PHOENIX – FEBRUARY 15: (L-R) Tim Duncan #21 and Kobe Bryant #24 of the Western Conference sit on the bench during the 58th NBA All-Star Game, part of 2009 NBA All-Star Weekend (Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE/Getty Images)
We tackled Nylon Calculus’ ‘My Personal NBA Top 50’ skewed based on the values and history of the San Antonio Spurs.
As one of just six franchises to win five or more championships, the San Antonio Spurs have one of the league’s most revered cultures. Even prior to the Gregg Popovich-Tim Duncan era, the Spurs have been a consistently competitive franchise.
Since the ABA-NBA merger in 1976, San Antonio has continuously put together winning seasons by instilling the same values of ingenuity, longevity, consistency and camaraderie while going against the grain of the league and building their own brand of basketball.
With these values in mind, we decided to play around with the new ‘My Personal NBA Top 50’ by FanSided’s Nylon Calculus to determine the greatest players of all-time with respect to the San Antonio Spurs. To try the tool out for yourself, click here.
The following categories were separated by one notch in order of most important to least important traits: Team success (Career Postseason Win Shares), Longevity (Career Regular Season Win Shares), Superiority (League Awards), and Peak form (Best single-season win shares).
As is always with the Spurs, team success goes ahead of anything else. If the team’s not winning then what’s the point of putting up a nice statline? Longevity follows closely behind because sustaining success is almost as important as gaining the success in the first place.
Superiority ranks ahead of peak form because earning the hardware can back up a player’s greatness, as Tim Duncan’s two MVP trophies or Manu Ginobili’s Sixth Man of the Year award have proven. Peak performance is important, but Duncan won multiple championships past his peak and David Robinson exclusively won championships in the latter stages of his career.
In the next set of traits, the most important quality was number of rings followed by career efficiency and then career points per game. All decades and positions were treated equally and Spurs were prioritized ahead of other teams.
Without further ado, here are the results of the top players of all time with a Spurs perspective. Before cracking the top 10, some notable Spurs figures made their way into the Top 50.
