Starting a Franchise...Prime KG or Lebron?

[colts18]

Using winshares is ridiculous because he is riding the coattails of Duncan. If the team wins, the guy has a high share even if he did nothing.

Robinson barely did much in the playoffs. Look at his series vs. Dallas:
7, 2
7, 7
4, 6
2, 4
5, 6
7, 5

So he averaged on 5 and 5 45% shooting. Against LA, he had 14 and 11 in game 1 and after that he did nothing he averaged 4 and 5. He did have a few decent games in the finals, but did have a few clunkers like 8 and 3 on 1-5 shooting and 6 and 3. Somehow, SA won both of those games, but I'm guessing it wasn't because of Robinson's contributions.

[singlepurposeac]

The things Joe Smith could do with different to what D.Rob could do, to be sure. Joe Smith could run up and down a court for example, whereas D.Rob could not. Joe Smith had a semblance of an offensive game (even if most of it consisted of jumpers), which at that stage D.Rob did not. He could play more minutes without loss of stamina, which D.Rob could not. He could rebound quite well. He was a good man defender and help defender, and knew his role on a team, which varied quite a bit on some of those KG teams, especially when KG was trying to play SF. But he was an underrated guy, of similar value to the corpse of D.Rob.

[tsherkin]

The things Joe Smith could do with different to what D.Rob could do, to be sure. Joe Smith could run up and down a court for example, whereas D.Rob could not. Joe Smith had a semblance of an offensive game (even if most of it consisted of jumpers), which at that stage D.Rob did not. He could play more minutes without loss of stamina, which D.Rob could not.

Not a lot of extra minutes, though, and not a lot of meaningful minutes. He wasn't an impact player. I'm not saying Robinson was a super-valuable guy, but he was more useful to the Spurs than Smith was in his brief stints with Minny.

He could rebound quite well.

No, not typically. He was a 13.6 - 14.3% TRB player as a Timberwolf, which is hardly valuable and very much not rebounding "quite well."

He was a good man defender and help defender,

Not so much a useful help defenmder, no. Not a horrible man defender unless he was outclassed athletically, or in skill... which was often. He wasn't an impact defender for Minny.

But he was an underrated guy, of similar value to the corpse of D.Rob.

No, I still definitely disagree with that. Smith was a stats guy. Not that he was a bad person or a guy with a bad attitude or anything, but he was an empty player who didn't really do anything of consequence when he was on the court.

More important, though, is that he was a TOTAL non-factor in the playoffs each year he made it there with the Wolves, playing fewer and fewer minutes. He was barely used in his second two-year stint with the Wolves, he played 14 mpg one year and 8 the next, and he did very little in that time. The one year he played significant minutes (back when he was 23, in his first playoff appearance), he was a 7.5 / 6.5 player in 30 mpg. Blergh? That's not impact. He did have a good series against the Spurs that one year as a shot-blocker, but it was totally atypical of his style of play for him to play like that. It was nice to see, but it was unusual and not oft-repeated, nor a consistent attribute.

And colts, Robinson was 37... no one's saying he was a hyper-valuable player. But Robinson's per-minute production was very good. Yeah, he had a weak series against Dallas. Oh well? He wasn't the second star of the team at that point, he was a limited-minutes roleplayer, so that's hardly surprising and not a big issue. If he were 10 years younger, or even 5-ish years younger, I'd have cared, but he was near 40 and still productive.

[singlepurposeac]

I don't agree I'm afraid, for the reasons already given. colts is right on the money. I will agree Smith wasn't nearly as good in the playoffs, but since the Wolves were way below where they should have been in the regular season as well (based on the supposed value of KG) that's a minor issue. He had at least that 1 series better than either of D.Rob's campaigns in 02 or 03, but I agree Smith dropped off in the playoffs. He'd still have done better next to Duncan.

[NO-KG-AI]

Ahahahahahhaha.....


.....


hahahaha

Really?

[singlepurposeac]

My gosh, a KG fan disagrees and wants to hype KG. I'm so stunned.

[NO-KG-AI]

I picked LeBron, but your Joe Smith defense is Bgil-esqe.

