Does Dirk with title surpass KG

[GilmoreFan]

You've quite deliberately misunderstood. Stats are useful, we should definitely use them. But a made up stat like APM or PER holds little interest to me. What I would be much more interested in hearing is an explanation of why KG failed in 1997-2002 and from 2005-2006 rather than a repetition of his crappy casts in 2003 and 2007. You have not provided said reasoning. There has been no balancing of say KG's cast in those years with some of the casts Dirk or Lebron or TD carried to far greater success, indeed to the extent you've commented on it you've grossly misrepresented some of the players KG had (Brandon was "solid").

As for the Mod who posted above:
I don't know about everyone else, but I certainly thought Duncan was better in 2004, and I think this was probably the feeling of most people then too. What people like myself saw in 2004 was Duncan play with a hurt foot and miss some games, the team and his stats slide a tiny bit accordingly, and the media finding a better storyline for KG to win, with his new improved team. Don't get me wrong, KG was great that year, a deserving winner of the regular season MVP... but I wouldn't even consider taking him over 2003 TD, and I don't think most others would either.

[Doctor MJ]

As for the Mod who posted above:
I don't know about everyone else, but I certainly thought Duncan was better in 2004, and I think this was probably the feeling of most people then too. What people like myself saw in 2004 was Duncan play with a hurt foot and miss some games, the team and his stats slide a tiny bit accordingly, and the media finding a better storyline for KG to win, with his new improved team. Don't get me wrong, KG was great that year, a deserving winner of the regular season MVP... but I wouldn't even consider taking him over 2003 TD, and I don't think most others would either.

Oh hey, that's me.

Let me clarify: What I was trying to say there was that the opinion of Garnett > Duncan was not considered absurd back then, as opposed to asserting that most people held that opinion. A much less controversial statement.

However, if you don't remember a serious debate of Duncan vs Garnett from back then, well then you misremember. Garnett's advanced stats that year surpassed Duncan's career peaks pretty much across the board, and he led a team that year that was considered just about as good as the Spurs of '02-03.

That a shocking statement? People need to remember: The perception in that time was that every championship was decided by the Lakers. Either they played well and won, or didn't take the season seriously enough and lost. The Lakers played better in '03-04 than in '02-03 up through the WCF when Malone disappeared through injury and chemistry reached an all-time low.

And let's be clear even now: The '02-03 Spurs were by far the weakest of the Spurs 4 titles, and clearly won of the two worst title teams of the past 15 years. As good as Duncan was, the Spurs got extremely lucky with their competition that year.

[GilmoreFan]

He led a team as good as the 2003 Spurs... with a support cast significantly better than the 2003 Spurs. This doesn't impress me. The Spurs beat the Lakers in 2003 with prime Shaq and Kobe, and were up 2-1 v.s the Mavs prior to Dirk's injury. I have no reason to believe they wouldn't have beaten the Kings either, given they beat the Lakers and Mavs.

[Doctor MJ]

He led a team as good as the 2003 Spurs... with a support cast significantly better than the 2003 Spurs. This doesn't impress me.

Doesn't impress you? You sound silly my friend.

As far as "significantly better" supporting cast, pray tell. Garnett did have the best #2 guy on either of the two teams, but let's remember that Sam Cassell made all-star only once in his entire career. And as you agree, the team was about as good as the '03 championship team. Consider then that those Wolves could have won a title, and they'd have done so with a #2 guy nowhere near as good as what the vast majority of championship teams face. And that's unimpressive. C'mon now.

Then consider that the #3 guy on Minnny was a past prime Sprewell. How past prime you ask? He had peaked 7 years prior with 24 PPG on 57% TS, while in '03-04 he had 17 PPG on 49% TS. He literally had sub-league average advanced stats by this point. In fact, the team's actual #3 guy by Win Shares was freaking Fred Hoiberg.

Compare that to the depth of SA. I don't want to oversell them - they were weak by championship standards, but still you had Parker, Jackson, Ginobili, half a Robinson (still 10X a Ervin Johnson), and Bowen, all running in a very well designed system under Pop's direction.

But as you say, an unimpressive supporting cast compared to the Hoibergian army Garnett was blessed with.

The Spurs beat the Lakers in 2003 with prime Shaq and Kobe, and were up 2-1 v.s the Mavs prior to Dirk's injury. I have no reason to believe they wouldn't have beaten the Kings either, given they beat the Lakers and Mavs.

Oh I see, so this was the same Laker team that went 16-1 in the playoffs in 2001? There's no way you believe that - you're just caught up in the fight. That Spurs team had no prayer against a prime Laker team not eating themselves alive. No one did.

