Does Dirk with title surpass KG

[drza]

I don't agree with the premise of the thread (that Nowitzki is better than KG), but at the same time the pro-Dirk side makes alot of reasonable arguments. Half the reason I joined was to point that out in fact, as it's infuriating to not see answers to alot of the questions people have posed. What about the years KG had quite decent players on his team, and didn't get much of anywhere? Why are the all-stars and borderline all-stars on his team being ignored so that KG fans can focus only on the really bad years for the Wolves (like 2007 or 2003) instead of the many years when the Wolves team was not bad at all. Do those just not count for convenience?

OK, I'll play. I've already talked in reasonable depth about KG's teams from 2004 - 2011, so let's take it back to the start of the millenium. I'm not sure where all of these "all-stars and borderline all-stars" are that you mention, but let's take a look and maybe you can help me find them.

1999-2000 Wolves starting line-up: Garnett, Brandon, Szczerbiak (rookie), Sealy, Nesterovic (rookie)

Brandon was a solid 17 and 9 point guard, still playing well though in the midst of the knee issues that plagued him after his major surgery in the late 90s. Wolves fans affectionately referred to him as "Stop-n-pop", because that became his primary means of scoring as he got away from driving the lane later in his career. Sealy was probably the best SG that KG had pre-Sprewell in 2004, a solid athlete that was good for about 11 points per game and reasonable defense. Rasho and Wally were both rookies (Rasho had played 2 games in the '99 season), learning the ropes from the starting line-up. Nothing in there you would write home about, but KG led them to 50 wins with a huge season that earned him 2nd place in the MVP vote.

50 wins in the East would have gotten the Wolves home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs and a match-up with the 45-win Raptors. 50 wins in the West that year earned them a match-up with the 59-win Trailblazers, the team with the 2nd best record in the NBA that was stacked with high-end talent and would come a massive 4th quarter choke away from the NBA title. Needless to say, the Blazers beat the Wolves in the first round.

2001 Wolves starting line-up: KG, Brandon, Wally, Peeler (+ committee), Rasho (+ committee)

KG, Brandon and Wally were back in the starting line-up, and Wally was taking more of a scoring role as a sophomore. Starting shooting guard Sealy had died over the summer in a tragic drunk-driver accident when leaving KG's birthday party, so was replaced by two undersized shooters: Anthony Peeler, and a young journeyman named Chauncey Billups who they picked up off the scrap heap. Rasho started about half the games at center, but he wasn't really developed yet and the other half of the center starts were split between journeymen Reggie Slater (6-7), Dean Garrett and Laphonzo Ellis (6-8). Again, nothing special in the support department, KG led them to 47 wins.

In the East, that would have been good for a first round match-up with the 48-win Knicks. In the West, it earned them an 8 seed and a match-up with the Duncan/Robinson Spurs who had the best record in the NBA. The Spurs won.

2002 Wolves starting line-up: KG, Brandon, Wally, Joe Smith, Rasho

This was the season that the NBA changed the defensive rule to allow zone defense, and Flip Saunders had the Wolves ahead of the curve for taking advantage of it. He moved KG back to small forward, then ran a 3-2 zone with Garnett at the top of the zone and essentially following the ball all around the court. I've described it in the past as the "KG, guard everyone, then go get the rebound" defense. To start the season it worked great, and with KG/Brandon/Wally as the focal points on offense the Wolves started out 15 - 5 and then 30 - 10. It was good for one of the best starts in the league, which earned Wally an All Star bid. Unfortunately, 2 things happened from there: the league caught up to the zone, and Brandon went down with a career-ending injury. Billups (who was playing SG the previous year) replaced him and provided good scoring, but he didn't run the offense as well. The team slowed down, but still won 50 games.

The Wolves' record would have earned them a #2 seed in the East and a match-up with the 42-win Raptors. In the West, it earned them a 5-seed and a match-up with the 57-win Mavs. It was just bad luck, though, because there were really only 2 teams that those Wolves completely didn't match-up with: the Shaq/Kobe Lakers, and the run-and-gun Mavs. They actually matched up more reasonably with the Spurs or even the Kings, but the Mavs were murder (I talked about that series in this thread yesterday).

2003 Wolves starting line-up: KG, Wally (injured)/Gill, Hudson, Rasho, Peeler

The talent drain has begun. Brandon's done (knee), Mchale let Billups walk and replaced him with journeyman Hudson, Wally is hurt for half the season and replaced with 30-something journeyman Gill, and Peeler is the starting SG essentially by default. This was the year that KG hit his peak, though, and he went nuts...leading the Wolves in pts/asts/rebs/stls/blks by total and average (only player in NBA history to do that) and leading probably his worst cast since his rookie season to 51 wins.

51 wins would have been good for the #1 seed in the East and a date with the 42-win Magic. Instead, it earned the Wolves a match-up with the 3-time defending champion Shaq/Kobe Lakers. KG went nuts...but he couldn't beat both of them by himself. Lakers win.

Bottom line: This now covers the last 12 years of KG's career. I'm glad to go more in depth or discuss any year with anyone that wants to take this further. Realistically, he was getting maximum mileage out of those teams just to get them to 50 wins year-in and year-out. It was just bad luck that the Wolves were in the West, where 50 wins got them annual match-ups with buzz saws in the first round as opposed to cushy match-ups like it would have in the East. But KG was maximizing his team's talents on a yearly basis. If you disagree, pick a year, and we can take it even more to the lab if you like...

[richboy]

Supporting cast: When Garnett played with no supporting cast at all, his individual achievements shouldn't mean that much because he wasn't winning as much as contemporaries who had more stacked line-ups. But when he does get a better cast and wins, we shouldn't count it as much because he was no longer playing with trash. Interesting double-bind you've built.

No it would be interesting if it was actually true. People give credit to Garnett for his trip to the WCF. I don't see people taking away tha credit. What people aren't going to do is give KG equal credit for not any level of playoff overachievement. For not even being competitive in many series.

Your talking about stacked. Not everyone is playing with Stacked rosters. Tim Duncan won a title with the third leading scorer on the team Sean Elliot averaged 11 points per game. With Avery Johnson at the point guard.

Then won another title when Parker and Ginobili were pretty much rookies. Stephen Jackson may had been the second best player on that team.

These teams are far from stacked. Yet your giving Garnett excuses for not even getting out of the first round. Forget getting out of the first round. They weren't even a factor in the first round most years.

Superstars elevate teams to levels you wouldn't expect. Dwight Howard had a team with Rafer Alston and Courtney Lee starting in the backcourt in the NBA Finals. Lebron James had a team with Drew Gooden and Daniel Gibson in the finals. Hakeem took a team with Otis Thorpe as the second best player to a ring. I could go on. Yet your suggesting I can't even expect a compettitive first round series with KG. Yet he suppose to have more impact than everyone.

Lets not act like every player Garnett ever played with was barely in the NBA. Wally Z was a 20 plus scorer in this league. He played 2 years with Chauncey Billups. Including a playoff series where Billups averaged over 20 a game. He played with the likes of Terrell Brandon, Kendall Gill, Stephan Marbury.

Did he play with enough to expect a Title? I would say no. If KG is as good as some in this thread suggest. I think he has played with enough to get out of the first round. To at least be competitive. If he is the by far biggest impact on defense. Even close to Dirk on offense I don't think that is a ton to ask.

