RealGM 2020 Top 100 Project: #11 (Kevin Garnett)

[eminence]

I like seeing the spice with the Nash/Moses votes. Mine are kind of dull being the same as last round.

1. Kevin Garnett
2. Oscar Robertson
3. Kobe Bryant

KG - Top tier defender/longevity/portability. Very strong on offense too.
Oscar - Led the first clear offensive dynasty, though the overall team quality never got there. I don't have any major problems with his defense to believe he was the problem there. Think his portability is great (big CP3 has been my comparison) if not quite at the very top tier.
Kobe - Strong longevity, not quite the offensive force a few guys available were, but not far off. Defense overrated by accolades, but solid for the majority of his career.

Notes on some guys who've missed, focusing on why they aren't on the ballot yet:
Mikan - Short on longevity, and questions of portability, though I'm higher than most.
West - Durability, and I'm not super impressed with his Lakers pre-Wilt.
DrJ - Has the longevity and the accolades, but something about his feel has always felt just a bit off to me. Impact numbers look terrible for this standard.
Moses - Questions about modern role, defensive consistency.
Barkley - Defensive consistency, longevity isn't top tier but is decent.
K. Malone - Great longevity, good all-around player, but low on his peak relative to the competition.
Robinson - Playoff struggles, and longevity, though his run with Duncan scores big points for me.
Dirk - Low on his defense, and knock him a bit for some playoff weaknesses at times.
Nash - Big defensive questions.
Wade - Durability the main concern. Think a few of his performances in losing efforts get overstated. Minor portability questions.
CP3 - His longevity is getting decent at this point. Combines the worst of West/Oscar with his durability/prickly nature. Bit lower on his D than some.

[Whopper_Sr]

Paul is clearly the better FT shooter (great indicator of shooting prowess) as well.

I'll get back into this one. I think free throw shooting also should be compared to league / era standards. Maybe not to the extent we use it with ts, but I think there should be some.

Here;
Robertson was a 83.8% ft shooter when the league average was 73.1%.
Paul has been a 87.0% ft shooter when the league average's been 75.9%.

Surely, I wouldn't say Robertson was the better ft shooter. Like anything else, the league standard was different. For example Bryant had almost identical ft% to Robertson with 83.7%, but in his time the league average was 75.3%. I think a worthy thing to consider. The league average for free throws became 75ish% that we're used to at the beginning of the '70s. The '60s wandered around 73%.

Also, I guess I missed on your quote about the swing on Rtg numbers of the Nets.
Surely, I am not attributing the entire swing solely to Kidd. But he was, by far, the biggest part of it.
I have Kidd and Frazier as the exceptions to as non-bigs not having big-like impact on defense. To be clear, I am not saying they were on the same level as Russell or Olajuwon or Mutombo. More like Chandler, Gobert area or bigs slightly worse but not much. Those two are the examples I could find while writing.
The following is not a reason, just a thought came across my mind; Both were great floor generals on defense as much as they were on offense. Come to think of it, Frazier was a better floor general on defense than on offense. An interesting thing to realize.

FT% relative to league average is something to consider, yes. What changed in the 70s that brought the league FT% up by 2%? I do not know.

You're saying Kidd and Frazier had near DPOY-level impact without providing rim protection? How did they fare/would fare against star wings?

[Whopper_Sr]

I don't think the difference between 84% FT shooter and 87% FT shooter is meaningful to be honest, although I can understand why some people think so. I think that when you keep in mind that Oscar shot almost twice as much FTs as Paul, the difference becomes insignificant (maybe even meaningless).

We don't have a lot fo footage of Oscar, but from what we have and his statistical profile we can conclude that he was marvelous midrange shooter. Would it translate to three point shooting? Hard to say, but I don't think there are any evidences to believe he wouldn't be at least good from that range and we're not comparing him to Curry - Paul is very good, but not all-time great three point shooter.

Oscar's best (87.3%) would be Paul's 8th best mark. But yes, the volume advantage for Oscar makes it closer. Then we'd need to get into how Oscar was able to draw that many fouls while Paul couldn't. Oscar's high FTr shouldn't be too much of a surprise though as he was big enough and strong enough to frequently attack the rim/finish through contact.

It is true that Paul isn't an all time great sharpshooter on paper. I've seen too many instances where he kills teams down the stretch or in key moments with step back 3s, crossover into an off-balance 3s, and top of the key fast break 3s. I'd certainly have more confidence in Paul either way. I would be surprised if Oscar could shoot 3s at a 40% clip.

Why would you be surprised if Oscar could shoot threes at 40% clip?

Because Paul is the better shooter and he's sitting at 37%. Sure, you can conclude from Oscar's shooting stroke and FT% that he could be a 40% shooter from 3 but I'm not convinced. I'd also like to know the number of players who have shot 40% in multiple seasons whose FT% isn't any higher than let's say 85%.

[DQuinn1575]

Well you can't really count a 19 year-old Moses for center quality. The second team all-ABA guy was Swen Nater, a solid guy, but the NBA had 4 MVPS in their 20s - Unseld, Jabbar, Cowens,McAdoo, - add Thurmond and Lanier, and we can argue later how Gilmore ranks against any of them (other than Kareem), but there are 6 superstars versus a league with one. I think I used the term, thought of, not fact. Additionally, the 10 ABA guys averaged 23.6 in age versus 26.0 for the NBA group, which helped the image.

The other narrative regarding Mel Daniels and his MVP years is Zelmo Beaty, who made a couple of NBA all-star teams when almost 1/2 the NBA starters did in 8-10 team leagues. Beaty was an above average NBA center who went to the ABA and was 2nd and 3rd in MVP voting, and playoff MVP - basically considered Daniels equal. And he is the number 2 center in ABA history. Note Lucas played power forward in the NBA, which is similar to Connie Hawkins and Spencer Haywood - NBA forwards who had to play center in the NBA.

Numbers-wise, if I take the 1975 WS/MIn for the 10 ABA guys and translate it to NBA equivalents, I get .117, versus the NBA guys of .126 - not a huge margin, but the average NBA guy is a little better based on Win Shares, as well as the narratives above. The NBA did start a group that included Dennis Awtrey (hatchet man on Kareem), Mel Counts, John Gianelli, and an older Clyde Lee, so they were a lot of teams that would have loved to have the average ABA center playing.

Moses wasn't the player he would become but he was already a force in year one and probably above average. Notice that while Lucas and Haywood were ABA centers (Haywood earlier in the weaker years of the ABA) that moved to forward in the NBA, Issel was a forward who moved to center in the ABA (They listed Moses at forward for Utah too but he played more like a center than Jim Eakins who was a finesse jump shooter type so I considered Moses the center). It was more about team needs and coaches' systems in both leagues.

Also remember that there are nearly twice as many teams in the NBA as the ABA, so if you considered Virginia as nothing (pretty accurate), there would be as many centers in the ABA as the Western Conference of the NBA, not the whole league. But my point wasn't that the ABA was stronger at center, without Kareem it couldn't be (he was THAT great). My point is that centers in the ABA weren't the complete trash the post I was responding to called them.

Agree on virtually all points - Although top end it isn't one player that makes it better, and the perception of the time of star power is based on Top 5-6 guys versus #2 and 3 in ABA

[Odinn21]

FT% relative to league average is something to consider, yes. What changed in the 70s that brought the league FT% up by 2%? I do not know.

Approaches about trainings was going through a massive change. Probably that's why. One of the reasons why Bob Pettit was big is that coaches did not want their players to lift weights to get stronger because they thought that'd mess up their shooting touches and Pettit was (arguably) the first superstar went behind that wall. There were assumptions about training 2 or 3 hours for the same move would cause major fatigue and hurt the development curve, etc.
The training methods were changing and I think that difference in free throw shooting is a result of "excessive" training for the '50s became the standard and caused a jump.

You're saying Kidd and Frazier had near DPOY-level impact without providing rim protection? How did they fare/would fare against star wings?

Frazier always caused big troubles to the player he defended.

A quick look at the star players played against the Knicks in the playoffs during Frazier's prime;
E. Monroe against Frazier in '69 playoffs - 28.3 ppg on .386 fg (25.8 ppg on .440 fg r. season average for Monroe and his team was .427 against the Knicks)
E. Monroe in '70; 28.0 ppg on .481 fg (23.4 ppg on .446 fg r. season and .418 fg team)
E. Monroe in '71; 24.4 ppg on .407 fg (21.4 ppg on .442 fg r. season and .448 fg team)
S. Jones in '69; 14.5 ppg on .350 fg (16.3 ppg on .450 fg r. season and .469 fg team)
P. Maravich in '71; 22.0 ppg on .377 fg (23.2 ppg on .458 fg r. season and .427 fg team)
J. West in '70; 31.3 ppg on .450 fg (31.2 ppg on .497 fg r. season and .494 fg team)
J. West in '72; 19.8 ppg on .325 fg (25.8 ppg on .477 fg r. season and .421 fg team)
J. West in '73; 21.4 ppg on .442 fg (22.8 ppg on .479 fg r. season and .431 fg team)
J. White in '72; 22.6 ppg on .402 fg (23.1 ppg on .431 fg r. season and .416 fg team)
J. White in '73; 23.6 ppg on .414 fg (19.7 ppg on .431 fg r. season and .443 fg team)
J. White in '74; 15.2 ppg on .385 fg (18.1 ppg on .449 fg r. season and .467 fg team)
C. Murphy in '75; 20.7 ppg on .418 fg (18.7 ppg on .484 fg r. season and .481 fg team)

The only time a player improved their scoring volume and fg% from the floor was Monroe in 1970. There are 12 performances on there and literally half of them regressed in both volume and % against Frazier. Other than those 6, I'd put also '69 against Monroe, '70 against West and '75 against Murphy as definite wins in Frazier's case. That's 9 out of 12.
That's a pretty impressive track record if you ask me. Especially considering defense was more about 1v1 performances back then meaning those performance drops were more directly related to Frazier than team's defensive schemes.

As for Kidd's case, did we not see how he after his prime put insane pressure on LeBron James in 2011 Finals? Though Kidd was able to afford focusing on defense that much.

[70sFan]

Oscar's best (87.3%) would be Paul's 8th best mark. But yes, the volume advantage for Oscar makes it closer. Then we'd need to get into how Oscar was able to draw that many fouls while Paul couldn't. Oscar's high FTr shouldn't be too much of a surprise though as he was big enough and strong enough to frequently attack the rim/finish through contact.

It is true that Paul isn't an all time great sharpshooter on paper. I've seen too many instances where he kills teams down the stretch or in key moments with step back 3s, crossover into an off-balance 3s, and top of the key fast break 3s. I'd certainly have more confidence in Paul either way. I would be surprised if Oscar could shoot 3s at a 40% clip.

Why would you be surprised if Oscar could shoot threes at 40% clip?

Because Paul is the better shooter and he's sitting at 37%. Sure, you can conclude from Oscar's shooting stroke and FT% that he could be a 40% shooter from 3 but I'm not convinced. I'd also like to know the number of players who have shot 40% in multiple seasons whose FT% isn't any higher than let's say 85%.

Fair enough, I don't have any evidences to prove you wrong. One thing is sure - both are among the best shootera in the league and that's all that matters to me.

