David Robinson vs Kevin Garnett

[Matt15]

Prime only, who was the better player?

[Rishkar]

Great comparison. Both are top 6 defenders ever in my book, and somewhat inconsistent offensive anchors (who are more suited to a secondary role). Both have been criticized for their playoff performance, both played on some truly awful rosters in their prime before eventually winning a championship when they had a good supporting cast. I think I'd lean Robinson because of the regular season dominance. Regular season Robinson might be the GOAT, he was just insanely valuable (and KG certainly was as well).

[LukaTheGOAT]

I had a long write-up, initially expecting that I would favor of Robinson. However, after a lot of research, I got to the end, and wasn't so certain anymore. So I'm all ears.

[OhayoKD]

Unless we ignore the playoffs, it's clearly KG

[70sFan]

Unless we ignore the playoffs, it's clearly KG

I have Garnett ahead of Robinson on my all-time list, but what did Garnett do in his prime in the playoffs to separate himself from Robinson?

[OhayoKD]

Unless we ignore the playoffs, it's clearly KG

I have Garnett ahead of Robinson on my all-time list, but what did Garnett do in his prime in the playoffs to separate himself from Robinson?

His teams generally whelmed as opposed to underwhelming, his numbers mantained as opposed to falling off, and 2004 was handily the best playoff performance between them imo(fwiw, by rolling rating, the team actually was playing a bit better than their regular-season selves until cassell's injury).

I don't really care too much about 2008 but I'd take that over any of Drob's title campaigns.

[70sFan]

Unless we ignore the playoffs, it's clearly KG

I have Garnett ahead of Robinson on my all-time list, but what did Garnett do in his prime in the playoffs to separate himself from Robinson?

His teams generally whelmed as opposed to underwhelming, his numbers mantained as opposed to falling off, and 2004 was handily the best playoff performance between them imo(fwiw, by rolling rating, the team actually was playing a bit better than their regular-season selves until cassell's injury).

I don't really care too much about 2008 but I'd take that over any of Drob's title campaigns.

His teams generally lost badly, as they were supposed to. Robinson carried his teams to better records, so people expected more from them. So this argument basically says that Garnett didn't underwhelm, because he lost series he expected to lose.

Garnett's numbers didn't maintain in the playoffs most of the time. Sample is incredibly small, but the signal doesn't show it at all.

I agree that 2004 is likely better than anything Robinson ever did, but I don't like judging whole primes on one season.

2008 is better than 1999, but 1999 run doesn't have much value in this discussion.

[FuShengTHEGreat]

David Robinson right off the bat as a rookie was already better than any version of KG as far as I'm concerned.

Then his GOAT tier 95-96 floor raising regular season and lukewarm playoff performance (fantastic vs Phoenix.....lousy vs Utah) tops anything KG did as well.

I'd take David Robinson over KG without hesitation.

[OhayoKD]

I have Garnett ahead of Robinson on my all-time list, but what did Garnett do in his prime in the playoffs to separate himself from Robinson?

His teams generally whelmed as opposed to underwhelming, his numbers mantained as opposed to falling off, and 2004 was handily the best playoff performance between them imo(fwiw, by rolling rating, the team actually was playing a bit better than their regular-season selves until cassell's injury).

I don't really care too much about 2008 but I'd take that over any of Drob's title campaigns.

His teams generally lost badly, as they were supposed to. Robinson carried his teams to better records, so people expected more from them. So this argument basically says that Garnett didn't underwhelm, because he lost series he expected to lose.

Well then it comes down to whether those worse rs records were a result of worse help or worse play(and if both, to what degree). Pretty much every sourced RAPM suggests Minny KG was the 2nd or 3rd best rs floor-raiser of the last 30 years(if you ignore Boston it's probably interchangeable with Duncan).

