RealGM Top 100 List #11

[therealbig3]

One question I would like to see answered is this.
Why did Boston struggle throughout the East in 2008?
Took them 7 games to knock of Atlanta, Cleveland and 6 games I believe to knock off Detroit.

They actually didn't struggle as much as it would seem, they were just the victims of bad luck in terms of variance in that 1st round matchup with Atlanta.

Looking at the overall series against Atlanta, Boston wrecked Atlanta in terms of point differential in that series, despite it going 7 games. It was one of the most lopsided 7 game series ever, if not THE most lopsided.

Overall, the Celtics outscored the Hawks by 12.0 ppg in that series. In their 4 wins, the Celtics outscored the Hawks by 25.3 ppg, including a 34-point win in game 7...all at home. In the Hawks' 3 wins, all at home for them, they outscored the Celtics by 5.7 ppg.

Basically, the Hawks won 3 close games at home, which like I said, is partially due to just variance...close games are all decided by some degree of luck, and the coin happened to land heads 3 times for the Hawks in that series. The Hawks were then promptly destroyed on the road every time. So I don't view that series as a typical 7 game series...it was more lopsided than most sweeps.

As for the Cavs...that series actually was a struggle...but that had absolutely nothing to do with KG, who played great. The real issue was that Paul Pierce and Ray Allen REALLY struggled in that series. Pierce was turning the ball over like crazy and was having trouble with his shot, and Ray Allen, holy crap, couldn't hit a shot to save his life...he didn't even hit a double-digit scoring average in that series.

[RayBan-Sematra]

VOTE : Kevin Garnett

Some more thought on West VS Kobe

I don't think it is fair to use pace adjustment to knock down West's scoring volume (as UBF did).
He was highly efficient and had no issue creating his own shot so I see no reason he wouldn't be able to take the 20-23 shots per game that he needed back then to score his 27-30ppg today even in a year where the average team will use maybe 10-20 less possessions then they did back then.
He was also able to have monster scoring series against the GOAT defensive dynasty in 60's Boston so... that leads me to think he could score fine in any era and score at high volume if needed.

Regarding his scoring efficiency UBF made a reasonable point that West would face much better competition on the perimeter in more recent generations then he would in his own (along with better defensive schemes) however he would also benefit from better spacing, the 3pt shot, better offensive schemes and a lack of physicality if he played post-05.
So all in all I don't see his effectiveness dropping much (if at all) and since he already has the effiency edge over Kobe without adjustments being made then that at worst would equal them out.

In the end I struggle to really say that Kobe was better then West.
West was the better Finals performer and probably the better defensive player over his extended Prime.

At age 35 he almost averaged 3spg / 1bpg which is still crazy impressive even given the faster pace of the time.
He was also only playing 30mpg that year so... yeah that is crazy.

I also don't doubt his team impact since he led his teams to the Finals what was it 8 freaking times?
He just got unlucky to play most of his Prime years during the Russell era where basically no one else was allowed to win.
I also don't see him as a guy who was losing with stacked teams or anything.
Baylor was a nice player but he was highly inefficient and struggled to score in many key playoff games.

He then won with Wilt who was a year away from retirement.

Put him in Kobe's shoes in the early 00's with a "Wilt like" C in Shaq at his Peak (rather then a year away from retirement) and with no major dynasty wrecking havoc and I can't see him not winning a few Rings.

To be fair I see Kobe as the safer choice since I watched him throughout his entire career and haven't got to watch that much video of West but putting that aside I don't feel compelled in anyway to side with Bryant nor have I seen any strong arguments that have swayed me to vote for him over West.

[Baller2014]

Given in a modern setting Baylor wouldn't be allowed to jack up so many shots, and the coach would run the offence through West more (especially with the 3pt shot now in play) I have a hard time believing West would score less in the modern era.

[therealbig3]

ElGee, I'm looking at your WOWY data for Kobe, and I was wondering if you had the data for 04 and 10, controlling for Gasol in 10, and Payton/Malone/Shaq in 04...or did it become too small of a sample to look at?

[RayBan-Sematra]

Some tidbits about Baylor who played with West.

