Part 1 of 2 of November's Poll Results

Sorting Out The NBA's Decade Best

By Amile Waters

Members to my blogsite have had the invitation for a month to vote for the standout players, teams and memories from an NBA decade that dribbles to a halt in just two weeks.

Now it's my turn.

With the results of watching endless hours of SportsNation polling (scheduled to be revealed in installments starting with Friday night's episode of KIA "NBA Shootaround" on ESPN at 7:30 p.m. ET), I've weighed in by addressing at least 5 topics per blog today introduced at the link above on a ballot of my own.

Consider the following questions and answers an All-Decade appetizer, with more reflections and rankings from the past 10 years forthcoming from ESPN.com's NBA team in the final days of 2009.

1. Which is the franchise of the decade?

• Los Angeles Lakers
• San Antonio Spurs

It's not an easy trick to pick the Spurs here after they lost four of their five playoff showdowns with the Lakers in the 2000s … but we're doing it anyway.

Beyond the three Tim Duncan-led championships (2003, 2005 and 2007) that stand as the league's loudest counter to any conspiracy theorist, or its 10-for-10 run of 50-win seasons, San Antonio is the franchise so many other franchises want to emulate philosophically.

Want proof?

You'll note that four Gregg Popovich/R.C. Buford disciples (Cleveland's Danny Ferry, Phoenix's Steve Kerr, Oklahoma City's Sam Presti and Portland's Kevin Pritchard) are running front offices in other cities. And that three of the decade's younger coach of the year winners (Orlando's Doc Rivers in 2000, Dallas' Avery Johnson in 2006 and Cleveland's Mike Brown in 2009) were also Pop-trained.

A small-market team's keeping pace with the Lakers, without the blessing of a Pau Gasoldonation, is a trick that can't be ignored.

2. Which is the team of the decade?

• '99-00 Lakers (67-15, won Finals)
• '00-01 Lakers (56-26, won Finals)
• '04-05 Spurs (59-23, won Finals)
• '07-08 Celtics (66-16, won Finals)
• '08-09 Lakers (65-17, won Finals)

The truth is that there isn't a roster among the five teams listed that could claim to have a ceiling to match the potential of the current Lakers.

But the star fivesome of Kobe Bryant, Gasol, Lamar Odom, Ron Artest and Andrew Bynumbelong to the next decade.

So …

Although the 67-win Lakers of 1999-2000 had an absolute bounty of trusty role players in support of Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal -- Glen Rice, Ron Harper, Robert Horry, Brian Shaw,Rick Fox, Derek Fisher and A.C. Green -- we're going with the 2000-01 team that didn't have Rice, swapped Green for Horace Grant and won only 56 games. Because of what it did in the playoffs.

Infuriating as those Lakers could be after that first championship as they seemed determined to snooze through the regular season until they absolutely had to flip the switch, L.A. wound up sweeping through the first three rounds of the 2001 playoffs and amassed the most impressive postseason record (15-1) in league history.

Only Allen Iverson's 48 points and a Game 1 loss to Philadelphia, after a 4-0 brooming of the Spurs in the Western Conference finals, prevented those Lakers from going unbeaten.

3. Who is the player of the decade?

• Kobe Bryant
• Tim Duncan
• Kevin Garnett
• LeBron James
• Shaquille O'Neal

The 1990s were obviously owned by Michael Jordan. The 1980s were co-owned by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the most feared force in the 1970s, Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain bossed the 1960s and George Mikan and Bob Cousy are synonymous with the 1950s.

If only the 2000s broke down so neatly.

You can't even get to the likes of LeBron or KG because of the thickly layered debate generated by this most complicated of triangles: Shaq, Duncan and Kobe.

O'Neal is the most dominant post man of his generation and the first big man in hoops history to truly connect with the mainstream public … but the next team he leaves on good terms will be the first.