For WOWY I like to filter at 10-games but that doesn't exist for Minesotta Garnett excepting the year before he was drafted so applying a 3-game filter:


1995(82 games) -> 22-wins, -8.22 SRS without KG(with 80 games(and 43 starts) of 19 yo KG in 96, they are 26-win and -5.16)
1997(5 games) -> 0-5 and -18 net without KG(Over 77 games with 20 year old KG(all starts), they are -0.5 net and 42-35 with)
1999(3 games) -> 1-2, -3 net without KG(24-23, +0.6 net with)
2006(6 games) -> 2-4, -9 net (26-31, -1.6 net with)
2007(6 games) -> 0-6, -19.9 net (32-44, -2.7 net with)

Doing this with the Spurs

1989(82 games) -> 21 wins, -7.5 SRS(56-wins and +3 SRS with 82 starts from 24 yo Drob in 1990)
1992(14 games) -> 5-9(no net available for some reason) (42-26, +4 net with)
1997(76 games) ->17-59(no net here too for some reason) (3-3, -0.6 net with, 59-23 and +5 SRS if we use 1996)

Idk why there's no net-rating for Spurs without on statmuse(you can find that for Jordan in the same time period) and I haven't looked at the full season to season context of each year, but KG's teams do seem to look worse generally without him than Drob's. Some of that expectation disparity was also a result of a stronger western conference: KG has three 50-win teams finish with a 3rd seed. Both of D-rob's sub-50 win teams get the 2nd seed. KG's teams were still worse in general, I don't know that means KG was carrying significantly less in the RS.

That said, you're right KG's teams didn't really get much chance to disappoint. The trade-off there is he also didn't get much chance to impress(which severely limits him in comparisons to arguably worse rs-players like Shaq and Duncan). Robinson got the chance to do both, and not only did he tend to dissapoint, it was often extremely dissapointing. People focus on 1995, but 91, 92, and 1994 were alot bigger underperformances. It's one thing to ne upset in a competitive series(or even a not competitive series) to the eventual champions. It's another thing to combine for 1 win in 7 games against two teams who combined for 2-wins in 10 tries in the very next playoff series. Losing to the Jazz as 1-point srs favorite is one thing. Performing, by far, the worst against them is another and now we've covered nearly half the runs of said prime.

Maybe KG would have done the same thing, but he might have also done alot better like we saw him do in a similar situation(2004), and I'm skeptical with all of the above(paticularly his extremely strong and consistent rapm stuff) that drob had significant leeway there from the RS. It would be one thing if he his underperformances were just him almost beating champions like Kareem or Nash but he's not even getting there mostly.

As is when KG was in a similarish boat probably once in Minesotta and he comfortably handled who he was supposed to blow-out(probably by more), beat an evenly matched foe, and then, even with his only notable teammate of those Minny years struggling to stay on the court from game 1, his team played against another formidable team pretty close(6 games, 2 mov loss). Maybe it was a one-off and 2003 KG(who looks similarish to 2004 kg in the rs by lineup-data at least) does something similar to what Malone did. But the lack of oppurtunity swings both ways.

Garnett's numbers didn't maintain in the playoffs most of the time. Sample is incredibly small, but the signal doesn't show it at all.

Hmm, could you mean here? I'm not saying any of this is comprehensive/definitive but as a starting point comparing a player specifically to himself...

-> KG's on/off goes up for his career and a slightly down in Minesotta(+11.3 to +14 for the former, +12 to +10 for the latter)
-> KG's PER goes from 22 to 21 for his career and 23.7 to 23.3 in Minesotta(up in 01, 02, and 04, down in 99, 00, and 03)
-> KG's BPM goes down from 5.6 to 5.1 for his career and stays at 6.2 to 6.2 in Minesotta
-> KG's WS/48 goes from .182 to .149 for his career and .185 to .162 in Minesotta
-> For his career, KG's points goes from 17.8 to 18.2 and for his Minesotta years it goes from 19.8 to 22.3
-> For his career, KG's assists go from 3.7 to 3.3. For Minesotta they go from 4.3 to 5
For his career, KG's true-shooting goes from .543 to .526. For Minesotta it goes from .543 to .511
For his career, KG's tov% goes from 11.8% to 12.01, For Minesotta it goes from 12 to 13.6%
For his career, KG's rebounds go from 10 to 10.7. For Minesotta they go from 11 to 13.4
For his Career steals go from 1.3 to 1.2. For Minesotta they go from 1.4 to 1.3
For his career blocks go from 1.4 to 1.3. For Minesotta they go from 1.6 to 1.9

