What separates Wilt & KG?

[ElGee]

Ardee, how many games have you seen Wilt Chamberlain play? Assuming the answer is not many, what are you basing your opinion of him on?

PS The post about KG's playoff performances was replied to by drza

[colts18]

Wilt was not the most dominant offensive player ever. When he was doing extreme volume scoring, his team's actual offensive success was typically mediocre. Defenses really had no particular problem being successful against him.

You can make the same argument with KG. He was consistently anchoring mediocre defenses in Minnesota. Where was his impact there? If Wilt can't make an impact on the team level, so is KG.

KG actually was the best offensive player in the league at his peak by RAPM.

What are you talking about? Not even close. There was no point that KG was rated the best offensive player by RAPM.
http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/2004.html
Shaq, McGrady, and Ray Allen are ahead of him on offense. And Shaq is ahead of him overall too. So peak KG wasn't even better than older past his prime Shaq.

Plus at no point was he a better offensive player than Dirk. in 2004, Dirk anchored the best offense in history.

[bastillon]

You can make the same argument with KG. He was consistently anchoring mediocre defenses in Minnesota. Where was his impact there? If Wilt can't make an impact on the team level, so is KG.

huh ? you should know better Garnett was making great impact because you know the data. that team was falling apart without Garnett on a consistent basis. Wolves KG was an elite defender by any standards.

[colts18]

You can make the same argument with KG. He was consistently anchoring mediocre defenses in Minnesota. Where was his impact there? If Wilt can't make an impact on the team level, so is KG.

huh ? you should know better Garnett was making great impact because you know the data. that team was falling apart without Garnett on a consistent basis. Wolves KG was an elite defender by any standards.

And how do we know those early 60's Warriors offenses wouldn't fall apart without Wilt?

[bastillon]

You can make the same argument with KG. He was consistently anchoring mediocre defenses in Minnesota. Where was his impact there? If Wilt can't make an impact on the team level, so is KG.

huh ? you should know better Garnett was making great impact because you know the data. that team was falling apart without Garnett on a consistent basis. Wolves KG was an elite defender by any standards.

And how do we know those early 60's Warriors offenses wouldn't fall apart without Wilt?

because no data would suggest anything remotely like that. you didn't answer my point. why are you even implying KG wasn't making big impact when in fact YOU, OF ALL PEOPLE, KNOW HE DID ? to me it's kinda mindboggling. not so long ago you made a post that said "Shaq and D-Rob might be the best plus minus players along with KG and Duncan". now it seems you've forgotten about it. kinda unbelievable to me.

now look, there were many instances when Wilt changed teams, missed games etc. if he was as impactful as KG, there would be no doubts about his impact. if you wanna defend him you're gonna have to explain what happened in several years. you know which years. don't insult yourself pretending to be a fool.

[Sharifani_San]

Oh you mean how he had 3 consecutive MVPs in a row from 1966-1968, then was nowhere to be found on the MVP list in 1969 yet we use that year as criteria for whether Wilt actually made an impact? In other words, rather than trying to understand what happened to Wilt, we assume nothing changed from 1968 to 1969 and then judge his 1969 #s, including advanced statistics, to judge the impact he made in prior years. May I roll my eyes now?

[Warspite]

The hypocricy of the Wilt hater never ends. There is no limit to what ends he will go. There is no level of stupidity he wont reach and no depth of absurdity he wont dive to.


I see a great many similarites between those T Wolves and Warriors teams. I see the same between the KG Celtics and Wilt 76ers as well.

However when I compare them I see that Wilts teams are a achieveing more and Wilt is playing better. Doesnt seem like its that hard to figure out. However when you have a beam in your eye its alwasys going to be harder to see.

[Doctor MJ]

I don't think its unreasonable to think Wilt would have a higher peak than Kevin Love and be higher than Love's peak every year. First of all, Wilt was taller. He had a huge wingspan. He had huge hands (big enough to palm 16 lb bowling balls..just sayin'). He was more athletic. And finally, rebounding is about effort. Wilt made it his mission to go after the rebound, not quite in the same sense Rodman did, but close. Wilt had big rebounding games even when the pace was slow/points scored was low. So i have ever reason to believe that he'd be the best rebounder since Rodman. Not saying he'd achieve Rodman levels of TRB%, but he'd be the closest.

