RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #9 (Kevin Garnett)

Post #1 » by **Doctor MJ** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 8:42 am

Our system is now as follows:

1. We have a pool of Nominees you are to choose from for your Induction (main) vote to decide who next gets on the List. Choose your top vote, and if you'd like to, a second vote which will be used for runoff purposes if needed.

2. There will also be a Nomination vote where whoever gets nominated by the most voters gets added to the Nominee list for subsequent votes. This is again optional.

3. You must include reasoning for each of your votes, though you may re-use your old words in a new post.

4. Post as much as they want, but when you do your official Vote make it really clear to me at the top of that post that that post is your Vote. And if you decide to change your vote before the votes are tallied, please edit that same Vote post.

5. Anyone may post thoughts, but please only make a Vote post if you're on the Voter list. If you'd like to be added to the project, please ask in the General Thread for the project. Note that you will not be added immediately to the project now. If you express an interest during the #2 thread, for example, the earliest you'll be added to the Voter list is for the #3.

5. I'll tally the votes when I wake up the morning after the Deadline (I don't care if you change things after the official Deadline, but once I tally, it's over). For this specific Vote, if people ask before the Deadline, I'll extend it.

Here's the list of the Voter Pool as it stands right now (and if I forgot anyone I approved, do let me know):

Spoiler:

Alright, the Nominees for you to choose among for the next slot on the list (in alphabetical order):

Larry Bird

Kobe Bryant

Steph Curry

Kevin Garnett

Magic Johnson

One_and_Done · Post #2 » by **One_and_Done** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 8:59 am

Vote: Magic

Alternate: Curry

Nominate: Dirk (just because KD is not getting traction), also considering K.Malone, Dr J, D.Rob, Giannis, etc.

Magic... well his impact is the highest of those left for reasons others have gone into. GOAT passer, maybe a GOAT offensive player. His sustained success in the RS and PS speaks for itself. More than enough longevity that it doesn't matter, and we've already voted in Hakeem who he was clearly seen as better than by their contemporaries. Will decide between Curry and KG for 2nd choice later.

I would nominate KD, bit he will get no traction it seems so I'll fall back to Dirk. KD is a strong choice here for the reasons I discussed below:

Spoiler:

One_and_Done wrote:Who do you have first? I have mixed feelings about Oscar due to the weak era he played in.

As for Durant vs Kobe I don’t understand the argument for Kobe. Durant was a better scorer, better defender, and a better complementary piece who fit in more easily with others. His longevity is enough that any minor advantage Kobe has is negated.

Let’s just look at a peak to peak comparison to start with. Because KD has the consistency of a metronome (when he’s on the court), a number of different years can be advanced as his “peak”. But 2014 seems to have the strongest case. So let’s look at 2014 KD v.s 2008 Kobe (which is often advanced as Kobe’s best year).

KD: 41.8 pp 100, 9.6 rp 100, 7.2 ap 100, 123 Ortg, 104 Drtg, on an insane 635. TS%

Kobe: 36.5 pp 100, 8.1 rp 100, 6.9 ap 100, 115 Ortg, 106 Drtg, on 576. TS%

KD is better in literally every, single category, and not by a small margin. But let’s be fair to them and look at a bigger, more representative sample.

Here’s KD from 2010 to 2023, a 13 year stretch if we exclude 2020.

RS per 100: 38.2, 10, 6.3, 120 Ortg, 106 Drtg, on 631. TS%
PS per 100: 36.9, 9.8, 5.3, 115 Ortg, 108 Drtg 598. TS%

Kobe from 2000 to 2013:

RS per 100: 37.1, 7.6, 6.9, 112 Ortg, 105 Drtg, TS% 556.
PS per 100: 35.3, 6.9, 6.5, 110 Ortg, 106 Drtg, TS% 543.

So again, KD is basically beating him in every single category except for a trivial defensive rating difference, which could just be noise given how close it is and the sample size. He’s scoring more, and scoring more on insane efficiency. Even his assists are similar, despite Kobe’s supposed passing advantage (which FYI isn’t much of an advantage if you don’t like passing). The difference in Ortg is insane. KD is just cooking him.

On the defensive end KD is almost 7 feet tall with crazy long arms, so he can to a limited extent provide rim protection and switch on to bigger guys, all of which was key to his time on the Warriors. KD fits so much better than Kobe in so many situations, needing a lower usage and complementing other guys. KD was also misused to some degree in OKC, with it now being apparent in hindsight that Westbrook was not an optimal co-star for KD (to put it lightly). He often played with poor spacing in OKC, and thrived anyway.

But let’s turn to the one thing Kobe supporters can maybe argue, which is longevity. I don’t buy this, because KD has had enough longevity to score almost 27K points despite playing through several seasons cut short by COVID and lock outs, so at that point I’d say he has “enough” longevity that unless the person he’s being compared to is a comparably good player longevity isn’t enough to move the needle. But then I’m not even sure we can criticise KD’s longevity too much. Kobe has basically 12-13 healthy-ish, prime type seasons. His last few seasons were negative value add, and the early part of his career is mostly not adding too much. If we took out those years Kobe actually only has 28k+ points, so barely different to KD (who isn’t done yet either).

But what of KD? He was healthy from 2010 to 2014. That’s 5 prime seasons right there. 2016 healthy. That’s 6. 2017 and 2018 he was being rested and was out by design basically, I count those as healthy seasons. KD is up to 8 prime seasons. 2019? He was healthy all the way to the finals, then had an injury. I don’t dock him for that because it’s absurd. It would be rewarding guys like Kobe for getting bounced out in the first round, before they had a chance to injure themselves. That’s 9 prime seasons. In my mind that’s enough to overcome Kobe’s longevity easily. But I also feel KD added good value from 2021 to 2023. In those 3 seasons some of the games he missed were for rest, or due to reasons having nothing to do with injury; if he and the team were keen on him playing more, he could have. He was also healthy for the playoffs in 2021 and 2023 when it mattered (which is what he was being rested for).

I just don’t see what Kobe’s argument over KD would be. KD is just flat out better.

trelos6 · Post #3 » by **trelos6** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 9:40 am

Vote: KG
Second: Magic Johnson
Nomination: David Robinson

Looking at all the years where the players were arguably a top 3 player in the NBA, KG and Magic 9, Steph 8.

All the All-NBA seasons, Magic 10, KG and Steph 9.

All star value seasons, KG 15, Magic 12, Steph 9.

All D level seasons, KG 12, Magic and Steph 0.

While I can respect Magic's playmaking and Steph's gravity, I think they both miss out compared to KG on longevity.

