Does Dirk with title surpass KG

[mysticbb]

Here are the career finals averages between Dirk and KG

Dirk- 24.7 PPG, .553 TS%, 10.6 Reb, 2.4 Ast, 0.9 BLK
KG: 16.6 PPG, .509 TS%, 9.0 Reb, 3.0 AST, 1.2 BLK.

Anyone know Malone's Finals stats for future argument sake?

24.4 PPG, 51.7 TS%, 10.4 Reb, 3.7 AST, 0.8 BLK

Malone played 40.7 MPG, Garnett 34.6, Nowitzki so far 42.9. Pace: Nowitzki 88.4, Garnett 87.7, Malone 83.0.

[mysticbb]

Which brings us back to the +/-. Thibs deserves credit, but KG's huge defensive +/- ratings make quite clear Thibs can't conjure defense out of thin air.

If we look at the RAPM data, we see +3.1 for Thibodeau on defense, +2.3 for Doc Rivers and +5.0 for Garnett in the 5yr ranking.

And while we are at +/- numbers: Nowitzki is at +30 during his 163 minutes in the finals this year, the Mavericks without him at -35 in the remaining 29 minutes; that makes a +66.8 Net+/- for those 4 games. For the playoffs Nowitzki is at a +22.2 Net per 100 possessions. That is as big of an impact as Garnett had in his prime in the regular season. The performance level of Nowitzki in this years playoffs seems to be much closer to Garnett's peak level than I thought in the first place.

[DirtyDez]

Here are the career finals averages between Dirk and KG

Dirk- 24.7 PPG, .553 TS%, 10.6 Reb, 2.4 Ast, 0.9 BLK
KG: 16.6 PPG, .509 TS%, 9.0 Reb, 3.0 AST, 1.2 BLK.

Anyone know Malone's Finals stats for future argument sake?

24.4 PPG, 51.7 TS%, 10.4 Reb, 3.7 AST, 0.8 BLK

Malone played 40.7 MPG, Garnett 34.6, Nowitzki so far 42.9. Pace: Nowitzki 88.4, Garnett 87.7, Malone 83.0.

thx

[Doctor MJ]

Which brings us back to the +/-. Thibs deserves credit, but KG's huge defensive +/- ratings make quite clear Thibs can't conjure defense out of thin air.

If we look at the RAPM data, we see +3.1 for Thibodeau on defense, +2.3 for Doc Rivers and +5.0 for Garnett in the 5yr ranking.

And while we are at +/- numbers: Nowitzki is at +30 during his 163 minutes in the finals this year, the Mavericks without him at -35 in the remaining 29 minutes; that makes a +66.8 Net+/- for those 4 games. For the playoffs Nowitzki is at a +22.2 Net per 100 possessions. That is as big of an impact as Garnett had in his prime in the regular season. The performance level of Nowitzki in this years playoffs seems to be much closer to Garnett's peak level than I thought in the first place.

Well, to be fair, I really don't believe in +/- data for coaches. Reasonable of you to bring up given that the data exists though.

Re: Nowitzki now. Yup, this has been his best year imho. People get confused because the Mavs had him score more earlier in his career, but it's so important to understand the subtleties. Half a decade ago, it was easier to take Dirk out of his game than other scoring superstars. Now, he's probably the toughest guy in the entire league to take out of his game. The difference is him simply gaining experience and using his great mind to become an expert decision maker no matter what is thrown his way.

Clearly, if Dirk goes on to have a career where he maintains this peak for another 5 years, that will change the KG discussion quite a bit.

[Fearless_Idiot]

as much as you brag about garnett's defense, when he had to guard dirk he was murdered every time(notably when a 22 year old dirk put up 35+13 on a more mature kg in a 1st round sweep), so what's the point in saying kg is the superior defender when he still can't check dirk one on one? and I shake my head off at everyone who has brought up kg's regular season numbers in the discussion: you probably forgot the twolves were so mediocre in those days that KG spent most of the time thinking about pumping his stats rather than winning games.
Finally my main point KG HAS NEVER LEAD ANY TEAM ANYWHERE: yes he was a defensive anchor, but he was the third wheel on offense, the third wheel on the go-to-guy list, and he got served 7 FRIGGING TIMES in a row in the 1st round, he got one good run with sprewell and cassell, dirk has two finals trips with terry/josh howard as the second best player.. and his stats in the process are monstrous as many of you posted them..

to summarize: kg has been blessed with talent in many areas of the game, but he NEVER LED A TEAM, so he is out of the discussion to begin with.