[picc]

Last nights game illustrated why Dirk will never be as good as KG. He wasn't shooting well or getting to his spots on offense, so he was nearly useless.

[GilmoreFan]

Your logic is all after the fact hindsight historical rewrite. Nobody expected the Lakers to lose to the Spurs in 2003, and nobody was saying how they were falling apart at the seams. Your proof for this fact seems to be "they lost to the Spurs". It's the same logic one would use to discredit the 81 Lakers, or the 86 Lakers, or this years Lakers... they lost, so beating them wasn't an achievement. Ridiculous.

The Lakers came into 2003 with much the same team as 2002 where they had also won the title, and coasted the regular season with Shaq missing time. It is nothing short of incredible that Duncan carried the Spurs to victory.

The team KG had in 2004 was better than the one Tim had in 2003, a fact you don't even try to deny. For KG to have a similarly good team with a much better support cast is not something people should be using in his favour when comparing the 2 of them.

[drza]

You've quite deliberately misunderstood. Stats are useful, we should definitely use them. But a made up stat like APM or PER holds little interest to me. What I would be much more interested in hearing is an explanation of why KG failed in 1997-2002 and from 2005-2006 rather than a repetition of his crappy casts in 2003 and 2007. You have not provided said reasoning. There has been no balancing of say KG's cast in those years with some of the casts Dirk or Lebron or TD carried to far greater success, indeed to the extent you've commented on it you've grossly misrepresented some of the players KG had (Brandon was "solid").

It's not a deliberate misunderstanding on my part. I've written reasonably in-depth, non-statistical descriptions in this thread for literally every supporting cast that Garnett played with in Minnesota. Including 1997 - 2002 and 2005, 2006. I even went and posted a link to video footage from 2002. I have made it clear that pre-2003 I believe Garnett's casts to be weaker than those carried to more success by Dirk or LeBron or TD, but in the end those discussions seem to break down to we just have a difference of opinion. I thus tend to focus more heavily on the years between 2003/04 - 20010/11, because those are the years in which he have additional statistical data in addition to the other information we have for other years, thus allowing the arguments to not have to be as subjective in nature. Some of that additional info has been the multi-year APM studies, but I have also written heavily about 5-man units and other info found on 82games.com and/or basketballvalue.

So if, having written so many words and trying in so many ways to support my opinions with as much objective info as is available, I see you respond with

I have almost no interest in APM or any super stat to try and selectively tell me who was better than who. I know who was better, I watched the games, and I looked at the stats too. Stats are wonderful things in fact, but some artificial super stat designed to give a player ranking is always false, and APM is one of them. Indeed, I've only noted PER above because I know it means something to you, not because it's particularly meaningful to me. KG was better than Dirk, just as Duncan was better than KG. Neither is as close as people on this thread think either.

How do you suggest I respond? Our opinions differ, you tell me that you know who was better, and you have no interest in any further statistical argument. At that point, it sounds to me that we have nothing further to discuss. Am I wrong?

[drza]

The team KG had in 2004 was better than the one Tim had in 2003, a fact you don't even try to deny. For KG to have a similarly good team with a much better support cast is not something people should be using in his favour when comparing the 2 of them.

That's an opinion statement, not a fact. While I'd rather have Cassell of '04 over Parker/Speedy of '03, I think I prefer San Antonio's wings and centers. I really liked the defense on that Spurs team, with very strong defenders at 4 of the 5 positions. On the whole, I think the Spurs '03 support was a bit better than the Wolves '04 support.

In addition to my opinion on what I believe I saw on the court, the available advanced stats all suggest the '03 Spurs cast was slightly stronger.

*The '03 non-Duncan Spurs had 40.5 win shares, the '04 non-KG Wolves had 40.3 win shares.

*The '03 non-Duncan Spurs had 29.9 wins produced, the '04 non-KG Wolves had 25.3 wins produced.

*KG in '04 had higher on/off and adjusted +/- marks than Duncan in '03 for teams with roughly the same SRS, suggesting that KG's cast was contributing a bit less.

Then, most importantly, in the WCF Sam Cassell got injured. At that point, there's no debate, Duncan's cast from '03 was significantly stronger than a Cassell-less Wolves where KG had to run PG.

[GilmoreFan]

That's an opinion statement, not a fact. While I'd rather have Cassell of '04 over Parker/Speedy of '03,

By a huge margin I assume. So huge PG advantage for the Wolves. Check.

