ardee wrote:drza wrote:In those 8 wins, Garnett averaged 29.4 points on 56.9% TS, 15.4 boards, 3.8 assists, 2.1 steals, 3.3 blocks, and an average game score of 26.0. And remember, this is all at very low paces historically. The Wolves' pace was around 90, while the '77 Blazers were at 108 and the 60s were faster still. If we pace adjusted to those times, we'd be looking at scoring on the order of Wilt's or Kareem's career playoff highs.
And it should be noted that of the 8 wins, 5 of them were by 5 points or less and 2 were in overtime. So they were BARELY winning...KG had to perform at this level for them to even squeak out wins over elite opponents.
So in summary, for those Wolves to win, KG had to score like Wilt, play defense like Russell, and run his team's offense from the high-post like Walton (if not running the PG outright).
NOBODY in history was doing that. If he could have pulled off that level of play in that many areas every night it would have been by far the best peak in NBA history. That he was able to do it in almost half of the playoff games against elite opponents at his peak is absurd.
KG went into every one of those playoff games knowing that if he even wanted a CHANCE to win he had to go for 30 and 15 while completely shutting down the opposing team single handedly (and yes, this is a fair time to use that term) while also running the offense and getting his teammates in position to score as well. If he was only "super elite" his team was getting beat...if he was only perfect in two or three of those areas, his team was getting beat. He had to go "best that ever played" mode across the board for them to even have a shot. And he almost did it, dominating in multiple of those areas every game and succeeding in hitting perfection across the board about once every other game. No way LeBron '12 (or '09) is touching that level of dominance at both ends of the floor and all aspects of the game. Neither is Walton '77 or Dr. J '76. KG was a monster at his peak.
That is an incredible post, sir.
You have established for sure that KG was reaching rarefied heights in some of those games... However, just allow me to play Devil's advocate here, if you don't mind.
In those 19 games you mentioned, there were 11 losses.
In those losses, he averaged 21.5 ppg and 14.5 rpg on just 48% TS, with 1.1 SPG and 1.4 BPG.
So, obviously when he had it going he was unreal, but he didn't always have it going. In fact, when he was off, he was nowhere near what he was usually capable of. We have to reward consistency. LeBron, throughout the '09 Playoffs, had two games with a game score of 22 or lower.
Just for the heck of it, LeBron in his 10 wins in the '09 Playoffs averaged 33.5 ppg, 9.6 rpg, 7.1 apg and nearly 2 spg on 63% TS. Average game score of 29.8. In game 3 vs. the Hawks he had that ridiculous 47/12/8 game (Game Score of 43.8), with Josh Smith opposite him.
In the four losses, he averaged (prepare yourself)
39.8 ppg, 8 rpg, 7.8 apg on 59% TS!!! Average game score of 30...
HIGHER than when his team won.
LeBron brought it every night whether his team won or lost. Can you imagine how bad his team was when he was performing at THAT kind of level and they were still losing?
Garnett was incredible, no doubt, but seriously, LeBron's level of domination in terms of his scoring, distribution and all-around play are on an unheard of level, we might literally never see a Playoffs like that again.
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ElGee wrote:drza wrote:In those 8 wins, Garnett averaged 29.4 points on 56.9% TS, 15.4 boards, 3.8 assists, 2.1 steals, 3.3 blocks, and an average game score of 26.0. And remember, this is all at very low paces historically.
I found this to be very interesting because of the notion of variance, which is something I've touched upon before. I believe, when laying out his best seasons (4 clear contenders), 2011 is Dwyane Wade's best year. Now, this is mostly because I think his SG defense is at an all-time level, but his offense comes in huge explosions. When he's on, his "on" is ridiculously good.