[eminence]

A note - I mention portability a lot in my voting post. I'm not sure that's accurate to how I currently evaluate players but it's a term I've become accustomed to using. Traditionally the two ways to have MVP level impact are on-ball offense or rim/paint protection. A few other players have found other ways, but that covers 80% of those top level guys. Prior to the Rockets I had pretty serious questions about fitting those on-ball guys together. They answered those questions for me (on-court at least). The Twin Towers Spurs had already answered it on the other end. So any fit questions for extremely high level talents to me are very small at worst.

[Doctor MJ]

I would say that for the players at the very top (that we are talking about now), the distribution of talent may be uneven. These are the extreme outliers even in the already extreme outlier of NBA caliber athletes. However, as we progress more toward the more normal level of all-stars and all-NBA basketball talent (and we never even remotely approach the middle, we are always at the top end), like most talent/ability curves, I would guess it would start to approach a bell curve shape with the outliers like LeBron or Jordan separating themselves more from the 10-20 range players than the 60th and 61st rated players separate themselves from the 70th-80th rated players.

In fact it will most likely start to approach the shape of a bell curve. Then the ideas about greater talent pools will start to have more relevance than they do at the extreme top end. And, because the guys at the extreme top end are playing more normally distributed (though still outstanding) talent, guys who play in eras where expansion outstripped the growth of the talent pool will tend to play against overall weaker talent and thus probably have fancier stats. So, I would expect the top players from the 70s, for example, to have inflated stats relative to the 60s (pre-drastic expansion) or 00s. This is the concept of the weaker league, not that there might now be a Kareem level player in that weaker league who is one of the 5 greatest to ever play. And, the degree of international talent is one of the major factors driving the idea that modern players face a deeper talent pool. This doesn't mean that LeBron is a better player than Michael Jordan, but it probably does mean that players in the 2020 NBA face better talent on an average night than players did in the 1980s.

And yes, as a former coach of a school with around 60 total high schoolers, I would expect that, assuming no special recruiting, etc. the average player I got is probably not at the level of a high school with a similar socioeconomic mix where there are 1200 high schooler like where I went to school. Doesn't always ring true, my previous school was known for recruiting (put on probation for it at least twice) and had a top 25 in the USA prospect even though it wasn't much bigger than the school I am at now. But for the general mix of student outside of that one or even two special guys (again, with no recruiting, etc.) a small school will usually have less talent. That's the reason you have public high schools separated out on the basis of school population.

Great post.

I wanted to add a couple things:

First, depending on the human endeavor, the extreme outliers aren't necessarily that extreme in their effect.

I always find it astonishing to look back at my first fan love, baseball, after years of focusing on basketball. The reality is that even the greatest baseball outliers have very little effect compared to basketball players and in any given game the winner is largely determined by randomness. And while this is perhaps to be expected given that it's much harder to control where you hit a ball with a bat than it is to shoot a ball, there's also the matter that the best offensive player only gets to "handle the ball" once out of every 9 "possessions" whereas in basketball he can do this on literally every possession.

(Interestingly in baseball it is defense that starts play action and allows a single player to dominate play, and thus it is a defender - the pitcher - who is in greatest position to dominate each game, but is then held back by not being able to play most of the team's overall "possessions".)

Second, the extreme-ness of basketball outliers to me always seems to be rooted in some kind of cheat code, and more often than not that cheat code has a significant mental component to it that doesn't necessarily exist in baseball. I think the necessity of "thinking on your feet" in basketball is part of why we have such extreme outliers.

[2klegend]

1. Kobe
2. Oscar
3. West

Kobe's 5 titles, 2X as best player, along with 2 Finals MVP, 1 regular-season MVPs, and multiple All-NBA made him a Top 10 contender easily. His biggest downside to his legacy is his notorious average stat line for a GOAT level player. It is simply lacking in that department to truly explain how dominant he was in his prime. I personally view Kobe as one of the few rare breeds of players that have NO consciousness on his stat and purely play the game to win at all costs. This often led to him underperformance massively when he had a bad game. He continued to pour bad shots over and over, resulting in negative impact efficiency, reducing his stat line further down. But that is his mindset and as a scorer, he wanted to be, he was simply not naturally talented enough to overcome what Jordan did similarly.

A little notice: KG has no business being this high.

[70sFan]

FT% relative to league average is something to consider, yes. What changed in the 70s that brought the league FT% up by 2%? I do not know.

Approaches about trainings was going through a massive change. Probably that's why. One of the reasons why Bob Pettit was big is that coaches did not want their players to lift weights to get stronger because they thought that'd mess up their shooting touches and Pettit was (arguably) the first superstar went behind that wall. There were assumptions about training 2 or 3 hours for the same move would cause major fatigue and hurt the development curve, etc.
The training methods were changing and I think that difference in free throw shooting is a result of "excessive" training for the '50s became the standard and caused a jump.

You're saying Kidd and Frazier had near DPOY-level impact without providing rim protection? How did they fare/would fare against star wings?

Frazier always caused big troubles to the player he defended.

A quick look at the star players played against the Knicks in the playoffs during Frazier's prime;
E. Monroe against Frazier in '69 playoffs - 28.3 ppg on .386 fg (25.8 ppg on .440 fg r. season average for Monroe and his team was .427 against the Knicks)
E. Monroe in '70; 28.0 ppg on .481 fg (23.4 ppg on .446 fg r. season and .418 fg team)
E. Monroe in '71; 24.4 ppg on .407 fg (21.4 ppg on .442 fg r. season and .448 fg team)
S. Jones in '69; 14.5 ppg on .350 fg (16.3 ppg on .450 fg r. season and .469 fg team)
P. Maravich in '71; 22.0 ppg on .377 fg (23.2 ppg on .458 fg r. season and .427 fg team)
J. West in '70; 31.3 ppg on .450 fg (31.2 ppg on .497 fg r. season and .494 fg team)
J. West in '72; 19.8 ppg on .325 fg (25.8 ppg on .477 fg r. season and .421 fg team)
J. West in '73; 21.4 ppg on .442 fg (22.8 ppg on .479 fg r. season and .431 fg team)
J. White in '72; 22.6 ppg on .402 fg (23.1 ppg on .431 fg r. season and .416 fg team)
J. White in '73; 23.6 ppg on .414 fg (19.7 ppg on .431 fg r. season and .443 fg team)
J. White in '74; 15.2 ppg on .385 fg (18.1 ppg on .449 fg r. season and .467 fg team)
C. Murphy in '75; 20.7 ppg on .418 fg (18.7 ppg on .484 fg r. season and .481 fg team)

The only time a player improved their scoring volume and fg% from the floor was Monroe in 1970. There are 12 performances on there and literally half of them regressed in both volume and % against Frazier. Other than those 6, I'd put also '69 against Monroe, '70 against West and '75 against Murphy as definite wins for Frazier's case. That's 9 out of 12.
That's a pretty impressive track record if you ask me. Especially considering defense was more about 1v1 performances back then meaning those performances drops were more directly related to Frazier than team's defensive schemes.

As for Kidd's case, did we not see how he after his prime put insane pressure on LeBron James in 2011 Finals? Though Kidd was able to afford focusing on defense that much.

I'd add one thing about Frazier - he didn't guard West primarly in 1970 finals, but from what I recall he spent significant time on him in other series. He guarded Monroe in all games I've seen and he didn't guard Sam Jones primarly (at least in one game I have seen).

[Odinn21]

I'd add one thing about Frazier - he didn't guard West primarly in 1970 finals, but from what I recall he spent significant time on him in other series. He guarded Monroe in all games I've seen and he didn't guard Sam Jones primarly (at least in one game I have seen).

I remember Frazier switching between West, Garrett and Erickson in '70 finals and he ended up defending West for the most among the three. Though yeah, he did not defend West in that series like he did in others.

Similar situation happened with Sam Jones if my recollection is not mistaking me. I'd say Frazier spent more time on Jones than he did on West in '70 Finals. It's worth noting that my recollection is not as strong on this one though.

[DQuinn1575]

Paul is clearly the better FT shooter (great indicator of shooting prowess) as well.

I'll get back into this one. I think free throw shooting also should be compared to league / era standards. Maybe not to the extent we use it with ts, but I think there should be some.

Here;
Robertson was a 83.8% ft shooter when the league average was 73.1%.
Paul has been a 87.0% ft shooter when the league average's been 75.9%.

Surely, I wouldn't say Robertson was the better ft shooter. Like anything else, the league standard was different. For example Bryant had almost identical ft% to Robertson with 83.7%, but in his time the league average was 75.3%. I think a worthy thing to consider. The league average for free throws became 75ish% that we're used to at the beginning of the '70s. The '60s wandered around 73%.

Also, I guess I missed on your quote about the swing on Rtg numbers of the Nets.
Surely, I am not attributing the entire swing solely to Kidd. But he was, by far, the biggest part of it.
I have Kidd and Frazier as the exceptions to as non-bigs not having big-like impact on defense. To be clear, I am not saying they were on the same level as Russell or Olajuwon or Mutombo. More like Chandler, Gobert area or bigs slightly worse but not much. Those two are the examples I could find while writing.
The following is not a reason, just a thought came across my mind; Both were great floor generals on defense as much as they were on offense. Come to think of it, Frazier was a better floor general on defense than on offense. An interesting thing to realize.

FT% relative to league average is something to consider, yes. What changed in the 70s that brought the league FT% up by 2%? I do not know.

You're saying Kidd and Frazier had near DPOY-level impact without providing rim protection? How did they fare/would fare against star wings?

In the early 60s you had one player shooting about 5% of the league Free Throws that was about 25% below average - that brings it down 1.25% right there - Wilt leaves the league, the % goes up - that's not all of it, but a decent part.

[90sAllDecade]

It's been very difficult seperating West from Oscar and Kobe due to time contraints.

I'm not a big fan of 60s comptetion but I will give West and Oscar credit for dominating when the rules were stacked against perimeter players succeeding.

Oscar had less team support but that allowed the team to be completely dependent on him for impact and pace/possessions inflated his triple double numbers.

Oscar played more games and seems like a solid or good defensive player at times but West seems to be a better, if not a full tier above defensively. He actally had chase down blocks and could contribute to rim protection, great in steals and on film seems like an overall dog defensively. Oscar was a better offensive player but West was incredible in the playoffs which I value.

Kobe has a better modern skillset, but West and Oscar were just as if not more efficient in a tougher era for guards. The more film I watch and take a microscope to West and Oscar the more I'm impressed, but more so with West.

I appreciate Kobe and Oscar and this may change over time, but under time constraints I have Garnett as the more impactful player with combinted two way impact, then West and Oscar. If someone can prove why Kobe is better than West or Oscar I may change it later.

1. Garnett
2. West
3. Oscar

[Jaivl]

A little notice: KG has no business being this high.

Indeed, #10 was his for the taking.

[drza]

Kevin Garnett Postseason Performance

(This is a marathon post in response to those that have questions about Garnett's postseason performance. I spoilered the sections to keep it from being a word wall. Hopefully some of you will click through the spoilers, as I make the case for Kevin Garnett as a dominant postseason performer. My vote's at the bottom of this post.)

Alright, let's play.

