RealGM Top 100 List 2017 -- #8

[kayess]

Sorry, I know you tried to put it in a spoiler and I appreciate that but the spoiler trick is thrown off by too many interior quotes. The quoted posts are immediately preceding this one though so they are easy to read.

General response:

I don't like single game examples because they tend to be wishy-washy, especially here, where I feel like the two of you are constantly shifting criteria: using box score when talking about impact, slagging teammates and then putting all the credit on KG when they do well... But then of course using single game tape isn't necessarily indicative, and stuff like 10-28 in the paint could simply be missed bunnies and offensive tips, unlucky bounces, etc (and obviously, the same is true for KG on the other end too).

We could try +/-, but then whether it's great or bad people would just find different ways to interpret it: either KG was great, KG was the only reason they were close, or KG stunk and could have been better/KG was the reason they lost.

It's why I feel like the discussion always has to center on skill-set: KG's impact in the playoffs is arguably less resilient, but I think that's due to the playoffs having introduced, artificially, some difficulty that isn't innate to basketball (tired legs from a long season, etc). If you value the playoffs, then sure, I can buy KG not rating well by this, but I feel like your agument isn't solid enough if it's because of a few games. Instead, I would rather say: well, Shaq's impact was playoff-proof, as proven by his individual/team numbers on-court, regardless of difficulty, while for KG's this was only true on D because of other (imo, confounding) variables like fatigue affecting his jump shooting, his team's ability to capitalize on his creation, etc.

[ardee]

So KG has better longevity than them? Not according to my formula.

Longevity for me is about accumulated production during their career. For example, Wilt Chamberlain has more RS minutes than Duncan, and most of them were spent in prime seasons. That gives him an edge on lognevity over Tim, despite Tim playing more seasons.

Since somebody mentioned PER, Hakeem has more 20 PER seasons than Kevin Garnett.

And once we factor the playoffs, Hakeem has 500 more minutes played than KG.

I'd also like to point Hakeem was a much better playoff performer than Kevin Garnett.

His 1986, 1987, 1988, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997 runs would definitely make a top 10 list for me if we included KG's and Hakeem's runs. I know some of them are short, but it's not like KG has a ton of deep runs himself.

And of course, from the top 5 I think at least 3 would be Hakeem's, including #1 and #2.

Seriously. People keep bringing up Garnett's longevity. He had his last significant year in 2008 and after that was a shell of his former self. If people want to give points for lingering to the point where he basically became a role player then ok, but it hardly seems to make up the huge prime edge Shaq, Bird, Kobe and Hakeem have over him.

[rebirthoftheM]

.

Just quoting you here because I can't seem to find the post where you shared some articles about KG's teams post 04. I read the link you shared, and it didn't really explain much. I get the changes in coaches in 05, but the wolves were a sub .500 before the switch, and were awful defensively before the switch, making the coaching switch inconsequential to the defensive indicators that season. Wolves also had no coaching changes in 06, though they did have a roster overhaul in 06, but were still an 104.2 DRTG team pre Wally Trade, and were 19-21. Again, inconsequential as far as far as I can see.

KG in 04/05 was a Net +0.2 ON/OFF defender. His NPI DRAPM was in the negatives. The scaled RAPM numbers you mentioned from DOCMJ also peg 05 as a strong down year for him

KG in 05/06 was a Net -0.8 ON/OFF defender. His NPI DRAPM was at 1.54, which is in the positives, but again significantly down from his better years, and there were a lot of dudes outperforming him. The Scaled DRAPM suggests the same thing also.

KG in 06/07 was a net -6.3 ON/OFF defender. His NPI DRAPM was 2.27, a major jump. Doc's scaled DRAPM confirms all of this.

So again my question is- on a concrete level, why did KG's defensive indicators fluctuate in this way? Why the drops in 05 and 06? Why the spike in 07? Was he doing things on defense in 05/06 that he wasn't doing in 07? Was he not playing D in 05?

