Peak Project #8

[trex_8063]

Here it is, have at it. My top two picks are likely to Robinson and Garnett. I think Magic is probably my top candidate for my 3rd ballot. Bird and Oscar are in the hunt, too.

And not that I'm considering him just yet, but what do you guys think of Connie Hawkins? Around what company does he enter the conversation? I realize the ABA in the late 60's was a touch weak, but man he was crushing it; and was still All-NBA 1st team (post-injury) when he hit the NBA in '70, fwiw.
I've been of the opinion that he could at least be considered just after guys like Barkley/Moses/Dirk/Karl. What do you guys think?

[theonlyclutch]

Been a busy few days, so wasn't able to contribute much, thinking Robinson, Garnett, and I'm open as to the 3rd ballot, someone like Russell or a move away from the bigs both work with me

[drza]

Spoiler:

Raw Nene, Post injury Webber, and a well past prime Karl Malone aren't scrubs but I think the difference is overstated but I digress.

Anyways my main gripe is about how Peak KG only shot 22.9% with a Draw Rate of 28.9 FTR% of his shots at the rim and 56% of his shots were mid range jumpers. Now KG was a combined 45.3 FG% from 10-23 those shots which is above average but still the balance between his good efficiency (67.7 EFG% on 0-3 shots and 81.1 FT%) on the volume he had and his love of jumpers. For reference Duncan shot 29.5% of his shots from 0-3 with an efficiency near equal to Garnett on 67.8 EFG% and had a Draw Rate of 45.5 FTR ( 57% higher than Garnett ) although admittedly his FT% is 71.0 Percent compared to Garnett, i feel that the edge still goes to Duncan.

He also had an assisted% of 66.3 which implies that he took most of his offense in the flow of the game and there's not a lot wrong with that but it means that he has to rely on his teammates more than someone like Duncan who had a rate of 47.5% assisted. Is it that strange that when KG's unassisted % goes down by 13% that his scoring efficiency dropped and duncan rose by 5% so essentially theyre both at 52-53 and duncan has around a 6% TS advantage.

Also these jumpers that are literally 75-76% of all Garnett's shots arent off the dribble, he's assisted on 66% of them in the RS, and and that number drops to 53% in the playoffs and there's certainly some level of correlation as the EFG% drops from 44.9 to 38.9 and this leads me to believe that no matter if garnett was a more talented passer than duncan, his lesser ability to apply pressure at the rim lent to the passing advantage not being as great as the talent disparity.

His scoring methods attracted less attention by principle because they were easier to contain without help and the cost/reward was more acceptable than an open three or cut to the basket if they decided to double him. This should usually boost a players scoring and take their assists down a little but KG managed to suffer on both fronts. I think its just part of the skillset while more portable and additive to great players, doesnt have the same floor as duncan and thats part of the reason I like him more offensively. I think that Garnett works well in a system but can run into trouble when he is looked as a guy to do it all, and he's less of a threat to throw a defensive system out of whack. I think KG nor Duncan is optimally used like this offensively but I think Duncan definitely outperforms KG here. I dont think KG on the Spurs would give them enough offense to win the title in 2003.

(ETA NOTE: This post is transported from thread #7. I was working on this when Trex called the vote. This would have fit better there because it compares Garnett to Duncan, who's already in now, but I spent WAY too much energy on this to not post it now so it's just going to have to live here . It's also RIDICULOUSLY long, but if you have the energy to get through it I think it's worth it ).

So, this is interesting analysis. And this is both a reasonable interpretation, and the one that I think has been the most common when assessing Garnett. I don't agree with the conclusion, but each analyst of course has to come to their own decisions. And as you might guess, I've had this particular debate a bunch of times. Here I can offer you some of my interpretation, with some additional facts added in, and the reader(s) can decide what they believe to be true.

It seems to me that there are two main components to your argument: 1) you're making the case that Duncan's method of scoring is systematically, inherently more efficient than Garnett's, especially in a postseason environment, and therefore that this difference in efficiency in 2003 Duncan and 2004 Garnett is a true effect and not just a fluke based on circumstances. And 2) you're making the case that the difference in their scoring efficiency is a significant factor in determining how effective they are.

So I'd test your arguments in a few ways: a) We should look at Duncan and Garnett across their careers to see if this difference in scoring efficiency is more traceable to their difference in styles, or to their circumstances; b) we should look specifically at their peak years to see if there are other explanatory reasons for why their scoring efficiencies look like they do, and c) we should spend some time thinking about whether the difference in scoring efficiency even matters. So...

a) Garnett vs Duncan scoring efficiency for their careers (regular season, post-prime post-season, then more in-depth prime):

From 1999 - 2008 (typically considered their prime years, regular season):
KG: 22.0 ppg (17.5 FGA+5.7 FTA=20.0 scoring poss), 12.2 reb, 4.8 ast (2.7 TO)
TD: 21.7 ppg (16.4 FGA+7.5 FTA=19.7 scoring poss), 11.8 reb, 3.2 ast (2.8 TO)

So, over their primes in the regular season, Garnett and Duncan sport almost the EXACT same scoring volume and efficiency. I know your premise is that the playoffs are different due to different defensive intensity, and I'll address that, but I still want you to look at just how abnormally similar those efficiencies are across a full decade. Roughly 800 games. If Duncan's style was inherently higher efficiency than Garnett I'd at least expect some difference here. But let's continue with a look at their postseasons once Garnett got to Boston:

From 2008 - 2013, playoffs:
KG: 17.5 ppg (14.8 FGA+3.5 FTA=16.3 scoring poss), 9.9 reb, 2.6 ast (2.0 TO)
TD: 18.2 ppg (15.4 FGA+5.3 FTA=17.7 scoring poss), 10.9 reb, 2.6 ast (2.1 TO)

Again, their scoring volume/efficiency numbers are very similar. Not metronomically the same any more, but very similar. Especially when you factor in that this includes 2010 KG who was recovering from knee surgery (and obviously had the lowest volume stats of his career to that point) these averages, to me, tell the exact same story: In the POSTSEASON in their late prime/postprime, when arguably their team circumstances were the most similar that they'd be for any extended stretch, their scoring volume and efficiency were still very similar. Again, I recognize that the playoffs in their late/post prime isn't the exact same as the playoffs in their peak/prime, but still...again...if Duncan's style were just inherently of higher efficiency than Garnett I would expect to see SOME sign of it over such a large swatch. So now, it's time to look at their actual primes:

From 1999 - 2008 (typically considered prime years, post season):
KG: 22.3 ppg (18.8 FGA+5.8 FTA=21.3 shot poss), 12.7 reb, 4.5 ast (2.9 TO)
TD: 23.6 ppg (17.5 FGA+8.8 FTA=21.4 shot poss), 13 reb, 3.6 ast (3.1 TO)

For the first time, to your point, we see a small advantage for Duncan in terms of scoring efficiency. He scores about 1.3 more points on roughly the same number of shots taken (when factoring in free throws). It's small, but that is an advantage. On the flip side, though, Garnett averages almost a full assist more on roughly the same turnovers. So if we look at the offensive box score stats for possession enders, Garnett and Duncan are again producing almost the exact same volume of points for their teams while using almost the exact same number of possessions.

But still, the focus of this analysis is that (small) edge that Duncan has in scoring efficiency. So, let's explore there a bit. As I said, I've got a few older posts that look at this phenomenon in more depth. I had one in the top-100 thread from last year, but for novelty I'll use an older one here that I think hasn't been seen as often by this company. As you'll see if you click the spoiler, I was responding then to a very similar post to the one of yours that I'm responding to now.

Duncan vs Garnett in the postseason, prime years, a closer look

Spoiler:

Well, I think Duncan is a better low post player, because he puts more pressure on a defense by drawing fouls. From 98-07 (Duncan's prime), he averaged 7.5 FTA/game in the regular season, and 8.9 FTA/game in the playoffs. From 99-07 (KG's offensive prime), KG averaged 5.9 FTA/game in the regular season, and 5.3 FTA/game in the playoffs. The fact that KG was a better FT shooter than Duncan made up for the difference in attempts, which is why KG's TS% in the regular season is practically equal with Duncan's. But in the playoffs, KG's FTA go down, while Duncan's go up. That's a huge difference, and it's the main reason why Duncan's TS% is able to stay the same in the playoffs, while KG's takes a big dip. And it's their style of play that dictates this. KG tends to take fadeaways when he posts up, while Duncan tends to go into the defense and either draw a foul or take a short hook shot. And the fact that their FG%'s are nearly identical as well indicates that KG's fadeaways aren't higher percentage shots than what Duncan does. So the fact that Duncan is able to draw significantly more fouls makes him a clearly better low post player. He didn't have to sacrifice efficiency for volume in the playoffs like KG did because of this. And that makes him the better overall offensive player in my mind.

Thank you. Those are logical points. But, as I'm sure you expected, I do have a rebuttal. And it deals with the conundrum of how to gauge stats in the playoffs. We want to emphasize the playoffs more because it is championship time, and I both understand and endorse that. The problem is, for any stat to be of use (in anything, not just basketball) you need to have a large sample size and similar conditions. The further you get away from those rules, the weaker your statistical conclusions. The problem with how to judge the postseason is, not only is the sample size smaller but also the conditions are now different. Instead of playing every team multiple times (like in the regular season), in the postseason you play the same team a bunch of times. Which means that who you play is going to make a BIG difference in your results, which therefore is going to bias your stats. Let me give you the example that took me on this tangent.

In the Top 100 project, as I'm sure you remember, we had a discussion about why KG's TS% wasn't in any way reflective of the impact he was having on games. While researching this, I pointed out that from '99 - '01 in the playoffs KG was matched up against Duncan/Robinson, Sheed/Sabonis, and Duncan/Robinson in back-to-back-to-back years. And I showed how Duncan and Sheed had their scoring totals and percentages fall through the floor against KG, only to bounce back in a huge way in the rest of the playoffs. Remember? If so, keep following me, because it ties back into their postseason stats.

KG and Duncan faced each other in 8 games over the 1999 and 2001 playoffs. In those 8 games, Garnett averaged 21.4 ppg on 52.5% TS. Now, over the 1999 and 2001 playoffs, Duncan averaged 23.7 ppg on 55.3% TS. So, if we just look at the postseason stats, we'd say that in those two years Duncan produced a little more volume on a bit more efficiency than KG. In fact, those numbers are very representative of their career postseason averages, where KG's TS% is 51.9% and Duncan's is 55.0%...about the same 3% difference in TS%. Not a huge amount, but enough that Duncan supporters can hang their hats on it.

But wait a second.