Spoiler:

As usual, there's been a lot of discussion about Garnett's playoffs resume, and whether it was worthy of consideration in the top-10 of this ranking. There's also been some conversation about "winning bias", and how to separate a team's wins from an individual's impact on those wins when apportioning credit. Important topic.

So, back to Garnett. There seems to be a general consensus, among both his supporters and his detractors, that Garnett was doing about as much heavy lifting in the regular season as almost any player in history. As such, with a few occasional quibbles, the biggest questions about Garnett's value and subsequent ranking come in the postseason. Those questions often boil down to how much his teams won (or didn't win), and also his scoring (volume and/or efficiency) and whether he therefore wasn't doing as much as the historical GOATs to help his teams win more in the crucible of the playoffs.

I've long been on record that I highly disagree with that sentiment. Diametrically, in fact. I believe Garnett was the biggest impact postseason performer of his generation, that he personally carried his teams as far as any player in history could have taken them, and that contextual, in depth analysis that moves beyond cursery boxscore stats and ringzzz are able to start demonstrating that value. The downside of that type of contextual, in depth analysis is that it can get lengthy. But...well...I kinda figure that's what projects like this are for, right? Where else can we really dig in and examine what these players really accomplished, with a group of other people just as interested and invested in the history, the way we can here. Right? So, time willing...let's see what we can come up with, as we go through what Garnett actually accomplished in the postseason during his career.

Kevin Garnett Postseasons through the years

This post is a logical progression from the very in depth post I did in this project comparing Garnett and Duncan as players ( https://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=85971213#p85971213 ). That post compared them in their shared primes (1999-2008), utilizing everything from box score stats, scouting/visual analysis, scouting analytics (from at least three different sources) and impact stats to make the case that while Duncan is one of the top players in history, Garnett was a bit better.

Spoiler:

The cliff notes case that I made was: Duncan and Garnett had a lot of similarities to their game, but some key differences as well that made Garnett a bit more impactful on both sides of the ball. While Duncan spent more time and effort controlling the areas around the rim on both offense and defense, Garnett was clearly a better team/rotation/help/pick-and-roll defender with a range of dominant influence that extended out to the 3-point line (which translated to him having an overall larger defensive impact). Garnett was also clearly a better passer/team offense creator/hub and better shooter with a therefore larger spacing effect that could warp defenses away from the rim.

One of the upshots was that the boxscores, alone, weren't enough to evaluate the differences between Duncan and Garnett because there are no boxscore stats for things like "stopping the opponent from scoring", "blowing up a pick-and-roll" or "stopping the primary play and forcing the offense to reset with less time on the shot clock and settle for a lower percentage look"...all of which Garnett specialized in on a level few if any could match in NBA history. Likewise, there're no boxscore stats for "spacing" or "creating a high-percentage look for my teammate", and neither individual scoring efficiency nor assists are adequate to measure offense creation.

So, if the previous paragraph is true in the regular season...why don't we acknowledge that for the postseason as well? I know that we have the boxscore stats, and for many older players before the databall era (or, in some cases, even before the ubiquitous televising era) the boxscores represent some of the best data that we have. But if we dig deeper, we can often find better information to supplement our understanding. Especially for a player like Garnett, from the current era.

So, let's start digging. .

Garnett postseasons 1999-2001 (early prime): what to do when outnumbered

1999: Timberwolves (8th seed, prorated 41-41) vs Spurs (1st seed, prorated 61-21)

Spoiler:

In the playoffs, the Wolves would get the #1 seeded (and soon-to-be NBA champion) Spurs led by Tim Duncan and still-prime David Robinson. While the Wolves were clearly outclassed, this gave us our first Garnett vs Duncan head-to-head match-up in the playoffs. They wouldn't disappoint. The Spurs won the series 3 - 1, but the 8th-seeded Wolves challenged them more than any of their higher-seeded foes on the way to their championship. In the head-to-head:

Duncan averaged: 18.8 points (51.8% TS), 10.8 reb, 3.3 ast, 3 blk, 0.8 steal, 1.8 TO
Garnett averaged: 21.8 points (48.9% TS), 12 reb, 3.8 ast, 2.3 blk, 1.5 steal, 3.3 TO

For the rest of the playoffs, Duncan would have much more success scoring than he had against Garnett...

Duncan (after 1st rd): 24.6 points (58.7% TS), 11.7 reb, 2.7 ast, 2.5 blk, 0.8 stl, 3.5 TO

Similarly, the Timberwolves as a team made the juggernaut Spurs work more than their subsequent, theoretically better later round opponents would. The Spurs beat the Wolves (-0.2 SRS) 3-1, with an average MoV of 6.3 PPG. But, they would go on to sweep the 4th seeded Lakers (2.7 SRS) and the 3rd seed Trail Blazers (5.67 SRS) by an average MoV of 9.2 PPG on their march through the Western Conference.

The Wolves held the Spurs to 1.4 points below their season O-Rtg, 0.7 pts/100 better than expected based on both teams' regular season marks. The Spurs defense stifled them to 6.7 points below their season O-Rtg, but this was actually 0.5 points better than expected.

2000: Timberwolves (6th seed, 50 - 32) vs Trail Blazers (3rd seed, 59 - 23)

Spoiler:

As a reward for their best season ever, Garnett and the Wolves got to face one of the two transcendant teams in the NBA in the first round. Portland had a stocked roster, including a defensive masterpiece of a frontline featuring Rasheed Wallace, Scottie Pippen, Arvydys Sabonis and Brian Grant (among others). That Trail Blazers team would be an epic Game 7 4th quarter collapse away from beating the Shaq/Kobe Lakers and likely winning a title. But the Timberwolves made them work.

Garnett averaged: 18.8 points (44.1% TS), 10.8 reb, 8.8 ast, 0.8 blk, 1.3 steal, 2.8 TO
Wallace averaged: 13.5 points (57.1% TS), 6.0 reb, 3.0 ast, 1.5 blk, 1.0 steal, 0.8 TO

For the rest of the playoffs, Sheed's would produce much more scoring volume than he had against Garnett...

Wallace (after 1st rd): 19.3 points (54.7% TS), 6.6 reb, 1.3 ast, 1.2 blk, 0.9 stl, 1.7 TO

Similarly, the Timberwolves as a team made the juggernaut Trail Blazers work more than their subsequent, theoretically better next round opponent would. The Trail Blazers beat the 7th seeded Wolves 3-1, with an average MoV of 2.0 PPG. But, they would go on to beat the 2nd seeded, 55-win Jazz 4-1 with a MoV of 11.0 PPG on their collision course with the Lakers in the WCF.

The Wolves held the Trail Blazers to 0.5 pts below their season O-Rtg, and themselves outscored the Trail Blazers' season D-Rtg by 4.1 points/100 possessions.

Bonus 2000 analysis, w/ vid caps

Spoiler:

Let's start with the elephant in the room...for the series, Garnett averaged 18.8 points on only 44% TS%, WAY down from the 22.9 points on 55% TS from the regular season. For many, this means that Garnett had a bad playoffs, full-stop. Let's look a bit closer, to see if that assessment holds true.

*The Trail Blazers were doing a lot of double- and triple- teaming of Garnett that series. It clearly affected his individual scoring, which led to the low scoring efficiency. However, it also led to him having an incredible amount of gravity. On offense, Garnett utilized that gravity to try to set up his teammates with excellent looks. Here's a montage of clips to help illustrate my point (I found a couple of short clips on Youtube that were posted by a Trail Blazers fan, and put this together from there):

Example 1: triple-teamed on dribble drive, shot missed



Garnett received an entry pass in the post, guarded by Wallace. As he turns to face-up, Sabonis has sagged off of Rasho with both feet in the lane, and (Pippen?) is sagged to the foul line and looking at Garnett.



Garnett makes his move on Sheed, and has the angle to get to the rim. But, Sabonis has dropped completely to the rim in Garnett’s face while Pippen is also there, having swiped at Garnett’s dribble on the way past. Interestingly, Rasho doesn’t dive to the rim despite now being guarded by Damon Stoudamire.



By the time Garnett rises to shoot, he has a hard double of two 7-footers between he and the rim, and there are two more wings sagged down towards him as well.

[Example 2: Double/triple out-top --> wide open look for Wally



Garnett is doubled out top by Wallace and Pippen.



Garnett split the double-team with a dribble. Wally Szczerbiak’s man now comes to triple Garnett, leaving Wally stank-wide open behind the 3-point arc.



Garnett sees the triple coming, passes to the wide open Szcerbiak…who proceeds to air-ball the 3-point attempt (not shown).

Example 3: triple-team in paint --> wide open look for Sam



KG dribble drive into the paint. Triple-teamed between he and the rim, with fourth player sagging towards rim and fifth player turned to look at Garnett from top of key. Sam Mitchell is stank-wide open for an elbow 3-pointer.



Garnett kicks it out to Mitchell for the naked trey, which he knocks down.

*That was obviously only a brief montage, but it illustrates a few key points.

1) In the KG vs Duncan post linked above, I went into great depth to show (both scouting-wise and quantitatively) that Garnett's offensive impact could be seen through scouting analytics and impact stats, but that the box scores weren't equipped to measure it. Similarly, a poster here named SideshowBob once illustrated in a great scouting post http://forums.realgm.com/boards/viewtopic.php?p=44663914#p44663914 several of the key components of Garnett's offense ...including (but not limited to) spacing, PnR (Roll/Pop), High-Post, Low-Post, Mid-Post, Screens. And (and this is key)...and these elements, in which he makes most of his impact, are likewise not reliant upon his scoring efficiency.

2) In this series, the Trail Blazers were clearly willing to devote their entire defense to overloading and stopping one man from scoring. Garnett could have continued to force the action, got up enough shots to at least get a big scoring volume. But instead, he adapted and started finding those teammates left open by the defense's over-attention. This translated to him averaging 8.7 assists for the series, and notching two triple-doubles in four games.

3) This ALSO resulted in the rest of the Wolves' players operating at or near their capacity as scorers. The team shot so well, in fact, that though the Wolves' O-Rtg decreased by 1.2 points/100 possessions for the series, that was actually 2.1 points BETTER than their expected value in the series based upon the season-long ORtg & DRtg of the units involved.

*Rasheed Wallace averaged 13.5 ppg,(52% FG, 75% FT on 3.0 FTA/g) in 42 min/game against Wolves in round 1, 22.3 pp42 (48% FG, 78% FT on 5.3 FTA/g) against Jazz and Lakers in next 2 rounds

The Wolves (2.7 SRS) lost the series 3 - 1 to the Trail Blazers (6.4 SRS), but they lost by a total of only 8 points. They kept the series much more competitive than Portland's next opponents, the #2 seeded Jazz (4.5 SRS), who lost 4 - 1 and were outscored by the Blazers by 55 points in five games. That Blazers squad could, and probably SHOULD have won the title, but choked away a 15-point 4th quarter lead to Shaq & Kobe in the WCF.

