RealGM Top 100 List #6

[john248]

Burden of proof is on him in that situation.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but the burden falls on both sides. Really, the question is simple. Is the overall net impact higher for Dirk or KG? It's really up to both sides to demonstrate..."my guy is better." Funny thing is, there might not even be a right answer.

I will say though that just because Dirk and KG have been discussed at great length over the years doesn't mean they're linked. Even guys who are forever linked like Magic and Bird are being separated in some user lists.

[therealbig3]

Well, here's my view of things...Dirk is one of the ATG offensive anchors. It's true, KG falls well short of Dirk offensively. But let's look at their individual skillsets. Dirk is a far better isolation scorer than Garnett, and as good of a shooter as KG is...Dirk is even better, and is an elite shooter out to the 3pt line. He's the ultimate offensive mismatch.

HOWEVER, KG's passing can't be underestimated. It's been of huge value throughout his career. His IQ can't be underestimated. His screen-setting (however illegal it is) can't be underestimated. His outside shooting, although not on Dirk's level, can't be underestimated. His finishing ability can't be underestimated (generally in the 66-70% range, while Dirk was generally in the 59-62% range, with a couple of high percentage years thrown in). All these things that Garnett does make up the difference somewhat. But yes, he still falls short of Dirk as an offensive player.

But the defensive gap is clearly pretty monstrous. It just comes down to what you value, but if you DO want some numbers, obviously I have to refer to the various +/- stats that consistently have Garnett at the top, over Dirk, which suggest that his combination of offense and defense is superior to Dirk's.

And btw, the SAME argument used for Dirk over Garnett can also be used when comparing Dirk to Duncan. Dirk's offensive stats kind of blow Duncan's out of the water too.

[An Unbiased Fan]

And btw, the SAME argument used for Dirk over Garnett can also be used when comparing Dirk to Duncan. Dirk's offensive stats kind of blow Duncan's out of the water too.

Many of us don't put KG's defense at Duncan's level. He's more of a Rodman/Pippen type who is extremely versatile, but not on par with the great defensive anchors of all-time.

In terms of impact, Dirk's teams have been consistently good offensively, while KG's teams in Minny weren't defensively.

[ElGee]

FTR, the 14 Spurs would be just over 2 STD better when healthy. The 12 Spurs would be 3rd. The 96 and 97 Bulls are slightly understated by Rodman's missed time. Didn't see other teams near the top that need any injury adjustment...

You have to make that adjustment for Stockton's injury in 1998. The Jazz were a +8.77 offense (would be 2nd all-time) when he played. With the adjustment, the 98 Jazz would rank 6th on this list

Yup that's a good one. Would also be top-10 at +2.2 STD...

[acrossthecourt]

I'll go with Shaq by a hair due to his dominance even against a high level of competition. His seasons stack up well against Magic's short career. One of the reasons I did 90's RAPM was to see how well Shaq would do, especially in 2000. He destroys teams in his prime and he can provide significant lift even with a modest cast.

One underrated aspect is how well he lets the offense play through him, how well he passes out and finds shooters. That's the sign of a real offensive star.

[Baller2014]

I totally agree Bird's first year is amazing, and shouldn't be underrated, it proves right off the bat how huge his impact was. That said, I have no idea how we can penalise Magic for the machinations of his agent before he even got into the NBA. That had no impact on the career he actually had. Worse, Shaq and others being discussed here did the exact same thing... including Bird! Other teams wanted to draft Bird, but he wouldn't give them assurances about when he would come into the league... so they passed, letting the Celtics get him (who Bird had given assurances to I assume). Off the court stuff should only matter if it effected on the court play. Deciding what team to sign with before you enter the NBA hardly qualifies.

I have no reason to believe Bird gave Boston any assurances. That would have substantially reduced his negotiating leverage. And then he made Boston sweat a for a large part of the following year. Plus why would he have withheld reassurances from other teams to give them to Boston? Bird could have stayed in Indiana at the 3rd pick, both teams were lousy, but Indy were at least a little younger. Portland (with or without Walton) had a fairly young, talented team if winning was a preference.

Unless you have any evidence I would be very surprised if anyone will be persuaded that Bird gave Boston any assurances.