-> Don't have pre-duncan on/off but it would be unfair not to mention he looks amazing in limited minutes there(goes from +6.1 to +18.9)
-> Drob's PER drops from 26 to 23 for his career (notably his PER is mantains in the Duncan years while KG's collapses post-Minny)
-> Drob's BPM drops from 7.5 to 6.2 for his career(Note: 2 of Drob's 3 highest playoff BPM's come in limited minutes with Duncan with whom his marks generally go up in the playoffs
-> Drob's ws/48 goes from .250 to .199 (Note: 4 of 7 of Drob's best marks here come with Duncan with his biggest drops coming pre-Duncan)
Drobs points go from 21.1 to 18.1 for his career, pretty sure points are going down pre-Duncan by lazy eyeball but feel free to vet
Drobs assists go from 2.5 to 2.3 for his career, i would say up pre-duncan but..lazy eyeball again(i'm sleepy now)
Drob Rebounds stay at 10.6 for career, i think down pre-duncan but it's close
Drob true-shooting goes from .583 to .547 for his career, goes down pre-duncan but no idea how much(collapses from 93-95, goes a bit down in 90, goes up in 91 and 96)
Drob tov% goes from 11.9 to 12.1 for his career. Looks samish pre-duncan
Drob Steals go 1.4 to 1.2, peaks pre-duncan in the RS, peaks with Duncan in the playoffs
Drob blocks go from 3 to 2.5 for his career, peaks pre-duncan but disparity is clearly bigger in the regular-season than playoffs

Not going to get too into how the all-in-ones compare to each other(am guessing prime for prime kg looks a bit better in the playoffs, drob in the rs and then drob mantains better in his post-prime for better career marks with the benefit of playing less minutes for both in general and the hindrance of playing more playoff minutes for his prime) since they are different enough players(playmaking/ball-handling/switchabilty vs scoring/rim-protecting) that changing what you count can swing it to the other way...but in terms of internal translation

-> KG offsets effiency drop-off with volume going up, drob doesn't
-> KG seems to translate better with these numbers during high min minesotta years than post-prime(possible this is offset the other way defensively)
-> Drob translates better post-prime with Duncan playing lower minutes

I agree that 2004 is likely better than anything Robinson ever did, but I don't like judging whole primes on one season.

Sure.

2008 is better than 1999, but 1999 run doesn't have much value in this discussion.

Agreed.

[Ol Roy]

David Robinson and Shaquille O'Neal both had a Free Throw Attempt Rate (number of FT attempts per FG attempt) of 58%.

Robinson hit 74% of his free throws, while O'Neal hit 53% of his.

Robinson's FTAR is arguably more impressive than O'Neal's, as Robinson took a lot more shots away from the basket than O'Neal did. 93% of O'Neal's shots came within 10 feet, while only 62% of Robinson's shots did. Note: Data goes back to 1997. And I'm sure "Hack-a-Shaq" increased Shaq's FTAR to the extent it was used. I don't have data on that.

Some FTAR/FT% numbers from contemporary bigs:

Duncan: 42%/70%
Hakeem: 36%/71%
Garnett: 29%/79%

And just for fun:

Embiid: 55%/83%
Giannis: 52%/70%
Jokic: 32%/73%

What's my point?

Robinson was such a threat to score at the basket that he had to be fouled at historically high rates. And he did a good job of hitting his free throws. If you watch film of Robinson, he was usually double teamed. He was a very good passer, but it wasn't really taken advantage of by his teammates.