Bottom line: Garnett played at an MVP level in the regular season, and every bit of that level was required to get that Wolves team to 50 wins. In the playoffs, his TS% dropped by 11% as the defense sold out to stop him. Yet...he modified his game, drawing the defense and setting up his teammates for wide open shots, resulting in almost 9 assists per game and a TEAM offense that surpassed expectation. The Wolves still lost to the better team, but they made that team WORK in a way that the supposedly better regular season team, the Jazz, was unable to replicate. I submit that this was an outstanding postseason effort for Garnett, full stop.[/b]

2001: Timberwolves (8th seed, 47 - 35) vs Spurs (1st seed, 58 - 24)

Spoiler:

The Wolves played Spurs again in the playoffs. Wolves were 47 - 35 (+1.8 SRS), Spurs were 58 - 24 (+7.9 SRS, 1st in league). Garnett was again matched up on Tim Duncan, and here are their averages against each other that series followed by Duncan's averages over the rest of the playoffs (Mavs and Lakers):

Garnett averaged: 21 points (46.6% FG, 7.5 FTM/game), 12 reb, 4.3 ast, 1.5 blk, 1 stl
Duncan averaged: 22.5 points (46% FG, 5.5 FTM/game), 13 reb, 3.5 ast, 2 blk, 1 stl

For the rest of the playoffs, Duncan would have much more success scoring than he had against Garnett...

Duncan (non-Wolves): 25.2 points (49.7% FG, 6 FTM/game), 15.1 reb, 3.9 ast, 3 blk, 1.1 stl

Similar story. Garnett balanced with Duncan, roughly cancelling each other out. He obviously suppressed Duncan, though, as all of Duncan's numbers went way up for the rest of the season. And again, the #8 seeded Wolves lost by a total of 26 points over four games (6.5 MoV), while next round the Spurs beat the #5 seed Mavs (SRS 4.6) by a total of 58 points over 5 games (11.6 MoV). Garnett's team lost in the first round, but they were more competitive against the more powerful Spurs than the supposedly better Mavs.

The Timberwolves defense held the Spurs 4.7 points below their season O-Rtg, while the Spurs #1 ranked defense returned the favor with interest, holding the Wolves 11.3 PPG points below their season O-Rtg.

Early Prime postseason summary
For those that clicked on the spoilers for those 3 postseasons, you saw that the story was eerily similar in all three seasons.

Spoiler:

*In all three seasons, the Timberwolves were grossly outmatched by their first round opponent (average records: 46-36 for Timberwolves, 59-23 for their opponents).

*In all three, the opponent featured an all-world power forward that KG matched up with (twice Duncan, once Sheed), and between the three of them they were likely the three best defensive power forwards of that era. Duncan (with Robinson) and Sheed (with Sabonis, Pippen, Brian Grant, etc) both had outstanding defensive help along the frontline as well, while Garnett was typically out there with frontline teammates like Dean Garrett, (old) Sam Mitchell, (young) Rasho Nesterovic and (young) Wally Szczerbiak. There was monster defense being played in these series, and it no-doubt affected Garnett's scoring efficiency. However, Garnett also dramatically lowered the scoring volume and/or efficiency of his counterparts just as much (if not more) despite the lack of help. Volume-wise, Garnett held Duncan and Wallace to about 76% of what they scored against their other postseason opponents. In other words, he cut their scoring by about 1/4. That's huge, especially against superstar opponents.

*Garnett outperforming against his direct matchup translated to the Timberwolves' team results, where despite ultimately losing all three series the team outperformed both expectation and other teams that were much better in the regular season. In all three seasons, the Timberwolves defensively suppressed their opponents beyond what their ORTG projected (on average, team offenses down 8 PPG, -2.6 FG%), and in two of the three seasons the TImberwolves' offense performed better than the opponent's DRTG projected.

*In addition, all three teams (99 Spurs, 00 Blazers, 01 Spurs) went on to win all of their subsequent series unless their opponents were the Lakers during the 3-peat. Here are the way the matchups went these teams vs the Wolves, vs their other four non-Lakers Western Conference opponents:

Against Wolves (avg. 46 wins): win by average MoV of 4.9 PPG
Against others (avg. 54 wins): win by average MoV 10.2 PPG

(FWIW, without deeper analysis (just flat running out of time to write/post this today), this pattern somewhat continues if you expand forward and backwards one season in each direction. In 1998 the 45-win Timberwolves faced the 61-win Supersonics in the first round, and lost with an average MoV of 5.8 PPG. In 2002, the 50-win Timberwolves faced the 57-win Mavericks and lost with an average MoV (while KG was on the court) of 4.7 PPG. Both of those teams would lose in the next round, though.)

Garnett postseasons 2003-04 (peak)

The format for this section will be a bit different, since for time purposes I'll be drawing more heavily from previous posts. But the story of Garnett's postseason impact, well beyond the box scores, is effectively told here.

2003 Timberwolves:
Offensive rating 106.1 (5th in NBA)

PG: Troy Hudson (14.2 ppg, 53% TS, 74 starts)
SG: Anthony Peeler (7.7 ppg, 50% TS, 39 starts) + Kendall Gill (8.7 ppg, 48% TS, 34 starts)
F: Wally Z (17.6 ppg, 57% TS, 42 sts);Trent (6 ppg, 55%TS, 22 sts); Joe Smith (7.5 ppg, 52%TS, 21 sts)
F: Kevin Garnett (23.0 ppg, 55% TS, 82 starts)
C: Rasho Nesterovic (11.2 ppg, 54% TS, 77 starts)

Team assist leaders: Garnett (6.0 apg, 2.8 TOs) and Hudson (5.7 apg, 2.3 TOs)

My 2003 Wolves season scouting report:

Spoiler:

This was an interesting take on a unipolar offensive attack. The Timberwolves had lost incumbent starting point guard Terrell Brandon in the offseason to a career-ending knee injury, but he hadn't retired until his up-and-coming back-up Chauncey BIllups had already signed with the Pistons. Thus, the Wolves signed FAs Troy Hudson and Rod Strickland for a COMBINED $3M to run their PG slot. I thought that Strickland would win the starting gig, but he was too old and too injured and couldn't stay on the floor, which opened it up for Hudson. Hudson had been an undrafted player that worked his way up through the D-league (11.1 ppg, 3.6 apg career D-league averages) and earned his way into the NBA as a scoring spark-plug type off the bench. Entering the 2003 season, he had never been a full-time NBA starting point guard nor averaged more than 3.7 assists. Neither of the two shooting guards (Peeler or GIll) were ball-handlers either, nor were Wally Z or any of the other big men.

Thus, the '03 Wolves featured KG as a point-power forward. Garnett was the hub, with (in theory) shooters at the other positions. Wally Z was an elite shooter if you gave him any space, but he fancied himself someone that could work off the face-up more-so than "just" a spot-up shooter. Though his spot-up J was wet, he wasn't one to come off screens firing like Ray or Rip Hamilton. Rasho didn't have a lot of range at center, but he had soft hands and decent footwork and was a reasonable finisher. Hudson and Peeler were both undersized chuckers for their positions, but both had 3-point range and could get hot.

On most sets Hudson would bring the ball up the court, but usually the first pass was to KG (often at the elbow, on the box, or at the free throw line). KG would then be the primary decision maker in the play, initiating the set. If he drew direct defensive attention he was adept at finding the open shooter. If the defense wasn't compromised enough on the initial pass, the offense would generally progress to KG either posting (if the ball was on the weakside) or setting a screen for the guard up top. And of course, his primary go-to move from either the box or the elbow was the turnaround jumper.

The other primary set was Garnett setting an on-ball screen for Hudson, and then either popping for a mid-range jumper or (occasionally) rolling. But those rolls rarely resulted in finishes because Hudson wasn't adept at passing. The most common result when KG rolled was either a long Hudson J or a re-set.

The offense struggled in the first third of the season when Wally was injured, as the others weren't good enough options for opponents to have to respect. Plus, for a lot of that time the Wolves were starting KG at small forward with either Joe Smith or Gary Trent at the 4. Zero spacing. But once Wally came back it opened things up, and the Wolves finished that season on a pretty strong run (offensively and over-all).

2003 Postseason analysis (bonus: including vid caps for illustration)

Spoiler:

In the playoffs the Lakers attacked the Wolves' offense by eliminating Wally. Rick Fox and Devean George) stayed in Wally's drawls everywhere he went, never sagging off of him under any circumstances. Then, the Lakers packed the paint elsewhere, with Shaq clogging the paint and Kobe helping off the Wolves' wings as needed to prevent KG from handling the ball in the interior. Oh, and Derek Fisher never went over the KG on-ball screen out-top on Hudson. Ever. Example:

Hudson has ball, dribbling for 5+ seconds on wing looking for advantage. Garnett sets up for a pick, signals Hudson with arm to get his attention and tell him where to go.



Kg's guy sticks to him on the pick. Hudson's defender goes under pick.



Naked-open jumper for Hudson.



The Lakers' defensive strategy that series seemed to be to let Hudson shoot as much as he likes, make it difficult on Garnett to operate from his favorite spots, and erase Wally with the theory that KG and Hudson couldn't outscore Shaq and Kobe in the course of a series. Example:

KG posts on block, Hudson enters ball to him.



Play is for Wally to cut off Hudson pick, and for KG to hit him with dive pass to the rim. Wally and Hudson execute the pick and Wally cuts



Hudson falls down, and both Lakers defenders go with Wally to make sure he doesn't get an open touch.



Hudson gets up. Kobe drops off Wally and doubles KG on the block. But KG sees that Hudson is wide open



Garnett sees him naked open, gets him the rock in rhythm for a wide-open look. Strings



KG had a good run, and Hudson took advantage of the open looks to get hot so the offense actually worked reasonably in the playoffs. That loss was more about the Timberwolves' inability to stop Kobe and Shaq than it was their offense.

2004 Timberwolves:
Offensive rating 105.9 (5th in NBA)

PG: Sam Cassell (19.8 ppg, 57% TS, 81 starts)
SG: Latrell Sprewell (16.8 ppg, 49% TS, 82 starts)
SF: Trenton Hassell (5.0 ppg, 50% TS, 74 starts)
PF: Kevin Garnett (24.2 ppg, 55% TS, 82 starts)
C: Big Erv (1.9 ppg/55%TS/47 sts); Kandi (6.5 ppg/45%TS/25 sts); Madsen (3.6 ppg/51%TS/12 sts)

Team assist leaders: Cassell (7.3 apg, 2.7 TOs) and Garnett (5.0 apg, 2.6 TOs)

2004 Wolves season scouting report:

Spoiler:

This was a completely overhauled offense from the previous year, with Cassell and Sprewell bringing an order of magnitude more to the table. However, in some ways this was the more top-heavy offense than the year before because only 3/5 of the starting line-up had anything to contribute on offense. Ervin Johnson, Michael Olowokandi and Mark Madsen took turns at center and none of them could score at all (that 45% TS for Kandi isn't a misprint). Similarly, Trenton Hassell had been cut the previous offseason by the lottery Bulls in part because he also couldn't score at all. He didn't have shooting range, and he was a terrible ball-handler.

Thus, opponents didn't even have to pretend to defend 2/5 of the Wolves' starting line-up and they couldn't provide any spacing or utility at all on offense. As such, the offense was heavily, HEAVILY reliant on the KG/Cassell/Sprewell trio. And actually, it was KG and Cassell that did the most heavy lifting. Sprewell in his youth had been a slasher, but by the 2004 season those days were mainly behind him. He took a lot of jumpers that year, with mixed results. He had 3-point range, but was streaky and downright poor on jumpers off the dribble. He could create a shot for himself, though, which was important and forced the defense to at least account for him.