Or, and to be honest something I strongly suspect based on a general understanding of KG's demeanor/approach to the game, were his indicators mostly "corrupted" by the matadors on his team, with RAPM and Net on/off not being able to filter it out apropriately? That despite his individual play, he simply couldn't make up for their deficiencies?

I think this is particularly important to any discussion about KG's individual impact on his defenses (and to be honest any player where his advantages comes on the defensive end). If folks are going to suggest his D didn't drop by much in 05 and 06 as compared to 01-04, then this leaves open the argument that using defensive indicators like we use offensive indicators to quantify a player's actual footprint on the game is utterly misleading. It also partially supports the argument that no matter how good the defender, in the modern era, no player could control defenses like certain players control offenses.

But if they were 'down' years defensively, then that is all fine and well, as all players had these type of years.

Or perhaps, and I am clutching at straws here... Did the rule changes post 04 impact his ability to impact defenses?

[THKNKG]

Seriously. People keep bringing up Garnett's longevity. He had his last significant year in 2008 and after that was a shell of his former self. If people want to give points for lingering to the point where he basically became a role player then ok, but it hardly seems to make up the huge prime edge Shaq, Bird, Kobe and Hakeem have over him.

Setting aside longevity, it's problematic that you keep assuming those primes to be better than KGs. I know where you stand, but I've yet to see why he's not at least on a comparable prime level beyond "he couldn't lead adequate Minny teams."

[THKNKG]

.

Touching on why 05/06 were so weak for him comparatively to 07.

Obviously, those teams he was on were dumpster fires, but it does seem odd that his play was inconsistent. However, it's not really that. We saw that his impact remained largely the same from 07-08.

So then, we have 2 different variables - 05-06 and 07-08. Which is a more reliable indicator of his impact? Well, it's well known that 05 was a team ravaged by injuries. In 06, counting KG, only *6* players played more than 60 games, and only *5* played more than 70. Not only did he have a rough team, but also had to deal with a turnstile of players surrounding him. I would contend that it would be difficult for any player in a single season like that to maximize their impact fully, so the drop off could (and IMO should) be contributed to that.

In 07, he maxed his defensive impact on a garbage team, and in 08 he did the same on a really good team, and had an ATG defense. I think 07-08 is more indicative of the player he was than 05-06 (which are noisy years).

[dontcalltimeout]

So KG has better longevity than them? Not according to my formula.

Longevity for me is about accumulated production during their career. For example, Wilt Chamberlain has more RS minutes than Duncan, and most of them were spent in prime seasons. That gives him an edge on lognevity over Tim, despite Tim playing more seasons.

Since somebody mentioned PER, Hakeem has more 20 PER seasons than Kevin Garnett.

And once we factor the playoffs, Hakeem has 500 more minutes played than KG.

I'd also like to point Hakeem was a much better playoff performer than Kevin Garnett.

His 1986, 1987, 1988, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997 runs would definitely make a top 10 list for me if we included KG's and Hakeem's runs. I know some of them are short, but it's not like KG has a ton of deep runs himself.

And of course, from the top 5 I think at least 3 would be Hakeem's, including #1 and #2.

Seriously. People keep bringing up Garnett's longevity. He had his last significant year in 2008 and after that was a shell of his former self. If people want to give points for lingering to the point where he basically became a role player then ok, but it hardly seems to make up the huge prime edge Shaq, Bird, Kobe and Hakeem have over him.

Meh. The argument by Joao on Hakeem vs KG is just a variation of the same them: KG has lesser longevity than x player bc he doesn't score as much. Obviously, everyone has their own take on longevity but it's how you value "production" that can result in wildly different results.

Re: more playoff minutes played. This is of course related to the same issue of team context. After all, Robert Horry has more playoff minutes for his career than Hakeem so...


