I find it fascinating that you tend to go in-depth with arguments that seem to support the exact opposite of the conclusion that you reach. You did it earlier in the thread with the Dwight Howard/KG/weakness of supporting cast/APM argument that I called you on and you never responded to. And you do it again here.
Look at what you actually wrote in the sections I bolded. The Spurs were good enough to lose Duncan for a month and win 57 games...the Kings were good enough to lose Webber for much of the year and win 55 games...you deign to acknowledge that APM is at least good for showing that the Wolves absolutely struggle without KG...yet you find the notion that KG had (a lot) less support them them completely ridiculous. Again, how can you not see the contradiction with that?
Oh, and again, mentioning Brandon and APM in the same sentence is a strawman. Brandon played his last game well before 82games started keeping track of +/- data for the 2003 season or the multi-year APM calculations began for the 2004 season. Which is why, many times now, I have tried to get you to focus your argument. Even those that are using multi-year APM data can only use it specifically for the years 2003/04 - 2010/11. That's an eight year window. Surely, if you're right about the worthlessness of the stat, you can find examples from Garnett's career DURING THAT ACTUAL 8 YEARS to make your point.
No you just miss the point. They won 51 of there 57 games with Duncan in the lineup. They were not a great team without Duncan. They were like a 500 team without Duncan. Now if your making a claim that KG is more important than Chris Webber. That is fine but that isn't my argument. Let me detail my point. KG with the now great cast of Sam Cassell and Sprewell was a whopping 7 games better than they were the year prior. This is the big point. They were barely better than the Sacramento Kings without Chris Webber. Barely better than the San Antonio Spurs who lost Duncan for a month.
This is the reality that just blew over your head. The point I was making. Ignore the fact that Cassell got injured in the WCF. Minnesota was not a contender. They were not better than the Spurs. They were not better than the Lakers. Its even questionable if they were better than the Sacramento Kings. It took them 7 games to beat a King team with Webber barely able to walk.
That to me is the big issue. See KG supporters want to throw out his entire post season career. They pretty much want to say everything starts with the acquisition of Cassell and Spree. Even you say he gets those two and now the Wolves are Elite. Really? Ok they went to the WCF. They had the best record in the West because the top teams in the West had major issues. If not for injuries they could have easily been a 4 seed. Playing the Dallas Mavericks in the first round.
Show me the impact. If KG is as good as you suggest. Why is Cassell, Spree, Wally, and Duncan barely better than teams like San Antonio and Sacramento who are suffering major injuries. Let me guess what your answer will be. Well. Spree, Cassell, Wally really not that great.
A few interesting things about this section.
1) The criticisms in this article are well-known and are in fact pretty canonical in the vetting of APM as a stat. All of those criticisms...the large errors over 1 - 2 years, the "inconsistency" from year-to-year, the predictive utility from year-to-year...all of them stem from the same source: APM requires a whopping big time period with a lot of changing circumstances to achieve maximal clarity. Those very criticisms, in fact, were some of the main catalysts for why people started doing 5- and 6-year APM calculations. You'll note that the article doesn't site any of those longer calculations in their rebuttals...the longest time period mentioned is 2 years, along with a sentence suggesting that including more data is somehow "sneakily" lowering the standard error. The thing is, that's the point. The standard error calculation gets better with more samples, because statistical results tend to get more powerful with more tests of more situations. In other words, one of the big take-aways from this critical article is that long multi-year APM calculations are better ways of looking at it than using APM from year-to-year.
I disagree. No surprise. The problem is you see more years as being a corrective. Why? Even right now you say "inconsistency from year to year". If something is inconsistent why do we have to act like the original model is correct. There is a saying in baseball that you are what the back of your baseball card says you are. If we have the same exact players being measured statisically inconsistent then why should we accept the stat.
Any measured model you put together in any form could claim results are better over time with more data. Yet when you already acknowledge the data is inconsistent then what use are the numbers regardless of how many years. If you can't predict future production what is the use of the numbers?
You keep focusing on APM as if that's the ONLY thing that anyone in this thread has used to support a point. Ironically, your APM criticism article comes from Dave Berri. Dave Berri also happens to have been extremely vocal through the years about how weak Garnett's supporting cast was through the years, and how Garnett was doing more as an individual but just had a lot less to work with over the years than Duncan. And unlike the APM studies (which go from 2003/04 - 2010/11), Berri's article on the subject goes from 1997/08 - 2005/06...covering the whole Terrell Brandon/Billups/Wally/Rasho eras that you insist were so good and even touching on some of the Marbury/Googs years that Gilmorefan loves. Here's the link to the article:
http://dberri.wordpress.com/2007/05/15/ ... l-simmons/ . If you follow it, you'll see that one of the main conclusions is that the absolute BEST supporting cast that KG had during his Minnesota years was worse than the absolute WORST supporting cast that Duncan ever had in San Antonio. So, there you go...another man's opinion, with quantified analysis, that not only ISN'T adjusted plus minus but was written by one of APM's biggest critics. The models are completely antagonistic to each other...but both agree that KG was doing more as an individual than the Duncan's and Dirk's of the world AND that he had a lot less help than them.
I keep focusing on APM because thats the only argument KG backers have. Look at another APM article.