I think I prefer San Antonio's wings and centers.

D.Rob was an incredibly limited player by this stage of his career, a shadow of his former self. He averaged 8.8 and 7.9 over 64 games this year, able to play only 26mpg. In the playoffs he was worse. In the Lakers series especially, David Robinson might as well not have existed for most of those games. In game 2 he played 17 minutes for a pitiful 4 points, 4 boards and 4 fouls. The Spurs won by 19 anyway. In game 3 when the result was reversed D.Rob was again a non-factor, 15 minutes for 4 points and 4 boards from 1-3 shooting. In game 4 D.Rob played 14 minutes, posting 6 fouls, 0 points and 3 boards. The next game 6 & 7 on 3/7 shooting, and the deciding game 7-5. The only decent game he had was game 1. D.Rob was basically a non-factor in the playoffs (and regular season generally) for a similar ratio. He'd have one solid game, then a 5 duds. Someone who is solid 1/6 games and pitiful the rest is not a desirable big man. Especially not when he misses games and can't physically play for more than 26mpg.

The other wings in 2003 included the out of control and troubled Manu Ginobili (his stats look incredibly ugly for a reason), the guy was only playing 20mpg anyhow, S.Jax who was nothing special at the time, certainly nothing on Spree, a problematic role player in Bowen who hurt you on offence, but was great on D, and a bunch of crud.

Cassell and Spree would be the 3rd and 4th best players of this group after Duncan and KG, and by a clear margin. Wally was a very nice player to have, he'd certainly done more than S.Jax at that stage, and he was back in the playoffs. It's not like the bench and support players were non-existent after Cassell and Spree at any rate, not like Duncan's awful 2003 cast.

And no, I don't much care about Winshares either, nor homecourt advantage for that matter, or +/-. They're interesting to look at, but you know what's even more interesting to look at? The actual games and performance of the players involved with actual analysis of what happened. It's ridiculous that anyone considered anyone on the 2003 Spurs aside from Duncan as being close to 2004 Cassell or Spree.

[Doctor MJ]

Your logic is all after the fact hindsight historical rewrite. Nobody expected the Lakers to lose to the Spurs in 2003, and nobody was saying how they were falling apart at the seams. Your proof for this fact seems to be "they lost to the Spurs". It's the same logic one would use to discredit the 81 Lakers, or the 86 Lakers, or this years Lakers... they lost, so beating them wasn't an achievement. Ridiculous.

The Lakers came into 2003 with much the same team as 2002 where they had also won the title, and coasted the regular season with Shaq missing time. It is nothing short of incredible that Duncan carried the Spurs to victory.

You simply don't remember things properly. Let me remind you:

In '01-02, the Lakers had an SRS of 7.15 and finished only slightly behind Sacramento for the best record in the entire league, after plowing through the previous year's playoff with the greatest ease.

In '02-03, the Lakers had an SRS of 2.71 and won only 50 games, after barely getting through the playoffs the previous year. I live in LA, and even here you had some people picking the Spurs to win that series. Heck, the NBA literally changed the structure of the 1st round of the playoffs mid-season to ensure the league would get more Laker playoff games and give them more of a chance to "turn it on".

Yes there were people who thought the Lakers would still win, but every conceivable metric said the Lakers were worse than in previous years.

Beyond that, it's just bizarre to assert that the Lakers were at the same level all throughout their "prime". The Lakers at their best tore through the playoffs in 2001 going 16-1 and winning games by an average margin of about 13 points. The '02-03 Spurs went 16-8 and won with an average margin of about 5 points. It is simply irrational to think that those Spurs won the championship because they rose up and hit a level beyond the Lakers. The notion that teams have extremely consistent primes during which they are equally difficult to defeat at all times is glaringly false, which is of course why the Spurs never pulled off back-to-back championships.

The team KG had in 2004 was better than the one Tim had in 2003, a fact you don't even try to deny. For KG to have a similarly good team with a much better support cast is not something people should be using in his favour when comparing the 2 of them.

You really, really misunderstood me Gilmore. I said nothing like this. I did however use humor in my statement. You should read it again.

Suffice to say I just vehemently denied exactly what you think I "don't even try to deny". I'll try to be less playful going forward so that I don't lose you. Just a hint though, when someone uses the phrase "Hoibergian army" with a smiley, take it as a sign that the person is having fun with you and has by no means conceded any point to you.