Re:KG after 08. Yeah, he just played 31 MPG for the best defense in the league in 2012. With a DRTG of 97.9 when he was on the court (and overall On/Off of +10.9). And btw, these numbers look even better for the playoffs. Yup, so washed up after 2008.

[ardee]

Seriously. People keep bringing up Garnett's longevity. He had his last significant year in 2008 and after that was a shell of his former self. If people want to give points for lingering to the point where he basically became a role player then ok, but it hardly seems to make up the huge prime edge Shaq, Bird, Kobe and Hakeem have over him.

Setting aside longevity, it's problematic that you keep assuming those primes to be better than KGs. I know where you stand, but I've yet to see why he's not at least on a comparable prime level beyond "he couldn't lead adequate Minny teams."

Why do you think KG's prime IS better? Every respected basketball analyst has those guys over Garnett. You're the one going against the grain, so the burden of proof is on you.

And that is hardly an unfair argument. Garnett had some very decent teammates in Minnesota and won two Playoff series' in 12 years, with his individual performance being complicit in those losses.

His calling card is defense, yet the Minnesota defenses were largely quite poor. On offense, his Playoff failings led to team losses.

I keep hearing about this wondrous invisible impact but again, you don't need to look too far to see the obvious impact of Kobe, Shaq, Bird or Hakeem.

Garnett isn't some special snowflake. Even Russell, who isn't your traditional box score GOAT candidate, has his impact show in Boston's historical defense.

With Garnett there's absolutely nothing. Nothing to convince me I should vote him higher than 15.

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[THKNKG]

Why do you think KG's prime IS better? Every respected basketball analyst has those guys over Garnett.

Who are these respected basketball analysts? Respected basketball analysts also have KG > Kobe, so what's your point, besides to prop up your agenda?

Also, appeal to authority

You're the one going against the grain, so the burden of proof is on you.

It certainly is a burden of proof when your arguments are just casually ignored in light of an agenda, but it is what it is. Plus, the burden of proof is on anyone who makes a claim - both of us have burdens of proof. Pages of posts have been spent by myself and especially others, and the very post about KG you keep reposting had been addressed by drza. Where's your response to that?

But let's compare seasons 1-17 for them (96-12 for KG, 97-13 for Kobe). That's pre-prime and prime, so they're on equal ground.

Regular season (1239 g for Kobe, 1255 for KG)

PTS/Reb/ast/stl/blk/to/ts%

Kobe - 25.5/5.3/4.8/1.5/0.5/3.0/0.555
KG - 19.3/10.6/4.0/1.5/1.5/2.3/0.549

PER/rb%/ast%/stl%/blk%/tov%/usg%

Kobe - 23.4/8.2/24.2/2.1/1.0/11.6/31.8
KG - 23.3/17.0/19.9/1.9/3.1/11.7/25.2

OWS/DWS/WS/WS per 48/OBPM/DBPM/BPM/VORP

Kobe - 123.8/49.5/173.3/0.183/4.7/-0.4/4.3/71.8
KG - 98.0/83.5/181.6/0.190/2.5/3.4/5.9/91.7

Now for playoffs (220 g for Kobe, 125 for KG)

Box score per game stats

Kobe - 25.6/5.1/4.7/1.4/0.7/2.9/0.541
KG - 19.5/11.0/3.5/1.3/1.4/2.5/0.523

PER/rb%/ast%/stl%/blk%/tov%/usg%

Kobe - 22.4/7.4/23.3/1.9/1.3/11.0/31.0
KG - 21.5/17.0/17.9/1.8/2.9/11.7/26.1

OWS/DWS/WS/WS per 48/OBPM/DBPM/BPM/VORP

Kobe - 21.0/7.3/28.3/0.157/3.7/0.7/4.4/14.0
KG - 6.7/8.4/15.1/0.151/0.7/4.1/4.7/8.2

So you tell me - besides scoring, and besides the stats that add up in the PS due to more GP, what according to these raw/advanced stats makes Kobe's prime so much obviously better? I avoided +/- on purpose.