1966 NBA Finals
This was Boston's 8th straight Championship and Auerbach's last game on the Boston bench.

Game 7 (Boston won 93-95)
Baylor hits 1 of 9 field goals for two points in the first half allowing Boston to gain a quick 10-0 lead. The Lakers never got it back to a one possession game until the final 4 seconds of the game.

Another interesting year is 1969.
West scored I think 42pts in their G7 VS Boston.
Wilt only scored 18pts (and struggled from the line) and Baylor chipped in 20 on I believe poor efficiency.

[90sAllDecade]

Curios about something. Your points are

1. Dirk's offense is better than Garnett's.
2. Garnett's defense is better than Dirk
3. The gap is really close but you lean towards Garnett's defense


So I'm gonna ask you this

1. Do you agree that Barkley is
- A better offensive player than Dirk
- A Better scorer than Dirk
- A better passer than Dirk
-A better offensive rebounder than Dirk

If you agree to all of those, then doesnt that mean that an even more substantial gap exist between Barkley's and Garnett's offense, that is even larger than the Gap you described between between Dirk's offense and Garnett's offense? If you already described the gap between their defenses and offenses respectively "as sure Is close", then wouldn't the larger gap that exist between Barkley and Garnett's offense be enough to put him over the top? Or do you think that Dirk has been a much better defender than Barkley?

Note: If you can't follow this logic I don't blame you, I confused myself typing it

I wanted to jump in here as I find this interesting and you make a good point.

I hadn't looked at him enough but Barkley is better offensively over Dirk. But the question is then how does Barkley's defensive impact rate?

I would think Dirk is the better defensive player due to height and his defensive stats; that don't have him as a liability but solid, but I don't know for sure really as those stats can be flawed at times and we're missing some for Barkley. If he is that might perhaps close the gap in comparison with Dirk.

[Purch]

Curios about something. Your points are

1. Dirk's offense is better than Garnett's.
2. Garnett's defense is better than Dirk
3. The gap is really close but you lean towards Garnett's defense


So I'm gonna ask you this

1. Do you agree that Barkley is
- A better offensive player than Dirk
- A Better scorer than Dirk
- A better passer than Dirk
-A better offensive rebounder than Dirk

If you agree to all of those, then doesnt that mean that an even more substantial gap exist between Barkley's and Garnett's offense, that is even larger than the Gap you described between between Dirk's offense and Garnett's offense? If you already described the gap between their defenses and offenses respectively "as sure Is close", then wouldn't the larger gap that exist between Barkley and Garnett's offense be enough to put him over the top? Or do you think that Dirk has been a much better defender than Barkley?

Note: If you can't follow this logic I don't blame you, I confused myself typing it

I wanted to jump in here as I find this interesting and you make a good point.

I hadn't looked at him enough but Barkley is better offensively over Dirk. But the question is then how does Barkley's defensive impact rate?

I would think Dirk is the better defensive player due to height and his defensive stats; that don't have him as a liability but solid, but I don't know for sure really as those stats can be flawed at times and we're missing some for Barkley. If he is that might perhaps close the gap in comparison with Dirk.

Their defensive ratings are remarkably similar.. Dirk's career rating is 104 and Barkley's in 105

Id assume that Dirk was better at protecting the paint whiles Barkley was better at guarding people off the dribble, from the videos I've watched. Barkley was the slightly better defensive rebounder for the majority of their career

[HeartBreakKid]

The thread title needs to be edited, I didn't know this was a runoff until I read about 3 or 4 pages back.



Despite what actually happened in reality, Kevin Garnett to me has a style that is just meant to win. He has savant like abilities in a lot of assets in basketball as well as a unique body type to impact the game in what ever way is necessary to win. I do believe that volume scoring for him is a problem when we're talking about him averaging over 25, and a lot of it probably has to do with him not having an elite low post game.


The fellow averaged 5-6 assist during his best years, that's about as many as Bryant averaged, and Bryant is a phenomenal passing shooting guard despite his ball hog reputation. KG did this as a power forward, he could initiate for his team, and create for others - that's something other post players who may have been better scorers simply could not do. Not to mention Garnett had the great ability to stretch defenses with his jumper.

