Does Dirk with title surpass KG

[Sephiroth]

I am truly shocked how one could question Garnett's defensive production/credibility.

His NBA History Leading 9x ALL NBA DEFENSE FIRST TEAM for a big man and DPOTY award doesn't scream anything to you?

[colts18]

You missed the entire point about sample size.

I ask this all the time too, but year after year, the Magic don't perform that badly defensively with Dwight on the bench, not nearly as bad as Boston or Minnesota with KG on the bench. Why? Is his intimidating rim protection also effective while riding pine?

Part of that is because they had Gortat behind Howard.

[richboy]

You missed the entire point about sample size.

I ask this all the time too, but year after year, the Magic don't perform that badly defensively with Dwight on the bench, not nearly as bad as Boston or Minnesota with KG on the bench. Why? Is his intimidating rim protection also effective while riding pine?

Yes that is as much a product of circumstance than anything.I've discussed this on many occasions. There are two elements that you have to consider. Dwight in the past had relatively the best back up center in the league. A guy that rebounds and block shots nearly at the same rate as he did. When they traded Gortat the team just couldn't play many minutes without Dwight on the floor. Especially against quality competition. He played 40 minutes a contest and would play the entire second half in most games. In some big games he would play the entire game. Against Atlanta he played games of 46,48,45, and 48 minutes.

One of the reasons why I don't love plus minus stats in measuring a player. Especially heavy minute players. It makes assumptions like every team does things the same. The only time Dwight knows he is going to get a rest is usually at the start of the second quarter. This is often the time that everyone on the floor is a bench player. They team usually does well in these situations defensively because its not like they are facing great offensive players on the floor.

I've heard the comment you made before and its the most hair pulling thing. I love my advance stats too but it can't replace just common sense. Nobody in there right mind would think a team of Brandon Bass at center, Ryan Anderson, Hedo, Redick, Arenas, Nelson would be anything but one of the worst teams in the league defensively. They have no size, no rebounding, and no perimeter defenders.

[NO-KG-AI]

Sometimes the name on the jersey doesn't matter when it comes to defense. The Bulls are the only team like EVER to be #1 in defense and #1 in rebounding, and they don't have anyone that is even close to an all time great defender.

The Magic play great defense with Dwight, but they aren't all time bad without him like people try to paint it. The "Nah ah!" argument just doesn't fly in the face of overwhelming data.

[richboy]

I am truly shocked how one could question Garnett's defensive production/credibility.

His NBA History Leading 9x ALL NBA FIRST TEAM for a big man and DPOTY award doesn't scream anything to you?

No one disputes KG defense. We have dispute on what level of impact he had defensively. He is in Minnesota on very mediocre defenses. Dirk is often playing on stronger defenses despite what seems like comparable defensive talent. Probably a worst defensive coach. If KG has all-time level defensive impact then why isn't it showing on the defensive end.

He goes to Boston and they have 4 elite defenders in the starting lineup. Posey, Tony Allen, PJ Brown coming off the bench. They have one of the great defenses of all-time. KG gets a lot of that credit. I'm fine with that because he is the best defensive player of that group. However few years later Tony Allen is gone. Posey is gone. Kendrick Perkins is gone. The second that Jermaine O'neal stop being product they couldn't do much of anything defensively again.

Miami in there 4 wins had offensive ratings of


111
118
105
113

Suddenly everyone in Boston is thinking why they let go of Perkins and Tony Allen. IMO if they go into next year with Nenad as the starting C they might not be a top 5 defense at all.

[NO-KG-AI]

That explains how Boston was second this year, with no Thibs, no Tony Allen, No Posey, 24 games from Jermaine O'Neal, and 12 Games from Perkins.

It had to be JErmaine O'Neal's 24 games played, and 18 minutes per game. This is 34 year old Garnett on busted legs, btw.

Glen Davis, Paul Pierce, Rondo, and Ray Allen. Now that's a defensive core.

[richboy]

Sometimes the name on the jersey doesn't matter when it comes to defense. The Bulls are the only team like EVER to be #1 in defense and #1 in rebounding, and they don't have anyone that is even close to an all time great defender.

The Magic play great defense with Dwight, but they aren't all time bad without him like people try to paint it. The "Nah ah!" argument just doesn't fly in the face of overwhelming data.

