colts18 wrote:Drza, how will you put KG ahead of Dirk if Dirk finished ahead of KG in the "impact" stats and played at a higher level in the playoffs? IMO, Dirk's 2011 playoff run is better than LeBron's 2012 playoff run. Dirk literally singlehandedly willed his team in the Lakers and Thunder series. Here were the numbers:
29-7-3
56-55-96
.690 TS%
125 O rating
The Mavericks were huge underdogs in the Lakers series since they had no HCA. In fact the Lakers were -380 to win the series which converts to 79% chance to win the series. Remember that entering the playoffs, the Lakers were the favorites to win the NBA title even ahead of the Heat. The Heat were -175 favorites in the finals which is 64%, still a big upset.
I haven't been ignoring you on this, Colts. To me it's very clear that 2004 Garnett was comfortably better than 2011 Dirk. As such, at this point in the project I'm more interested in debating Garnett vs. guys like Walton, Duncan, LeBron or Dr. J who appear to be his "voting peers", as it were. I've been reading your recent debate with ElGee, and if Dirk seems like he's coming up soon then I'll put more into it.
As a quick answer, though, I see these as some of the clear differences between the two:
*Peak Garnett is arguably the best combo of defense and offense in a single player in at least the last decade. Dirk was an offensive beast and a solid defender, but overall he wasn't as strong
*Amplifying on this, more types of teams could have made use of Garnett's abilities. Dirk is one of the more portable offensive players, but KG is portable on both offense and defense. If a team needed history level defense, KG was capable of scaling back his offense and providing that. If a team needed an offensive anchor as a scorer, KG could provide that. If a team needed to run their offense through a high-post hub in a distribution role, KG could provide that as well. Dirk's portability is an advantage vs. most, but not vs. KG.
*KG's postseason impact is very underrated over his career because of an over-focus on scoring efficiency. I've made in depth posts on this subject before, such as this one from the Top 100 players project last year (
viewtopic.php?f=64&t=1126186&start=15 , 4th post down on page). Garnett's defense and his non-scoring offensive impact, two things which the box scores aren't capable of capturing (and ironically the 2 things that do make Walton's peak so revered), make him one of the very best postseason performers of his generation. You know I believe this. You disagree. We don't appear to have a common ground we can reach on it. But knowing my beliefs/analysis (even if you don't agree with it), you're very aware that I don't believe that Dirk played at a higher level in the playoffs. Just the opposite, in fact, as I think KG tends to outperform Dirk in postseason play overall (including 2004 KG vs 2011 Dirk).
*Much like the point I made in the Walton/KG post earlier, KG was capable of playing a lot more minutes than Dirk was at this stage in their careers. RAPM is a per minute stat, but total minutes is also important. It's part of the difference that we saw in the 2012 Heat vs Celtics series...LeBron could go for 48 minutes at a high level if the team needed it, while KG had to get rest. The Celtics collapsed without KG, and those extra minutes of needed rest could have spelled the difference in the series. Similarly, the fact that KG in '04 could go 48 consistently at need while Walton '77 or Dirk '11 needed those minutes of rest could be similarly significant.
Like I said, if need be I'll go into KG '04 vs Dirk '11 more down the line. But for now, I don't see that as a particularly interesting comparison here and I'm much more likely to spend my posts elsewhere in the interim