And that is hardly an unfair argument. Garnett had some very decent teammates in Minnesota and won two Playoff series' in 12 years, with his individual performance being complicit in those losses.

Again, I and others have addressed this. Let's use Kobe as a counter example - how can a top 10 player in his prime miss the playoffs like he did in 05? Which 05-07 teams of KG's were better than that 05 team?

His calling card is defense, yet the Minnesota defenses were largely quite poor. On offense, his Playoff failings led to team losses.

Again, I addressed his defense. His team was terrible defensively, like outlier level bad without him. It was pretty decent with him (which is impressive considering the utter garbage he played with). Drza refuted the offense being negatively affected by him already. You can't just act like we haven't attempted to address this.

I keep hearing about this wondrous invisible impact but again, you don't need to look too far to see the obvious impact of Kobe, Shaq, Bird or Hakeem.

Garnett isn't some special snowflake. Even Russell, who isn't your traditional box score GOAT candidate, has his impact show in Boston's historical defense.

It's not invisible, it's pretty obvious actually, and a multiplicity of posts have been made about it. It's invisible to you because you have a clear agenda and you don't want to see it. It's not "invisible" at all.

With Garnett there's absolutely nothing. Nothing to convince me I should vote him higher than 15.

What would it take? Literally being Kobe Bean Bryant? Seriously, what more would you have to see?

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[colts18]

So KG has better longevity than them? Not according to my formula.

Longevity for me is about accumulated production during their career. For example, Wilt Chamberlain has more RS minutes than Duncan, and most of them were spent in prime seasons. That gives him an edge on lognevity over Tim, despite Tim playing more seasons.

Since somebody mentioned PER, Hakeem has more 20 PER seasons than Kevin Garnett.

And once we factor the playoffs, Hakeem has 500 more minutes played than KG.

I'd also like to point Hakeem was a much better playoff performer than Kevin Garnett.

His 1986, 1987, 1988, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997 runs would definitely make a top 10 list for me if we included KG's and Hakeem's runs. I know some of them are short, but it's not like KG has a ton of deep runs himself.

And of course, from the top 5 I think at least 3 would be Hakeem's, including #1 and #2.

Seriously. People keep bringing up Garnett's longevity. He had his last significant year in 2008 and after that was a shell of his former self. If people want to give points for lingering to the point where he basically became a role player then ok, but it hardly seems to make up the huge prime edge Shaq, Bird, Kobe and Hakeem have over him.

KG was a top 5 player in 2012.

[Tesla]

RE: KG

My issue is taking KGs non playoff, non ALL NBA, non MVP finishing years (that were at the time pretty much irrelevant years) and giving them just as much credit as those that had much more successful years. I understand that he could very well be the same player in those years, showing great impact on the floor but its unfair to just assume that it would have led to great success in different circumstances. I'll use Kobe since we are talking about him, if you take his 01 playoffs and say in 02 he had a garbage team, but performed pretty well... it would be as if giving him 01=02, when reality we saw 01 he played better than 02 in similar circumstances across the board, that is reality, that happens. We take KG 03-04 and just assume its the same KG 05-07, Im sorry that just doesnt fly with me. KG in 08 was also a player that was hungrier, wiser, and played with urgency that simply was not there before... he was revitalized. To assume that revitalization of play wouldve happened no matter what, is just wrong.

As I said earlier, I dont have an issue using the numbers of impact in those otherwise irrelevant years to make him relevant to comparable tie breakers so to speak with others that also did not have such successful years, but to assume they are equal or even better is something i just cant wrap my head around. Its possible with a talented team that we would be talking about KG as a top 5 player of All Time, but thats not what happened. Also, if that is the case with some people I would like to see consistency across the board with other players that had great impact/box score years with otherwise irrelevant teams, years, where there contemporaries simply did not bat an eye to the season they had.

