Better peak: Kevin Garnett vs Nikola Jokic

[lessthanjake]

After losing almost all their games to end the season, the Bulls redistributed "point" responsibilities. That is why I linked a Cleveland playoff game alongside a Hornets one during the crest of "archangel". Pippen does not need to be a "major playmaker" to enable Jordan to not be a helio PG.

There’s no basis whatsoever for this claim that the Bulls “redistributed point responsibilities” or your claim that “Jordan went back to the 2” for the playoffs. You just want it to be true, because the Bulls did pretty well in those playoffs and you want to claim the Bulls were worse with Jordan at PG.

Your only basis is to point to the fact that a 17-game sample in the playoffs has lower assists than a prior 24-game sample, which is just obviously basing an argument on statistical randomness. And it’s especially odd when even the 17-game sample had abnormally high assist numbers for Jordan anyways. It’s then even more odd that you come to a baseless conclusion that they put Jordan back at the 2 for the playoffs because they lost almost all their games to end the season, when actually Jordan averaged lower assists in that bad timeframe (8.8 a game) than he had in the more successful games before that at PG (12.1 a game). So your logic is simultaneously that lower assist totals in small samples shows that Jordan’s playmaking duties were lower, while also saying that they decided to lower his playmaking duties because they didn’t do well in a set of games where he…had lowered assist totals (and therefore, by your logic, that bad stretch would’ve been a set of games his playmaking duties were lowered, which then logically would give no reason for the Bulls to do what you’re claiming they did). It’s all just obviously complete nonsense. You’re just looking at a set of numbers and squinting at it for a while until you can come up with a way to weave a completely misleading and materially false narrative that is convenient for your agenda (not to mention that even the regular season data by itself plainly disproves your original “regression” claim).

This really isn’t that difficult to be honest. We know full well Jordan was still at PG in the playoffs. You could even just take a quick glance at the lineups and see that he was very obviously still at PG. You see, the Bulls had two PGs on their team: Sam Vincent and John Paxson. They also had Craig Hodges, who was a backup SG. Before Jordan moved to PG, the Bulls consistently started Sam Vincent (and if Vincent was out, they started Paxson). When Jordan moved to PG, they quickly moved Sam Vincent out of the starting lineup in favor of Craig Hodges (in the only RS starts Hodges ever got during his time on the Bulls). Hodges ended up being out for a bunch of games towards the end of the season (meaning Vincent/Paxson had to be put back in the starting lineup during that time), but Hodges was back for the playoffs. And, lo and behold, Craig Hodges started every single game for the Bulls in those playoffs. And not as a nominal starter—Hodges had substantially more minutes in the playoffs than Vincent and Paxson combined (who both had reduced minutes compared to the RS). In other words, in those playoffs, the Bulls started and gave large minutes to a SG that they never otherwise started during other time periods, while simultaneously substantially reducing the minutes of their PGs. Your claim that Jordan “went back to the 2” in the playoffs is just blatantly false. Just because you want something to be true doesn’t mean it is. You are wrong, I think you should know you’re wrong unless you’re really drinking your own kool-aid, and I fully expect to never again see this claim about the Bulls “regressing” with Jordan at PG.

Apologies to others for this sidetracking of the thread—it’s just a claim that gets thrown around over and over across tons of threads and needed to be corrected at some point.

[70sFan]

Another thread destroyed by Jordan fans/haters... Seriously, don't we have enough Jordan threads?

[Peregrine01]

I think it's interesting that KG's bad Wolves teammates are used as a crutch for him (which I agree with) but by the same token, his on/off and impact stats, which would benefit from him playing on a dysfunctional team, is also used to propel him.

Where is the contradiction, exactly? His impact stats don't benefit from dysfunctional teams, in fact they are at or near their worst in the "dysfunctional" 05-07 period. And it's not like he didn't replicate them in perfectly functional teams later in his career.

We that have been discussing this **** for decades now have to be constantly, tirelessly, reeeeally carefully explaining how BAD some of his teams were, and contextualizing absolutely everything regarding his environment in Minnesota, cause some of you guys just don't know how to assess quality outside the all-star realm and RINGZ, lol. It's you guys who just can't mount a coherent, cogent argument without drawing from old, outdated clichés.