Your telling me a team with no rebounders, no shot blockers, and no perimeter defenders could be good defensively? A team with Brandon Bass who probably 6'6 is your center. Your comparing them to a team with great rebounders, great shot blockers, and great perimeter defenders. A team that has great size.

I don't know what you mean all-time great because they are all young. Noah, Asik, Gibson, Deng, Brewer, Bogans, Watson are all elite defenders. Bigs are great rebounders. Noah, and Gibson block shots at a high level. Whats interesting during a Bull/Celtic game earlier in the year the Boston commentator said he thought Noah was similar to KG on defense. I have to agree. They way that Noah can switch on PNR. Maybe the best big man in the league right now. They way he shows out on the perimeter. His quickness in helping out is truly special.

Not really sure how you comparing the Magic without Dwight to the Bulls.

[NO-KG-AI]

I'm telling you a team can play much much bigger than the sum of its parts defensively. Magic prove that when Dwight is benched, at least in comparison to KG and the Celtics.

[richboy]

That explains how Boston was second this year, with no Thibs, no Tony Allen, No Posey, 24 games from Jermaine O'Neal, and 12 Games from Perkins.

It had to be JErmaine O'Neal's 24 games played, and 18 minutes per game. This is 34 year old Garnett on busted legs, btw.

Glen Davis, Paul Pierce, Rondo, and Ray Allen. Now that's a defensive core.

3 of those guys are considered elite defenders. Including Glen Davis who led the league in charges taken. Who is actually one of the better low post defenders in the league.

How good was that second rank defense against Miami. I don't get hyped up about regular season games because I don't care they shut down the New Jersey Nets. When it came down to it they played the worst defense in a series that they had with KG.

Just to note they still had Shaq. For most games this year they had Jermaine O'neal, Shaq, or Perkins. I'll say it again. If they don't have JO, Shaq, and won't have Perkins next year they will be in trouble defensively. They will not be an elite defense with Krystic as the starting C.

[richboy]

I'm telling you a team can play much much bigger than the sum of its parts defensively. Magic prove that when Dwight is benched, at least in comparison to KG and the Celtics.

Yeah you saying stuff but your not backing it up. Your yet to tell me how you can be a quality defense with no rebounders, no basket protectors, and no perimeter defenders. You can't say well Magic can be good defensively look at the Bulls. I've yet to see a comparison between the Bulls to the Magic defensively.

Dwight rests a few minutes in the second quarter. Usually with backups in the game. Against anyone good he often plays the entire game. You must think SVG is the greatest defensive coach in the history of the game if you think he can just coach them up to do the same thing against starters for another 40 minutes.

[NO-KG-AI]

Lmao, Glen Davis, Ray Allen, and Pierce are elite defenders.

[colts18]

I have no doubts that Boston KG is an elite defender. I just want to know why his teams were mediocre on defense during his tenure in Minnesota despite his all-world defense.

[richboy]

Lmao, Glen Davis, Ray Allen, and Pierce are elite defenders.

I didn't say Allen. Rondo is the other. Pierce isn't elite? I thought he was one of the best defenders at SF in the league. Say what you want about Glen Davis. He led the league in charges taken. Is one of of the better post defenders in the league. Call him whatever you want but that is reality.

[Doctor MJ]

You missed the entire point about sample size.

I ask this all the time too, but year after year, the Magic don't perform that badly defensively with Dwight on the bench, not nearly as bad as Boston or Minnesota with KG on the bench. Why? Is his intimidating rim protection also effective while riding pine?

Part of that is because they had Gortat behind Howard.

The Gortat point is a reasonable thing to bring up. Just understand 2 things:

1) Howard aside, the gap between Garnett and all other defenders by long term +/- is utterly insane.

2) For all the talk of Howard as the new shotblocking giant, dude's never blocked 3 shots per game. It's amazing how people overlook this fact, or wrongly chalk it up to era differences. Freaking Andrew Bogut has a good case as being a better shot blocker than Howard. So the idea that we'd expect Howard to be off the charts on defense because of his ability to be the new version of the classic shot blocking big contains some very bad assumptions.

[Doctor MJ]

I have no doubts that Boston KG is an elite defender. I just want to know why his teams were mediocre on defense during his tenure in Minnesota despite his all-world defense.

One more stab at this:

Since KG left, Minnesota has had a defensive rating of 111 or worse all 4 seasons. No other team has had this happen to them more than twice. Minnesota's defense, without KG, sucks. I'd hope no one would challenge that statement.