[therealbig3]

RE: KG

My issue is taking KGs non playoff, non ALL NBA, non MVP finishing years (that were at the time pretty much irrelevant years) and giving them just as much credit as those that had much more successful years. I understand that he could very well be the same player in those years, showing great impact on the floor but its unfair to just assume that it would have led to great success in different circumstances. I'll use Kobe since we are talking about him, if you take his 01 playoffs and say in 02 he had a garbage team, but performed pretty well... it would be as if giving him 01=02, when reality we saw 01 he played better than 02 in similar circumstances across the board, that is reality, that happens. We take KG 03-04 and just assume its the same KG 05-07, Im sorry that just doesnt fly with me. KG in 08 was also a player that was hungrier, wiser, and played with urgency that simply was not there before... he was revitalized. To assume that revitalization of play wouldve happened no matter what, is just wrong.

As I said earlier, I dont have an issue using the numbers of impact in those otherwise irrelevant years to make him relevant to comparable tie breakers so to speak with others that also did not have such successful years, but to assume they are equal or even better is something i just cant wrap my head around. Its possible with a talented team that we would be talking about KG as a top 5 player of All Time, but thats not what happened. Also, if that is the case with some people I would like to see consistency across the board with other players that had great impact/box score years with otherwise irrelevant teams, years, where there contemporaries simply did not bat an eye to the season they had.

Your last statement is pretty much exactly what people have done with Hakeem over the years, basically assuming that Hakeem was at least close to as good from 85-92 as he was from 93-96, he just had a weird team situation before that. Which is a fair thing to do. It doesn't make a lot of sense that players are drastically different players year to year, or that they happen to play their best basketball right when their teams make their deepest playoff runs. You really do have people that say Hakeem was great in 86, and then was somehow not close to as good from 87-92, and then all of a sudden got a lot better in 93. That's just strange logic to me.

People here apply context all the time for a lot of players, not just Kevin Garnett.

[mischievous]

So KG has better longevity than them? Not according to my formula.

Longevity for me is about accumulated production during their career. For example, Wilt Chamberlain has more RS minutes than Duncan, and most of them were spent in prime seasons. That gives him an edge on lognevity over Tim, despite Tim playing more seasons.

Since somebody mentioned PER, Hakeem has more 20 PER seasons than Kevin Garnett.

And once we factor the playoffs, Hakeem has 500 more minutes played than KG.

I'd also like to point Hakeem was a much better playoff performer than Kevin Garnett.

His 1986, 1987, 1988, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997 runs would definitely make a top 10 list for me if we included KG's and Hakeem's runs. I know some of them are short, but it's not like KG has a ton of deep runs himself.

And of course, from the top 5 I think at least 3 would be Hakeem's, including #1 and #2.

Seriously. People keep bringing up Garnett's longevity. He had his last significant year in 2008 and after that was a shell of his former self. If people want to give points for lingering to the point where he basically became a role player then ok, but it hardly seems to make up the huge prime edge Shaq, Bird, Kobe and Hakeem have over him.

KG was a top 5 player in 2012.

Why? Because he beat up on weak front lines in the playoffs? Notably the heat who were minus Chris Bosh in the first 4 games?

[Doctor MJ]

Monster posts from drza. Fantastic.

It made this thought come to mind:

The modern games looks more like Garnett than it does Hakeem, or Shaq, or Duncan, or Robinson.

When KG came in he violated expectations for what a big man does, and this has proven to be a template for how to dominate as a modern big. And, as I've mentioned, we're talking consistent huge impact in differing roles from year 3 to year 17 with major positive leadership effect.

And that's why he gets my vote over these other super-qualified guys.


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[THKNKG]

I'm torn on Shaq/Hakeem. Shaq clearly had the better peak, and probably the better prime, but he so heavily reduced his value with his intangibles and durability.

I also think Dirk deserves some consideration soon. What would you guys say his prime is, yearwise?