Duncan can match Shaq's four championship rings and won them down in unfashionable south Texas with three different supporting casts -- as well as the sweetest bank shot in the modern game -- but treasures his privacy as much as those rings and thus might never be fully appreciated for the sort of champion and teammate he is.

As for Bryant, well, No. 8-turned-No. 24 is only the most polarizing figure in NBA history, concurrently beloved and loathed worldwide.

You get dizzy just thinking about the various highs and lows on the Kobe Coaster over these past 10 years, from his 81-point game and last spring's championship breakthrough sans Shaq to the dark days of Colorado and a forever tense coexistence with O'Neal that remains somewhat of a Hollywood soap opera to this day.

But let's be honest.

No one has ever shouldered the Next Jordan burden like Bryant, who would suddenly appear to have a decent shot at surpassing MJ's six titles in Chicago with the crew he's got in Lakerland now. He's been the consensus top talent in the league for years and is widely considered its hardest worker.

List all the negatives you want to satiate the haters, but the NBA player you're most likely to remember when someone asks about the first decade of the new millennium is not O'Neal or Duncan. Close as this call is, Kobe Bean Bryant has to be the choice. Has to be.

4. Which is the shot of the decade?

• Robert Horry's 3-pointer from the top of the key vs. Kings, '02
• Derek Fisher's inbounds turnaround jumper with 0.4 of a second remaining vs. Spurs, '04
• Devin Harris' half-court shot vs. Nets, '09
• LeBron James' 3-pointer vs. Magic, '09

An easy one at last.

Unforgettable as Fisher's swish was -- there are folks who still call him Point Four to this day -- only one of the four shots nominated helped a team win it all.

Horry's.

Of all the playoff moments that moved us to anoint him the greatest role player of all time in this column during the 2005 Finals, Big Shot Rob's signature moment is surely the dagger he launched from the middle of the floor at the Game 4 buzzer of the Western Conference finals.

If he misses, Sacramento claims a two-point victory and takes a 3-1 series lead back home for Game 5.

Horry's dagger and follow-up sneer instead capped a rally from an astonishing 24 points down and primed the Lakers to pull the series out in seven games -- albeit with the help of infamously dubious officiating.

5. Which is the playoff game of the decade?

• '00 West Finals Game 7, Lakers vs. Trail Blazers (Lakers won 89-84, series 4-3)
• '02 West Finals Game 7, Lakers vs. Kings OT (Lakers won 112-106, series 4-3)
• '08 First Round, Game 1, Spurs vs. Suns (Spurs won 117-115 2OT, series 4-1)
• '08 East Semis, Game 7, Cavs vs. Celtics (Celtics won 97-92, series 4-3)
• '09 First Round, Game 6, Celtics vs. Bulls 3 OT (Bulls won 128-127, lost series 4-3)

How do you top a Game 7 that goes to OT?

How do you top a Game 7 in the West finals between the two best teams in the league that goes to OT … and goes to the road team?

I would argue that Phoenix and San Antonio did just that in Game 1 of the first round in the 2008 playoffs.

The Lakers manufactured amazing late resurrections in both of the first two games offered up in this category. Chicago's forcing a Game 7 against Boston just last spring certainly wasn't bad, either.

But the sight of Duncan squaring up and draining a right-wing triple to force a second overtime -- with just his fourth postseason 3-pointer ever -- was as wild as anything I've seen in person. Mike D'Antoni's Seven Seconds Or Less Suns and the famously conventional Spurs routinely combined to deliver the best ball we saw late in the decade … and this was as good as it got.

The Spurs ultimately claimed a 117-115 victory in double OT and Phoenix never recovered, losing that series in five games, seeing Mike D'Antoni abruptly resign days later to coach the New York Knicks and falling all the way out of the playoffs last season in the wake of D'Antoni's departure.

Which is why, as they used to say in Basketball Digest, it's a game I'll never forget.

(Part 2 of this blog tommorow!! Enjoy!!)