Because KG compiled all of his 21.4 ppg on 52.5% TS in eight games against one of the two best defensive power forwards of all time. And point of fact, in the eight playoff games that Duncan was facing one of the two best defensive power forwards of all time, HE "only" averaged 20.7 ppg on 51.4% TS himself. The difference, then, between Duncan's and KG's true shooting percentages in the '99 and '01 postseasons was NOT that Duncan was operating out of the post, or drawing more fouls, or opening things up, or any of the logical suggestions you made above...the difference in those 2 years was that while KG and Duncan performed similarly against similar levels of competition, Duncan ALSO had another 22 games in those years NOT against the best defensive power forward in history, and in those 22 games he averaged 24.8 ppg on 56.6% TS. So this makes it a textbook example of how the small sample sizes/different conditions gives a weaker (and in this instance misleading) conclusion about Garnett's and Duncan's shooting efficiencies.

Now, we would hope that eventually it would even out over time...that the law of large numbers would kick in over the years as the sample sizes grew. Unfortunately, I'm not sure this really happens, though, because year after year KG and Duncan kept not playing the same teams in the same postseason...and playing very different numbers of games per year...with very different calibers of teammates. I've said many times that part of the reason why I believe KG's efficiency goes down is because of the ratio of his own teammate's caliber vs the caliber of his opponents. He's asked to do so much against such stacked competition that his efficiency suffers a bit, but his volume if anything goes up and (as I showed with the available +/- data in the top 100 project) his impact is absolutely massive, drowning out the efficiency question. The +/- data is probably the closest that we can come to normalizing for teammate caliber, but aside from that, today I wanted to follow my above idea and play it out. So, I did a quick test.

I did a quick rough-and-ready test this afternoon. From '99 - '09 (from the first year they both made All NBA until their obvious fall), KG and Duncan played in the same postseason in '99, 01, 02, 03, 04, and 08. We talked about '99 and '01 above, so here let's look at the other 4 seasons. We need a test criterion for competition level, so let's look at how KG and Duncan did against teams that won 55 or more games (reasonably contenders) vs teams that won fewer than that ("merely" playoff teams) over those years.

In '02, 03, 04 and 08 Duncan played 34 games against teams with 55 or more wins, while Garnett played 28 such games. Duncan averaged 22.9 points on 52.2% TS% in those games, while Garnett averaged 22.4 points on 52.0% TS. It's funny how similar those numbers look, isn't it? Meanwhile, in Duncan's 26 games against teams that won fewer than 55 games his TS% jumped to 57.6%, again opening up the ~3% advantage over KG and his 53.9% TS in 25 games against teams with fewer than 55 wins.

Now, I'm not in any way claiming this is rigorous. First of all, I didn't include Duncan's '05 - 07 years, when he was in the playoffs and KG wasn't, and at a glance his great/good opponent splits aren't as large in those years so I wouldn't be surprised if they would have boosted his numbers a bit in the efficiency department and allowed him to open a small gap over KG. Secondly, at their absolute peaks Duncan tended to have higher percentages than KG, while KG was more efficient once he got to Boston, so there was obviously a teammate effect that I don't account for. And third, this was a very quick test with a simple record-based criterion...there are probably better, more sophisticated ways to try to make an estimate like this. My point here wasn't to re-discover the wheel.

My point, is, that by just looking a bit closer I'm now seeing very reasonable evidence from the 1999, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, and 2008 postseasons to suggest that the Duncan's better shooting efficiencies appear to be in the "noise". That for those 6 postseasons, which span the majority of their primes, the shooting efficiency stats are weakened enough by the violation of the sample size/similar conditions rules of stats that I can't with any confidence say that Duncan was REALLY a more efficient postseason scorer than Garnett to any degree. ESPECIALLY when you consider that over the much larger/more equal conditions sample size of the regular season, from 1999 - 2009 KG averaged 21.6 ppg on 55.1% TS (816 games played) vs Duncan's 21.4 ppg on 55.0% TS (817 games played). Almost rock-solid, spitting image EXACTLY the same.

I'm just saying. Duncan may be slightly more efficient than KG as a postseason scorer. But even if we chalk up everything I wrote above as garbage, even the 3% Duncan is better in career average is a pretty small number in the scheme of things with how much each was responsible for. And it seems to me that when one chooses a single aspect of the game and expounds on it, the way folks do with Duncan's post-oriented game vs Garnett's, it tends to skew the message. Because I could just as easily make similar paragraphs about how Garnett's high-post pick-and-pop ability is what opened things up for Sam, Chauncey and Hudson to have (to date) career years while playing with him. And Garnett's ability to draw attention and find open teammates is what allowed Wally to be as effective as he was on offense. And that his ability to help his teammates on defense with so much range is what has boosted Pierce, Rondo and Perkins into a higher stratosphere of attention than they otherwise would have received. And that it's because Garnett is doing so many things that the box scores don't catch that he has such a significant advantage on Duncan in the +/- stats over their primes.

Both Duncan and Garnett are history-caliber players, and both do a LOT of things both in the boxscores and not that allow them to make huge impacts. So just picking one of the areas that Duncan stylistically does differently, and expanding on it in the absence of balance, and using stats with small margins of difference under dissimilar conditions as the justification...I just don't think that you're covering the whole story, I guess is what I'm saying.

The cliff notes to the spoiler would be similar to things we've been seeing elsewhere in this thread: when Garnett and Duncan face situations in the postseason, their scoring efficiency was still very similar. We saw that in El Gee's study that Sideshow Bob quoted based on 103 defenses vs 107 defenses. We saw it in the 1-on-1 match-up Duncan scoring info that Bastillon has been posting. In my post from the last Top 100 project I go through the same exercise as I did above, but in a bit more depth, and again with context given and circumstances considered, Garnett's scoring efficiency in his prime years (including peak) looked very, VERY similar to Duncan's in the same situation.

So my conclusion/summary to point (a) would be that: In the regular season over their primes their scoring volume/efficiency was EXACTLY the same, in the postseason of their late/post primes their scoring volumes/efficiency were extremely similar, and even in the postseason of their peak/prime, when you give any context consideration, Garnett and Duncan STILL have very similar scoring volume/efficiencies. Thus, the data doesn't really support the stance that Duncan's scoring style/ability was inherently more efficient than Garnett's, even in the postseason.

b) Scoring efficiency of 2003 Duncan vs 2004 Garnett, in particular

So, above I went through some effort to indicate that over their careers, in both the regular season and postseason, there was nothing to support the notion that Duncan's better scoring efficiency averages was due to his post-up style of play or his ability to "lift his game", or any of the usual narratives...that on the whole they performed remarkably similarly, when any kind of context is taken into effect. However, in this project we are specifically looking at peak years. So the next step is to look at whether there was something magical about 2003 Duncan and 2004 Garnett, in particular, that speaks to their efficiency difference. Did Duncan just step up more, in a way that KG couldn't? Or is there, again, very logical reason for why the numbers look like they do that comes from circumstances outside of the players' control?

To start with, I think we have to look logically at their team situations. In the narrative, 2003 is considered a carry job by Duncan while 2004 is referred to as KG playing with solid support for the first time in their careers. This narrative isn't really accurate, and tends to skew our views of the remaining facts. So let's look at this a bit.

2003 Spurs (by min/game): Duncan, young Parker, Bowen, Stephen Jackson, old David Robinson, Malik Rose, young Ginobili, old Steve Smith, Speedy Claxton

2004 Wolves (by min/game): Garnett, old Sprewell, Cassell, Hassell, Hoiberg, Szczerbiak*, Olowokandi*, Madsen, Hudson*,Trent, Erv Johnson

A lot of the reason that the 2004 Wolves cast is considered solid is because of Cassell being All NBA that year and Sprewell's name. Szczerbiak, Hudson and Olowokandi were all hurt and missed most of the year. So once you move beyond Cassell and Spree, the other Wolves rotation players were typically below-replacement level role players.

A lot of the reason that the 2003 Spurs cast is considered so weak is because their players were mainly either too old (Robinson, Steve Smith, Kevin Willis) or too young (Parker, Ginobili). Thus, they weren't consistent, big-minute players yet. However, I would note that a) this is a defensive all-star team supporting cast, which can easily be shown by both acclaim and stats, b) though most were too young or too old, there was enough redundancy in support that while their individual production was very up-and-down their production as a group was fairly consistently positive, and c) the skill sets of the players on the team fit very specific, positive roles that made them useful support around a transcendant star.

Some basic composite stats to support that in the regular season, 2004 Garnett and 2003 Duncan actually had very similar levels of team support:

Team Records
2003 Spurs 60 - 22
2004 Wolves 58 - 24

2003 Spurs (not Duncan) total win shares: 40.5
2004 Wolves (not Garnett) total win shares: 40.3

2003 Spurs (not Duncan) total wins produced: 29.9
2004 Wolves (not Garnett) total wins produced: 25.3

On/off net +/- (per 100 possessions):
2003 Duncan: +14.7 points/100 possessions (+9.1 on, -5.6 off)
2004 Garnett: +20.7 points/100 possessions (+9.8 on, -10.9 off)

Essentially, looked at the overall team record, then used composite box score stats (win shares and wins produced) as two different methods to estimate the production of their supporting casts, then as an independent control I looked at their individual +/- numbers as a confirmation measure for how much weight they were carrying. And keep in mind that the box score stats don't do much to capture team defense, of which the Spurs were much more productive than the Wolves. These aren't meant to be mathematically rigorous, but instead to bring the point home that by about any objective measure, the 2003 Duncan's cast and 2004 Garnett's cast in the regular season were at best comparable (and more realistically, Duncan's cast was stronger), and they carried them to similar levels of team success in the regular season.

This was important to establish, because it speaks to what happened in the postseason. Because honestly, the only reason that Garnett's cast was anywhere near Duncan's, was because of the presence of a healthy Sam Cassell. Garnett's cast was MUCH more top-heavy, concentrated almost entirely in Cassell with a bit of help from Spree, but after Cassell the Spurs cast was MUCH better than the 2004 Wolves.

So what happened in the 2004 playoffs? Sam Cassell got hurt. Most know that he was missing games by the WCF, but he was hobbled well before that. His hip injury was chronic, not acute, so he was battling it all playoffs long. It was so obvious that at the time the press started talking about Cassell's hip hurting him during the Kings series, but he was playing through it (that's from personal memory, corroborated by others that were closely following that series at the time...though recently Flip Saunders was quoted saying that a Cassell "Big Balls dance" in the Kings series is what eventually aggravated it to the point that he couldn't play against the Lakers).

So (and this is the key): Garnett's 2004 support in the playoffs was NOT the same as it was in the regular season. It wasn't CLOSE to the same. A hobbling Cassell had major ramifications on the efficacy of the Wolves' offense, because the offense all season was primarily a 2-man effort between Garnett and Cassell. That was the only way to produce enough offense to support complete offensive zeros Erv Johnson (1.9 ppg/55% TS, 47 starts) and Trenton Hassell (5.0 ppg, 50% TS, 74 starts) at 2 of the 5 starting positions and still finish with a top-5 team offense. So if Cassell wasn't able to support his share, then the offense adds a third very weak component. And it'd all come down on KG.

