Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of the greatest players in the history of the NBA, and many consider him the greatest center of all-time. Kareem was unstoppable in his prime, and the greatest scorer this league has ever seen.
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This era of the NBA is far more perimeter-oriented than when Kareem was playing, and true big men are few and far between. So it only makes sense who Kareem would name as his favorite current player in an interview on Sirius XM NBA, according to LA Daily News’ Mark Medina:
Tim Duncan. He’s very fundamental and every postseason his team is going a lot further than a lot of the other teams. They have a pretty good number of world championships. They keep riding Tim Duncan.
Duncan’s consistency throughout his career has been something to behold as he has continued to be effective, even as he grows older. The performance of guys like himself, Dirk Nowitzki, and of course Kobe Bryant, have shown that the old guys can still hang with the new crop of NBA stars.
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Duncan and Kareem do share a lot of similarities in how fundamentally sound they both were, as well as their sustained excellence for such a long period of time. Kareem even gave Duncan’s Spurs the advantage in these NBA Finals taking place:
They should be hungry. They should have won it last year. If Kawhi Leonard makes a free throw, they win it all. The have the same type of motivation the Lakers had in 85. We should’ve had it and we wanted it. The Celtics were still laughing but we had to wipe the smile off of their faces. I think San Antonio probably feels the same way
Many may have expected Kareem to go with Kobe Bryant as his favorite, but preferring Duncan is no knock on Bryant. Big men tend to gravitate to other bigs, and few have been as good as Duncan has in his career.
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