Highest Reasonable Ranking alltime for Kevin Garnett?

[therealbig3]

There is this weird notion that Duncan and KG were roughly equal as offensive players due to their similar statistics. One thing that is immediate from watching their games is that Duncan was more of a post player that played inside and KG played outside. Although KG did post-up, because he wasn't as strong as Duncan, his post ups starting more away from the basket. The biggest difference which gets glossed over is that Duncan was doubled more as opposed to KG. And because Duncan was such an unselfish player, he made a lot of good basketball plays where he let the ball go outside, and with the good ball movement from the Spurs, they often got open shots. Accordingly, Duncan's offensive gravity was much more effective at getting open shots for his teammates whereas KG's wasn't. Again, this is where KG lacks compared to other all time greats: his offensive gravity wasn't as strong as some of the greats and while his defense was good, one person can only do so much on defense (and moreover, he couldn't even shut down the other PF greats either).

Shocking, I know, but you seem to have once again ignored where this was ALSO addressed by SSB and ElGee. Please read those posts and respond to them specifically, because all that's necessary at this point is to point you to them, because you aren't making any novel arguments that haven't been addressed.

[Ambrose]

15? Maybe? He's fringe top 20 to me. The guys below him have a better argument than he does against the guys he's below.

[2klegend]

Pretty close to Duncan. Top 10 would be reasonable for sure, to me. Not sure about exactly how high, but top 10 would be my answer. Over Bird, likely (comparable prime and much better longevity). Look what KG did in Boston when he was 30+ years old - Bird had a comparable supporting cast in his prime - put early/mid 2000s KG on those Celtics teams from 2008 to 2013, and he would be viewed in a MUCH more favorable way. Defensive edge that KG has over Larry is massive (Bird was better on offense, obviously, but I actually think the defensive gap might be just as big if not bigger - Larry had his fair share of disappointing playoff performances offensively).

KG has no business being in the Top 10, let alone top 3. LOL His PS credibility needs to be improved by a lot if we going that route considered his accomplished winning pedigree is pretty lacking.

[Colbinii]

This thread has one side making extremely well thought out reasoning with strong evidence, and another side that sounds a lot like my father yelling at the local news at 9 pm.

[PCProductions]

As high as where you have Tim Duncan. Higher than Duncan is starting to extrapolate excessively; we have to at some point reward the gaping chasm of success that Duncan was directly responsible for vs. Garnett's "what if" career.

[Colbinii]

Actually, this is a lot like Plato and the cave. "Hey guys, I left the cave and it is beautiful. There is life, plants, other animals, rivers, and mountains out here. "
Cavedwellers: "But I don't believe you because...they feed me in here!"

[Quotatious]

KG has no business being in the Top 10, let alone top 3. LOL His PS credibility needs to be improved by a lot if we going that route considered his accomplished winning pedigree is pretty lacking.

I never said he's anywhere near top 3, but top 10 is absolutely reasonable. Everybody has different criteria for all-time rankings. Personally I don't put as much emphasis on playoffs as most people, that's why I think more highly of guys like KG and Karl Malone than most people. I just don't like to weigh 100 games more heavily than 1000 games (playoffs vs regular season), especially if KG was not in a position to get deep in the playoffs in his prime in Minnesota due to a nasty combination of mediocre supporting casts and very good opponents.

Look at '07 Duncan and '08 Garnett - those are very similar seasons. When KG had good supporting casts ('04, then in Boston), he was a very successful as the best player on his team.

[Pg81]

This thread has one side making extremely well thought out reasoning with strong evidence, and another side that sounds a lot like my father yelling at the local news at 9 pm.

I have yet to see a single good argument as to why KG should be a top 3 aka a GOAT candidate. Heck he falls short for guys in the top 5 range like Bird and Magic.

Event top 10 is a stretch considering that Hakeem and Duncan were overall clear cut better. The gap might be small but it is distinct and clear.
You guys are so enamoured with advanced stats that you blend out everything else and bascially excuse all KGs failings with "he had bad team" which was in large part his fault due to his immense contract which severely limited the options Minnesota had for finding quality players to put beside him. Or you attribute it to "bad luck".

