by two points in game 7.

When Wilt had good coaches, his teams won while setting records. When he didn't, they lost in game 7s with Hondo stealing the inbound pass or Sam Jones hitting a clutch shot. Not Wilt's fault.

Give Wilt Auerbach, Phil, or Pop for his entire career.

This sooooooooooooooooooo much :applause:

[Odinn]

With all due respect to Duncan, whom nobody can hate on and everyone respects, imagine Wilt in Pop's system for his entire career. MJ wouldn't be the GOAT.

Wilt had a coach who thought their best chance of beating the Celtics was for him to average 50 points a game. And so what does Wilt do? And how does Wilt's team fare in the playoffs against the stacked Celtics that season? Lose by two points in game 7.

When Wilt had good coaches, his teams won while setting records. When he didn't, they lost in game 7s with Hondo stealing the inbound pass or Sam Jones hitting a clutch shot. Not Wilt's fault.

Give Wilt Auerbach, Phil, or Pop for his entire career.
Not that I agree with him, you are kinda misleading, too.

Wilt was a stat-padder. He cared less about winning it all compared to Russell, Jordan and Duncan for that matter.
Also, Duncan helped Popovich to build his legacy just like Popovich helped Duncan in his later days to add-up. You sound like Popovich made Duncan great. It's quite the opposite, Duncan helped Popovich to become great with being a laid-back, winning mentality superstar and team leader. You guys acting like Popovich in 2003 was just as great as himself in 2014.

[LoneyROY7]

Wilt tops my list for tier 2 GOAT bigs, not quite making the cut for tier 1 bigs featuring GOAT's like Duncan, Russell, Kareem, etc.

Wilt was truly a fantastic tier 2 big. :applause:

[dhsilv]

Seriously though, what does Duncan have over Wilt other than team success? And that's like saying Hondo was better than Dr J because his teams won more.

Yeah I'd go with Duncan over wilt and Hondo over Dr J. Seems about right.

[dhsilv]

Interesting topic:


1. Shaq
2. Hakeem
3. Duncan
4. Garnett
5. Moses

I'm not sure about Garnett and Moses.

I rank Shaq 1st here because he has great longevity, amazing dominance throughout his career and best peak.

Hakeem second because he is the greatest two-way center of all-time, he has 14 years of superstar play on both ends and an amazing two-year peak. One of the greatest peaks of all-time

Duncan third, he is the least dominant among the first three players, but has the best longevity. His 03' peak was off the charts too, amazing peak.

You never saw Moses play did you?

[dhsilv]

Yes, Hakeem was definitely unlucky. He would be viewed so differently had he played in a better team... :(

Oh hell no! Hakeem was a horrible team player who was beyond a freak athletically. Hakeem is the best one on one basketball player who ever lived. There is nobody who I'd take over him.

But while he was a great defender, he was at times just awful offensively. For all his spin move, post moves, and highlights he was a damn ball stopper, he couldn't pass, he really didn't even have a sense of when and where to pass too. He got better as he got older, but still I don't know where it comes from but it seems with each passing year all his faults go away and he moves up in people's opinions. He was just NOT a winner for most of his career. I'll give you he had an all time best ever kinda playoff run, but over the course of his career he is just grossly overrated.

[dhsilv]

With all due respect to Duncan, whom nobody can hate on and everyone respects, imagine Wilt in Pop's system for his entire career. MJ wouldn't be the GOAT.

Wilt had a coach who thought their best chance of beating the Celtics was for him to average 50 points a game. And so what does Wilt do? And how does Wilt's team fare in the playoffs against the stacked Celtics that season? Lose by two points in game 7.

When Wilt had good coaches, his teams won while setting records. When he didn't, they lost in game 7s with Hondo stealing the inbound pass or Sam Jones hitting a clutch shot. Not Wilt's fault.

Give Wilt Auerbach, Phil, or Pop for his entire career.

Wilt played 14 seasons. Most of the brilliant Pop coaching has come in the recent years. Pop's system for at least their first 2 titles and 7 years of Duncan was pretty much "throw the ball to Duncan"

Due to lower pace, better passing, and well duncan not being as good a scorer (or you know playing against real basketball competition) he wasn't the scorer of Wilt, but the system wasn't really all that complex.

After that pop got overly complex and adding new players took forever to integrate into the offense...but having a guy like Manu plus Parker having been in the system for such a long time the spurs made it work better than it really should have. Now the last few years pop's gone to another level though perhaps that's as much because of the talent and experience he has, but still don't act like pop was some crazy brilliant basketball guy when Duncan was in his prime.

