If Boston 3-peats, is KG greater than Duncan?

[Blame Rasho]

You sure about that man?
.

Yup... he has never lost in the 1st round.

[Mad Balla 15]

You sure about that man?
.

Yup... he has never lost in the 1st round.

That is pretty impressive, especially for this debate since KG practically lived in the first round. For some reason I had thought that they lost to Dallas in the 1st round in 2006 but then I remembered they lost in the second round.

[Point forward]

The discussion up to now is quite ok, but the premise of this thread contains a gigantic IF, so much that it reduces most talk to mere speculation. E.g.

IF Tim Duncan 3-peats with the Spurs, is he the GOAT?
IF Steve Nash 3-peats with the Suns, is he greater than Oscar Robertson?
IF Chris Duhon 3-peats with the Knicks, is he greater than Walt Frazier?

But ok, it is offseason...

[eatyourchildren]

"biggest turnaround"...you guys are the worst....

Lol. Actually, you've got your tense wrong. Boston WAS the worst...then KG got there and suddenly, they were the best. Funny how that worked...

(You kind of walked into that one)

A bunch of people got to the Celtics that year. Unless Posey, PJ, House, and Ray Allen are actually KG's limbs.

[drza]

"biggest turnaround"...you guys are the worst....

Lol. Actually, you've got your tense wrong. Boston WAS the worst...then KG got there and suddenly, they were the best. Funny how that worked...

(You kind of walked into that one)

A bunch of people got to the Celtics that year. Unless Posey, PJ, House, and Ray Allen are actually KG's limbs.

My flippant answer was in response to the extreme sarcasm that Cevap put out there. Nobody believe that KG is the ONLY reason for the turnaround. But consider this...

In 1995-96 the Spurs won 59 games with a healthy David Robinson. The next year Robinson got hurt and missed almost the entire season, and the Spurs won only 20 games. They drafted Tim Duncan and David Robinson returned healthy along with various changes among the role players, and in 97-98 they won 56 games for a 36-game 1-season improvement, the biggest in NBA history at the time.

In 2005-06 the Celtics won 33 games with a healthy Paul Pierce. The next year Pierce got hurt and missed a bit less than half of the season, and the Celtics won only 24 games despite a mini-breakout from Al Jefferson. This year KG replaced Jefferson and Allen also joined a healthy Pierce on the Celts, along with various changes among the role players, and in 07-08 the Cs won 66 games for a 42-game 1-season improvement, the biggest in NBA history.

Now, for the most part history gives Duncan most of the credit for the 36-game improvement of the Spurs, despite the fact that Robinson also returned and the team actually won 3 fewer games than when Robinson had last been healthy. And that's fine, because Duncan was the best player and the best new addition and the best player tends to get much of the credit. But if that's going to be the case, then no one should begrudge KG getting the same consideration for Boston's success this year, especially when the team won TWICE as many games as it had when Pierce had last been healthy. KG, too, was the best player and the best new addition, and as such he deserves at least as much respect for the Celtics' accomplishments as Duncan got for the Spurs'.

[BirdIsDaKing]

Dude, stats dont tell the whole story, KG was the leading scorer .7 points....big deal. If you actually watch the playoffs games, instead of going by stats which dont tell the whole story (and stats which are almost the same), than you would understand that Pierce was the one who actually LEAD us through the most important stretches of the games, not KG.

And I never said that KG wasnt the anchor of the defense, read my post again, I said that he wasn't the offensive anchor of the team like pierce. The ball was in pierces hands throughout most of the late game stretches. Just because people are fans of the team doesn't mean they have to be biased about each member of the team.

The crux of your argument seems to be that Pierce was better than Garnett in the playoffs, because you say so. I can respect your opinion that Pierce led the team through the playoffs, but I strongly disagree and from watching the games my opinion is that KG was clearly the best Celtic through the playoffs. So with two diverging opinions, what other methods could be used to make the argument?

One could use traditional stats like points/rebs/etc., and as has been mentioned KG was the team's leading scorer, rebounder, and defensive presence.

If you think traditional numbers don't tell the story, one could use more advanced APBR-metric stats like +/-, Roland Rating (82games.com), or Wins Produced...and using those methods, KG was even more distinctly ahead of Pierce in the playoffs than just going by points and rebounds.

Or, if you just don't like stats that encompass whole games (some feel that the most important things are what happen in the 4th quarter), then I could point out again that KG shot 53% from the field in the 4th and led the Celtics in 4th quarter scoring while Pierce shot 36% from the field in the 4th and led the Celtics in turnovers.

Or even if you don't trust stats at all and want to go with anecdotal evidence, we could go through game-by-game and discuss who was the player of the game in the team wins, like a Boston newspaper did immediately after the championship. By their count, KG was the player of the game in 8 of the Celtics' playoffs wins and Pierce was the player of the game in 5 of the Celtics' playoffs wins.

There are many levels at which one could argue who was the Celtics' playoffs MVP. I am confident that by any logical thought process that moves beyond pure opinion, if we pursued it to it's close I could make a stronger case for Garnett than you could for Pierce. I just hate it when an opinion is expressed as fact when almost every objective argument runs counter to that opinion.

lets just say they are both important....i really couldn't give a **** to tell you the truth because the celtics won the title and nothing can take that away, so I would really care less.

We wouldn't have won it without either of them, and we wouldn't have gone through the Cleveland series without pierces heroic performance so.....

And how did I get owned bad. From watching the games I just figured so, stats or no stats aside, its my opinion, and saying who was more beneficial is largely subjective.