KG peaked at 24.9 pp75 on +3.1 rTS%, and due to the horrible Timberwolves teams, and him missing the playoffs for a few seasons, the best 3 yr PS strech is 24 pp75 on +0.4 rTS%

Looking at PIPM, KG had seasons of 3.1, 3.0. 4.0, 3.6, 5.6, 7.9, 8.1, 3.5, 5.1, 4.8, 6.9, 4.8, 2.3, 5.6, 4.8, 3.2

That's a mean of 4.77 over 16 seasons!

Steph v Kobe comparison.

Spoiler:

Magic v Bird

Spoiler:

There’s been some great feedback to my perspective, so I’ll be having a think and re-evaluating my #10.

Post #4 » by **Moonbeam** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 10:41 am

I'm always late to vote, so I'll get mine in early. I'm voting for Magic Johnson, as described here. In short, his value appears very high no matter what type of statistical lens is employed (team-based results, box scores, WOWY-type stats), eclipsing contemporary Larry Bird in these measures from what I have gleaned. Among the others, I'm leaning toward Kevin Garnett or Stephen Curry as the alternate vote here, but I haven't made up my mind yet. Bird is a tremendous player and a transformative figure in league history, and leading one of the all-time best teams makes him an intriguing choice. Kobe is an offensive phenom who had many periods of great individual defense, and he proved that he was more than capable of being the leader on a perennial Finals team and 2-time champion after Shaq was traded. I'm a little lower on Bird and Kobe than KG and Steph at the moment because while KG and Steph have impact data strongly in their corner, Bird and Kobe don't really have a strong statistical footprint that suggests they are top 10 players. I'd be interested in reading some data-based arguments for them to be considered here, and I'm open to giving them both my alternate vote.

Seeing this list of nominees actually makes we wish that Oscar Robertson and Jerry West were among the nominees, as I've traditionally had both of those guys ahead of KG and Kobe. I've been nominating George Mikan, but he hasn't gotten a whole lot of traction yet. For now, I'll continue to nominate George Mikan due to his sustained in-era dominance, but I might change my vote (if allowed) should Oscar or Jerry get some traction.

One_and_Done · Post #5 » by **One_and_Done** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 10:48 am

You'll get more traction for Oscar than Mikan. I want to nominate KD, but when he's getting no support I'd be throwing my vote away.

Post #6 » by **ijspeelman** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 12:59 pm

Do we have any WOWY figures for Mikan?

Just curious how dominant he was era-adjusted to some of the guys coming up. I have a hard time rating him in general due to the lack of data and film.

Post #7 » by **trex_8063** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 1:11 pm

VOTE: Magic Johnson (unless later stated otherwise [I would give you a heads up, Doc, and change this orginal vote post if I switch])

Magic [for me] is a borderline/fringe top 10(ish) peak ever. His playmaking/creation puts him in the running for GOAT distributor. While his turnover economy is notably below playmakers such as Chris Paul, it's been pretty well established how [relatively] cautious Paul is as a facilitator: he'll often play it safe on the high-risk/high-reward opportunities, hedging in favour of ball-control. While his resultant GOAT-tier turnover economy is, in some ways, a point in his favour (and I'll likely bring it up when it comes time that I want to argue in his corner), it's also been illustrated by some others in prior threads that the facilitators who consistently attack those high-risk/high-reward opportunities (e.g. Magic, Steve Nash) often produce as consequence some of the greatest offenses ever.

When Magic exits the league, we see some teammates adjust reasonably well (e.g. AC Green, Byron Scott), but a somewhat brutal "period of adjustment" for multiple other teammates (at least one whom NEVER recovers to his prior standard of efficiency):
- James Worthy's eFG% falls by 5% in '92 without Magic, with no relevant change in FTAr. THough this is somewhat of an injury year for him, he does not recover by any significant degree in '93 [healthy year]. Worthy had also had an outlier good turnover year in '91 with Magic, fwiw.
- Vlade Divac's eFG% drops by 6.6% in '92, while his FTAr also drops 8.5% (results in a 5.3% drop in his TS%, despite IMPROVING his FT-shooting by 6.5% in '92). Admittedly this is an injury year for him; however, things do not recover at all the following [healthy] year. Vlade also has the single-worst year of his career [excluding his 15-game final season] in terms of turnover economy in '92.
- Sam Perkins sees his eFG% drop by 4.8% (though an improvement in FTAr in '92 cushions the blow a little).
- Tony Smith sees his eFG% drop by 4.2%, with no relevant change in FTAr.

These things are especially hurtful, particularly when you're also losing Magic's scoring. Which, although obviously I can prove nothing, I firmly believe Magic could have scored >25ppg on good efficiency had he wanted to. But he had other valuable talents which were more impactful on offense, and was very unselfish.
His size made him an outstanding rebounder from the PG position, and I'm not sure if his defense is as weak as some critics contend (I believe someone brought up some arguments to this effect last thread). He did generate turnovers, and his defensive rebounding carries value. His size, while a hindrance [perhaps] in staying in front of smaller guards, is an asset in contesting outside shots or in having versatility to switch on to bigger opponents.

I also think Magic one of the game's better team leaders. His natural charisma and charming smile, combined with a fierce competitiveness, desire to win, and unselfish style of play, poise under pressure (at least by the mid-80s and beyond) made him an effective team leader.
THough I can no longer access the site, I recall his WOWYR being GOAT-tier, fwiw.

His biggest hindrance for me in terms of ranking him is his longevity, which is not great compared to most other greats in this region of an ATL. However, even there I have a little bit of a mental asterisk by his rank, acknowledging that some careless behaviour combined cruelly with some bad luck and public ignorance/fear regarding a new(ish) disease forced him out of the league while still in his prime.
I have no doubt that if he'd been allowed to play out his career, he'd be no lower than #5 on my ATL (and might be as high as #2 [or even #1b??]).

Alternate vote: Kevin Garnett
Nomination: Karl Malone

AEnigma · Post #8 » by **AEnigma** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 2:00 pm

VOTE: Magic Johnson
Nominate: George Mikan

AEnigma wrote:I have a latent preference for players like Magic (such as my personal top two) who can figure you out and adapt. Magic is a guy I can trust in a lot of situations. I can trust him to adjust to another point guard. I can trust him to develop his shooting. I can trust him in a high transition era, but I can also trust his half-court brilliance. I can trust him to feed scorers, but I can also trust him to successfully increase his scoring volume when necessary. I cannot trust him to be a good defender… but I can trust that he does not prevent me from pairing him with the types of players who can anchor defences. I can trust him to typically outperform his direct rivals, and in his prime I can almost always trust him to not disappoint.