[GilmoreFan]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2 ... id=1541117
1 out of 15 ESPN commentators that year picked the Spurs to make the Finals, 8 picked the Lakers, and the rest picked the Kings. The Kings pick was partly on the assumption they kept playing at 2002 levels in 2003, which they didn't really with Webber's injury. Nobody expected the Lakers to lose to the Spurs. What Duncan did came out of nowhere to most people.

I won't dispute the Lakers "clicked" more in 2001 than 2003, but we never got to see how the 2003 Lakers would "click" in the playoffs because the Spurs beat them. Everyone knew the Lakers had taken the regular season easy (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2 ... id=1540770), taking their stats from the regular season is not really a true reflection of repeat champs. Did the Bulls get 10 games worse between 92 and 93, or did they coast a little to focus on the playoffs? I think you know the answer to this. The reality is Tim beat Prime Shaq and Kobe. That in itself is an incredible achievement. KG never did anything like that.

[NO-KG-AI]

How many Wolves teams were picked to win the title? Hell, the 08 Celtics weren't even picked by anyone to win it all, most had them around 50 games, but now history has been re-written as KG joining a super dominant squad

[GilmoreFan]

How many Wolves teams were picked to win the title? Hell, the 08 Celtics weren't even picked by anyone to win it all, most had them around 50 games, but now history has been re-written as KG joining a super dominant squad

In one sense I agree, in that I tend to dismiss the claim of teams "overachieving" as people just not having had the players involved pegged right in the first place. There's no doubt alot of people, myself included, had the Celtics pegged wrong in 2008. I knew they'd be good, but Rubio becoming an all-star? I didn't see that coming. Perkins seemed to play better too, and they got good contributions from a bunch of bench guys nobody had given alot of thought to before then.

In fact even in 2008, people in the first instance were still calling it wrong, trying to rationalise what was going on (alot like when people gave Shaq a bit more credit that he deserved in 2005, because they just couldn't credit at that point that Wade was that good). They gave most of the credit to KG, and it was only after KG got hurt and the team continued to look very impressive that people started to seriously reassess the support cast (especially in the playoffs that year). This actually cost KG the MVP.

We saw alot of that changed perception of value reflected in events that followed 2008. Rubio and Perkins were paid commensurate to their value. Even guys like G.Davis and T.Allen have gotten significant recognition since then.

But that sort of changed mentality never really happened with the Spurs. Parker became a better player, which was reflected in his grossly improved numbers... but he clearly wasn't that player in 2003, or he wouldn't have been losing his minutes to S.Claxton. Likewise, Claxton never went on to do anything that made fans re-evaluate him as more than an energy guy off the bench. Ginobili became a better player as he adapted to the NBA game... but you can see the huge improvement in his numbers to show that, and in 2003 he averaged 20mpg and was a rookie. Malik seemed worse if anything after he left the Spurs, Knicks fans dubbed him one of the suckiest players they'd ever had. Teams didn't go on to offer big money to Bowen or S.Jax for their roles on the Spurs, because they saw their limitations. S.Jax had to go play for the Hawks for $1mill the following year because nobody but the Spurs would offer more (they offered $1.4 mill). He eventually became a better player, but he wasn't that player yet, and teams reacted accordingly. Bowen went his whole career without being shown big money despite his defensive prowess precisely because teams knew his limitations. And guys like Ferry, Smith and Kerr showed themselves to be what the Spurs thought at the time... washed up old vets who fell out of the NBA after 2003.

The Spurs team was judged about right in 2003.

And since the Wolves teams never did go on to win the title, who cares? The point was that the consensus in 2003 before the season, during the season, and leading into the playoffs, was that the Lakers were favorites to win, after that people picked the Kings, and then put the Spurs a distant 3rd. The idea that the Lakers weren't regarded as a great team in 2003 is total fiction. They had prime Kobe and Shaq and until they lost nobody was playing that fact down.

[NO-KG-AI]

Spurs were picked, which means that, even as a long shot, people thought they were able to compete for a title. The Wolves weren't close to contention, and that's not a fault of Garnett.

[GilmoreFan]

Spurs being picked by 1/15 analysts isn't exactly promising. It smacks alot more of the "lone crazy voter" who picks say PJ Brown for the MVP award, than it does of a carefully considered viewpoint. Anyway, the only reason this was brought up was because you tried to downplay the Lakers, and I think that's unfair. Yes, the Spurs were ranked ahead of the Wolves, and most of that was because Tim was regarded as the superior player, who would give the Spurs a chance. He'd shown how he could carry bad teams in 2002 for example. KG had never shown that, so nobody picked him. His skillset was harder to build around, that's a limitation with KG.

[richboy]

My complaint is that people rip on APM without understanding it, not that the stat is perfect.