Technically, Magic never did anything either, there was just talk he might. Bird may never have given any assurances, I remember rumours that Red "knew something" about the situation, but I'm not going to go trawl the internet looking for it now. Either way, Bird actively sabotaged teams who wanted to get him (intentionally or not), because when the Blazers and Pacers came to him and said they needed to know when he was coming out to draft him, he told them he wasn't sure, which meant none of the top teams felt they could draft him. At the end of the day both guys 'talked" of staying in college, but only one guy actually did it.

[ElGee]

My point was that you misinterpreted my previous post.

I wasn't looking at Dirk and his numbers in a vacuum like you thought I was. The whole purpose of my second post was to explain to you how I believed Dirk's efficiency tied into the team environment like you were explaining, and was not a discrete event.

It seemed to me like your post used a bunch of stats to proclaim a huge offensive gap between Garnett and Nowitzki...to which I responded that those numbers don't actually say that. You said it capital letters, so you might understand why it comes across the way:

So here's my case: Dirk is basically providing you more volume (6 more ppg/100 poss over their primes), on VASTLY superior efficiency. I mean look at the numbers, the gap is gigantic. Dirk has an edge of 14 ORtg points over their primes, and 8 TS% on better volume.

With Dirk's offensive impact THIS MUCH MORE than KG's, the only way to justify KG being SO MUCH BETTER than Dirk is that his defense is better by a greater amount. And despite the great posts by drza, KG being defensively better than Dirk by that amount would make Dirk look like Amare Stoudemire on defense: which he's not.

I've never heard someone who is high on KG say he is a better offensive player than Dirk. So if you were trying to make a different point with your original point than "these numbers give Dirk a huge offensive advantage that KG can't make up," I'm not clear what it was...

[ceiling raiser]

A bit of a bump. Was skimming through the Harvey Pollack guides, and caught this:



No other such mentions, though. Pollack has commented on Jordan's shooting splits before, though I'm not sure which season he had in mind:

Q: Your NBA Statistical Yearbook is highly regarded around the league…. tell us about some of the phone calls or visits you have received from teams, reporters or players.

A: My most interesting caller was Wilt Chamberlain. He constantly called me from California and kept me on the phone, many times for a couple of hours. Fortunately, he was paying for it, not the Sixers. One of the most memorable ones that I did was when he said that Michael Jordan’s shooting percentage from 13 feet back was under 40 percent. He didn’t think that Michael Jordan took many shots between 13 feet and 5 feet. So I took 20 games of Jordan’s from that year and in those 20 games, Jordan only shot 38 percent. So, I did 20 more and came up with the same result. So then I said, if I did 40, I might as well do 82. Wilt’s appraisal was perfect. From 13 feet back (Jordan) was 37.8 percent. Also, he proved that Jordan took very few shots inside 7 feet. In other words, when he got to 7 feet and had the ball, he either passed the ball to a teammate, or drove to the basket for a lay-up.

source: http://www.nba.com/sixers/news/harvey_hof_qa.html

NBA.com: You were close to Wilt after he retired. How often would you talk to him?

Harvey Pollack: All the time. Wilt was big on stats. One time he called me up and said, 'You know, Harvey, Michael Jordan can't hit a shot beyond 15 feet?'
I said, 'How do you know that?'
He said to me, 'Don't you watch the games?'
I said, 'I don't watch stuff like that. How do you know?'
He said, 'I watch it.'
So, during the height of Michael's career, I got the play-by-play of the first 20 Bulls games and I checked the distance of every shot Jordan took during the season and sure enough, he was shooting under 40 percent from 15 feet back.
Then Wilt said, 'Jordan doesn't take any shots from seven feet in, all of those shots are drives to the basket. He doesn't take five or six footers. He goes right to the hoop.'
I tried 20 more games and ended up looking at the entire season and got the same results. Wilt's analysis held up.
Wilt was a student of the game. People don't know that. He knew everything that was going on.
Another season, Wilt said that the refs never called any traveling violations on Jordan. Wilt was after Jordan for some reason. I checked the play by plays and Wilt was right. Jordan was called only for four traveling violations.
Whenever Wilt came out with a book, he always credited me with the stats. I'm referenced throughout his books.

source: http://www.nba.com/2009/news/03/08/Harvey.Pollack.20090308/