Fifty years from now, some stat geek will crunch numbers from Duncan’s era and come to the conclusion that Kevin Garnett was just as good. And he’ll be wrong. No NBA team that featured a healthy Duncan would have missed the playoffs for three straight years. It’s an impossibility.
Really that should have been the end of the article. But lets have fun.
He starts by going right to wins produced. KG teammates of court not as good look at wins produced. Here is the problem. Duncan and KG have similar numbers in there career. Why is it that many think Duncan is much better then. Its not just titles. Its because of the things that Duncan does to make the game easy for his teammates. Things that KG doesn't do. Two elements that I mentioned in this thread. Duncan a much better low post player. Duncan a much better protector of the rim. Because Duncan can be so tough in the low block you instantly have to suck your defense more against the Spurs. Meaning players on the perimeter have more space to work. Defensively we have talked about that over and over again. Duncan has the size of a center. Long arms and at his peak very mobile. Put him with another 7 footer and you had the best defense in the league.
I wrote the above paragraph. What was the first thing comment I read on that articles page.
It’s precisely this type of analysis that makes me wonder about Win Score and most other stats. I think it’s clear from watching Duncan and Garnett that Tim Duncan’s abilities and style of play lead to making his teammates look better, more so than Garnett (especially defensively). Isn’t it possible that one of the reasons Duncan can be considered better than Garnett is because he makes his teammates appear to be better? I
Guess I'm not the only one thinking that.
I'm going to take it another step though. Because the conclusions that APM make zero sense to me. KG didn't have the best supporting cast. His cast was not so bad though that we can just dismiss every player he has ever played with.
What if the system that KG played made him extremely valuable to that team. Not that he was better than any other big. That he was asked to do more because of the system on offense. That he was asked to do more because he didn't play with other rebounders. I've said this about Steve Nash. The Phoenix offense falls off the map when Steve Nash isn't in the game. Does this mean STeve Nash is so much better than the rest of the PGs. I've said Steve Nash is amazing but you have to remember that everything Phoenix does revolves around Steve Nash. Of course they fall apart when he isn't playing because they pretty much built everything around him. Does that mean he is better than a Deron or Paul etc.
Another reason why APM sucks.
Again, there has been a lot more support in this thread than just APM. When I describe what I see on the court in words instead of numbers, you say that you don't agree and that my posts are "getting out of hand". Fair enough, opinions differ. When I used specific examples of how the Wolves' defense suffered in 2007 in the games that KG didn't play, or how the 5-man Celtics starting line-up suffered immensely on defense whenever Garnett isn't playing, you ignored it. I've pointed out that not just APM, but most quantified stats that attempt to estimate player contribution all agree that KG's supporting casts, even those you deem good, have been inferior to the worst casts of Duncan and Dirk. So stop making it out that APM is the only argument being used...it's a good support, but it's far from the only one.
So that said, the bolded section above is again contradicted. When KG went to Boston, they DID put up one of the best seasons in league history. They had the highest SRS since the Jordan Bulls, were one of the greatest defenses in history, and won a title. When Cassell and Sprewell got there the Wolves DID pull down the #1 seed and stomped with the big dogs until injuries capped them. And neither my lying eyes nor ANY STATISTICAL MEASURE WE HAVE agree with your assertion that KG was playing with very many "good players" in Minnesota.
Ignore it. Your just giving me another plus minus stat. Just like the why doesn't the Magic defense fall apart without Dwight. Like the Wolves defense without KG. I answered that. Why it is. The reality about plus minus is what happens when your off the floor suddenly becomes more important than what happens when your on the floor. Next time SVG takes Dwight out of the game. When the Magic start to struggle. Dwight should say keep me out of the game coach because I need the plus minus. I need to catch up to Amir Johnson.
I was in another thread where I heard someone say why does OKC play better offense when Westbrook is out of the game. They say Rose is better because look how bad Chicago offense is without him. So Chicago sucks offensively when Rose isn't in the game and this is a positive for Rose. Even though the reality was that OKC played better offense with Westbrook in the game than Chicago did with Rose in the game. Maybe the question should have been why is Eric Manor quarterbacking a team to better offense than Derrick Rose.
Thats the problem with plus minus. The stat nerds just can't believe it i guess. They think basketball is played in a way that everyone is doing the exact same thing. Wolves fell apart when KG was in the game. Fine. There are a lot more possibilities to why that happens besides well KG must be really good. Yet seems like the stat guys can only come to one conclusion. Celtics defense sucks without KG in the game. One of the reasons the Celtics struggle without KG is because they don't have rebounders. There outrebounded when KG is in the game. They get completely smashed on the boards without KG. Does this mean KG is an amazing rebounder. No it means Ainge needs to get more rebounders on the team. Glen Davis and Rasheed Wallace before were two of the worst rebounders at Pf in the league.
Why things happen and why APM says what is says is non existent in this thread. The only thing I get is KG has great APM so he must be better. Not only better but one of the best ever. I go back to what I said before. If that is the case then where is the impact. IF KG is better than Tim Duncan then shouldn't Cassell, Sprewell, Wally should be good enough to be as good as any Duncan team. To be as good as any Dirk team. To be as good as any Lebron Cav team. Its not and its not even close. Why? If KG is so good. Why?
"Talent is God-given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful." John Wooden