I swear I have rarely seen so many excuses made to prop up a player artificially as a GOAT candiate to such a laughable degree.

KG has no business being in the Top 10, let alone top 3. LOL His PS credibility needs to be improved by a lot if we going that route considered his accomplished winning pedigree is pretty lacking.

I never said he's anywhere near top 3, but top 10 is absolutely reasonable. Everybody has different criteria for all-time rankings. Personally I don't put as much emphasis on playoffs as most people, that's why I think more highly of guys like KG and Karl Malone than most people. I just don't like to weigh 100 games more heavily than 1000 games (playoffs vs regular season), especially if KG was not in a position to get deep in the playoffs in his prime in Minnesota due to a nasty combination of mediocre supporting casts and very good opponents.

Look at '07 Duncan and '08 Garnett - those are very similar seasons. When KG had good supporting casts ('04, then in Boston), he was a very successful as the best player on his team.

Playoffs are were you meet the top 16 teams and where you cannot pad your stats against inferior competition unless you are an absolutely outstanding player. When it comes to scoring, KG was never as good as most all time greats, as is shown by his lack of 30, 40 and 50 point games in the playoffs of which for example Tim Duncan, who is a top 10 player, has plenty while playing at least as good if not better defense. Likewise he was not particularly good in the clutch either.

[Quotatious]

Playoffs are were you meet the top 16 teams and where you cannot pad your stats against inferior competition unless you are an absolutely outstanding player. When it comes to scoring, KG was never as good as most all time greats, as is shown by his lack of 30, 40 and 50 point games in the playoffs of which for example Tim Duncan, who is a top 10 player, has plenty while playing at least as good if not better defense. Likewise he was not particularly good in the clutch either.

Playoffs is also where almost half of the league (14 of 30 teams, since we have 30 teams in the league, 2004-05 season) doesn't participate each year. Sometimes it's really not your fault (if you are a superstar player) that your team doesn't make playoffs, or has a losing record. Kareem in '76, Barkley in '88, KG in '05, were all playing at their near-peak level and missed playoffs because their teams let them down. Even Jordan's team had a losing record the year he averaged 37 ppg. Since the playoffs is the only thing that really matters (as many people apparently believe here), should we act like basically a half of the league doesn't exist every year, because they miss the playoffs? There are always some great players who play on non-playoff teams (Davis and Cousins are the best examples currently).

Besides, scoring is not the only way to be a dominant player - see Bill Russell AKA the greatest winner of all-time, who was a worse scorer than KG (better defender, certainly, but also a considerably inferior scorer).

[Pg81]

Playoffs are were you meet the top 16 teams and where you cannot pad your stats against inferior competition unless you are an absolutely outstanding player. When it comes to scoring, KG was never as good as most all time greats, as is shown by his lack of 30, 40 and 50 point games in the playoffs of which for example Tim Duncan, who is a top 10 player, has plenty while playing at least as good if not better defense. Likewise he was not particularly good in the clutch either.

Playoffs is also where almost half of the league (14 of 30 teams, since we have 30 teams in the league, 2004-05 season) doesn't participate each year. Sometimes it's really not your fault (if you are a superstar player) that your team doesn't make playoffs, or has a losing record. Kareem in '76, Barkley in '88, KG in '05, were all playing at their near-peak level and missed playoffs because their teams let them down. Even Jordan's team had a losing record the year he averaged 37 ppg. Since the playoffs is the only thing that really matters (as many people apparently believe here), should we act like basically a half of the league doesn't exist every year, because they miss the playoffs? There are always some great players who play on non-playoff teams (Davis and Cousins are the best examples currently).

Besides, scoring is not the only way to be a dominant player - see Bill Russell AKA the greatest winner of all-time, who was a worse scorer than KG (better defender, certainly, but also a considerably inferior scorer).