I gestured at this previously, but his GOAT path was comfortably ahead of Jordan’s pace when he was forced into retirement. Magic was securely better at basically every age until their respective age 23 (per basketball-reference here because both have birthdays after the data cutoff) seasons. And while I am sure many would prefer 1987-90 Jordan to 1983-87 Magic (I am more mixed on the question), by that point Magic had four rings and three Finals MVPs to Jordan’s zero. Jordan makes up ground from 1991-93… but then he retires while Magic has a phenomenal age 31 season. So at the time of Jordan’s first retirement, even if the public prefers his high octane scoring and had already crowned him the greatest guard in league history, he has no real accomplishment advantage over Magic (nor would I say he was as tied to his team’s success). For me, it was not until 1997 where the totality of Jordan’s career probably had surpassed Magic’s career, and then 1998 (plus signs of a higher level aging curve in 2002/03) was what created a full tier of separation between the two.

For how most of us approach this exercise, minutes and longevity hold Magic back. Even then, I find myself considering Oscar — the greatest guard before these two arrived. Around ten thousand more minutes played. Second highest minute load throughout his career (by far), behind only notorious exception Wilt. In presence, he offered more to his teams than Magic ever did, or possibly even would have without the stigma of the time. And yet I prefer Magic without a second thought, because that is how much better he played the position. The Lakers for his entire career were a ~7.5 net rating team. 900 games at that level, and then regularly mediocre without him (despite decent enough replacements). Very similar circumstances to Tim Duncan, except with a potentially (likely) even better aging curve.

Might switch my nomination to Oscar, but I like the approach of admitting Mikan immediately after the other twelve two-title engines (with Erving typically taking an ABA hit). Also open to Dirk, but based on the last thread, most of the attention will be on either Mikan or Oscar.

If Magic wins, I am likely to vote for Garnett next round… but he is comparatively lacking for accomplishments, with one title on a 3+ SRS supporting cast and two series wins before joining that cast. In the playoffs I can without too much difficulty argue he was outperformed by Kobe for most of 2000-10. I do not think Kobe brings the 2000-03 Wolves (to say nothing of the 2005-07 Wolves) to the playoffs at all, and Garnett probably looks phenomenal playing next to Shaq, so there is a limit to how damning that all can be. Just felt I should highlight, if only for posterity, that whenever people outside this forum roll their eyes at “top ten Garnett”, those comparatively underwhelming (albeit not contextually underwhelming) playoff results are why.

lessthanjake · Post #9 » by **lessthanjake** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 2:04 pm

Vote for #9: Stephen Curry
Alternate Vote: Magic Johnson
Nomination: Moses Malone

On Steph, please see my explanation in an earlier thread (viewtopic.php?p=107697936#p107697936), as well as the various posts I’ve made about him over the course of the last bunch of threads.

Regarding Magic, I suspect that the vote will probably come down to Magic and Garnett. Garnett has incredible impact numbers, but Magic likely does too from what we can see. Garnett has more longevity, but the level of achievement Magic has in the NBA is just at a completely different level from Garnett. Obviously Magic had a much better team, and it’s possible that Garnett could’ve been just as successful on a similarly good team. But I just can’t vote for a speculative hypothetical over someone that really did have tons of success. And I don’t really value Garnett’s longevity over Magic very much, since I don’t think Garnett had more top-tier seasons, and those are the seasons I value by far the most (and Garnett didn’t achieve anything significant in his other seasons, such that I’d make an exception and value them more than normal).

As for Moses Malone, I’ve talked about this a bit already in the prior thread (see for instance: viewtopic.php?p=107768148#p107768148). Basically, Moses Malone was probably the best player in the world for a half-decade span (1978-1979 to 1982-1983), even despite a top-3-all-time guy being in his prime in that time period. FWIW, he also had a great deal of longevity. He won a title on one of the best teams of all time, and he also carried a very mediocre team to the finals, defeating the 1980’s Lakers along the way. I think this overall resume distinguishes him from other possible nominees. With the exception of Mikan—who poses some different questions about strength of era and whatnot—I don’t really think there’s anyone left who has an argument for being the best player in the NBA in a significant time period like Moses. And the players that are left haven’t really had better team success than Moses (i.e. I think that “best player on one of the greatest teams ever” + “hauled a bad team to the finals” stands up with anyone left). We don’t have impact stats from his era, but if you’re trying to get an indication of prime Moses’s impact, please note that when he left Houston, the team won 32 fewer games the next year (from 46 wins to 14 wins—and that was the the team he’d taken to the finals just a couple years earlier). When he came to the 76ers, there was diminishing returns to some degree, since they were already really good, but he took them to 65 wins and made them go from a strong playoff team to a team that won a title with just 1 playoff loss.

rk2023 · Post #10 » by **rk2023** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 3:20 pm

Vote for #9 - Magic Johnson
Nomination - Jerry West (explained in hyperlink below)

https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=2310981&p=107809971#p107809971

Magic:
When prepping and going through analyses of all of the pantheon before this project, I was not only shocked to see Magic comfortably land the 9 spot on my list (compared to the perimeter players one would expect - as well as Garnett) but also punch above his longevity to the point where he stacked up well side-by-side to Duncan, Shaq, and Wilt. I came to such a conclusion based on the prime consistency and unparalleled [in some essence] offensive acumen brought to the table by Magic - where I'm not surprised and can certainly commend those whom have pushed for Magic at a higher spot than this (eg. Doc, OldSchoolNoBull, f4p). I'll quote a few posts that struck me as insightful in these regards and that I felt did very well providing a holistic analysis of Johnson. Both are pretty granular (thus longer posts), and provide a very good overview - with the main-takeaway being that the box-score (whether advanced or at face value) and pragmatic team evidence in both statistical ratings and engining a dynasty regard Magic very highly. Some more measures of impact and goodness yield the same approach, for example:

Spoiler:

OldSchoolNoBull wrote:.

Spoiler:

OhayoKD wrote:.

Spoiler:

In this framework, Magic grades a tier higher than Steph based on two alleged advantages;
-> The ability to leverage/organize his teammates as a floor-general
-> The efficiency of his creation

I don't think most readers here will contest the first one as being true. But the second might sound a bit wonky. So let's elaborate a little:

There is a bit of a fallacy I think where people look at raw assist totals, raw creation counts, or box-oc and pretend volume is everything. But it's not just about what you create. It's also about the quality of what you're creating AND how much you're leaving on the table with suboptimal decisions. Players on this tier have better discernable offensive "lift" than players the tier below, and often this is blamed entirely or pre-dominantly on "this is just because of who their teammates are", but I actually think the real source of this offensive advantage is the "quality" of what they're creating(and some of the backseat coaching stuff has an off-court effect that can't be tracked via impact stuff)

We'll get to "discernible left" after but let's start with some granular analysis. First up, Jordan:

Spoiler:

We see a bit of an upgrade with Steph:

Spoiler:

And then we get to Lebron, one of the best creators ever:

Spoiler:

Enter Johnson:

Spoiler:

But does any of this matter? Well...