*Supporting cast 2: the legend of Paul Pierce and Ray Allen has reached epic proportions. Because the "don't count KG's career post-2007" line of logic suggests that the '08 Celtics had the greatest supporting cast EVER. Better than any cast that Magic, Bird, Russell, Michael, Wilt, Shaq, Duncan, or anyone else ever played with. It must be, because none of THEIR titles are ignored because their cast had talent.

Here is the problem with your argument. If KG went to Boston and blew the doors off. Was the clear cut best player on the Celtics. Carried them a title. Everything you said would be completely correct. Here is the reality. KG had a good post season but it lacked amazing monents. Paul Pierce was Finals MVP. Some people think Ray Allen should won Finals MVP.Kevin Garnett didn't shoot over 41% in any Finals game until game 4. In the biggest game of his KG career. GAme 7 against the Cavs it was Paul Pierce who had the historic game. Garnett had a horrible game. He had a good series against Detroit.

KG no question the best overall player on the Celtics. Problem is his one title he sometimes is a long for the ride. If we had a Paul Pierce debate he be sitting here saying I carried the Celtics in the biggest moments. KG not being dominate hurts his argument. This is a Celtic team that was a PJ Brown jump shot away from not getting out the second round. Lebron James didn't have close to the talent as Boston. You kill Wally Z. Wally Z was one of Lebron's better players.

*Supporting cast 3: At the start of the 2007 season the Celtics were not "full of All Stars and Hall of Famers". Rondo was essentially a rookie and Perkins was well established as a roll player. Pierce and Allen were both borderline HoF candidates, at best. Or, put another way, both of their resumes came up light next to Vince Carter or Tracy McGrady in the summer of '07, and no one is proclaiming Carter or TMac definite HoFs. So let's not pretend that the "Big 3" era in Boston wasn't the tipping point that likely get Pierce and Allen in. There's a reason why before the 2007-08 season began, exactly ZERO out of the 18 ESPN NBA writers predicted a Celtics title. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/preview20 ... -NBAChamps . All of this talk that Garnett joined a fore-gone conclusion champion team in Boston is EXTREME re-writing of history.

Well I think already discussed the fact that KG didn't showcase himself as being the force behind the Celtics. He was a great player but in the biggest moments and games it was someone else that carried the Celtics.

You did say something about Rondo. Rondo was not an all-star. Just a second year player. Lets look at his rookie year though. The Celtics were one of the worst teams in the league. One of the worst teams in there franchise history. Many in this thread talk about impact. That year despite how bad the Celtics were. IN minutes that Rondo played they outscored there opponents. He played half the teams minutes. In the other half they were outscored by 10 per 100 possessions. If Pierce and Rondo were on the floor they could have been a playoff team.

Now seems like your lowering Pierce and Allen. That might be fine if it wasn't Pierce and Allen carrying the team often. You can't talk about how Pierce wasn't that great when its him scoring 41 in game 7. When Ray Allen making the big shots in game 4 of the NBA finals you can't talk about he just a borderline. Especially when in some of these series KG isn't anything special.

In terms of Dirk supporting cast. They have had years of more talent than others. Overall Dallas cast has not been anything special. Take away Dirk you would have had a team that would not only look drastically different. In some years they would be flat out horrible. Dallas went to the NBA Finals with a group that looks comparable to many KG teams. That team went to the finals and beat the Spurs in the playoffs.

You often see Dallas and they beat teams that they don't have upper talent comparable too. They swept the Lakers because of Dirk. Most people would say the Lakers have 4 of the 5 best players in the series. They have beaten the Spurs twice. Most would say 3 of the 4 best players in the series are on the Spurs.

When you compare the Dallas talent. Even though they have had some years of solid rosters. There going up against teams with much more upper talent at times.They won 58 games in 2005 with Finley and Jason Terry as the top support. Thats not usually 58 wins. They beat a Houston team with Yao Ming and Tmac and good role players. Some in this thread ripped Dirk for loosing first round after winning 67 games in the regular season. Think about the fact that Dallas won 67 games with Dirk, Josh Howard and Jason Terry. Nobody could look at that team and think that team could challenge 70 wins.

[GilmoreFan]

OK, I'll play. I've already talked in reasonable depth about KG's teams from 2004 - 2011, so let's take it back to the start of the millenium. I'm not sure where all of these "all-stars and borderline all-stars" are that you mention, but let's take a look and maybe you can help me find them.

So hang on, the 97, 98 and 99 Wolves, when KG was 20, 21 and 22 don't count for some reason, even though KG was an all-star those years, as well as an all-nba player in the last one. Tim Duncan (who a few people here have compared to KG!) and Dirk were leading teams at age 22 (21 in Tim's case)... surely we shouldn't just totally discount these years for KG. If we are, surely this is a big plus for those guys against him, because they primed earlier and led teams before he could. KG certainly had some nice players in some of these years... but let's just ignore them for the moment...

1999-2000 Wolves starting line-up: Garnett, Brandon, Szczerbiak (rookie), Sealy, Nesterovic (rookie)

Brandon was a solid 17 and 9 point guard, still playing well though in the midst of the knee issues that plagued him after his major surgery in the late 90s. Wolves fans affectionately referred to him as "Stop-n-pop", because that became his primary means of scoring as he got away from driving the lane later in his career. Sealy was probably the best SG that KG had pre-Sprewell in 2004, a solid athlete that was good for about 11 points per game and reasonable defense. Rasho and Wally were both rookies (Rasho had played 2 games in the '99 season), learning the ropes from the starting line-up. Nothing in there you would write home about, but KG led them to 50 wins with a huge season that earned him 2nd place in the MVP vote.

I disagree with your characterisation of Brandon. It's not what you've said (accurately calling him a 17-9 player), it's what you haven't said. Brandon was a 2 time all-star who was 29 that year, he was not yet hampered from his injuries as he would be later, and he had a few years earlier led a mediocre Cavs team to the playoffs and 47 wins, as far and away their best player. Describing him as a 17-9 player is not unlike me describing Bruce Bowen as a 7 and 3 guard. There's a little more to it than that. Brandon was a true all-star PG, an excellent #2 option for KG. An article in 1997 referred to him as the best PG in the NBA (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm). I don't agree, but you've totally played him down. Like you said, Brandon had knee injuries, but he had those his whole career, even wearing a brace in college. In 2000 his knee was no worse than it had been in previous years, and in the playoffs that year he played much better than KG (who shot 385. from the field).

The rest of the support cast was solid too. Joe Smith was a very solid role player (especially at age 24), as were 22 year old Wally, Sealy and Rasho. You even had a young B.Jax coming off the bench for you. Mitchell was mostly rundown, but Peeler was still a solid player at that point. This wasn't a cast for the ages, it wasn't stacked, but it wasn't bad either. Brandon was certainly better than the 2nd best player Dirk has had some years (and remember, I'm not even taking Dirk, but he was).

The season wasn't very impressive though... 50 wins and a 3-1 first round drubbing by the Blazers... it doesn't exactly smack of greatness. I'm alot more impressed by Dirk beating the Lakers this year than I am by anything KG did with the Wolves during his many first round exits. In addition, that 2nd place MVP vote was ridiculous. I'd have taken Tim Duncan over him in a heartbeat that year. Tim had just led the Spurs to a title, something KG wasn't capable of doing in 2000 yet.

50 wins in the East would have gotten the Wolves home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs and a match-up with the 45-win Raptors. 50 wins in the West that year earned them a match-up with the 59-win Trailblazers, the team with the 2nd best record in the NBA that was stacked with high-end talent and would come a massive 4th quarter choke away from the NBA title. Needless to say, the Blazers beat the Wolves in the first round.