Below I'll spoiler a breakdown where I demonstrated exactly how poor Cassell played for most of the 2004 playoffs due to the hip injury (throughout, not just the missed Lakers games). But first I'll give the cliff notes:

Basketball-reference:
Cassell '04 playoffs, 16 games played (team played 18 games), 16.6 points (57.9% TS)

Basic context:
Games 1 (Den), 5 (Den), and 1 (Sac): 33 ppg, 71.5% TS, 23.9 avg. game score
Other 11 games of at least 5 minutes: 14.2 ppg, 50.3% TS, 8.6 avg. game score
4 games of which played < 5 minutes: 0 pp, 0%, replaced by Darrick Martin

Spoiler:

Cassell and the Wolves' offensive support in the 2004 playoffs

One of the frustrating aspects of this part of the project coming up right when the baby was born is that I just don't have much opportunity to post right now. I had been working on a long one over night during the baby's awake sessions that responded to your first post about Duncan's scoring efficiency, but I hadn't finished and when I got up this morning the computer had re-started so I lost it. Go figure.

Anyway, to this specific point, neither Cassell nor his production were "fine" for the 2004 playoffs...at least, for once it mattered. His hip issue wasn't acute, it was chronic, which means that he was trying to battle through it long before it got so bad that he had to start missing games. There were rumors of his being hurt at the time during the Kings series, but it wasn't really paid attention to until he just couldn't go in the Lakers series. But if you look at his production on a game-by-game basis in the postseason, it's easy to see that he was battling to start the playoffs and rapidly declined as they went along.

Cassell had a huge game 1 in round 1 (extra rest), then scuffled for a few games, had a big game 5 round 1 and a huge game 1 of round 2 (again, extra rest). Then he went off a cliff afterwards. To put numbers to it, let's isolate his three big games (which all occurred in the first 6 games of the 18-game postseason) to really get a feel for the Cassell that played in more than 80% of that postseason:

Sam Cassell in 2004 playoffs
Games 1, 5 and 6: 33 ppg, 71.5% TS, 23.9 avg game score
11 other games played: 14.2 ppg, 50.3% TS, 8.6 avg game score
4 other games where he couldn't play/played less than 5 minutes

So if you look in any kind of realistic context, Cassell was NOT a 17 point/58% TS player in the 2004 postseason. In more than 83% of the game action, Cassell was either a 14 point/50% TS player or not on the court at all.

Now let's bring it to the rest of the Wolves' '04 Cast: Sprewell, Hassell, Erv Johnson starting, with Wally (playing 12/18 games through three fractured vertebrae), Hoiberg, Darrick Martin (picked up late season on 10-day contract), Mark Madsen, and Michael Olowokandi off the bench. The only person that could even pretend to get their own shot was Sprewell, and when he tried to create for himself it was very low efficiency (average 49% TS for final 5 years of his career, of which this was year 4). Wally (when he played) and Hoiberg could knock down a shot when they had been set-up, and Sprewell was more reasonable off the set-up as well. Hassell, Erv, Martin, Madsen and Olowokandi (HEMMO) were just bad offensive players.

So in summary, for 15 of the 18 playoffs games injuries reduced the '04 Wolves supporting cast to a below average point guard (Cassell's average game score was 8.6 when he played), Sprewell, 2 spot-up shooters and whatever you could get from HEMMO.

As much as Parker and Ginobili weren't ready, Stephen Jackson and Speedy Claxton were inconsistent, David Robinson was Methuzala old, Malik Rose was just a good bench scorer, and Bruce Bowen was a defensive specialist...their offensive cast was still much more ready to produce (outside of Duncan) than the '04 Wolves were outside of Garnett with Cassell hobbling. All four of Parker, Ginobili, Jackson and Speedy could get their own shot. Rose was offensively crafty and solid for a 3rd big, and Robinson as a shadow of himself was still much better offensively than Erv/Madsen.

Conclusion: I'm going to close this post here without even getting into the defensive side of the ball, for reasons of length and complexity. I want it easily digestible what the '04 Wolves cast actually was on offense in the 2004 playoffs, because I think that's often obscured by the names of Cassell and Sprewell and the success of the regular season. In the 2004 playoffs, what KG actually had to work with offensively may well have been the weakest offensive cast that he ever had in a postseason in his career. Ironically.

If you actually read the spoiler then it kind of spoils my punch line a bit, but stay with me. For 15 of the 18 games in the 2004 playoffs, All NBA Sam Cassell was either replaced by a hobbling older PG with a (below average) game score of 8.6 or he was replaced by an NBDL level player in Darrick Martin.

So the Wolves' offense, which was predicated on a Garnett/Cassell 2-man game to overcome the other dead weight in the starting line-up, now had THREE dead weights in the line-up, Garnett, and Sprewell.

By contrast, Duncan's 2003 playoff support was very similar to his 2003 regular season support: great defensive role players, a full game split between two penetrating point guards, a full game split between three wings that could hit the 3, and a full game split between a second big that either averaged 17.6 points/14.9 reb/2.1 ast per 100 possessions or 20.9 points/13 reb/2.3 ast per 100 possession. Again, the Spurs cast wasn't considered weak because of lack of talent, it was considered weak because there was no one other player that could be shown to be carrying the load. Instead, it was shared. But at least the overall production was there.

Thus, back to the individual scoring efficiencies of Duncan and Garnett in those particular playoffs. Duncan was brilliant...but he was able to be brilliant within the context of known levels of support from a reasonable (comparatively speaking) cast that could make his life easier in predictable ways. The Spurs cast had excellent defense, reasonable lead guard action, and reasonable shooting/spacing around a transcendant mega star.

The Wolves cast, for the vast majority of the 2004 playoffs, was three below-average pieces, an inefficient but-at-least-could-create-own-shot wing in old Sprewell. There were several games where there was no ball-handling lead guard at all, and in the ones that such a guard played he was unable to play his role to set up the team. Which meant that it fell to Garnett almost fully to be both the only offense creator for the team AND the only finisher. Not the primary of those two roles, the ONLY. The spacing was horrid. The finishers were below par. And the opponent could focus almost exclusively upon Garnett, for the entire game. Yes, his scoring (and even his passing) efficiencies both went down. But he was absolutely carrying the squad, and he did so to game 6 of the WCF.

Said another way, if you took the 2003 Spurs, dropped both Parker and Speedy Claxton from the roster, took away Ginobili's ability to dribble (making him more like Wally), took away Bowen's ability to shoot at all, and turned old David Robinson/Malik rose/old Willis into old Ervin Johnson/Mark Madsen/Olowokandi...oh, and instead of facing a Mavs team with Dirk out in the WCF you get to face a healthy Shaq/Kobe/Old Mailman/Old Payton squad...realistically...do you REALLY believe that Duncan carries that team to a title? Honestly. Do you REALLY believe that Duncan ups his scoring and passing efficiencies? I mean...who's doing the BASIC stuff on the team? Who's bringing the ball up the court? Who is helping Duncan rebound? Who is helping Duncan create offense? Who, on the entire rest of the team, is the OPPOSING team actually defending besides Duncan?

Conclusion: I'm sorry. There's just no way to realistically, honestly compare the boxscore stats of 2003 playoff Duncan and 2004 playoff Garnett unless you are willing to really look at the situations. There were huge, clear reasons why Garnett's efficiency suffered in those playoffs. It is very obvious, once you look. And when you factor in all of the points from the first section...that across the entire rest of their careers, in both the regular and the postseason, Garnett and Duncan scored on almost the exact same volume and exact same efficiency when in similar circumstances...again, the facts don't really support the stance that Duncan's scoring style/ability was inherently more efficient than Garnett's, even in their peak postseasons.

(Note: there's long, there's TL;DR, then there's just absurd. I wanted to tackle point c, whether scoring efficiency is even important here, and I also wanted to answer the oversized/bolded question in your last post. But this is already a book...maybe 2 books, and I've spent WAY too much time on it here at work. Hopefully I'll get to them later, but for now I'm going to have to post this as is and let it stand).

[RebelWithACause]

We actually have +/- for Dr. J and Moses Malone!

Thank you fpliii! Here's my take on several players based on the data you provided:

• Dr J

Code: Select all

YEAR   MIN   ORTG   DRTG   NET
1976-77   2940   4,1   -1,9   6,0
1977-78   2429   1,1   0,5   0,6
1978-79   2802   0,6   0,7   -0,1
1979-80   2812   0,9   -2,0   3,0
1980-81   2874   -0,5   6,2   -6,7
1981-82   2789   9,2   -0,8   10,0
1982-83   2421   7,2   -3,1   10,3
1983-84   2683   7,0   2,6   4,4
1984-85   2535   -1,3   1,9   -3,2
1985-86   2474   4,9   0,3   4,6
1986-87   1918   0,4   4,2   -3,8


I don’t like what I see here ;] Late 70s numbers might be explained by bad team fit or knees, but ’80 and – especially - ’81 (WTF happened here?) seasons also don’t look good. Around +10 net in his two best years is very good result, but is that enough to be considered top 15 player of all time?

Erving also doesn’t look that impressive on defense as I thought. Definitely wasn’t liability on that end of the floor, but also nothing special here (whathis STL and BLK numbers might suggest), he looks more like around average defender.

Overall I’m very disappointed with Doc’s numbers and I would have to reconsider my opinion about him and rank him lower.

• Moses

Code: Select all

YEAR   MIN   ORTG   DRTG   NET
1982-83   2922   8,2   -7,4   15,6
1983-84   2613   10,4   7,1   3,3
1984-85   2957   18,8   -2,8   21,7
1985-86   2706   8,9   1,8   7,2
1993-94   618   -7,1   -2,1   -5,0


Very inconsistent results year by year, so I’m not sure what to think about them. But no doubt Moses was great on offense and his +18.8 ortg and net +21.7 in ’85 is GOAT level stuff. But defensively there’s a lot of noise. In one year he looks like all defensive level center, while very next one like the worst defender in the NBA. Any thoughts?

1. Why does Erving look average as a defender at best when he came to the NBA?
Why should he be so much better on that end in 76? Doesn't make sense.
People tend to say he just played less but produced almost identical numbers per 36 in his NBA days, yet the offensive impact was never off the charts?!
You might want to mention the fit on that team , but to make such a minimal difference on offense from 77-80 when supposedly you had a Top10 All Time peak in 76? Can some of the Erving supporters chime in here?

2. People reference Moses' gaudy boxscore stats and that those numbers and his skillset don't translate to impact?
What do you say now after seeing the data?

Great response from you, Quotatious, in the last thread.
Will reply to your post if I find the time.

DrSpaceman,
I already asked you sometime else what you think of those Moses' numbers since you were indicating that his skillset and offense only consisted out of boxscore stuffing and minimal impact ?

[SideshowBob]

If there's one thing I need answered by the PC board intelligentsia on here about Garnett's offense it's this...

Forgetting all of the stats I still have one concern about how successful offensively a player can be as a facilitator if he is neither a man who put pressure on teams by A. (Attacking the basket) B. (Launching 3 pointers). If one is neither of these... how much pressure can he apply to smart defenses that try to take away his playmaking?

