Ronnymac wrote:Regular season games played is something I think about, but it's not a major breaking point of my critiria. Unless you miss playoff games or like, half the season, I'm probably not going to penalize you. Especially if I feel the guy was the best player in the league, was the most dominant statistically, and won a title.
how Shaq was the most dominant statistically ? I have no problem with you saying best player in the league based on this gut feeling. I don't know though, what you're refering to in this case. Duncan outclassed Shaq statistically if you talk about it from all-year perspective... and then he dominated head2head too. I just don't see how you can make that case after seeing the head2head numbers which weren't JUST in Tim's favor but clearly seperated him in the series... and that's after he outplayed him during the course of the RS. I don't see it.
Tesla wrote:^ I guess its what you value you more, in hindsight we know that Kobe with a crappy supporting cast can carry the load, make it to the playoffs, make some noise, but get eliminated early... just like Tmac. What is the unknown or perhaps rather somewhat known, is that Tmac has never proved he could do what Kobe did and that's be second fiddle deep into the playoffs and win championships. People for whatever reason use the reverse logic on this one, where as I see it as this is the only way it kind of makes sense.
I don't think that's fair to compare 06-07 Kobe to 02-03 T-Mac... or maybe let's put it that way: it's unfair because you bringing up Kobe's better version and in this comparison you're supposed to show that T-Mac 02 was worse/as good as/whatever Kobe 02. from what we know, Shaq did miss games every year and Kobe wasn't leading them to anywhere. I don't think he could dominate as much without the rules benefiting perimeter players and further improvement in his game. if you're taking peak Kobe from mid-late 00s, I'd reconsider my statement. but this is early 00s Kobe who was IMO clearly worse than McGrady. look up T-Mac's teammates ... and he still managed to take them to the playoffs while playing much better than Shaq-less early 00s Kobe.
Tesla wrote:Besides your really embellishing how "bad" Kobe played.... The Lakers had really no problem getting by anybody but one team that year, and they could just run the offense accordingly and be OK (except against Sacramento), and sometimes when you are a scorer like Kobe or Tmac or whoever (and IMO there is more evidence to support this than the other way around) it is harder to be efficient because of rhythm. The whole "open looks" crap is bs most the time unless your talking about complete role players that are spot up shooters and such, or big men that are able to just catch and finish at a good rate. Kobe came up huge in those last two wins against Sacramento. And 26/6/5 on 43%fg, 38%3PT isn't completley inefficient, he just sucked at the FT line for whatever reason lol... but whatever the case, that stat line is nothing to be embarrassed about especially when you win the chip on route... look at Pierce's statline in 07-08 throughout the playoffs and people are goo-goo gaga all over his playoff run that year.
first, I think late 00s Pierce is very overrated. legit all-star player but hardly anything more than that. he was disappointing in 08 until Radmanovic and Walton showcased their ability to make players around them better. seriously, Pierce isn't getting recognition if he doesn't get to play against one of the worst defensive combo of SFs in finals history.
that being said, I'm penalizing Kobe exactly because of that Sacto series. not only that, he was cold all postseason, but that thing especially. actually they could've lost very easily (and I think refs had their hands all over that series btw) and this was partly because of Bryant's low efficiency as a scorer. how close they were ? IIRC Stojakovic had a wide open game-winner in game 7 that would pretty much end the series... but he airballed it. I bet he must be despairing over this till now. anyway, the point is that Kobe's play in the postseason was very costly and there is no way you can justify iversoning which Kobe was guilty of.
bastillon wrote:Well, clearly superior team?
my memory about that series is that Nash did whatever the hell he wanted against every Wolves defender and it created tons of openings which Finley and co capitalized on. besides Garnett Wolves really had nobody to protect the paint so KG had to help unless they wanted a lay-up fest. that left Nowitzki open couple of times, but he wasn't doing well against KG when left 1vs1 in general. I remember you arguing once that Nowitzki torched Garnett's ass based on some YouTube clip so I went back and watched that game and he was actually struggling.
but that was minor part of the series anyway. most of the time Wolves played that zone defense and there was no way you can blame KG for this. I think he could limit Nowitzki in theory, but what would it matter if Nash could explode for any-number and then you had also multiple volume scorers in Finley etc. that Dallas team was stacked offensively and it was better for them to use KG as a roamer rather than limiting one guy and making others explode. let's keep in mind that this is quite poor defensive team without KG and their system isn't very effective either. on top of that you have top1 offense going up against you and there's simply not much you can do defensively.
the difference in that series came down to depth. Wolves really had 3 players that could play at star level. KG, Billups and Wally. then the team was just crap. Rasho managed to amass 6.7 RPG in 30 MPG and gather an outstanding -0.013 WS. that was valuable for standards of that team. I bet KG would be much more competitive in that series if there was any depth.
NO-KG-AI wrote:i don't get how you can adjust Jason Kidd's D relative to position, and not do the same for KG's passing.
If you are doing it by position, Garnett's passing is more rare than Kidd's was, and even though he wasn't Shaq or Wilt, he was still a far more efficient scorer than Kidd.
yeah, I don't get it either. he's basically saying Jason Kidd can anchor all-time great defenses yet he's never been able to affect his team as elite bigs do. obviously Kidd's impact comes nowhere close to elite defensive big. if we put average PG on those Nets, they'd still be top5 defense. Wolves without Garnett don't have any rebounding, nonexistent shotblocking, no perimeter defense, nothing. that's a recipe for bottom 5. I don't see how this would be close given their +/- defensive numbers were KG consistently trumps JK.
my argument against Jason is scoring. as Ronnymac said/emphasized, iso scoring/creating off the dribble is extremely important in the playoffs. you can make a great case for Tony Parker being a better off the dribble playmaker in the half court set. Kidd simply doesn't put much pressure on the opponents and he can't score to save his life either. his offensive value is pretty much reduced to rebounding, getting your team to offensive sets/executing that set and transition. he has very little value in the half court. there's a reason why his teams are almost always at the bottom of the league offensively when he has a large role.
look at Kidd/Nash comparison if you want to get the idea:
team ORtg
Code: Select all
Nash Kidd
2001 4 22
2002 1 17
2003 1 18
2004 1 25
2005 1 26
2006 2 25
2007 1 16hard to argue against it. there's simply very little evidence to think Kidd comes anywhere close to Garnett offensively when KG anchored multiple top5 offenses and the other played on multiple bottom 5 teams... and then on defense it becomes even more lopsided because of the whole big >>> small thing. I can't imagine someone really believing Kidd has similar impact actually. it's funny what historically bad competition can do with you. there seems to be a consensus that prime Kidd was some insanely great player and there was no such thing before 2002. kind of revionist history, huh ?