If Robinson had played with guards like Shaq did in his prime (Penny, Kobe, Wade), I think his scoring would be viewed in a much different light. Some good spot up shooters and cutters would have made a difference as well. As his career happened, being the best defensive anchor in the league while also being the sole offensive engine was a pretty tall task, but one he stepped up to.

[dygaction]

Unless we ignore the playoffs, it's clearly KG

You mean "If we ignore the playoffs", right?

[AEnigma]

Unless we ignore the playoffs, it's clearly KG

You mean "If we ignore the playoffs", right?

No, Robinson was the one regularly getting upset and losing to worse teams. That literally never happened to Garnett.

[dygaction]

Unless we ignore the playoffs, it's clearly KG

You mean "If we ignore the playoffs", right?

No, Robinson was the one regularly getting upset and losing to worse teams. That literally never happened to Garnett.

Robinson managed to win more regular season games, and then you have the chance of getting upset.
KG's team was almost always the underdog, and he was never able to pull out an upset either.

[AEnigma]

You mean "If we ignore the playoffs", right?

No, Robinson was the one regularly getting upset and losing to worse teams. That literally never happened to Garnett.

Robinson managed to win more regular season games,

… So ignoring the playoffs.

and then you have the chance of getting upset.

And Robinson had a higher chance of being upset than any other all-timer.

KG's team was almost always the underdog, and he was never able to pull out an upset either.

He had two upsets with Boston, so wrong again. Robinson not only was regularly upset, he never even beat a reasonably good team. Even with your ludicrous approach of ignoring anything that occurred with the Celtics, the 2004 Kings clear any of Robinson’s victories.

[dygaction]

No, Robinson was the one regularly getting upset and losing to worse teams. That literally never happened to Garnett.

Robinson managed to win more regular season games,

… So ignoring the playoffs.

and then you have the chance of getting upset.

And Robinson had a higher chance of being upset than any other all-timer.

KG's team was almost always the underdog, and he was never able to pull out an upset either.

He had two upsets with Boston, so wrong again. Robinson not only was regularly upset, he never even beat a reasonably good team. Even with your ludicrous approach of ignoring anything that occurred with the Celtics, the 2004 Kings clear any of Robinson’s victories.

I would not consider 2009 on Boston as KG's team, so not really. I also don't consider 2004 losing to Lakers an upset due to injury. Playoffs is about match up, sometimes it is not really a one player's fault.

[AEnigma]

You said pull out an upset. He did that twice in 2010 and then again in 2012.

[dygaction]

You said pull out an upset. He did that twice in 2010 and then again in 2012.

As OP asked, prime only. Do you consider that's still his prime?

[AEnigma]

… What do you think it suggests about prime Garnett’s potential to pull off upsets with a half-competent team if post-prime Garnett could do it?

[HeartBreakKid]

Lol, it is actually amazing how people pretend Garnett's time in Boston never happened. It just doesn't fit in with their narratives that Garnett is some loser.

"OH He had paul pierce it doesnt count!!"

The only time the Celtics were ever favored to win the NBA title or even their conference at the start of the season was 2009. Even in 2008 they were not expected to win, and people thought it was just a trio of losers - but now the narrative has flipped where people talk like they're the 2017 Warriors and Garnett's accomplishments need an asterisk.

[colts18]

Lol, it is actually amazing how people pretend Garnett's time in Boston never happened. It just doesn't fit in with their narratives that Garnett is some loser.

"OH He had paul pierce it doesnt count!!"

The only time the Celtics were ever favored to win the NBA title or even their conference at the start of the season was 2009. Even in 2008 they were not expected to win, and people thought it was just a trio of losers - but now the narrative has flipped where people talk like they're the 2017 Warriors and Garnett's accomplishments need an asterisk.

You guys do the same with David Robinson during the years he played with Tim Duncan. Somehow that 1999 championship doesn't count for Robinson when he was playing 35 MPG and was still the best defensive player in the league. 1999 Robinson was just as good as 2008 Garnett and he gets like 1% of the credit for the title that Garnett does.