Garnett/Durant vs Luka/Shaq

[Texas Chuck]

We do have people here thinking KG/Durant would struggle to be Championship Caliber

Do we? Where?

He's referring to me. I gotta say its not good for my already inflated ego that my opinion holds so much weight that I've become people as opposed to one isolated opinion.

I won't get into that's not exactly what I said because I stand behind my belief that Shaq/Luka feel like a much safer bet to be championship contenders year in and year out during Shaq's best years than KG/KD do. They just aren't as dominant of players.

But mostly I think Colbini's disconnect with me is that he sees Shaq and KG as roughly equals and I definitely do not. I have Shaq on a tier of his own right below my 5 GOAT candidates. I have KG in that 12-15 range along with guys like Dirk, Kobe, West, Oscar, Mailman. So I have a pretty big gap that he doesn't.

[cupcakesnake]

We do have people here thinking KG/Durant would struggle to be Championship Caliber

Do we? Where?

He's referring to me. I gotta say its not good for my already inflated ego that my opinion holds so much weight that I've become people as opposed to one isolated opinion.

I won't get into that's not exactly what I said because I stand behind my belief that Shaq/Luka feel like a much safer bet to be championship contenders year in and year out during Shaq's best years than KG/KD do. They just aren't as dominant of players.

But mostly I think Colbini's disconnect with me is that he sees Shaq and KG as roughly equals and I definitely do not. I have Shaq on a tier of his own right below my 5 GOAT candidates. I have KG in that 12-15 range along with guys like Dirk, Kobe, West, Oscar, Mailman. So I have a pretty big gap that he doesn't.

Even without getting in to where I rank Shaq overall, I do instinctively rate Shaq high in these kinds of head-to-head matchups of all-timers when were slotting them into duos or starting 5s. Those 3-years Peak Shaq just feels like the biggest cheat code the NBA has ever seen, offensively. He just felt like the most non-negotiable source of scoring. So I sort of relate to Chuck a bit in choosing Shaq's high-end offensive value and how it makes KG/KD feel like not enough. To add Luka's own scoring and playmaking resiliency on top of that, it just feels like SO MUCH POWER that it might overwhelm KGKD's magical fit.

I don't think the bar should be "championship contender years" though. Both of these duos are championship contending every year they are together throughout anything approaching their prime. It's just way too low a bar. If both these duos are in the league you can argue that one stops the other. But these duos against other real-life championship duos? I'd put the over/under at 4 championships for either pair.

The one thing I'd reiterate in favour of KDKG. You mentioned earlier that you'd be putting 3&D guys around either pair. While that's the ideal build for Luka and Shaq (obviously we've seen the recipe before with Shaq so many times), I don't think it's crucial with KDKG. We always say "yeah just surround them with 3&D" guys but in the real NBA those players are a little more rare than we give them credit for. Players like DFS, Danny Green, Mikal Bridges; players who are dependable shooters and not exploitable defensively always pop in the playoff as rare difference makers. Teams value them highly and fight over them, even if a few of them become available at bargain rates (usually after an injury or a spell with a non-contender). With KD and KG, their spacing, off-ball offense, and ability to operate as play finishers, means you can slot a wider variety of players around them. That non-shooting bully ball point guard that apparently doesn't fit with a real winner, suddenly becomes valuable in a lineup with those 2. Basically the ability to play non-shooters, or offense only players next to KG is just such roster building flexibility because you can absorb players strengths without paying the full cost of a lot of those weaknesses. Luka and Shaq is not a great defensive foundation. You're going to want realllly good defenders between them and in all likelihood your defense is going to spend time closer to average than top 5. With KG, you could decide to play multiple rim protectors if that's the complimentary piece that was available. I like the chances of building a historic 2-way team more with KGKD, but I also do kind of feel that young Luka and peak Shaq might obliterate better fitting teams with physically dominant scoring.