[eminence]

I'm torn on Shaq/Hakeem. Shaq clearly had the better peak, and probably the better prime, but he so heavily reduced his value with his intangibles and durability.

I also think Dirk deserves some consideration soon. What would you guys say his prime is, yearwise?

Dirk prime... Hmm, I think you could argue it started as early as '00 or '01 and went through '14 (minus '13).

[ardee]

So KG has better longevity than them? Not according to my formula.

Longevity for me is about accumulated production during their career. For example, Wilt Chamberlain has more RS minutes than Duncan, and most of them were spent in prime seasons. That gives him an edge on lognevity over Tim, despite Tim playing more seasons.

Since somebody mentioned PER, Hakeem has more 20 PER seasons than Kevin Garnett.

And once we factor the playoffs, Hakeem has 500 more minutes played than KG.

I'd also like to point Hakeem was a much better playoff performer than Kevin Garnett.

His 1986, 1987, 1988, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1997 runs would definitely make a top 10 list for me if we included KG's and Hakeem's runs. I know some of them are short, but it's not like KG has a ton of deep runs himself.

And of course, from the top 5 I think at least 3 would be Hakeem's, including #1 and #2.

Seriously. People keep bringing up Garnett's longevity. He had his last significant year in 2008 and after that was a shell of his former self. If people want to give points for lingering to the point where he basically became a role player then ok, but it hardly seems to make up the huge prime edge Shaq, Bird, Kobe and Hakeem have over him.

KG was a top 5 player in 2012.

He has an argument for top 5 in the Playoffs. In the RS, LeBron, Durant, Paul, Kobe, Dirk, Westbrook, Love, Harden, and a few others were better.

I'd put him in the 6-8 range in a year with diminished competition.

That was a one-off and I'll acknowledge that, but no other year had close to the same relevancy.

[ardee]

RE: KG

My issue is taking KGs non playoff, non ALL NBA, non MVP finishing years (that were at the time pretty much irrelevant years) and giving them just as much credit as those that had much more successful years. I understand that he could very well be the same player in those years, showing great impact on the floor but its unfair to just assume that it would have led to great success in different circumstances. I'll use Kobe since we are talking about him, if you take his 01 playoffs and say in 02 he had a garbage team, but performed pretty well... it would be as if giving him 01=02, when reality we saw 01 he played better than 02 in similar circumstances across the board, that is reality, that happens. We take KG 03-04 and just assume its the same KG 05-07, Im sorry that just doesnt fly with me. KG in 08 was also a player that was hungrier, wiser, and played with urgency that simply was not there before... he was revitalized. To assume that revitalization of play wouldve happened no matter what, is just wrong.

As I said earlier, I dont have an issue using the numbers of impact in those otherwise irrelevant years to make him relevant to comparable tie breakers so to speak with others that also did not have such successful years, but to assume they are equal or even better is something i just cant wrap my head around. Its possible with a talented team that we would be talking about KG as a top 5 player of All Time, but thats not what happened. Also, if that is the case with some people I would like to see consistency across the board with other players that had great impact/box score years with otherwise irrelevant teams, years, where there contemporaries simply did not bat an eye to the season they had.

Your last statement is pretty much exactly what people have done with Hakeem over the years, basically assuming that Hakeem was at least close to as good from 85-92 as he was from 93-96, he just had a weird team situation before that. Which is a fair thing to do. It doesn't make a lot of sense that players are drastically different players year to year, or that they happen to play their best basketball right when their teams make their deepest playoff runs. You really do have people that say Hakeem was great in 86, and then was somehow not close to as good from 87-92, and then all of a sudden got a lot better in 93. That's just strange logic to me.

People here apply context all the time for a lot of players, not just Kevin Garnett.

Hakeem was like a 7.5ish from '86-'90, fell to a 6 from '91-'92 and was then a 10 from '93-'95 (11 in the '95 Playoffs). Similar to Kobe who was an A from '01-'03 (probably an A+ in the '01 Playoffs), B in '04 and '05, and A++ from '06-'10.