[NO-KG-AI]

I dunno why there is myth that Dirk kills KG one on one. Maybe that 3 game sample is clouding people, but they have 33 games played against each other and this is what it looks like:

Dirk: 23.3 points, 8.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.7 steals, 0.8 blocks, 1.7 turnovers, 46.6% shooting, 39.8% from 3, 88.7% from the line.

KG: 23.1 points, 11.9 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 1.4 steals, 1.2 blocks, 2.7 turnovers, 52.1% shooting,, 77.9% from the line.

They both play 38.4 minutes exactly, and the series is 16-17(Dirk).

Looks like Dirk gets crushed, unless that .2 points per game is important to you, lol.

[Fearless_Idiot]

I dunno why there is myth that Dirk kills KG one on one. Maybe that 3 game sample is clouding people, but they have 33 games played against each other and this is what it looks like:

Dirk: 23.3 points, 8.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.7 steals, 0.8 blocks, 1.7 turnovers, 46.6% shooting, 39.8% from 3, 88.7% from the line.

KG: 23.1 points, 11.9 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 1.4 steals, 1.2 blocks, 2.7 turnovers, 52.1% shooting,, 77.9% from the line.

They both play 38.4 minutes exactly, and the series is 16-17(Dirk).

Looks like Dirk gets crushed, unless that .2 points per game is important to you, lol.

first of all, no need to include KGs stats because he wasn't ever guarded by dirk for long stretches, second of all, come back when the regular season has any importance over any playoff series.

[NO-KG-AI]

You mean the playoff series where KG played the top of the key in a zone defense? lmao. Come on. Dirk was great, and KG didn't have his best series, but it was 3 games, and Dirk had a much much much better team.

Just don't throw out stuff like "he was murdered every time" and then follow it up with "he didn't even guard KG". He didn't guard KG full time because the results would have been even worse.

There is a big sample of them playing each other, but you can run with the 3 game sample if you like

[Ajohnson85]

This shouldnt even be a discussion. if it wasnt for those years were Wally, trenton hassel and troy hudson were starting next to him...this would even come up.

Garnett is going to be the 1st player in NBA history to achieve 25,000 points, 12,000 rebounds, 5,000 assists, 2000 blocks and 1500 steals.

Garnett will go down as one of the best all around players in NBA history. We are comparing him to a one dimensional offensively gifted PF. This comparison is nonsense

[HeatRing2012]

I dunno why there is myth that Dirk kills KG one on one. Maybe that 3 game sample is clouding people, but they have 33 games played against each other and this is what it looks like:

Dirk: 23.3 points, 8.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.7 steals, 0.8 blocks, 1.7 turnovers, 46.6% shooting, 39.8% from 3, 88.7% from the line.

KG: 23.1 points, 11.9 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 1.4 steals, 1.2 blocks, 2.7 turnovers, 52.1% shooting,, 77.9% from the line.

They both play 38.4 minutes exactly, and the series is 16-17(Dirk).

Looks like Dirk gets crushed, unless that .2 points per game is important to you, lol.

how can it looks like Dirk getting crushed, when he is the one having the winning record against Garnett O_o

and on the most important stage(playoffs), Dirk is 4-0 against KG. just like he is 8-0 against Gasol etc.

Clearly, if Dirk goes on to have a career where he maintains this peak for another 5 years, that will change the KG discussion quite a bit.

this is jaw dropping.
Dirk is considered the most unstopable OFFENSIVE player in the league right now.
do you really want to tell me, that he needs to play at least another 5 years on that level to change the discussion "a bit".
sorry Doctor MJ - you sound like a KG fanboy who has his opinion hammered in stone.

[Doctor MJ]

Clearly, if Dirk goes on to have a career where he maintains this peak for another 5 years, that will change the KG discussion quite a bit.

this is jaw dropping.
Dirk is considered the most unstopable OFFENSIVE player in the league right now.
do you really want to tell me, that he needs to play at least another 5 years on that level to change the discussion "a bit".
sorry Doctor MJ - you sound like a KG fanboy who has his opinion hammered in stone.