You're going about this in very much the opposite way to how I'm saying it. That's not wrong necessarily, but so you understand:

People who said "he's taller, bigger wingspan, more athletic" are the very people who said Kevin Love wouldn't even have a career in the NBA. So using that against him now basically misses the entire lesson to learn from his success. If you go by actual rebounding rates of what Wilt did back then, and simply assume he could do the same now, you end up with numbers that look far more like Love's than like Wilt's. That much is essentially undebatable.

[Doctor MJ]

Wilt was not the most dominant offensive player ever. When he was doing extreme volume scoring, his team's actual offensive success was typically mediocre. Defenses really had no particular problem being successful against him.

You can make the same argument with KG. He was consistently anchoring mediocre defenses in Minnesota. Where was his impact there? If Wilt can't make an impact on the team level, so is KG.

I'm fine saying the next level of detail:
The Warriors got Wilt and he barely made the team offense better.
The Timberwolves in Garnett's prime only had mediocre defenses because they were absolutely awful when Garnett wasn't on the floor.

Happy to flesh this out...but I feel like you have to have seen me or someone else do that before.

KG actually was the best offensive player in the league at his peak by RAPM.

What are you talking about? Not even close. There was no point that KG was rated the best offensive player by RAPM.
http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/ratings/2004.html
Shaq, McGrady, and Ray Allen are ahead of him on offense. And Shaq is ahead of him overall too. So peak KG wasn't even better than older past his prime Shaq.

I swear one of these days I'm going to reach through the internet and start a fist fight with Engelmann.

Those numbers are not RAPM. He stopped posting RAPM this season and is now posting something else (he calls it "XRAPM" in its place without giving any notification on his site. Even worse, the one place where he actually gives a stat name, he says "RAPM" and he isn't even using his XRAPM, but just some box score based simulation of the '90s that correlates with what XRAPM would say.

I'm really flabbergasted by what he's done this season and truthfully it makes me want to go through and just do the damn calculations myself this summer.

Plus at no point was he a better offensive player than Dirk. in 2004, Dirk anchored the best offense in history.

I would be inclined to agree with you that Dirk was a better offensive player than KG that year. I still think it's noteworthy when people are knocking KG as not being the best offensive player as a general capability that he really was right in the discussion, which fits nicely with Wilt. While I'd give Wilt the nod for "Offensive Player of the Year" in '67, that would be the only year I'd do so. Oscar & West trounce him year after year.

[G35]

I don't get how peole don't see that Wilt was having a huge impact on his teams success. (Out of 9 teams):

1960 Warriors Ortg 3rd Drtg 4th
1961 Warriors Ortg 2nd Drtg 5th
1962 Warriors Ortg 1st Drtg 9th
1963 Warriors Ortg 4th Drtg 9th
1964 Warriors Ortg 9th Drtg 1st


1965 is a key season because Wilt was traded to Philly and only played 38 games. The Warriors pretty much became the worst team on both sides of the ball. They were last in offense and 7th in defense out of 9 teams.

The trade to the Sixers benefitted them on defense immediately.

1966 Sixers Ortg 4th Drtg 3rd
1967 Sixers Ortg 1st Drtg 3rd
1968 Sixers Ortg 1st Drtg 4th

It appears that Wilts impact is as we all suspect. Wilt has great impact but it's only on one side of the ball at a time. I would attribute that to coaching. A good coach can harness talent more efficiently than others. It does appear that Wilt did have some years where he was the alpha male of the league. It looks like 1962, 1967, and 1968 were years that were examples of that.

The only year that the Timberwolves ever were rated in the top 5 in offense/defense was 2002 and the offense was 4th. I know that the argument for KG is that "without him the Wolves turn into a college team". But that's the same argument that people would use for Iverson/Dwight. I always think that is something of an overrated argument, especially when arguing impact. This goes beyond the numbers. A star with great impact is able to lead his team to a level where the other players can still perform when he isn't on the court. It's not like it was just him and a bunch of scrubs. He always had at least one other high level player. People act like he didn't play with some great PG"s:

Marbury
Brandon
Billups
Cassell

He didn't have the best talent but he didn't have the worst either. Remember the Wolves won 50 games 4 out of 5 years from 2000-2004. That doesn't happen if the talent is as bad as everyone wants to say it was. From what I see KG had a positive impact in many areas but he wasn't dominant in any single area which is what you need to build around if you don't have secondary All Stars on your team. Remember only 24 All Stars are selected in any one year so that means there are some teams that don't even have one All Star much less two or three.

