Pau Gasol vs. Kevin Garnett

[Kabookalu]

This isn't a direct comparison between the players, but their supporting casts. Not including the players mentioned in this comparison, which team was better; Pau Gasol's Grizzlies teams from 03-04 to 05-06, or any of Kevin Garnett's Wolves teams excluding the 03-04 team?

[pillwenney]

Well if we're just looking at supporting casts, Gasol's was much, much better.

As far as the over all teams, probably still Memphis. Although, I don't know if I would take them in a 7 game series, which I know sounds weird, but I guess it's just that the playoffs usually cut off rotations anyway.

I guess I'd take the Grizz in a later series (since they'd have more bodies to make up for fatigue), and Minny in an earlier series.

[WhateverBro]

Garnett's 05-06 roster is one of the worst I've seen..

Szczerbiak/Davis, Hassell, McCants, Jaric, Olowokandi/Blount, Hudson, Griffin, Carter, Dupree, Madsen, Frahm, Reed, Wright and Tskitishvili...

[Kabookalu]

So was the Grizzlies being winless in the playoffs vs. Kevin Garnett having a lackluster supporting cast most years yet winning some games a testament to Pau Gasol not being able to lead his team anywhere, or how superior Kevin Garnett is?

[Sephiroth]

21 Kevin Garnett F 6-11 220 5/19/76 Farragut Academy HS (IL) 7
9 Kendall Gill G 6-5 215 5/25/68 Illinois '90 12
16 Troy Hudson G 6-1 170 3/13/76 Southern Illinois '98 5
25 Marc Jackson C 6-10 270 1/16/75 Temple '97 2
13 Felipe Lopez G-F 6-5 195 12/19/74 St. John's '98 4
8 Rasho Nesterovic C 7-0 248 5/30/76 Slovenia 4
44 Anthony Peeler G 6-4 208 11/25/69 Missouri '92 10
36 Igor Rakocevic G 6-3 183 3/29/78 Yugoslavia R
35 Reggie Slater1 F 6-7 255 8/27/70 Wyoming '92 7
32 Joe Smith F 6-10 225 7/26/75 Maryland '95 7
1 Rod Strickland G 6-3 185 7/11/66 DePaul '89 14
10 Wally Szczerbiak G-F 6-7 244 3/5/77 Miami (Ohio) '99 3
20 Gary Trent F 6-8 250 9/22/74 Ohio '96 7
29 Mike Wilks2 G 5-10 185 5/7/79 Rice '01 R
3 Loren Woods C 7-1 246 6/21/78 Arizona '01 1

This is the T-Wolves' 02-03 squad. Half of these guys aren't even in the NBA anymore. Wally was injured this season too.

Guess how they did?

51-31 and 4th seed in the West. Amazing how KG and a bunch of scrubs used to make the Playoffs consistently.

Starting lineup looked like this most of the time:

C - Rasho Nesterovic
PF - Joe Smith
SF - Kevin Garnett
SG - Anthony Peeler
PG - Troy Hudson

Unbelievable.

[pillwenney]

So was the Grizzlies being winless in the playoffs vs. Kevin Garnett having a lackluster supporting cast most years yet winning some games a testament to Pau Gasol not being able to lead his team anywhere, or how superior Kevin Garnett is?

Definitely both IMO. As the previous post noted, KG had a really crappy supporting cast with which he did the most he could. Pau had a supporting cast that many franchise players would love to have, and couldn't even win a playoff game.

[NO-KG-AI]

While I don't think Pau's teams were stellar by any stretch of the imagination, they were head and shoulders superior to anything KG had. Jesus H. Christ, look at that Wolves squad, how can you put that together and feel like you did your job as a GM.

[T-Spot]

Garnett was Robin to Rasho's Batman, so its no surprise a team full of scrubs could contend.

[Reks]

KG was all by himself. So was Pau. But KG had it worse.