Proof of Concept:
Curry:

Spoiler:

Lebron

Spoiler:

jordan* (i had to use his first 5 championship seasons)

Spoiler:

nash

Spoiler:

shaq

Spoiler:

bird

Spoiler:

magic

Spoiler:

Magic leads better offenses than Steph. Players similar to Magic tend to lead better offenses than players similar steph. Magic has proven himself without his best co-star, and players like Magic have shown proof of concept outside of optimal-situations while Steph and players like Steph seem to struggle generating great results until they find the right situation.

Magic on the other hand, by impact, was the king of his era:

Spoiler:

Keeping in mind that it's harder to lift better teams, Hakeem comes marginally behind Jordan, and slightly more behind Magic, but he's right up there with both.

Ben has his own(presumably more sophisticated) approach which likes Hakeem even better; "Prime WOWY" ranks Olajuwon 10th. Magic and Jordan rank 12th and 20th, respectively.

Elgee wrote:Collectively, the film and data scream that Johnson was one of the very best offensive players in history. His WOWYR numbers are fantastic, finishing first in the 2016 results, and near the top in all regressed game-level studies. His team’s offenses were even better in the postseason, improving by a weighted average of 2.5 efficiency points. However, Magic’s defensive work dings him somewhat among the other greats, as he was likely a neutral-impact defender in the early part of his career before his defense waned in later seasons. But it’s his longevity that costs him most on this list, as HIV stole valuable prime years for him to climb up the top-10.
In ’87, Magic authored his magnus opum, leading the same rotation from ’86 to a 66-win pace (9.5 SRS) and a mind-boggling 119.9 offensive rating in the postseason, a record that would stand until Cleveland posted a 120.3 mark in the 2017 playoffs.7 The ’88 and ’89 Lakers regressed slightly and then Kareem retired. With the firepower dwindling, the results still remained — LA maintained a win pace around 60 thanks to its elite offense in ’90 and ’91 — a testament to Magic’s floor-raising skills.

Injuries and aging complicate any analysis of Magic’s first retirement. Vlade Divac missed half of the 1992 season, and when he returned, Worthy — rapidly declining with age — missed the remainder of the year. The Lakers finished around .500, and in their only full-strength stretch (all of 11 games) they played at a 50-win pace (2.9 SRS). The offense finished right around average. Even five years after HIV abruptly ended his career, Johnson’s presence helped the ’96 team on offense (while hurting the defense): LA posted a +2.3 rORtg (51-win pace) in 38 games with Eddie Jones, and then a +7.4 rORtg (59-win pace) in 32 games when Magic suited up next to Jones.

And then there is the ceiling.

Magic is #1 in regular season win%
He is also #1 in playoff win%

He has won 5 championships along with 10 2nd-place finishes and his teams managed Duncan-esque consistency:

Doctor MJ wrote:On the longevity front, I've walked it back a bit. While I'm still fine using extended longevity as a tiebreaker, I'm generally more focused in what a player can do in 5-10 years, because for the most part that's when a franchise can expect to build a contender with you. And of course, Magic had that. In Magic's 12 years before the HIV retirement, the Lakers had an amount of success that's just plain staggering for any career.

12 years. 12 years 50+ wins. 32 playoff series wins.

For the record, if my count is correct, LeBron himself only has 12 50+ win years (though he does have 41 playoff series victories).

So yeah, Magic packed in so much success into his career, that it's hard to take seriously longevity as that big of concern to me. Tiebreaker at most really.

Of course he had help and I don't want to just elevate the guy because he had more help...but being the star and leader of the team having the most dominant decade run since Russell is not something to be brushed aside lightly. I think we need to be very careful about assuming other guys have a comparable realistic ceiling.

[/spoiler]

OhayoKD · Post #11 » by **OhayoKD** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 3:29 pm

VOTE: Kevin Garnett
-> one of the most valuable players ever,
->incredible longevity,
-> did rather well despite sub-optimal situations for most of his prime,
-> showed out at his best in the playoffs despite his best help getting hurt.
-> won a title post-prime with mvpish impact(bitw case isn't very strong with the minutes played, but hard to say he wasn't at least top 5)

might decide on an alternate later(kobe and magic main candidates here)

NOMINATE: Mikan

Don't really feel strongly about any of the more modern candidates at this point. Probably the 2nd most dominant player ever era-relative so it probably is a mistake to let him fall to 19 like he did last time.

lessthanjake · Post #12 » by **lessthanjake** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 4:09 pm

I really like Magic, and honestly would’ve had him above a couple players already inducted. But I do think there’s something that a lot of people at this point miss, in large part because I think a lot of people at this point aren’t old enough to have watched basketball in the 1980s. And that is this: The Western Conference was really weak in Magic’s era.

For instance, these are the SRS of the teams the Lakers faced prior to the finals, from their first title year (1979-1980) through their last title year (1987-1988):

Lakers’ Western Conference Playoff Opponent SRS in 1979-1980 to 1987-1988

4.24
3.59
3.25
3.10
3.05
2.96
2.80
2.10
2.05
1.88
1.79
0.69
0.65
0.15
0.08
-0.20
-1.14
-1.62
-2.06
-2.34
-2.54
-5.02

The West really just didn’t have good opposition the entire time. Indeed, the Lakers made the finals 7 times in 9 years while *never* facing a 5 SRS team, and only facing one 4 SRS team!

And here’s a list of the few 3+ SRS teams that the Lakers faced in the western conference playoffs in that time period:

- 4.24 SRS: 1979-1980 Sonics, led by Gus Williams, Dennis Johnson, and Jack Sikma
- 3.59 SRS: 1987-1988 Mavericks, led by Mark Aguirre
- 3.25 SRS: 1979-1980 Suns, led by Paul Westphal and Walter Davis
- 3.10 SRS: 1982-1983 Spurs, led by George Gervin
- 3.05 SRS: 1981-1982 Suns, led by Dennis Johnson and Truck Robinson

So, even the few Western Conference teams that had pretty good SRS were mostly not led by major stars. The series against those teams were also disproportionately from the earlier years where Kareem was probably the team’s best player anyways. The most difficult series was definitely the one against the defending champion 1979-1980 Sonics—but of course at that point Kareem was the main protagonist for the Lakers.