[Texas Chuck]

The one thing I'd reiterate in favour of KDKG. You mentioned earlier that you'd be putting 3&D guys around either pair. While that's the ideal build for Luka and Shaq (obviously we've seen the recipe before with Shaq so many times), I don't think it's crucial with KDKG. We always say "yeah just surround them with 3&D" guys but in the real NBA those players are a little more rare than we give them credit for. Players like DFS, Danny Green, Mikal Bridges; players who are dependable shooters and not exploitable defensively always pop in the playoff as rare difference makers. Teams value them highly and fight over them, even if a few of them become available at bargain rates (usually after an injury or a spell with a non-contender). With KD and KG, their spacing, off-ball offense, and ability to operate as play finishers, means you can slot a wider variety of players around them. That non-shooting bully ball point guard that apparently doesn't fit with a real winner, suddenly becomes valuable in a lineup with those 2. Basically the ability to play non-shooters, or offense only players next to KG is just such roster building flexibility because you can absorb players strengths without paying the full cost of a lot of those weaknesses. Luka and Shaq is not a great defensive foundation. You're going to want realllly good defenders between them and in all likelihood your defense is going to spend time closer to average than top 5. With KG, you could decide to play multiple rim protectors if that's the complimentary piece that was available. I like the chances of building a historic 2-way team more with KGKD, but I also do kind of feel that young Luka and peak Shaq might obliterate better fitting teams with physically dominant scoring.

I obviously concede its easier to put pieces around KG/KD in theory, and thus in practice. No denying that.

But when choosing foundational pieces, I want dominance first and foremost. I don't think with a talent base of Luka/Shaq that it would be that hard to find competent pieces around them. Naturally there is competition for the 3&D guys, but because Luka is a big PG who can be assigned to stand next to guy in the corner and if the other team wants to force that guy into PNR's to make Luka defend, they pay a price for that as well.

For me a lot of this goes back to the old KG vs Dirk arguments where the KG side focused heavily on just how much more versatile KG is. And they weren't wrong. But the thing is we actually saw IRL the teams around Dirk change dramatically a lot Dallas made major roster changes in 01,02,03,04,05,06,08,09,10,11. Essentially one year of largely standing pat. And some of those teams were heavily offense, some were heavily defense, some somewhat balanced.

The theory would say Dirk is harder to build around, but the reality was, he wasn't. Because his offensive dominance was so great, he s3t an enormous baseline. Well, that's how I feel about Shaq. Without even getting into Luka who has set his own pretty solid baseline already.

[cupcakesnake]

The one thing I'd reiterate in favour of KDKG. You mentioned earlier that you'd be putting 3&D guys around either pair. While that's the ideal build for Luka and Shaq (obviously we've seen the recipe before with Shaq so many times), I don't think it's crucial with KDKG. We always say "yeah just surround them with 3&D" guys but in the real NBA those players are a little more rare than we give them credit for. Players like DFS, Danny Green, Mikal Bridges; players who are dependable shooters and not exploitable defensively always pop in the playoff as rare difference makers. Teams value them highly and fight over them, even if a few of them become available at bargain rates (usually after an injury or a spell with a non-contender). With KD and KG, their spacing, off-ball offense, and ability to operate as play finishers, means you can slot a wider variety of players around them. That non-shooting bully ball point guard that apparently doesn't fit with a real winner, suddenly becomes valuable in a lineup with those 2. Basically the ability to play non-shooters, or offense only players next to KG is just such roster building flexibility because you can absorb players strengths without paying the full cost of a lot of those weaknesses. Luka and Shaq is not a great defensive foundation. You're going to want realllly good defenders between them and in all likelihood your defense is going to spend time closer to average than top 5. With KG, you could decide to play multiple rim protectors if that's the complimentary piece that was available. I like the chances of building a historic 2-way team more with KGKD, but I also do kind of feel that young Luka and peak Shaq might obliterate better fitting teams with physically dominant scoring.

I obviously concede its easier to put pieces around KG/KD in theory, and thus in practice. No denying that.

