Post#320 » by drza » Sat Jul 26, 2014 3:37 pm
Garnett vs Oscar
There has been lots of excellent information given on both KG and Oscar in this project, which is a great thing. It lets us speak with some degree of confidence about the characteristics of each player, and the type of impact that they were having. I do like to start with numbers where possible, though, so I'll start by re-posting some of the numbers we have for both from this thread.
Regular season, 10 year primes per100 possessions
Oscar Robertson ('61 - 70): 29.3 pts (57.2% TS), 8.5 reb, 10.3 ast (TO not recorded)
Kevin Garnett (1999 - 2008): 30.2 pts (55% TS), 16.8 reb, 6.6 ast, 3.7 TO
Playoffs, 10 year primes per 100 possessions
Oscar Robertson ('61 - 70): 29.7 pts (56.6% TS), 9.3 reb, 9.4 ast (TO not recorded)
Kevin Garnett (1999 - 2008): 29.5 pts (52.3%), 16.8 reb, 5.9 ast, 3.9 TO
*Oscar doesn't have per-100 numbers on B-R, but since they almost certainly were playing at least 100 possessions/game pace I used his actual per-game numbers
First blush impression, both are very impressive and well-rounded stat lines...which really you'd expect from these two. ElGee has also posted WOWY numbers for both players (and in KG's case we also have RAPM and other non-boxscore data), and both exhibit huge impacts (on the order of the best of their generations, with Oscar competing with West and maybe Russell while KG's peers in this respect are Shaq and LeBron). In both instances, it's clear that a) the boxscore impression of impressiveness is beared out and b) both are impacting the game well beyond the box scores.
So where does that leave us in a comparison?
Well, at this point let's discuss what we know about each player's style. Oscar is one of the best point guards in history, a great floor general that can score in volume at high efficiency. He showed that he could use these skills to lead excellent team offenses in a unipolar approach in Cincinnati. Then, he showed that he could modify his offensive approach to be the general in an offense built around Kareem's scoring in Milwaukee. This exhibits excellent offensive magnitude and portability, better than Nash (great unipolar in Phoenix but not as impactful in Dallas with Dirk) or Kobe (great unipolar post-Shaq but more co-existed than enhanced Shaq) and analogous to Magic moving between these roles for the Lakers as Kareem aged.
There's been some question about his defensive ability, but I don't necessarily see it as a negative. We have anecdotal evidence to suggest that Oscar was a solid man-to-man defender (good at using his size and athletic ability to keep opponents out of the paint), but that he wasn't a big help defender (like maybe West may have been). From the non-boxscore data that I've seen, solid man defensive wings don't tend to have huge defensive impact but they can be small positives. Think Paul Pierce as opposed to LeBron James. From this I would deduce that Oscar could be a part of either bad defenses or good defenses, depending on his environment, but that he wouldn't be the catalyst for either.
With Garnett, it has been covered in great detail that he is one of the best defensive players of all-time. In Minnesota he established himself as one of the to best defensive players in the league while carrying a heavy offensive load. This led Boston to believe that he was the best defensive player of his generation, and that they could build an outstanding defense around his talents. Then, they proceeded to do so, with Garnett as the anchor of a championship-caliber defense.
The questions about Garnett have been on offense. I don't know that a consensus has been agreed upon yet, but there is a lot of evidence that he is (at least) capable of being the best offensive player on a championship caliber team. Let's move for a second beyond the RAPM debates (where KG at his peak measured out as a top-3 offensive player in the league) or the questions about KG's postseason scoring efficiency (does it decline as some think, or is it still great when taken in context?). Instead, let's look at big picture evidence. Garnett's scoring volume in both the regular and postseason was similar to Oscar's (as evidenced by the box score scoring stats above) and he was doing this while maintaining a larger distribution responsibility than any of the other elite big men under consideration (as evidenced by the box score assists). KG wasn't on Oscar's level as an offensive player...not even on Dirk's, or Kobe's, or West's, or the other elite offensive players under consideration. BUT, Garnett WAS a big offensive positive. He was the leading scorer on 3 different teams that made the conference Finals, and was the leading scorer (and primary 4th quarter and crunch time scoring option)on a championship squad. Whether he could have been more offensive elite may be up for debate, but that Garnett was unquestionably good enough on offense to lead a contender from the front has been proven.
At the end of the day, both KG and Oscar are elite, worthy choices here. They have all of the stats to demonstrate this, and further analysis into either seems to indicate that they were even better than their stats would indicate. However, while Oscar can be the engine for any type of elite offense, he isn't going to be a big push either way on defense. KG, on the other hand, can be the centerpiece of historic caliber defenses while still being the best offensive player as well. As RonnyMac has pointed out, his portability with maximal impact is pretty much unprecedented. While Oscar is a worthy choice here, I think Garnett is a better one.
Vote: Kevin Garnett