But the stars of the show were Garnett and Cassell. The Wolves used primarily the same sets as they had in 2003, but having Cassell in Hudson's place changed the game. Whereas Hudson was streaky with longer shooting range, Cassell was metronome consistent with that mid-range J. Coincidentally, so was Garnett. So between the "elbow" and high post sets, the pick-and-pop, the KG post and the Cassell drive/post/pull-up J, the Wolves were able to get a good shot on pretty much every trip down the court. Cassell was also a much more savvy floor general than Hudson...essentially he was a point guard, which Hudson (and before that even Chauncey Billups) really hadn't been. This let Cassell be the primary decision-maker with Garnett shifting his ratio to more of a finishing role (while obviously still maintaining a large roll in generating offense for others). KG was even able to add some more "rolls" to the Pick-and-pop game that ended in alley-oops from Cassell.

2004 Postseason analysis

Spoiler:

In the playoffs Garnett was still ready to perform at max level, but Cassell had a sore hip early that bothered him more-and-more as time went by before eventually becoming debillitating against the Lakers in the WCF. This changed the entire dynamic of the Wolves' offense, because it eroded and eventually collapsed the Garnett/Casssell synergy. Cassell could still shoot when on the court, but he could no longer be as involved in running the show. The hip also seemingly bothered him some days more than others, leading to him having huge swings in production on a game-to-game basis (the opposite of his metronome self). Garnett found himself now with 2 complete offensive holes in the starting 5, but now an inconsistent (and eventually absent) 2nd option and a still streaky/more individual oriented 3rd option in Sprewell. Defenses were able to focus more and more on him, while he had to take on more and more other responsibilities (epitomized by him running actual point guard for long stretches at a time). The offense was good enough that they were able to thrash the Nuggets and get by the Kings, but with Cassell able to only play in (realistically) two of the six WCF games, they just didn't have enough to get by the Lakers.

Peak Garnett postseasons summary

Spoiler:

In 2003 the Wolves trotted out a line-up featuring Troy Hudson, Anthony Peeler, Wally Szczerbiak, KG, and Rasho and ran Garnett as a point-power-forward in a unique version of the big-man-with-4-shooters line-up...and finished with a top-5 offense. In 2004 the Wolves trotted out a line-up featuring Sam Cassell, Latrell Sprewell, Trenton Hassell, KG, and Big Erv Johnson and ran Garnett as a bit more of a finisher in an offense with three contributors and two dead weights...and finished with a top-5 offense. Two different line-ups, playing a different role, Garnett was able to pull relatively un-talented rosters to excellent offenses. In the playoffs, when good teams could focus on them, Garnett still maximized every drop of what those teams were capable of producing in the postseason.

In the regular season for those two seasons, Garnett averaged 23.6 points on 55% TS. In the playoffs for those two seasons, Garnett averaged 25 points on 52% TS. Also, as pointed out above:

2003 on/off +/-: +23.6 per 100 possessions (highest ever recorded since have first data, 1994 - 2015)
2004 on/off +/-: +20.7 per 100 possessions
03/04 PO /100: +22.6 per 100 possessions (small sample size of 24 games -->"off" unreliable, but matches reg season)

Now, critics lwill point out KG's scoring efficiency drop, and how that led to him having a 100 individual ORtg as estimated by basketball-reference's box score analysis, and claim this shows that he struggled on offense. That since Garnett's scoring efficiency DID go down, and that if the team's offensive efficiency went down, it's probably an indication that Garnett was struggling.

Others will point out that the playoffs on/off +/- is a small sample, and therefore too noisy to estimate elite impact.

But me? I say that deeper analysis showed clearly that Garnett was dominating in the postseason, and it is obvious that the +/- numbers are a) eerily reflective of his regular season impact (larger datasets) and b) very consistent with his career postseason +/- footprint (also a much larger sample).

In addition. SSB's skillset/impact post was true, and reflected clearly in scouting and existing video.

:shrugs: maybe you're not convinced. Maybe you'll never be. But Garnett really WAS having postseason impacts, consistently, that were as large as any we saw from anyone else in his generation. Garnett's on/off +/- scorers from 2002 - 2004 were on the order of what we saw from the scores of 2000 - 2004 Shaq, LeBron in stretches in his various stops, and 2001 - 03 Tim Duncan...AND NO ONE ELSE in the 2000s! It's not a fluke, it's not small sample noise, that had the consensus 3-best players of the generation...AND GARNETT...measuring out at this level of playoff impact. It's actually reflective of what happened.

You may not believe it. I can't make anyone believe anything they don't want to. But the information is clear in the videos, it's clear in the qualitative analysis, and it's clear in the quantitative analysis. Garnett was a playoffs monster.

Garnett postseasons 2008-2013 (late and post-prime): The Celtics years

Alright, I'm just flat running out of time. I'm going to have to just toss out some nuggets for thought at this point. Maybe, if time and motivation allow, I may come back and flesh this out later on. But, the thread ends this afternoon and I've got a bunch of stuff to do, so...some quicker thoughts and/or borrowing from previous posts.

2008 Postseason

Scoring

Spoiler:

KG was the Celtics' leading scorer in the 4th quarter of the 2008 playoffs (128 points on 53% FG vs. Pierce's 103 points on 36% FG).

KG was the Celtics' leading scorer in the 4th quarter of the 12 games in the playoffs decided by 7 points or less (i.e. close games): KG 66 points/49% FG, Pierce 54 points/31% FG.

KG was by-far the Celtics' leading 4th quarter scorer in the REALLY close games (i.e. 3 games decided by 4 points or less): KG 22 points/50% FG, Pierce 3 points/20% FG.

And in the "deep in the 4th quarter with the game on the line" period you keep mentioning:

In the last 5 minutes of playoff games that were within 5 points in 2008:

Pierce made 1 of 14 shots, drew 3 shooting fouls, and had 4 assists with 6 TOs.
Ray made 5 of 15 shots, drew 2 shooting fouls, and had 3 assists with 1 TO
KG made 9 of 21 shots, drew 3 shooting fouls, and had 0 assists with 1 TO.

There is absolutely no way to spin it that Pierce or Ray were the main closers for the Celtics in that championship run. KG took more crunch-time shots than either of them, and made more crunch-time shots than the two of them combined in the playoffs. This was clear to me as I watched those playoffs, and the numbers were only a sanity check for times like these when folks want to swear that Pierce and/or Ray was "the closer" on that title run. Neither was. They shared the shots somewhat evenly, but if anyone was the "closer" during that run it would have to have been KG.

And keep in mind all of the above numbers are primarily SCORING (and entirely offense), Pierce's/Ray's strengths and KG's supposed weakness. This doesn't even get into other aspects of the game like defense or rebounding, where KG dominates.

First 13 games of the 2008 Celtics' playoffs (for those wondering why Celtics went 7 games first two series)

Spoiler:

Celtics were 7 - 6 against Hawks and Cavs

Paul Pierce: 17.0 PPG, 40.7 FG% (-2.6 PPG, -5.9 FG% from reg season)
Ray Allen: 13.4 PPG, 39.4 FG% (-4.0 PPG, -5.1 FG% from reg season)
Kevin Garnett: 20.8 PPG, 52.1 FG% (+2.0 PPG, -1.8 FG%)

Purely in scoring, which was the one area where Pierce and Allen could have made an argument KG on that team, the story was clear for those first 13 games. Pierce and Allen were REALLY struggling during the first 13 games of the postseason. Thus, the Celtics as a team had more difficulty than expected during those games. But the biggest reason that they were able to stave off potential upsets, on both side of the ball, was that KG was carrying them.

In the second half of the playoffs, Pierce and Ray played more up to expectation. And when they did, with KG continuing to carry the heaviest load, the Celtics finally played to expectation and handled two dominant teams (the Pistons and Lakers) fairly handily.

KG 2008 Playoff +/- numbers in some perspective

Spoiler:

Historically, some point out Garnett's huge postseason +/- footprint in 2008 (way the biggest on that 2008 team), while some others have pushed back on it as being useless because the sample size isn't big enough. A few of you may remember, I've done quite a bit of work compiling and analyzing playoffs +/- numbers for all the great teams going back to 1997 and I feel there's a pretty solid signal in there that can be teased out of the noise. But just keeping it simple, I saw this earlier today and thought it was interesting:

KG playoff on/off +/- 2008: +19.8 in 26 games
KG playoff on/off +/- from 2002 - 2013: +20.1 in 111 games

His 2008 playoff +/- in a championship run wasn't unusual at all for him. It wasn't a SSS artifact. It was rock-solid consistent for more than 100 games over more than 10 years, across multiple teams.

2010 postseason: dominant defense even while noticeably still hobbling from knee injury

2010 Defensive shutouts

Spoiler:

In an old post I went through the play-by-plays and figured out exactly what Garnett’s defensive match-up scored when he was on the court, as opposed to when he was off.

First round
Beasley against Cs (Garnett on court): 9.3 points/36 min, 32% FG
Beasley against Cs (Garnett off court): 23.4 points/36 min, 62% FG
Beasley reg season: 17.9 pts/36 min, 45% FG

Second round
Jamison against Cs (Garnett on court): 11.2 pts/36, 38% FG
Jamison against Cs (Garnett off court): 26.0 pts/36, 56% FG
Jamison playoffs non-Cs: 19.4 pts/36, 51% FG

ECF
Lewis against Cs (Garnett on court): 5.1 pts/36, 24% FG
Lewis against Cs (Garnett off court): 17.3 pts/36, 48% FG
Lewis playoffs non-Cs: 16.4 pts/36, 54% FG

NBA Finals
(#s through first 5 games only, because breakdown harder after Perkins went down)
Gasol against Cs (Garnett on court): 11.5 pts/36, 52% FG
Gasol against Cs (Garnett off court): 20.0 pts/36, 51% FG
Gasol playoffs non-Cs: 18.6 pts/36, 57% FG”

KG team defense impact: team D pattern in series from 2008 FInals through 2010 ECF

Spoiler:

The Cs had some historic playoff series during KG's run there, and it's not hard to trace the lion share of the credit to #5. And the 2008 Finals against the Lakers was perhaps the defensive masterpiece of the entire run. Looking at six straight playoff defensive series for the Celtics beginning with the 2008 FInals (with KG), the first two rounds of the 2009 playoffs (w/o KG), and the first 3 rounds of the 2010 playoffs (with KG), a very clear pattern emerges:

2008 FInals (KG): Lakers held 9.1 points below their season ORTG
2009 1st rd (no KG): Bulls held 1.6 points below their season ORTG
2009 2nd rd (no KG): Magic held 1.5 points below their season ORTG
2010 1st round (recuperating KG): Heat held 8.8 points below their season ORTG
2010 2nd round (R KG): Cavs held 8.2 points below their season ORTG
2010 3rd round (R KG): Magic held 8.9 points below their season ORTG

The Celtics were throwing defensive shutouts with KG there to lead them. That 2008 Finals, in particular, was a remarkable defensive effort because the numbers actually understate it. Once Pau Gasol came to town, the Lakers' team ORTG actually jumped several points so their actual ORTG was even higher. But the KG-led defense absolutely locked them up in a way that was almost shocking. And when you look at the pattern of the team defense with and without him over the next couple of seasons (even though Thibs and the other 4 starters stayed consistent)...even if you're one that (for whatever reason) refuses to acknowledge the story the +/- data tells us, it's extremely clear that KG was the one driving the defensive bus for those shutouts.

