Utah Jazz 102
San Antonio Spurs 106 Final
I just feel like I need to get something off my chest about a conversation I watched between Matt Harpring and Thurl Bailey and Coach Phil Johnson during half-time of the game versus the Spurs. There is always this discussion between the NBA "experts" about who is the best power forward to ever in the NBA. This conversation usually comes down to 2 candidates. While Matt Harpring, who by the way played with Karl Malone while in Utah, will argue Tim Duncan is the best ever and gives him that honor solely based off the number of rings. Then you have Thurl Bailey, who played with Karl, while Karl was in his prime, and Coach Johnson, who was his assistant coach Karl's entire career say by far the Best PF to ever play the game is Malone.
Below is a list of why I think Karl Malone is the best ever and if you can think of some more, feel free to share.
1- Tim Duncan is not a PF! He is just lucky that the Spurs, once David Robinson was lost for the year, purposely lost games and the season to get the best odds of winning the #1 pick that year.
2- Tim Duncan gets credit about how strong he is, but when he goes up against guys with a lot of bulk, he struggles and then uses his quickness to get past the guys. Put Karl Malone back in his prime, now he has to go up against a guy who not only is much, much stronger than he is, but now a guy who is just as quick or even more.
3- Tim Duncan never guards the PF on the other team (see pic on left). For the last 6 or 7 years, he is listed as the PF for the Spurs because that way he can make the All-Star team every year. Funny how he is listed as the forward, but then you have DeJuan Blair, who is 6' 4" listed as the Center. It would be nice if it were possible that you had to guard the guy listed at the same position as you. NO switching on D!4- If you put Karl Malone in the same position as Tim Duncan, meaning let him play along side a dominant Center named David Robinson, would Karl have the same, less, or more rings?
TIM DUNCAN: He also gets away with a ton. He claims he never fouls anyone. Once you get the reputation as a "great defender" or "good defender" then you pretty much get away with what ever you want as a player. Look at the picture to the right. If you watched the game then you had to of seen this play. Loose ball and Millap, who hasn't gotten a single call to go his way as of late, gets pushed and there was no foul called. This is a classic example of how the little guys in this world just get pushed around and don't get the credit they deserve, or get what's rightfully theirs because they worked hard to get it, but they gave it the guy with the "reputation". I am going to say that Tim Duncan is one of the greatest PF's ever, but not the greatest, because that belongs to Karl Malone.
Even at the end of Karl's career, TD would still struggle because of how strong Karl was. Karl was in better shape at age 40 than TD has been the last 4 years.
ReplyDeleteThe counter argument to Tim Duncan's championship rings might be that Duncan never had to go up against a certain Michael Jordan to get his ring, while Malone did it twice. However, the counter-counter argument to the M.J. line of thinkins is that the Jazz twice had their opportunity to contend for a championship while Michael was out trying to play baseball. They lost to the rockets in the first round of the playoffs in '94,'95, if I'm not mistaken. So what I'm trying to tell you is I don't know how much stock to put in the championships. I did like your list of reasons though.
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