Garnett's offense can be broken down like this:

-Spacing
-PnR (Roll/Pop)
-High-Post
-Low-Post
-Mid-Post
-Screens

Remember, there is overlap between these offensive skills/features; I'm trying to give a broad-strokes perspective here.

Let's talk about his shooting really quick, and then dive in. What I want to consider is how and which of these traits show up in the box-score, as well as which would be resilient in the face of smarter defenses.


-Has range out to the 3 pt line but practically/effectively speaking, he's going out to ~22 feet.
-From 10-23 feet, shot 47.7% in 03 (9.6 FGA/G), 45.2% in 04 (11.0 FGA/G), 44.6% in 05 (8.3 FGA/G), 48.4% in 06 (8.4 FGA/G)
-16-23 ft range, he's assisted on ~77% over those 4 years
-Shooting at the big-man positions is a conundrum - shooting 4/5s are often associated with weak (breakeven) or bad (negative) defense. Garnett is one of the few exceptions in that not only is he an elite shooter, there's virtually no defensive opportunity cost to playing him over anyone in history.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When he's on the ball, he can utilize his exceptional ball-handling skills to create separation and knock it down. When he's off the ball, he's always a threat to convert - the fact that he's assisted so frequently on 16-23 ft shots means they're mostly coming on a Pick and Pop or a drive and kick, which means a lot of them are open. He's usually shooting around 45% overall from there, so we're looking at high 40s on open shots and low-mid 40s on created ones. BOTH of those numbers are strong, and that's where the first offensive trait comes; Spacing. His shooting spaces the floor. A LOT - despite the fact that he doesn't shoot 3s, he forces bigs out of the paint and opens up the lane. Because he's not a 3-point shooter though, this effect doesn't really show up in the box-score. And yet, this effect will always be present; doesn't matter how much a defense slows down his raw production in the playoffs, the spacing effect will always be present - he's going to try and create shots from out there and he's going to pop/spot-up; give him space/leave him open and he'll convert at .95-1.00 PPP (which is very strong in the halfcourt). Cover him/recover on him with a little guy and he'll just shoot right over. His man has to come out and try and cover him, and this means that there will always be a marginal improvement for the rest of the team with regards to the lane being open. The only real way to reduce this? Have someone at the 1-3 that can cover him (has the size/strength to cope with his shot/inside game for stretches at a time), but even then, you might yield a disadvantage with one of your bigs covering a small ball-handler.

So next, his PnR game. Crucially, he's a dual threat, he's deadly popping out (as demonstrated above) but even crazier rolling to the basket (high 60s-70ish finishing, that includes post/isolation, thus baskets on the roll would likely be higher. The rolls are similar (though not equal) to drives to the basket and aside from finishing offer an opportunity to kick it out. THIS aspect is captured fairly well by the box-score (rolls into finishes - FG%, finishes - PTS, kick outs - direct assists). This is also one that good PnR defense teams can slow down. Close off the PnR by stopping the ball handler (aggressive blitz/trap to force the ball out their hands before the PnR is initiated, or drop center, ice sideline to deny the ball-handler middle), or rely on strong rotations into the lane to close off easy baskets off a roll. When we talk about his postseason dips (mainly PPG and TS%), this is mostly where they're coming from (and face up game which I'll get to later).

So now, the post options. The high post probably yields the largest fraction of his offensive impact. His scoring skills (again, ball-handling to set up midrange game, quickness/explosion to attack the basket straight on, catch&shoot/spotup, etc.) means that he draws a great amount of attention here, again, pulling a big away from the restricted area and up to the free throw line. This is significant because he can spot and capitalize on any off ball movement, use his passing to force rotations until an opportunity is created, play the give and go with a small. Essentially, there are a ton of options available here due to his gravity and diversity, yet almost none of this will show up in the box-score. Unless he hits a cutter with a wide open lane or a shooter with a wide open corner, he's not going to be credited with the assist.

Imagine - he sucks/turns the attention of the defense to himself, a cutter sees an opening and zips in from the wing, which forces a defender from the corner to come over and protect the basket, leaving a shooter open. Garnett hits the cutter who dishes it out, or he kicks the ball out to the perimeter and it is swung around to the open shooter. Garnett's pressure created the opening, and his passing/vision got the ball where it needed to go, but he's given no credit in the box-score.

Give and go is another example - at the top of the key, he gets the ball, his man (a big) is now worried about his shot and starts to close in, the lane has one less protector, the PG who just threw it in to him now curls around him with a quick handoff, his defender now runs into Garnett or his man and the PG gets an open lane to the basket. If someone has rotated over, a shooter will be open, if not, free layup for the PG, or a kick out for a reset for Garnett in the high/mid-block area. IF it works out that the PG gets an opening up top on the handoff, then he may get a pullup and Garnett is credited with an assist, but in most scenarios, it will play out that again, Garnett gets no box-score credit.

The effect of this play on the offense is resilient, its going to remain present against strong defenses. It doesn't matter how strong your rotations are or what kind of personnel you have, the key is that adjustments have to be made to combat a talented high-post hub, and when adjustments are made, there is always a cost (which means the defense must yield somewhere) and therein lies the impact. This is one of the most defense-resistant AND portable offensive skillsets that one can have (you're almost never going to have issue with fit) and its what made Garnett, Walton, 67 Chamberlain, so valuable.

Mid-Post and face-up game are a little more visible in the box-score (similar to PnR). Mostly comprised of either blowing by the defender and making quick moves to the basket (and draw a foul) or setting up the close-mid-range shot. This is his isolation offense, something that will tend to suffer against stronger, well equipped defenses that can close off the lane, which sort of strips away the "attack the basket, draw free throws" part and reduces it to just set up mid-range jumpshots. Garnett's obviously great at these, but taking away the higher-percentage inside shots will hurt his shooting numbers, volume, and FTA bit. The key then is, how disciplined is the defense. Yes they can close the paint off, but can they do so without yielding too much somewhere else - was there a missed rotation/help when someone left his man to help cover the paint. If yes, then there is impact, as there is anytime opportunities are created, if no then its unlikely any opportunity was created and the best option becomes to just shoot a jumper. This is the other feature of his game that isn't as resilient in the face of smart defenses.

The low-post game is crucial because it provides both a spacing effect and the additional value of his scoring. While he lacks the upper body strength to consistently finish inside against larger bigs, he can always just shoot over them at a reliable % instead, and against most matchups he's skilled enough back-to-basket and face-up that he can typically get to the rim and score. Being able to do this means that he draws attention/doubles, and he's one of the best at his position ever at capitalizing by passing out to an open shooter or kicking it out to swing the ball around the perimeter to the open guy (in case the double comes from the opposite corner/baseline) and all of this action tends force rotations enough that you can get some seams for cuts as well. Outside of scoring or making a direct pass to the open guy, the hockey assists won't show up in the box-score. But, more importantly, there is a crucial utility in having a guy diverse enough that he can play inside and out equally effectively - lineup diversity. He fills so many staples of an offense himself that it allows the team to run more specialized lineups/personnel that might not conventionally work, and this forces defenses to adjust (! that's a key word here). He doesn't have to do anything here that shows up in the box-score, all he needs to do is be on the floor. You can argue the low-post ability as a 50/50 box-score/non-box-score, but I'd lean towards giving the latter more weight.

Finally screens. The effect of Garnett's screens is elite, because of his strong lower body base and because of the diversity of his offensive threat (and he just doesn't get called for moving screens). Its tough for most players to go through/over a Garnett screen, which makes him ideal for setting up jumpers and cutters off the ball. When he's screening on the ball, everyone involved has to worry about his dual scoring threat, and when that happens, that gives the ball-handler that much more space to work with. Marginal on a single possession, significant when added up over the course of ~75 possessions, and extremely resilient - how do you stop good screens? You don't really, you just stay as disciplined as possible. And this effect is completely absent in the box-score.

So what's important now is to consider the fact that most of Garnett's offense does not show up in the box-score! And I wouldn't call what he does on the floor the "little things" (this is just something people have been conditioned to say, most things that aren't covered in the box-score have become atypical/unconventional or associated with grit/hustle, despite the fact that these are pretty fundamental basketball actions/skills). Something like 75-80% of his offensive value just simply isn't tracked by "conventional" recordkeeping, yet the focus with Garnett is almost always on the dip in scoring and efficiency. So what if the 20% that is tracked has fallen off. Even if that aspect of his game fell off by 50% (it hasn't), the rest of his game is so fundamentally resilient that I'm not even sure what degree of defense it would take to neutralize it (at least to an effective degree, I'm welcome to explanations), and that still puts him at 80-90% of his max offensive impact (given the increased loads he was typically carrying in the playoffs, I doubt it even went that low). The generalized argument against him of course tends to be "where are the results", and quite frankly it needs to be hammered home that his Minnesota casts were actually that bad. Not mid 2000s Kobe/Lebron bad, like REALLY bad, like worst of any top 10 player bad.

[SideshowBob]

Tentative Ballot

4. Bird 86 +7.25 (+6.75 O/+0.50 D)

5. Hakeem 93 +7.25 (+4.25 O/+3.00 D)

6. Chamberlain 67 +7.25 (+4.25 O/+3.00 D)

7. Garnett 04 +7.00 (+3.75 O/+3.25 D)

8. Duncan 02 +7.00 (+3.00 O/+4.00 D)

9. Russell 64 +7.00 (+0.00 O/+7.00 D)

[Dr Positivity]

Ballot 1: Garnett 2004

Ballot 2: Walton 1977

Ballot 3: Russell 1965

My trend is elite D big men who you can run the offense through. Russell has less scoring but nuclear defense and good passing. In 62 his scoring is higher but the whole league is going stats crazy so not sure if the difference is as real

[theonlyclutch]

Ballot 1: Garnett 2004

Ballot 2: Walton 1977

Ballot 3: Russell 1965

My trend is elite D big men who you can run the offense through. Russell has less scoring but nuclear defense and good passing. In 62 his scoring is higher but the whole league is going stats crazy so not sure if the difference is as real

What's leaves Robinson out of this group?

His scoring eff + volume compares very favorably, he had a season (in '94) with well over 20% AST, with the team being ranked 4th in offense (i.e his playmaking is effective), and obviously his Defense needs no explanation, what gives?

[Dr Positivity]

Robinson is close also. I am not as high on his offense for style reasons as Hakeem/KG/Duncan as I feel his game from a finesse perspective is not as polished and relies a lot on physical tools. He is still better than Russell offensively but Russell is more dominant defensively and has a leadership/clutch X factor

[thizznation]

As for portability and centers who you can run your offense through but don't give you great scoring. The problem I have with this is that I believe you need to have a pretty talented team to maximize this type of player's peak. What is your guy's true definition of portability when comparing players? I would say that it's the player who the most amount of teams would benefit greater than another player. So there are two factors to this, the amount you raise up your team and the number of teams that you can do this for. I believe that having your best player being your go to scorer is more beificial for most teams. If you don't have a stacked team then a passive jump shooting offensive hub isnt going to be the greatest fit.