For Garnett, and being in a one-man situation of sorts, I find the numbers you post really compelling. It's only 8 of 19 games, but it says
(a) KG needed to be on for Minnesota to have a chance bc his teams were so weak
(b) KG's "on" was, well, it was something extraordinary
Out of curiosity, I looked at Duncan's 16 wins in 2003:
23.9 ppg 58% TS 16.6 rpg 6.0 apg 3.4 TOV 4.0 blck 24.4 GmSc
And their 8-best games period of the 24 we're discussing:
Duncan 03: 32.6 ppg 65.0%$ TS 17.0 rpg 5.9 apg 3.4 TOV 3.9 Blck 32.0 GmSc (vs. 101.5 DRtg)
KG 03-04: 30.5 ppg 58.6% TS 15.0 rpg 5.1 apg 3.0 TOV 3.1 Blck 27.6 GmSc (vs 103.8 DRtg)
Of course, Duncan's on a better team (as you'll notice by how much weaker his numbers were in wins, for example), which you can argue helps his scoring stats AND helps his rebounding (because KG has a 31 to 27% DRB% edge). You can argue that KG would have done work against Kenyon Martin despite New Jersey's 98.1 DRtg or that his numbers would look nicer if he played Dallas and Phoenix. You can argue that Duncan had to spend less energy on defense. Etc. But note Duncan's statistics.
You brought up pace too. Just so people can understand what we're looking at here:
Wilt 1962 28.7 pts/75 (estimated)
KG (03-04 PS) 27.4 pts/75
Duncan 03 PS 26.6 pts/75
The notion that Kevin Garnett wasn't a scorer, or capable of being a big scorer, is just absolutely fallacious.
Finally, Ardee has brought up LeBron -- I don't think there's any question what LeBron did in Cleveland is the GOAT unipolar act on a bad team. But again, do you think that he has that impact on an average -3 or -1 SRS team? Do you think that was a true 9 SRS team? I don't, and I've explained why before in great detail, so I hope everyone would understand that his video-game statistics come with that caveat.
These are both great responses, and literally what I expected/hoped to see in response to what I had written because it lets me further clarify what I meant before. Notice, my initial post on this subject came in response to Bastillon's comment about '12 LeBron "stepping up in the face of adversity". This also dovetails with the themes of some of my previous posts in the threads about how bad the '04 Wolves were once Cassell started hobbling. The level that KG was having to "step it up to", when you factor in both teammate support and opponent, was higher than what LeBron '09 or Duncan '03 had to face.
a)
Supporting cast: None of the '09 Cavs, the '03 Spurs, nor the '04 Wolves (with healthy Cassell) were overly talented. But what all of them had was enough support for the team to build a strong identity around the mega star. Now, that identity (and the team outlook) would be crap if the mega star wasn't on the court to pull it, but WITH the mega star the whole could be stronger than the parts.
The '09 Cavs' support was built around having two centers on the floor at all times (3 man rotation, 2 of which were strong defenders) and a everyone else shooters, which (coupled with LeBron's awesome talents) let them have a strong inside-out defensive/rebounding team as well as a floor-spreaded offensive squad that was strong as long as the treys were falling.
The '03 Spurs support was built around having excellent defensive players from 2 - 5 in a strong defensive system, which was keyed of course by Duncan's defensive strengths. Then on offense, they ran the kind of committee-around-Duncan approach that ElGee did a good job of detailing in a recent post.
The '04 Wolves support was essentially built around a scoring guard's ability to play offense off of Garnett in a 2-man game, and with Spree and Hassell no longer getting completely torched on the perimeter (the way that Wally and Peeler used to) it allowed KG's help defense to make the defense formidable as well. (I say "scoring guard" above because that offense worked and was strong whether that scoring guard was '02 Billups, '03 Hudson, '04 Cassell, or '05 Hudson/Cassell...but with '04 Cassell able to do more of the team set-up as well as being the most consistent scorer of that group as well, his 2-man game with KG made for frighteningly consistent offense even on a team with very little other offensive talent.