But when choosing foundational pieces, I want dominance first and foremost. I don't think with a talent base of Luka/Shaq that it would be that hard to find competent pieces around them. Naturally there is competition for the 3&D guys, but because Luka is a big PG who can be assigned to stand next to guy in the corner and if the other team wants to force that guy into PNR's to make Luka defend, they pay a price for that as well.

For me a lot of this goes back to the old KG vs Dirk arguments where the KG side focused heavily on just how much more versatile KG is. And they weren't wrong. But the thing is we actually saw IRL the teams around Dirk change dramatically a lot Dallas made major roster changes in 01,02,03,04,05,06,08,09,10,11. Essentially one year of largely standing pat. And some of those teams were heavily offense, some were heavily defense, some somewhat balanced.

The theory would say Dirk is harder to build around, but the reality was, he wasn't. Because his offensive dominance was so great, he s3t an enormous baseline. Well, that's how I feel about Shaq. Without even getting into Luka who has set his own pretty solid baseline already.

I think the theory was that Dirk was hard to build around defensively. I get the theory (Dirk never looked like an obvious plus defender) but there wasn't much evidence of that in his career, as Dallas consistently posted better than a -2 rDrtg in the post-Nellyball Dirk era, despite the constant roster shuffle you're talking about. Unless someone thinks Dampier or Josh Howard were some sort of all-defense candidate, you kind of have to concede that Dirk clearly wasn't damaging team defenses. The Mavs once managed a top 5 defense, with Dirk, Jason Terry, Howard, Dampier (not to mention absolute PEAK Desagana Diop). I think defensively Dirk is not the guy you pick if you're trying to build an elite defense. There was a clear cap on how good the Mavs were on defense with Dirk, even when he did get that elite personnel (The 2011 Mavs weren't any better of a regular season defense than any other Dirk year). So I think when we're talking portability and considering defense, you see a significant gap between KG (in the defensive goat conversation) and Dirk (who was solid). Defense can also provide an "enormous baseline".

Offensively I've never heard a portability argument against Dirk. There's no offensive system or personnel that Dirk doesn't make better. He's one of those insane latency value guys with that gravity. Dirk just standing there messed up defenses. Then you put him on the ball, his scoring power paired with his decision-making was just insane. I think KG was a more productive volume passer, and a better finisher, but Dirk is on another planet offensively than KG. I don't really care about KG's portability when we're comparing him to someone like that, offensively.

Not sure what Dirk really has to do with it haha, we can just compare KG to Shaq. We even have 2 head-to-head playoff series where they're both in their prime (conversation for another day but it was always a very interesting matchup). I get the Dirk as a Shaq analogue: a ridiculously dominant offensive force that was solid enough on defense being potentially superior to the more balanced 2-way player.

But we're also not figuring KD enough into this. I'm not a big fan, but KD isn't a slouch of an offensive focal point, even when compared to Shaq (or Luka). KG is not going to be the offensive focal point of this offense, KD would.

[Texas Chuck]

Not sure what Dirk really has to do with it haha,

I wasn't trying to make this about Dirk I promise, though I am a fanboy. I brought up Dirk solely as a great example of a guy whom the portability/versatility guys typically knock as a guy we actually saw in a bunch of different team constructions and his teams just kept winning and winning and winning. He's sort of my proof of concept if you will.

That was just to illustrate that while I concede KG/KD on paper fit into a bunch of team constructions that Shaq/Luka wouldn't seem to, that I feel that's not really an issue when talking about players of this caliber.

And I agree I've not talked about KD a lot itt, because I find myself in almost all of these decisions concerned about the best player involved for each side because ultimately that's generally what decides how well that team performs. We saw Kyrie with Lebron and it was horrible. We saw Lebron with no more Kyrie and he's still dragging his team into the Finals. So its not that Luka/KD aren't great players, but for me anyway Shaq is so dominant that Luka is plenty good enough to be 2nd banana. With KD, unquestionably he was a better player than anything we've seen from Luka. So he closes the gap some, just not enough for me.