Monday, October 23, 2006
I Am Sick and Tired of Watching Tim Duncan Play Basketball
Originally posted May 18, 2006.
Let me start off by saying that Tim Duncan is a goober; that he has a nickname (The Big Fundamental) that serves to both convey his "old-school" playing "style" and to make fun of him at the same time; that banking in five-foot jump-hooks over undersized defenders is not "incredible", it’s FUCKING BORING. These NBA announcers are in constant hysterics while doing the play-by-play of Spurs games, producing ejaculate screams of delight whenever he hits another ugly-looking shot or pumps his fist once every forty games or so in a rare show of "heart". This guy is a two-time MVP, three-time Finals MVP, and is generally considered to be the best thing to hit the NBA since Michael Jordan...but imagine if Kevin Garnett played alongside David Robinson to begin his NBA career; if the Timberwolves surrounded Garnett with the likes of Manu Ginobli and Tony Parker instead of Wally Szczerbiak and Michael Olowokandi; if Minnesota had even an idea of how to put a team together instead of importing Latrell Sprewell and calling it a "championship-level" team. Big Ticket has himself an MVP and is more talented and infinitely more watchable than Duncan, but for what? For nothing; Garnett’s prime is being wasted while Duncan continues to garner undue attention because he’s backed by an adept management structure. At least when everyone was pissed off at Shaquille O’Neal for being so dominating, Shaq had some style to go with his unreal size and colossal power. I mean, the guy dove for loose balls, shimmied and shook after making an exciting play, pulled a fucking BACKBOARD down on his back after one particularly monstrous dunk and destroyed a basket-support after another; Diesel is a legend, and, best of all, he has banked in, maybe, three shots in his career...and those were accidents.
It is NOT good to watch a player score 50 on a "variety" of five-foot window-shots, no matter what anyone says. The greatest players have something about their game that makes them distinct, something that is more than just numbers: George Gervin’s finger-roll, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhook, Michael Jordan’s line-drive fade away, Allen Iverson’s skyhigh floater, Larry Bird-cum-Dirk Nowitzki’s unblockable behind-the-head jumpshot, Isiah Thomas-cum-Tim Hardaway’s killer crossover, Hakeem Olajuwon’s "dream shake", Patrick Ewing’s 17-foot baseline fadeaway, Charles Barkely’s mad-dash two-hand tomahawk...even Shaq’s outlawed monkeydunk that produced the aforementioned spectacles, or Duncan-teammate Tony Parker‘s running "teardrop"...and Tim Duncan has his bank shot. That’s his contribution. So, while NBA "vets" might enjoy watching Duncan win with his mundane game, the rest of us are hoping like hell that the Dallas Mavericks finish off what they started so that we can finally enjoy the later rounds of the NBA playoffs without being force-fed the Tim Duncan ideal of How Basketball Is Supposed To Be Played. Enough already. ¶ 2:42 PM
Let me start off by saying that Tim Duncan is a goober; that he has a nickname (The Big Fundamental) that serves to both convey his "old-school" playing "style" and to make fun of him at the same time; that banking in five-foot jump-hooks over undersized defenders is not "incredible", it’s FUCKING BORING. These NBA announcers are in constant hysterics while doing the play-by-play of Spurs games, producing ejaculate screams of delight whenever he hits another ugly-looking shot or pumps his fist once every forty games or so in a rare show of "heart". This guy is a two-time MVP, three-time Finals MVP, and is generally considered to be the best thing to hit the NBA since Michael Jordan...but imagine if Kevin Garnett played alongside David Robinson to begin his NBA career; if the Timberwolves surrounded Garnett with the likes of Manu Ginobli and Tony Parker instead of Wally Szczerbiak and Michael Olowokandi; if Minnesota had even an idea of how to put a team together instead of importing Latrell Sprewell and calling it a "championship-level" team. Big Ticket has himself an MVP and is more talented and infinitely more watchable than Duncan, but for what? For nothing; Garnett’s prime is being wasted while Duncan continues to garner undue attention because he’s backed by an adept management structure. At least when everyone was pissed off at Shaquille O’Neal for being so dominating, Shaq had some style to go with his unreal size and colossal power. I mean, the guy dove for loose balls, shimmied and shook after making an exciting play, pulled a fucking BACKBOARD down on his back after one particularly monstrous dunk and destroyed a basket-support after another; Diesel is a legend, and, best of all, he has banked in, maybe, three shots in his career...and those were accidents.
It is NOT good to watch a player score 50 on a "variety" of five-foot window-shots, no matter what anyone says. The greatest players have something about their game that makes them distinct, something that is more than just numbers: George Gervin’s finger-roll, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s skyhook, Michael Jordan’s line-drive fade away, Allen Iverson’s skyhigh floater, Larry Bird-cum-Dirk Nowitzki’s unblockable behind-the-head jumpshot, Isiah Thomas-cum-Tim Hardaway’s killer crossover, Hakeem Olajuwon’s "dream shake", Patrick Ewing’s 17-foot baseline fadeaway, Charles Barkely’s mad-dash two-hand tomahawk...even Shaq’s outlawed monkeydunk that produced the aforementioned spectacles, or Duncan-teammate Tony Parker‘s running "teardrop"...and Tim Duncan has his bank shot. That’s his contribution. So, while NBA "vets" might enjoy watching Duncan win with his mundane game, the rest of us are hoping like hell that the Dallas Mavericks finish off what they started so that we can finally enjoy the later rounds of the NBA playoffs without being force-fed the Tim Duncan ideal of How Basketball Is Supposed To Be Played. Enough already. ¶ 2:42 PM
