acrossthecourt wrote:GC Pantalones wrote:acrossthecourt wrote:The problem is that those guys didn't play for him very long or concurrently, and their cast behind them was horrid.
Cassell played for them for only two seasons. One of those he was at 1500 minutes. When healthy, they won 58 games.
And in 05 even when Cassell played the team still wasn't winning enough to make the playoffs.Sprewell played of them for only two seasons as well. They were his last two seasons before retirement. He was sub-50 TS% and sub 15 PER, below average. He was an athletic forward in his mid-30's and offered little.
Sprewell was always a guy that put up mediocre to bad numbers (at best). Hell you almost described his career post 99 in that post. How about his 18 per, 20/4/4 performance in the 04 playoffs? He was a bit washed but still a good starter in 04. In 05 he was washed up but about average. I'd take Spree in those years over a few of Duncan's guards (and his 04 year is better than any guard play Duncan got in the early 00s).Wally Szczerbiak was one of the worst all-star selections ever and was a limited player. His shooting was useful, but he was closer to a specialist than a star.
Wally was a good role player. Again he was clearly above average in any way and he's about as good as Nic Batum I'd say.Billups, like those two, played only two seasons as well. This was before he broke out in Detroit. He was not an all-star player in Minnesota.
First off Wally played in Minny for awhile. Secondly this is false. Chauncey played his way into a good contract and a starting role in 02. He went from 16/4/7 per 36 in 02 to 19/4/4 in 03. Both years he was super efficient and he had a 18 PER that last year in Minnesota. He also put up 22/5/6 in the playoffs and he didn't take another leap in his game until after the rule changes. Seems more like he needed a shot (blame that on the coach) but he was still great when he played (and he played 29 minutes a night).Brandon was great for them, but he only played 2.5 seasons for them. Mid-season trade and his last season was wrecked by injuries. He was a pretty good player but nothing spectacular.
Brandon was very good. He had a 21 PER with Minnesota and they might've only got 200 games out of him but that's 200 games with a high level PG and that mid season trade was half the season (he played 21 out of Minnesota's 50 games). He also averaged a 21 PER in the 3 series he played next to KG.Yeah, what a great cast. And what was worse was the bench behind them. The fact that you listed Sprewell makes me wonder if you even looked at his supporting cast at all besides just reading the names.
No one said it was a great cast just that he should've done more because those teams weren't "that" bad. The starting lineups were often above average (along with a weak bench outside of 01 iirc).
Hm? In 2005 they were at 44 wins; Memphis was at 45 and made the playoffs. He played ten minutes less than the previous season. You're saying a healthy Cassell playing more minutes won't give them another win or two? If you're saying that, then you're saying he's not a valuable player, which refutes your own point.
If you want to try to win with old Sprewell trying to feed his family, go ahead. But there's no evidence he's a great player. He can score a lot because he can take a lot of shots. That's it. If we're all about PPG, then let's make sure Carmelo is top 20 or 30.
Okay so Wally is as good as Batum (completely different player with a more varied skillset, but ok.) So what? Batum isn't very good. He's not a game-changer.
I don't know why I'm supposed to be impressed by an 18 PER and 29 minutes a night.
When KG has a legitimate all-star caliber player, he wins 58 in 2004. Brandon was close to that, although he only made the all-star team years when he was younger and Garnett was 20 and 21, respectively, when they played together.
I have no idea why people think these casts are so great.
Since his critics use PER a lot, I'll use that to show how many wins his teammates were worth in 2003, which is a year brought up fairly often regarding when he "underachieved."
Here's the method: estimate the PER strength of his teammates by using their adjacent season PER. Only use a PER from a different team. I'm doing this to eliminate any interaction between Garnett and the player. Using an adjacent season gives a good rough guess at the PER because it's only a one season change. The only player who stayed with Minnesota long enough that I had to use a season far removed was Szczerbiak. However, he was much younger in 2003, and I used his rating when he was closer to a prime age. If I used an aging curve, it would have helped Garnett's case even more.
Here are the PER's I used:
Troy Hudson 15.3
Rasho Nesterovic 15.3
Anthony Peeler 11.8
Kendall Gill 11.1
Wally Szczerbiak 17.2
Gary Trent 13.8
Joe Smith 16.6
Marc Jackson 13.2
Rod Strickland 14.9
Loren Woods 9.9
Mike Wilks 9.1
Igor Rakocevic 8.4
Reggie Slater 19.2
Then I use Hollinger's formula for wins.Spoiler:
(For replacement level since this is a slightly different era, I just use the average of all those positions: 10.82. The differences are really minor.)
The sum of their estimated wins? 26.3.
Which implies Garnett was worth 24.7 wins....
But yeah, the supporting cast wasn't the problem.
Well in 03 Garnett's impact did seem to be major. I mentioned I thought that 03 team shouldn't have won anything (or really even male the playoffs). 02, 01, and 04 are a different story. I'll give you 05 because I thought for some reason Memphis won closer to 50 games. I do think Cassell could've got them that one win despite what the teams record with him says. You still picked a season without an elite PG (the only one of those seasons KG had in that time period).
Now with the others Chauncey was good. He only had over a 20 PER once before the rule changes and he was a Finals MVP by 04 (he will also be on this list and I will talk about his 02 year as his true breakout season). Your completely ignoring the context of my statement. I was saying if you say his early years in Detroit are when he broke out he was just as good in Minnesota.
Also if you cannot understand the impact of Sprewell because of his bad numbers you need to rewatch those teams. He was a positive impact guy overall and an above average starter.
I'll say it again no one is saying his supporting cast is great just that they aren't "that bad". Duncan had similar casts and more success, Shaq had a similar cast once (in his second season) and had similar results, Hakeem had similar results, Kobe had similar results, etc. If KG was better than then why didn't he outperform them in similar situations?
Also with your calculations did you replace KG's minutes or see what the results would he including KG? How about calculating the existing wins using their existing PERs? Seems like half baked analysis if you didnt but it could be interesting if you do.