While these support systems couldn't have made it out of the lottery on their own, they were each strong enough to a) build something special around the mega star and b) allow that mega star to specialize a bit. LeBron was able to just be a strong cog on the defense, and he had others to help on the boards and knock down the 3s to keep the floor stretched..."all" he had to do was focus on generating offense for himself and his shooters, and just do a good job on defense. Similarly, Duncan was able to lead the dominant defense (instead of BEING the defense), which was good enough to keep them in any game, and let him then focus more on offense. And with Cassell's help Garnett was able to lead the offense (instead of being the offense), which let him focus more on his defense (not coincidence this was his peak defensive season in the Flip Saunders era).
For '09 LeBron and '03 Duncan, the scenario described above was also true in the postseason. But for Garnett, with Cassell limping and then eventually out, the cast was no longer strong enough in any area to let him specialize in any way. He had to BE the offense AND also BE the defense, for his team to have any chance against strong competition. On a level that '09 LeBron and '03 Duncan never had to...they never had to stop specializing and go into scramble mode, the way that '04 KG had to.
b) The opponents. The other aspect is the opponent. And this is a key...neither the 2003 Spurs nor the 2009 Cavs ever faced a situation where the opponent was lopsidedly more talented. I mentioned this in a previous post, but it doesn't even matter so much whether the opponent's talent is mainly offense or mainly defense, just that the opponent is clearly (much) better. The '09 Cavs faced 2 easy opponents, and the a Magic team that
was not more talented than them. Again, this is important. The talent around Howard was roughly equivalent to the talent around LeBron, and both teams were somewhat gimmick squads around their star (Cavs with 2 starting centers and shooters, Magic with all shooters around the dominant big). So it's not that the Magic were just better than the Cavs...it's just that their gimmick made the Cavs' gimmick ineffective.
Similarly, the '03 Spurs never faced an opponent that clearly outgunned them. The Lakers had the worst year of the Shaq/Kobe prime era, and Kobe was playing hurt. The Mavs were playing them to a standstill before Dirk got hurt, and afterwards the Spurs had the clear advantage. And the Nets just weren't on the level of the top teams in the league...the East was just weak.
Garnett's Wolves, on the other hand, were facing the Shaq/Kobe/old Malone/old Payton Lakers and the Webber/Peja/Bibby/Miller Kings. Teams (especially the Lakers) that likely would have been more talented than even a Wolves squad at full strength, but that dramatically outgunned KG with limping (or absent) Cassell.
Conclusion: Put (a) and (b) together, and Garnett is in a situation where he a) doesn't have the team anymore that would let him maximize his own production, but b) requires MORE than his previous MVP-level of production to even have a shot at a win. This isn't a comparable situation to '09 LeBron or '03 Duncan, so a straight box score-for-box score comparison won't give you an accurate sense of what was going on.
Interestingly, in the years AROUND their peak seasons, we got to see both LeBron and Duncan in these more outgunned situations in the postseason. In '08 LeBron was outgunned against the Celtics and in '10 it certainly appeared that he was again, though that wasn't the expectation coming in. Similarly, in '02 Duncan was completely outgunned against the Lakers with Robinson hurt, and in '04 it was at least an even battle. Their numbers in these two situation?
LeBron vs. '08/'10 Celtics: 13 games (5 wins, 8 losses), 26.8 points (51.3% TS), 7.8 reb, 7.4 ast, 2.2 stl, 1.3 blk, 4.9 TO
Duncan vs 02/04 Lakers: 11 games (3 wins, 8 losses), 24.4 points (52.3% TS), 14.5 reb, 3.9 ast, 1 stl, 2.2 blk, 4.60 TO
Now I know in this project we're focusing on a single year, and I respect that. But in the effort to actually figure out what's going on, this is instructional. When peak LeBron and peak Duncan faced strong playoff foes in situations where their casts weren't necessarily as strong, both of their scoring efficiencies regressed to exactly where we saw Garnett's and their turnovers went nuts as well. I'd be curious about the breakdown between win/loss like I did with Garnett, but the point stands. KG was doing massive lifting for those Wolves, at least as much as we were seeing from peak LeBron or Duncan, and he hit that "perfect" zone in the face of being outgunned with more regularity.
I reiterate. KG was a monster at his peak.