He's being compared to Dirk (and Tim) though, and they played in the West. And KG played pretty mediocre in that series... advanced stats suggest Brandon was the more valuable playoff performer that year.

2001 Wolves starting line-up: KG, Brandon, Wally, Peeler (+ committee), Rasho (+ committee)

KG, Brandon and Wally were back in the starting line-up, and Wally was taking more of a scoring role as a sophomore. Starting shooting guard Sealy had died over the summer in a tragic drunk-driver accident when leaving KG's birthday party, so was replaced by two undersized shooters: Anthony Peeler, and a young journeyman named Chauncey Billups who they picked up off the scrap heap. Rasho started about half the games at center, but he wasn't really developed yet and the other half of the center starts were split between journeymen Reggie Slater (6-7), Dean Garrett and Laphonzo Ellis (6-8). Again, nothing special in the support department, KG led them to 47 wins.

Brandon was only slightly worse than last year, and they picked up Billups off the bench... while it he was unknown at the time, he was also a very good bench guard to have too. The team was similar to last years talent, and the teams result was similarly mediocre (relative to how good KG is supposed to be). 47 wins and a first round exit to the Spurs. It's not like Duncan had a clearly superior support cast at this point... D.Rob had his last credible season this year, and it isn't at all clear to me that he was more valuable than Brandon at age 35 and about to fall off a cliff. Derek Anderson was a terribly overrated player on the Spurs, a decent slasher, but nothing special. If KG was really as good as Duncan I'd have hope for a closer series... not a 3-1 defeat which included 2 blowouts.

2002 Wolves starting line-up: KG, Brandon, Wally, Joe Smith, Rasho

This was the season that the NBA changed the defensive rule to allow zone defense, and Flip Saunders had the Wolves ahead of the curve for taking advantage of it. He moved KG back to small forward, then ran a 3-2 zone with Garnett at the top of the zone and essentially following the ball all around the court. I've described it in the past as the "KG, guard everyone, then go get the rebound" defense. To start the season it worked great, and with KG/Brandon/Wally as the focal points on offense the Wolves started out 15 - 5 and then 30 - 10. It was good for one of the best starts in the league, which earned Wally an All Star bid. Unfortunately, 2 things happened from there: the league caught up to the zone, and Brandon went down with a career-ending injury. Billups (who was playing SG the previous year) replaced him and provided good scoring, but he didn't run the offense as well. The team slowed down, but still won 50 games.

Hang on. The Wolves had a strong PG rotation (the 2 headed beast of Brandon or Billups), Wally playing great and making an all-star team, and solid role players like Joe Smith, Rasho and Peeler, and they still only won 50 games, and got stomped on by the Mavs. Again, this is not a good effort from KG, a player supposedly far superior to Dirk according to you. We look at a body of work, but the way you play if KG had an excuse every year, and he plainly didn't. This is a black mark on his resume too, the sort you don't see on players who are truly in a tier well beyond Dirk (like Duncan, Bird, Magic, Lebron, etc). I mean, just look at the playoffs. Billups absolutely exploded v.s the Mavs, and you still couldn't beat them. KG shot the ball pretty poorly again, and he sure didn't shut down Dirk, who went nuts this series, whereas Billups actually outplayed Nash.

2003 Wolves starting line-up: KG, Wally (injured)/Gill, Hudson, Rasho, Peeler

The talent drain has begun. Brandon's done (knee), Mchale let Billups walk and replaced him with journeyman Hudson, Wally is hurt for half the season and replaced with 30-something journeyman Gill, and Peeler is the starting SG essentially by default. This was the year that KG hit his peak, though, and he went nuts...leading the Wolves in pts/asts/rebs/stls/blks by total and average (only player in NBA history to do that) and leading probably his worst cast since his rookie season to 51 wins.

This season KG's support cast sucked, fair enough. But it's an outlier. Most of the time KG's support cast was not bad enough to justify the results... at least, not if KG is as good as you seem to think he was. He's better than Dirk, but not that much better. He's not a "coin flip" with Duncan as people are suggesting, that's ridiculous.

And in 2005 and 2006 there's really no excuse for the way KG's teams performed. You're looking at outliers like 2003 and 2007, and trying to apply the performance there to his whole time with the wolves, and it's not a fair comparison at all.

[drza]

OK, I'll play. I've already talked in reasonable depth about KG's teams from 2004 - 2011, so let's take it back to the start of the millenium. I'm not sure where all of these "all-stars and borderline all-stars" are that you mention, but let's take a look and maybe you can help me find them.

So hang on, the 97, 98 and 99 Wolves, when KG was 20, 21 and 22 don't count for some reason, even though KG was an all-star those years, as well as an all-nba player in the last one. Tim Duncan (who a few people here have compared to KG!) and Dirk were leading teams at age 22 (21 in Tim's case)... surely we shouldn't just totally discount these years for KG. If we are, surely this is a big plus for those guys against him, because they primed earlier and led teams before he could. KG certainly had some nice players in some of these years... but let's just ignore them for the moment...

Fair enough. I started in 1999-2000 for several reasons, including post length (already too long), length of time (1999 - 2011 seems long enough for plenty of conversation), and 1999 was when I really started watching the Wolves on a daily basis. That said, you want to go further, let's go further.

1994-95 Wolves (year before KG): 21 - 61, 26th/27 in ORtg, 26th /27 in DRTG. Started Laettner, Rider, Doug West, Sean Rooks, Winston Garland; though 25-year old Gugliotta and 21-year old Donyell Marshall also got some run. This was the Wolves' 6th year in existence as a franchise, but despite several years of high lottery picks they were still very arguably the worst team in the league.

1995 - 96 (KG rookie year): 26 - 56. Gugliotta and Rider started most of the year; Laettner, Sam Mitchell, rookie KG and Terry Porter all started about half the year. Still a lottery-bound franchise and KG was a teenager, but the squad showed signs of improvement and KG ended the season strong once he got into the rotation.

1996 - 97 (KG 2nd year): 40 - 42. Gugliotta, KG and rookie Marbury form the nucleus of the best team in franchise history. Googs makes the only All Star game of his career, though by the end of the season it is clear that young kids KG and Marbury have taken the reigns of the team. Wolves make the playoffs for the first time in franchise history with 40 wins, face the 57-win old Hakeem/Barkley/Drexler Rockets and get swept. Minnesota celebrates the year as a victory and positive sign for the future.

1997 - 98: 45 - 37. The young tandem of KG and Marbury continue to improve, and the Wolves follow suit. Gugliotta is good early in the season, rumor has it that he hates Marbury...he's traded/injured in Januaryand never plays another game for the Wolves. Nevertheless, KG and Marbury keep the vibe going and lead the Wolves to another franchise-record for wins. In the first round of the playoffs they faced the 61-win Sonics, and the young bucks put a scare into them, forcing a decisive game 5 before coming up short.

1998 - 99: Lockout season, 25 - 25. Wolves are in turmoil, as Marbury forces himself out of town with a trade demand partially through the season. Wolves are off to a good 12 - 6 start at the time of the trade, but stumbled after the deal. Terrell Brandon, the centerpiece of the trade, was able to play in about 2/3 of the remaining games. KG continues his yearly improvements, making his first All-NBA team, and ramping up for a post-season confrontation with the Duncan/Robinson twin towers. KG more than held his own with Duncan, but unfortunately Spurs PG Avery Johnson held his own with Brandon...leaving no one to counter David Robinson, who was ultimately the difference in the series. Spurs win, though the Wolves did give them one of only two losses they would have that postseason.

