Odinn21 wrote:Edited. The first version looked like baiting even though it wasn't my intention.
Some of the pro-Garnett arguments don't make sense.
Garnett would be more valuable now due to some of his qualities being better than Duncan's? Better time of basketball history Duncan would be more valuable. How's that for a thought? We're doing a top 100 project. Not top 100 if they were playing now project.
(Even then, I'd doubt Garnett would be more valuable / better than Duncan.)
Why are we scaling down the development curve of natural progression/evolution to a time when basketball had significantly less talent and less sophistication in terms of knowing how the game can be played to it's highest potential?
If we scale back to a time where most people couldn't properly use a left hand and the league average FG% was .380, despite likely 80% of the shots coming inside the paint... Then sure, you could say a player like Duncan would be 'more valuable' in that setting than Garnett.
And you can say ''well, the league was in a similar state to your description for a longer period of time than the contrary''. Sure, you could look at it from that perspective. OR, you could look at it from an angle that focuses on the optimization of the game of basketball...
What does that mean? Well, if we look at the game of basketball as a problem-solving game where the goal is to find the best possible way to field lineups of players that will make your attack (offense/ability to score) more difficult to defend effectively, then we could say that the majority of the NBA timeline throughout history did a relatively poor job at maximizing their ability to do that, especially in comparison to the last decade.
In the current point of time we find ourselves in, we're far, FAR closer to figuring out the most optimal ways you could approach the game (having a bigger league with more talent naturally pushes this to forward) to maximize your ability to score points and make it more difficult for the opposing teams to defend effectively.
And sure, the introduction of the 3pt line skews this a bit in the favor of offense automatically. But i would posit that even if the 3pt line was never introduced to the game, a guy like Garnett, who had the ability to shoot 45-50% from beyond 16ft, would still provide a lot of value (especially in a league that's depleted in terms of shooting talent) on offense regardless.
So how is this relevant to Duncan and Garnett? Well, because 60+ years of studying footage and advancing the game in terms of both talent and sophistication has currently brought us to a game, which seems to heavily indicate that the best way to approach/optimize your ability, on both ends, is by favoring a player like Garnett's skillset at his position over a player like Duncan's. Not only that, but the league also went away from utilizing players like Duncan/KG the way they were utilized in the early 00's (which favored a guy with Duncan skillset). So it's sort of a double whammy here.
NOTE: This does not mean that Duncan would suck today, wouldn't even make All-NBA teams, or that he wouldn't find a way to adjust... All that it means it that the league willingly moved into a direction (based on knowledge/talent) that is naturally more inclined to favor Garnett's skillset and physical profile due to him being more mobile, a better shooter and arguably a better playmaker with his ability to beat players off the dribble and pass better than Duncan. That's all.
That's why a lot of people on this board are saying Garnett was a victim of being 'ahead of his time'... He played in an era where there was a lack of overall knowledge in how to optimize a player of Garnett's skillset and profile and build the best possible lineups to win games out of it.
It would be kind of as if Duncan was used as a stretch C/PF for most of his prime, while the Spurs were playing through Robinson in the post or something... It would be a horrible mismanagement of Duncan's potential on offense.
I think the worst part for Garnett was that he was actually pretty decent as a post scorer. That coupled with the fact that his teams usually lacked talented (isolation) scorers on his Wolves teams, made it kind of a necessity that Garnett played as if he was Michael Jordan, when he was never that good on-ball.
We can also pile on the fact that Garnett had effortless range, but due to him following traditional outdated guidelines of ''if you're around 7 foot, you need to play close to the basket'' - probably passed down by his coaches, he must have felt that it was sacrilegious to practice and take 3-pointers, which obviously wouldn't be the case nowadays... And you may say, ''well, Duncan would've benefited from that too!'' Well, i'm not going to say he would not have, but it's a way bigger stretch of the imagination to think Duncan would've turned into a serious long range weapon than it would be with KG... Duncan was working with a flat-footed awkward jumper and he was a 67% FT shooter in his prime. KG had the mechanics/form down pat, he was a 45-50% shooter from mid-range and a 80% FT shooter in his prime. KG was primed and ready. All he would have needed to do is just take a step back and shoot... Duncan would need to put in some serious work in the gym, so it's a way tougher sell.