This isn't a make or break point but during Wilts tenure at Philly he didn't play with any players that had a PER of 20. There were some years he didn't have any players that had a PER of 15. So honestly I don't think KG's "lack of support" is really a valid argument in this comparison.....

[Doctor MJ]

You just used the phrases "ORtg" and "DRtg" to describe points per game. I guess you never realized they aren't the same thing.

These ratings are actual attempts to estimate points scored for or against per 100 possessions, which is a far more useful stat than what you're using. I'll look some stuff up to paint a picture for people.

[G35]

You just used the phrases "ORtg" and "DRtg" to describe points per game. I guess you never realized they aren't the same thing.

These ratings are actual attempts to estimate points scored for or against per 100 possessions, which is a far more useful stat than what you're using. I'll look some stuff up to paint a picture for people.

That was my mistake. I thought they had updated that to Ortg. Yeah I know they aren't the same I thought they looked different than normal but I was watching the Life of Pi while doing this.

I know it's based on 100 possessions per game etc.

[Doctor MJ]

Okay so I'm using ElGee's estimates of ORtg & DRtg. I understand he's a poster here so some won't feel comfortable with what he's doing, but he's using a method similar to what b-r has used in articles. b-r presumably doesn't list the numbers because they aren't satisfied with the level of precision they can have, which is fine, but still these numbers are certainly far better than using raw PPG which is what we again and again see people using to make arguments.

All numbers posted are relative to median for the Warriors through Wilt's run:

'58-59: -4.7 ORtg (8th of 8), +2.2 DRtg (2nd of 8) (before Wilt)
'59-60: -2.5 ORtg (7th of 8), +5.0 Drtg (2nd of 8) (Wilt's rookie)
'60-61: -0.2 ORtg (5th of 8), +0.6 Drtg (4th of 8)
'61-62: +2.0 Ortg (4th of 9), +1.1 DRtg (3rd of 9)
'62-63: 0.0 ORtg (5th of 9), -0.1 DRtg (6th of 9)
'63-64: -2.2 ORtg (7th of 9), +8.0 DRtg (2nd of 9)
'64-65: -7.1 ORtg (9th of 9), +2.0 DRtg (3rd of 9) (Wilt injured then traded)
'65-66: -3.2 ORtg (7th of 9), +1.7 DRtg (3rd of 9) (after Wilt)

Speaking to some key points, including the question of how do we know that however mediocre the team's offense was it wouldn't fall apart without Wilt:

When Wilt shows up as a rookie he definitely makes things better. This is a worthy ROY campaign without question...but clearly not an MVP season. The improvement of an already good defense is excellent, but most certainly the hope is that if you add "the best scorer in history" and let him do his thing to the worst offense in the league that you could improve the offense by more than a measly 2 points.

Literally, that year, which has Wilt as a quite good player, is still having him only making an impact on offense that's on the order of one made basket. That is not nearly as impressive as common perception would predict.

Note the seeming increased focus on offense the next few years, with Wilt's team's very best offensive season coming with him scoring 50. If I give the impression that it's the mega-volume in and of itself that's making Wilt's impact pedestrian then I'm being too superficial. It's not that that approach was clearly hurting the offense compared to other strategy, it's that no matter what variation of the general Wilt-scorer approach they tried, the offense was never much above mediocrity.

Contrast this with the defense from '63-64, one of two places I've bolded. This was all-world defense. The kind of defense that really made Wilt's team title worthy...except for the existence of the Celtics with an even better defense. In '63-64 Wilt is indisputably showing himself to be a guy having an MVP-level impact.

Then to the other bold in '64-65. Both offense and defense get far worse. I highlight the offense because the sheer number is hideously bad. It's common for people arguing for Wilt to point to this year and say that that's what happens when Wilt gets injured...so he must have been incredibly valuable.

There's a problem with that thinking though. If you actually look at Wilt's stats from that year, they are absolutely still in the GOAT ballpark. There was no massive falloff. And in fact while Wilt's stats show some falloff from the previous year by metrics like PER, Wilt's PER numbers didn't rebound in future years despite the fact we know his impact did.

