KG & Tim Duncan Deserve More Love

Kobe Bryant is one of the greatest basketball players ever. There’s no denying that. He has five world championships, an MVP award, two scoring titles, 18 All Star appearances, is third all-time in points scored…you get the point.

Ever since Bryant announced he would retire at the end of this season, in a poem published in The Players Tribune, he’s had a farewell tour the likes of which only Derek Jeter could top. Every opposing team regales him with presents. Fans who for years hated him are now lovingly cheering him on. The media can’t get enough of him, and he, in turn, is soaking it all up.

Which is fine. Who am I to say what Kobe deserves? My only point is that, lost in the hoopla surrounding Kobe’s farewell tour, two equally deserving players that haven’t announced their retirement but seem destined to do so after year’s end are being brusquely overlooked.

Way I see it, there are three main reasons Kobe is getting so much attention while Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan, two exceptional NBA players so close to retirement themselves, are not:

1. Kobe announced his retirement ahead of time (a trend on the rise that seems a tad-bit selfish, although exceptionally fun for fans)
2. He plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, which means that he’ll always get more of a spotlight than Duncan or KG, who are playing out their final seasons in San Antonio and Minnesota, respectively
3. He’s Kobe. He’s an iconic juggernaut that once scored 81 points in a game.

Based purely on the basketball accomplishments, the attention Kobe’s getting is disproportionate to how good of a player he was relative to KG and Tim Duncan. Even worse, while Kobe is busy jacking up 17 shots a game at a horrible efficiency rate, all the while stunting the growth of younger players, both Duncan and KG are doing their damnedest to make sure their franchises are thriving long after they’ve retired.

To examine their current situations:

Kevin Garnett

He’s in a very similar situation to Kobe. The Timberwolves are in a rebuilding year, just like the Lakers, and the main goals for the team should be to A) develop their young players and B) tank so that they can get as high a draft-pick as possible.

Garnett plays just 15 minutes a game, and takes a mere three shots per game. Yet, from stories inside the team’s practices, he’s still leading the sprints, mentoring the young players on how to be real professionals and exceptional ballplayers. He is the heart-and-soul of the team, in every sense of that cliched term. KG has even said that he’d one day like to purchase the Timberwolves.

Tim Duncan

The Big Fundamental’s situation is pretty much night and day compared with Kobe’s current one. This season’s Spurs is one of the best teams in the past 25 years, and, according to Opponents’ Points Per 100 Possessions, the best defensive team in that same 25-year stretch. They are a legitimate threat to win the league, and Duncan sets the tone in practices and in games.

Like KG, his minutes are down, but unlike both Garnett and Kobe, his efficiency is not. He’s shooting 50 percent from the field (he’s a career 50 percent shooter), grabbing 7.5 boards and dishing out three assists (0.5 assists fewer than Bryant, a shooting guard).

Kobe Bryant

The Lakers are currently in the midst of their worst two-season stretch in franchise history, but they do have a number of young players in Jordan Clarkson, Julius Randle, and D’Angelo Russell that prevent L.A.’s future from looking like a Cormac McCarthy novel.

What should the Lakers do then? Ideally, you’d like to see them develop their young players like Randle and Russell. Unfortunately for the two youngsters, that’s not exactly the gameplan.

In the words of Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak, “We cannot move on as a team until Kobe leaves.”

Bryant is playing the third most minutes per game, with both Randle and Russell, their first-round draft picks from the past two years, playing less. Kobe’s shooting 17 shots a game at a 35 percent clip — not to mention seven three-pointers per game at an atrocious 28 percent rate.

This, of course, isn’t all Bryant’s fault. Coaches are supposed to handle playing time and the team’s offensive philosophy. When the head coach is Byron Scott, though, you have a better shot at turning Roy Hibbert into a three-point shooting specialist than getting Kobe to take a backseat.

Even with Scott as coach, if Bryant was so concerned with the future of the only team he’s ever played for, wouldn’t he ask Scott to give more playing time to Randle and Russell? Rather than bring the entire franchise to a standstill while he launches three-pointers deep enough to give Steph Curry pause, couldn’t he help facilitate scoring situations for his teammates?

Conceivably, yes. But the man’s name is Kobe Bryant. He’s not about to change his stripes.

If you think this is just one season, and that Kobe’s legacy deserves more than KG and Duncan, let’s go through their list of individual accomplishments.

Duncan:

MVPs — 2

Championships — 5

First-Team All NBAs — 10

Finals MVP — 3

Defensive First-Teams — 8

Garnett:

MVPs — 1

Championships — 1

First-Team All NBAs — 4

Finals MVPs — 0

Defensive First-Teams — 4

Bryant:

MVPs — 1

Championships — 5

First-Team All NBAs — 11

Finals MVPs — 2

Defensive First-Teams — 9

Kobe’s obviously no slouch. He has a bunch of talent and is one of the greatest players ever to play this game.

But so is Tim Duncan and, to a lesser extent, Kevin Garnett. Duncan is hands-down the best power forward to ever pick up a basketball. Since his first year in the league, the Spurs have won at least 50 games every season (excusing one lockout-shortened year). That is 17 years in a row with at least 50 games won. The Warriors once had a 19-year stretch where they never won 50 games. Duncan is a cyborg that’s still putting up efficient scoring numbers while being a big-time contributor to the best NBA defense ever.

And KG, although never quite the caliber player that Duncan or Kobe was, is still really, really good. His importance and value as a teammate will never be accurately represented by statistics and awards. His Celtics teams denied LeBron James — arguably better than anyone mentioned in this article — a chance at a few titles. The best player he ever played with in his early Minnesota days was Latrell Sprewell, and he still dragged them to the Western Conference finals.

Both KG and Duncan, if this is indeed their final year, are going out with their number one goal the same: make the team better. Kobe, for better or worse, isn’t.

For many, they’d rather have Kobe going out swinging. His millions of fans love the “vintage Kobe” games — like last week against Garnett’s Timberwolves when he dropped 38 points, 5 assists, and 5 rebounds.

In two year’s time, though, Minnesota’s Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns will have a couple years of carrying a team under their belts. LaMarcus Aldridge will be the superstar big man fully integrated and thriving in San Antonio’s throwback grind-it-out style.

The Timberwolves and Spurs are already working towards a bright future where their generational superstars are no longer on the court. KG and Duncan would rather see the train humming along than have it wait for them.

For now, the Lakers are stuck in Kobe’s station.