I don’t hold the ringz argument against KG. And I know that stats like RAPM try to isolate individual impact while taking into account teammate quality. I’m just more skeptical about using these stats as the be all and end all.

Watching him in his prime, I just don’t view him as a top 10 player like many here do and I don’t think his defensive impact is as great as many think it is. No need to resort to insults and finger pointing. Let’s just agree to disagree.

[lessthanjake]

Another thread destroyed by Jordan fans/haters... Seriously, don't we have enough Jordan threads?

Meh, I’ve actually contributed a lot of fully on-topic posts in this thread. The problem is that materially false stuff gets thrown around over and over again in threads where it’d sidetrack the thread to point it out, but at a certain point it seems necessary to correct the record so that incorrect info doesn’t keep getting propagated over and over. I’ve made my point, though, and have little interest in continuing to discuss it, since my point is just obviously correct but I’m fairly sure that that won’t be admitted.

I’ve also made a whole lot of points on the Garnett vs. Jokic discussion, where I think I’ve made clear my fairly controversial view that I don’t think Garnett’s offense is substantially better than Jokic’s defense. And my view of that is basically as follows (apologies to at least DoctorMJ who I know made a lengthy response to me on this stuff a while back without me getting back to him—I do know that some of this has been responded to already):

I don’t think you’ll win a title with Garnett as your offensive focal point, because he is too limited in breaking down the defense and generating easy buckets for himself. I also don’t think you’ll win a title with Jokic as your defensive focal point, since he’d get exploited. Perhaps you’re more likely to do it with Garnett as an offensive focal point than Jokic as a defensive focal point, but I don’t really think you’d win a title either way so I’m not sure that that makes a big difference to me. So then the better and more relevant question for both players IMO is what value they provide in that phase of play when they’re not the focal point. We saw that for Garnett on the Celtics—where he was not the offensive focal point. And we saw it for Jokic very recently, where he had some really good defensive players around him. And I’m just not sure Garnett as a secondary offensive option on a team with other good offensive players is better and more impactful offensively than Jokic is defensively as a cog in a good defense. We know that Garnett averaged negative ORPM with the Celtics. That wasn’t prime Garnett of course, so I think it’d be harsh to conclude that that’s what prime Garnett would be like as a secondary offensive option, but I do think it’s indicative of him not being a hugely valuable offensive player as a secondary option (which makes sense, since his best offensive attribute is passing, which is mitigated a good deal if he’s not the focal point). Meanwhile, if surrounded with some good defensive players, we’ve seen that Jokic can avoid being exploited defensively while simultaneously getting substantial value from being probably the league’s best defensive rebounder (which is a *huge* deal that people way underestimate), as well as having great hands and smart positioning. Overall, if I had to choose, I’d take prime Garnett’s offense over Jokic’s defense, but I don’t think it’s clear cut. The reason I’d take Garnett’s offense is mostly just that I think it’s maybe at least a little more plausible to win a title with him as the offensive focal point than with Jokic as defensive focal point, but I still don’t think that that’s all that plausible.

And then to connect that back, I think at the high end of impact, highly impactful offense is more impactful than highly impactful defense—largely because an offense can choose to always include a great offensive player in every action, while on defense the opposing team can try to avoid their opponent’s best defensive player, so there’s just a difference in how often the best player is part of an action. Which means that I think Jokic’s offense is more impactful than Garnett’s defense. And given the above, I don’t think there’s enough of a gap between Garnett’s offense and Jokic’s defense to make up for that.

[OhayoKD]

I think it's interesting that KG's bad Wolves teammates are used as a crutch for him (which I agree with) but by the same token, his on/off and impact stats, which would benefit from him playing on a dysfunctional team, is also used to propel him.

Where is the contradiction, exactly? His impact stats don't benefit from dysfunctional teams, in fact they are at or near their worst in the "dysfunctional" 05-07 period. And it's not like he didn't replicate them in perfectly functional teams later in his career.

We that have been discussing this **** for decades now have to be constantly, tirelessly, reeeeally carefully explaining how BAD some of his teams were, and contextualizing absolutely everything regarding his environment in Minnesota, cause some of you guys just don't know how to assess quality outside the all-star realm and RINGZ, lol. It's you guys who just can't mount a coherent, cogent argument without drawing from old, outdated clichés.