What this shows us even more than the lack of offensive revolution with Wilt's arrival in the league, is that the correlation between Wilt's stats and his impact is almost non-existent, and this is a huge problem given that most people have their impressions of Wilt formed at first by his stats. Those stats are the reason most of the people in this thread consider this comparison a joke. As mentioned, I'm a firm believer in Wilt's peak impact, but the individual stats themselves are virtually meaningless in terms of them being proof of impact.

Note as well the rebound after Wilt leaves the next year. It has to be mentioned that Barry & Thurmond play into this of course, but there is a recurring trend with Wilt of teams not getting terribly better when he arrives and not getting terribly worse when he leaves, and this is why when someone says (as they did in this thread) that '69 should not be mentioned this is an unreasonable statement. Luck plays into this to some degree, but this is a player many consider to be the GOAT and think to have been utterly unstoppable. It's noteworthy as hell that even once he failed to make it rain in team transitions, let alone that it happened on several occasions.

Okay I'd say that's enough for now. If I feel up to it, maybe I'll do it for the 76ers and/or Lakers later. Sufficed to say the trends continues. You can find great seasons with each team ('64, '67, '72), but the amount of mediocrity is shocking and really quite unlike what we see from other GOAT contenders.

And as mentioned as it relates to KG: You can find mediocrity with the Timberwolves as a whole, but there's nothing in that run to suggest that KG wasn't having superstar impact. Things happened exactly as you'd expect them too if you had an absolute trainwreck of a supporting cast.

[Doctor MJ]

You just used the phrases "ORtg" and "DRtg" to describe points per game. I guess you never realized they aren't the same thing.

These ratings are actual attempts to estimate points scored for or against per 100 possessions, which is a far more useful stat than what you're using. I'll look some stuff up to paint a picture for people.

That was my mistake. I thought they had updated that to Ortg. Yeah I know they aren't the same I thought they looked different than normal but I was watching the Life of Pi while doing this.

I know it's based on 100 possessions per game etc.

Okay fair enough. That's a mistake any of us could make.

[lorak]

Doc,
the problem with 60s ortg evaluations is that we really don't know how player like Wilt changed average (estimated) values. I mean he was great ORB and DRB player (+ probably high tournover ratio player - but more in his later days) and that changes ortg drastically.

[ardee]

Ardee, how many games have you seen Wilt Chamberlain play? Assuming the answer is not many, what are you basing your opinion of him on?

PS The post about KG's playoff performances was replied to by drza

There is unfortunately no full game of the 60s available. However, the 70s series' against the Bucks and Knicks are available on Youtube and I've watched every second of those, plus whatever footage I could find of his 60s career.

Unless the anti-Wilt crew has access to footage the rest of us do not, I'd be interested to know if you'll are going just by the in-out stats and the estimated pace values.

[ElGee]

You didn't answer the question: What are you basing your opinion of him on?

[pancakes3]

the transitive property.

[MacGill]

Okay so I'm using ElGee's estimates of ORtg & DRtg. I understand he's a poster here so some won't feel comfortable with what he's doing, but he's using a method similar to what b-r has used in articles. b-r presumably doesn't list the numbers because they aren't satisfied with the level of precision they can have, which is fine, but still these numbers are certainly far better than using raw PPG which is what we again and again see people using to make arguments.

All numbers posted are relative to median for the Warriors through Wilt's run:

'58-59: -4.7 ORtg (8th of 8), +2.2 DRtg (2nd of 8) (before Wilt)
'59-60: -2.5 ORtg (7th of 8), +5.0 Drtg (2nd of 8) (Wilt's rookie)
'60-61: -0.2 ORtg (5th of 8), +0.6 Drtg (4th of 8)
'61-62: +2.0 Ortg (4th of 9), +1.1 DRtg (3rd of 9)
'62-63: 0.0 ORtg (5th of 9), -0.1 DRtg (6th of 9)
'63-64: -2.2 ORtg (7th of 9), +8.0 DRtg (2nd of 9)
'64-65: -7.1 ORtg (9th of 9), +2.0 DRtg (3rd of 9) (Wilt injured then traded)
'65-66: -3.2 ORtg (7th of 9), +1.7 DRtg (3rd of 9) (after Wilt)

Speaking to some key points, including the question of how do we know that however mediocre the team's offense was it wouldn't fall apart without Wilt:

When Wilt shows up as a rookie he definitely makes things better. This is a worthy ROY campaign without question...but clearly not an MVP season. The improvement of an already good defense is excellent, but most certainly the hope is that if you add "the best scorer in history" and let him do his thing to the worst offense in the league that you could improve the offense by more than a measly 2 points.