[thefatmiral]

Admiral always handled chewing . He's a spot above.

[ScalsFan21]

1. Shaq

2. Duncan
3. Hakeem
4. Moses
5. Garnett

The difference betweens #s 2-5 to me is very negligible and largely accolades-based. Duncan was gift-wrapped one of the best situations in the history of consensus top picks due to the fluke Admiral injury the previous year. He fell ass backwards into great supporting casts and a GOAT-tier HC, who to be fair also fell into Duncan. His peak was slightly lower than Hakeem's, but arguably sustained elite play for longer, and definitely sustained "star" level play for longer.

If you put Garnett in Duncan's spot to begin his career, I have no doubt he'd have accomplished at least MOST of what Tim did. But when the differences are so subtle, it's hard not to give Duncan the nod since we actually saw him become a 5-time champion and 3-time FMVP.

Shaq? Very good (and oddly understated) longevity, and bar none the highest peak here. He has the arguable GOAT season on his resume in 2000, and that's enough for me to put him in my top 5 all-time players. He's a level higher than these guys.

[dhsilv]

1. Shaq

2. Duncan
3. Hakeem
4. Moses
5. Garnett

The difference betweens #s 2-5 to me is very negligible and largely accolades-based. Duncan was gift-wrapped one of the best situations in the history of consensus top picks due to the fluke Admiral injury the previous year. He fell ass backwards into great supporting casts and a GOAT-tier HC, who to be fair also fell into Duncan. His peak was slightly lower than Hakeem's, but arguably sustained elite play for longer, and definitely sustained "star" level play for longer.

If you put Garnett in Duncan's spot to begin his career, I have no doubt he'd have accomplished at least MOST of what Tim did. But when the differences are so subtle, it's hard not to give Duncan the nod since we actually saw him become a 5-time champion and 3-time FMVP.

Shaq? Very good (and oddly understated) longevity, and bar none the highest peak here. He has the arguable GOAT season on his resume in 2000, and that's enough for me to put him in my top 5 all-time players. He's a level higher than these guys.

The bold.

Maybe in the lottery era, but Magic was the first pick to the lakers with Kareem on the roster. Dream was the second top pick in a row for the rockets. Shaq's team drafted Chris Freaking Webber the next year....again back to back first picks.

Duncan got a head coach who'd never done anything and was on the firing block even after winning a title. He got 3 allstar years out of Robinson as his teammates.

Duncan's luck is grossly over rated.

As for Shaq, as much as I respect him, he was a liability at times due to his free throw shooting. He was a head case and constantly caused problems with teammates.

BTW of the players listed shaq did play the fewest games...so not sure you can argue that longevity was in his favor among these guys.

[aj1987]

The Tier 2 GOAT Bigs is what I'm talking about. How do you rank them and why? Often, you see Duncan ranked first among the this tier. Or you see Moses outside the top 10.

* I added Garnett, although he might be Tier 3.
Shaq's a tier 2 GOAT big and Russell and Wilt are Tier 1? :facepalm :facepalm :facepalm

[Horatio33]

With all due respect to Duncan, whom nobody can hate on and everyone respects, imagine Wilt in Pop's system for his entire career. MJ wouldn't be the GOAT.

Wilt had a coach who thought their best chance of beating the Celtics was for him to average 50 points a game. And so what does Wilt do? And how does Wilt's team fare in the playoffs against the stacked Celtics that season? Lose by two points in game 7.

When Wilt had good coaches, his teams won while setting records. When he didn't, they lost in game 7s with Hondo stealing the inbound pass or Sam Jones hitting a clutch shot. Not Wilt's fault.

Give Wilt Auerbach, Phil, or Pop for his entire career.

First, when Timmy came in, Pop had a losing record was coach, he didn't start winning til Timmy started. Second of all, Pop is a team first guy, he wouldn't have tolerated Wilt's ball hogging and record chasing, so either Wilt would have been traded, or Pop fired.

A few Celtics said they wouldn't have been as successful with Wilt instead of Russell, so Auerbach wouldn't have got the best of Wilt, because Wilt wasn't a team player.

[Harison]

1. Hakeem - yes, I rank the Dream just a hair above Shaq due to complete two-way dominance and less team chemistry killing ego.

2. Shaq. Arguably the most dominant post player of All-time. Still had his share of flaws (poor FT, solid but not All-time great D, massive ego).

3-5. Duncan, Garnett, Moses. Same tier talent and impact wise. Career wise Timmy is on top of this tier, followed by KG and Moses. If only other bigs would have been as lucky as TD.