The playoffs is the place and time were the best teams play against each other. Who cares about players stat padding against scrub teams and bottom feeders? This is why RS is very overrated.
All time great players overcame the problem of having a bad/mediocre team to a good degree.
Larry Bird took a bad Celtics team to the playoffs as a rookie. Want me to tell you what the Celtics record was prior to his arrival?
Magic Johnson took a struggeling Lakers team to a title in his first year.
LeBron James led the Cavs to the finals with nothing but Ilgauskas and scrubs early in his career.
Wilt Chamberlain took a dead last roster and made them competetive enough to challenge the reigning champ, Russel's Celtics losing to them in a do-or-die game by a mere 2 points in his second year.
Tim Duncan beat a Kobe/Shaq Lakers with nothing but scrubs, Paker and Ginobili were terrible in the 2003 POs. Heck he led the Spurs to their first title with nothing but a past prime Robinson and role players in his second year.
Hakeem won in 1994 without a real second option and role players as well.

Heck I rank Dirk Nowitzki somewhere between 20 and 15 and I am a huge Dirk homer but even he dragged a cast full of way past their prime players and rejects to eleven 50+ win seasons, never missed the playoffs in his prime, never having an all star team mate after Nash's departure. and Nash was terrible in 2004, reached the WCF three times, two finals and even won a ring, despite everyone rooting against them.
And Dirk did the same for the German national team. You know that national team which never qualifies for any major tournament in the world? The German national team was nothing without Dirk, yet he managed to get tournament MvP, leading scorer and led them not only to qualifications to the tournaments but even to a Bronze and Silver medal and his team was hot garbage and he did so after the playoffs with little to no rest time.
People complain about KG losing Cassel in the POs 2004 but somehow Dirk and the Mavs managed to do without Butler, their second best player in 2011. Somehow Magic was able to fill in for an injured Kareem and lead the Lakers to a title

Yet somehow I have to believe that KG is magically a GOAT candidate of the likes of Russel, Wilt, Kareem and MJ because of advanced stats?

Hey people, wake up, advanced stats are only a small piece of the puzzle and are sometimes even flat out misleading. If I believe certain advanced stats like I have seen from drza then I have to believe that Dirk was an outright detriment to his team in the playoffs, a notion which at best is just laughable.

Also since you mentioned Bill Russel, his offensive stats are highly misleading, proven by the fact that he had several high scoring games in the playoffs were he scored 30 and even 40 points, something KG never did. Russel could score if he wanted to, but he prefered to focus on defense, initiating fast breaks and distribing the ball from the high post, like Chamberlain did with the Lakers.

[WhateverBro]

When we compare to him David Robinson, Hakeem, , he's not really considered a two way player. His defensive impact is what got him to top 15 at least. How did he do in Boston ,offensively? From 2008 to 2011 there was 4 point drop off in his averages. In Boston last peak championship runs.

He was not at his peak level in Boston and even in his last prime year there he was their best offensive player (2008).

Garnett is one of the best, if not THE best, two way player of all-time.

True but that was his greatest achievement as basketball player right? , according to him it was.. Since winning a championship helps his career. Not winning one championship with his defensive impact, sells his offense short and people start question is offense all together. Which is fair, his offense was never the highlight of his career.

His best achievement? Maybe. He did win a MVP in 2004, that's pretty big. But regardless if it was his greatest achievement, it was not his best season. Not even close.

[mischievous]

I find it funny how Kg fans use +/-, RAPM, etc to prop up Kg, then ignore the same metrics when they don't like a player. Hypocrisy at its best.

Which players come to mind?

I'm curious the answer to this too. I haven't read every post itt, so I don't know if it's referring to a specific post; not that I want somebody called out publicly (unless I've stated something he feels warrants this comment; I'll defend [or retract as needed] my comments publicly).

Just as a quick example, i know Doctor MJ is usually pretty high on +/- and RAPM yet from what i've read from him he seems low on Kobe who for example was very good in ORAPM and had the highest offensive +/- ever in 06(at least according to deezerweeze). I'm not trying to call anyone out or derail, etc i just don't see the consistency when some posters rank a player high from certain metrics then not others.

