richboy wrote:Doctor MJ wrote:@richboy
(snip)
I understand what your saying. Like you say though Lebron for example +- drops not because he has changed as a player. Because he plays with better teammates. When he isn't on the floor he now has a Dwade to run the show. That the reason why to me those stats are great in showing how valuable you are for your team. I don't think they are truly useful as measuring a players skill.
KG might have the best +- in the league on the Twolves. Remind you I think Dirk was a league leader in that category as well. My issue Add Tim Duncan, Dwight Howard, and Chris Paul on the Wolves and suddenly its possible they could play better with him on the bench.
We play the game for impact.
Its already been said that perhaps KG didn't have impact defensively like a dominate center. Well if he not going to have great dominate level impact then I think Dirk has a good case to be a better player. If your saying KG has a Dwight Howard like impact on defense then I can see why you take him. I would take Dwight Howard over Prime Dirk. I would really consider taking Dirk over KG. It would depend on the team and what I needed. If I had a blank page I would go with Dirk.
This thread has evolved in a bunch of ways that I would debate if I had the time and energy, but there are a few things here that I do want to specifically address. You make some interesting points but your conclusion doesn't match the case you were building. Let's examine your assertions, and where they actually end up.
1) You start by suggesting that KG only had the dominant +/- numbers because the other TWolves weren't good enough without him (which would say interesting things about the quality of his supporting cast, but that's a different argument). Thus, your implication is that a strong player with a weak supporting cast should have a higher APM than a similar player with a stronger cast. That, essentially, having weak teammates is the way to get artificially higher APM scores. Adjusted +/- is calculated to account for the strength of a player's teammates and their opponents so your assertion shouldn't be true...but let's say that it is. Let's play your logic out to its end point.
2) You say that you would take Dwight Howard over Dirk because Howard's impact on the defense is so huge, but you aren't sure you would take KG because you aren't sure that his impact is as large as Dwight's. You follow-up in the bolded area by saying directly that KG may not have the defensive impact of a dominant center...but you don't support that here. You did try to support it earlier in the thread, though, as on your post on page 5 you say:
"KG defense didn't show any impact until he went to a team coached by the best defensive mind in the league. He had Perkins, Pierce, and Rondo on the team. All NBA level defenders. Dwight Howard has Orlando playing top 5 defense in the league without any other great defenders."3) The problem with points 1 and 2 is, they diametrically oppose each other. Doctor MJ blogged about this specific topic with a post: Howard is the DPoY but he's no Garnett
http://asubstituteforwar.com/2011/04/23 ... o-garnett/ . In that link, it is pointed out that KG's defensive APM numbers have dwarfed Howard's over several multi-year studies, spanning the last 8 years. But most germane to this argument, KG's DAPM has dwarfed Howard's from 2007 - 2011...in other words, over the time period when KG has been in Boston his defensive APM impact has been much larger than Howard's over that same period.
Conclusion: Now, let me bring this home to make it as clear as possible. In point 1 you say that KG only has huge APM numbers because his support was too weak, therefore making him look better. In point 2 you say that Howard has a larger defensive impact than Garnett because his support is weaker than Garnett's, though the defensive APM for the last 4 years says that Garnett has a higher D APM than Howard's. Both of your assertions can't be true at the same time. Either:
A) APM rewards players for having weak support, in which case Howard from 2007 - 2011 should have a much higher Defensive APM than Garnett if his support is so weak and he's having a higher impact. (Only, Garnett has the higher value despite your belief that he had more support)
or
B) Garnett's huge APM values in Minnesota are NOT just because he had weak support, but because in fact he was having bigger impact. And as you say, we play the game for impact.
It's a logic conundrum for your line of reasoning. You can't criticize APM by saying it supports players with weaker teammates, then turn around and say Howard has weak teammates but a lower APM. Do you see where something has to give?
No matter which of your lines of logic you follow, though, the end result is that the available evidence we have suggests that Garnett had a larger individual impact than both Howard on defense AND Dirk in total over the last decade.