Also, it wasn't like Duncan was not a portable player, was it? Even his last season, Duncan was top 3 in D-RAPM and D-PIPM without his mobility.
Definitely. Duncan was still able to be a very effective rim protector in limited minutes even in his late 30's... Which is ultimately one of many reasons why a lot of people consider him a Top 5 candidate on these GOAT lists...
Although, i will say that those mid 2010's Spurs team were stacked defensively and excellently coached, which is why they were still able to be the best defense in the league even when Duncan retired.
Another pro-Garnett argument is that basically rewarding him for having less scoring volume. It's not on Duncan or any other proper scoring big like Abdul-Jabbar or O'Neal that the current bigs can't make use of low block. Low post scoring became less efficient because low post scoring players became less efficient. It's not as easy as the gap between Garnett's and Duncan's scoring volumes would mean less since big men are scoring less now.
Nope. I don't think anyone who's making a case for Garnett over Duncan is doing so by trying to reward KG for scoring on lesser volume and generally being a weaker Playoff scorer. I don't know where you got that from.
RE: Low post scoring became less efficient because low post scoring players became less efficient.
Incorrect. Between the top Big men scorers in the league like Jokic and Embiid, post scoring is as efficient (arguably more) than it has ever been. The difference is perimeter scoring became A LOT MORE efficient when players started getting better at outside shooting and coaches/teams figured out 3 > 2 mathematics checks out...This prompted teams to move away from dumping the ball to low block isolation scorers with limited mobility and weak passing, and moved towards perimeter-centric offenses (which were already a better option in the days of Oscar and West, but with the added shooting and talent, they received a larger boost than post-centric offenses did).
I'd like to see some lists like we had in the past; top 10 or 12 seasons between two players. In this case, some of the possible two player selections;
Russell vs. Garnett
Abdul-Jabbar vs. Garnett
Chamberlain vs. Garnett
Duncan vs. Garnett
O'Neal vs. Garnett
(Spoiler alert, Garnett ain't coming ahead in those.)
Which is why we do these lists every 5 year or so, with new information available based on the development curve of the league... Otherwise we'd just make one list and leave it at that forever, regardless if the game looks (and it will) completely different in 30 years from now...
Is 2004 Garnett one of the top 5 single season peak? Close but no.
Is Duncan's? Well, if we go by +/- metrics, as well as advanced stats, nothing indicates Duncan had more impact on influencing the scoring margin than Garnett did. Team success is the only factor people who favor Duncan can reliably go by, and then we know their team situations weren't even remotely comparable...
It's like taking Kobe Bryant over Vince Carter or Ray Allen in 2001. Kobe might have been better, but basing that off team success is a tough sell when Vince and Ray had far worse teams. Don't take this as a 1:1 analogy for Duncan and KG, because the data sample size is far bigger and their profile is more similar as well. It was just an example.
Is prime Garnett one of the top 5 primes? Also no.
Again, what makes Duncan's prime Top 5, but not Garnett's? I don't think the difference in their primes in terms of individual impact was too big in any player's case. There were far bigger differences in the organization/rosters the two played and how KG was used as a player to 2007...
Is his longevity enough to make up for the gap on top and average quality? Considering how many seasons were ruined for him with injuries, another no. Even without the injuries, it was debatable. With injuries, a certain no.
Duncan has the better longevity, but not by some huge margin, and his advantage in longevity is softer because it manifests in non-prime years... If Duncan had like two or three extra seasons where he was playing on 2002-2005 levels over KG, then it would give you something to think about, but his longevity edge mainly comes from his 2013-2016 stretch, where he was simply better preserved over the years than Garnett, and could be used as a 25-30 min defensive rim protector...