[Ambrose]

Actually, this is a lot like Plato and the cave. "Hey guys, I left the cave and it is beautiful. There is life, plants, other animals, rivers, and mountains out here. "
Cavedwellers: "But I don't believe you because...they feed me in here!"

No, it's more like a Caveman who left the cave and said it was beautiful only to come back in and have another caveman say "actually it was pretty cold out there" and for whatever reason you jump on board with the revisionist history.

[2klegend]

KG has no business being in the Top 10, let alone top 3. LOL His PS credibility needs to be improved by a lot if we going that route considered his accomplished winning pedigree is pretty lacking.

I never said he's anywhere near top 3, but top 10 is absolutely reasonable. Everybody has different criteria for all-time rankings. Personally I don't put as much emphasis on playoffs as most people, that's why I think more highly of guys like KG and Karl Malone than most people. I just don't like to weigh 100 games more heavily than 1000 games (playoffs vs regular season), especially if KG was not in a position to get deep in the playoffs in his prime in Minnesota due to a nasty combination of mediocre supporting casts and very good opponents.

Look at '07 Duncan and '08 Garnett - those are very similar seasons. When KG had good supporting casts ('04, then in Boston), he was a very successful as the best player on his team.

I like to know who is in your top 10? If accomplishment and PS is not important, then you should tell us who is in your top 10.

I wouldn't call early 00s Duncan cast was strong. It was good but nothing speak of superteam of today and he performed actually better with weak casts than strong casts in the late 00s. Garnett on paper is the best player on '08 Celtics but not necessarily the focal point on offense. His weakness in PS compare to Duncan is pretty obvious. His consistently on offense isn't at the level of Duncan and he couldn't carry a team offensively.

[drza]

"Speeches, only reaches
Those, that already know about it
This is how we go about it bout it..." ----Andre' 3000

[trex_8063]

Which players come to mind?

I'm curious the answer to this too. I haven't read every post itt, so I don't know if it's referring to a specific post; not that I want somebody called out publicly (unless I've stated something he feels warrants this comment; I'll defend [or retract as needed] my comments publicly).

Just as a quick example, i know Doctor MJ is usually pretty high on +/- and RAPM yet from what i've read from him he seems low on Kobe who for example was very good in ORAPM and had the highest offensive +/- ever in 06(at least according to deezerweeze). I'm not trying to call anyone out or derail, etc i just don't see the consistency when some posters rank a player high from certain metrics then not others.

I can't speak for Doc, obviously, but I will point out a few things.....
No, '06 Kobe did not have the all-time highest ORAPM. Certainly not in gross terms. And looking at Doc's scaled [using yearly SD's to "level the playing field" for comparing different years] RAPM (which only go up to '12, too): Nash has FIVE seasons with better ORAPM, Lebron had three seasons better by '12, Wade had one better, Shaq had one season better, Ginobili had one season better, K.Malone and Barkley each had one season better.

And I'd again note ORAPM is only one side of the ball. In combined scaled RAPM, Kobe's best five years keeps company with the best 5-year sums of guys like Rasheed Wallace, post-prime David Robinson, and Jason Kidd (not Lebron, Duncan, or Garnett).

I've compiled my own best 10-year sums (raw RAPM, not scaled), and Kobe's best 10 years is company with players such as Vlade Divac, Karl Malone, Ben Wallace, Bo OUtlaw (who was obv more limited minutes), and Baron Davis (and again well below guys like Garnett, Lebron, Duncan, or Shaq).

So fwiw, there's really no inconsistency in not being as high on Kobe when basing a large part of your ranking/criteria on RAPM and other impact indicators.

[therealbig3]

Once again, people just spewing out the same recycled anti-KG rhetoric when drza, ElGee, and SSB have made posts SPECIFICALLY in response to all of these points. I've yet to see anyone actually comment on or respond to their specific points, they're just getting ignored and the exact argument that they've responded to in detail just keeps getting stated over and over again.

If you don't like his lack of team success compared to Duncan, Magic, and Bird, fine, but don't pretend that it's for any legitimate basketball reason, you just have a winning bias.