Um, are not familiar with the phrase "quite a bit"? It means "a lot".

[therealbig3]

I dunno why there is myth that Dirk kills KG one on one. Maybe that 3 game sample is clouding people, but they have 33 games played against each other and this is what it looks like:

Dirk: 23.3 points, 8.3 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 0.7 steals, 0.8 blocks, 1.7 turnovers, 46.6% shooting, 39.8% from 3, 88.7% from the line.

KG: 23.1 points, 11.9 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 1.4 steals, 1.2 blocks, 2.7 turnovers, 52.1% shooting,, 77.9% from the line.

They both play 38.4 minutes exactly, and the series is 16-17(Dirk).

Looks like Dirk gets crushed, unless that .2 points per game is important to you, lol.

Just posting their percentages doesn't tell you much. You have to take the volume into account, which TS% does. Dirk's career TS% head to head is .581. KG's is .570. So DIrk has the scoring advantage.

I agree that KG has the overall advantage, but not to the extent that you're trying to make it seem. Dirk is the better scorer, both in terms of volume and efficiency, and he turns the ball over less, although all of these advantages are extremely small, head to head. KG does have him beat quite considerably in terms of rebounding, passing, and defense.

But keep in mind, the majority of these games wasn't DIrk in his prime. From what it looks like, current Dirk is prime Dirk. If this Dirk went up against prime KG, I think the scoring difference would be bigger, by a lot.

[Frankie23]

Maybe they are really tied right now. Both MVP, and although Garnett won a tittle, Dirk was in one NBA final winning the west against a kind of prime Tim Duncan..
KG's better at defense and Dirk is a better offensive player..

If Dirk wins, it will be as the franchise player with an NBA career of loyalty to the Mavs. That's something big in these days..

[mysticbb]

I dunno why there is myth that Dirk kills KG one on one. Maybe that 3 game sample is clouding people, but they have 33 games played against each other and this is what it looks like:

Include the playoff games and take the couple of games out from Nowitzki's first two seasons and we get 26/10 on 60TS% vs. 23/12 on 55 TS% and Nowitzki winning 19 of 31 games. Additional to that: Whenever Nowitzki guards Garnett on the court he has more success at that than Garnett has success at defending Nowitzki. It looks like Nowitzki can score at will on Garnett. That's why people think Nowitzki kills KG.

Whether that is a fair assessment or not, the fact remains that in recent years Garnett constantly lost to Nowitzki and the 1on1 was also in favour of Nowitzki.


You are also underestimate the impact by a big perimeter threat. I saw a couple of comments by you in which you showed either your lack of knowledge or your personal disbelief that Nowitzki has a big impact. Even when he is not scoring 30+ on high efficiency Nowitzki is drawing so much attention of the opponents defense, that the spacing for the Mavericks is crazy on offense. The abilitity to force a bigger defender to the stay on the perimeter is huge. You may not see it, because Barea or Terry or someone else (typical the a ball handler) on the court benifits most from the spacing, but the results are rather constant and obvious. When Nowitzki is on the court, the Mavericks are a much better offensive team. Additional to that it seems that Nowitzki's weaknesses as perimeter defender are completely overblown in terms of real impact. Right now after 4 games the Heat are at 97.1 ORtg when Nowitzki is on the court, when he is not, they are at 122.2. The difference in terms of defense is even bigger than the difference on offense for the Mavericks in the series against the Heat. The reason for this: The Mavericks are better at taking care of the basketball with Nowitzki on the court, they are a much better rebounding team (they completely outrebound the Heat when Nowitzki is on the court), they are a more efficient offensive team. The better offense triggers the better defense here. Because it lowers the amount of fastbreak opportunities for the Heat. Additional to that the Mavericks can play zone defense with Nowitzki much better than without him, forcing more bad shots and even shotclock violations more often.

Right now Nowitzki's Net+/- is on par with Garnett's peak value, Nowitzki's APM for the playoffs is at +27.4. If it weren't for the injuries during the season Nowitzki would have been also much higher (he was at +22 Net+/- and +19 APM when he went down with the knee injury). Those values would be right up there with Garnett's peak value and we can conclude that peak level Nowitzki in this season is much closer to Garnett's peak level than most people realise (including me, btw.). And it is not like Garnett had a crazy amount of season with such high values, in fact he had 3 of them. If we take out the 3 best seasons for those two players, we are ending up with Nowitzki even being better than Garnett since 2000. You may not understand why, because you are still stuck in the 90's in terms of how a player has to play in order to have impact, but we are 20 years later and a big perimeter guy who isn't a liability on defense can have huge impact. If he is as accurate as Nowitzki, he might have the biggest impact in the league (according to RAPM he has that!).

