Outside of the names mentioned, I would add Mchale, Moses Malone (unless he is considered a center), and I know a lot of older fans will bring up Dolph Shayes who in a lot of ways revolutionized the big man game.
For the record, Barkley definitely was considered a superior player to Karl Malone at a certain point (Phoenix MVP peak) but didn’t have a better career than Malone overall (36K points, career of steady Utah playoff appearances, etc).
My vote for second is Garnett - came in as a high schooler, dominated on both offence (people forget the Minnesota years) and defence, championships, longevity, etc…).
My vote for first would be Duncan. I won’t even list out accolades, all I will say that whatever level of appreciation we have for Duncan, it is likely well understated due to the fact that his game didn’t attract flash-type of attention. But my god!! Excellence personified! I feel the same way about MJ who gets all the flash appreciation but doesn’t get nearly enough for his dominance on fundamental details of the game (his footwork was IMO best of all time, movement without the ball probably only second best to Reggie, etc…).
Outside of the names mentioned, I would add Mchale, Moses Malone (unless he is considered a center), and I know a lot of older fans will bring up Dolph Shayes who in a lot of ways revolutionized the big man game.
For the record, Barkley definitely was considered a superior player to Karl Malone at a certain point (Phoenix MVP peak) but didn’t have a better career than Malone overall (36K points, career of steady Utah playoff appearances, etc).
My vote for second is Garnett - came in as a high schooler, dominated on both offence (people forget the Minnesota years) and defence, championships, longevity, etc…).
My vote for first would be Duncan. I won’t even list out accolades, all I will say that whatever level of appreciation we have for Duncan, it is likely well understated due to the fact that his game didn’t attract flash-type of attention. But my god!! Excellence personified! I feel the same way about MJ who gets all the flash appreciation but doesn’t get nearly enough for his dominance on fundamental details of the game (his footwork was IMO best of all time, movement without the ball probably only second best to Reggie, etc…).