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The Formula Puts Tim Duncan #2 All Time. Here's the Case.
netwins.substack.com
Most ranking lists put Tim Duncan somewhere between 8th and 15th all time.
The Net Wins formula puts him second.
The gap between those two conclusions is not a rounding error. It’s not a quirk. It’s the formula doing exactly what it’s designed to do measuring what actually happened over a full career rather than what the cultural narrative says should have happened.
Here’s the complete case.
Net Wins at a Glance
Regular season: 133.0 · Playoffs: +10.5 · Combined: 143.5
Average per season: 7.00 · Peak season: 10.49 (2005-06) · Top-3 average: 9.74
19 seasons. 4 championships. 15 All-Star selections. 3 Finals MVPs. 2 regular season MVPs.
And the highest per-season average Net Wins of any player in the entire database.
What the Formula Sees
Tim Duncan played 19 NBA seasons, every one of them with the San Antonio Spurs, every one of them as the most important player on a winning team. When you run the Net Wins formula across those 19 seasons the output is almost monotonously excellent.
Here is every season:
1997-98: +7.22 · 1998-99: +5.25 · 1999-00: +6.12 2000-01: +8.13 · 2001-02: +8.47 · 2002-03: +9.63 2003-04: +7.38 · 2004-05: +9.08 · 2005-06: +10.49 2006-07: +7.98 · 2007-08: +6.89 · 2008-09: +6.29 2009-10: +4.99 · 2010-11: +7.52 · 2011-12: +6.34 2012-13: +6.27 · 2013-14: +6.20 · 2014-15: +3.66 2015-16: +5.07
Look at what is not in that list. A negative season. A wasted year. A season below +3.5.
In 19 NBA seasons Tim Duncan never had a bad year. His worst season by Net Wins —his final year at age 40 on a 67-win Spurs team was +3.66. For context, that would be a career year for most NBA players.
That consistency is what the formula is measuring when it produces a 7.00 average per season. It is the highest average in the database. Not the highest peak, Jordan and Wilt have higher individual season peaks. Not the highest career total, Kareem’s 20 seasons edge him out in raw accumulation. But the highest average, sustained across the longest consistently excellent career in the history of the sport.
The Playoff Case
Five championship runs add 10.45 playoff Net Wins to his career total:
1998-99 (15-3 record): +2.48 · First championship, dominant run 2002-03 (15-7 record): +2.10 · Second title, Finals MVP 2004-05 (15-8 record): +1.62 · Third title 2006-07 (15-5 record): +1.87 · Fourth title, swept the Cavaliers 2013-14 (20-8 record): +2.38 · Fifth Finals appearance, lost to Miami in 7
The 2013-14 run is worth noting specifically. Duncan was 38 years old. He went 20-8 in the playoffs, produced +2.38 Net Wins, and pushed the Heat to seven games in the Finals. That is one of the great late-career playoff performances in NBA history and the formula captures it exactly.
Why Most Lists Undervalue Him
The conventional ranking, 8th to 15th depending on the listrefl, ects three cultural biases that the Net Wins formula has no interest in.
Bias 1: Style points. Duncan played power forward in an era that celebrated athleticism and highlight plays. He scored off bank shots and mid-range jumpers. He set screens. He made the right pass. He was, by every observable measure, the most fundamentally sound player of his generation and fundamental soundness does not generate highlights. The formula doesn’t watch film. It counts what happened.
Bias 2: Era discounting. Duncan played during a period when the league was transitioning away from big men. The conventional wisdom said his style was outdated even while he was winning championships with it. The formula has no opinion about whether his style was aesthetically appropriate for his era. It just sees a player whose contributions converted into wins at a higher per-season rate than anyone in the database.
Bias 3: The Jordan/LeBron gravity well. Any ranking conversation that starts from the premise that Jordan is #1 and LeBron is #2 is already constrained. Duncan doesn’t fit neatly into the narrative about the two greatest players ever, so lists that are structured around that narrative tend to push him down. The formula starts from zero. It has no narrative.