[singlepurposeac]

I picked LeBron, but your Joe Smith defense is Bgil-esqe.

Did you pick Duncan over KG to start a franchise too? Or is that taking things too far?

[drza]

I think Robinson in 2002 and 2003 has become very underrated. People keep pointing to his gross scoring and rebound numbers, but those were no longer his main contributions at that point. Robinson's main role at that point in his career was defensive in nature. And his role, even in his final injury-plagued 2003 season, was vital to the way the Spurs played. Consider.

In 2003 Robinson could only play half of the game on a nightly basis. But during that half of the game, the Spurs boasted bar-none the best defense in the NBA built around the fact that teams COULD NOT score on their interior defense. Bastillon, I believe, has already pointed out in this thread that the Spurs' defense as a whole gave up 8.7 fewer points/48 minutes when Robinson was on the court than when he was off, but looking at 82games.com we can pinpoint the effect more precisely than that.

The 5-man unit that got the most run for the Spurs in 2003 was Tony Parker/Stephen Jackson/Bruce Bowen/Tim Duncan/David Robinson. That unit, which played 16.4% of the available minutes that year, scored 97.7 points but held opponents to only 83.8 points/48 min.

Meanwhile, the 2nd most active unit for those Spurs featured the same 4 guys but with Malik Rose replacing Robinson in the line-up. That unit, which played 9.14% of the available minutes, was similar on offense (98.3 points) but was dramatically worse on defense (95.2 points allowed) per 48 min.

The 3rd most active unit (7.24% of the minutes, the only other line-up that played more than 4% of the minutes) featured Parker/Steve Smith/Bowen/Duncan/Robinson and again was ridiculous on defense (90.6 points scored, 73.2 points allowed per 48 min).

http://82games.com/0203SAS2.HTM

The pattern is very clear, and very definitive. Robinson, even at age 37 and hobbling, was a key tenet in the Spurs' defense. I don't care what the All Star or All Defense-team votes looked like. Frankly, I don't even care what Robinson visually looked like out on the floor that year. The bottom line is that the 2003 Spurs won with Duncan's individual brilliance, team defense, and quality depth. Robinson was a huge part of that defense that was the identity of the team. And was thus hugely valuable.

In 2002 those 82games-style stats aren't available, but we can infer. Every other aspect of Robinson's game and health were much stronger in '02 than '03, so presumably his defense should have been as well. Plus, in that year, the other available advanced stats indicate strongly that Robinson was one of the best centers in the league in his limited minutes. Others have pointed out how strong his WS48 and PER were as individual marks, and he was 2nd in the NBA in BR's defensive rating stat as well. I'm already on record earlier in this thread as saying that in 2002, I think Robinson's best historical comp is 2011 Tim Duncan. Their stats are eerily similar, playing a similar role in similar minutes for a similarly successful team under the same coach. And Duncan, through a strange turn of events, actually started the All Star Game this year. Am I to ignore their (almost disturbing) similarities simply because of that All Star birth? Because that seems to be the only counter-argument I've seen so far, that since Robinson wasn't on the All Star team he must not be that good. It's hogwash.

It's becoming clear to me over time that the 2 positions on the floor that are least-defined by their individual box score numbers are point guard and big man, because they can have bigger global impacts than wings can. The most important stats for most point guards are how the offense does when they're on the court, and for many bigs a key stat is how their defense does. Wings, almost by definition, are there to score or directly prevent their man from scoring so it is hard for most wings to be good without being really good at 1 (which shows strongly in the boxscore) or the other (which doesn't, and thus leads to people essentially claiming that Bowen was a dime a dozen). But point guards traditionally are tasked to make the offense work, and big men are traditionally tasked with making the defense work. Just like Marbury put up much better box score scoring stats than Jason Kidd or Steve Nash, but the TEAM played much better with those other guys running the show...similarly, there were other bigs that probably scored more, rebounded more and played more minutes than Robinson in '02 and '03 but few could match his overall impact for the time he was on the court.