I'm not sure what you think I was "discounting" by not initially including the 90s, but there you go. I look forward to your rebuttals.

1999-2000 Wolves starting line-up: Garnett, Brandon, Szczerbiak (rookie), Sealy, Nesterovic (rookie)

Brandon was a solid 17 and 9 point guard, still playing well though in the midst of the knee issues that plagued him after his major surgery in the late 90s. Wolves fans affectionately referred to him as "Stop-n-pop", because that became his primary means of scoring as he got away from driving the lane later in his career. Sealy was probably the best SG that KG had pre-Sprewell in 2004, a solid athlete that was good for about 11 points per game and reasonable defense. Rasho and Wally were both rookies (Rasho had played 2 games in the '99 season), learning the ropes from the starting line-up. Nothing in there you would write home about, but KG led them to 50 wins with a huge season that earned him 2nd place in the MVP vote.

I disagree with your characterisation of Brandon. It's not what you've said (accurately calling him a 17-9 player), it's what you haven't said. Brandon was a 2 time all-star who was 29 that year, he was not yet hampered from his injuries as he would be later, and he had a few years earlier led a mediocre Cavs team to the playoffs and 47 wins, as far and away their best player. Describing him as a 17-9 player is not unlike me describing Bruce Bowen as a 7 and 3 guard. There's a little more to it than that. Brandon was a true all-star PG, an excellent #2 option for KG. An article in 1997 referred to him as the best PG in the NBA (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/ ... /index.htm). I don't agree, but you've totally played him down. Like you said, Brandon had knee injuries, but he had those his whole career, even wearing a brace in college. In 2000 his knee was no worse than it had been in previous years, and in the playoffs that year he played much better than KG (who shot 385. from the field).

The rest of the support cast was solid too. Joe Smith was a very solid role player (especially at age 24), as were 22 year old Wally, Sealy and Rasho. You even had a young B.Jax coming off the bench for you. Mitchell was mostly rundown, but Peeler was still a solid player at that point. This wasn't a cast for the ages, it wasn't stacked, but it wasn't bad either. Brandon was certainly better than the 2nd best player Dirk has had some years (and remember, I'm not even taking Dirk, but he was).

The season wasn't very impressive though... 50 wins and a 3-1 first round drubbing by the Blazers... it doesn't exactly smack of greatness. I'm alot more impressed by Dirk beating the Lakers this year than I am by anything KG did with the Wolves during his many first round exits. In addition, that 2nd place MVP vote was ridiculous. I'd have taken Tim Duncan over him in a heartbeat that year. Tim had just led the Spurs to a title, something KG wasn't capable of doing in 2000 yet.

There's a lot in here, spit rapid-fire style. To address your main points:

*Brandon - Brandon was a very solid player for the Wolves. But let's not get carried away. He WAS a 17 - 9 player for them, and (unlike your Bowen counter-example) he didn't have a primary skill that the box scores didn't cover. And injuries were already starting to affect the way he plays. For Cleveland in '97 Brandon was a penetrating point guard that constantly put pressure on opposing defenses. Then, various injuries forced him to miss 35% of the games in 1998 and 1999, and by the time he got to the Wolves he was putting more emphasis on his mid-range game and floor generalship. Again, Brandon was a good player. Probably the best teammate that KG had in Minnesota outside of that one year of Cassell, but don't make him out to be something that he wasn't. He was in no way (in the conversation for) the best point guard in the NBA and he wasn't an All Star during his tenure in Minnesota. And as a 2nd option, he didn't remotely compare to Kobe Bryant, David Robinson or the mass of talent they had in Portland. Which is ultimately the point.

*Impressiveness. Now we're getting into areas where the criterion are purely subjective. How impressive were 50 wins, on that team? Well, it was the first 50-win team in franchise history, they finished only 3 games behind the Spurs despite the Spurs having more talent on a championship tested team, and in the first round they faced a championship-caliber Portland team who was frankly better than them. They took the same 1-win off of Portland that the Jazz would a round later, but KG held Sheed down (13.5 points/42 min) more than either the Jazz or Lakers would (22.3 points/42 min) and the Wolves held the Blazers to 4 points fewer/100 possessions than the Jazz and Lakers were able to that postseason. KG also was dishing 9 assists per game. He did his part, just facing a better team.

50 wins in the East would have gotten the Wolves home court advantage in the first round of the playoffs and a match-up with the 45-win Raptors. 50 wins in the West that year earned them a match-up with the 59-win Trailblazers, the team with the 2nd best record in the NBA that was stacked with high-end talent and would come a massive 4th quarter choke away from the NBA title. Needless to say, the Blazers beat the Wolves in the first round.

He's being compared to Dirk (and Tim) though, and they played in the West. And KG played pretty mediocre in that series... advanced stats suggest Brandon was the more valuable playoff performer that year.

Well, in this thread folks have also been comparing KG's postseasons in Minnesota to LeBron or Kidd getting teams to the Finals from the East. But those '07 Cavs and '03 Nets were 50- and 49-win teams, that just happened to get to face bottom feeders in the East instead of juggernauts in the West. Thus, the distinction. And as I alluded to above, KG was doing a lot more heavy lifting than Brandon was that series and making his impact. PER and Win Shares tell part of a story, but you've got to put it in context (especially in the absence of +/- impact data).

2001 Wolves starting line-up: KG, Brandon, Wally, Peeler (+ committee), Rasho (+ committee)

KG, Brandon and Wally were back in the starting line-up, and Wally was taking more of a scoring role as a sophomore. Starting shooting guard Sealy had died over the summer in a tragic drunk-driver accident when leaving KG's birthday party, so was replaced by two undersized shooters: Anthony Peeler, and a young journeyman named Chauncey Billups who they picked up off the scrap heap. Rasho started about half the games at center, but he wasn't really developed yet and the other half of the center starts were split between journeymen Reggie Slater (6-7), Dean Garrett and Laphonzo Ellis (6-8). Again, nothing special in the support department, KG led them to 47 wins.

Brandon was only slightly worse than last year, and they picked up Billups off the bench... while it he was unknown at the time, he was also a very good bench guard to have too. The team was similar to last years talent, and the teams result was similarly mediocre (relative to how good KG is supposed to be). 47 wins and a first round exit to the Spurs. It's not like Duncan had a clearly superior support cast at this point... D.Rob had his last credible season this year, and it isn't at all clear to me that he was more valuable than Brandon at age 35 and about to fall off a cliff. Derek Anderson was a terribly overrated player on the Spurs, a decent slasher, but nothing special. If KG was really as good as Duncan I'd have hope for a closer series... not a 3-1 defeat which included 2 blowouts.

Again, keep it in context. Brandon was still solid, not spectacular. It's not just that Billups was unknown, it was that he was raw. He was on his 4th team in 4 years, and was still a 2-guard in a PG body. Again, a reasonable cast for a fringe playoff team but nothing to write home about. Also, side note, Sealy's death was felt on the court and I'm sure had a personal effect on KG. That said, again we're giving subjective descriptions on what should or shouldn't have been accomplished in the season.

But in the playoffs? It's not subjective. We don't have to argue about how good Brandon should have been with respect to Robinson, or about Derek Anderson's ranking. We have the facts to work with. And the fact is, KG played Duncan to a standstill while Robinson exploded all over the remaining Wolves. Yes, Robinson was 35 years old. He also went for 16 and 11 in the Spurs' game 2 win, a game in which all 4 other Wolves' starters COMBINED for 15 and 11 (not a misprint). Robinson then combined to averaged 22 and 16 in the last 2 games of the series. KG could match Duncan, but Robinson was by far the best other player in the series. There's really not much more to say about it.