Literally, that year, which has Wilt as a quite good player, is still having him only making an impact on offense that's on the order of one made basket. That is not nearly as impressive as common perception would predict.

Note the seeming increased focus on offense the next few years, with Wilt's team's very best offensive season coming with him scoring 50. If I give the impression that it's the mega-volume in and of itself that's making Wilt's impact pedestrian then I'm being too superficial. It's not that that approach was clearly hurting the offense compared to other strategy, it's that no matter what variation of the general Wilt-scorer approach they tried, the offense was never much above mediocrity.

Contrast this with the defense from '63-64, one of two places I've bolded. This was all-world defense. The kind of defense that really made Wilt's team title worthy...except for the existence of the Celtics with an even better defense. In '63-64 Wilt is indisputably showing himself to be a guy having an MVP-level impact.

Then to the other bold in '64-65. Both offense and defense get far worse. I highlight the offense because the sheer number is hideously bad. It's common for people arguing for Wilt to point to this year and say that that's what happens when Wilt gets injured...so he must have been incredibly valuable.

There's a problem with that thinking though. If you actually look at Wilt's stats from that year, they are absolutely still in the GOAT ballpark. There was no massive falloff. And in fact while Wilt's stats show some falloff from the previous year by metrics like PER, Wilt's PER numbers didn't rebound in future years despite the fact we know his impact did.

What this shows us even more than the lack of offensive revolution with Wilt's arrival in the league, is that the correlation between Wilt's stats and his impact is almost non-existent, and this is a huge problem given that most people have their impressions of Wilt formed at first by his stats. Those stats are the reason most of the people in this thread consider this comparison a joke. As mentioned, I'm a firm believer in Wilt's peak impact, but the individual stats themselves are virtually meaningless in terms of them being proof of impact.

Note as well the rebound after Wilt leaves the next year. It has to be mentioned that Barry & Thurmond play into this of course, but there is a recurring trend with Wilt of teams not getting terribly better when he arrives and not getting terribly worse when he leaves, and this is why when someone says (as they did in this thread) that '69 should not be mentioned this is an unreasonable statement. Luck plays into this to some degree, but this is a player many consider to be the GOAT and think to have been utterly unstoppable. It's noteworthy as hell that even once he failed to make it rain in team transitions, let alone that it happened on several occasions.

Okay I'd say that's enough for now. If I feel up to it, maybe I'll do it for the 76ers and/or Lakers later. Sufficed to say the trends continues. You can find great seasons with each team ('64, '67, '72), but the amount of mediocrity is shocking and really quite unlike what we see from other GOAT contenders.

And as mentioned as it relates to KG: You can find mediocrity with the Timberwolves as a whole, but there's nothing in that run to suggest that KG wasn't having superstar impact. Things happened exactly as you'd expect them too if you had an absolute trainwreck of a supporting cast.

This is an exceptional post and really outlines why I created this thread. **Again, please note that this comparison was not meant to be insulting, on contrary, I believe others share this same thought process.

I'd like to think that in almost a century later or so we can now use modern advancements + techniques to revisit exactly how the Titantic sank and other damages caused without being there, we can revisit Wilt's career and do the same.

It seems to me that both players shared similarities throughout there respected careers but the Wilt camp is proclaiming that higher numbers mean a better player which is what I am questioning here.

My conclusion of Wilt as of right now was that he was a much better impactful defensive player then an offensive one, regardless of what raw statistic's show you from the boxscore. But it is trying to articulate that overall to the fanbase that is challenging.

I realize era translation is extremely hard but let me poise another question here which is always brought up by the anti-KG crowd about his career and a reason why many do not value his overall player impact and contribution.

Poster's criticize KG's inability individually to propel his Minny teams to get into the post season altogether or make a deep within. (we can leave out the variables for now). Many of these some poster's translate impact into playoff success and ultimately leading your team to a title.

So in a 8-9 team league, where you are the most physically impressive specimen the world has ever seen during that time period, able to average 50 ppg, block double digit shots, pull down double digit rebounds, have a higher percentage of making the post season, shouldn't anything less then a title win given the circumstances here open eyes, regardless of the individual accolades?

