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**Johnny Mac** · 09-06-2004, 10:08 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Arclite!
Talk about beating a dead horse. I swear I went over the Duncan having to play against a zone and Malone not thing with JTCK just a while ago, but maybe I'm imagining it.

Either way, I think anyone who claims that the Duncan we're watching now is better than a prime Malone is doing themselves a disservice if they haven't watched any film on the Mailman from the very late 80's/early 90's. Duncan is a fantastic player, but I honestly don't believe he ever has had the same level of "unstoppableness" that Malone had for a good 4-5 years.

I've seen enough of both of them at their peaks (assuming Duncan is indeed at his peak now) to say that I would want Malone without any hesitation - at this point, at least. Duncan surely has a fantastic career ahead of him and will likely finish it with enough accolades to easily vault himself ahead of Malone in most people's "Greatest of all-time"-type lists.

I dont think we ever settled the whole zone thing? I sure didnt change my mind about it. I saw plenty of prime Malone, and all he really did better than Duncan is score, I dont think his overall impact on the game was as great as Duncans. Duncan has the same level of unstoppableness because it takes a hard double and triple to stop him as a scorer, but he still creates opportunities. On top of this, he is the anchor for the best defensive team in the league and is a top 2-3 rebounder in the league every year. To me, that is the same level of unstoppableness. Not from a raw scoring aspect, but if you look at the overall impact.

dk1115 · 09-07-2004, 01:14 AM

why hasn't anyone mentioned he's about to be 1st all time in points?

Tersk · 09-07-2004, 01:21 AM

I havent read the whole thread but this is my stance: I don't think he's underrated because whenever I see a "Best All-Time Team" thread, he is either the starting PF or 1st off the bench, being the best or second best power forward ever isn't underrating him

kflo · 09-07-2004, 06:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by John The Cool Kid!
If you're going to claim that Malone is a far superior scorer, like I think its reasonable to, atleast take into account one of the main reasons for that is the zone ruling. That allowed Malone to tackle single coverage much more often than Duncan does.

You cant have it both ways though, Duncan gets doubled much more than Malone ever did, simply because teams can without getting called for it. Malone could pump fake a pass, and defenses would be back to their man.

the illegal defense rules were changed for the '01-'02 season. the same season that saw duncan's scoring go up from 22.2 to 25.5 ppg, and his fg% go from 49.9% to 50.8%.

kflo · 09-07-2004, 06:20 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Arclite!

Malone was most valuable (maybe not most dominant) in that his team would be complete garbage without him, their next highest scorer being Bryon Russell that season, with a crippled Jeff Hornacek and a Stockton that wasn't capable of playing more than 28 minutes a night.. The Spurs still had David Robinson (who had yet to have his big fall off) and a flurry of awesome roleplayers like Elliott, A. Johnson, Elie, Rose, Kerr, etc..

And by the way, the Spurs and Jazz had the same record in the lockout season.

AND duncan actually came in 3rd, behind mourning.

Dulli · 09-07-2004, 01:55 PM

Many reasons why Malone would be underrated:

1. He played in Utah
2. He played in the same era as several other distinctly better, or more high profile, stars - Jordan, Bird, Magic, Hakeem, David, Barkley, Shaq to name the first 7 that came to mind.
3. He never (hasn't yet anyway) led his team to a championship
4. He is not very well liked
5. His game wasn't very pretty or flashy, and was very workmanlike. Unlike Duncan, who is praised for this aspect, alot of critics instead chose to focus on Malone's percieved dirty play.
6. The question of how much of his success should be attributed to John Stockton or Sloan's system in Utah. (To be fair, Malone was a pretty good player under Frank Layden for a few years as well)

There are six pretty good reasons why he would be underrated. I am not saying all these are valid or correct reasons to underrate him, but they are there. Judging by just his numbers, he certainly has a legit claim to the spot of Best Power Forward ever, and by rights, should be considered a Top 10-15 player ever.

jokeaward · 09-07-2004, 02:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by dk1115!
why hasn't anyone mentioned he's about to be 1st all time in points?

I agree. Same thing for Moses, who's fifth all-time.

We should give him some credit for longevity and long greatness. It's not just the longevity like Parish or Willis, Mailman was really good for a long time, and no just in scoring.

We do have to look at how things sustained. Are Baylor and McGrady better scorers than Mailman and, say, Drexler? Well maybe if we look at short bursts, but we should probably look at the bigger picture.

**Arclite** · 09-07-2004, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by John The Cool Kid!

I dont think we ever settled the whole zone thing? I sure didnt change my mind about it.

No, I don't think it's really a thing that can be settled at this point. On the one hand, you do have Duncan's scoring being a career best the year the zone was first allowed, but on the other hand it was obviously underutilized at that point.

One of my main points though, was that you could still double team a guy when he had the ball before the new rules. Malone would have been more often double teamed (he still was, to a point), but because of the team he was playing for (with Utah's execution and shooters, you couldn't really get away with DT'ing Malone), it was essentially a "pick your poison" situation. With the addition of Barry, one would think teams will shy away from collapsing on Timmy a bit more, but we'll have to see.

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