2002 Wolves starting line-up: KG, Brandon, Wally, Joe Smith, Rasho

This was the season that the NBA changed the defensive rule to allow zone defense, and Flip Saunders had the Wolves ahead of the curve for taking advantage of it. He moved KG back to small forward, then ran a 3-2 zone with Garnett at the top of the zone and essentially following the ball all around the court. I've described it in the past as the "KG, guard everyone, then go get the rebound" defense. To start the season it worked great, and with KG/Brandon/Wally as the focal points on offense the Wolves started out 15 - 5 and then 30 - 10. It was good for one of the best starts in the league, which earned Wally an All Star bid. Unfortunately, 2 things happened from there: the league caught up to the zone, and Brandon went down with a career-ending injury. Billups (who was playing SG the previous year) replaced him and provided good scoring, but he didn't run the offense as well. The team slowed down, but still won 50 games.

Hang on. The Wolves had a strong PG rotation (the 2 headed beast of Brandon or Billups), Wally playing great and making an all-star team, and solid role players like Joe Smith, Rasho and Peeler, and they still only won 50 games, and got stomped on by the Mavs. Again, this is not a good effort from KG, a player supposedly far superior to Dirk according to you. We look at a body of work, but the way you play if KG had an excuse every year, and he plainly didn't. This is a black mark on his resume too, the sort you don't see on players who are truly in a tier well beyond Dirk (like Duncan, Bird, Magic, Lebron, etc). I mean, just look at the playoffs. Billups absolutely exploded v.s the Mavs, and you still couldn't beat them. KG shot the ball pretty poorly again, and he sure didn't shut down Dirk, who went nuts this series, whereas Billups actually outplayed Nash.

Context, context, context. First of all, I never said that KG was "in a tier well beyond Dirk". If you look early in the thread I said that IMO Dirk is right there with Kobe, a tick behind KG and Duncan in this generation. I've also said that, caliber-wise, Dirk's the Barkley of this generation IMO. No one is in a tier "well beyond Dirk" just like no one is in a tier "well beyond Barkley"...there are players I believe to be better, but at that level the gaps are small.

That said, No one that actually remembers that series would say that Billups absolutely exploded or outplayed Nash. Nash (and Finley and Van Exel) were able to get wherever they wanted on Billups (and Wally and Peeler), breaking down any semblance of team defense and dictating the game. Billups was good, and showed signs of what he would become, but in the end the Mavs played a strategy of "try to contain KG, then outscore whatever Billups and Wally can do". And it worked, as reasonably one would expect it to.

2003 Wolves starting line-up: KG, Wally (injured)/Gill, Hudson, Rasho, Peeler

The talent drain has begun. Brandon's done (knee), Mchale let Billups walk and replaced him with journeyman Hudson, Wally is hurt for half the season and replaced with 30-something journeyman Gill, and Peeler is the starting SG essentially by default. This was the year that KG hit his peak, though, and he went nuts...leading the Wolves in pts/asts/rebs/stls/blks by total and average (only player in NBA history to do that) and leading probably his worst cast since his rookie season to 51 wins.

This season KG's support cast sucked, fair enough. But it's an outlier. Most of the time KG's support cast was not bad enough to justify the results... at least, not if KG is as good as you seem to think he was. He's better than Dirk, but not that much better. He's not a "coin flip" with Duncan as people are suggesting, that's ridiculous.

And in 2005 and 2006 there's really no excuse for the way KG's teams performed. You're looking at outliers like 2003 and 2007, and trying to apply the performance there to his whole time with the wolves, and it's not a fair comparison at all.

And from this season on, we no longer have to be purely subjective when it comes to a player's personal impact with respect to what his team provides. I'm done trying to defend and justify APM, especially in multi-year studies. It's strong enough to stand on its own, has been and is-being well vetted, and is by-far a more objective characterization than just two people swapping opinions. And APM suggests strongly that KG was doing more for his teams from 2004 - 2009 than anyone else in the league. You think the casts weren't that bad, and that KG wasn't that good...I disagree. Our opinions conflict. I have given several (long) subjective reasons for exactly how bad I think the casts were, their strengths and weaknesses, and how KG's strengths helped make huge impacts on the court. I also have a decade of APM data to quantify/support my opinion. If you disagree, that's your right, but you have to support that opinion with more than just...more of your opinion and strong statements to form an effective rebuttal. You're welcome to believe whatever you like, but in the end you'll need more than just opinion to make a case.

[colts18]

Was Dirk's 2007 supporting cast really 17-20 wins better than KG's supporting casts (add a few wins to that if you think KG was ways better than Dirk).

[colts18]

Can someone tell me how this Mavericks supporting cast is light years better than the 00-02 especially TWolves? Dirk won a tough west that was just as tough as it was for KG. Dirk sweeping the Lakers as the huge underdog is a lot more impressive than any of KG's accomplishments.

[Doctor MJ]

Was Dirk's 2007 supporting cast really 17-20 wins better than KG's supporting casts (add a few wins to that if you think KG was ways better than Dirk).

We're clearly going around in circles.

I do get where you're coming from. You look at Dirk's supporting cast, and you're not that blown away by it. You score a point because there's really not much I can say based on how the names on the two teams read. I don't know how any verbal argument I can make based on the ins and outs of the game that could really sway you.

I would come back though (like a broken record), with the +/-.
In '06-07, when Nowitzki wasn't on the court, the Mavs got outscored by 1.6 points per 100 possessions.
In '06-07, when Garnett wasn't on the court, the Wolves got outscored by 14.8 points per 100 possessions.

The '05-06 numbers look similar (and of course KG's +/- generally comes from the fact that these numbers aren't total aberrations). I understand that when we quote adjusted +/- it's an abstract concept that doesn't really resonate with a lot of people, but mull over the numbers there.

When YOU watched them play, did you notice that the Wolves got completely destroyed all the time without Garnett while the Mavs basically held the lead without Dirk? I really doubt it, otherwise I can't imagine you'd be so vehement about this point. Yet, these were the results. How can you ignore them? You want to understand how the two supporting casts can be so different in level? Go watch old games, and come back with either a changed mind or arguments for why it doesn't matter which supporting cast held their own when deciding how good each cast was.

[colts18]

Was Dirk's 2007 supporting cast really 17-20 wins better than KG's supporting casts (add a few wins to that if you think KG was ways better than Dirk).

We're clearly going around in circles.

I do get where you're coming from. You look at Dirk's supporting cast, and you're not that blown away by it. You score a point because there's really not much I can say based on how the names on the two teams read. I don't know how any verbal argument I can make based on the ins and outs of the game that could really sway you.

I would come back though (like a broken record), with the +/-.
In '06-07, when Nowitzki wasn't on the court, the Mavs got outscored by 1.6 points per 100 possessions.
In '06-07, when Garnett wasn't on the court, the Wolves got outscored by 14.8 points per 100 possessions.

The '05-06 numbers look similar (and of course KG's +/- generally comes from the fact that these numbers aren't total aberrations). I understand that when we quote adjusted +/- it's an abstract concept that doesn't really resonate with a lot of people, but mull over the numbers there.

