1st ballot - '04 Kevin GarnettAnother amazing two-way player. Dominant defensive year while also averaging 24.2 ppg and 5.0 apg (despite a damn-near stopped pace of just 89); only slightly above average shooting efficiency, but near GOAT-level big-man turnover economy. Anchored the 5th-rated offense while simultaneously anchoring the 6th-rated defense with principle supporting cast being Sam Cassell, an ancient Latrell Sprewell, Trenton Hassell, Fred Hoiberg, Mark Madsen, and Gary Trent.
I truly suspect they'd have gone to the finals (possibly won??) if not for Sam Cassell's most untimely injury [if memory serves, wasn't it a pulled groin as result of doing a celebratory "big balls" dance?
].
Garnett is on another planet from every other player in the league in RAPM this season (literally +3 from the guy in 2nd [Shaq]). Though never one to fixate on a single metric, it's good to know that he was also #1 in the league in rs PER (by >2 over the 2nd-placed player), #1 in rs WS (by nearly 5 over the 2nd-placed player), #1 in rs VORP (by >2 over the 2nd-placed player), etc......by multiple measures he appears to be on an entirely different tier from any other player in the league that year. When someone is, in the modern era, exceeding his peers to such a dramatic degree, I think he certainly must get serious consideration by now.
fwiw, I specifically remember feeling he was on another level from everyone that year; I can place the time period exactly because I was in my 4th/final year of my post-grad studies, and recall sending a big "player eval/ranking" email to my dad one day when things were slow. Somehow the memory of composing that email has held semi-vivid in my mind, and I distinctly recall sort of marveling at how good KG seemed that year.
2nd ballot - '95 David RobinsonDon't know if this is a "dark-horse" pick for many at this stage, but the near-reality as I see is that David Robinson was asked [by the Spurs] to be Bill Russell on defense and simultaneously be Shaquille O'Neal on offense.......and he kinda takes some flack for not being up to the task [primarily in the playoffs]. But realistically, if he'd been consistently capable of maintaining his rs standard of offensive performance and efficiency during the playoffs, we'd have been discussing him in the top 3 positions of this project. So I don't think it's off base to give him some consideration now around #10. This version of Robinson anchored a -2.9 rDRTG (5th/27) with a principle cast [in descending order of minutes played] of Avery Johnson (scrappy and energetic, but seriously undersized even for a PG; mediocre defender overall), Sean Elliott (mediocre defender), Vinny Del Negro (probably slightly weak defensively, iirc), Chuck Person (a pinch past prime, never a good defender anyway), Dennis Rodman (erratic defensively [awful in the Houston series, fwiw], and missed 33 games), and JR Reid, Terry Cummings, post-prime Doc Rivers (Rivers probably the only one of those three I'd say was passable good defensively).
This version of Robinson simultaneously anchored a +3.4 rORTG (5th/27) with the aforementioned cast; they won 62 games (+5.90 SRS) overall. Made it to the WCF where Dennis Rodman had a total [and very public] meltdown, and the Spurs lost the series to Houston (with Hakeem in God-mode) in six games (outscored by a grand total of 10 pts in the entire series). Typically stated as Hakeem owning DRob and making him a helpless play-thing, though it's rarely acknowledged that Hakeem [because of how their offense and roster was structured] largely enjoyed single coverage (by Robinson), while Robinson was largely guarded by Olajuwon + 1-2 friends.
It's rarely acknowledged that DRob's cast [which had shot 37.5% from beyond the arc in the rs] somewhat crapped the bed shooting just 31.9% in this series (and did I mention they were only outscored by 10 points
total in the entire series?); and again Rodman's meltdown and poor play is rarely given light of day in the construction of the usual narrative.
jsia, I think he deserves a look around now.
3rd ballot - '96 David RobinsonThis year Rodman [who gets more credit for their defense in '95 than he deserves] is gone, and otherwise almost the exact same roster (except bench role players Chuck Person and Doc Rivers are both a year older), and their defense
improves over any of the previous three seasons to -4.1 rDRTG (3rd of 29). He continues to anchor a very respectable +2.6 rORTG (9th/29), too, averaging 25.0 ppg/12.2 rpg/3.0 apg with just 2.3 topg and solid shooting efficiency, and anchoring that top-3 defense.
He has a fairly nice playoffs this year, too, though admittedly against some weakish defenses.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