Vote:
1) Garnett
2) Undecided between several. Let's go with Oscar
3) Undecided between several. Let's go with Kobe

[O_6]

Kevin Garnett: Concerns about Offensive style
I just wanted to expand a little bit on my view that Minnesota's offense in the KG years was very uniquely constructed and based almost completely around his one of a kind skill-set as a high post hub, however this flawed build and playstyle was only capable of functioning with KG out on the floor. Thus, his ORAPM and similar metrics overrate his true offensive ability because he anchored a functionally flawed offense that relied completely on him and had a limited ceiling.

Timberwolves' Shot Frequency: % of FGA at Shot Location
Season ----- At Rim ------- 3pt ------- At Rim + 3pt
1998 --------- 23rd --------- 24th --------- 25th (out of 29)
1999 --------- 27th --------- 29th --------- 29th
2000 --------- 28th --------- 28th --------- 29th
2001 --------- 26th --------- 27th --------- 28th
2002 --------- 28th --------- 22nd --------- 27th
2003 --------- 26th --------- 28th --------- 28th
2004 --------- 29th --------- 27th --------- 29th
2005 --------- 30th --------- 21st --------- 30th (out of 30)
2006 --------- 21st --------- 26th --------- 29th
2007 --------- 29th --------- 25th --------- 29th


This Timberwolves offense was consistently awful when it came to attacking the optimal scoring areas on the court. It wasn't just that they were very bad at attacking the rim, which I mentioned on the last thread, but they were also nearly as bad at utilizing the 3pt line. When you combine their shot frequencies At the Rim + Behind the Arc, they were the worst team in the entire league over this time period. In these 10 years, they ranked dead last 4 times and 2nd to last another 4 times! With a player of KG's caliber, a very good offensive coach in Saunders, and a team with relatively better offensive talent than defense... these are just ugly numbers. I know KG led these teams to top 5 caliber offenses from '02-'05, but those offenses had relatively low ceilings because of how flawed their general approach was.

I understand that KG had poor help in Minny. I know the Joe Smith situation was unprecedented which put Minny in a huge hole when it came to adding talent to the roster. I know KG got unlucky when it came to Marbury and Billups both leaving. I know KG is an extremely well rounded offensive player. I'm taking all this into account.

But I just don't buy KG's offensive impact as being as high as some others do, based on how functionally flawed these Wolves offenses were. A lot of that blame goes to the bad Timberwolves franchise, but KG's high post hub offensive style and unwillingness to attack the rim consistently was a big reason for the Timberwolves' shot frequencies at the high leverage areas being so poor.

From 2001-2007, there were 113 players who compiled 1000+ assists. KG was ranked 15th in terms of total assists over this span. Tim Duncan was ranked 44th, Shaq was ranked 78th, Dirk was ranked 58th, and Kobe was ranked 16th. However, a significantly higher portion of KG's assists were in the mid-range area than the other Legends from this list.

https://www.pbpstats.com/totals/nba/player?Season=2001-02,2000-01,2002-03,2003-04,2004-05,2005-06,2006-07&SeasonType=Regular%2BSeason

Ratio of Assists being At Rim or 3pters: '01-'07 (out of 113 players)
Shaq: 1st
Duncan: 2nd
Kobe: 7th
Dirk: 15th
Garnett: 99th

This is one of the main reasons I voted for Duncan and Shaq ahead of KG. Those two guys were able to dominate the game inside to get their teammates great looks at high value shot locations. They were literally the top 2 out of the 113 qualifying players at ratio of assists being at high value locations. Dirk and Kobe were also excellent by this metric. Garnett on the other hand is near the very bottom, not surprisingly because of how much the Timberwolves offense was based around mid-range shots. Shaq and Duncan attracted more doubles and defensive attention due to their more interior based games, which provided significantly greater spacing impact than KG hanging out in the high post did. I'm sure Hakeem Olajuwon would've ranked similarly high during his offensive peak seasons, as the Rockets were built around getting open outside looks due to his interior scoring. KG's versatility as a big was great, but his non-traditional style for a big wasn't ideal for spacing purposes.

KG's flaws as a scorer have been mentioned before. His scoring relied on a ton of assisted jumpers, which combined with his unwillingness to bang inside led to his consistently poor playoff performances from an efficiency standpoint. So his scoring was dependent on his teammates to create for him more than any other player in this mix, and his passing was based around setting his teammates up for lower value looks than any other player in this mix. He depended on role players to make tougher plays on offense than any of the other superstars on this list.

These flaws often reared their head at the end of close games, when the functionally flawed Minny offense and KG's inability to scale up as a creator really limited their offenses down the stretch. In terms of career +/- in the playoffs from '97-'20, Garnett ranked dead last among all players at -87 in 263 minutes. His per minute/possession +/- wasn't the worst, but his career total was by far the worst (Thad Young 2nd worst as -56). And before you say that's because of his poor teammates, KG's +/- in '04 and '08 when he was on contenders in his prime was -45 over over 68 minutes. One of the reasons the Celtics' dominant 2008 squad played so many playoff games that year was because of their terrible play in close games, and KG certainly did not play well in those minutes (17/7/0 per 36mins on .492 TS%). One of the striking aspects of his poor clutch play was his inability to create looks for his teammates.

In those 263 clutch minutes during the playoffs, Garnett had 5 assists. Not 5 assists per 36 minutes. 5 assists total, 2 with Boston and 3 with Minnesota. That comes out to an average of 0.68 assists per 36 minutes over a 263 minute span. For perspective, Tim Duncan had 46 assists in 424 playoff minutes (3.91 Ast/36). This is yet another sign that Garnett's passing is overrated and that his offensive style was easy to defend in tougher environments since he did not create very high level looks for his teammates compared to other great players. The fact that he completely disappeared as a creator in clutch situations is unreal. Speaks to his flaws as an overall offensive player that get overlooked by some.

I would share this playoff clutch spreadsheet I created however it's a little cluttered and I wanted to finish up adding the 2020 playoff numbers and make it look neater before I made a post on it sometime in the next few months. If you don't "trust" these numbers, that's fair and I get it. But if you go on NBA.com and look up KG's clutch numbers for these playoff seasons, you'll get the same awful results I did.


Kobe Bryant: Quick overview
Kobe, on the otherhand, was a player who showed up really well with these playoff clutch numbers. His +141 plus/minus in 366 minutes ranks as the 2nd best career playoff mark since '97 (LeBron is #1 at +181 over 452 minutes). Kobe was an extremely skilled offensive player who was able to carry a massive role for his squad and was legendary at being able to create his own looks and was underrated as creating high quality looks for his teammates. His robust and multi-faceted offensive game was extremely valuable.

I was never the biggest Kobe fan when he was playing, I thought he was a chucker and overrated. However, his offensive impact metrics make it clear that he was nothing short of a MONSTER offensive player. He also was not as ball-dominant or scheme-specific as other great perimeter players with high impact metrics, which is very important to me as it indicates a style that could be impactful in a variety of contexts. Kobe's scoring efficiency was only good not great and ultimately his not so impressive 3pt/long 2pt shooting numbers keep him from making being too much higher than #11 in my opinion. He simply took too many dumb shots when he was being contested outside. But those types of shots forced the defenses to play him a certain way an open up a ton of great looks for his teammates, which is why the ORAPM numbers are higher on him than the basic advanced metrics. Since 1997, it seems like only LeBron has amassed a more impressive ORAPM profile than Kobe. Several others have peaked higher but only Dirk seems to be close to Kobe on a career level since '97 (Shaq would be right there if his entire career was included).

The big thing with Kobe is how much you value his defense. When I read Reddit and other sites with younger fans, they seem mesmerized with Kobe's defensive accolades. However as someone who grew up watching him play and remembered conversations about his defense on sites like these at the time, I never considered Kobe some all-time defender and thought he was overrated on that end. But it is definitely noteworthy how truly significant the hype and the advanced metrics were when it came to Kobe's defense.

The advanced metrics grade Kobe as a below-average defender while the accolades and hype grade Kobe as one of the best wing defenders ever. As a New York Yankees fan, it reminds me a lot of Derek Jeter in baseball (another hugely popular winner from a big market). Jeter was considered a good fielder and given the Gold Glove award (best fielder for his position) several times, however the advanced fielding analytics movement in baseball literally entered the mainstream consciousness because they wrote articles and books based around Jeter being an awful and overrated fielder. However, the analytics movement is much bigger in baseball as it's easier to identity individual performance in baseball than basketball due to the nature of "teamwork" in both sports. People eventually accepted that Jeter was an overrated fielder (although maybe not as bad as the metrics suggest, due to their flaws). I feel like people would have accepted Kobe as overrated on defense as well, if there was a bigger analytic influence in basketball.

I view as Kobe as somewhere in the middle of the hype and the analytics, I think he was an above-average defender for the majority of his career although there were down seasons when he focused more on offense. I also value the Coaches and GM's who consistently voted Kobe as one of the top defenders in the league. There is definitely something to the fact that these GMs would routinely put him as the 2nd best wing defender to Bruce Bowen or Artest or outright #1 in their surveys. Kobe might have been overrated on D, but he wasn't a player whose defense you could consistently expose in a playoff setting. In fact, he would've done well in today's switchy defensive style imo.

All that being said, I'm taking Kobe at #11. Although Oscar/West/Kobe is a tight contest, and KG is still hard for me to figure out.

1. Kobe Bryant
2. Kevin Garnett
3. Oscar Robertson (West peaked higher than Oscar or Kobe imo, but the overall career value was weaker imo)

[trex_8063]

Thru post #135:

Kevin Garnett - 13 (90sAllDecade, Doctor MJ, drza, eminence, freethedevil, Jaivl, Jordan Syndrome, limbo, mailmp, sansterre, trex_8063, TrueLAfan, Whopper_Sr)
Kobe Bryant - 6 (2klegend, Dutchball97, Hal14, Hornet Mania, Joao Saraiva, Odinn21)
Jerry West - 3 (lebron3-14-3, Magic Is Magic, Matzer)
Oscar Robertson - 1 (DQuinn1575)
George Mikan - 1 (penbeast0)


24 votes cast, requiring 13 for a majority, which KG has. I'm about 30 minutes early on this, but it's when I have time, and Garnett's got it well in hand anyway. We'll use the extra 30 minutes for the next thread.

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[quote=”sansterre”].[/quote]

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[Odinn21]

Kevin Garnett: Concerns about Offensive style
I just wanted to expand a little bit on my view that Minnesota's offense in the KG years was very uniquely constructed and based almost completely around his one of a kind skill-set as a high post hub, however this flawed build and playstyle was only capable of functioning with KG out on the floor. Thus, his ORAPM and similar metrics overrate his true offensive ability because he anchored a functionally flawed offense that relied completely on him and had a limited ceiling.