The Honest Counterargument
The strongest case against Duncan at #2 is the team context argument. He played his entire career in San Antonio under Gregg Popovich, arguably the greatest coach in NBA history, alongside Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, two Hall of Famers. The Spurs system was specifically designed to maximize player efficiency and minimize negative actions.
This is a real point. The Net Wins formula normalizes against the team’s win rate, which means Duncan benefited from playing on consistently excellent Spurs teams. His per-season average would likely be lower if he’d spent his career on a rebuilding franchise.
But this argument proves too much. Jordan benefited from playing alongside Pippen and Rodman under Phil Jackson’s triangle offense. LeBron engineered super teams specifically to improve his context. Bird had McHale and Parish. Magic had Kareem. Every great player’s numbers reflect their context, that’s not a flaw in the formula, it’s a feature. We evaluate the careers players actually had, not hypothetical careers on worse teams.
Duncan’s context was excellent because he helped make it excellent. For 19 seasons. That’s the point.
Where Other Lists Rank Him
Net Wins (this formula): #2 ESPN Top 100 (2020): #8 BR All-Time VORP: #11 Bill Simmons Pyramid: #9 BR HOF Probability: 100% NBA 75th Anniversary Team: Named Bleacher Report Top 100: #10
The gap between this formula’s ranking (#2) and the conventional consensus (#8-11) is the second largest such gap in the top 20, behind only Scottie Pippen. Every major system recognizes Duncan as an all-time great. The disagreement is about whether he belongs in the top 3 or the top 10. The Net Wins formula’s answer, that the highest per-season average in the database belongs in the top 3, seems like the more defensible position.
In His Own Words
“I don’t need to be the man. I just need to be what I am — and what I am is someone who does what it takes to win.” — Tim Duncan
“People talk about what I can’t do — I can’t run, I can’t jump, I’m not athletic. What they don’t talk about is what I can do. And what I can do is win.” — Tim Duncan, 2005
What Others Saw
“Tim Duncan is the best power forward who ever played the game. I don’t think it’s particularly close. What he does that nobody talks about is he makes everyone around him better — not by being flashy, but by always being exactly where he’s supposed to be. Every single possession. For twenty years.” — Gregg Popovich
“I’ve played against a lot of great players. Tim Duncan is the one I least wanted to face in a playoff series. Not because he was going to do one spectacular thing — because he was going to do every right thing, every possession, for seven games. That wears you down.” — Kevin Garnett
“He’s the most complete player I ever saw. People forget how good he was on defense, how good he was passing out of the post, how many different ways he could beat you. He just didn’t care about being recognized for it. That’s a different kind of greatness.” — Kobe Bryant
The Larger Argument
Tim Duncan spent 19 seasons being underrated in real time, and he has spent the years since his retirement being underrated in retrospect. The narrative about him has never quite caught up to what the numbers say.
The Net Wins formula doesn’t know who Tim Duncan is. It doesn’t know he played in San Antonio, or that he banked in mid-range jumpers, or that he once said “I’m just a regular guy from St. Croix.” It sees 19 seasons of a player whose positive contributions converted into team wins at a rate no one else in the database has matched, sustained from his rookie year to his final season at age 40.
Second all time. Five and a half combined net wins behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who played 20 seasons to Duncan’s 19.
The formula says they are the two greatest players in NBA history. That conclusion is uncomfortable for a culture that has spent 30 years debating Jordan versus LeBron. It deserves to be taken seriously.
Next week: #1 — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The formula puts him first by a significant margin. His combined total of 149.0 is 5.5 ahead of Duncan and 60.8 ahead of Jordan. The profile makes the case for why a center who played from 1969 to 1989 is the greatest NBA player the formula has ever measured — and why that conclusion is less surprising than it sounds.
The full interactive database, every player, every season, every calculation, is free at https://willf123.github.io/nba-net-wins/
— Will Fiore
© 2026 Will Fiore. Net Wins formula and all written content are original works. All rights reserved.
Get full access to NET WINS at netwins.substack.com/subscribe
The full Net Wins database, Every season from 1946 to 2026, is free at willf123.github.io/nba-net-wins.