Then you figure average type teams come along much more frequently than the stacked teams and then that really hurts the portability case of the offensive hub centers that don't focus on scoring.

What I'm getting at is that I think while Garnett and Walton have the ability to take an elite team to an all time great rank, I doubt their impact would be as great on the not so stacked teams which actually comprise of a much larger percentile of the total pool of teams, thus making them not as "portable".

These are some thoughts I am throwing out there. I may have been reaching here... but if anyone else had some commentary on portability I would like to hear it.

[Keller61]

I'm not a participant, but I'm a little surprised that 2014 Durant hasn't gotten any mentions yet. He had one of the greatest scoring seasons ever (32 ppg on 64% TS) and a pretty good all-around game (7.4 rpg, 5.5 apg). Probably the greatest combination of shooting and slashing ever seen. He was doing it without Westbrook for a lot of games and without a well-designed offense. Is it too blasphemous to suggest that - for one season - Durant was better than guys like Bird or Duncan ever were?

[SideshowBob]

Portability was coined here.

More discussion here.

Being overlooked here is that "different" teams are not necessarily important to distinguish because of style, but because of function.

There are a handful of major pillars that make a team successful. To name a few:
-post offense
-isolation wing offense
-outside shooting/spacing
-interior defense
-perimeter defense

Players fill up these attributes. The question with portability is NOT "how much does a player's skillset meet or not meet an attribute on a random team," but instead "how likely is the player to enhance these attributes on a good team...and how good does that make the team?"

This is precisely why Dennis Rodman is portable -- when he joins your team, he rarely interferes with areas that make a team good while almost always adding significantly in his smaller areas. It's also why Allen Iverson isn't portable -- because when we port his game onto good teams, the "isolation wing offense" thing is usually maxed out. In fact, there are diminishing returns on isolation scoring as a Global Offense function, while there are incredibly high ceilings on maximizing all 5 guys on the court (passing, spacing, shooting, etc.), which is why that wing-type isolation scoring only becomes portable when he can strongly pair with ball-dominant guys (eg can shoot), can defend, and can also dominate the ball himself. (Obviously, the broader the skillset the more likely the player is to be portable...)

The point is to be able to have your skills translate well (minimize redundancy) on good teams, because those are more likely to be or become title contenders.

Since then, its sort of taken on a life of its own, everyone's begun to apply their own meaning (and I've seen it literally be used for the opposite of what it was intended).

[ShotCreator]

If there's one thing I need answered by the PC board intelligentsia on here about Garnett's offense it's this...

Forgetting all of the stats I still have one concern about how successful offensively a player can be as a facilitator if he is neither a man who put pressure on teams by A. (Attacking the basket) B. (Launching 3 pointers). If one is neither of these... how much pressure can he apply to smart defenses that try to take away his playmaking?

Garnett's offense can be broken down like this:

-Spacing
-PnR (Roll/Pop)
-High-Post
-Low-Post
-Mid-Post
-Screens

Remember, there is overlap between these offensive skills/features; I'm trying to give a broad-strokes perspective here.

Let's talk about his shooting really quick, and then dive in. What I want to consider is how and which of these traits show up in the box-score, as well as which would be resilient in the face of smarter defenses.


-Has range out to the 3 pt line but practically/effectively speaking, he's going out to ~22 feet.
-From 10-23 feet, shot 47.7% in 03 (9.6 FGA/G), 45.2% in 04 (11.0 FGA/G), 44.6% in 05 (8.3 FGA/G), 48.4% in 06 (8.4 FGA/G)
-16-23 ft range, he's assisted on ~77% over those 4 years
-Shooting at the big-man positions is a conundrum - shooting 4/5s are often associated with weak (breakeven) or bad (negative) defense. Garnett is one of the few exceptions in that not only is he an elite shooter, there's virtually no defensive opportunity cost to playing him over anyone in history.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When he's on the ball, he can utilize his exceptional ball-handling skills to create separation and knock it down. When he's off the ball, he's always a threat to convert - the fact that he's assisted so frequently on 16-23 ft shots means they're mostly coming on a Pick and Pop or a drive and kick, which means a lot of them are open. He's usually shooting around 45% overall from there, so we're looking at high 40s on open shots and low-mid 40s on created ones. BOTH of those numbers are strong, and that's where the first offensive trait comes; Spacing. His shooting spaces the floor. A LOT - despite the fact that he doesn't shoot 3s, he forces bigs out of the paint and opens up the lane. Because he's not a 3-point shooter though, this effect doesn't really show up in the box-score. And yet, this effect will always be present; doesn't matter how much a defense slows down his raw production in the playoffs, the spacing effect will always be present - he's going to try and create shots from out there and he's going to pop/spot-up; give him space/leave him open and he'll convert at .95-1.00 PPP (which is very strong in the halfcourt). Cover him/recover on him with a little guy and he'll just shoot right over. His man has to come out and try and cover him, and this means that there will always be a marginal improvement for the rest of the team with regards to the lane being open. The only real way to reduce this? Have someone at the 1-3 that can cover him (has the size/strength to cope with his shot/inside game for stretches at a time), but even then, you might yield a disadvantage with one of your bigs covering a small ball-handler.

So next, his PnR game. Crucially, he's a dual threat, he's deadly popping out (as demonstrated above) but even crazier rolling to the basket (high 60s-70ish finishing, that includes post/isolation, thus baskets on the roll would likely be higher. The rolls are similar (though not equal) to drives to the basket and aside from finishing offer an opportunity to kick it out. THIS aspect is captured fairly well by the box-score (rolls into finishes - FG%, finishes - PTS, kick outs - direct assists). This is also one that good PnR defense teams can slow down. Close off the PnR by stopping the ball handler (aggressive blitz/trap to force the ball out their hands before the PnR is initiated, or drop center, ice sideline to deny the ball-handler middle), or rely on strong rotations into the lane to close off easy baskets off a roll. When we talk about his postseason dips (mainly PPG and TS%), this is mostly where they're coming from (and face up game which I'll get to later).

So now, the post options. The high post probably yields the largest fraction of his offensive impact. His scoring skills (again, ball-handling to set up midrange game, quickness/explosion to attack the basket straight on, catch&shoot/spotup, etc.) means that he draws a great amount of attention here, again, pulling a big away from the restricted area and up to the free throw line. This is significant because he can spot and capitalize on any off ball movement, use his passing to force rotations until an opportunity is created, play the give and go with a small. Essentially, there are a ton of options available here due to his gravity and diversity, yet almost none of this will show up in the box-score. Unless he hits a cutter with a wide open lane or a shooter with a wide open corner, he's not going to be credited with the assist.

Imagine - he sucks/turns the attention of the defense to himself, a cutter sees an opening and zips in from the wing, which forces a defender from the corner to come over and protect the basket, leaving a shooter open. Garnett hits the cutter who dishes it out, or he kicks the ball out to the perimeter and it is swung around to the open shooter. Garnett's pressure created the opening, and his passing/vision got the ball where it needed to go, but he's given no credit in the box-score.

Give and go is another example - at the top of the key, he gets the ball, his man (a big) is now worried about his shot and starts to close in, the lane has one less protector, the PG who just threw it in to him now curls around him with a quick handoff, his defender now runs into Garnett or his man and the PG gets an open lane to the basket. If someone has rotated over, a shooter will be open, if not, free layup for the PG, or a kick out for a reset for Garnett in the high/mid-block area. IF it works out that the PG gets an opening up top on the handoff, then he may get a pullup and Garnett is credited with an assist, but in most scenarios, it will play out that again, Garnett gets no box-score credit.

The effect of this play on the offense is resilient, its going to remain present against strong defenses. It doesn't matter how strong your rotations are or what kind of personnel you have, the key is that adjustments have to be made to combat a talented high-post hub, and when adjustments are made, there is always a cost (which means the defense must yield somewhere) and therein lies the impact. This is one of the most defense-resistant AND portable offensive skillsets that one can have (you're almost never going to have issue with fit) and its what made Garnett, Walton, 67 Chamberlain, so valuable.

Mid-Post and face-up game are a little more visible in the box-score (similar to PnR). Mostly comprised of either blowing by the defender and making quick moves to the basket (and draw a foul) or setting up the close-mid-range shot. This is his isolation offense, something that will tend to suffer against stronger, well equipped defenses that can close off the lane, which sort of strips away the "attack the basket, draw free throws" part and reduces it to just set up mid-range jumpshots. Garnett's obviously great at these, but taking away the higher-percentage inside shots will hurt his shooting numbers, volume, and FTA bit. The key then is, how disciplined is the defense. Yes they can close the paint off, but can they do so without yielding too much somewhere else - was there a missed rotation/help when someone left his man to help cover the paint. If yes, then there is impact, as there is anytime opportunities are created, if no then its unlikely any opportunity was created and the best option becomes to just shoot a jumper. This is the other feature of his game that isn't as resilient in the face of smart defenses.

The low-post game is crucial because it provides both a spacing effect and the additional value of his scoring. While he lacks the upper body strength to consistently finish inside against larger bigs, he can always just shoot over them at a reliable % instead, and against most matchups he's skilled enough back-to-basket and face-up that he can typically get to the rim and score. Being able to do this means that he draws attention/doubles, and he's one of the best at his position ever at capitalizing by passing out to an open shooter or kicking it out to swing the ball around the perimeter to the open guy (in case the double comes from the opposite corner/baseline) and all of this action tends force rotations enough that you can get some seams for cuts as well. Outside of scoring or making a direct pass to the open guy, the hockey assists won't show up in the box-score. But, more importantly, there is a crucial utility in having a guy diverse enough that he can play inside and out equally effectively - lineup diversity. He fills so many staples of an offense himself that it allows the team to run more specialized lineups/personnel that might not conventionally work, and this forces defenses to adjust (! that's a key word here). He doesn't have to do anything here that shows up in the box-score, all he needs to do is be on the floor. You can argue the low-post ability as a 50/50 box-score/non-box-score, but I'd lean towards giving the latter more weight.

Finally screens. The effect of Garnett's screens is elite, because of his strong lower body base and because of the diversity of his offensive threat (and he just doesn't get called for moving screens). Its tough for most players to go through/over a Garnett screen, which makes him ideal for setting up jumpers and cutters off the ball. When he's screening on the ball, everyone involved has to worry about his dual scoring threat, and when that happens, that gives the ball-handler that much more space to work with. Marginal on a single possession, significant when added up over the course of ~75 possessions, and extremely resilient - how do you stop good screens? You don't really, you just stay as disciplined as possible. And this effect is completely absent in the box-score.