Timberwolves' Shot Frequency: % of FGA at Shot Location
Season ----- At Rim ------- 3pt ------- At Rim + 3pt
1998 --------- 23rd --------- 24th --------- 25th (out of 29)
1999 --------- 27th --------- 29th --------- 29th
2000 --------- 28th --------- 28th --------- 29th
2001 --------- 26th --------- 27th --------- 28th
2002 --------- 28th --------- 22nd --------- 27th
2003 --------- 26th --------- 28th --------- 28th
2004 --------- 29th --------- 27th --------- 29th
2005 --------- 30th --------- 21st --------- 30th (out of 30)
2006 --------- 21st --------- 26th --------- 29th
2007 --------- 29th --------- 25th --------- 29th


This Timberwolves offense was consistently awful when it came to attacking the optimal scoring areas on the court. It wasn't just that they were very bad at attacking the rim, which I mentioned on the last thread, but they were also nearly as bad at utilizing the 3pt line. When you combine their shot frequencies At the Rim + Behind the Arc, they were the worst team in the entire league over this time period. In these 10 years, they ranked dead last 4 times and 2nd to last another 4 times! With a player of KG's caliber, a very good offensive coach in Saunders, and a team with relatively better offensive talent than defense... these are just ugly numbers. I know KG led these teams to top 5 caliber offenses from '02-'05, but those offenses had relatively low ceilings because of how flawed their general approach was.

I understand that KG had poor help in Minny. I know the Joe Smith situation was unprecedented which put Minny in a huge hole when it came to adding talent to the roster. I know KG got unlucky when it came to Marbury and Billups both leaving. I know KG is an extremely well rounded offensive player. I'm taking all this into account.

But I just don't buy KG's offensive impact as being as high as some others do, based on how functionally flawed these Wolves offenses were. A lot of that blame goes to the bad Timberwolves franchise, but KG's high post hub offensive style and unwillingness to attack the rim consistently was a big reason for the Timberwolves' shot frequencies at the high leverage areas being so poor.

From 2001-2007, there were 113 players who compiled 1000+ assists. KG was ranked 15th in terms of total assists over this span. Tim Duncan was ranked 44th, Shaq was ranked 78th, Dirk was ranked 58th, and Kobe was ranked 16th. However, a significantly higher portion of KG's assists were in the mid-range area than the other Legends from this list.

https://www.pbpstats.com/totals/nba/player?Season=2001-02,2000-01,2002-03,2003-04,2004-05,2005-06,2006-07&SeasonType=Regular%2BSeason

Ratio of Assists being At Rim or 3pters: '01-'07 (out of 113 players)
Shaq: 1st
Duncan: 2nd
Kobe: 7th
Dirk: 15th
Garnett: 99th

This is one of the main reasons I voted for Duncan and Shaq ahead of KG. Those two guys were able to dominate the game inside to get their teammates great looks at high value shot locations. They were literally the top 2 out of the 113 qualifying players at ratio of assists being at high value locations. Dirk and Kobe were also excellent by this metric. Garnett on the other hand is near the very bottom, not surprisingly because of how much the Timberwolves offense was based around mid-range shots. Shaq and Duncan attracted more doubles and defensive attention due to their more interior based games, which provided significantly greater spacing impact than KG hanging out in the high post did. I'm sure Hakeem Olajuwon would've ranked similarly high during his offensive peak seasons, as the Rockets were built around getting open outside looks due to his interior scoring. KG's versatility as a big was great, but his non-traditional style for a big wasn't ideal for spacing purposes.

KG's flaws as a scorer have been mentioned before. His scoring relied on a ton of assisted jumpers, which combined with his unwillingness to bang inside led to his consistently poor playoff performances from an efficiency standpoint. So his scoring was dependent on his teammates to create for him more than any other player in this mix, and his passing was based around setting his teammates up for lower value looks than any other player in this mix. He depended on role players to make tougher plays on offense than any of the other superstars on this list.

These flaws often reared their head at the end of close games, when the functionally flawed Minny offense and KG's inability to scale up as a creator really limited their offenses down the stretch. In terms of career +/- in the playoffs from '97-'20, Garnett ranked dead last among all players at -87 in 263 minutes. His per minute/possession +/- wasn't the worst, but his career total was by far the worst (Thad Young 2nd worst as -56). And before you say that's because of his poor teammates, KG's +/- in '04 and '08 when he was on contenders in his prime was -45 over over 68 minutes. One of the reasons the Celtics' dominant 2008 squad played so many playoff games that year was because of their terrible play in close games, and KG certainly did not play well in those minutes (17/7/0 per 36mins on .492 TS%). One of the striking aspects of his poor clutch play was his inability to create looks for his teammates.

In those 263 clutch minutes during the playoffs, Garnett had 5 assists. Not 5 assists per 36 minutes. 5 assists total, 2 with Boston and 3 with Minnesota. That comes out to an average of 0.68 assists per 36 minutes over a 263 minute span. For perspective, Tim Duncan had 46 assists in 424 playoff minutes (3.91 Ast/36). This is yet another sign that Garnett's passing is overrated and that his offensive style was easy to defend in tougher environments since he did not create very high level looks for his teammates compared to other great players. The fact that he completely disappeared as a creator in clutch situations is unreal. Speaks to his flaws as an overall offensive player that get overlooked by some.

I would share this playoff clutch spreadsheet I created however it's a little cluttered and I wanted to finish up adding the 2020 playoff numbers and make it look neater before I made a post on it sometime in the next few months. If you don't "trust" these numbers, that's fair and I get it. But if you go on NBA.com and look up KG's clutch numbers for these playoff seasons, you'll get the same awful results I did.


Kobe Bryant: Quick overview
Kobe, on the otherhand, was a player who showed up really well with these playoff clutch numbers. His +141 plus/minus in 366 minutes ranks as the 2nd best career playoff mark since '97 (LeBron is #1 at +181 over 452 minutes). Kobe was an extremely skilled offensive player who was able to carry a massive role for his squad and was legendary at being able to create his own looks and was underrated as creating high quality looks for his teammates. His robust and multi-faceted offensive game was extremely valuable.

I was never the biggest Kobe fan when he was playing, I thought he was a chucker and overrated. However, his offensive impact metrics make it clear that he was nothing short of a MONSTER offensive player. He also was not as ball-dominant or scheme-specific as other great perimeter players with high impact metrics, which is very important to me as it indicates a style that could be impactful in a variety of contexts. Kobe's scoring efficiency was only good not great and ultimately his not so impressive 3pt/long 2pt shooting numbers keep him from making being too much higher than #11 in my opinion. He simply took too many dumb shots when he was being contested outside. But those types of shots forced the defenses to play him a certain way an open up a ton of great looks for his teammates, which is why the ORAPM numbers are higher on him than the basic advanced metrics. Since 1997, it seems like only LeBron has amassed a more impressive ORAPM profile than Kobe. Several others have peaked higher but only Dirk seems to be close to Kobe on a career level since '97 (Shaq would be right there if his entire career was included).

The big thing with Kobe is how much you value his defense. When I read Reddit and other sites with younger fans, they seem mesmerized with Kobe's defensive accolades. However as someone who grew up watching him play and remembered conversations about his defense on sites like these at the time, I never considered Kobe some all-time defender and thought he was overrated on that end. But it is definitely noteworthy how truly significant the hype and the advanced metrics were when it came to Kobe's defense.

The advanced metrics grade Kobe as a below-average defender while the accolades and hype grade Kobe as one of the best wing defenders ever. As a New York Yankees fan, it reminds me a lot of Derek Jeter in baseball (another hugely popular winner from a big market). Jeter was considered a good fielder and given the Gold Glove award (best fielder for his position) several times, however the advanced fielding analytics movement in baseball literally entered the mainstream consciousness because they wrote articles and books based around Jeter being an awful and overrated fielder. However, the analytics movement is much bigger in baseball as it's easier to identity individual performance in baseball than basketball due to the nature of "teamwork" in both sports. People eventually accepted that Jeter was an overrated fielder (although maybe not as bad as the metrics suggest, due to their flaws). I feel like people would have accepted Kobe as overrated on defense as well, if there was a bigger analytic influence in basketball.

I view as Kobe as somewhere in the middle of the hype and the analytics, I think he was an above-average defender for the majority of his career although there were down seasons when he focused more on offense. I also value the Coaches and GM's who consistently voted Kobe as one of the top defenders in the league. There is definitely something to the fact that these GMs would routinely put him as the 2nd best wing defender to Bruce Bowen or Artest or outright #1 in their surveys. Kobe might have been overrated on D, but he wasn't a player whose defense you could consistently expose in a playoff setting. In fact, he would've done well in today's switchy defensive style imo.

All that being said, I'm taking Kobe at #11. Although Oscar/West/Kobe is a tight contest, and KG is still hard for me to figure out.

1. Kobe Bryant
2. Kevin Garnett
3. Oscar Robertson (West peaked higher than Oscar or Kobe imo, but the overall career value was weaker imo)

Exceptional data about Garnett's situation on offense.

Even though I did not have Garnett on my ballot, I'm glad he's in. With Olajuwon and Bird off the board at #9 and #10, I can't name a single player from the remainings pool "definitely" deserves to be ahead of Garnett. Also Garnett being in there also will add spice because I feel like he was the polarizing player with proper traction. Now, the discussion at hand will be different.

[Jaivl]

Kevin Garnett: Concerns about Offensive style
I just wanted to expand a little bit on my view that Minnesota's offense in the KG years was very uniquely constructed and based almost completely around his one of a kind skill-set as a high post hub, however this flawed build and playstyle was only capable of functioning with KG out on the floor. Thus, his ORAPM and similar metrics overrate his true offensive ability because he anchored a functionally flawed offense that relied completely on him and had a limited ceiling.

Timberwolves' Shot Frequency: % of FGA at Shot Location
Season ----- At Rim ------- 3pt ------- At Rim + 3pt
1998 --------- 23rd --------- 24th --------- 25th (out of 29)
1999 --------- 27th --------- 29th --------- 29th
2000 --------- 28th --------- 28th --------- 29th
2001 --------- 26th --------- 27th --------- 28th
2002 --------- 28th --------- 22nd --------- 27th
2003 --------- 26th --------- 28th --------- 28th
2004 --------- 29th --------- 27th --------- 29th
2005 --------- 30th --------- 21st --------- 30th (out of 30)
2006 --------- 21st --------- 26th --------- 29th
2007 --------- 29th --------- 25th --------- 29th


This Timberwolves offense was consistently awful when it came to attacking the optimal scoring areas on the court. It wasn't just that they were very bad at attacking the rim, which I mentioned on the last thread, but they were also nearly as bad at utilizing the 3pt line. When you combine their shot frequencies At the Rim + Behind the Arc, they were the worst team in the entire league over this time period. In these 10 years, they ranked dead last 4 times and 2nd to last another 4 times! With a player of KG's caliber, a very good offensive coach in Saunders, and a team with relatively better offensive talent than defense... these are just ugly numbers. I know KG led these teams to top 5 caliber offenses from '02-'05, but those offenses had relatively low ceilings because of how flawed their general approach was.