[therealbig3]

Which players come to mind?

I'm curious the answer to this too. I haven't read every post itt, so I don't know if it's referring to a specific post; not that I want somebody called out publicly (unless I've stated something he feels warrants this comment; I'll defend [or retract as needed] my comments publicly).

Just as a quick example, i know Doctor MJ is usually pretty high on +/- and RAPM yet from what i've read from him he seems low on Kobe who for example was very good in ORAPM and had the highest offensive +/- ever in 06(at least according to deezerweeze). I'm not trying to call anyone out or derail, etc i just don't see the consistency when some posters rank a player high from certain metrics then not others.

Lol, he's not as high on Kobe specifically because Kobe is automatically vaulted over someone like KG because of team success, when the RAPM says that KG had a clear advantage over Kobe, and did more for his teams than Kobe ever did.

Similarly, there are a lot of players that are in Kobe's range in terms of +/-, but Kobe is automatically considered better, because of "rings", and that's where people that value +/- push back.

Him being down on Kobe (relatively) is the definition of being consistent. Kobe is routinely placed in conversations that the +/- says he doesn't belong in (vs LeBron, Duncan, Shaq, Garnett).

[Quotatious]

I like to know who is in your top 10? If accomplishment and PS is not important, then you should tell us who is in your top 10.

When did I say PS is not important? It always has to be black or white, right? Geez...

PS is obviously very important, but simply based on how probability works, the more games you play, the more likely it is to reflect how good you really are as a player.

Acting like 100-200 playoff games (which are played against different opponents, while in regular season, everybody plays against similar competition) tells us more about a player than 1000-1200 regular season games, is completely illogical, because it means we're more or less ignoring 85-90% of games that a guy played in his career (regular season), in favor of 10-15% (playoffs). It's so obvious that I'm surprised I even have to explain it. Sure, playoff games are much more important than regular season games, but on the other hand, RS sample is much more evenly-matched, because everybody plays against similar competition and everybody plays about the same amount of games (unless someone gets seriously injured, but injuries can screw up a guy's playoffs even more than regular season, because playoffs last for only two months, compared to half a year regular season, so there's simply less time to recover/get healthy).

Because RS sample is so much bigger, but the games are much less important, we have to have some kind of a weighing system for that. I tend to do it this way:

If a guy plays for a team that misses the playoffs, obviously RS sample accounts for 100% of his overall rating.
If a guy plays fro a team that plays one playoff round, then I weigh it 80% RS/20% playoffs
Two playoff rounds, it's 70% RS/30% PS
Three playoff rounds, it's 60% RS/40% PS
Four playoff round, it's 50/50, which is fact means that if a guy plays 80 RS games and 20 playoff games (a team that plays four playoff series usually plays right around 20 games), then 4 RS games have the same weight as 1 playoff game, which seems like a pretty fair estimate.

The more playoff games, the more reliable the sample is.


Who is in my top 10 all-time? Hard to say, because I don't keep a GOAT list these days (because I can't decide on criteria, and there isn't enough game footage or statistical data for pre merger players), but tentatively, I would have Jordan, Kareem, LeBron, Duncan, Russell, Hakeem, Shaq, Wilt in some order, and then Magic/Bird/Oscar/KG/Karl Malone battling for the last two spots (KG and Karl have far better longevity, especially Karl has like 4 or 5 more seasons on all-star level compared to Magic/Bird, that's a very big difference - Magic/Bird are better prime-wise because of the playoff edge, but 3-4 extra seasons on all-star level that Karl has to offer, is extremely important). Oscar is right there with Magic and Bird, but whether he's better or not is not clear to me because there isn't enough info that would allow me to analyze his game and his career more in-depth.

As far as Magic/Bird vs Karl Malone.

Magic had 12 superstar/all-star seasons (I combined 1981 and 1996, which were both like half a season)
Bird had 11 healthy superstar/all-star seasons (1980-88, 1990-91), then a half of 1992 season, so 11.5 overall.
Karl had 17 superstar/all-star caliber seasons (1987-03).