Robinson in 2003, even in 2002, was light years away from what he was in his prime or even in Duncan's early years with the Spurs. But he still had it in him to be a co-anchor on defense for whatever minutes he was available. I would take 2002 David Robinson over any teammate that KG had in Minnesota with the POSSIBLE exception of '04 Cassell, and I'm not sure I wouldn't take him over Cassell too. It's just absurd to me that he's been compared to Joe Smith, or even Wally Szczerbiak purely on the basis of one stupid All Star decision.

And again, the reason for this narrative shift of Robinson being thrown under the bus is clear. Duncan is All World, but if it can be made to seem that he just had no help then to some it makes him look better. But it's not needed. Duncan's case is plenty strong enough, even with an accurate remembrance that his team was actually able to help him to his success. Trying to re-write history to make it seem like he was a lone man with nothing behind him...it's not the case, and trying to force it to be so leads to basketball-license-revokingly-stupid statements like "Joe Smith was better than David Robinson in 2002". Judge history for what it was, not for what you wanted it to be.

[singlepurposeac]

I would take 2002 David Robinson over any teammate that KG had in Minnesota with the POSSIBLE exception of '04 Cassell

This is the most homeristic statement on this thread.

Yeh, all Duncan's team mates are being underrated, and all KG's team mates, even the ones who made all-star teams and got big contracts in the open market are being overrated. You're a KG fan. Got it.

[Lakers05]

You can't judge a center's impact based on his numbers. Just look at Perkins. He changed the identity of the Thunder and made them believe that they really are better than the Heat, and are a contender. Perhaps some of it is false confidence, but when you see Durant playing with so much confidence against Lebron(on both ends), you can tell that he really believes that Perkins is backing him up(even though it was really Collison and Ibaka on the court.)

In this case though, you can see that Robinson still altered a lot of shots, and played very good man D, so he was clearly a lot more than just an 8 and 6 player, just like Bynum was last year(now Bynum didn't alter as many shots, but you can clearly see that Pierce was a lot more aggressive against Artest when Bynum wasn't on the court, and this can be proven by the numbers.)

[drza]

I would take 2002 David Robinson over any teammate that KG had in Minnesota with the POSSIBLE exception of '04 Cassell

This is the most homeristic statement on this thread.

Yeh, all Duncan's team mates are being underrated, and all KG's team mates, even the ones who made all-star teams and got big contracts in the open market are being overrated. You're a KG fan. Got it.

Yawn.

I was very critical of you the other night, without offering anything constructive. Let me rectify that. Some of the hallmarks of poor debating are:

1) Retreating to generalizations
2) Substituting snark for substance
3) Categorizing anyone that disagrees with you as willfully blind

You do all of these things, repeatedly. The thing is, it's correctable. And I'm not even talking about changing your stance. You think Duncan is better than KG, fine (though it's still amazing that this was supposed to be a KG/LeBron thread and somehow it's all about Duncan. But I digress). If you think Duncan is better, then in this day and age we are better equipped than ever before for you to PROVE YOUR POINT. Whenever you have the chance to do so, to maybe uncover something fresh that makes your case, you again retreat to the 3 things I mention above that frankly do nothing but make you less credible. I can't count how many times I've seen you fall back on your 46-win/7 first round exit meme. OK, that's a starting point to the conversation. But we're in an age where we can all watch absurd hours of basketball, we all have access to reams of stats that weren't available a decade ago, and you're on an internet medium that has allowed a large concentration of basketball nerds that have taken advantage of these resources to congregate and sharpen our arguments upon each other for years.

As such, you being stuck on a starting-point argument makes you look really remedial really quickly.

There's no need to stand on general statements here, because we can (and have) already moved past that and spent time looking at the specifics of the case involved. Of the several people that have put specific context-relevant posts together in this thread, tsherkin stands out to me because the last time he and i had a KG/Duncan conversation (ironically, also in a non-KG/Duncan thread) he absolutely ripped me a new one from DUNCAN's side of the argument. And you know what? I ripped him one right back from KG's side of the debate. At the time it probably seemed like both of us were just e-shouting at each other, but in the years since that discussion I've seen both of us use things that the other said in other conversations. The whole purpose of a debate is to exchange info, to make your case and ALSO LISTEN TO THE REBUTTALS.