© 2026 Will Fiore. Net Wins formula and all written content are original works. All rights reserved.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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By Net Winsnetwins.substack.com
Most ranking lists put Tim Duncan somewhere between 8th and 15th all time.
The Net Wins formula puts him second.
The gap between those two conclusions is not a rounding error. It’s not a quirk. It’s the formula doing exactly what it’s designed to do measuring what actually happened over a full career rather than what the cultural narrative says should have happened.
Here’s the complete case.
Net Wins at a Glance
Regular season: 133.0 · Playoffs: +10.5 · Combined: 143.5
Average per season: 7.00 · Peak season: 10.49 (2005-06) · Top-3 average: 9.74
19 seasons. 4 championships. 15 All-Star selections. 3 Finals MVPs. 2 regular season MVPs.
And the highest per-season average Net Wins of any player in the entire database.
What the Formula Sees
Tim Duncan played 19 NBA seasons, every one of them with the San Antonio Spurs, every one of them as the most important player on a winning team. When you run the Net Wins formula across those 19 seasons the output is almost monotonously excellent.
Here is every season:
1997-98: +7.22 · 1998-99: +5.25 · 1999-00: +6.12 2000-01: +8.13 · 2001-02: +8.47 · 2002-03: +9.63 2003-04: +7.38 · 2004-05: +9.08 · 2005-06: +10.49 2006-07: +7.98 · 2007-08: +6.89 · 2008-09: +6.29 2009-10: +4.99 · 2010-11: +7.52 · 2011-12: +6.34 2012-13: +6.27 · 2013-14: +6.20 · 2014-15: +3.66 2015-16: +5.07
Look at what is not in that list. A negative season. A wasted year. A season below +3.5.
In 19 NBA seasons Tim Duncan never had a bad year. His worst season by Net Wins —his final year at age 40 on a 67-win Spurs team was +3.66. For context, that would be a career year for most NBA players.
That consistency is what the formula is measuring when it produces a 7.00 average per season. It is the highest average in the database. Not the highest peak, Jordan and Wilt have higher individual season peaks. Not the highest career total, Kareem’s 20 seasons edge him out in raw accumulation. But the highest average, sustained across the longest consistently excellent career in the history of the sport.
The Playoff Case
Five championship runs add 10.45 playoff Net Wins to his career total:
1998-99 (15-3 record): +2.48 · First championship, dominant run 2002-03 (15-7 record): +2.10 · Second title, Finals MVP 2004-05 (15-8 record): +1.62 · Third title 2006-07 (15-5 record): +1.87 · Fourth title, swept the Cavaliers 2013-14 (20-8 record): +2.38 · Fifth Finals appearance, lost to Miami in 7
The 2013-14 run is worth noting specifically. Duncan was 38 years old. He went 20-8 in the playoffs, produced +2.38 Net Wins, and pushed the Heat to seven games in the Finals. That is one of the great late-career playoff performances in NBA history and the formula captures it exactly.
Why Most Lists Undervalue Him
The conventional ranking, 8th to 15th depending on the listrefl, ects three cultural biases that the Net Wins formula has no interest in.
Bias 1: Style points. Duncan played power forward in an era that celebrated athleticism and highlight plays. He scored off bank shots and mid-range jumpers. He set screens. He made the right pass. He was, by every observable measure, the most fundamentally sound player of his generation and fundamental soundness does not generate highlights. The formula doesn’t watch film. It counts what happened.
Bias 2: Era discounting. Duncan played during a period when the league was transitioning away from big men. The conventional wisdom said his style was outdated even while he was winning championships with it. The formula has no opinion about whether his style was aesthetically appropriate for his era. It just sees a player whose contributions converted into wins at a higher per-season rate than anyone in the database.
Bias 3: The Jordan/LeBron gravity well. Any ranking conversation that starts from the premise that Jordan is #1 and LeBron is #2 is already constrained. Duncan doesn’t fit neatly into the narrative about the two greatest players ever, so lists that are structured around that narrative tend to push him down. The formula starts from zero. It has no narrative.