In the Lakers’ title runs in the years where Magic was the best player on the team (i.e. 1985, 1987, and 1988), these were the SRS of the teams the Lakers faced leading up to the finals:

Lakers’ Western Conference Playoff Opponent SRS in 1985, 1987, and 1988

3.59
2.96
2.80
2.05
0.08
-1.14
-2.34
-2.54
-5.02

Granted, from 1989-1991, they did actually face some higher SRS teams in the Western Conference. They beat the 6.84 SRS 1988-1989 Suns and the 8.47 SRS 1990-1991 Blazers, and lost to the 7.04 SRS 1989-1990 Suns. And they also beat good teams in the finals that they won over the years. So I’m not saying Magic was incapable of beating really good teams. Obviously that’s not true! But I do think we have to recognize that the chances of success were made substantially higher by the fact that they basically didn’t have good teams in their conference in essentially the entire era of their title runs, and definitely not in the title years where Magic was the team’s best player. If they had faced good teams, I’m sure they still would’ve beaten those good teams plenty, but it also seems to me that there’d have probably been more years like 1989-1990, where the Lakers lost before the finals to a really good team.

Post #13 » by **penbeast0** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 4:11 pm

I'm choosing between Curry, Garnett, and Magic here.

Curry has the modernity edge where he has been the other dominant player to this board's #1 LeBron pick over the last decade. His gravity is the most extreme of the 3 with his ability to hit not just 3s, but really long 3s at a ridiculously effective clip warping defenses.

Garnett is the two way star of the 3, and being on miserable teams for so long, he tends to be underrated as defensive stars tend to. That said, his teams didn't allow him to show much in the playoffs during his years as a #1 option so he is missing the playoff resume of Magic or Curry.

Magic is arguably the greatest playmaker in NBA history (Stockton and Paul have claims as well) as well as providing scoring, rebounding, mismatches, pretty much everything but defense. He played on one of the most stacked teams of all time but he quickly became its engine and led it to great success. He also is one of the great locker room guys to ever play; he gets, or should get, a lot of credit for reinvigorating Kareem who had become really self-isolating and that's why the Magic era Lakers had so much more success than the Nixon/Wilkes/Kareem era version. His longevity is less than Garnett or even Curry because of the HIV issues.

It's very close between these 3 with Bird and Kobe a level back with several as yet unnominated players.

VOTE: Curry -- the era strength differential over Magic was my decision maker as I do not have the early 80s as a strong NBA era.

ALTERNATIVE: Magic -- intangibles and playoff resume over Garnett.

NOMINATE: Mikan -- the one guy left who really dominated his era, though that era was admittedly very weak. After him I am looking at Jerry West and Kevin Durant.

homecourtloss · Post #14 » by **homecourtloss** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 6:31 pm

Official vote: KG

His highly versatile skill set on both offense and defense show up in his box score metrics as well as in his gaudy impact metrics. It is highly rare that you see someone with his skill set and physical attributes also possess a nonstop motor that made him an impact monster second year out of high school. Anyone remember him in 1997 or 1998 switching out onto guards out on the perimeter and doing an incredible job? It’s likely that he would be highly, highly impactful regardless of what era he played in, i.e., todays game, the early 2010s (known), the 2000s (known), the late 1990s (known), the 1990s, the 1980s, etc., as all of his attributes would translate, including his creation skills, which are always a huge plus for bigs. A player like this is so incredibly easy to build around in a variety of ways. When in his later prime in which he had talent around him and we saw winning results. The longevity and basic inelasticity of his impact also add to his case.

I want to put a few things out there about Kevin Garnett and his impact signals, i.e., longevity of impact, prime stretches with possible peaks though know that we need, at least about three years worth of data for some sort of stabilization in RAPM.

Just below LeBron, KG has been the dominant databall monster.

Englemann’s 1997-2022 PI RS+PS RAPM with confidence levels we have some Interesting data for CP3 and Stockton as when they come around as well.

1. LeBron, +9.1, lower bound +7.9, upper bound +10.3 [absurd lower bound here that’s higher than most upper bounds]
2. KG, +8.4, lower bound +7.0, upper bound +9.9 [also absurd lower bound that speaks to the inelasticity of his impact]
7. Jordan, +6.9, lower bound +4.9, upper bound +9.4 [strong signals from small sample]
10. Draymond, +6.6, lower bound +4.5, upper bound 8.6
11. Curry, +6.4, lower bound +4.7, upper bound 8.2
17. Shaq, +5.8, lower bound +4.3, upper bound 7.4

Look at JE’s 95% confidence levels for KG’s LOWER BOUND. Along with LeBron’s lower bound, it far outpaces everyone’s on the list by an astounding amount. KG’s lower bound, for example, is close to Curry’s UPPERBOUND.

In Cheema’s 1997-2022 PI RS+PS RAPM Five Year Intervals

1. LeBron, 2012-2016, +6.46
2. LeBron, 2013-2017, +6.27
3. KG, 2003-2007, +6.17
4. LeBron, 2006-2010, +6.10
5. KG, 2000-2004, +6.01
6. Duncan, 2001-2005, +6.00
7. Duncan, 1993-2004, +6.00
8. KG, 2002-2006, +5.98
9. Curry, 2014-2018, +5.81
10. KG, 2001-2005, +5.76
11. Lebron, 2016-2020, +5.76
12. Wade, 2006-10, +5.73 2
13. LeBron, 2005-09, +5.73
14. LeBron, 2008-12, +5.71
15. Duncan, 2000-04, +5.68
16. KG, 2004-08, +5.64
17. Chris Paul, 2012-16, +5.64
18. Chris Paul, 2013-17, +5.61
19. Curry, 2013-17, +5.60
20. Duncan, 2003-07, +5.58