But well, you can be as ignorant about the changes to the game as you are, you can keep your idea "he only had 42 fg% how can he be the reason?", but that will for sure not help you to understand the reason why the Mavericks are so much better with Nowitzki on the court. The Mavericks are not winning games during the time Nowitzki is on the bench, they are winning games when he is on the court.

@Doc

Even though I understand the phrase, saying Nowitzki needs 5 more years of that, is asking for a lot and completely unrealistic. Garnett done it also only for 3 years, the rest of his years are either comparable or even worse than Nowitzki's. If Nowitzki can keep that level for the remainder of his current contract, he has to be considered as the better player of those two. Right now it is much closer between them than some might think. If we add the playoff performances to the mix, Nowitzki can close the gap significantly. And the better playoff performance is also the reason why Duncan was BETTER than Garnett, even though their level in the regular season was rather close. Ignoring those playoff games makes it look like Garnett could have had a similar success as Duncan, but when we compare the playoff performances of those two, we have to come to the conclusion that Duncan is better and we might even say it is not close. And that is not just because Duncan won with a better support, but HOW Duncan won.

[pavementplmokn]

I dunno why there is myth that Dirk kills KG one on one. Maybe that 3 game sample is clouding people, but they have 33 games played against each other and this is what it looks like:

Include the playoff games and take the couple of games out from Nowitzki's first two seasons and we get 26/10 on 60TS% vs. 23/12 on 55 TS% and Nowitzki winning 19 of 31 games. Additional to that: Whenever Nowitzki guards Garnett on the court he has more success at that than Garnett has success at defending Nowitzki. It looks like Nowitzki can score at will on Garnett. That's why people think Nowitzki kills KG.

Whether that is a fair assessment or not, the fact remains that in recent years Garnett constantly lost to Nowitzki and the 1on1 was also in favour of Nowitzki.


You are also underestimate the impact by a big perimeter threat. I saw a couple of comments by you in which you showed either your lack of knowledge or your personal disbelief that Nowitzki has a big impact. Even when he is not scoring 30+ on high efficiency Nowitzki is drawing so much attention of the opponents defense, that the spacing for the Mavericks is crazy on offense. The abilitity to force a bigger defender to the stay on the perimeter is huge. You may not see it, because Barea or Terry or someone else (typical the a ball handler) on the court benifits most from the spacing, but the results are rather constant and obvious. When Nowitzki is on the court, the Mavericks are a much better offensive team. Additional to that it seems that Nowitzki's weaknesses as perimeter defender are completely overblown in terms of real impact. Right now after 4 games the Heat are at 97.1 ORtg when Nowitzki is on the court, when he is not, they are at 122.2. The difference in terms of defense is even bigger than the difference on offense for the Mavericks in the series against the Heat. The reason for this: The Mavericks are better at taking care of the basketball with Nowitzki on the court, they are a much better rebounding team (they completely outrebound the Heat when Nowitzki is on the court), they are a more efficient offensive team. The better offense triggers the better defense here. Because it lowers the amount of fastbreak opportunities for the Heat. Additional to that the Mavericks can play zone defense with Nowitzki much better than without him, forcing more bad shots and even shotclock violations more often.

Right now Nowitzki's Net+/- is on par with Garnett's peak value, Nowitzki's APM for the playoffs is at +27.4. If it weren't for the injuries during the season Nowitzki would have been also much higher (he was at +22 Net+/- and +19 APM when he went down with the knee injury). Those values would be right up there with Garnett's peak value and we can conclude that peak level Nowitzki in this season is much closer to Garnett's peak level than most people realise (including me, btw.). And it is not like Garnett had a crazy amount of season with such high values, in fact he had 3 of them. If we take out the 3 best seasons for those two players, we are ending up with Nowitzki even being better than Garnett since 2000. You may not understand why, because you are still stuck in the 90's in terms of how a player has to play in order to have impact, but we are 20 years later and a big perimeter guy who isn't a liability on defense can have huge impact. If he is as accurate as Nowitzki, he might have the biggest impact in the league (according to RAPM he has that!).