Who has said KG is better than Duncan? I missed that...

You haven't been reading this board. A few folks think KG better than Duncan. This is based on APM. APM says it so it has to be true. APM says a lot of things. People cherry pick the stats that they like. They come on this site and say things like Garnett has much more impact than Duncan.

I think it was the other thread where I talked about how Garnett did indeed achieve elite success with old men Cassell & Sprewell. Makes it pretty clear that when Garnett's teams did a lot worse than that it was because of a significantly weaker supporting cast. Then consider: Exactly how strong do you think the cast was in '03-04?

I do sympathize with you saying "You're basically saying +/- should trump everything else, and I don't buy that."

To the question, "How can you go just by +/-?", well I don't. I mean, for basically their whole career, if I had done a poll of people saying who was better between Dirk or KG, people would say KG. I'm not exactly championing some random dude here. I ended up harping on the +/- partly because it's directly related to the charges. People keep saying that Garnett's had a comparable supporting cast to Dirk, and so I'm basically pointing to what they did without Garnett and saying, "Well, shouldn't they have, y'know, not utterly blown without Garnett if they were good? Why the heck wouldn't we blame teammates?".

If people would stop saying "But I look at the names, and they sound about the same to me." as if it were a powerful argument, maybe I could give my actual objective argument a rest.

That said, I do consider long term adjusted +/- to have a lot of credibility, I won't deny it. I've laid out detailed arguments about it in many places. Bottom line this is an actual valid stat (only one we've got) whose weakness is reliability. Reliability issues fall away with sample size. Now this doesn't mean that I rate players simply by how they rate by this stat, but you've got to understand how much of an outlier Garnett was and for how long.

I realize that when a statistical outlier is encountered that disagrees with people's opinions they tend to just shut down and reject the stat. This is not how people should think though. People should think first and foremost about what the stat means, and recognize that whatever general credence they give the stat, the bigger outlier the more stock the corresponding fact warrants.

KG went to the WCF 1 time with Cassell and Spreewell. They were 10-8 in the playoffs. They won 58 games that year. I make note to that because the year previous they won 51 games with Troy Hudson and Kendall Gill in the backcourt.

People talk like they got Cassell and Sprewell and the light of heaven was now shown upon the world. If Hudson and Gill are so much worse than Cassell/Sprewell why didn't we see the Wolves put up more wins.

58 wins is nothing special in comparison to what Dirk and Duncan have been doing. The Spurs won 57 games that year and Duncan missed 13 games. Duncan injury allowed KG to win MVP. The Spurs won 51 games with Duncan in the lineup. They would have been well past 60 if Duncan is healthy.

KG had a great year. They wolves get the Credit for getting to the WCF. People talk like this is one of the great seasons ever. I keep hearing look what happened when KG had comparable talent. They won a few more games. They barely beat a Sacramento Kings team with Webber playing on one leg. The Kings had nearly as many wins as the Twolves and Webber played 23 games during the year. Matter of fact Peja might have won MVP that year if Chris Webber hadn't returned and derailed what was an amazing season for him to that point.

Funny how that season worked out. Lakers stacked there roster and lowered the production of Kobe and Shaq. Dallas did the same so Dirk had some of his lowest numbers. Duncan and Webber get injured. Here comes KG on the whitehorse I guess saying he has arrived. Yet even if you compare this season its not as good as many top superstars who were asked to carry bad teams. Lebron James is doing back to back 60 win seasons with a worse roster. Dirk is taking less to the NBA Finals. Winning 67 games with Josh Howard and Jason Terry.

This is the issue we have with APM. Anyone can come on this board and say APM says KG is greater than someone else. There has to be something on the court that backs this up. Everything is statisics. Wins and losses are stats. I'm sure KG has great impact. When you say its much more than these other guys its seems laughable. He plays with Sam Cassell and Sprewell and he 1 game better than the Spurs who loose Duncan for a month. 3 games better than the Kings who loose Webber for 55 or so games. Then play those Kings in the first round and go 7 games with a limping Webber. He plays with Brandon, Billups, Rasho, and Wally and go no where.

People in this thread have made a conclusion based on what APM said. At least some have. APM says KG has this kind of impact. Therefore we have to base the level of play of all other wolves on that. If APM says KG is playing at a level above Duncan then that must beam Terrell Brandon sucks.

DRZA post are getting out of hand. Looking dead at the series vs the Mavericks. His conclusion. KG was amazing. Don't care what Billups and Wally did. Don't care what those numbers say. They sucked. Once again it was KGs teammates.