Players do have crests and troughs in their careers. '06 and '07 in particular were the troughs of Garnett's prime.

[THKNKG]

I'm torn on Shaq/Hakeem. Shaq clearly had the better peak, and probably the better prime, but he so heavily reduced his value with his intangibles and durability.

I also think Dirk deserves some consideration soon. What would you guys say his prime is, yearwise?

Dirk prime... Hmm, I think you could argue it started as early as '00 or '01 and went through '14 (minus '13).

Yeah, I was thinking 01-12,14 year wise. I have him, Shaq, and Hakeem all really close together, so I'm trying to figure out how to sift through all of that.

[therealbig3]

Sorry, I know you tried to put it in a spoiler and I appreciate that but the spoiler trick is thrown off by too many interior quotes. The quoted posts are immediately preceding this one though so they are easy to read.

General response:

I don't like single game examples because they tend to be wishy-washy, especially here, where I feel like the two of you are constantly shifting criteria: using box score when talking about impact, slagging teammates and then putting all the credit on KG when they do well... But then of course using single game tape isn't necessarily indicative, and stuff like 10-28 in the paint could simply be missed bunnies and offensive tips, unlucky bounces, etc (and obviously, the same is true for KG on the other end too).

We could try +/-, but then whether it's great or bad people would just find different ways to interpret it: either KG was great, KG was the only reason they were close, or KG stunk and could have been better/KG was the reason they lost.

It's why I feel like the discussion always has to center on skill-set: KG's impact in the playoffs is arguably less resilient, but I think that's due to the playoffs having introduced, artificially, some difficulty that isn't innate to basketball (tired legs from a long season, etc). If you value the playoffs, then sure, I can buy KG not rating well by this, but I feel like your agument isn't solid enough if it's because of a few games. Instead, I would rather say: well, Shaq's impact was playoff-proof, as proven by his individual/team numbers on-court, regardless of difficulty, while for KG's this was only true on D because of other (imo, confounding) variables like fatigue affecting his jump shooting, his team's ability to capitalize on his creation, etc.

The thing is (and I know you mean relative to Shaq, so that's probably true, but in general), KG's skill set is extremely resilient in the playoffs, as SSB pointed out, because the vast majority of what he does offensively isn't really "defendable". Relative to a peer like Dirk Nowitzki, who obviously has non-scoring impact offensively as well, but whose scoring is much moreso the bulk of his impact than Garnett, if he gets slowed down in the playoffs with regards to that (like from 05-07), that's a MUCH bigger deal than Garnett being slowed down with regards to his scoring.

I would say this is more true of Garnett than pretty much anyone in history, save for Bill Russell, because he's just so elite at all non-scoring things. And he was still a 20+ ppg scorer for the bulk of his prime anyway.

[ElGee]

My criteria for ranking players are highly subjective, but I like to say that they are informed by stats. I'm a fan of going beyond basic stats like points, rebounds, and assists to look at true shooting percentage, pace, offensive and defensive rating, and things like that, but the advanced analytics get murky. I'm impressed by the time posters have put into presenting detailed arguments in the threads thus far, and I try to read what others have obviously put so much effort into, but I've arrived at a difficult place.

You have a lot of really good posts and come at this with an open mind, so I'll piggy-back a few thoughts off of you if that's OK. First, for interpreting stats, I recommend these references:

https://elgee35.wordpress.com/2011/01/24/interpreting-advanced-statistics-in-basketball/
https://www.goldenstateofmind.com/2011/12/6/2602153/advanced-stats-primer

I also recommend my book (link in sig) -- it's free right now if you have Kindle Unlimited. Almost every issue you've raised is addressed in it (scorekeeping methods, offense/defense, why all ppg is created differently, etc.). Most importantly for this conversation, I go into detail on the cognitive mechanisms of Winning Bias, which I'll talk to below for Garnett.