5 more seasons on all-star level easily make up for Magic's and Bird's. People underestimate how difficult it is to have 5 all-star caliber seasons in the NBA, and they underestimate just how incredible Malone's longevity was, and overesimate his playoff struggles - I mean, Karl was still good enough to play 168 playoff games from 1987 to 2003, and he was the best or second best player on all those teams (mostly the best, but also second best at times behind Stockton, but Magic was often the second best after Kareem and Bird was often the second best after McHale, in some playoff series), which means that Malone was good enough to lead the Jazz deep into the playoffs a lot of years. Magic played 190 playoff games, Bird 164, so Karl played more postseason games than Larry - the fact that Malone played so many playoff games as #1 option, means that he was still good in postseason and his decline gets overstated. I would lean towards Karl over Magic and Bird, to be honest. I don't really care about longevity as a role player, but I care about longevity as an all-star caliber player, a lot. That's why I would argue for Kareem as the GOAT over Jordan right now. Star level longevity matters a ton to me. Kareem, Duncan, Karl, are guys I'm high on because of that.

I'm different than most people in the sense that I don't only care about how much a player helps his team in the playoffs, but I care about how much a player helps his team win, period. Be it regular season or playoffs.

I'm not the only person on this board who has Malone in top 10. Narigo has him 9th, also over Magic and Bird:

viewtopic.php?p=49168320#p49168320

[Pg81]

Once again, people just spewing out the same recycled anti-KG rhetoric when drza, ElGee, and SSB have made posts SPECIFICALLY in response to all of these points. I've yet to see anyone actually comment on or respond to their specific points, they're just getting ignored and the exact argument that they've responded to in detail just keeps getting stated over and over again.

If you don't like his lack of team success compared to Duncan, Magic, and Bird, fine, but don't pretend that it's for any legitimate basketball reason, you just have a winning bias.

Wow, way to brush away all valid criticism, and no they prove nothing except you can make an excuse for everything with advanced stats and always blaming it on the team.
You know what all time greats did when on terrible or mediocre teams? They lead them to playoffs with reasonable success even when they did not get quality players right alongside them in their first year. Not failing to get into playoffs or getting wiped out in the first round.

Boston Celtics prior to Bird's arrival: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BOS/1979.html
This is a trash team. There is no way to put it nicely, they were outright terrible bottom feeders.

Boston Celtics after Bird's rookie season: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/BOS/1980.html
That's weird, Bird takes over a basically identical team and leads them deep into the playoffs in his very first year in a loaded conference. How come KG could never do that?
And you know what is even better? He keeps on doing this until Parish comes and McHale starts to be more than a bench player.

Dallas Mavericks in Dirk's first year: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/DAL/1999.html

Terrible as well, and Dirk had to get accustomed to a compleltey different type of basketball and much higher level compared to the crap league he played in Germany which would have struggled to compete with US college teams. Not to mention living in a very different country and struggeling with the foreign language.

Second year: http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/n/nowitdi01.html

Big leap for Dirk, big leap for the Mavs as well, with help of Nash and Finley, of course.

Third year: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/DAL/2001.html
Dirk transformed into the best player of the team and the team made a big leap again.
Strange, in a mere 3 year span did Dirk not only improve vastly as a player the Mavs also became much better. Granted, Nash and Finley had a big part in that as well, but let's not pretend like the biggest factor was not Dirk's massive improvments. Otherwise The Mavs would have had similar success already in the year prior when Dirk was only the second best player.

From this point on Dirk leads the Mavs as the top player, and from 2004 on also as the leader of the team, from 50+ win season to 50+ win season until his knee surgery in 2013. He did so with an ever changing roster, never having a stable core for very long and under 3 different coaches.

Want me to continue with the likes of Wilt, Russel, Magic or Duncan (2003)? You know what all these guys have in common? They transformed mediocre or outright terrible teams into playoff contenters and champions early on and that without other major changes to the roster. Unlike KG who loses year after year sometimes even missing the playoffs in his first 8 years.
But sure, nothing was KG's fault since he was Russel 2.0 with MJ like offense, right?