No way Doctor am I going to subscribe to the belief. I mean your belief that it was common for people to think KG was better than Duncan in 2004. I think in your world that was common. I remember back in those days it was a lot more Webber vs Garnett talk. With many not thinking he was even as good as Webber.


I said earlier in this thread. APM also has its flaws. Even its biggest supporters don't agree with a lof of its findings. A lof of there findings are just flat insane.I detailed some of them earlier. Just because you use larger sample sizes in a statisical model doesn't mean its going to be better if the original model was already flawed.

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/ ... nus-model/

This is why its important to watch games.The biggest issue I have with plus minus stats is it doesn't really say what you are as a player. It says what the team is when your not on the floor.There is a reason why adjusted plus minus can't predict what happens when a player changes teams. Because the circumstances completely change but the player stays the same.

All that said. If there was something on the floor that suggested APM was correct. I probably listen to you. I've not seen any level of team dominance or team elevation to suggest KG is that good. He didn't go to the Celtics and become one of the greatest teams in league history. He didn't get Cassell and Spree and become a 65 win team that look like they would dominate the league. If it wasn't for injuries they easily could have been 4th best team in the West. Years he played with good players he didn't go very far. The playoff series weren't even competitive. Why should we go with APM when my own eyes would say KG was a truly great player. However he lacked 2 elements that would have made him a more inpactful player. He was a good post player but not great. He relied on turn around shots and didn't get to the line a ton. Defensively he didn't protect the rim. He was not a physically oppossing player that intimidated players from attacking the basket. He was really a 7 foot SF who was a great all around defender. Not an anchor though. IMO all completely fair statements regarding KG.

[GilmoreFan]

58 wins is nothing special in comparison to what Dirk and Duncan have been doing. The Spurs won 57 games that year and Duncan missed 13 games. Duncan injury allowed KG to win MVP. The Spurs won 51 games with Duncan in the lineup. They would have been well past 60 if Duncan is healthy.

Amen.

[drza]

KG went to the WCF 1 time with Cassell and Spreewell. They were 10-8 in the playoffs. They won 58 games that year. I make note to that because the year previous they won 51 games with Troy Hudson and Kendall Gill in the backcourt.

People talk like they got Cassell and Sprewell and the light of heaven was now shown upon the world. If Hudson and Gill are so much worse than Cassell/Sprewell why didn't we see the Wolves put up more wins.

58 wins is nothing special in comparison to what Dirk and Duncan have been doing. The Spurs won 57 games that year and Duncan missed 13 games. Duncan injury allowed KG to win MVP. The Spurs won 51 games with Duncan in the lineup. They would have been well past 60 if Duncan is healthy.

KG had a great year. They wolves get the Credit for getting to the WCF. People talk like this is one of the great seasons ever. I keep hearing look what happened when KG had comparable talent. They won a few more games. They barely beat a Sacramento Kings team with Webber playing on one leg. The Kings had nearly as many wins as the Twolves and Webber played 23 games during the year. Matter of fact Peja might have won MVP that year if Chris Webber hadn't returned and derailed what was an amazing season for him to that point.

Funny how that season worked out. Lakers stacked there roster and lowered the production of Kobe and Shaq. Dallas did the same so Dirk had some of his lowest numbers. Duncan and Webber get injured. Here comes KG on the whitehorse I guess saying he has arrived. Yet even if you compare this season its not as good as many top superstars who were asked to carry bad teams. Lebron James is doing back to back 60 win seasons with a worse roster. Dirk is taking less to the NBA Finals. Winning 67 games with Josh Howard and Jason Terry.

This is the issue we have with APM. Anyone can come on this board and say APM says KG is greater than someone else. There has to be something on the court that backs this up. Everything is statisics. Wins and losses are stats. I'm sure KG has great impact. When you say its much more than these other guys its seems laughable. He plays with Sam Cassell and Sprewell and he 1 game better than the Spurs who loose Duncan for a month. 3 games better than the Kings who loose Webber for 55 or so games. Then play those Kings in the first round and go 7 games with a limping Webber. He plays with Brandon, Billups, Rasho, and Wally and go no where.

People in this thread have made a conclusion based on what APM said. At least some have. APM says KG has this kind of impact. Therefore we have to base the level of play of all other wolves on that. If APM says KG is playing at a level above Duncan then that must beam Terrell Brandon sucks.

I find it fascinating that you tend to go in-depth with arguments that seem to support the exact opposite of the conclusion that you reach. You did it earlier in the thread with the Dwight Howard/KG/weakness of supporting cast/APM argument that I called you on and you never responded to. And you do it again here.