In Englemann’s 1997-2019 PI RS+PS RAPM single seasons

Player, Year, Offense, Defense (+ is good in this case), Total

1. Kevin Garnett, 2003-04, +5.5, +4.51, +10.01
2. Kevin Garnett, 2008-09, +3.06, +6.68, +9.73
3. LeBron James, 2010-11, +6.24, +3.27, +9.5
4. LeBron James, 2011-12, +6.35, +2.94, +9.29
5. Tim Duncan, 2002-03 , +4.01, +5.11,+9.11
6. LeBron James, 2009-10, +7.05, +2.01, +9.05
7. Kevin Garnett, 2007-08, +3.00, +5.96, +8.97
8. Draymond Green, 2015-16, +3.94, +4.91, +8.85
9. LeBron James, 2008-09, +6.28, +2.56, +8.84
10. LeBron James, 2014-15, +6.82, +1.95, +8.77
11. LeBron James, 2015-16, +5.52, +3.1, +8.62
12. Shaquille O'Neal, 1999-00, +6.21, +2.31, +8.52
13. Tim Duncan, 2004-05, +3.07, +5.4, +8.47
14. Kevin Garnett, 2004-05, +4.71, +3.54, +8.25
15. Stephen Curry, 2016-17, +6.68, +1.47, +8.15
17. Kevin Garnett, 2002-03, +4.5, +3.5, +8.00
18. Alonzo Mourning, 1998-99, +2.99, +4.87, +7.85
19. Manu Ginobili, 2006-07, +5.11, +2.56, +7.67
20. Tim Duncan, 2003-04 , +2.67, +4.97, +7.64
21. Shaquille O'Neal, 1998-99, +5.93, +1.7, +7.63
22. Shaquille O'Neal, 1997-98, +5.06, +2.5, +7.55
23. Shaquille O'Neal, 2003-04, +4.75, +2.74, +7.49[/quote]

Alternate: Magic Johnson

An offensive savant with a natural feel for the game whose impact signals look as strong as anyone’s in the ‘80s and early ‘90s (WOWYR, Squared2020’s partial RAPM samples). @rk2023 sums up his impact signals well (and makes a good case for why his longevity or relative lack thereof is not a function of his game not holding up but rather through forces outside of his control

rk2023 wrote:- 9 seasons and PS campaigns in the 100th percentile in Thinking Basketball's Passer Rating
- Monster grades in Jacobs' historical RAPM for 1985 & 88 (Am aware this is a very small sample and only a 1 year RAPM sample)
- Pretty solid on-court track record (atl at glance) from Jacobs' career tracking of Magic's +/-. Checks out given the Lakers' impressive team data in the Magic era. https://squared2020.com/2022/07/22/some-magic-johnson-plus-minus-numbers/
- Consistently high WOWY scores, regardless of statistical method, in Moonbeam's modeling
https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=107785464#p107785464
- Furthermore, Lakers PS rORTG(s) in 3 year increments from when Magic "took the reigns" in 1984 (so starting with 1984-86):
8.0, 9.1, 8.3, 9.0, 8.2, 7.2

One of my favorite things to watch is Johnson dribbling the ball up to the left side of the court turn his back, dribble from the post, make a move into the lane, naturally bump off body, contact, and work his way into a little skyhook or a little finger roll. He also had that hard dribble to his left, starting from the right side of the key, and then finishing in the lane to be honest with you, he probably should have taken more shots given how highly efficient he was in his half court offense, but then again he was a creator par excellence. How many times have you watched him at the top of the key and throw a pass onto the right side of the lane by the basket seemingly into the middle of nowhere, but somehow those seemingly nowhere passes would find his teammates coming off of the double picks set on the left side…he was brilliant.

Nominate: George Mikan

eminence · Post #15 » by **eminence** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 6:56 pm

ijspeelman wrote:Do we have any WOWY figures for Mikan?

Just curious how dominant he was era-adjusted to some of the guys coming up. I have a hard time rating him in general due to the lack of data and film.

I was looking at his rookie season with the Gears in the NBL, so I remember those while I'm on mobile.

Adjusted to 82 game schedule:
41 win pace in '46 without Mikan
39 win pace in '47 in games Mikan didn't play (I want to say he was finishing up some university things, 9-10 without him)
56 win pace in '47 with Mikan (17-8 with him)

Drop from '54 to '55 and his first retirement not very extreme, something like 6 or 7 win pace drop.

I believe he only missed 6 games while with the Lakers (4 in '48 and 2 in '52), so no real mid career WOWY numbers to speak of.

lessthanjake · Post #16 » by **lessthanjake** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 7:46 pm

homecourtloss wrote:Just below LeBron, KG has been the dominant databall monster.

Career-wide RAPM vs. Prime RAPM

I think it’s perfectly plausible that Garnett may have a higher *career* RAPM—which you cite two analyses suggesting. Curry spent the first few years of his career having lots of injury issues and not being used optimally and wasn’t as impactful as Garnett was early, and at this point those early years make up a higher percent of his career games, so they’d naturally bring down his career number a good bit.

But I think it’s hard to really argue in any convincing way that prime Garnett was superior in impact metrics to prime Curry.

Engelmann single-season RAPM doesn’t actually make prime Garnett look better than prime Curry

The only example you give that gets to that question at all is a list of the top Engelmann single-season RAPM scores. But those are plainly scaled year to year, which you yourself have on numerous occasions insisted makes comparisons between the numbers completely and utterly useless. So it is an invalid point, based on your own arguments.

What we could potentially compare with that data set is placement in the league by year. The data set only goes through 2018-2019, so we don’t have the last few years for Curry, but prime Curry’s average placement in the league for the years that are there (2013-2014 to 2018-2019) is 3.5. Meanwhile, in the 2000’s, Garnett’s average placement in the league was 8.8. Much better for Curry. Granted, a lot of that is due to one very low ranking in one season for Garnett, but even his best 5-year span in the decade had an average placement of 3.6. So, this has data only for half of Steph’s prime, and, overall, prime Garnett doesn’t look better than prime Curry in this when we look at league placement rather than raw score (and, again, you’ve previously stated that comparing raw scores across years is completely invalid).

Other impact measures make prime Curry look better than prime Garnett

And that’s just one measure—the one that’s probably most favorable to Garnett. There’s also a couple other impact measures that we have year-to-year data on going back through Garnett’s prime: RPM and AuPM/g. Indeed, these are much better measures for these purposes than the single-season Engelmann stuff, because they don’t stop at 2018-2019, so we can actually look at Curry’s whole prime.

What do we find when we look at league placement in those measures?

Well, Steph’s average league placement in the last decade in RPM is 4.56. Garnett’s best decade in terms of average league placement in RPM (1999-2000 to 2008-2009) is 5.20. Meanwhile, Steph’s average league placement in the last decade in AuPM/g is 3.78. Garnett’s average league placement in AuPM/g in 1999-2000 to 2008-2009 is 6.30. So prime Curry was placing higher in the league on average in these impact metrics than prime Garnett did!

Finally, similar to the Engelmann stuff, the GitHub RAPM has data through 2018-2019. Prime Steph’s average league placement in that is 2.83. In contrast, Garnett’s best decade in terms of average league placement in the GitHub RAPM has an average league placement of 12.3 (and his best comparable timespan to what this measure has for prime Steph was an average league placement of 9.5). So, again, prime Steph looks better than prime Garnett—this time by a lot.