So what's important now is to consider the fact that most of Garnett's offense does not show up in the box-score! And I wouldn't call what he does on the floor the "little things" (this is just something people have been conditioned to say, most things that aren't covered in the box-score have become atypical/unconventional or associated with grit/hustle, despite the fact that these are pretty fundamental basketball actions/skills). Something like 75-80% of his offensive value just simply isn't tracked by "conventional" recordkeeping, yet the focus with Garnett is almost always on the dip in scoring and efficiency. So what if the 20% that is tracked has fallen off. Even if that aspect of his game fell off by 50% (it hasn't), the rest of his game is so fundamentally resilient that I'm not even sure what degree of defense it would take to neutralize it (at least to an effective degree, I'm welcome to explanations), and that still puts him at 80-90% of his max offensive impact (given the increased loads he was typically carrying in the playoffs, I doubt it even went that low). The generalized argument against him of course tends to be "where are the results", and quite frankly it needs to be hammered home that his Minnesota casts were actually that bad. Not mid 2000s Kobe/Lebron bad, like REALLY bad, like worst of any top 10 player bad.

God, this is why I come here.

[Djoker]

In the previous thread someone quoted my old post on 1981-1982 Moses Malone so I'll repost it here but with more complete numbers from nbastats.net.

I always knew it was a great season but upon further analysis I think it's on a very short list of the greatest ever. Only Wilt and Kareem in their peak years ever dominated throughout the regular season so thoroughly. Funny thing is Moses started the year a bit slow but the second half of the season he was as dominant as any player ever. U He just steamrolled the best centers in the league. For the entire season he averaged 31.1 ppg and 14.7 rpg on 51.9% shooting. He was second in the league in scoring and led in rebounding, PER, and Win Shares.

Month-by-Month:

October (2 games): 39.0 ppg, 10.5 rpg

November (15 games): 25.3 ppg, 13.7 rpg

December (12 games): 28.5 ppg, 15.4 rpg

January (13 games): 28.7 ppg, 13.8 rpg

February (14 games): 38.1 ppg, 17.3 rpg on 55% shooting

March (16 games): 35.0 ppg, 14.1 rpg

April (9 games): 28.1 ppg, 15.6 rpg



During the all-star game on January 31st, Moses had 12 points and 11 rebounds in just 20 minutes played but West coach Pat Riley decided to bench Moses in the 4th quarter in favor of Kareem. The West lost the game and Moses was pissed and this event is rumored to have motivated his tear on the league. For 33 straight games from February 2nd to April 6th, Moses averaged 36.0 ppg and 15.8 rpg.

His game against Sikma and the Supersonics on February 11th is one of the all-time legendary performances. Moses outrebounded the entire Seattle team 32-21, grabbed an NBA record 21 offensive rebounds, and outrebounded center Jack Sikma by a 32-3 margin (and also outscored him 38-16). Sikma was in his prime that season averaging 19.6/12.7 and one of the best defenders and rebounders in the league.


Here are his performances against the best centers in the league.


vs. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (5 games)

Moses: 34.4 ppg, 15.8 rpg, 1.6 apg on 54.8% shooting

Kareem: 21.8 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 3.2 apg on 51.8% shooting

Kareem left one game in the 1st half with an ankle injury but Moses still killed an aging Kareem. Moses had games of 36/10, 37/22, 23/9, 39/17, and 37/21 against the Lakers.

81-82 Season

10/30/1981

Kareem: 33/10/2 (11/25, 11/16)
Moses: 36/10 (18/?, 0/2)

Rockets win 113-112 in double OT. Moses scores a game-winning lay-up with one second remaining.

11/11/1981

Kareem: 21/9/3 (9/21, 3/3)
Moses: 37/22 (15/?, 7/9)

Lakers win 95-93. Kareem had 4 points in the last minute to fuel the Lakers comeback.

11/29/1981

Kareem: 23/3/4 (10/14, 3/5)
Moses: 23/9 (9/?, 5/6)

Lakers win 122-104. Magic had 12/11/11 for LA and Hayes had a 30/12 game for Houston.

3/21/1982

Kareem: 12/6/4 (6/9, 0/1)
Moses: 39/17 (12/?, 15/18)

Lakers win 107-102. Kareem left the first half with an ankle injury and did not return. Moses had 25 points in that half and just 14 in the second. Magic took over late.

4/6/1982

Kareem: 20/3/3 (7/14, 6/8)
Moses: 37/21 (9/?, 19/21)

Lakers win 108-97.

Cumulative Stats

Kareem: 21.8 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 3.2 apg on 51.8 %FG/69.7 %FT/55.9 %TS
Moses: 34.4 ppg, 15.8 rpg on 82.1 %FT

Moses just dominated Kareem this year in 3 out of the 5 games. He’s the clear winner here.

vs. Robert Parish (2 games)

Moses: 37.5 ppg, 11.5 rpg, 0.5 apg on 57.1% shooting

Parish: 11.0 ppg, 7.5 rpg, 1.5 apg on 45.5% shooting

Moses had games of 37/11 and 38/12 against the Celtics.


vs. Jack Sikma (5 games)

Moses: 31.4 ppg, 16.0 rpg, 2.8 apg on 52.9% shooting

Sikma: 17.8 rpg, 14.0 rpg

Moses had games of 21/11, 28/15, 24/9, 38/32, and 46/13 against the Sonics. Only have Moses' FG% for 2 games.


vs. Mychal Thompson (5 games)

Moses: 36.2 ppg, 13.6 rpg, 1.4 apg on 60.8% shooting

Thompson: 21.4 ppg, 12.4 rpg, 3.4 apg on 59.3% shooting

Moses had games of 28/10, 34/8, 29/20, 49/12, and 41/18 against the Blazers.


vs. Artis Gilmore (2 games)

Moses: 29.0 ppg, 12.5 rpg, 2.0 apg on 53.7 %FG

Gilmore: 21.5 ppg, 8.5 rpg, 2.0 apg

Moses had games of 31/16 and 27/? against the Bulls.



Overall in 19 games against the five best centers in the league above, Moses averaged a monstrous 33.8 ppg and 14.8 rpg. Collectively, Moses went 17-1-1 in scoring and we don't have rebounds for all games but of course he dominated them pretty badly on the glass.

[drza]

As for portability and centers who you can run your offense through but don't give you great scoring. The problem I have with this is that I believe you need to have a pretty talented team to maximize this type of player's peak. What is your guy's true definition of portability when comparing players? I would say that it's the player who the most amount of teams would benefit greater than another player. So there are two factors to this, the amount you raise up your team and the number of teams that you can do this for. I believe that having your best player being your go to scorer is more beificial for most teams. If you don't have a stacked team then a passive jump shooting offensive hub isnt going to be the greatest fit.

Then you figure average type teams come along much more frequently than the stacked teams and then that really hurts the portability case of the offensive hub centers that don't don't focus on scoring.

What I'm getting at is that I think while Garnett and Walton have the ability to take an elite team to an all time great rank, I doubt their impact would be as great on the not so stacked teams which actually comprise of a much larger percentile of the total pool of teams, thus making them not as "portable".

These are some thoughts I am throwing out there. I may have been reaching here... but if anyone else had some commentary on portability I would like to hear it.

A couple points about the underlined. First, SideshowBob already hit on the point that originally portability was conceived of as a way to determine how much a player could help random teams win titles. Thus, the ability to take a team from good to champion was considered more important than what a player does on a bad team.

Second, and interestingly for the examples you gave, Garnett actually makes an excellent test case for your theory. Because we saw Garnett with a huge, varying degree of supports over his career. In 2007 he had arguably the worst cast in the NBA, and he led the NBA in on/off net +/- to help them get to 32 wins. In 2003 he had an untalented cast, and led the NBA in every +/- category to get them to 51 wins. In 2004 he had a pretty average cast, and led them to 58 wins and WCF before injuries derailed them. In 2008 he had a strong cast and led them to a mega regular season and a championship.

Your post is ironic because it used to be that Garnett's +/- scores from Minnesota would be looked at askance BECAUSE his cast was weak...the argument was that he could have a big impact on a bad team, but that he might not be so valuable on a great team. In his case, it seemed that he maintained his high impact regardless of the make-up or caliber of his team, which indeed makes him extremely portable.

[drza]

If there's one thing I need answered by the PC board intelligentsia on here about Garnett's offense it's this...

Forgetting all of the stats I still have one concern about how successful offensively a player can be as a facilitator if he is neither a man who put pressure on teams by A. (Attacking the basket) B. (Launching 3 pointers). If one is neither of these... how much pressure can he apply to smart defenses that try to take away his playmaking?

Garnett's offense can be broken down like this:

-Spacing
-PnR (Roll/Pop)
-High-Post
-Low-Post
-Mid-Post
-Screens

Remember, there is overlap between these offensive skills/features; I'm trying to give a broad-strokes perspective here.

Let's talk about his shooting really quick, and then dive in. What I want to consider is how and which of these traits show up in the box-score, as well as which would be resilient in the face of smarter defenses.


-Has range out to the 3 pt line but practically/effectively speaking, he's going out to ~22 feet.
-From 10-23 feet, shot 47.7% in 03 (9.6 FGA/G), 45.2% in 04 (11.0 FGA/G), 44.6% in 05 (8.3 FGA/G), 48.4% in 06 (8.4 FGA/G)
-16-23 ft range, he's assisted on ~77% over those 4 years
-Shooting at the big-man positions is a conundrum - shooting 4/5s are often associated with weak (breakeven) or bad (negative) defense. Garnett is one of the few exceptions in that not only is he an elite shooter, there's virtually no defensive opportunity cost to playing him over anyone in history.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When he's on the ball, he can utilize his exceptional ball-handling skills to create separation and knock it down. When he's off the ball, he's always a threat to convert - the fact that he's assisted so frequently on 16-23 ft shots means they're mostly coming on a Pick and Pop or a drive and kick, which means a lot of them are open. He's usually shooting around 45% overall from there, so we're looking at high 40s on open shots and low-mid 40s on created ones. BOTH of those numbers are strong, and that's where the first offensive trait comes; Spacing. His shooting spaces the floor. A LOT - despite the fact that he doesn't shoot 3s, he forces bigs out of the paint and opens up the lane. Because he's not a 3-point shooter though, this effect doesn't really show up in the box-score. And yet, this effect will always be present; doesn't matter how much a defense slows down his raw production in the playoffs, the spacing effect will always be present - he's going to try and create shots from out there and he's going to pop/spot-up; give him space/leave him open and he'll convert at .95-1.00 PPP (which is very strong in the halfcourt). Cover him/recover on him with a little guy and he'll just shoot right over. His man has to come out and try and cover him, and this means that there will always be a marginal improvement for the rest of the team with regards to the lane being open. The only real way to reduce this? Have someone at the 1-3 that can cover him (has the size/strength to cope with his shot/inside game for stretches at a time), but even then, you might yield a disadvantage with one of your bigs covering a small ball-handler.

