Doctor MJ wrote:Odinn21 wrote:I'll be very blunt about few Garnett votes; those make no sense at all. His peak isn't top 5 level. His prime isn't top 5 level. His longevity and overall career value aren't top 5 level. His resume isn't there. All there is glorified +/- numbers. Even as great he was, his playoff play also doesn't stack up against the competition for the top 5. Saying he is one of the top 5 players the league has ever seen is a overcorrection for him being in a bad team for majority of his prime.
Garnett over Abdul-Jabbar and Chamberlain is ridiculous. Garnett is better than Abdul-Jabbar because Abdul-Jabbar has no reliable +/- and wowyr data while Garnett is the king of regular season +/- data? Gotta love that process.
So others have already said things in more detail but I feel I should say:
I consider Garnett's first superstar level impact season to be his 3rd season and his last to be his 17th season. That's 15 years.
Very few players can match that kind of longevity.
Still mining my old blog and finding information that fits in this thread https://hoopslab.rotowire.com/post/162535870741/kareem-vs-duncan-peak-impact-and-functional.
From that link I'll post a brief blurb comparing Kareem to Duncan in a similar WOWY way to that Kareem to Walton comp from the RPoY project, followed by a per-100 boxscore stats comp of Kareem vs Duncan and KG on a longevity front. And yes, I'm aware that not everyone loves either WOWY or per-100 comps, but they're information. Food for thought.
Kareem vs Duncan (and Walton), WOWY near peaks
I mentioned the genesis of ElGee’s WOWY work from the RPoY project, but of course he went on to develop it in much more detail across NBA history. As such, I can reference that work and find single-year WOWY runs, across multiple seasons during their peak years, for each of Kareem, Walton and Duncan. Let’s take a look:
Kareem 1975 (16 games missed): SRS in 2.6, SRS out -4.5
Kareem 1978 (20 games missed): SRS in 3.4, SRS out -1.7
Duncan 2004 (10 games missed): SRS in, 8.5; SRS out, 5.3
Duncan 2005 (12 games missed): SRS in, 9.3; SRS out, -1
Walton 1977 (16 games missed): SRS in, 7.8; SRS out, -2.6
Walton 1978 (10 games missed): SRS in, 9.4; SRS out, +1
(Note: I'm aware that the players involved missed more games than noted here, (e.g. Walton missed 24 games in 1978, not 10). I believe it's because Ben tried to use samples that corrected for other players potentially being out as well. Not positive, but I believe that's the case).
Looking at the raw data for these runs, two seasons each, right around each of their peaks…both Walton and Duncan seemed to be having larger impacts on their team’s fortunes at their peaks than Kareem did. At least, by this one estimate. Blackmill is one of the first to point out that the samples may be too small for significance, so make of this what you will.
But also keep in mind that this is now three different comparisons (to Walton, to Duncan, and to Russell in my previous post) where the available data that we have at least suggests that Kareem's impact, while great, isn't as big as some of his GOAT-peers.
Late career Kareem vs Duncan (and Garnett): functional longevity
Kareem (years 13 - 18): 30.6 pts/100 (61% TS), 10.4 reb, 1.1 stl, 2.7 blk, 4.1 ast, 3.7 TO (33 mpg)
Duncan (years 13 - 18): 27.3 pts/100 (55% TS), 16.6 reb, 1.2 stl, 3.3 blk, 4.9 ast, 3.2 TO (29 mpg)
Garnett (years 13 - 18): 26.8 pts/100 (56% TS), 14.2 reb, 2.0 stl, 1.7 blk, 4.6 ast, 2.8 TO (31 mpg)
I put these boxscore per 100 numbers up to have something quantitative, but obviously it doesn’t tell the whole story. It does give some support to my following statements, though:
1) Kareem was still clearly the best scorer of this group. More volume on much better efficiency
2) Duncan and Garnett were far better defenders. The rebounding numbers help show this, but I don’t really think it’s a controversial statement. Duncan and Garnett were inner-circle, best in the NBA level defenders during this period. Kareem wasn’t
3) If my premise from their primes holds merit…that despite Kareem’s dominant scoring with strong defense and strong passing, Duncan’s dominant defense with strong scoring and strong passing was of more impact (likely due to dominant defense tending to be higher impact than dominant scoring for bigs), then in their later years when these tendencies were even stronger…wouldn’t that suggest that Duncan’s impact difference was even larger than it was in their primes?
And this is year’s 13 - 18…by years 19 and 20, Kareem had clearly dipped further. Duncan also dipped for year 19, his last. And Garnett did as well, when he went to Brooklyn. So, I’d argue that year 18 is a reasonable end point for each of their functional longevity. And really…to that point, I’d argue that BOTH Duncan and Garnett were at least as effective as Kareem out to that mark...and really, more so with their defensive dominance.