[And to the extent you might now care about comparing players’ actual impact metric scores across different years (which you’ve alternately said is useless but then later used here as a basis for your argument), I’ll note that Steph’s average RPM score in the last decade has been 7.97, while Garnett’s average RPM score in his best decade (1999-2000 to 2008-2009) was just 5.72. Garnett only had *one season* in his entire career in which his RPM was as high as Steph’s *average* for the last decade! Similarly, Steph’s average AuPM/g score in the last decade was 5.36, while Garnett’s average AuPM/g score in 1999-2000 to 2008-2009 was just 4.54. Garnett only had *two seasons* in his entire career in which his AuPM/g was as high as Steph’s *average* for the last decade! Prime Steph’s average GitHub RAPM is 5.4817, while Garnett’s best comparable timespan had an average of 4.675.]

Conclusion

The bottom line is that there’s actually very little data to suggest that prime Garnett was as highly rated in terms of impact metrics as prime Steph. In fact, the evidence we have pretty strongly suggests the opposite! Granted, one could still vote for Garnett over Steph just based on longevity (though I think Curry more than counters that with substantially more team achievement), but, while cross-era comparisons are difficult with impact measures, we do actually have good reason to think that prime vs. prime, Steph has been superior to Garnett in impact metrics.

ShaqAttac · Post #17 » by **ShaqAttac** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 9:15 pm

lessthanjake wrote:
homecourtloss wrote:Just below LeBron, KG has been the dominant databall monster.

Career-wide RAPM vs. Prime RAPM

[/quote]
I'm confused. why are you ignoring the average for kg and then using averages for steph? if i was readin right jokic peaked higher by the impact stuff. seems like it depends on what stats you use. also why do u keep using github. doesnt it have no source?

im not gonna say much more since im on thin ice but i dont think why you should be saying bottom line for things that people put good args against. It also seems like your putting in a bunch of stuff with slashlines in it so idk how much it got to do with steph being the impact king or whatever.

anyway im gonna vote

KG
He and Magic probs got the best impact and kg played alot more. Mikan hasn't been nommed yet but I would have voted him instead. KG seems to have better impact than shaq who got voted and he crazy good on d and really good on o. has the best rapm of anyone i think and 2004 goes crazy

idk if im gonna vote kobe or magic. magic better impact but kobe better longetvity and both won about the same. apparently bens thing says kobe actually more impact for his career but magic woulda been higher because of hiv so i dont know who to pick. steph impact also look better than i thought in the wowy thing so maybe i vote him 2nd. he aint all that in the playoffs though so i really dont know.

NOM
MIKAN

I wanna vote MIKAN for 2 but imma keep my vote in case i need to use it for bron.

This is also p simple. He was waay better than everyone else in a waay no one else was, was the best on o and d, and won 7 rings.

DoctorMJ wrote:George Mikan (1924) "Mr. Basketball", 6'10" center, the first true big man, 7 total pro titles with Chicago Gears & Lakers

Image
Origin: Illinois
College: DePaul
Series Wins: 23
All-League 1st Team: 8 times
Star-Prime: 8 seasons
POY wins: 8, POY shares: 8.0
OPOY wins: 3, OPOY shares: 3.8
DPOY wins: 6, DPOY shares: 6.2

The obvious top player from the era so maybe not a ton to be gleaned from going into further detail, but some observations:

- Mikan appears to have been the best offensive player in pro basketball basically from the time he turned pro. Eventually others arrive in the league to top him, but he remains elite until the rule change of 1951 that widened the key from 6 to 12 feet specifically to stop him. From that point onward, while Mikan likely remained the best rebounder in the world, it seems that the rule change did have the desired effect.

- Mikan almost certainly would have been an even more impactful defender from the jump if not for the banning of goaltending. As it was, it seems like it took Mikan some time to re-optimize his defensive play. He had a recurring issue of foul trouble that was often the Achilles heel for his teams win the lost.

- So far as I can tell, Mikan's defensive dominance in the NBA was less about shotblocking and more about rebounding. Certainly the shotblocking threat was there to a degree, but in a league with such weak shooting percentage, rebounding was arguably king.

ik we dont got data, but he won the 2nd most and he was way better than every1 else. Seems like a simple 2 to me.

Hope that was good!

People are nominating KG but Mikan was probably better. I don't know KG's argument that well though. [/quote]
hoping i can start voting for him

iggymcfrack · Post #18 » by **iggymcfrack** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 9:28 pm

Vote: Kevin Garnett
So we all know about KG's incredible impact numbers and how his box numbers underrate his contributions, but did you know he's actually 5th all-time in VORP? And that's with him ranking 37th in BPM in a year where he ranked 3rd in RAPM so you know that even that measure is undervaluing him.

If you compare him to his primary competition here in Magic Johnson, it's very unclear who has the better peak. According to Englemann's RAPM, KG has the 2 best seasons over a 23 year span in 03/04 and 08/09. Haralabob, the top NBA sports bettor of all-time who did most of his defensive evaluations with the eye test through exhaustive tape study of every single game also had KG's 2004 as the top season of all the ones measured in his database. So peak is either advantage KG or best-case for Magic a push.

But the longevity isn't even close. KG has 14 seasons that rank in the top 130 of a 23 year-RAPM database. So that's basically a top 6 player. Those are all seasons that are contributing massively to winning and championship equity. Those aren't even all his majorly impactful seasons either as that misses the 01/02 season where he had a 6.8 BPM with a +10.1 on/off in the regular season and a 6.3 BPM with a +46.6 on/off in the postseason. So he's got at minimum 15 highly effective seasons. By contrast, Magic only played 12 seasons before having to retire due to HIV and that includes the '81 season where he missed most of the regular season injured and then played poorly in a first round loss in the playoffs when he came back.

Honestly, I think KG has a very strong case that he should have gone as high as #3. All the data we have suggests that he's the best choice available in pretty much any way you look at it. Peak, prime, career, he does it all. The idea that he falls off in the playoffs has been used against him, but that doesn't really hold up to scrutiny either. His box score numbers dip a pretty typical amount, and his on/off numbers actually get better in the postseason, going from +11.3 to +14.5.

Here's how that playoff on/off compares to other candidates from the data-ball era as well as players who have gone already who peaked after 1997:

Playoff on/off
Garnett +14.5
Curry +12.0
Shaq +11.7
LeBron +10.2
Kobe +7.6
Duncan +7.5

Even though we can't make a 100% apples to apples comparison across all fields between KG and players from the '80s, I think it's clear that he checks every single box and deserves to be selected now.