Look at what you actually wrote in the sections I bolded. The Spurs were good enough to lose Duncan for a month and win 57 games...the Kings were good enough to lose Webber for much of the year and win 55 games...you deign to acknowledge that APM is at least good for showing that the Wolves absolutely struggle without KG...yet you find the notion that KG had (a lot) less support them them completely ridiculous. Again, how can you not see the contradiction with that?

Oh, and again, mentioning Brandon and APM in the same sentence is a strawman. Brandon played his last game well before 82games started keeping track of +/- data for the 2003 season or the multi-year APM calculations began for the 2004 season. Which is why, many times now, I have tried to get you to focus your argument. Even those that are using multi-year APM data can only use it specifically for the years 2003/04 - 2010/11. That's an eight year window. Surely, if you're right about the worthlessness of the stat, you can find examples from Garnett's career DURING THAT ACTUAL 8 YEARS to make your point.

I said earlier in this thread. APM also has its flaws. Even its biggest supporters don't agree with a lof of its findings. A lof of there findings are just flat insane.I detailed some of them earlier. Just because you use larger sample sizes in a statisical model doesn't mean its going to be better if the original model was already flawed.

http://dberri.wordpress.com/2011/03/05/ ... nus-model/

This is why its important to watch games.The biggest issue I have with plus minus stats is it doesn't really say what you are as a player. It says what the team is when your not on the floor.There is a reason why adjusted plus minus can't predict what happens when a player changes teams. Because the circumstances completely change but the player stays the same.

A few interesting things about this section.

1) The criticisms in this article are well-known and are in fact pretty canonical in the vetting of APM as a stat. All of those criticisms...the large errors over 1 - 2 years, the "inconsistency" from year-to-year, the predictive utility from year-to-year...all of them stem from the same source: APM requires a whopping big time period with a lot of changing circumstances to achieve maximal clarity. Those very criticisms, in fact, were some of the main catalysts for why people started doing 5- and 6-year APM calculations. You'll note that the article doesn't site any of those longer calculations in their rebuttals...the longest time period mentioned is 2 years, along with a sentence suggesting that including more data is somehow "sneakily" lowering the standard error. The thing is, that's the point. The standard error calculation gets better with more samples, because statistical results tend to get more powerful with more tests of more situations. In other words, one of the big take-aways from this critical article is that long multi-year APM calculations are better ways of looking at it than using APM from year-to-year.

2) You keep focusing on APM as if that's the ONLY thing that anyone in this thread has used to support a point. Ironically, your APM criticism article comes from Dave Berri. Dave Berri also happens to have been extremely vocal through the years about how weak Garnett's supporting cast was through the years, and how Garnett was doing more as an individual but just had a lot less to work with over the years than Duncan. And unlike the APM studies (which go from 2003/04 - 2010/11), Berri's article on the subject goes from 1997/08 - 2005/06...covering the whole Terrell Brandon/Billups/Wally/Rasho eras that you insist were so good and even touching on some of the Marbury/Googs years that Gilmorefan loves. Here's the link to the article: http://dberri.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/ ... l-simmons/ . If you follow it, you'll see that one of the main conclusions is that the absolute BEST supporting cast that KG had during his Minnesota years was worse than the absolute WORST supporting cast that Duncan ever had in San Antonio. So, there you go...another man's opinion, with quantified analysis, that not only ISN'T adjusted plus minus but was written by one of APM's biggest critics. The models are completely antagonistic to each other...but both agree that KG was doing more as an individual than the Duncan's and Dirk's of the world AND that he had a lot less help than them.

All that said. If there was something on the floor that suggested APM was correct. I probably listen to you. I've not seen any level of team dominance or team elevation to suggest KG is that good. He didn't go to the Celtics and become one of the greatest teams in league history. He didn't get Cassell and Spree and become a 65 win team that look like they would dominate the league. If it wasn't for injuries they easily could have been 4th best team in the West. Years he played with good players he didn't go very far. The playoff series weren't even competitive. Why should we go with APM when my own eyes would say KG was a truly great player. However he lacked 2 elements that would have made him a more inpactful player. He was a good post player but not great. He relied on turn around shots and didn't get to the line a ton. Defensively he didn't protect the rim. He was not a physically oppossing player that intimidated players from attacking the basket. He was really a 7 foot SF who was a great all around defender. Not an anchor though. IMO all completely fair statements regarding KG.

