therealbig3 wrote:My thoughts on Kobe vs KG:
Kobe is a better offensive player imo. We all know about KG's ridiculous defensive impact, but sometimes, in the playoffs, you need your main guy to be a reliable go-to scorer, and to go for 40+. KG never did that, nor did he ever even go for 30+ in an elimination game. He's thrown up some stinkers in elimination games, in terms of scoring. Obviously, Kobe's not perfect, but more often than not, you can rely on him to give you 25-30 ppg. KG can explode for 30+ points in a game, but then he can go on a stretch of games where he's only giving you 18-22 ppg. Sometimes, that's not enough, and many times in KG's career, it wasn't. From 98-00, his offensive performance in the closeout games is pathetic, to be honest. In 01, against SA, he does play very well, holding off Duncan and Robinson, and he has a 19/15/5 closeout game...but in a 7 point loss, that's where only scoring 19 points is not enough. In 02, dominant series, but he gets lit up by Dirk, and the Mavs as a whole have no problem putting points up. In 03, dominant series against LA, but he saves his worst game of the series for last. In 04, closeout game against the Lakers, 6 point loss, KG goes for 22 points, fouls out, and commits 8 TOs. Again, saved his worst game for last.
I mean, I think Kobe is a guy who the least excuses are made for, in terms of his struggles in big games. Everyone picks him apart, but they turn a blind eye to the failures of the players they're trying to prop over him. Similar to what fatal9 said with regards to Kobe vs Malone, I think Kobe's best in the playoffs trumps KG's best in the playoffs. Did KG ever have a multiple year stretch in the playoffs that is superior to Kobe from 06-10?
(Continuing this from a post I never got to finish in the #10 thread, perfectly adaptable to this thread)
We spoke on this a bit during the thread you began about KG vs Robinson in the postseason, but at that time we focused more on comparing them than on KG's impact in general. We know that Garnett's TS% drops a bit in the postseason and that he isn't the volume scorer that some of these all-time players are. On the other hand, I contend that Garnett's postseason impact is as big or bigger than some of the top-10 players already voted in. Scoring is naturally the first thing that people consider, so it is incumbent on me to make the case that Garnett's results aren't a case of a player struggling a bit (TS% or PER) but still being great...it's that Garnett's postseason impact tends to be HUGE, and that the TS% really isn't that relevant when it comes to judging him. Know off the bat that as I make my case I'll be looking at team impact as best I can, including +/- info where it's available and team trends as well. I'm going to start with 1999 (first year KG was All NBA), going into more detail from 1999 - 2001 as it was before any +/- info is available. From 2002 on I'll probably use less description and rely on the trends I've already shown, the postseason +/- trends, and the known regular season APM info as well as I argue about impact. As always, it's up to the reader to determine if I make my case.
1999: Wolves played the Spurs in the playoffs. The Wolves were 25 - 25 with a -0.2 SRS, while the Spurs were 37 - 13 with a +7.1 SRS, 1st in league. The Spurs ended the season on a huge run, and ran through the playoffs on the way to the title, going 15 - 2. Garnett was matched up on Tim Duncan, and here are their averages against each other that series followed by Duncan's averages over the rest of the playoffs (against Lakers, Trailblazers and Knicks):
Garnett averaged: 21.8 points (44.3% FG, 4.3 FTM/game), 12 reb, 3.8 ast, 2.3 blk, 1.5 stl
Duncan averaged: 18.8 points (46% FG, 4.3 FTM/game), 10.8 reb, 3.3 ast, 3 blk, 0.8 stl
Duncan (non-Wolves): 24.6 points (52.5% FG, 6.9 FTM/game), 11.7 reb, 2.7 ast, 2.5 blk, 0.8 stl
Similarly, in the season the Spurs averaged 92.8 ppg on 45.6% FG
In the first round against the Wolves, the Spurs averaged 86.8 ppg on 44.3% FG
In the rest of the playoffs, the Spurs averaged 88.9 ppg on 45.3% FG
2000: Wolves played the Blazers in the playoffs. The Wolves were 50 - 32 with a +2.7 SRS, while the Blazers were 59 - 23 with a +6.4 SRS, 2nd in league. The Blazers were one of two legitimate title contenders that year, and were an epic 4th quarter choke in game 7 of the WCF away from the title. Garnett was matched up on Rasheed Wallace.
