Matt, I'm interested in your thoughts as to Walton having a better offensive game than Duncan. In his MVP season, Walton's scoring peaked at 19 per game, while Duncan has averaged over 20 ppg over his entire 1200 game career.
Well, my opinion is clouded by my fondness for Walton as a player, and certainly a lot of time has passed. But I think that Walton blended in better with his teammates, although Duncan is certainly good at that, too. It's a small degree of difference between them in my mind, and Duncan deserves the nod in all-time polls due to his longevity.
But at his peak, Walton got more assists per game, he ignited the fast break with great outlet passing as well as anybody. He was like a point center in a Princeton style offense. Looking at their stats, Duncan outscored Walton, but Duncan was the offensive focal point for his Spurs teams. He scored more, but they ran the offense through him more on the low block and he got many more FG attempts than Walton.
Walton, however, shot a consistently better percentage from the field than Duncan has done throughout his career, Walton almost always putting up 52-53% FG while Duncan mostly was below 50%.
Duncan's offensive production differential over Walton is due in large part to Duncan getting to the line a lot, because he plays mostly on the low block. Walton, being more of a Princeton style high post center got to the line far less, but his assist numbers were nearly always a lot better than Duncan, and Walton got a lot of steals on defense, far more than Duncan.
To me, Walton was the quintessential thinking-man's center. Duncan is very much like that, too, and we are really splitting hairs here. But I just think Walton's offense and his overall game were a little better than Tim Duncan's. He helped the offense flow and ignited the fast break a bit better than Duncan.