Again, there has been a lot more support in this thread than just APM. When I describe what I see on the court in words instead of numbers, you say that you don't agree and that my posts are "getting out of hand". Fair enough, opinions differ. When I used specific examples of how the Wolves' defense suffered in 2007 in the games that KG didn't play, or how the 5-man Celtics starting line-up suffered immensely on defense whenever Garnett isn't playing, you ignored it. I've pointed out that not just APM, but most quantified stats that attempt to estimate player contribution all agree that KG's supporting casts, even those you deem good, have been inferior to the worst casts of Duncan and Dirk. So stop making it out that APM is the only argument being used...it's a good support, but it's far from the only one.

So that said, the bolded section above is again contradicted. When KG went to Boston, they DID put up one of the best seasons in league history. They had the highest SRS since the Jordan Bulls, were one of the greatest defenses in history, and won a title. When Cassell and Sprewell got there the Wolves DID pull down the #1 seed and stomped with the big dogs until injuries capped them. And neither my lying eyes nor ANY STATISTICAL MEASURE WE HAVE agree with your assertion that KG was playing with very many "good players" in Minnesota.

[Doctor MJ]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2003/story?id=1541117
1 out of 15 ESPN commentators that year picked the Spurs to make the Finals, 8 picked the Lakers, and the rest picked the Kings. The Kings pick was partly on the assumption they kept playing at 2002 levels in 2003, which they didn't really with Webber's injury. Nobody expected the Lakers to lose to the Spurs. What Duncan did came out of nowhere to most people.

I won't dispute the Lakers "clicked" more in 2001 than 2003, but we never got to see how the 2003 Lakers would "click" in the playoffs because the Spurs beat them. Everyone knew the Lakers had taken the regular season easy (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2 ... id=1540770), taking their stats from the regular season is not really a true reflection of repeat champs. Did the Bulls get 10 games worse between 92 and 93, or did they coast a little to focus on the playoffs? I think you know the answer to this. The reality is Tim beat Prime Shaq and Kobe. That in itself is an incredible achievement. KG never did anything like that.

Interesting. You've got a point, things are not quite as I remembered them either. Still, when about half the votes say the Lakers won't win the thing, it's pretty clear people felt differently about them than the previous year.

More importantly: Those picking the Lakers were simply predicting that the Lakers would start looking good. As I pointed out, the Lakers regular season was DRASTICALLY worse than the previous year. No one was picking the Lakers because of how they were playing, they picked them because they thought a "prime" Laker team would show up when it mattered. When that team didn't show up, you can bet that every single of them would agree that beating those Lakers was nothing like beating the REAL Lakers.

Duncan didn't come out of nowhere in the playoffs. The Spurs had HCA over everyone. People simply thought so highly of the Lakers that they couldn't bring themselves to pick against them even when they played like crap. The Kings being favorites over them was also due to what they had done in previous seasons. People tend to pick more proven teams in their predictions, this doesn't mean they are shocked when they are wrong.

Never got to see how the '03 Lakers clicked because of Spurs? That's plain ridiculous. Those Lakers played 12 games in the playoffs and went 6-6. The '01 Lakers in their first 12 games went 12-0 including an absolutely insane beat down of a '01 Spur team that would have probably beaten the '03 Spurs. You need to open up your eyes and start judging every year of a team on its own merits.

Re: "taking the regular season easy". When a team under-performs in the regular season, and then lives up to the hype, it's fair to make this statement. When a team has pulled this trick in the past, it's understandable to think they'll do it again in the future. However, when a team under-performs like never before in the regular season, than nothing improves in the post-season, it's just silly to pretend the team was something other than its record. Yes they may have had the potential for more, but you are what you do.

Re: "the reality is...". The reality is that you need to learn to think in more nuance. The Lakers at their peak were one of the best teams ever. The '03 Spurs were one of the weakest champions ever. There's no reasonable way to dispute this. At no point in the '03 post-season did anyone think "Wow, this Spur team is legendary. They're even better than the Lakers were!". The reaction was always "Wow, what a weak year. I can't believe that either the Spurs or the Nets will be champions. Neither are worthy. It's a shame Shaq & Kobe can't get their sh-- together."

[ahonui06]

Last nights game illustrated why Dirk will never be as good as KG. He wasn't shooting well or getting to his spots on offense, so he was nearly useless.

DIRK lead the game in scoring. 27 on 18 shots.

Scored 10 points in the 4th quarter on 50% FG and 100% FT.

DIRK definitely wasn't useless.

DIRK also rebounded. Mavs guards need to box out Wade and the other midgets getting offensive boards.