Garnett averaged 18.8 points (38.5% FG, 3.3 FTM/game), 10.8 reb, 8.8 ast, 0.8 blk, 1.3 stl
Here is what I wrote about that series in a previous thread: in that series KG had 2 triple-doubles in 4 games; was obviously drawing the defenses attention (I like NO-KG-AI's description on page 1: "that was about as much double and triple teaming as I've ever seen a team do") and distributing well (9 apg) which helped contribute to teammates shooting well; he defensively erased the best player on the opposing team in his 1-on-1 match-up (Sheed averaged 13.5 ppg in 42 min/game against Wolves in round 1, 22.3 pp42 against Jazz and Lakers in next 2 rounds), and was the anchor for a defense that held the Blazers to 3 pp 100 possessions fewer than the Jazz and Lakers were able to in the next 2 rounds (Blazers averaged 97.5 ppg, 47% FG reg season; 87.3 ppg, 43.6% against Wolves).
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1118778&start=452001: Wolves played Spurs again in the playoffs. Wolves were 47 - 35 (+1.8 SRS), Spurs were 58 - 24 (+7.9 SRS, 1st in league). Garnett was again matched up on Tim Duncan, and here are their averages against each other that series followed by Duncan's averages over the rest of the playoffs (Mavs and Lakers):
Garnett averaged: 21 points (46.6% FG, 7.5 FTM/game), 12 reb, 4.3 ast, 1.5 blk, 1 stl
Duncan averaged: 22.5 points (46% FG, 5.5 FTM/game), 13 reb, 3.5 ast, 2 blk, 1 stl
Duncan (non-Wolves): 25.2 points (49.7% FG, 6 FTM/game), 15.1 reb, 3.9 ast, 3 blk, 1.1 stl
Similarly, in the season the Spurs averaged 96.2 ppg on 46.1% FG
In the first round against the Wolves, the Spurs averaged 88.5 ppg on 42.9% FG
In the rest of the playoffs, the Spurs averaged 92.9 ppg on 44.3% FG
Quick summary: Already TL;DR, but some key points.
From 1999 - 2001, KG averaged 20.5 points (42.8% FG, 49.9% TS), 11.6 reb, 5.6 apg, 23.2 PER in the postseason and the Wolves lost all 3 series. Now, you can stop there and say that Garnett had some shooting trouble but still posted overall good numbers but his team couldn't get out of the first round. Or, you can note that:
1) In 3 straight years the Wolves faced either the best or 2nd best team in the NBA in the first round
2) In those 3 years, KG faced off against 3 straight all-world power forwards (including twice against the consensus best PF of all time), who also are very arguably the 2 best defensive PFs (outside of KG) of their generation.
3) Over those 3 series, Garnett held Duncan and Sheed to about 76% of what they scored against their other postseason opponents. In other words, he cut their scoring by about 1/4. This is huge, against superstar opponents.
4) Over those 3 series, the Spurs and Blazers both experienced consistent and sizable scoring drops against the Wolves (average 8 fewer ppg, 2.6% lower FG% against the Wolves compared to regular season), and in all 3 instances the Spurs and Blazers then improved both their ppg and their FG% against their remaining postseason opponents outside of the Wolves.
5) Over those 3 series, Garnett either scored or assisted on more than 38% of the Wolves' points.
Even those sympathetic to Garnett tend to compare him to other greats by saying things like, "Garnett had good numbers and was obviously a defensive anchor, but player X was just a better scorer and ...". To me, that misses the point. Garnett's impact on the court was massive, well beyond just a dominant scoring presence, because he was having massive effects on the game with his defense, rebounding and playmaking. It's not just a "start with scoring, give a few bonus points for defense and passing" kind of thing. It's more like a list of several ways in which a player can impact a game, scoring being one of them, and KG making big marks in all of the categories (including scoring) for a combination that can't be touched by any other individual of his generation. His team might not have won, but KG's individual impact in the postseason was massive. How massive? Well, let's try to quantify it a bit more specifically for the future years but in a cliff notes format, using available +/- info.
2002 - 2004: Garnett averaged 24.9 ppg, 15.3 rpg, 5.1 apg, 2.1 bpg, 1.4 spg, 25.2 PER over 27 games.