Now 2 things:

#1) I certainly do not use titles to determine who was the better player here
#2) I also realize no one individual can win a title alone

But when I think about what the Wilt camp uses as values to hold his ranking so high, the more it just doesn't make sense to me.

For someone as talented as Wilt, making it to 7 finals, he only won when he focused much more on what my initial thought of him was, and that was defensively first. And he had many more opportunity to get it right then KG ever did.

If you want to argue overall team talent, sure both have an argument there. Coaching, ok as well, but what I do not get is why KG gets much more disrespect for lack of post season then Wilt gets for not actually winning and breaking up some of Russell's rings (much like Magic and Bird did to each other).

And if you are going to make a claim of Wilt the GOAT, top 3 or whatever, how in the world is this being justified given his circumstance. It doesn't matter what era you played in for someone to be able to point out actual impact made and it just so happens that this is the direction sports has moved into moreso then before.

Now move ahead, KG goes to Boston, like say Wilt to the 76érs, and guess what happens, both win. Another similarity between the two players except KG finally has a team where he can demonstrate his Russell impersonation and anchors an all-time defense for discussion. He is able to fully show what his true impact is if given a team around, and let's be honest, these weren't the best players the league had to offer but certainly a welcomed upgrade.

He didn't have to change his game for the team to mesh and much like Russell did, demonstrated ridiculous defensive impact which just doesn't seem as pretty as wehn you put up 30 ppg but it cannot be undervalued by any means.

So what does it matter if you score less by era because you are impacting the game much more so defensively?

If prime/peak KG was averaging 30ppg and everything else stayed the same, would this change the perspective of him compared to Wilt?

Because he wasn't a volume scorer, by design, but became the only real offensive consistent threat during his T-Wolve days, and it wasn't on a Wilt level, this makes him a lesser player?

Early Wilt certainly didn't do enough for me to truly consider him a top 5 GOAT candidate. Regardless if this is the correct analysis or not but having 5 title opportunities and walking away empty usually means something is wrong. And revisiting now, what happened back then, it is clear that his numbers however inflated in comparision didn't get the job done that many criticize KG for not having enough of.

So then it could be clear that even if KG increased his individual scoring, the same result may have happened given identical team make-up. So Wilt should not get a pass for this having a much easier path/percentage to make the finals to begin with (if we are being equal here)

To me, KG's lack of post season success before his trade to Boston isn't any worse then Wilt's 5 finals with 0 rings. However you want to slice up impact, team, coaching neither player is in GOAT talks with me.

Now, for me, it is the fact that Wilt gets traded shortly after winning a title and again goes to LA but you fail to see a first year KG in Boston impact, again. Nba luck happens, injuries and such but Boston was a legit title threat 4 straight years with a downsliding KG and team. Doesn't this show KG's a much better portible player here? I mean, what are the chances that Boston mgmt just knew, Óh yeah, this time will just gel, no doubt when so many have tried this.

Going back here, poster's rank KG in the top 10-15 as they do Wilt so there should be no up in arms about this comparison here. I do think Wilt's earlier years deserve more criticizing in his overall career but that seems to be dismissed by gaudy stats and newspaper clippings of the biggest center stage performer the nba had ever seen.

Would people view a 8-9 team league starring MJ the same way? Both lost earlier on but only 1 really had the chance to taste the gold while loosing. To me, if you are good enough to make the finals as a lower seed, you can then show your impact by elevating and winning a few times. No excuses needed.

When KG got the chance, he didn't disappoint and helped keep things very competitive. He won 2 rebounding titles as a PF, while always having to anchor the teams offense (which he wasn't). He has great longevity and an overall defensive prowess to me, greater then Wilts. Wilt was just a more vertical, striaght up man to man player. KG could just impact more of the floor, like Russell could.

So yeah, I do not see it. If you want to say KG couldn't lead your team to the post season or a title as the man, well how much better did Wilt do at this given he made the trip 5 times prior in a much shortened team league and playoff series run. Both won with an upgraded cast, yet only one player changed his basketball philosophy from what it was. KG was a much better ball handlier, he had far better range with a much nicer shot. He was better from the line and capable of anchoring ridiculous defenses while himself able to guard much more positions on the court. To me he is more portable and just understands the game at a higher level.

[ardee]

You didn't answer the question: What are you basing your opinion of him on?

The large amount of footage I've seen, the numbers, the books I've read, and the stories I've seen.