I think KG's defense goes without saying. He has his doubters because Minny was rarely a great defense, but is it really that unbelievable looking at his roster a lot of the times? His team was plagued by injuries, he had a terrible coach in Flip Saunders, and his teammates were just not very talented in general.

I always said if Garnett ever just had decent teammates, he would get far, and that pretty much happened in 04. The fact that he went to the WCF (which at the time was seen as like the finals considering the strength of conferences) with just Sam Cassell and Latrell Sprewell is pretty telling. Both guys were past their prime, and good scorers, but far from dominant.

KG then gets an upgrade in 2008, the two HOFers that he played with are not defensive specialist in the slightest in Pierce and Allen, yet they raise the greatest defense of the modern era statistically speaking. Now, there are other players like Young Rondo, and for some reason people like to bring up Perkins, who is just as bad now as he was back then, it's just that playing with Garnett made him seem better than he was, he had Tony Allen but he only played 18 minutes per game - for the most part, if you take out Garnett there is little reason to assume that team would be a dominant defense. Doc Rivers and Thibedou deserve a lot of credit too.

The Celtics won a title, with their lead scorer in KG averaging 18 PPG a game. Allen and Pierce averaged about the same amount of points, and they were all very efficient.

The Timberwolves went to the WCF with Cassell and Sprewell averaging 16-18 PPG, with Sprewell doing it on bad efficiency.

So I have to wonder, is Garnett's ability to not mass score a true weakness? Clearly the guy is so good defensively, that he doesn't need to average that many points or even have a dominant second option to make his team a contender. I really think if Garnett just had "good" offensive players as opposed to a superstar 1-2 combo, that his team would pretty much be in talks for a championship, and I have to think it is much easier to find "good" offensive players than elite ones - so I never understood the criticism that KG is not an ideal franchise player, because it is hard to find offensive talent, the guy doesn't need superstar offensive talent to get things done.


Bryant isn't nearly the two way player that Garnett is. Naturally since Bryant is a perimeter player he is at a disadvantage defensively, but Bryant's career as a defensive player is obviously very off and on. Bryant was never a very good offball defender even when he was younger, and there were years where he really slacked off on that end because of his offensive load.

I don't know, to me it's always feels like Bryant is supposed to be better than Garnett because you are told that he is better than Garnett. Mentioning the accolades in these debates pretty much reinforces that to me. Bryant also fits a stereotypical mold on what people think is required to win championships, a guy that can isolate and dominant people with mass scoring - a trend that likely became popular with the media because of Jordan, who Bryant bares some resemblances too.


When Bryant didn't have a great team, he didn't do anything that Garnett never did. He got to the first round and got bumped. He missed the playoffs. The Lakers were just so much better than the Timberwolves, I mean the Wolves didn't have first round picks for years because of scandals so they'd go to the lottery and gain nothing back - mean while a team like the Lakers who were gaining traction in 2008 literally trade and land Pau Gasol for nothing; a flat upgrade as they only gave up Kwame Brown and a second rounder who they never used in Marc. It's really not a surprise why Bryant had a more successful career, the Lakers were just a better club.

Also, to me, as someone who always got scared when the Lakers came to town. I was never "scared" of Bryant. In both of the Lakers tenures as championship caliber teams runs with 08-11 and 00-03ish, the main thing that made the Lakers scary was their length and size; whether it be Shaq or the super lengthy combo of Gasol/Odom sometimes Bynum. That in conjunction with a superstar wing in Bryant just made them unfair and is why they won titles, but backcourt player was never really the scariest things about those Laker teams to me. So when people say I am being a revisionist or something, and that Bryant was the most dominant player for a long stretch, I really can't relate to that notion, as I've never thought that, and I've been watching basketball closely since Kobe Bryant was literally a rookie.


So with that being said, I'm gonna go with the second or third best defensive player ever in KG, someone who I think who also gives you legit franchise player offensive impact even if it isn't in the most traditional of ways. To me, if he gets the bare minimum he'll give you a lot to back, but the Timberwolves couldn't give the bare minimum. I don't see why the skeptics think that is crazy, as there are many clubs who waste franchise players without giving the bare minimum help in talent - look at why Lebron James left the Cavs.


