Brenice wrote:drza wrote:Brenice wrote:I want to know if you replace Kareem with any version of KG does KG lead the Lakers past Moses and Philly for the championship in 83?
And
If you replace Bynum with Moses in 08 can Moses lead the Lakers past KG and the Celtics?
Wait...your scenario is for KG to replace one of the best players of all-time, while Moses gets to replace a player that didn't even play?
So what you're asking is, would a KG for Kareem swap make as big of a positive impact on the '83 Lakers as just ADDING Moses to the '08 Lakers?
And you think this is a reasonable hypothetical?
I said replace Kareem with ANY VERSION of KG. Kareem was what, 36 at the time? He was not playing on a GOAT level at that time.
I tried to give you an out to say that you had made a mistake putting the hypothetical together, but you doubled down on it. Kareem, at 36, was still the Lakers' leading scorer (21.8 ppg in the season, 27.1 ppg in the playoffs) and one of the better players in the league. You can't possibly imagine that replacing him with KG is equivalent to just adding Moses to an already elite team. At the very least, to make it within even the outer realm of reasonable, let's have Moses replace Gasol on those Lakers. I'm not sure what (if anything) this thought project would mean to the topic at hand, but it could be fun to flesh it out a bit so I'll bite.
1983 Lakers with Garnett instead of KareemThat team lacked another big outside of Kareem, so KG is going to be playing more center. Let's go with a version of KG from the 2003 - 2006 time period, after he'd gotten his weight up into the 250s but before his stamina started to wane.
The '83 Lakers are now starting Magic, Norm Nixon, Wilkes, Rambis and Garnett with old McAdoo and Cooper as the main guys off the bench (young Worthy was out of the post-season).
Stylistically, how would those Lakers be different? Garnett was slightly shorter than Kareem, but size-wise there are some similarities. Garnett was much more athletic than Kareem was by that stage in his career, was a much better rebounder with more ability to run the floor, but probably didn't have quite as aggressive a scoring mentality nor was he proven to be as efficient of a finisher. But with a backcourt of Nixon/Magic, Garnett would have fewer playmaking responsibilities than he ever had at that portion of his career and he would have been set up with easier shots (both on the break and in the half-court), so it is realistic that his efficiency would have gone up. Volumewise he had demonstrated the ability to score at a similar rate to '83 Kareem, especially if you factor in pace in any way.
So theoretically, the Lakers' offense wouldn't look dramatically different. Garnett could remain the leading scorer, and by that time Kareem was scoring a lot more from the mid-range with that hook, so he could have even operated from largely the same areas of the court. As I look at that team, though, all of the other top-7 rotation players except for Rambis and Cooper were natural scorers. Worthy was out, but Wilkes and McAdoo were professional scorers and both Magic and Nixon were very good scorers as well. So I wouldn't be shocked if Garnett scaled back slightly in his offensive energy and let them take a bit more slack there, with Garnett putting in relatively more energy on the defensive/rebounding portions of the game.
Thus, I'd expect the biggest change for the '83 Lakers to be an improved defense and better board-work for those Lakers with a similar caliber offense. Would that have been enough to make a difference in that '83 Finals? It's hard to say. The Sixers swept the Lakers-that-were, but outside of game 3 (17-point loss) the other games were within a more reasonable margin. Garnett certainly would make a difference on the glass, which could have been big in that series (The Sixers won the rebound battle 3 - 0 with one tie, with the rebound margin decently predictive of the actual scoring margin). Garnett's defensive rebounding ability would have also freed up the other Lakers to release more on the break, which would have played into an obvious strength of the team. His defense/rebounding also may have allowed McAdoo to get more run with respect to Rambis, which also could have increased the Lakers' offensive abilities without compromising defense or toughness. Would have made for a much more interesting series, at the least.
2008 Lakers with Moses instead of Gasol:In some ways, this is the more interesting thought process because it calls for a genuine appraisal of ability vs. fit. Peak Moses Malone was a multiple MVP-winner, so the consensus would be that he was a better player than Pau Gasol. On the other hand, the '08 Lakers were running the Triangle offense, of which Pau was a critical component. There's a reason that the offense went through the roof when he came on-board in '08...with his skillset and passing ability, Gasol was almost made to be the big-man component of the Triangle. But Moses? In my opinion, Moses would have been a disaster in the Triangle offense. It just doesn't suit his skills at all. This offense would actually amplify his inability to pass, and would really crash the system. So I have to feel like the '08 Lakers wouldn't even try to utilize Moses as a main offensive cog in that offense...instead I feel like they'd use Kobe, Odom and the other perimeter players more extensively while running plays and allow Moses to just camp out in his office around the rim and be a garbageman.
I honestly don't know what the overall impact would be on that offense, especially as it relates to the '08 Celtics' defense. The offense would run much less smoothly and efficiently, I'd think, but Moses' biggest offensive strength is his work on the glass so perhaps his ability to keep more possessions alive would mitigate some of that loss in efficiency. Garnett was a strong rebounder even in '08 (13 rpg in the Finals), and Perkins would actually be the one tasked most often with trying to body Moses up and keep him away from the boards so that KG could swoop in. But still, Moses was likely to get his share of the offensive boards and try to change the game in that way. Plus, the Celtics' defense in '08 spent much more effort on containing Kobe than worrying about Gasol, so if Perkins had to completely stick to Malone on the box it could have compromised some of their other rotations.
On defense, though, I think that Moses in place of Gasol would have really hurt those Lakers. Because Perkins was a complete non-entity on offense, Gasol was able to use his mobility to really help out on defensive rotations. In particular, the Lakers employed a 5-on-3 defensive set pretty regularly in '08. When KG posted, depending on ball/player placement, either Gasol and Odom would hard-double KG pre-entry (leaving Perkins alone) or Kobe would sag completely off of Rondo into KG's lap to prevent the entry. This strategy left their wing defenders 1-on-1 with Ray and Pierce (which helped them have their best offensive series of that postseason), but it's overall effectiveness required that the man doing the doubling be mobile and quick in his rotations. Again, Moses would have been a disaster at this role. His strength as a defender was using his body to lean on his opponent, pushing them off their spots and keeping them off the glass. Quick rotations would have been his kryptonite, which means that the either Odom would have had to play KG straight up (historically a bad option for him, including during that '08 Finals) or else the other Lakers perimeter defenders would have had to leave even more openings for Pierce and Allen to thrive.
Also, the '08 Celtics in those Finals found success with a KG + Posey + Pierce + Ray + House line-up. I think this would have been even more effective against a Lakers team featuring Moses, because that line-up would have forced Moses away from the rim on defense and left him in very uncomfortable surroundings.
Bottom line:All told, I don't believe that the '08 Lakers come any closer to beating the '08 Celtics with Moses replacing Gasol. On the other hand, a near-peak Garnett replacing old Kareem in '83 likely at least turns a sweep into a competitive series, and perhaps could have led to a Lakers victory.
That's my take. How do you think it would have played out?
Replacing either players means you may have in fact made other moves to better compliment. Who knows how well they would actually play because it never happened. I don't see what this is suppose to prove?
you can't even understand what drza and MacGill are saying. man, you're not doing it right. you're ADDING Moses to 2008 Lakers and Garnett is REPLACING Kareem on the 83 Lakers. whatever you've been trying to prove, it is absurdly stupid way to do so. yeah, I mean there is a difference between replacing team's best player and just adding somebody to the roster (replacing a guy who doesn't play is the same as just adding somebody).