Bastillon posted some of my specific comments about KG's yearly levels of support. Of course, tsherkin also went year-by-year and talked about those Wolves teams. Last summer a group of us did a months-long Retro Player of the Year project where we went year-by-year and really hashed out the play and circumstances of every great player of the past 50 years. viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1004743 If you follow that link, in the first post there are links for every year from 2010 on back. In any of those years, you can find more specific discussions about KG's supporting casts through the years.

The point is, your arguments don't have to be stuck at the 1st grade level of "46 wins and first round exits!" If you choose to, you can learn enough about the situation that you can find some useful things to say to try to make your points. If you choose to do that, maybe your posts will actually be interesting enough to continue a conversation. Until then, talking to you feels like taking advantage of my little cousins on a basketball court.

Come see me when your arguments grow up.

[singlepurposeac]

Counter Yawn. You are in no position to be giving lectures on how to debate.

Your homeristic statement that 2002 D.Rob is better than any Wolves team mate KG ever had (except maybe Cassell, lol!) is so absurd as to be self rebutting almost, and disqualifies you from being taken seriously. I don't think anyone viewing my posting history will be foolish enough to say I'm afraid of an argument, or of making long responses with facts, but when someone makes a remark like you did I often lose any interest, since anyone with a particle of sense will see how silly it is without needing a reply.

Your argument basically requires us to believe GM's, voters, coaches, etc, were all fools. When the coaches voted in Wally over D.Rob, that's apparently meaningless. He played 38mpg instead of the less than 30 D.Rob managed, and 18.7ppg, 4.8rpg and 3.1apg, at awesome percentages. He also had a pulse in the playoffs, instead of playing 20mpg for 4/10 games (know who else had a pulse in the playoffs that year? Billups who put up 22, 5, 5.7, on 552. TS%), but no, all these guys were worse than old man D.Rob creaking along. Googs, who also made the all-star team, was also apparently worse than D.Rob. The coaches thought he was an all-star (and he probably would have been the next year too if he hadn't been injured), but the coaches were wrong. How could Googs, with 20-9-4 at 502.FG% possibly have been a valuable player compared to D.Rob's skeleton. Stupid coaches. Marbury was never a good player either, come to think of it neither was T.Brandon who was a 2 time all-star, and put up 17-9 in his first full year for the Wolves, on a TS% of 535 (and was even better in the playoffs, whereas 2002 D.Rob barely existed). What a crappy player. Of course, based on how much these guys got paid at times it seems alot of other people thought they were pretty valuable too, but no, they were all wrong. That time Brandon led a crappy Cavs team to the playoffs? Luck. He wasn't really valuable. 36 year old D.Rob could have done that. Cassell's career year in 2004, where he shot his best ever %? It might barely compare to 36 year old D.Rob I suppose... maybe. Marbury was a trash player his whole career. That's why he was paid $150million in salary. Even Spree was clearly more valuable on the court.

Poor Cassell, Googs, Brandon, Wally, Billups and young Marbury. Young Marbury I can understand, everyone hates him now, but what did those other guys ever do to you?

I bet you don't even think Wally was a better player in 2002 than Bowen was, do you? Ridiculous stuff.

[singlepurposeac]

I'll just take this chance to call out tsherkin and no-kg-ai too, not for being bad posters or anything, but for encouraging people like drza by staying silent at remarks they must be shaking their heads at. It would be easier for conversations to advance intelligently if instead of only piping in selectively, you were willing to call out such blatant KG homerism. With allies like you drza, the KG side doesn't need enemies.

[NO-KG-AI]

I picked LeBron, but your Joe Smith defense is Bgil-esqe.

Did you pick Duncan over KG to start a franchise too? Or is that taking things too far?

I sure would, without hesitating. Looks like the only unreasonable person here is you.

You're being smashed down from every angle because your arguments are more like "nah ah" and now you are mad at us.

[singlepurposeac]

If that's the case I apologise as far as that goes, you're more reasonable than I thought.

[SDChargers#1]

I never thought I would say this, but I agree with singlepurposeac.