My vote goes to Kevin Garnett

[Moonbeam]

A question about Prior-adjusted RAPM for those familiar with it: the name brings to mind a Bayesian estimation setting. Is that true, or is there simply some sort of multiplier for previous seasons included? If the estimation is indeed Bayesian, how are the priors determined for each player?

[Moonbeam]

I don't want to get involved in what I would consider "bickering" that seems to be taking over now that each spot has a larger number of contenders.

I will say, in reference to the discussion about changing minds, that there are some very smart people with a lot of information on players that I have never seen. And unfortunately, now every time i go to write a post with my vote, i question my decision. I fear i have missed something or don't have enough support to validate the different points i am trying to make.

In reality, I want to put my vote in but don't feel like I will add anything to the discussion. But I also don't want to resign from this project, because then I will lose my motivation to stay on top of the discussions and will stop learning.

I was going to vote for Oscar. But finding it hard to not vote KG. I am going to try and hopefully will be confident enough to hit submit before #11 voting ends.

Don't worry so much my friend!

You're doing the best you can. You have your understanding of things. It warrants it's own spot amongst the others in this project.

Don't be afraid of putting yourself out there and having someone prove you wrong, that will only mean you learn something and you'll be wiser than you were before.

Don't be afraid of putting yourself out there and having someone say something you don't understand, be honest and ask for clarification, and if in the end you still don't understand just say so. It's not simply your right to have an opinion, it's a fact that it exists, and there's no way to outsource it here. You can't say "I vote for Player X because Bob thinks that and I don't understand his arguments well enough to refute them". The fact you can't refute them just means you have stuff you can learn, and this isn't your job so no one has any right to demand you learn them on a deadline.

Don't be afraid of putting yourself out there and having someone mock you, because those who do aren't respected here, and any way that's why we have a moderation system.

So stick with it. Say how you see things, and just stay humble & curious.

Cheers

Thanks for this post. I'm a bit in this boat as well, as I consider myself far less educated on the entire suite of players than many who post here. The discussion has and will continue to be very useful for posters like myself who have been lifelong fans but have not gone through such a rigorous process of ranking players before and have never been exposed to some of the statistics being used to frame many arguments, and I say this as a university lecturer in statistics!

[Warspite]

Since I believe I can find at least 5 players who are better than KG and Kobe I wish to vote present.


Im so hopeful that we can get these 2 out of the way and start discussing great players again.

[Baller2014]

Since I believe I can find at least 5 players who are better than KG and Kobe I wish to vote present.


Im so hopeful that we can get these 2 out of the way and start discussing great players again.

I think once KG takes this the discussion will pick up towards those candidates again, with a lot of the KG supporters like myself being behind alternative candidates like Dr J, K.Malone and West. I remember Tsherkin voting Moses a few threads ago, so maybe he'll pick up some steam too.

Just a heads up, but if you'd voted Oscar earlier we might be discussing Oscar v.s KG, not Kobe.

[E-Balla]

WS/48 says that David Robinson is tied with MJ as the GOAT player. It says that CP3 is the 4th best player in history. It has Manu Ginobili as the #13 player right behind Duncan, but it has Ginobili ahead of Shaq and Bird. It has Yao Ming ahead of Bill Russell.

Ban WS/48!!

http://www.basketball-reference.com/lea ... areer.html

WS/48 shouldn't be used... Its a piece of crap stat.

[acrossthecourt]

Okay so I tried to compare Mikan to modern day superstars by standardizing his WS/48 and comparing it to standardized WS/48 from the modern era.

In a developing league, it can be easier to separate yourself from the pack with inferior competition. So I thought standardizing a metric would put guys on a more even playing field.

But uh ... the standard deviation was almost twice as high back then as it is now. However, there are only minutes given in the last two non-shot clock seasons and they use fewer players. (I sorted by guys over 500 minutes.)