In those years the Wolves faced the Shaq/Kobe Lakers twice, the 57-win Mavericks, the 55-win Kings, and the early Carmelo Nuggets in the postseason. I'll point out that, unlike in the examples above, Dirk Nowitzki and the Mavs posted excellent offensive numbers against the 2002 Wolves. I've said before that to my view the Mavs as a team just overwhelmed the Wolves' inferior perimeter defensive players and KG was spread too thin trying to help, but there are many that believe that Dirk just outplayed him. I won't even argue that here, it's not germane to the point. Suppose, for this post, I stipulate that one series to be the exception to KG's general rule of postseason match-ups, so that I can stay with the overall point.
One has to take postseason +/- results with large grains of salt because of the sample size issue. When looking at an individual season, I don't even pay much attention to results for any less than 2 rounds, and even for long playoff runs I note the +/- results more as a data point to be vetted and compared with the other information we have at hand. That said, when the same thing keeps happening again and again year after year, and it is totally consistent with the other data we have, I think that we start having something worth talking about.
So, I want you to keep in mind all of the non-box-score/non-scoring impacts that I pointed out in more detail for the 1999 - 2001 playoff runs when you read that from 2002 - 2004, KG's postseason on/off +/- was +21.4 in 1173 minutes on court and 125 minutes off. Still not rigorous by any means, still not enough minutes (especially off-court) for comfort, but a definite trend is taking shape. A +21.4 net on/off would be huge, but to put it in perspective based on current players that have already been voted into the top-10 in this project:
*Shaq topped that mark in the 2004 playoffs (+28.4), and presumably did it previously as well though I haven't run his numbers for 2002 or 2003. He hasn't touched it in the years since.
*Duncan topped that mark in his legendary 2003 postseason run (+23.4), but he's never really approached it since (I don't have his 2002 calculated) and never had a 3-year run anywhere near that.
*Kobe has never come close to that mark in any postseason from 2003 on (I don't have his 2002 calculated).
Again, not conclusive. Small sample size. Just a data point, with comparisons for perspective, which is consistent with the more in-depth analysis I did from the three previous playoff performances. Something to chew on when you look at the other data that you usually use for analysis.
2008: Garnett averaged 20.4 ppg, 10.5 rpg, 3.3 apg, 1.1 bpg, 1.3 spg, 23.0 PER over 26 games.
In that championship run the Celtics faced the Kobe/Pau Lakers that had been scorching since the Gasol trade, the 59-win Pistons, a LeBron-led Cavs team and the Hawks. Getting straight to the point, a journey over to basketballvalue.com tells us that in the 2008 postseason
http://basketballvalue.com/teamplayers. ... C&team=BOS :
*Garnett had an on/off +/- of +19.9 in 987 minutes on court, 261 minutes off court, and the team was -10 per 48 min in the time Garnett was off the court.
*Pierce (+8.0) and Allen (+8.3) had much lower marks, and more interestingly, when either Pierce or Allen were off the court the Celtics still broke even. Compared to how when Garnett was off the court, the Celtics went through the floor (-10/48 off court).
Conclusions: NOW, I think this is a trend worth putting some weight into. KG's +/- results in the Celtics' championship run looked exactly like they had in his last three postseasons in Minnesota. In fact, if you put 2008 with KG's 3 previous playoff runs, you see him posting an on/off +/- of up near 20 over a 6 year period that encompasses 4 playoffs, 53 games, more than 2000 minutes on-court and almost 400 minutes off-court, and two entirely different teams. Some other things to keep in mind:
*KG's postseason on/off +/- from 2002 - 2008 crushes any of the other players of his generation over that time period. Duncan was at +7.4 (03 - 08; 4135 min on, 980 min off), Kobe was +5.4 (03 - 08, 2885 min on, 348 min off), and Dirk was +3.1 (03 - 08; 2913 min on, 425 min off). The only player that we've mentioned that was close was LeBron, who was +17.5 (06 - 08; 2046 min on, 178 min off)
*This is very consistent with the regular season results that we have. From 2004 - 2009 Ilardi's APM calculation already indicated that KG dwarfed the rest of the NBA over that 6 years.
*Again, we can see on the court how this could be. KG was carrying huge loads for his teams in multiple areas, and was doing a lot of things at an extremely high level. People say "great defense" or "great all around" player, but I don't think many really internalize that when it comes to Garnett. He was impacting the game in such a huge way even in addition to his strong scoring.
*For those keeping track at home, I started this long post for the 1999 postseason and finished it with the 2008. So that's a solid decade of top-5 caliber play from Garnett, including large swatches of MVP-caliber production with a historic peak. Just a point to indicate that Garnett's longevity and quality stacks up well to anyone at this point.
