Dutchball97 wrote:I'm a bit confused about the argument about potential. If KG had a better supporting cast he would've done a lot better. So would everyone though.
He would've done a lot better in the 'winning' (key word) department, which is the main argument for the anti-Garnett crowd, but NOT the pro-Garnett crowd... The pro-Garnett crowd is just responding to the claim why he hasn't won more, not making their claims based on winning.
Isn't this about what they've actually shown us and not what they might've been able to do in more favorable environments.
Yes, and Garnett has shown us his impact was on par with Duncan's for most of their prime. With Duncan having an advantage from 1998 to about 2002, then being close from 2003-2006 (outside 2004 where KG had clear edge) and Garnett having the advantage from 2008 to possibly 2013...
And this is with Garnett's impact being more 'flexible'. What i mean by this, is that Garnett was able to produce/replicate a comparable or better level of impact through a wider variety of different team contexts/dynamics than Duncan. Duncan was always coached by Popovich, his teams were more talented on aggregate, the teammate turnover on his teams was less emphatic and affected by injuries, and finally Popovich put him on minutes restriction sooner in his career during the regular season.
Garnett reproduced league-leading levels of impact with different coaches, more radical system changes and less talented teams with more turnover.
And even then I'm not that confident that KG would've been able to take the Rockets to 2 championships in Hakeems place for example. Would he have won more championships than Wilt in the same situation? Maybe, but would he have done so with the knowledge about the game available at the time? Once again, very much doubt that. Would he have been as succesful with the Spurs if he and Duncan switched places? Maybe, but is it actually likely? Should it matter here?
There are plenty of ATG players in NBA history that you could insert into various situations in NBA history and they would've done better or worse, because it depends on the team context that's around them, as well as the strength of the competiton.
There's several ways of looking at the GOAT debate. You might look at it from a purely vacuum-centric standpoint of ''this is what happened in real time in this period, these are the teams that won, player X was the best player on this team, so that's why player X is the GOAT''...
Personally, i realize that there are a lot more variables outside a singular players control that affect their chances of having a largely winning career... I won't waste time outlining what they are, but i'm pretty sure that if you gave some thought to it, you can figure them out pretty easily.
So basically, these factors then inevitable create scenarios, where two players might be close in terms of basketball goodness/value/impact, but because of circumstances largely beyond said players control, one player ends up winning 5 titles, and the other only 1...
So then people come to me and tell me why does it matter to me what the context/circumstances are? Why not just make it simple on myself and pick the guy with 5 titles over the guy with 1 title... The world is black and white after all, left or right, strong or weak, pretty or ugly. There's little to debate in between. People like binary answers because it makes life simple.
Anyway, my personal investment in this project isn't to come here and point out which players won the most... I already know that. I'm here to figure out who the best players in NBA history were in terms of individual value/impact/goodness. Once i figure that out, i ask myself why these players weren't able to produced the desired team results. And if i believe this was due to context/circumstances largely beyond their control, i won't punish them for it.
Like, people seem to grasp this concept when it comes to Karl Malone or Charles Barkley versus a Chris Bosh... I don't think anyone here will argue Chris Bosh being higher on an all-time list than Charles Barkley, even if we focus just on prime years... So basically people understand the concept that you can be a Top 3-5 player in the league for several years and only get to the Finals once in your career and lose, but that doesn't make you a worse player than Chris Bosh... So why do they find it so difficult to accept a concept that two players who are pretty evenly matched by most metrics, could potentially have wildly different TEAM results? The clue is in the emphasis.