But well, you can be as ignorant about the changes to the game as you are, you can keep your idea "he only had 42 fg% how can he be the reason?", but that will for sure not help you to understand the reason why the Mavericks are so much better with Nowitzki on the court. The Mavericks are not winning games during the time Nowitzki is on the bench, they are winning games when he is on the court.

@Doc

Even though I understand the phrase, saying Nowitzki needs 5 more years of that, is asking for a lot and completely unrealistic. Garnett done it also only for 3 years, the rest of his years are either comparable or even worse than Nowitzki's. If Nowitzki can keep that level for the remainder of his current contract, he has to be considered as the better player of those two. Right now it is much closer between them than some might think. If we add the playoff performances to the mix, Nowitzki can close the gap significantly. And the better playoff performance is also the reason why Duncan was BETTER than Garnett, even though their level in the regular season was rather close. Ignoring those playoff games makes it look like Garnett could have had a similar success as Duncan, but when we compare the playoff performances of those two, we have to come to the conclusion that Duncan is better and we might even say it is not close. And that is not just because Duncan won with a better support, but HOW Duncan won.

Good post. Nowitzki stretches the defense like no one else in the league (bigs).

[ronnymac2]

mysticbb- Isn't one playoff run too small a sample size for the plus/minus numbers to come to a real conclusion about anything?

[mopper8]

mysticbb- Isn't one playoff run too small a sample size for the plus/minus numbers to come to a real conclusion about anything?

I just made this point in another thread where he's using +/- from series to justify a position.

[HeatRing2012]

mysticbb- Isn't one playoff run too small a sample size for the plus/minus numbers to come to a real conclusion about anything?

I just made this point in another thread where he's using +/- from series to justify a position.

most of the time he uses the 5 year RAPM (including playoffs)

in those 5 years +/- stats Dirk is ahead of Garnett of course

[mysticbb]

mysticbb- Isn't one playoff run too small a sample size for the plus/minus numbers to come to a real conclusion about anything?

It is not just ONE playoff run. I take the start of the season and the end of the season for Nowitzki also into account. We clearly saw a drop when he had to deal with the knee and the shoulder injury, but before and after that his impact is as big as during this playoff run and pretty much on par with Garnett's peak.

We also have him posting in average big APM numbers for 11 years in a row now. His numbers are more consistent than from other players during that stretch.

The thing is the Mavericks are becoming a complete different animal with Nowitzki on the court. They outscored their opponents by around 10.5 per 100 possessions throughout the year. He led the league in RAPM in the regular season (with a higher number than KG posted in either 2006, 2007 or 2008), and in the combination with the playoffs he even extended the seperation between him and the next (which is, btw, Manu Ginobili).

Thus I'm not just talking about the playoffs (which have already 19 games played for Nowitzki against 4 teams which are clearly above league average, btw, something we have to take into account too), Nowitzki has now played 23% of his minutes this season in the playoffs, he will at least end up with 25% of his minutes played in the playoffs against competition with an average SRS of 4.51 (well, if we count only the last 25 games for ALL of them we end up with an average of 6.1 SRS), it is not like he is doing it against weak competition here.

The Mavericks are a dominating team with Nowitzki, while they end up being a -7 team for the rest of the playing time (regular season and playoffs included). The interesting thing here: During the 9 games (SOS was similar due to the fact that the Mavericks had more home games) Nowitzki missed the Mavericks had in average -6.7 per 100 possessions, pretty much the same thing we see when Nowitzki is on the bench. The Mavericks played 1607 minutes without Nowitzki and 3251 with, thus we can't chalk that up with sample size here anymore.

[ronnymac2]

Oh OK. The wording messed me up. Thanks for the clarification.


As for the thread...First off, this thread is really, really informative. Both sides have presented a really compelling case to me- not about the rankings per se, but about the nature of each player's game. I'm going to need to reconsider Nowitzki's ranking overall, because his overall offensive impact seems to be rather massive, and I love offensive Constants. I've got KG ranked ahead of him, and probably will keep him there even with a Maverick 2011 title victory. Nowitzki may be approaching top 20 status though. I mean REALLY approaching...like, there already...