Looking at standardized WS scores from 1949 to 1954 and 2010 to 2014, here are the leaders:
George Mikan* 5.63
LeBron James 5.56
George Mikan* 5.48
Kevin Durant 5.42
George Mikan* 5.30
Kevin Durant 5.28
LeBron James 4.97
Alex Groza 4.34
LeBron James 4.21
Kevin Durant 4.18
LeBron James 4.18
LeBron James 4.05
Alex Groza 4.01
Pau Gasol 3.90
Neil Johnston* 3.82
Dwight Howard 3.79
Chris Paul 3.68
Kevin Love 3.65
Chris Paul 3.62
Paul Arizin* 3.45
Ed Macauley* 3.43
Chris Paul 3.39
Stephen Curry 3.35
Derrick Rose 3.35
James Harden 3.30
Dwyane Wade 3.24
Dwight Howard 3.23
Kevin Durant 3.21
Neil Johnston* 3.19
Dwyane Wade 3.17
James Harden 3.15
George Mikan* 3.01
George Mikan* 3.01

Win Shares under/overrates on defense a lot and doesn't credit high usage, mediocre efficiency guys enough, but we don't have much else to evaluate Mikan on. And I think it aligns with the perception of him as a player: was basically Shaq pre-shot clock for a short while.

I could work out a few kinks with the standard deviation, getting better estimates, but I don't know ... it's hard to state Mikan didn't dominate the league. How much that matters versus guys like Karl Malone who played in fully formed leagues, I'm not sure.

So let's say Mikan's peaking as high as anyone relative to his peers, but the black players aren't integrated into the sport and there's no big talent infusion yet because the league isn't popular. If the league, say, has only 20% of its possible players as it did in the 80's or 70's, how much would we penalize Mikan? How far would he fall? Would he go from unanimous MVP to mere top 5 candidate? I'll try to work out the estimates later somehow....

Amar'e was built like a SF; Malone was built like a mack truck and actually pursued defensive rebounds.

Nitpicking here ... Amare wasn't built like a SF. When he came into the NBA, everyone remarked that he already looked like a grown man and was fully formed. Maybe he wasn't the right size for a center, but he certainly looked like a frontcourt player. But I agree about Amare's limitations.

Thinking about voting for KG here.

Still giving strong consideration to Kobe, West, Oscar, Malone (Karl) and Dirk/Barkley.

One question I would like to see answered is this.
Why did Boston struggle throughout the East in 2008?
Took them 7 games to knock of Atlanta, Cleveland and 6 games I believe to knock off Detroit.

I was kind of comparing his 08 run to Bryant's runs from 08-10.
To be fair KG was probably further from his true Peak years then Bryant was at the time and he was playing on a bran new team with multiple new pieces but still.
In the end KG's team beat Bryant's team so perhaps it isn't that relevant but it is something I was thinking about.

The answer: they didn't actually struggle. When Boston won, they blew out teams, and when they lost it was by a small amount. Their point differential in the playoffs was pretty strong. Looking at that playoff adjusted rating post a couple pages back, they're at +8.8 and ahead of a few other champions like the 2005 Spurs, the 1994 Rockets, the 1977 Blazers, and the 2000 Lakers.

Random question about Barkley: how do you view his play with other ball-dominant players? How was his pick and roll game?

[Doctor MJ]

Thanks for this post. I'm a bit in this boat as well, as I consider myself far less educated on the entire suite of players than many who post here. The discussion has and will continue to be very useful for posters like myself who have been lifelong fans but have not gone through such a rigorous process of ranking players before and have never been exposed to some of the statistics being used to frame many arguments, and I say this as a university lecturer in statistics!

Your welcome Moonbeam. Happy to have you here. Please ask questions.

Oh, and if you see me making mistakes with statistics, please let me know. I've got a master's in artificial intelligence, but we didn't use these techniques there so my academic grounding here is really just at the higher level of understanding why you would use certain things. The nitty gritty I've picked up on the internet, which probably means I've got some gaps that need closing.

[trex_8063]

Myth 7: Garnett's teammates in 2006 or 2005 were comparable to Duncan in the early 00's

See myth 6 or ...

Tony Parker Not until '02, and not even remotely like the Parker we know today until '05
Bruce Bowen
Stephen Jackson 2 years, both pre-prime or at least early prime, and one of which he mostly missed or was benched.
Malik Rose
David Robinson Post-prime and/or twilight years.
Manu Ginobili Not until '03, and not the star-level Ginobili until '05.
Steve Smith Post-prime (age 32-33).
Steve Kerr Not that he was EVER a stud, but post-prime (age 33+).

versus...