The Honest Counterargument
The strongest case against Duncan at #2 is the team context argument. He played his entire career in San Antonio under Gregg Popovich, arguably the greatest coach in NBA history, alongside Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, two Hall of Famers. The Spurs system was specifically designed to maximize player efficiency and minimize negative actions.
This is a real point. The Net Wins formula normalizes against the team’s win rate, which means Duncan benefited from playing on consistently excellent Spurs teams. His per-season average would likely be lower if he’d spent his career on a rebuilding franchise.
But this argument proves too much. Jordan benefited from playing alongside Pippen and Rodman under Phil Jackson’s triangle offense. LeBron engineered super teams specifically to improve his context. Bird had McHale and Parish. Magic had Kareem. Every great player’s numbers reflect their context, that’s not a flaw in the formula, it’s a feature. We evaluate the careers players actually had, not hypothetical careers on worse teams.
Duncan’s context was excellent because he helped make it excellent. For 19 seasons. That’s the point.
Where Other Lists Rank Him
Net Wins (this formula): #2 ESPN Top 100 (2020): #8 BR All-Time VORP: #11 Bill Simmons Pyramid: #9 BR HOF Probability: 100% NBA 75th Anniversary Team: Named Bleacher Report Top 100: #10
The gap between this formula’s ranking (#2) and the conventional consensus (#8-11) is the second largest such gap in the top 20, behind only Scottie Pippen. Every major system recognizes Duncan as an all-time great. The disagreement is about whether he belongs in the top 3 or the top 10. The Net Wins formula’s answer, that the highest per-season average in the database belongs in the top 3, seems like the more defensible position.
In His Own Words
“I don’t need to be the man. I just need to be what I am — and what I am is someone who does what it takes to win.” — Tim Duncan
“People talk about what I can’t do — I can’t run, I can’t jump, I’m not athletic. What they don’t talk about is what I can do. And what I can do is win.” — Tim Duncan, 2005
What Others Saw
“Tim Duncan is the best power forward who ever played the game. I don’t think it’s particularly close. What he does that nobody talks about is he makes everyone around him better — not by being flashy, but by always being exactly where he’s supposed to be. Every single possession. For twenty years.” — Gregg Popovich
“I’ve played against a lot of great players. Tim Duncan is the one I least wanted to face in a playoff series. Not because he was going to do one spectacular thing — because he was going to do every right thing, every possession, for seven games. That wears you down.” — Kevin Garnett
“He’s the most complete player I ever saw. People forget how good he was on defense, how good he was passing out of the post, how many different ways he could beat you. He just didn’t care about being recognized for it. That’s a different kind of greatness.” — Kobe Bryant
The Larger Argument
Tim Duncan spent 19 seasons being underrated in real time, and he has spent the years since his retirement being underrated in retrospect. The narrative about him has never quite caught up to what the numbers say.
The Net Wins formula doesn’t know who Tim Duncan is. It doesn’t know he played in San Antonio, or that he banked in mid-range jumpers, or that he once said “I’m just a regular guy from St. Croix.” It sees 19 seasons of a player whose positive contributions converted into team wins at a rate no one else in the database has matched, sustained from his rookie year to his final season at age 40.
Second all time. Five and a half combined net wins behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who played 20 seasons to Duncan’s 19.
The formula says they are the two greatest players in NBA history. That conclusion is uncomfortable for a culture that has spent 30 years debating Jordan versus LeBron. It deserves to be taken seriously.
Next week: #1 — Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
The formula puts him first by a significant margin. His combined total of 149.0 is 5.5 ahead of Duncan and 60.8 ahead of Jordan. The profile makes the case for why a center who played from 1969 to 1989 is the greatest NBA player the formula has ever measured — and why that conclusion is less surprising than it sounds.
The full interactive database, every player, every season, every calculation, is free at https://willf123.github.io/nba-net-wins/
— Will Fiore
© 2026 Will Fiore. Net Wins formula and all written content are original works. All rights reserved.
Get full access to NET WINS at netwins.substack.com/subscribe
The full Net Wins database, Every season from 1946 to 2026, is free at willf123.github.io/nba-net-wins.
© 2026 Will Fiore. Net Wins formula and all written content are original works. All rights reserved.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.