I know several people have worked very hard to present KG's case, and I've tried to give it a fair reading, but some of it comes across as a wall of text, and some of it seems like hyperbole (like the 15% statement above). Titles aren't the only thing, but they matter, especially up this high. Postseason performance matters. I've currently got KG 12th on my list, and I don't see a reason to move him ahead of guys like Magic, Bird, Shaq, and West who have far superior championship + postseason resumes. Being listed 12th is hardly an insult to KG. I've got him ahead of Kobe, Oscar, Moses Malone, Karl Malone, John Havlicek, Kevin McHale, Julius Erving, Elgin Baylor, Charles Barkley, and on and on. There have been a LOT of great players. Having KG just outside the top 10 is a valid opinion.

So there are two things happening when people argue a GOAT list:

(1) The discussion of how players played
(2) The application of GOAT-ranking criteria

The first is far more valuable to me as a reader. The second acts as a hidden variable, confounding the discussion. Most people don't take the deep dive on balancing peak vs prime, resume vs performance, etc. to realize they arrive at different rankings with the exact same player valuations. There are people who are a 1/4 step removed from having lifetime salary as defining criteria. I mean, why not? That shows popularity, influence on the game, and if you were the first to have a record-setting contract, the economic reverberations were enormous. Nothing "wrong" with valuing that. (It would be "wrong," though, to say salary = player on-court impact, despite the correlation.)

With that said, the discussion about KG is very much the first thing. One group of people, driven almost entirely by Winning Bias are insisting that he really wasn't an MVP-level player for years because of his team record. The other group is responding with "the team result is conflating how well the individual played." To which many still respond with some version of "but what about his team record?" (See Tesla quote below)

Winning Bias

“I understand that he could very well be the same player in those years, showing great impact on the floor but its unfair to just assume that it would have led to great success in different circumstances. I'll use Kobe since we are talking about him, if you take his 01 playoffs and say in 02 he had a garbage team, but performed pretty well”

But the player did have success -- it was his team that didn't. It's a circular, winning-based argument. Follow the logic train with me:

> 2003: Kobe's good bc the Lakers won.
> 2007: We know the Lakers must be bad because of his teammates, because we know Kobe's good!
> 2008: See, we knew Kobe was good.

> 2003: We don't know if Garnett's good bc Min hasn't won.
> 2007: See, Garnett's not good. Minn can't win.
> 2008: Since we know Garnett's not good, we know his teammates must be good because they won

This is the way the mind circumnavigates the enormous logical problem of saying Kobe Bryant suddenly sucked in 2005, 2006 and 2007 because his team wasn't competitive. Or Jordan in the 80's. Or Kareem. Or that we're giving them "credit" for assuming they scale up. We know what scales up. We know what doesn't. If people were consistent with this logic, Jordan sucked, then mysteriously became good when Phil and Scottie and Grant came along. If only Dave Corzine could have been so lucky to play with the "good" Jordan.

Scoring Blindness

If you then dig deeper, and say "well, wait a second, what about his box score numbers?" of course we have the idea that the box doesn't represent value equally for different players. But this is overlooked when people say "see, his scoring dropped by 2.3%!" I'll ask a simple question:

Do you think there was a difference between Kevin Durant this year and last year?

Because his efficiency improved from 54% TS to 68% TS in the playoffs. It's not because he was way better. What changed? His circumstance. His improvement was completely predictable. Because box stats are conditional. When KG carries the load, he takes difficult shots bc the team unit can't create easy ones so they dump it to the star. Same for KD.

With all that said, I don't expect anyone to change their minds today. I used to have KG like 13th...and I've hardly changed my impressions of him. I Just learned about longevity, learned about team-building, etc. I found a post I wrote years ago slamming David Robinson in comparison to KG. Now I have Robinson's peak higher than KG's! It takes time -- all I ever ask of myself is to not be married to any one idea. And if you're being shamed by posters for that, I'd say that's their issue, not yours.