Trenton Hassell
Marko Jaric
Wally Szczerbiak
Ricky Davis
Rashad McCants
Eddie Griffin
Marcus Banks
Mark Blount

So anyway, not saying KG had an equal supporting cast in Minny during the years specified; but it's not the large gap that it appears you're trying to imply with name recognition (look: Parker and Ginobili!). Both Parker and Ginobili weren't there until at least 2-3 years into the "early 00's", and weren't particularly noteworthy players until AFTER the "early 00's". And everyone else listed except for Bowen and Rose was either pre-prime or post-prime/twilight.

Post-prime, pre-peak, post-modern, proto-punk, etc. Robinson/Parker/Manu are still much better than the level of support Garnett had, and I don't think it's close. The support level only gets close when Cassell and Wally Z are healthy, but rarely happened at the same time. Bowen's a better version of Hassell, Szczerbiak is pretty limited but honestly young Ginoibli was at least as good (Szczerbiak had issues staying on the court, so it's not a simple minutes argument.) Then things get really dire. Relying on Ricky Davis on offense. Guys like Mark Blunt and Mark Madsen are significant rotation pieces. And when Cassell was healthy, they did go to the WCF.

I don't know for certain if I think "it's close", but take a season like '01 for example:

Post-injury 35-year-old David Robinson is the clear 2nd-best player (no one else even close): he's still a pretty excellent defensive anchor and rebounder, but in a limited-minutes capacity (<30 mpg at this point in his career); avg <15 ppg by this point, too.
3rd wheel is probably Derek Anderson: 2nd-leading scorer on the team w/ 15.5 ppg---also 4.4 rpg/3.7 apg---with decent shooting efficiency and respectable defense. To me a prime Derek Anderson compares fairly well to someone like current Wesley Matthews: totally decent player, though perhaps not someone you'd expect to be the third-best player on a contender (unless the top 2 are superstars or near-superstars).
Then:
Antonio Daniels
Sean Elliott (oft-ill or injured he'll miss 30 games, and is barely effectual when he does play here in his final season)
Malik Rose (misses 25 games)
37-year-old Terry Porter
35-year-old Avery Johnson
34-year-old Danny Ferry
35-year-old Steve Kerr

So yes, it's better supporting cast than '05-'06 Minny had, but it's at least close to being close. At the very least, the differences between the respective supporting casts is not something you'd expect to be responsible for 20-ish more wins and ~7 SRS points.

EDIT: Or if you DO think it's worth that much, it must largely be on DRob. And if you think this highly of 35-year-old DRob, then perhaps what Chuck Texas said about him is true and he should be getting more consideration around this point of the list.

[Doctor MJ]

A question about Prior-adjusted RAPM for those familiar with it: the name brings to mind a Bayesian estimation setting. Is that true, or is there simply some sort of multiplier for previous seasons included? If the estimation is indeed Bayesian, how are the priors determined for each player?

My understanding, others correct me if I'm wrong:

Yes, think Bayesian. That's certainly the initial influence. I can't speak to whether there's some aspect of what they're doing that's unorthodox on that front.

RAPM without a prior basically adds extra fake data to the real data (APM being just real data), with that fake data being like every player everywhere spent time with no scoring happening. This has a huge effect on any player whose rating is dependent on some very small sample set, and given the amount of luck in basketball and lineup rotations, this prevents us from going nuts over some trend that was actually just a fluke.

However, using 0s arbitrary. It's an obvious choice to use if you know nothing, but we don't know nothing. We have other data for these players, so why not use it.

My understanding is that anyone doing a "classic" prior-informed RAPM for a given season uses the previous seasons non-prior-informed RAPM instead of 0s. We if a guy had a +5 last year, that gets populated instead of a 0.

[colts18]

WS/48 said that Birdman was the most valuable player of the 2013 Heat Championship ahead of even LeBron

WS/48 said that Robert Horry was as valuable as Hakeem Olajuwon during their title season

[disenfranchised]

This thread is infested with Kobe "hate."

Most first team ALL-NBA selections of all time.

Most first team ALL-DEFENSE selections of all time.