I would take Lebron without thinking twice. He has led bad teams to the finals and the best record in the NBA. While Garnett missed the playoffs 3 years smack dab in middle of his prime (I know his teams were bad, but if you are truly a legendary player you will at least make the playoffs).

KG has become horribly overrated on these boards (and I believe he is a top 20 player of all time). People forget that he was known for choking for years before he was traded to the Celtics. And I don't mean overall numbers, but coming up big in the 4th quarter and in crunch time, where he generally faded or deferred to his "terrible" teammates.

And btw, these Celtics teams are FAR AND AWAY better than any team that Duncan has played on, and they have only won 1 title in 3 years (let's see what happens this year).

The revisionist history is mind boggling. Duncan has been better on defense (I know he doesn't have DPOY, but he has more All Defensive Teams (and although I am not a fan of this stat, better DRTG)), AND better on offense with better efficiency. Garnett's only real advantage is as a passer.

[NO-KG-AI]

Garnett's rep as a choker was based on his team not winning, just like his new rep as a winner is based on his team winning, neither had to do much at all with his actual play, it was people's way of explaining him not having a title without having to know what was going on.

If you want to use defensive rating, Garnett always led better offenses and had better offensive ratings. Not a solid argument if you only want to use one.

Garnett didn't make the playoffs with teams that can't win 20 games, OH MAN!! Duncan's never been on a bad team in his life. Remember when Shaq and Duncan didn't have championship level teams in college? How many titles did they win?

Nothing wrong with taking LeBron or Duncan, just that the arguments are WEAK and ESPN-esque.

[singlepurposeac]

I disagree a little with both of you. Firstly, Garnett shouldn't be judged too harshly for failing to win 3 titles since he got to Boston. For one, he was injured in 2009, for another he's getting on in years. It's not like 2010 was a match up of peak KG on a stacked team v.s peak Kobe on a stacked team. It was past his prime KG on a stacked team v.s prime Kobe on a stacked team. Hardly fair.

However Duncan has definitely been on bad teams. 2002 and 2003 were bad support casts.

[SDChargers#1]

Garnett's rep as a choker was based on his team not winning, just like his new rep as a winner is based on his team winning, neither had to do much at all with his actual play, it was people's way of explaining him not having a title without having to know what was going on.

If you want to use defensive rating, Garnett always led better offenses and had better offensive ratings. Not a solid argument if you only want to use one.

Garnett didn't make the playoffs with teams that can't win 20 games, OH MAN!! Duncan's never been on a bad team in his life. Remember when Shaq and Duncan didn't have championship level teams in college? How many titles did they win?

Nothing wrong with taking LeBron or Duncan, just that the arguments are WEAK and ESPN-esque.

He was judged by not being able to go far in the playoffs in the same way TMac. TMac has put up astounding numbers in the playoffs but has never gotten out of the first round. People hold that against him regardless of numbers.

I don't like Ortg or Drtg (and said as much), but since people love to use them I brought it up. Duncan's career Ortg is 110 and Garnett's is 111. Hardly a difference. Duncan's career Drtg is 95 to Garnett's 99.

It is not about having championship caliber team, but about being able to make the playoffs. Kobe, Lebron, Duncan, etc have led poor teams to the playoffs. Duncan's teams were slightly better (talking about 2002 and 2003), but it isn't like he barely made the playoffs. His teams won 55+ games and in one of them won the title. Garnett's poor teams didn't even make the playoffs (sub 35 wins is an embarrassment for a guy who is supposedly doing all worldly stuff). Name me any other top 20 player who missed the playoff for 3 straight years smack dab in their primes?

I disagree a little with both of you. Firstly, Garnett shouldn't be judged too harshly for failing to win 3 titles since he got to Boston. For one, he was injured in 2009, for another he's getting on in years. It's not like 2010 was a match up of peak KG on a stacked team v.s peak Kobe on a stacked team. It was past his prime KG on a stacked team v.s prime Kobe on a stacked team. Hardly fair.

It is not Kobe's fault that he has lasted longer than KG. KG has been in the league 1 year longer and played less overall minutes than Kobe. And KGs supporting cast is way better than Kobe. Team Kobe up with Allen, Pierce, Rondo, Perkins, and a great bench and you get titles every year.