(I could make what to me is an even more powerful statement about the defense sucking without KG WHILE he was still there, but that statement has already been made multiple times through the +/-, and people don't seem to buy it.)

The question then becomes: How much can any one man do in the face of such ineptitude?

It's clear that people are stuck in the idea that one player should be able to make any team elite, but consider what that means. The offense dictates play, not the defense. They can avoid good defender, and the proof of that is that we consider who makes 3 blocks in roughly 100 possessions to be a great shot blocker. If a team truly has a bunch of clueless idiots as defenders, no one man is going to make that team great on defense.

And as I said before: We have +/- data on this. I know people don't really understand this stuff, and I don't know how to change that, but we have large amounts of data saying what you can expect to get from one great defender. It's typically about a 4-5 point swing. This in a league where the gap between the best & worst defenses is in the 10-15 point range.

People need to stop trying to equate defensive team success with how good a defensive star is. However little sense it makes to do this generally, it makes even less sense on defense where the stars are simply not as effective as on offense.

[prs]

Or we could not look at stats that rely almost entirely on bench players and the times coaches put them in. We could jsut look at the fact that howard never had great defenders around him and still produced top defenses. Something KG could never do because he was never an anchor.

Honestly if you think KG is as good as a defender as Dwight and other elite centers then you're just delusional and I guess I can see how you put KG over Dirk because if it was actually true KG would be close to Hakeem/Duncan both of which I put over Dirk. But its not true and KG is also worse offensively than them.

[drza]

My problem with KG is that he didn't really impact his team defense as much as he should have:
Since KG became a starter:
97: 15th D; 17th O
98: 23rd D; 7th O
99: 11th D; 19th O
00: 12th D; 8th O
01: 16th D: 11th O
02: 15th D; 4th O
03: 16th D: 5th O
04: 6th D; 5th O
05: 15th D; 6th O
06: 10th D; 28th O
07: 21st D; 25th O

That's an average of 14.6 on D which is basically league average. With 2 top 10 defenses and 0 top 5 defenses, 4 seasons above the league average. By comparison Dirk has averaged a 4.3 finish in Offense and a 14th place finish on Defense. He has 5 top 10 finishes, 1 top 5 finish, 8 above average finishes. Why is that KG's defenses have done worse than Dirk's despite Dirk having a weaker defensive supporting cast?

I'll take a crack at this one. First, though, we must note that we only have the Defensive APM stats starting from 2003-04 through 2011 (8 year sample). I strongly and firmly believe that KG was doing excellent defensive work before that, but for the sake of argument clarity we should probably stick with the time period we have the data for. So, completing your chart for the years under consideration, these are the results from Garnett's teams:

04: 6th D; 5th O
05: 15th D; 6th O
06: 10th D; 28th O
07: 21st D; 25th O
08: 1st D, 10th O
09: 2nd D, 6th O
10: 5th D, 15th O
11: "2nd" D, 18th O

More below.

Are you telling me that KG's supporting cast was so bad that they could drag down the best defensive player of his to a level below a Don Nelson coached team?

Let's examine.

2004 Wolves (most minutes per position):Team DRtg 99.7
Kevin Garnett (Career DRtg 99)
Sam Cassell (Career DRtg 108)
Latrell Sprewell (Career DRtg 108)
Trenton Hassell (Career DRtg 109)
Mark Madsen (Career DRtg 106)

If we step away from DRtg (which I despise for individual defensive ratings, but used here for simplicity) we see that Cassell and Sprewell were at the end of their careers in their mid-30s, that Trenton Hassell was a journeyman that had recently been cut by the lottery-bound Bulls, and that Madsen was a career cheerleader (he got the most center minutes, but same story holds true for Erv Johnson who started most games but was on his last legs at age 36 as well). This was a below-average defensive group, and this is where the DRtg info can give us a broad-stroke support for that statement. But KG led them to a good team defense. How? Well, outside of Cassell, the other starters could at least play reasonable man defense...they couldn't shut their man down, but they could either stay in front of them long enough for help to arrive or else they could at least funnel them towards help. Garnett was (in my view) the best help defender of his generation, so he didn't require MUCH...he just needed them to hold the line for a second until he could get there to assist and still have a chance to recover on his man. This was something that many previous Wolves rotation players (Wally, Hudson, Peeler, etc.) were unable to do and what future teammates would struggle on as well.

