Where would 04’ Kevin Garnett rank today?

[Matt15]

Where would ‘04 KG rank today?

[Statlanta]

Top 2. You could argue him or Jokic. I'd take him over Doncic, Gilgeous-Alexander, healthy Embiid, and Antetokounmpo.

[Dutchball97]

I went with top 3. I think he'd win MVP but including the play-offs I'm not sure he'd be the best player overall.

[One_and_Done]

Top 3. Hard for me to think he's better than Giannis.

[rand]

Between 2-4. Giannis and Luka are the questionables.

[yannisk]

I have Jokic, Giannis, Doncic better so fourth at best. Embiid is difficult to rank since he has been great in the regular season and disappointment in the playoffs. So 4th or 5th

[tsherkin]

Very good passer, meh scorer now but he was killing it in-era. A DPOY candidate. Very, very jumper heavy (like a third of his shots were long twos), so I don't envision him suddenly and dramatically increasing his draw rate in today's game. A little boost for transition play, though. He was a 54.7% TS guy (which was +3.1% rTS at the time), but even with a boost to his 2FG% and even assuming he still plays like 40 mpg, and even if you give him a mediocre 3pt shot, where would he be?

In 04, Garnett shot 50.6% inside the arc, which is about 4% below current league average. KG was always knocked for being largely allergic to contact and preferring fades over going hard to the rim and such, and his shooting distribution is reasonably consistent over his career. So let's preserve that, but give him a 33% 3pt shot on 3 3PA/g while boosting his 2FG% by 4% due to pace and magic, yeah?

Let's round his 19.6 FGA/g up to 20 for simplicity's sake, then bring us down to 17 FGA/g at 54.5% FG (league average today), then add those 1/3 3P shots and his .289 FTr and 79.1% FT. And that brings us to 53.5% TS. So let's give him another 4.5% boost to his 2FG, since he was about 4.5% above league average in his own time. We'll say that raw change is actually 8.5% now, because Reasons (TM). This, mind, has him shooting 59% inside the arc. Now we're talking about a 56.9% TS player. Now let's take the 83.5% FT from his final year as a volume scorer in Minnesota. 57.4% TS (0.7% below league average today).

Okay. Let's tweak the 3pt shooting. Let's give him a 35% 3pt shot (57.5% TS) and then change the volume to 5 3PA/g. 54.6% TS, so let's back away from that, we've worsened. Okay. Let's be generous. Let's say that even though we actually see a lower overall draw rate and KG was a jumper-heavy guy who didn't initiate/create contact very well in reality, let's say he increased his draw rate dramatically. Let's use his best Minny-era draw rate, which was .411 from 2006. That seems reasonable, because that's a little after the rules change (although in the first 2 seasons, where the refs were going bonkers). 59.2% TS, or +1.1%.

Okay. Now we've reached someone who is at least moderately worth 20 FGA/g. And all it took was an extra 8.5% FG, the best FT% and FTr of his career (neither from the season we're discussing) and a 35% 3pt shot.

If we got THAT version of 2004 Kevin Garnett translating into today, he'd be an okay first-option scorer who passes really well for his size (which increases his overall offensive utility, obviously) and a DPOY candidate.

That smells like a top 5 guy to me. I'm not very high on his scoring. I wasn't during his actual career and I don't think his game translates super well today. I think a much better option would be to have him shooting a lot less and focusing more on his utility as a playmaker. Of course, as I alluded to earlier, 04 Garnett was playing 40 mpg. In today's game, that's very unlikely. Miles Bridges is topping the league at 37.9 mpg right now. You have to go back to 2016 to find 38+ mpg, and 2011 to find 40+ mpg. Garnett was an 18 FGA36 guy, which given his dubious intersection with scoring efficiency still isn't awesome, but somewhat more tolerable (particularly with his passing and defense). And I think he'd be amenable to using himself more as a decoy than as a volume scorer, he never really evidenced a DESIRE to shoot all the shots in his career. Quite the opposite, really. Which is good, because it really wasn't his forte.

Top 5, though, for that passing and that defense.

[IdolW0rm]

Top 2 with Joker. Luka is far from 04 KG level imo.

[tsherkin]

Top 2 with Joker. Luka is far from 04 KG level imo.

Top 2 is pretty aggressive, given his scoring. And Luka may be far from KG's defensive level, but he's much better on O.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Top 5

Luka, Joker, and Giannis are over him for varying reasons. Giannis could be lower if he isn't as devastating as a roller as I am projecting him to be in the PS and he can't raise his defense to sub-DPOY level. But the way I see things, is that this is the best offensive usage of Giannis we have seen since the 2nd half of the 2021 PS.

I will say 04 KG had a better RS than any of these guys this year.

[rrravenred]

Been a lot of these threads recently, and the interesting thing for me is how easily people accept that Jokic has lock on being the best player in the league. And don't get me wrong, he's having all-time impact, but interesting to consider how far back you have to go to find a player who is plausibly in competition for that number 1 spot.

[rrravenred]

[duplicate post]

[IdolW0rm]

Top 2 with Joker. Luka is far from 04 KG level imo.

Top 2 is pretty aggressive, given his scoring. And Luka may be far from KG's defensive level, but he's much better on O.

