RealGM

Presumably the early primes of both players, basically the same age too. In case it's not clear to some, 2021 Giannis doesn't mean this current season, it means the one where he won a chip.

Close, I’d lean KG, similar peak, but I think KG was solidly better in ‘99 than Giannis in ‘17 and it probably holds a little for ‘00/‘18.

I mean, if we're gonna have the cutoff at age-26 season and exclude KG's MVP year, then this isn't much of a debate. Giannis by a significant margin.

I think there's a reasonable case for Giannis even if its 00-04 KG.

Since you didn’t include 04, (I’d still take Giannis even with 04 tbh). Giannis for sure.

Garnett couldn't do what Giannis did in regards to carrying a team to a title as the #1 option.

Sent from my SM-G960W using RealGM mobile app

canada_dry wrote:Garnett couldn't do what Giannis did in regards to carrying a team to a title as the #1 option.

Sent from my SM-G960W using RealGM mobile app

He certainly could...

Garnett was arguably the best player in the league in 03 (I probably give it to Duncan narrowly). I think this is close.

You will have to replace 99/00 with 04 and 08 seasons to barely match what Giannis did...

2003 KG is not much different than 2004 KG, and is certainly better than 2008 KG.

KG starting in 2000 was was a perennial all defense first team, perennial all star, and perennial all nba 1st/2nd team guy. With the way people are saying it's not close, you'd think KG was a Lamarcus Aldridge level player over this span or something lol.

Giannis is a 2-time MVP, Champion, DPOY, FMVP, better numbers....what are we talking about here?

KG simply is not in that upper echelon of players. He's close but still clearly not there.

It is no longer really debatable. Giannis is just a better basketball player.

Regular seasons:
Player A: 372 games/39.6mpg
22.1p/12.0r/5.2a/1.4s/1.6b/.483FG%/.535TS%/24.2PER/109ORTG/99DRTG/6.7BPM
Player B: 351 games/33.9mpg
26.8p/11.0r/5.5a/1.3s/1.4b/.549FG%/.617TS%/28.8EPR/118ORTG/103DRTG/8.6BPM

Playoffs:
Player A: 21 games/42.9mpg/0 playoff series win
22.9p/13.8r/5.4a/1.5s/1.5b/.457FG%/.512TS%/24.0PER/106ORTG/102DRTG/7.8BPM
Player B: 58 games/36.4mpg/7 playoff series wins + NBA championship
27.3p/12.1r/5.2a/1.2s/1.4b/.546FG%/.592TS%/27.0PER/116ORTG/102DRTG/8.9BPM

Achievements:
Player A:
2x All-NBA First + 2x All-NBA Second + 1x All-NBA Third
4x NBA All-Defensive first team
4x All star

Player B:
2x NBA MVP
1x NBA Finals MVP
1x DPOY
3x All-NBA First + 2x All-NBA Second
3x NBA All-Defensive first team + 1x All-Defensive Second team
5x All star

No-more-rings wrote:Presumably the early primes of both players, basically the same age too. In case it's not clear to some, 2021 Giannis doesn't mean this current season, it means the one where he won a chip.

Can we include Garnett's MVP season in 2004 to make this somewhat fair?

KG's peak is probably still higher but I'd take Giannis here because of better consistency year to year, better play-off performer already as well.

Dutchball97 wrote:KG's peak is probably still higher but I'd take Giannis here because of better consistency year to year, better play-off performer already as well.

Giannis doesn't have consistency edge in the playoffs here. He underperformed both in 2019 and 2020 seasons. He wasn't very consistent in 2021 playoffs either (and he missed games).

ty 4191 wrote:

No-more-rings wrote:Presumably the early primes of both players, basically the same age too. In case it's not clear to some, 2021 Giannis doesn't mean this current season, it means the one where he won a chip.

Can we include Garnett's MVP season in 2004 to make this somewhat fair?

It seems fair already. KG led the league in RAPM in 03 while also having some of the best box scores in the league. 04 is not some outlier for KG even if it is clearly his best season. If it was an unreasonable comparison I don’t think KG would get 6 votes. People calling it not close, are likely anti-KG folks.

Yannis. He had 3 historic years in that stretch while KG had only one.

Pretty clearly Giannis even if you give KG any 5-year stretch he wants. KG and Giannis are pretty close defensively. But Giannis is clearly better scorer, like an entire tier ahead if not more. His efficiency for his scoring rate is among the best in history.

kendogg wrote:But Giannis is clearly better scorer, like an entire tier ahead if not more. His efficiency for his scoring rate is among the best in history.

Absolutely true.

kendogg wrote:KG and Giannis are pretty close defensively.

Ehhhh not really. Hell, even 11-13 KG is probably a better defender per-minute than Giannis.