Case in point:

Not really. I stand by my take of being more impressed with Jokic. His work scoring the ball was wonderful against GSW, and something that translates in a vacuum. I think GSW, were a unique poor matchup for Jokic, and Denver still not having the best defensive infrastructure made him look as badly as possible.

I think the 03 and 04 losses, just made me feel that on offense, KG was a swiss-army, Jack of all trades, master of none (except passing); that passing he can't consistently leverage on offense, due to his not great first step and ability to drive to the rim. I leave those series more questioning, KG's true optimized role on offense, and how valuable that even is in this case.

It's cool that KG can play the PG for you in a pinch, but with more ideal team construction, he is handling the ball less. What is he doing to make up the offensive impact? In the end, him playing PG has almost so much value.

Gee, I wonder...



How could one of the best defenders ever make up the offensive gap?

-> KG has great defensive value but jokic has more offensive value
-> jokic looks better on offense
-> jokic looked better on offense while his team did way worse than KG's did
-> KG can't match Jokic offensively

does not get you to

-> jokic can translate better across contexts

speaking of

Jordan forgot teamwork in Washington? When he was 38 and retired for three years?

Yep:

Spoiler:

According to one official, Hughes was explicitly told by Jordan to get him the ball if he wanted to play. When Hughes began passing it to Stackhouse as much as to Jordan, he was soon benched. Point guard Tyronn Lue, the official said, obliged and began finding Jordan every time he played. ''He was scared to death of what would happen to him in his career if he didn't,'' the player said of Lue. ''He was always looking at the bench at Michael.''

Late last fall, Richard Hamilton and Jordan got into an ugly shouting match. The two officials said it began when Hamilton told Jordan he was tired of being a ''Jordannaire,'' the term used for Jordan's role players in Chicago. ''Rip was a young, brash guy who threatened the idea of Michael being the guy here,'' the official said. ''He was promptly gotten rid of for Stackhouse.'' A person close to Jordan denied Hamilton was traded because of a personality conflict. He insisted contractual issues led to the Stackhouse deal.

In the season's final weeks, players openly complained about the double standards for Jordan. Promptly dressed and ready to speak with reporters after games, they were forced to wait in the locker room for 15 or 20 minutes while Jordan showered and dressed in a private room.

Sadly the magic "trust teammates buff" he acquired at 26 and maintained through 35 was mysteriously gone by 38. Because you know, jordan was why those not top 5 offenses suddenly became #1 offenses. Not the context around him. Aren't fairytales fun?

Though I guess that's not quite as silly as thinking KG was a better defender at 31, after a career altering injury that specifically coincided with a drop in defensive value, because he was only showing crazy good defensive signals on a top 6 defense rather than a top 5 one.

My point is simple, he is a great, but not top ten defensive player of all time.

And to support this point you

-> cited teams that were not as bad as the Timberwolves before Garnett joined as examples where players took "the same or lesser casts" to top 5
-> argued KG was not a top 10 player on one side of the court because he did not lead top 5 defenses pre-thibs(only top 6!) and then backflipped a bunch to avoid applying that logic to jordan on the other(only top 8!)

As you say, "you thought you had an argument, but you don't"

(not to mention that even the regular season data by itself plainly disproves your original “regression” claim).

The original claim

Spoiler:

4th year in the league and quite possibly the most valuable he had ever been in the regular-season(top or near top in terms of non-box, box, and rep). His playmaking impact would peak in 1989 when the team regressed. He would get jumper's knee in 90 and his defensive activity was lesser in a system designed to help Jordan avoid extra defensive attention rather than exploit it to create for his teammates.

lessthanjake's SRS calculation proving that claim correct

Spoiler:

Maybe check who they were playing in those games. It was an abnormally high strength of schedule portion of the season, so their SRS during that timeframe was actually 2.74, which was

One small piece of content free argumentative content removed.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Bro where did Jordan come from lol

[Peregrine01]

Seems like the PC forum is as susceptible to echo chambers and mob mentality as anywhere else.

Perhaps we need to all step back, cool down, and realize that these are just differences in opinion. With the way things are going, might as well just have a bunch of people agreeing with each other all the time while heterogenous views are outcast.