5 rings as 1 of 2 most important players on the team.

Led the league in total points 4 different seasons.

31,700 regular season points and counting, which is the 4th most all time.

2 scoring titles and #2 in scoring 4 other times.

Top 5 in MVP voting in 11 straight seasons.

Led all 5 title teams in assists.

I apologize to anyone if I come off as offensive, but the disrespect toward Kobe Bryant in this thread is offending me. I'm going to stop visiting this thread before my blood pressure rises. When I see people claiming Kobe isn't top 10 all time or even mentioning Garnett in the same sentence with him, that's my cue. Once again, sorry for any disruption.

God bless.

[ShaqAttack3234]

I don't know for certain if I think "it's close", but take a season like '01 for example:

Post-injury 35-year-old David Robinson is the clear 2nd-best player (no one else even close): he's still a pretty excellent defensive anchor and rebounder, but in a limited-minutes capacity (<30 mpg at this point in his career); avg <15 ppg by this point, too.
3rd wheel is probably Derek Anderson: 2nd-leading scorer on the team w/ 15.5 ppg---also 4.4 rpg/3.7 apg---with decent shooting efficiency and respectable defense. To me a prime Derek Anderson compares fairly well to someone like current Wesley Matthews: totally decent player, though perhaps not someone you'd expect to be the third-best player on a contender (unless the top 2 are superstars or near-superstars).
Then:
Antonio Daniels
Sean Elliott (oft-ill or injured he'll miss 30 games, and is barely effectual when he does play here in his final season)
Malik Rose (misses 25 games)
37-year-old Terry Porter
35-year-old Avery Johnson
34-year-old Danny Ferry
35-year-old Steve Kerr

So yes, it's better supporting cast than '05-'06 Minny had, but it's at least close to being close. At the very least, the differences between the respective supporting casts is not something you'd expect to be responsible for 20-ish more wins and ~7 SRS points.

EDIT: Or if you DO think it's worth that much, it must largely be on DRob. And if you think this highly of 35-year-old DRob, then perhaps what Chuck Texas said about him is true and he should be getting more consideration around this point of the list.

I don't think 2001 is a good example at all because in the regular season at least, I'm not sure any superstar or legit star had a better cast except for maybe C-Webb.

Robinson's offense declined pretty noticeably from 2000, after still being a 20/10 caliber big man his first 3 years with Duncan from '98-'00, but he was still a top 5 defender, a skilled and mobile center, a solid rebounder, and the duo still gave the Spurs enormous match up advantages because that duo was still completely overwhelming defensively because few teams have an anchor or interior defender comparable to either, much less 2 of them, and they posed difficult match ups at the other end as well, particularly with both capable of passing, finishing inside, or running nice high-low plays with either big man high or low.

As far as the perimeter, well, Antonio Daniels played really well for the Spurs once he got use to their system from January or so on, and was playing like a borderline all-stra once he was capable. Anderson could make plays and great off the dribble, shot the 3 around 40% and was a good athlete and slasher as well as open court player. As a backup, they had a similar, smaller version in Antonio Daniels who was a good athlete, even though he was a combo guard, but he could make plays and create off the dribble, plus, he shot the 3 at over 40% that year himself. In 23 starts, Daniels averaged 12.4 ppg and 5.5 apg on 47 FG% and 56.3 TS%, then in the playoffs, in the 8 games Daniels got to start after Anderson's injury, he averaged 17.3 ppg on 49 FG% and 59.1 TS%, so those 2 were a fair amount of talent creating off the dribble and shooting 3s, but most importantly, the Spurs were the best 3 point shooting team at 40.7%, so that's a solid amount of perimeter support overall for the twin towers duo.

At full strength, the Spurs only real weakness that year was a really good wing defender with the size and lateral quickness to guard the top wings. That's where Bowen came in the next season, but the 2001 Spurs were hardly a bad team. And significantly better than what KG was playing with, and I'm a Duncan guy over KG. That's not something I've ever even questioned too much, but I still think the 2001 Spurs were much better than what KG was playing with around that time. Not to mention that Pop knew how to coach both ends, while Flip was a good offensive coach, but seemed completely clueless defensively, imo.