When YOU watched them play, did you notice that the Wolves got completely destroyed all the time without Garnett while the Mavs basically held the lead without Dirk? I really doubt it, otherwise I can't imagine you'd be so vehement about this point. Yet, these were the results. How can you ignore them? You want to understand how the two supporting casts can be so different in level? Go watch old games, and come back with either a changed mind or arguments for why it doesn't matter which supporting cast held their own when deciding how good each cast was.

When KG is off the court, Minny's weak bench is playing. Dirk's teams have had good benches because typically haven't had a problem with putting a weaker player in the starting lineup (Stevenson, Griffin, etc.)

[Doctor MJ]

When KG is off the court, Minny's weak bench is playing. Dirk's teams have had good benches because typically haven't had a problem with putting a weaker player in the starting lineup (Stevenson, Griffin, etc.)

No, again this is what "adjusted +/-" means. We have ways to make sure a player isn't getting an edge simply because he's getting to play with better players. And btw Dirk looks fine in this metric. It's not like he underperforms in it, it's just that Garnett in his prime comes out on top.

It really is so frustrating trying to convey these numbers. If I go with the concrete stuff, people point out the flaws that are fixed in the abstract stuff. If I go with the abstract stuff, people seem to just throw up their hands and say "That doesn't mean anything to me".

[richboy]

There's a lot in here, spit rapid-fire style. To address your main points:

*Brandon - Brandon was a very solid player for the Wolves. But let's not get carried away. He WAS a 17 - 9 player for them, and (unlike your Bowen counter-example) he didn't have a primary skill that the box scores didn't cover. And injuries were already starting to affect the way he plays. For Cleveland in '97 Brandon was a penetrating point guard that constantly put pressure on opposing defenses. Then, various injuries forced him to miss 35% of the games in 1998 and 1999, and by the time he got to the Wolves he was putting more emphasis on his mid-range game and floor generalship. Again, Brandon was a good player. Probably the best teammate that KG had in Minnesota outside of that one year of Cassell, but don't make him out to be something that he wasn't. He was in no way (in the conversation for) the best point guard in the NBA and he wasn't an All Star during his tenure in Minnesota. And as a 2nd option, he didn't remotely compare to Kobe Bryant, David Robinson or the mass of talent they had in Portland. Which is ultimately the point.

*Impressiveness. Now we're getting into areas where the criterion are purely subjective. How impressive were 50 wins, on that team? Well, it was the first 50-win team in franchise history, they finished only 3 games behind the Spurs despite the Spurs having more talent on a championship tested team, and in the first round they faced a championship-caliber Portland team who was frankly better than them. They took the same 1-win off of Portland that the Jazz would a round later, but KG held Sheed down (13.5 points/42 min) more than either the Jazz or Lakers would (22.3 points/42 min) and the Wolves held the Blazers to 4 points fewer/100 possessions than the Jazz and Lakers were able to that postseason. KG also was dishing 9 assists per game. He did his part, just facing a better team.

Well, in this thread folks have also been comparing KG's postseasons in Minnesota to LeBron or Kidd getting teams to the Finals from the East. But those '07 Cavs and '03 Nets were 50- and 49-win teams, that just happened to get to face bottom feeders in the East instead of juggernauts in the West. Thus, the distinction. And as I alluded to above, KG was doing a lot more heavy lifting than Brandon was that series and making his impact. PER and Win Shares tell part of a story, but you've got to put it in context (especially in the absence of +/- impact data).

Lebron James still carried the 2007 Cavs past a top of the league Detroit Pistons team. That argument would be fine if we was talking about KG never getting to the finals. KG not getting out of the first round. Legendary great players carry there teams to playoff series victories against better competition because they are so great. At some point. They have seasons that you look at the win total and your blown away that a team with that talent won that many games. KG has none of that. Instead an army of excuse makers who blame everything on any player not named Garnett.

Your short changing Terrell Brandon. Saying 17 and 9 is 17 and 9. Well is Chris Paul 16 and 9 mean he isn't a good player. Brandon had a PER of 21 that year. That makes him one of the best PGs in the league that year. Very comparable to a Tony Parker lets say. A PER of 21 usually makes you a legit all-star.

[Rapcity_11]

^
It's like people think the "adjusted" was thrown in there just for fun...Frustrating to say the least.

Also, props to drza who has wrote some excellent and well researched (and long!) posts in this thread.

[colts18]

Dirk has won series for his team as the underdog

2001: beats Utah who has HCA.
2003: Had HCA, but beat a real tough 59 win Sacramento that beat the Lakers the year before
2003: KG has HCA vs. the Lakers and loses in 6. This was an extremely flawed Lakers team. Derek Fisher was the 3rd leading scorer. Mark Madsen started 22 games, Samaki Walker 39, Horry 26
2006: Beats a 63 win Spurs team without HCA.
2009: Beats Spurs without HCA again with Antoine Wright and Erick Dampier as starters.
2011: Beats Lakers without HCA. Sweep

That is 4 series wins without HCA and the 06 Spurs, 11 Lakers victories were a lot more impressive than KG stuffing meaningless stats in playoff sweeps and 3-1 losses.

[ElGee]

Round and round. There seems to be a common thread in these KG discussions:

"KG couldn't get out of the first round. His teams were pretty good. Therefore, he can't be that good."

The counter to this seems to be people wanting to have (logical) discussions about how he actualy played and what his impact was. But those points fall on deaf ears. Then when naysayers express outrage, supporters cite information that support their claims, like better analysis of the "first round" meme and some of KG's ridiculous statistics.

And that's a dead end because, despite some really nice discussion in this thread, there isn't a lot of talk about him *as a basketball player.* One of the good Doctors cites +/- stats, and people just choose to ignore it.

If people really -- and I mean really -- followed the Wolves from 1995-2007, they would know two very simple things:

(1) Kevin Garnett is a ridiculously good basketball player. He was close to Tim Duncan for many iterations, and the only times in his career he's had good teammates they've been championship contenders.

(2) Minnesota in the 2000s was perhaps the worst sports situation in America. Losing a number of draft picks in a row -- serious damage to any team's depth and potential star power -- and the number of injuries they had (Gugliotta, Brandon, Wally, even Cassell in 04 playoffs) put Garnett out there with some of the weakest teams imaginable. Dude ran point guard in a key playoff series -- chew on that one. One doesn't need numbers for that, but to simply watch the team a little.

And really, what about Garnett the basketball player do people not like? My guess is, it has to do with "first option" volume scoring (overrated). Because otherwise, he's one of the greatest defenders of all-time, a fantastic offensive player, and an incredibly versatile leader. The idea that he can't win is obviously flawed, so what's the issue?

And ironically, it seems Dirk is receiving the opposite treatment because his forte IS first-option volume scoring. He's never been a good defender. Never been a great facilitator (although that's clearly improved with age). Yet people act like Dallas didn't have loads of talent for years, or that his 06 team wasn't well built with defensive paint presences and legit scoring options. Or this team, which has Jason Terry's "second-option" offensive load on par with Dwyane Wade's for the 2011 playoffs, and Tyson Chandler playing just below elite center on the interior.

Teams win basketball games, not individuals. As I've said before, it's easier to compare two guys than reverse engineer the results with the 22 guys (and coaches) around them.

[richboy]

^
It's like people think the "adjusted" was thrown in there just for fun...Frustrating to say the least.

Also, props to drza who has wrote some excellent and well researched (and long!) posts in this thread.

The problem with the APM is people use it but don't back it up with anything on the floor. They say APM says Garnett >>>>> other big men. Therefore we must blame all on teammates. However he has years he is playing with good teammates. Well they must not be that good because look what APM says.