[OhayoKD]

I think it's interesting that KG's bad Wolves teammates are used as a crutch for him (which I agree with) but by the same token, his on/off and impact stats, which would benefit from him playing on a dysfunctional team, is also used to propel him.

Where is the contradiction, exactly? His impact stats don't benefit from dysfunctional teams, in fact they are at or near their worst in the "dysfunctional" 05-07 period. And it's not like he didn't replicate them in perfectly functional teams later in his career.

We that have been discussing this **** for decades now have to be constantly, tirelessly, reeeeally carefully explaining how BAD some of his teams were, and contextualizing absolutely everything regarding his environment in Minnesota, cause some of you guys just don't know how to assess quality outside the all-star realm and RINGZ, lol. It's you guys who just can't mount a coherent, cogent argument without drawing from old, outdated clichés.

I don’t hold the ringz argument against KG. And I know that stats like RAPM try to isolate individual impact while taking into account teammate quality. I’m just more skeptical about using these stats as the be all and end all.

No. You "just" baselessly asserted that KG's "dysfunctional situation" inflated his impact signals demonstrating you have no clue how impact stuff works.

Just like you threw "kg missed the playoffs 3-years in a row" and "kg's minesotta defenses weren't top x" without considering what consistent application would lead to.

There is skepticism, and then there is using "skepticism" as an excuse to dismiss everything that challenges a poorly conceived prior. You never had a serious criticism of Garnett. Just "skepticism" conveniently pointing you in the direction you wanted to go.

[Peregrine01]

Where is the contradiction, exactly? His impact stats don't benefit from dysfunctional teams, in fact they are at or near their worst in the "dysfunctional" 05-07 period. And it's not like he didn't replicate them in perfectly functional teams later in his career.

We that have been discussing this **** for decades now have to be constantly, tirelessly, reeeeally carefully explaining how BAD some of his teams were, and contextualizing absolutely everything regarding his environment in Minnesota, cause some of you guys just don't know how to assess quality outside the all-star realm and RINGZ, lol. It's you guys who just can't mount a coherent, cogent argument without drawing from old, outdated clichés.

I don’t hold the ringz argument against KG. And I know that stats like RAPM try to isolate individual impact while taking into account teammate quality. I’m just more skeptical about using these stats as the be all and end all.

No. You "just" baselessly asserted that KG's "dysfunctional situation" inflated his impact signals demonstrating you have no clue how impact stuff works.

Just like you threw "kg missed the playoffs 3-years in a row" and "kg's minesotta defenses weren't top x" without considering what consistent application would lead to.

There is skepticism, and then there is using "skepticism" as an excuse to dismiss everything that challenges a poorly conceived prior. You never had a serious criticism of Garnett. Just "skepticism" conveniently pointing you in the direction you wanted to go.

A lot of the arguments highlighting KG's impact in those Minny years were using on/off, which would for sure would be impacted by the quality of his back-up and other teammates. As for RAPM, I'm skeptical of using it as a catch-all number to evaluate individual impact.

As for his lack of team success in Minny, I do hold that as an argument against him. I guess I lean more toward what actually happened than what-ifs.

In the end, I still view KG as a top-20 to top-30 player but not in the top-10. Is that so wrong a view to hold?

[OhayoKD]

I don’t hold the ringz argument against KG. And I know that stats like RAPM try to isolate individual impact while taking into account teammate quality. I’m just more skeptical about using these stats as the be all and end all.

No. You "just" baselessly asserted that KG's "dysfunctional situation" inflated his impact signals demonstrating you have no clue how impact stuff works.

Just like you threw "kg missed the playoffs 3-years in a row" and "kg's minesotta defenses weren't top x" without considering what consistent application would lead to.

There is skepticism, and then there is using "skepticism" as an excuse to dismiss everything that challenges a poorly conceived prior. You never had a serious criticism of Garnett. Just "skepticism" conveniently pointing you in the direction you wanted to go.

A lot of the arguments highlighting KG's impact in those Minny years were using on/off,

This on/off?