So next, his PnR game. Crucially, he's a dual threat, he's deadly popping out (as demonstrated above) but even crazier rolling to the basket (high 60s-70ish finishing, that includes post/isolation, thus baskets on the roll would likely be higher. The rolls are similar (though not equal) to drives to the basket and aside from finishing offer an opportunity to kick it out. THIS aspect is captured fairly well by the box-score (rolls into finishes - FG%, finishes - PTS, kick outs - direct assists). This is also one that good PnR defense teams can slow down. Close off the PnR by stopping the ball handler (aggressive blitz/trap to force the ball out their hands before the PnR is initiated, or drop center, ice sideline to deny the ball-handler middle), or rely on strong rotations into the lane to close off easy baskets off a roll. When we talk about his postseason dips (mainly PPG and TS%), this is mostly where they're coming from (and face up game which I'll get to later).

So now, the post options. The high post probably yields the largest fraction of his offensive impact. His scoring skills (again, ball-handling to set up midrange game, quickness/explosion to attack the basket straight on, catch&shoot/spotup, etc.) means that he draws a great amount of attention here, again, pulling a big away from the restricted area and up to the free throw line. This is significant because he can spot and capitalize on any off ball movement, use his passing to force rotations until an opportunity is created, play the give and go with a small. Essentially, there are a ton of options available here due to his gravity and diversity, yet almost none of this will show up in the box-score. Unless he hits a cutter with a wide open lane or a shooter with a wide open corner, he's not going to be credited with the assist.

Imagine - he sucks/turns the attention of the defense to himself, a cutter sees an opening and zips in from the wing, which forces a defender from the corner to come over and protect the basket, leaving a shooter open. Garnett hits the cutter who dishes it out, or he kicks the ball out to the perimeter and it is swung around to the open shooter. Garnett's pressure created the opening, and his passing/vision got the ball where it needed to go, but he's given no credit in the box-score.

Give and go is another example - at the top of the key, he gets the ball, his man (a big) is now worried about his shot and starts to close in, the lane has one less protector, the PG who just threw it in to him now curls around him with a quick handoff, his defender now runs into Garnett or his man and the PG gets an open lane to the basket. If someone has rotated over, a shooter will be open, if not, free layup for the PG, or a kick out for a reset for Garnett in the high/mid-block area. IF it works out that the PG gets an opening up top on the handoff, then he may get a pullup and Garnett is credited with an assist, but in most scenarios, it will play out that again, Garnett gets no box-score credit.

The effect of this play on the offense is resilient, its going to remain present against strong defenses. It doesn't matter how strong your rotations are or what kind of personnel you have, the key is that adjustments have to be made to combat a talented high-post hub, and when adjustments are made, there is always a cost (which means the defense must yield somewhere) and therein lies the impact. This is one of the most defense-resistant AND portable offensive skillsets that one can have (you're almost never going to have issue with fit) and its what made Garnett, Walton, 67 Chamberlain, so valuable.

Mid-Post and face-up game are a little more visible in the box-score (similar to PnR). Mostly comprised of either blowing by the defender and making quick moves to the basket (and draw a foul) or setting up the close-mid-range shot. This is his isolation offense, something that will tend to suffer against stronger, well equipped defenses that can close off the lane, which sort of strips away the "attack the basket, draw free throws" part and reduces it to just set up mid-range jumpshots. Garnett's obviously great at these, but taking away the higher-percentage inside shots will hurt his shooting numbers, volume, and FTA bit. The key then is, how disciplined is the defense. Yes they can close the paint off, but can they do so without yielding too much somewhere else - was there a missed rotation/help when someone left his man to help cover the paint. If yes, then there is impact, as there is anytime opportunities are created, if no then its unlikely any opportunity was created and the best option becomes to just shoot a jumper. This is the other feature of his game that isn't as resilient in the face of smart defenses.

The low-post game is crucial because it provides both a spacing effect and the additional value of his scoring. While he lacks the upper body strength to consistently finish inside against larger bigs, he can always just shoot over them at a reliable % instead, and against most matchups he's skilled enough back-to-basket and face-up that he can typically get to the rim and score. Being able to do this means that he draws attention/doubles, and he's one of the best at his position ever at capitalizing by passing out to an open shooter or kicking it out to swing the ball around the perimeter to the open guy (in case the double comes from the opposite corner/baseline) and all of this action tends force rotations enough that you can get some seams for cuts as well. Outside of scoring or making a direct pass to the open guy, the hockey assists won't show up in the box-score. But, more importantly, there is a crucial utility in having a guy diverse enough that he can play inside and out equally effectively - lineup diversity. He fills so many staples of an offense himself that it allows the team to run more specialized lineups/personnel that might not conventionally work, and this forces defenses to adjust (! that's a key word here). He doesn't have to do anything here that shows up in the box-score, all he needs to do is be on the floor. You can argue the low-post ability as a 50/50 box-score/non-box-score, but I'd lean towards giving the latter more weight.

Finally screens. The effect of Garnett's screens is elite, because of his strong lower body base and because of the diversity of his offensive threat (and he just doesn't get called for moving screens). Its tough for most players to go through/over a Garnett screen, which makes him ideal for setting up jumpers and cutters off the ball. When he's screening on the ball, everyone involved has to worry about his dual scoring threat, and when that happens, that gives the ball-handler that much more space to work with. Marginal on a single possession, significant when added up over the course of ~75 possessions, and extremely resilient - how do you stop good screens? You don't really, you just stay as disciplined as possible. And this effect is completely absent in the box-score.

So what's important now is to consider the fact that most of Garnett's offense does not show up in the box-score! And I wouldn't call what he does on the floor the "little things" (this is just something people have been conditioned to say, most things that aren't covered in the box-score have become atypical/unconventional or associated with grit/hustle, despite the fact that these are pretty fundamental basketball actions/skills). Something like 75-80% of his offensive value just simply isn't tracked by "conventional" recordkeeping, yet the focus with Garnett is almost always on the dip in scoring and efficiency. So what if the 20% that is tracked has fallen off. Even if that aspect of his game fell off by 50% (it hasn't), the rest of his game is so fundamentally resilient that I'm not even sure what degree of defense it would take to neutralize it (at least to an effective degree, I'm welcome to explanations), and that still puts him at 80-90% of his max offensive impact (given the increased loads he was typically carrying in the playoffs, I doubt it even went that low). The generalized argument against him of course tends to be "where are the results", and quite frankly it needs to be hammered home that his Minnesota casts were actually that bad. Not mid 2000s Kobe/Lebron bad, like REALLY bad, like worst of any top 10 player bad.

God, this is why I come here.

Agreed. You just beat me to it. SideshowBob killed it with this one...

[Quotatious]

Agreed. You just beat me to it. SideshowBob killed it with this one...

Both you and SSB have been fantastic so far in this project. One of you guys is definitely the MVP.


I'll likely vote for Russell here, and Erving will be my #2 pick. #3 is totally wide open...I'm looking at KG, D-Rob, Walton, Bird, Magic, even Wade and Curry. I think Oscar should start gaining traction pretty soon, too. Honestly I have no idea who will be my third pick here.

[The-Power]

I'm not a participant, but I'm a little surprised that 2014 Durant hasn't gotten any mentions yet. He had one of the greatest scoring seasons ever (32 ppg on 64% TS) and a pretty good all-around game (7.4 rpg, 5.5 apg). Probably the greatest combination of shooting and slashing ever seen. He was doing it without Westbrook for a lot of games and without a well-designed offense. Is it too blasphemous to suggest that - for one season - Durant was better than guys like Bird or Duncan ever were?

It is not. I ranked Duncan higher and I have yet to make up my mind regarding Bird versus Durant (and, frankly, like a dozen other players). Strictly talking about offense there is little doubt that Durant, Bird and many other players are more impactful than someone like Duncan, so the question comes down to how big the defensive impact advantage is compared to the gap on offense. Big men with a two-way game have been the hottest commoditiy in this project so far, aside from the GOAT perimeter players, and there is a reason for that.

However, there are arguments for players who can anchor an offense. Both sides are equally important but in my mind it's easier to have an elite impact on offense than it is to have one on your defense. The main argument for that would be that you can plan your offense yourself, you can choose how to play and which players to involve the most while this is only partially true for defenses (the main reason why bigs are generally more important than perimeter players is that it's more difficult to avoid their impact having an effect on your offense). Now, top defenses are capable of pulling you out of your comfort zone and making you change the way you want to play to an extent, but I believe there is truth to this stance regardless, especially nowadays. This doesn't mean that some outliers aren't able to have more impact on defense than any player at the same time has on offense but I don't believe this is the usual thing. To simplify it: there is no difference in being a +5 on offense or a +5 on defense in quantified impact, but it's more difficult to get to the latter in the first place. Two-way bigs with the exception of peak Shaq (although I don't think he approached the highest heights in terms of defensive impact) rarely have absolutely elite offensive impact but their defense swings the needle in many cases. However, I elaborated a little bit on a diffuse defensive impact of elite offensive players insofar as their offense allows the team be constructed with a focus on defense and to go all-out on defense because of their ability to carry their team to decent, good or sometimes even really good offense - and the same can be said about elite defensive anchors in general, but with some reservations.

In this case, I can see a case for elite offensive players without much defensive impact this early in the project even though I didn't make one myself up to this point and will only start doing so from now on, after almost any player in question has been voted in (except for Garnett and Robinson, but I had them on my ballot for quite some time now). So, the question when comparing Durant and Duncan would be: is Durant such a transcendent offensive player? I guess it's possible, although I'm not sure about it, personally. He surely is a transcendent scorer, though, but his lack of playmaking - albeit he isn't bad at it, but comparing to the likes of Jordan, LeBron, Bird, Magic, Curry, Nash, Paul, etc., i.e. other great perimeter players, he certainly is - hurts him and we have to believe that his edge in terms of scoring outweighs his relative deficiencies in this regard. I can't say he peaked higher than Duncan, I can't even say he peaked higher than some of his peers like Curry or Paul with certainty, but if you believe so I would appreciate your input.

Let's move on to Durant vs. Bird. It's easier to discuss because their main value was on offense. Yes, Bird most likely happened to be the more impactful defender but he's still very clearly touted the way he is because of his offense. This doesn't mean, of course, that the advantage on defense can't be the deciding factor ultimately. But the easy part actually stops here. We're left with players of two fundamentally different eras, with really diverging team contexts and not least two different approaches to basketball because of their different skill-sets. Durant is the more potent scorer by a healthy margin and both are valuable off-ball players but the aspect that makes Bird really special lies in an area Durant somewhat lacks: playmaking and passing. Rebounding is something we have to credit Bird for as well, although strictly speaking about offense his rebounding simultaneously happens to be at the expense of some spacing - so I'll leave this aside for a while. Again we're at a point where the question is: does Durants scoring separates him from other all-time great players (here: Bird) in a way that outweighs his shortcomings in other areas? It's a valid question, in my opinion, and I can accept arguments for both sides - as long as the arguers take into account the differences in terms of strengths and ask themselves the question I posed in one way or the other.

You said you're not a participant but if you feel like Durant peaked higher than say Duncan or Bird, and it certainly looks that way, then share your thoughts with us. As long as they are based on sensible reasoning I'm sure everyone is going to welcome your input whether they agree with your view or not.