2005 Wolves:
Garnett, Wally, Sprewell, Hudson, Griffin

This season was a big step downward as far as reasonable individual defense. Sprewell was in his last season before retirement, visibly on fumes. Wally, always a bad defender, was coming off of a series of injuries that robbed his already poor lateral quickness and made him unable to even offer token resistance on defense. Even Eddie Griffin, who got minutes at center and was known for being a shot-blocker, was not as good as Madsen or Johnson were at actually staying in between his man and the rim on the post. He could weak-side swat shots, but he couldn't defend the point of attack at center. And then there's Troy Hudson, who was playing on a glass ankle, and who received one of my favorite public dressing downs ever from Dan Rosenbaum:

"Troy Hudson probably gets the award for the being the worst defender in the league. He is dead last among point guards in both the statistical and adjusted plus/minus ratings and his adjusted plus/minus ratings are consistently horrible. He is playing a game on the defensive end that is not remotely like anyone else’s in the league."

Now again, my stance is that Garnett was the best help-and-recover defender in the NBA, and he was at his peak. But in this situation he was surrounded by defenders that couldn't even offer marginal resistance to the opponent, and often the opponent didn't require picks to get open. Garnett became the boy trying to stop the dam with his fingers...too many holes to plug. He did great work even getting them to league average.

2006 Wolves:
KG; Wally/Ricky Davis; Hassell; Jaric; Eddie Griffin/Mark Blount; new coach Dwane Casey

The '06 Wolves had a lot of stuff going on. They were breaking in a first year coach in Casey, who had a defensive pedigree and installed a reasonable defensive system but was HORRID as an offensive coach and didn't have any head coaching experience. Next, this was the first year after the infamous Cassell/Jaric trade that actually behooved the team to lose games over the last month or so of the season.

That said, the team finished with a solid 10th ranked defense. The support was mildly worse than the below-average '04 squad, but better than the frankly bad '05 support. Jaric wasn't good for much, but like Hassell he could at least make his opponent work for a second (or, in the case of quicker PGs that torched him) could use his length to try to funnel them to Garnett. After the big midseason trade Davis and Blount were pretty awful, but again, KG was able to take a pack of misfits to a top-10 defense.

2007 Wolves
I have written about this group several times, including making a legitimate case that they are the worst supporting cast in league history ( viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1075089 ). But here is what I wrote about them specifically on defense, in a different thread:

"Mark Blount, Ricky Davis and Mike James were all really, really bad defensive players in Minnesota. Blount was an extremely soft defensive big man, unwilling or unable to deny easy post position nor stop his man once the ball was received. Neither Davis nor James were able to prevent consistent dribble penetration from their position. Hassell had earned a reputation as a "defensive stopper" in 2004 when what he really was was an energy defender, someone that would work hard and annoy his opponent without having the actual athletic ability to truly shut someone down, but with a great interior defense behind him he was able to be more aggressive. But in 2005 Hassell lost his starting job to Wally Szczerbiak, and from then on seemed to form the opinion that he needed to spend more energy on his fledgling offense if he wanted to play. By 2007 he was no longer the energy defender that he once was, but he also wasn't as awful as the other 3 starters. Also, all four of those players were poor rebounders for their positions. The end result was that the Wolves' defense couldn't hope to stop anyone, unless Garnett was able to get there in time to help (possible with Hassell, less likely with the others who simply got beaten too quickly for help defense). Moreover, the Wolves couldn't hope to get a reasonable level of defensive rebounds unless Garnett was the one to do it. I've seen posters like ElGee point out that offense is more important than defense because one man can't defend five, but for those Wolves Garnett was asked to come awfully close. (This was a common theme in Minnesota during the 2000s, but 2007 may have been the most glaring year for it.)"

Cliff Notes: Let's distance this from names, and instead look at the on-court realities. For the '04 - '07 Wolves, the majority of the non-Garnett minutes went to players that weren't just poor defenders...they were defenders that were unable to contribute in any area of defense. They lacked the physical ability (combo of strength, speed and/or height) and/or aptitude to stay in front of their man (often without picks), to make reasonable rotations, or to rebound their positions.