Garnett is a great player and I don't dispute that. The words that people use to describe him are ridiculous. Much better than Dirk. Better than Duncan. What is happening on the floor does not measure what some are suggesting. He is being described like prime David Robinson. Larry Bird. Better than Duncan and maybe not far from Olajuwon. Yet nothing in his career showcases he was that level of a player. Except for those that think APM is the bible.

[Rapcity_11]

^
It's like people think the "adjusted" was thrown in there just for fun...Frustrating to say the least.

Also, props to drza who has wrote some excellent and well researched (and long!) posts in this thread.

The problem with the APM is people use it but don't back it up with anything on the floor. They say APM says Garnett >>>>> other big men. Therefore we must blame all on teammates. However he has years he is playing with good teammates. Well they must not be that good because look what APM says.

Garnett is a great player and I don't dispute that. The words that people use to describe him are ridiculous. Much better than Dirk. Better than Duncan. What is happening on the floor does not measure what some are suggesting. He is being described like prime David Robinson. Larry Bird. Better than Duncan and maybe not far from Olajuwon. Yet nothing in his career showcases he was that level of a player. Except for those that think APM is the bible.

My complaint is that people rip on APM without understanding it, not that the stat is perfect.

Who has said KG is better than Duncan? I missed that...

[Doctor MJ]

The problem with the APM is people use it but don't back it up with anything on the floor. They say APM says Garnett >>>>> other big men. Therefore we must blame all on teammates. However he has years he is playing with good teammates. Well they must not be that good because look what APM says.

Garnett is a great player and I don't dispute that. The words that people use to describe him are ridiculous. Much better than Dirk. Better than Duncan. What is happening on the floor does not measure what some are suggesting. He is being described like prime David Robinson. Larry Bird. Better than Duncan and maybe not far from Olajuwon. Yet nothing in his career showcases he was that level of a player. Except for those that think APM is the bible.

I think it was the other thread where I talked about how Garnett did indeed achieve elite success with old men Cassell & Sprewell. Makes it pretty clear that when Garnett's teams did a lot worse than that it was because of a significantly weaker supporting cast. Then consider: Exactly how strong do you think the cast was in '03-04?

I do sympathize with you saying "You're basically saying +/- should trump everything else, and I don't buy that."

To the question, "How can you go just by +/-?", well I don't. I mean, for basically their whole career, if I had done a poll of people saying who was better between Dirk or KG, people would say KG. I'm not exactly championing some random dude here. I ended up harping on the +/- partly because it's directly related to the charges. People keep saying that Garnett's had a comparable supporting cast to Dirk, and so I'm basically pointing to what they did without Garnett and saying, "Well, shouldn't they have, y'know, not utterly blown without Garnett if they were good? Why the heck wouldn't we blame teammates?".

If people would stop saying "But I look at the names, and they sound about the same to me." as if it were a powerful argument, maybe I could give my actual objective argument a rest.

That said, I do consider long term adjusted +/- to have a lot of credibility, I won't deny it. I've laid out detailed arguments about it in many places. Bottom line this is an actual valid stat (only one we've got) whose weakness is reliability. Reliability issues fall away with sample size. Now this doesn't mean that I rate players simply by how they rate by this stat, but you've got to understand how much of an outlier Garnett was and for how long.

I realize that when a statistical outlier is encountered that disagrees with people's opinions they tend to just shut down and reject the stat. This is not how people should think though. People should think first and foremost about what the stat means, and recognize that whatever general credence they give the stat, the bigger outlier the more stock the corresponding fact warrants.

[Doctor MJ]

Who has said KG is better than Duncan? I missed that...

I haven't actually made that argument, but I don't find it absurd by any means. Ask this question back in 2004, and no one would have found it absurd. The reason why people see a big edge for Duncan stems from what happened between then and the time Garnett was traded to Boston, and it only makes sense to hold that against Garnett if you've come to the conclusion that the Cassell/Sprewell supporting cast was very clearly more talented than the casts Duncan had.

And again: No one would have said that in 2004, and Cassell & Sprewell didn't exactly change people's minds about them for the better after 2004.

[GilmoreFan]

Fair enough. I started in 1999-2000 for several reasons, including post length (already too long), length of time (1999 - 2011 seems long enough for plenty of conversation), and 1999 was when I really started watching the Wolves on a daily basis. That said, you want to go further, let's go further.

Lets. But no need for pre-97, I recognise KG was just a pup then.

1996 - 97 (KG 2nd year): 40 - 42. Gugliotta, KG and rookie Marbury form the nucleus of the best team in franchise history. Googs makes the only All Star game of his career, though by the end of the season it is clear that young kids KG and Marbury have taken the reigns of the team. Wolves make the playoffs for the first time in franchise history with 40 wins, face the 57-win old Hakeem/Barkley/Drexler Rockets and get swept. Minnesota celebrates the year as a victory and positive sign for the future.

Googs made the all-star team, and would have next year too if not for injury I daresay. So KG had 20-9-4 Googs (I understand just posting his stat line provides people with an accurate view of a player now), and Marbury who you concede as better than Googs. And they won 40 games... 40. But ok... he gets a little slack, just starting and all.

1997 - 98: 45 - 37. The young tandem of KG and Marbury continue to improve, and the Wolves follow suit. Gugliotta is good early in the season, rumor has it that he hates Marbury...he's traded/injured in Januaryand never plays another game for the Wolves. Nevertheless, KG and Marbury keep the vibe going and lead the Wolves to another franchise-record for wins. In the first round of the playoffs they faced the 61-win Sonics, and the young bucks put a scare into them, forcing a decisive game 5 before coming up short.

Marbury is now better than he was last year you say, and you get Googs for 41 games, playing even better than last year. You had some decent role players, vet T.Porter, young Peeler, the still productive Sam Mitchell... 45 wins though... huh. How many games were Dirk or Duncan or Lebron winning at age 21? And frankly the support casts all 3 of those guys had was not significant enough to explain the different outcomes. Nobody at this point should be crazy enough to compare KG to these guys.

1998 - 99: Lockout season, 25 - 25. Wolves are in turmoil, as Marbury forces himself out of town with a trade demand partially through the season. Wolves are off to a good 12 - 6 start at the time of the trade, but stumbled after the deal. Terrell Brandon, the centerpiece of the trade, was able to play in about 2/3 of the remaining games. KG continues his yearly improvements, making his first All-NBA team, and ramping up for a post-season confrontation with the Duncan/Robinson twin towers. KG more than held his own with Duncan, but unfortunately Spurs PG Avery Johnson held his own with Brandon...leaving no one to counter David Robinson, who was ultimately the difference in the series. Spurs win, though the Wolves did give them one of only two losses they would have that postseason.

This is a soft excuse... the team got off to a solid start, but teams do that all the time. Their opening 18 game schedule with Marbury featured 10 playoff teams, and 4 of those games they lost, while 3 of the other playoff wins were against borderline playoff teams at 500. or barely above. I suggest their schedule and the random "hot start" you see from teams had alot more to do with their solidish 12-6 start than Marbury leaving, especially since they replaced him with someone who might have been a better player, and who didn't miss that many games. Brandon showed he could play well with a winning Wolves team the next few seasons, and it's not like the team suffered in the immediate aftermath of Marbury, but then picked it up and played strong from there... they closed the season 5-12! And the team went 10-11 with Brandon, so it's not like his absence seems to have affected things hugely. KG still had the solid Joe Smith, B.Jax, Mitchell, Peeler, Sealy, etc. Nothing special, but you give 22 year old Lebron this lot and they'd do a hell of alot better than 500 ball, injuries or no.