I understand that KG had poor help in Minny. I know the Joe Smith situation was unprecedented which put Minny in a huge hole when it came to adding talent to the roster. I know KG got unlucky when it came to Marbury and Billups both leaving. I know KG is an extremely well rounded offensive player. I'm taking all this into account.

But I just don't buy KG's offensive impact as being as high as some others do, based on how functionally flawed these Wolves offenses were. A lot of that blame goes to the bad Timberwolves franchise, but KG's high post hub offensive style and unwillingness to attack the rim consistently was a big reason for the Timberwolves' shot frequencies at the high leverage areas being so poor.

From 2001-2007, there were 113 players who compiled 1000+ assists. KG was ranked 15th in terms of total assists over this span. Tim Duncan was ranked 44th, Shaq was ranked 78th, Dirk was ranked 58th, and Kobe was ranked 16th. However, a significantly higher portion of KG's assists were in the mid-range area than the other Legends from this list.

https://www.pbpstats.com/totals/nba/player?Season=2001-02,2000-01,2002-03,2003-04,2004-05,2005-06,2006-07&SeasonType=Regular%2BSeason

Ratio of Assists being At Rim or 3pters: '01-'07 (out of 113 players)
Shaq: 1st
Duncan: 2nd
Kobe: 7th
Dirk: 15th
Garnett: 99th

This is one of the main reasons I voted for Duncan and Shaq ahead of KG. Those two guys were able to dominate the game inside to get their teammates great looks at high value shot locations. They were literally the top 2 out of the 113 qualifying players at ratio of assists being at high value locations. Dirk and Kobe were also excellent by this metric. Garnett on the other hand is near the very bottom, not surprisingly because of how much the Timberwolves offense was based around mid-range shots. Shaq and Duncan attracted more doubles and defensive attention due to their more interior based games, which provided significantly greater spacing impact than KG hanging out in the high post did. I'm sure Hakeem Olajuwon would've ranked similarly high during his offensive peak seasons, as the Rockets were built around getting open outside looks due to his interior scoring. KG's versatility as a big was great, but his non-traditional style for a big wasn't ideal for spacing purposes.

KG's flaws as a scorer have been mentioned before. His scoring relied on a ton of assisted jumpers, which combined with his unwillingness to bang inside led to his consistently poor playoff performances from an efficiency standpoint. So his scoring was dependent on his teammates to create for him more than any other player in this mix, and his passing was based around setting his teammates up for lower value looks than any other player in this mix. He depended on role players to make tougher plays on offense than any of the other superstars on this list.

These flaws often reared their head at the end of close games, when the functionally flawed Minny offense and KG's inability to scale up as a creator really limited their offenses down the stretch. In terms of career +/- in the playoffs from '97-'20, Garnett ranked dead last among all players at -87 in 263 minutes. His per minute/possession +/- wasn't the worst, but his career total was by far the worst (Thad Young 2nd worst as -56). And before you say that's because of his poor teammates, KG's +/- in '04 and '08 when he was on contenders in his prime was -45 over over 68 minutes. One of the reasons the Celtics' dominant 2008 squad played so many playoff games that year was because of their terrible play in close games, and KG certainly did not play well in those minutes (17/7/0 per 36mins on .492 TS%). One of the striking aspects of his poor clutch play was his inability to create looks for his teammates.

In those 263 clutch minutes during the playoffs, Garnett had 5 assists. Not 5 assists per 36 minutes. 5 assists total, 2 with Boston and 3 with Minnesota. That comes out to an average of 0.68 assists per 36 minutes over a 263 minute span. For perspective, Tim Duncan had 46 assists in 424 playoff minutes (3.91 Ast/36). This is yet another sign that Garnett's passing is overrated and that his offensive style was easy to defend in tougher environments since he did not create very high level looks for his teammates compared to other great players. The fact that he completely disappeared as a creator in clutch situations is unreal. Speaks to his flaws as an overall offensive player that get overlooked by some.

I would share this playoff clutch spreadsheet I created however it's a little cluttered and I wanted to finish up adding the 2020 playoff numbers and make it look neater before I made a post on it sometime in the next few months. If you don't "trust" these numbers, that's fair and I get it. But if you go on NBA.com and look up KG's clutch numbers for these playoff seasons, you'll get the same awful results I did.


Kobe Bryant: Quick overview
Kobe, on the otherhand, was a player who showed up really well with these playoff clutch numbers. His +141 plus/minus in 366 minutes ranks as the 2nd best career playoff mark since '97 (LeBron is #1 at +181 over 452 minutes). Kobe was an extremely skilled offensive player who was able to carry a massive role for his squad and was legendary at being able to create his own looks and was underrated as creating high quality looks for his teammates. His robust and multi-faceted offensive game was extremely valuable.

I was never the biggest Kobe fan when he was playing, I thought he was a chucker and overrated. However, his offensive impact metrics make it clear that he was nothing short of a MONSTER offensive player. He also was not as ball-dominant or scheme-specific as other great perimeter players with high impact metrics, which is very important to me as it indicates a style that could be impactful in a variety of contexts. Kobe's scoring efficiency was only good not great and ultimately his not so impressive 3pt/long 2pt shooting numbers keep him from making being too much higher than #11 in my opinion. He simply took too many dumb shots when he was being contested outside. But those types of shots forced the defenses to play him a certain way an open up a ton of great looks for his teammates, which is why the ORAPM numbers are higher on him than the basic advanced metrics. Since 1997, it seems like only LeBron has amassed a more impressive ORAPM profile than Kobe. Several others have peaked higher but only Dirk seems to be close to Kobe on a career level since '97 (Shaq would be right there if his entire career was included).

The big thing with Kobe is how much you value his defense. When I read Reddit and other sites with younger fans, they seem mesmerized with Kobe's defensive accolades. However as someone who grew up watching him play and remembered conversations about his defense on sites like these at the time, I never considered Kobe some all-time defender and thought he was overrated on that end. But it is definitely noteworthy how truly significant the hype and the advanced metrics were when it came to Kobe's defense.

The advanced metrics grade Kobe as a below-average defender while the accolades and hype grade Kobe as one of the best wing defenders ever. As a New York Yankees fan, it reminds me a lot of Derek Jeter in baseball (another hugely popular winner from a big market). Jeter was considered a good fielder and given the Gold Glove award (best fielder for his position) several times, however the advanced fielding analytics movement in baseball literally entered the mainstream consciousness because they wrote articles and books based around Jeter being an awful and overrated fielder. However, the analytics movement is much bigger in baseball as it's easier to identity individual performance in baseball than basketball due to the nature of "teamwork" in both sports. People eventually accepted that Jeter was an overrated fielder (although maybe not as bad as the metrics suggest, due to their flaws). I feel like people would have accepted Kobe as overrated on defense as well, if there was a bigger analytic influence in basketball.

I view as Kobe as somewhere in the middle of the hype and the analytics, I think he was an above-average defender for the majority of his career although there were down seasons when he focused more on offense. I also value the Coaches and GM's who consistently voted Kobe as one of the top defenders in the league. There is definitely something to the fact that these GMs would routinely put him as the 2nd best wing defender to Bruce Bowen or Artest or outright #1 in their surveys. Kobe might have been overrated on D, but he wasn't a player whose defense you could consistently expose in a playoff setting. In fact, he would've done well in today's switchy defensive style imo.

All that being said, I'm taking Kobe at #11. Although Oscar/West/Kobe is a tight contest, and KG is still hard for me to figure out.

1. Kobe Bryant
2. Kevin Garnett
3. Oscar Robertson (West peaked higher than Oscar or Kobe imo, but the overall career value was weaker imo)

That's very good stuff.

[Whopper_Sr]

FT% relative to league average is something to consider, yes. What changed in the 70s that brought the league FT% up by 2%? I do not know.

Approaches about trainings was going through a massive change. Probably that's why. One of the reasons why Bob Pettit was big is that coaches did not want their players to lift weights to get stronger because they thought that'd mess up their shooting touches and Pettit was (arguably) the first superstar went behind that wall. There were assumptions about training 2 or 3 hours for the same move would cause major fatigue and hurt the development curve, etc.
The training methods were changing and I think that difference in free throw shooting is a result of "excessive" training for the '50s became the standard and caused a jump.

You're saying Kidd and Frazier had near DPOY-level impact without providing rim protection? How did they fare/would fare against star wings?

Frazier always caused big troubles to the player he defended.

A quick look at the star players played against the Knicks in the playoffs during Frazier's prime;
E. Monroe against Frazier in '69 playoffs - 28.3 ppg on .386 fg (25.8 ppg on .440 fg r. season average for Monroe and his team was .427 against the Knicks)
E. Monroe in '70; 28.0 ppg on .481 fg (23.4 ppg on .446 fg r. season and .418 fg team)
E. Monroe in '71; 24.4 ppg on .407 fg (21.4 ppg on .442 fg r. season and .448 fg team)
S. Jones in '69; 14.5 ppg on .350 fg (16.3 ppg on .450 fg r. season and .469 fg team)
P. Maravich in '71; 22.0 ppg on .377 fg (23.2 ppg on .458 fg r. season and .427 fg team)
J. West in '70; 31.3 ppg on .450 fg (31.2 ppg on .497 fg r. season and .494 fg team)
J. West in '72; 19.8 ppg on .325 fg (25.8 ppg on .477 fg r. season and .421 fg team)
J. West in '73; 21.4 ppg on .442 fg (22.8 ppg on .479 fg r. season and .431 fg team)
J. White in '72; 22.6 ppg on .402 fg (23.1 ppg on .431 fg r. season and .416 fg team)
J. White in '73; 23.6 ppg on .414 fg (19.7 ppg on .431 fg r. season and .443 fg team)
J. White in '74; 15.2 ppg on .385 fg (18.1 ppg on .449 fg r. season and .467 fg team)
C. Murphy in '75; 20.7 ppg on .418 fg (18.7 ppg on .484 fg r. season and .481 fg team)

The only time a player improved their scoring volume and fg% from the floor was Monroe in 1970. There are 12 performances on there and literally half of them regressed in both volume and % against Frazier. Other than those 6, I'd put also '69 against Monroe, '70 against West and '75 against Murphy as definite wins for Frazier's case. That's 9 out of 12.
That's a pretty impressive track record if you ask me. Especially considering defense was more about 1v1 performances back then meaning those performances drops were more directly related to Frazier than team's defensive schemes.

As for Kidd's case, did we not see how he after his prime put insane pressure on LeBron James in 2011 Finals? Though Kidd was able to afford focusing on defense that much.

Thank you for the historical context. It certainly helps to know these things to more accurately evaluate players, especially from older eras.

On Frazier's defense: The numbers you cited are impressive for sure. However, it's still man defense. You can be the greatest man defender in the world and still not come close to the impact big men provide. That's my concern. Would Frazier be able to maintain his defensive impact in today's league for example? It's a vastly different landscape.

On Kidd: I tend to credit the Mavs' team defense. LeBron's lack of a post game was exposed that series and the Mavs definitely needed all hands on deck to limit him that much. Kidd may have had similar defensive impact to guys like Iggy, Artest, and Smart but not quite on the level of Pippen, peak D Kawhi, Kirilenko, etc. And even those guys can't sniff the big men.

I can concede that Kidd and Frazier are in fact better defenders than Paul. But Paul is still right there with them.