[RSCD3_]

If there's one thing I need answered by the PC board intelligentsia on here about Garnett's offense it's this...

Forgetting all of the stats I still have one concern about how successful offensively a player can be as a facilitator if he is neither a man who put pressure on teams by A. (Attacking the basket) B. (Launching 3 pointers). If one is neither of these... how much pressure can he apply to smart defenses that try to take away his playmaking?

Garnett's offense can be broken down like this:

-Spacing
-PnR (Roll/Pop)
-High-Post
-Low-Post
-Mid-Post
-Screens

Remember, there is overlap between these offensive skills/features; I'm trying to give a broad-strokes perspective here.

Let's talk about his shooting really quick, and then dive in. What I want to consider is how and which of these traits show up in the box-score, as well as which would be resilient in the face of smarter defenses.


-Has range out to the 3 pt line but practically/effectively speaking, he's going out to ~22 feet.
-From 10-23 feet, shot 47.7% in 03 (9.6 FGA/G), 45.2% in 04 (11.0 FGA/G), 44.6% in 05 (8.3 FGA/G), 48.4% in 06 (8.4 FGA/G)
-16-23 ft range, he's assisted on ~77% over those 4 years
-Shooting at the big-man positions is a conundrum - shooting 4/5s are often associated with weak (breakeven) or bad (negative) defense. Garnett is one of the few exceptions in that not only is he an elite shooter, there's virtually no defensive opportunity cost to playing him over anyone in history.

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When he's on the ball, he can utilize his exceptional ball-handling skills to create separation and knock it down. When he's off the ball, he's always a threat to convert - the fact that he's assisted so frequently on 16-23 ft shots means they're mostly coming on a Pick and Pop or a drive and kick, which means a lot of them are open. He's usually shooting around 45% overall from there, so we're looking at high 40s on open shots and low-mid 40s on created ones. BOTH of those numbers are strong, and that's where the first offensive trait comes; Spacing. His shooting spaces the floor. A LOT - despite the fact that he doesn't shoot 3s, he forces bigs out of the paint and opens up the lane. Because he's not a 3-point shooter though, this effect doesn't really show up in the box-score. And yet, this effect will always be present; doesn't matter how much a defense slows down his raw production in the playoffs, the spacing effect will always be present - he's going to try and create shots from out there and he's going to pop/spot-up; give him space/leave him open and he'll convert at .95-1.00 PPP (which is very strong in the halfcourt). Cover him/recover on him with a little guy and he'll just shoot right over. His man has to come out and try and cover him, and this means that there will always be a marginal improvement for the rest of the team with regards to the lane being open. The only real way to reduce this? Have someone at the 1-3 that can cover him (has the size/strength to cope with his shot/inside game for stretches at a time), but even then, you might yield a disadvantage with one of your bigs covering a small ball-handler.

So next, his PnR game. Crucially, he's a dual threat, he's deadly popping out (as demonstrated above) but even crazier rolling to the basket (high 60s-70ish finishing, that includes post/isolation, thus baskets on the roll would likely be higher. The rolls are similar (though not equal) to drives to the basket and aside from finishing offer an opportunity to kick it out. THIS aspect is captured fairly well by the box-score (rolls into finishes - FG%, finishes - PTS, kick outs - direct assists). This is also one that good PnR defense teams can slow down. Close off the PnR by stopping the ball handler (aggressive blitz/trap to force the ball out their hands before the PnR is initiated, or drop center, ice sideline to deny the ball-handler middle), or rely on strong rotations into the lane to close off easy baskets off a roll. When we talk about his postseason dips (mainly PPG and TS%), this is mostly where they're coming from (and face up game which I'll get to later).

So now, the post options. The high post probably yields the largest fraction of his offensive impact. His scoring skills (again, ball-handling to set up midrange game, quickness/explosion to attack the basket straight on, catch&shoot/spotup, etc.) means that he draws a great amount of attention here, again, pulling a big away from the restricted area and up to the free throw line. This is significant because he can spot and capitalize on any off ball movement, use his passing to force rotations until an opportunity is created, play the give and go with a small. Essentially, there are a ton of options available here due to his gravity and diversity, yet almost none of this will show up in the box-score. Unless he hits a cutter with a wide open lane or a shooter with a wide open corner, he's not going to be credited with the assist.

Imagine - he sucks/turns the attention of the defense to himself, a cutter sees an opening and zips in from the wing, which forces a defender from the corner to come over and protect the basket, leaving a shooter open. Garnett hits the cutter who dishes it out, or he kicks the ball out to the perimeter and it is swung around to the open shooter. Garnett's pressure created the opening, and his passing/vision got the ball where it needed to go, but he's given no credit in the box-score.

Give and go is another example - at the top of the key, he gets the ball, his man (a big) is now worried about his shot and starts to close in, the lane has one less protector, the PG who just threw it in to him now curls around him with a quick handoff, his defender now runs into Garnett or his man and the PG gets an open lane to the basket. If someone has rotated over, a shooter will be open, if not, free layup for the PG, or a kick out for a reset for Garnett in the high/mid-block area. IF it works out that the PG gets an opening up top on the handoff, then he may get a pullup and Garnett is credited with an assist, but in most scenarios, it will play out that again, Garnett gets no box-score credit.

The effect of this play on the offense is resilient, its going to remain present against strong defenses. It doesn't matter how strong your rotations are or what kind of personnel you have, the key is that adjustments have to be made to combat a talented high-post hub, and when adjustments are made, there is always a cost (which means the defense must yield somewhere) and therein lies the impact. This is one of the most defense-resistant AND portable offensive skillsets that one can have (you're almost never going to have issue with fit) and its what made Garnett, Walton, 67 Chamberlain, so valuable.

Mid-Post and face-up game are a little more visible in the box-score (similar to PnR). Mostly comprised of either blowing by the defender and making quick moves to the basket (and draw a foul) or setting up the close-mid-range shot. This is his isolation offense, something that will tend to suffer against stronger, well equipped defenses that can close off the lane, which sort of strips away the "attack the basket, draw free throws" part and reduces it to just set up mid-range jumpshots. Garnett's obviously great at these, but taking away the higher-percentage inside shots will hurt his shooting numbers, volume, and FTA bit. The key then is, how disciplined is the defense. Yes they can close the paint off, but can they do so without yielding too much somewhere else - was there a missed rotation/help when someone left his man to help cover the paint. If yes, then there is impact, as there is anytime opportunities are created, if no then its unlikely any opportunity was created and the best option becomes to just shoot a jumper. This is the other feature of his game that isn't as resilient in the face of smart defenses.

The low-post game is crucial because it provides both a spacing effect and the additional value of his scoring. While he lacks the upper body strength to consistently finish inside against larger bigs, he can always just shoot over them at a reliable % instead, and against most matchups he's skilled enough back-to-basket and face-up that he can typically get to the rim and score. Being able to do this means that he draws attention/doubles, and he's one of the best at his position ever at capitalizing by passing out to an open shooter or kicking it out to swing the ball around the perimeter to the open guy (in case the double comes from the opposite corner/baseline) and all of this action tends force rotations enough that you can get some seams for cuts as well. Outside of scoring or making a direct pass to the open guy, the hockey assists won't show up in the box-score. But, more importantly, there is a crucial utility in having a guy diverse enough that he can play inside and out equally effectively - lineup diversity. He fills so many staples of an offense himself that it allows the team to run more specialized lineups/personnel that might not conventionally work, and this forces defenses to adjust (! that's a key word here). He doesn't have to do anything here that shows up in the box-score, all he needs to do is be on the floor. You can argue the low-post ability as a 50/50 box-score/non-box-score, but I'd lean towards giving the latter more weight.

Finally screens. The effect of Garnett's screens is elite, because of his strong lower body base and because of the diversity of his offensive threat (and he just doesn't get called for moving screens). Its tough for most players to go through/over a Garnett screen, which makes him ideal for setting up jumpers and cutters off the ball. When he's screening on the ball, everyone involved has to worry about his dual scoring threat, and when that happens, that gives the ball-handler that much more space to work with. Marginal on a single possession, significant when added up over the course of ~75 possessions, and extremely resilient - how do you stop good screens? You don't really, you just stay as disciplined as possible. And this effect is completely absent in the box-score.

So what's important now is to consider the fact that most of Garnett's offense does not show up in the box-score! And I wouldn't call what he does on the floor the "little things" (this is just something people have been conditioned to say, most things that aren't covered in the box-score have become atypical/unconventional or associated with grit/hustle, despite the fact that these are pretty fundamental basketball actions/skills). Something like 75-80% of his offensive value just simply isn't tracked by "conventional" recordkeeping, yet the focus with Garnett is almost always on the dip in scoring and efficiency. So what if the 20% that is tracked has fallen off. Even if that aspect of his game fell off by 50% (it hasn't), the rest of his game is so fundamentally resilient that I'm not even sure what degree of defense it would take to neutralize it (at least to an effective degree, I'm welcome to explanations), and that still puts him at 80-90% of his max offensive impact (given the increased loads he was typically carrying in the playoffs, I doubt it even went that low). The generalized argument against him of course tends to be "where are the results", and quite frankly it needs to be hammered home that his Minnesota casts were actually that bad. Not mid 2000s Kobe/Lebron bad, like REALLY bad, like worst of any top 10 player bad.

Well that answered my question

thanks for the detailed breakdown, your main argument being that of his midrange based skillset most of his impact came around the attention he got because he was a great midrange shooter when Open and since he's so tall and quick he becomes a hard task to contain for anyone to stop, so teams will send a lot of help defense at him and garnett is skilled enough, with enough court vision to set up his teammates for buckets and tons of different levels of hockey assists.

Hey if you have the time could you breakdown his offense in 2004 like you did with lebron from 09-14 under the same categories.
Didnt know the Cassell Injury was that bad, I thought it was a nagging injury like 2012 Wade had in the PS.

[JordansBulls]

1st ballot selection: Magic 1987 - Great overall season dominant in the season and playoffs with a great overall playoffs record of 15-3.

2nd ballot selection: Bird 1986 - Great overall season dominant in the season and playoffs with a great overall playoffs record of 15-3 also considered on arguably the greatest team of all time.

3rd ballot selection: Wade 2006 - Put on a show in the playoffs especially the ECF and the NBA Finals pretty much singlehandedly dominating the finals with the highest PER ever for a finals.


--------- RS PER, WS48, --------- PER, WS48 playoffs
Magic 1987: 27.0, 0.263-------------26.2, 0.265 (18 playoff games, title)
Bird 1986: 25.6, 0.244--------------23.9, 0.263 (23 playoff games, title)
Dwyane Wade 2006: 27.6, 0.239-------26.9, 0.240 (23 playoff games, title)

Others to consider:
Moses Malone 1983: 25.1, 0.248 -----25.7, 0.260 (13 playoff games, title)
Julius Erving 1976: 28.7, 0.262-----32.0, 0.321 (13 playoff games, title) - ABA