Alternate: Steph Curry
Closest thing to KG and LeBron in impact numbers from the data-ball era. Numbers are slightly behind Magic overall, but peak higher and Steph also played tougher defense in a tougher era. I'd have the 2 players very close, but would give a slight edge to Steph.

Nominate: David Robinson
All-time defender at as high of a level as anyone other than Russell who also led the league in PER 3 times, WS/48 5 times, and BPM 3 times with a lot less dip in the playoffs than you might think. His playoff on/off of +18.9 is I believe higher than anyone else in the history of the NBA even though it wasn't tracked until his age 32 season when he was playing alongside Duncan who he was often staggered with.

lessthanjake · Post #19 » by **lessthanjake** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 9:36 pm

ShaqAttac wrote:I'm confused. why are you ignoring the average for kg and then using averages for steph? if i was readin right jokic peaked higher by the impact stuff. seems like it depends on what stats you use. also why do u keep using github. doesnt it have no source?

im not gonna say much more since im on thin ice but i dont think why you should be saying bottom line for things that people put good args against. It also seems like you’re putting in a bunch of stuff with slashlines in it so idk how much it got to do with steph being the impact king or whatever.

I have no idea what you mean by “ignoring the average for kg and then using averages for steph” so I’d direct you to carefully read my post again, and then if you still have a question, then articulate the question in a precise and meaningful way.

Jokic has been the best in impact metrics in the last three years, but not over the last decade as a whole, and I’ve provided extensive data showing that Steph has placed higher on average in impact metrics over the last decade than Jokic has even just in the last 5 years. I’m hoping Jokic keeps it going for many years, but the last decade has been Steph’s in terms of impact data.

I don’t know what you mean by “a bunch of stuff with slashlines.” To the extent you mean impact-box composites like RAPTOR or EPM or RPM, you should understand that these metrics are measuring impact and simply incorporating box info into the model in order to help make the impact estimates more accurate. And it is generally considered that doing so is in fact superior to raw RAPM, but Steph looks great in raw RAPM anyways (which I’ve provided as well). So this is a non-issue. But I don’t actually even know what you’re referring to for sure, since your post was really vague without much of any explanation.

homecourtloss · Post #20 » by **homecourtloss** » Tue Jul 25, 2023 9:45 pm

ShaqAttac wrote:I'm confused. why are you ignoring the average for kg and then using averages for steph? if i was readin right jokic peaked higher by the impact stuff. seems like it depends on what stats you use. also why do u keep using github. doesnt it have no source?

im not gonna say much more since im on thin ice but i dont think why you should be saying bottom line for things that people put good args against. It also seems like you’re putting in a bunch of stuff with slashlines in it so idk how much it got to do with steph being the impact king or whatever.

We currently have two RS+PS RAPM sources: JE’s sets and Cheema’s; if someone knows of other RAPM sources that are both regular season and post season, please link them as they would be interesting to look at.

Englemann’s 1997-2022 PI RS+PS RAPM with confidence levels

Englemann’s 1997-2019 PI RS+PS RAPM single seasons

1. LeBron, +9.1, lower bound +7.9, upper bound +10.3 [absurd lower bound here that’s higher than most upper bounds]
2. KG, +8.4, lower bound +7.0, upper bound +9.9 [also absurd lower bound that speaks to the inelasticity of his impact]
7. Jordan, +6.9, lower bound +4.9, upper bound +9.4 [strong signals from small sample]
10. Draymond, +6.6, lower bound +4.5, upper bound 8.6
11. Curry, +6.4, lower bound +4.7, upper bound 8.2

If you took out Currys rookie year, this would look a little bit better for him, but it wouldn’t make up the entire gap. Every year after his rookie season, curry shows up as a highly Impactful player.:

Rookie year 2009-2010: -.37, 2,896 minutes
2010-2011: +2.07, 2,489 minutes
2011-2012: +3.59, 732 minutes
2012-2013: +4.41, 3,390 minutes

JE’s set includes all of KG’s years including when he’s 35, 36, 37, 38, 39 years of age when impact diminishes, even with an aging curve applied. The thing is that no matter what, and no matter how young Kevin Garnett was or how old he got, he had positive impact; someone like Stephen Curry might not be “used optimally,” as a younger player and not provide impact, but Kevin Garnett’s impact was such that there was NO WAY that you could prevent him from having outsized impact no matter how he was used, which adds to the longevity of his impact, and the inelasticity of his impact. As a second year player, two years out of high school, KG is delivering monster impact by being a defensive monster, being able to switch onto everything, and improving on offense as a player who offensive rebounds well, is becoming a better passer, and shoots efficiently though doesn’t draw falls.

If we did include his rookie season and had play-by-play data, his lower bound wouldn’t be as high, but I don’t think the lower bound would be affected enough to make up the difference even if you took out Curry's first year. So, they are closer in their primes, but KG’s prime, seemingly never ended until he got quite old and not even then.

1996-1997: +4.71, 3,120 minutes
2013-2014: +3.46, 1,359 minutes
2015-2016: +3.4, 556 minutes
2014-2015: +1.53, 952 minutes
2000-2001: +1.5, 3,367 minutes

Then we have Cheema’s 1997-2022 PI RS+PS RAPM Five Year Intervals

Here we see that KG’s best five year intervals are stronger than Curry’s best 5 year intervals.

1. LeBron, 2012-2016, +6.46
2. LeBron, 2013-2017, +6.27
3. KG, 2003-2007, +6.17
4. LeBron, 2006-2010, +6.10
5. KG, 2000-2004, +6.01
6. Duncan, 2001-2005, +6.00
7. Duncan, 1993-2004, +6.00
8. KG, 2002-2006, +5.98
9. Curry, 2014-2018, +5.81
10. KG, 2001-2005, +5.76
11. Lebron, 2016-2020, +5.76
12. Wade, 2006-10, +5.73 2
13. LeBron, 2005-09, +5.73
14. LeBron, 2008-12, +5.71
15. Duncan, 2000-04, +5.68
16. KG, 2004-08, +5.64
17. Chris Paul, 2012-16, +5.64
18. Chris Paul, 2013-17, +5.61
19. Curry, 2013-17, +5.60
20. Duncan, 2003-07, +5.58

In the two sources that we have for both postseason and regular season, Kevin Garnett has higher single season, higher career by a significant margin, and has the highest five year intervals. But they are close. Two outsized impact makers, delivering the impact in different ways.