There's a lot in here, spit rapid-fire style. To address your main points:

*Brandon - Brandon was a very solid player for the Wolves. But let's not get carried away. He WAS a 17 - 9 player for them, and (unlike your Bowen counter-example) he didn't have a primary skill that the box scores didn't cover.

And Billups was less than a 17-6 player in 2004. Oh? That doesn't accurately explain his totality as a player? But that must be from defence, right... how about 15-7? That's Steve Nash in 2001 btw, when Dirk won 53 games... I guess 17-9 Brandon must have been the clearly better player... he played better D too.

And injuries were already starting to affect the way he plays. For Cleveland in '97 Brandon was a penetrating point guard that constantly put pressure on opposing defenses. Then, various injuries forced him to miss 35% of the games in 1998 and 1999, and by the time he got to the Wolves he was putting more emphasis on his mid-range game and floor generalship. Again, Brandon was a good player. Probably the best teammate that KG had in Minnesota outside of that one year of Cassell, but don't make him out to be something that he wasn't. He was in no way (in the conversation for) the best point guard in the NBA and he wasn't an All Star during his tenure in Minnesota. And as a 2nd option, he didn't remotely compare to Kobe Bryant, David Robinson or the mass of talent they had in Portland. Which is ultimately the point.

He was an all-star calibre player as he had been in 1997, he had been injured before 97, and after it, and his numbers from 2000 with the Wolves are substantially similar to other years, giving consideration to the fact that he was now deferring to KG, whereas on the Cavs he was far and away the best player. Brandon had almost the highest TS% of his career with the Wolves in fact, and his PER and other metrics don't suggest the drop off you want to give him. He didn't make said all-star games because sometimes a few deserving guys miss out, especially when they get the odd injury to be held against them, and when they're traded midseason (or when there is no all-star game, like in 99). Brandon didn't have as much status as guys like Stockton in 2000, and that hurt him, but he definitely deserved an all-star selection.

*Impressiveness. Now we're getting into areas where the criterion are purely subjective. How impressive were 50 wins, on that team? Well, it was the first 50-win team in franchise history,

Which is a historical footnote of no significance.

they finished only 3 games behind the Spurs despite the Spurs having more talent on a championship tested team, and in the first round they faced a championship-caliber Portland team who was frankly better than them. They took the same 1-win off of Portland that the Jazz would a round later, but KG held Sheed down (13.5 points/42 min) more than either the Jazz or Lakers would (22.3 points/42 min) and the Wolves held the Blazers to 4 points fewer/100 possessions than the Jazz and Lakers were able to that postseason. KG also was dishing 9 assists per game. He did his part, just facing a better team.

KG shot 385 from the field, a fact I cited, and that you have ignored completely. To claim he "held Sheed down" is disingenuous. Sheed only average 16 in the regular season anyhow, as you say he was on a stacked team, and didn't need to do alot of offence. I'm alot more interested in why KG shot so poorly when Sheed guarded him than I could care less about Sheed only needing to score two and a half less points (but on unexpectedly great efficiency).

Well, in this thread folks have also been comparing KG's postseasons in Minnesota to LeBron or Kidd getting teams to the Finals from the East. But those '07 Cavs and '03 Nets were 50- and 49-win teams, that just happened to get to face bottom feeders in the East instead of juggernauts in the West. Thus, the distinction. And as I alluded to above, KG was doing a lot more heavy lifting than Brandon was that series and making his impact. PER and Win Shares tell part of a story, but you've got to put it in context (especially in the absence of +/- impact data).

Yeh, but when you win 60+ games, it doesn't matter which conference you're in, which is what Lebron's Cavs did multiple times... and the West/East win record bears out it wouldn't have mattered. I am not comparing KG to Kidd however, rest assured.

Again, keep it in context. Brandon was still solid, not spectacular.

Your characterisation of Brandon is just inaccurate. He was a well above average PG, a borderline all-star, not "solid".

It's not just that Billups was unknown, it was that he was raw. He was on his 4th team in 4 years, and was still a 2-guard in a PG body.

None of which changes the fact he was a very nice player at this point. Ben Wallace was "unknown" when the Magic almost made the playoffs with him... doesn't change the fact he was also good.

Again, a reasonable cast for a fringe playoff team but nothing to write home about. Also, side note, Sealy's death was felt on the court and I'm sure had a personal effect on KG. That said, again we're giving subjective descriptions on what should or shouldn't have been accomplished in the season.

This may be the most cringe worthy defence of KG you've offered yet... Tim's dad died in the middle of the playoffs for heaven's sake... are you really resorting to this sort of ridiculousness?

Context, context, context. First of all, I never said that KG was "in a tier well beyond Dirk". If you look early in the thread I said that IMO Dirk is right there with Kobe, a tick behind KG and Duncan in this generation.

Except KG shouldn't be in the same sentence as Duncan, except to note "of course KG was never as good as Duncan".

That said, No one that actually remembers that series would say that Billups absolutely exploded or outplayed Nash. Nash (and Finley and Van Exel) were able to get wherever they wanted on Billups (and Wally and Peeler), breaking down any semblance of team defense and dictating the game. Billups was good, and showed signs of what he would become, but in the end the Mavs played a strategy of "try to contain KG, then outscore whatever Billups and Wally can do". And it worked, as reasonably one would expect it to.

Billups outplayed Nash. KG did not outplay Dirk. It's as simple as that.

And from this season on, we no longer have to be purely subjective when it comes to a player's personal impact with respect to what his team provides. I'm done trying to defend and justify APM, especially in multi-year studies. It's strong enough to stand on its own, has been and is-being well vetted, and is by-far a more objective characterization than just two people swapping opinions. And APM suggests strongly that KG was doing more for his teams from 2004 - 2009 than anyone else in the league. You think the casts weren't that bad, and that KG wasn't that good...I disagree. Our opinions conflict. I have given several (long) subjective reasons for exactly how bad I think the casts were, their strengths and weaknesses, and how KG's strengths helped make huge impacts on the court. I also have a decade of APM data to quantify/support my opinion. If you disagree, that's your right, but you have to support that opinion with more than just...more of your opinion and strong statements to form an effective rebuttal. You're welcome to believe whatever you like, but in the end you'll need more than just opinion to make a case.

I have almost no interest in APM or any super stat to try and selectively tell me who was better than who. I know who was better, I watched the games, and I looked at the stats too. Stats are wonderful things in fact, but some artificial super stat designed to give a player ranking is always false, and APM is one of them. Indeed, I've only noted PER above because I know it means something to you, not because it's particularly meaningful to me. KG was better than Dirk, just as Duncan was better than KG. Neither is as close as people on this thread think either.

[drza]

I have almost no interest in APM or any super stat to try and selectively tell me who was better than who. I know who was better, I watched the games, and I looked at the stats too. Stats are wonderful things in fact, but some artificial super stat designed to give a player ranking is always false, and APM is one of them. Indeed, I've only noted PER above because I know it means something to you, not because it's particularly meaningful to me. KG was better than Dirk, just as Duncan was better than KG. Neither is as close as people on this thread think either.

Well, I'm glad you explained that to me. You have your opinion, and it's therefore correct. If my opinion is different, even if I can support it well, it doesn't matter at all. No need to really discuss it any further, since your knowledge of the game so vastly out-strips my own.

[Dr Positivity]

No. The offensive gap does not make up for the defensive difference and let's not forget KG has a title as the most valuable player