Maybe, I'm just generally very very high on peak KG and I imagine he'd develop much faster (and still in his prime) into his Boston-self high post menace even adding a reliable 3pt shot. If this is just teleporting 04 KG into 2024 preventing him from basically adapting/developing his skillset, then I'd have him lower probably. Still, his point forward abilities and insane ability to push the tempo after a drb/tov in a faster paced era along with his alien-esque hyperadaptable defense with 2024 spacing against PnR heavy offenses would conceivably gain even another dimension, or maybe his impact would be diluted along with some of his rim protection with more space. If he can somewhat replicate the impact he had in 04 right now then he's as strong an MVP candidate as anyone I think.

[tsherkin]

Maybe, I'm just generally very very high on peak KG and I imagine he'd develop much faster (and still in his prime) into his Boston-self high post menace, and even a reliable 3pt shot.

He was a very good player. Like I said in my post, even if you consider his weakness as a scorer, his passing and defense make him a super-high-value player regardless. And I imagine that if you reduced his scoring load, you'd see an improvement in efficiency as we did in Boston, at least in that first season. He never showed the kind of 2FG% I was needing to get him to better efficiency, but he managed 58.8% TS with a .339 FTr that year on 54.5% 2FG. That's still a little above league average in today's game. At 20 FGA/g, though, I don't think he had the chops to maintain scoring efficiency, so that puts a bit of a ceiling on him, particularly since he was so aggressively fond of long twos. And remember, I did look at improving his 3pt shooting as well.

I think he'd look great inside an offense which allowed him to be more sedate and selective, because he was a fantastic passer. It's just that 04 in particular stands out because it was his career-high in PPG as well, and that's not an ideal usage for Garnett, in any era.

[IdolW0rm]

Maybe, I'm just generally very very high on peak KG and I imagine he'd develop much faster (and still in his prime) into his Boston-self high post menace, and even a reliable 3pt shot.

He was a very good player. Like I said in my post, even if you consider his weakness as a scorer, his passing and defense make him a super-high-value player regardless. And I imagine that if you reduced his scoring load, you'd see an improvement in efficiency as we did in Boston, at least in that first season. He never showed the kind of 2FG% I was needing to get him to better efficiency, but he managed 58.8% TS with a .339 FTr that year on 54.5% 2FG. That's still a little above league average in today's game. At 20 FGA/g, though, I don't think he had the chops to maintain scoring efficiency, so that puts a bit of a ceiling on him, particularly since he was so aggressively fond of long twos. And remember, I did look at improving his 3pt shooting as well.

I think he'd look great inside an offense which allowed him to be more sedate and selective, because he was a fantastic passer. It's just that 04 in particular stands out because it was his career-high in PPG as well, and that's not an ideal usage for Garnett, in any era.

Yeah, I tend to agree with this.

[tsherkin]

Yeah, I tend to agree with this.

I liked Garnett during his actual career. It doesn't always come out because I often find myself arguing against some of the more egregious comments about him, but I was a fan. He was a sick defender, a nasty passer, and his penchant for perimeter shooting opened the paint for slashers in an earlier example of a stretch big. Not quite like roleplayer stretch like Perkins or late Sheed or Horry or whatever, but having KG at 20 feet shifted the floor a fair bit, and he was a nasty playmaker from that slot. But as was the rap in his own time, his scoring really didn't measure up to the other top guys in the league and that's a limitation unless you're able to arrange your roster where he doesn't have to do that.

ANd if you can, well... damn. Now you're really cooking with gas.

[FuShengTHEGreat]

2nd team all NBA team at PF. Even that version of him I don't trust one iota offensively in the playoffs as a go to guy.

I would take Giannis over him. He has his own offensive flaws but more efficient of a scorer than KG and much better at drawing fouls.

[Statlanta]

It's just that 04 in particular stands out because it was his career-high in PPG as well, and that's not an ideal usage for Garnett, in any era.

I understand people having different ways of judging players but I disagree with waiving off players peaks because of their anomalous nature.


We don't do that to Jordan or LeBron because they are consistent but we do to seasons like 2003 McGrady for example and I find that unfair in single season comparisons(as opposed to career comparisons).

If Garnett could score that season he should be judged on his scoring that season not on other seasons where he didn't or couldn't provide that level of scoring.

[LukaTheGOAT]

Been a lot of these threads recently, and the interesting thing for me is how easily people accept that Jokic has lock on being the best player in the league. And don't get me wrong, he's having all-time impact, but interesting to consider how far back you have to go to find a player who is plausibly in competition for that number 1 spot.

These threads might give you some indication of just how far back.

viewtopic.php?t=2317578&start=20

viewtopic.php?t=2298399

viewtopic.php?t=2347054&start=20

From the looks of it, probably 2017 or 2018 Lebron. People were comparing the both of them relative to their time period, but I think the game is similar enough, that I don't think transporting those Lebrons to today would adversely affect him.

[tsherkin]

I understand people having different ways of judging players but I disagree with waiving off players peaks because of their anomalous nature.

No, you misunderstood my point. The extra 2 ppg he averaged wasn't an outlier to an extent I meant to waive.

I meant that he was in the highest-volume scoring role of his career, and while that worked out back then, I don't think the same role is sensible in today's environment because he doesn't project as a highly efficient scorer in today's environment.