This was not true of the Mavs who, outside of Nash, tended to be players who could contribute in some way to the defense. Finley, Adrian Griffin and LaFrentz all brought something to the table defensively. Same with Howard and Dampier/Diop. Same with Harris/Kidd. Same with Deshawn Stevenson and Tyson Chandler. Ironically, Dirk's defensive support in Dallas is more similar in caliber to KG's support in Boston...but because of the team's defensive success, built around Garnett, his teammates have started getting a lot more credit than they ever would have otherwise. Either way, though, in both Minnesota and Boston KG was taking defensive support and making them MUCH better than they otherwise would have been as a unit. In Minnesota he was taking league basement-level defenders and making them average units...the accolades and stats of the time would have suggested that if you gave him even an average defensive cast he would give you a masterpiece.

Well guess what? He got that average defensive support in Boston, and led them to a historic defense. Which would seem to really vindicate the story that the accolades and stats were giving in Minnesota.

[grimballer]

its just pathetic how dirk goes from zero to hero, n the only difference is better supporting cast.

ppl seriously think dirk is better this year than in 06 or 07?

[richboy]

You missed the entire point about sample size.

I ask this all the time too, but year after year, the Magic don't perform that badly defensively with Dwight on the bench, not nearly as bad as Boston or Minnesota with KG on the bench. Why? Is his intimidating rim protection also effective while riding pine?

Part of that is because they had Gortat behind Howard.

The Gortat point is a reasonable thing to bring up. Just understand 2 things:

1) Howard aside, the gap between Garnett and all other defenders by long term +/- is utterly insane.

2) For all the talk of Howard as the new shotblocking giant, dude's never blocked 3 shots per game. It's amazing how people overlook this fact, or wrongly chalk it up to era differences. Freaking Andrew Bogut has a good case as being a better shot blocker than Howard. So the idea that we'd expect Howard to be off the charts on defense because of his ability to be the new version of the classic shot blocking big contains some very bad assumptions.

No the bad assumption is thinking that shot blocking is the measure of impact for a defender. Bogut then has a case to be a better shot blocker than Tim Duncan. Is there really a point. I'm going to say Duncan is still a better defender than Duncan. I've never had a Buck fan argue that Bogut was as good as Dwight defensively.

Also you have to take things into account to the era he plays. Your pretty much dismissing an entire era. Ignoring the fact that maybe its not as easy to block shots today as it was in the past.

In 1990 the average NBA team took 550 3 point shots during the year. In 2010 the average team took nearly 1500 3 point shots during the year. Nearly 1 in 4 shots is a 3 point shot. Its not easy for big men to block 3 point shots. Back then teams on average took 400 more free throws. Tells us more inside play. Add in the fact that possessions are down from those days. Getting even 3 block shots per game now is really tough. You may never see 4 block shots per game again.

I understand its insane. Problem is are you saying Garnett >>>>>>> all other big defenders. He played 40 minutes per game at his prime and the Twolves were middle of the league defensively. His +- suggest he was very valuable to the wolves. Maybe more valuable than any player in the league. It doesn't suggest that he is a better player than Tim Duncan. He probably blows prime Shaq away in plus minus. Yet who is taking KG over Shaq.

You put out there that his huge advantage in that state suggest how good he was. To me it suggest that the stat is bad. As great as KG was there no way I would say he had a huge defensive advantage over Duncan, Mourning,Wallace, Mutombo. Add in the fact that it also says some other ridiculous things. How far am I going to take this stat.

I've never watched a game where a commentator said Minnesota Timberwolves have given up 110 points but KG adjusted plus minus is off the charts. At the end of the night people want to see results. You can't claim best defensive big in the game by far. Play almost the entire game. Have a mediocre defense. While many of the big men we are talking about anchored elite defenses.

[Doctor MJ]

Or we could not look at stats that rely almost entirely on bench players and the times coaches put them in.

Easy to see why you'd think like you do when you make assumptions like that.

Some food for thought:

What really makes people think KG couldn't possibly be that good is how bad Minny was their last two years. 32 & 33 wins respectively, how good could he possibly be?

Well, there was never a season in KG's prime where his team's weren't above average while he was on the court. I mean this literally, with KG on the court Minny outscored opponents. And with prime Garnett you're talking about a big minute guy, regularly among the league leaders.

How could Minny be so much worse than a .500 if for most of the time, they were outscoring opponents? Because in those 8-9 minutes per game where Garnett didn't play, they got regularly throttled.

Why on earth would you not look at that information?

Last, clearly you think player's +/- is strongly shaped by who they get to play with. In the raw form this is true, but no one who uses +/- relies on the raw numbers. We have adjusted +/- that removes those biases.