Yes on/off is very very susceptible to situation. The issue is assuming that that variance/noise is biased towards Garnett because his teams weren't as good as other players. On/off can actually go up if a player on a really good team shares heavy minutes with other really good players. (This was actually pretty common with the greats of the 80's/90's where platooning was more common),

This is part of why the drop-offs when players are completely removed from teams for games(or seasons) can often be alot different than what on/off would suggest(lebron in both cleveland stints, and duncan in the early oughts are premier examples of this).

KG could be inflated(well okay he definitely is in boston). He could be suppressed, but you actually have to look at the rosters and analyze things like real-world lineup-rotations, minutes load, teammate signals, ect. It's not as simple as "kg on bad team -> kg impact go up!".

RAPM is also pretty useful but it is ultimately an approximation so it only mitigates these sources of noise.

In KG's case though, even when arguably not optimized schematically in minesotta, pretty much anything tied to winning(raw, adjusted, on/off) views him as candidate for "2nd most valuable of databall". And even "playoff impact" views him as really really good(I mosrly look team elevation/decline and isolating for "production", but you can also use on/off or playoff rapm or aupm or whatever)

You don't have to rank him top 10, top 20, top 30, or top 40 because of this, but if you are going to make positive claims about KG's "impact" that go against pretty much everything emperical, you should have good well-supported justification.

I've also said this ad-nasuem. Bit players who can anchor good defenses and good offenses(2004!) are extremely rare and yet they tend to have a massively outsized influence in terms of both discernable impact and championships.

It makes no sense to assume an offensive engine is more valuable than a two-way anchor because "offense>defense". Tim Duncan posted better raw splits than anyone from the 80's/90's(magic comes closest), has a case for the best non-lebron apm portfolio, and a case as the best winner since russell. Then Lebron broke the scale as a non-big who could also anchor both ends of the floor.

It also doesn't make sense to assume iq+help aren't very valuable with "bad" teammates when pretty much all the greatest defenders(impact, championships, best defensive ratings).

If, KG's resume sinks him anyway, fair enough. But don't sink him on things that feel true that you haven't actually checked

[70sFan]

Meh, I’ve actually contributed a lot of fully on-topic posts in this thread. The problem is that materially false stuff gets thrown around over and over again in threads where it’d sidetrack the thread to point it out, but at a certain point it seems necessary to correct the record so that incorrect info doesn’t keep getting propagated over and over. I’ve made my point, though, and have little interest in continuing to discuss it, since my point is just obviously correct but I’m fairly sure that that won’t be admitted.

I think the best way is simply not engage if the thread isn't about Jordan. It can be hard at times, but it's much healthier for you and our community.

I don’t think you’ll win a title with Garnett as your offensive focal point, because he is too limited in breaking down the defense and generating easy buckets for himself. I also don’t think you’ll win a title with Jokic as your defensive focal point, since he’d get exploited. Perhaps you’re more likely to do it with Garnett as an offensive focal point than Jokic as a defensive focal point, but I don’t really think you’d win a title either way so I’m not sure that that makes a big difference to me. So then the better and more relevant question for both players IMO is what value they provide in that phase of play when they’re not the focal point.

I mean, I understand the criticism of Garnett's offense but he literally won the title as the main option. He wasn't a classic offensive anchor in Jokic mold of course, but he scored the most points in the playoffs in 2008. You may argue that he was co-anchor with Pierce, but it's hard to argue he didn't lead Celtics team on that end.

So even without going to hypothetical scenarios, we know that your argument isn't 100% fair to Garnett.

We saw that for Garnett on the Celtics—where he was not the offensive focal point.

How was he not?

We know that Garnett averaged negative ORPM with the Celtics. That wasn’t prime Garnett of course, so I think it’d be harsh to conclude that that’s what prime Garnett would be like as a secondary offensive option, but I do think it’s indicative of him not being a hugely valuable offensive player as a secondary option (which makes sense, since his best offensive attribute is passing, which is mitigated a good deal if he’s not the focal point).

I don't think I responded to this argument before, but I think it's not a good way to estimate prime Garnett's offensive impact as a secondary/co-leading option. Garnett has a prime-ending injury in 2009 season, it's not just a matter of him getting older but he was visibly different player when he came back.

When we take a look at 2008, he still looks like one of the best offensive players in the league by RAPM, though not among very best of course:

https://web.archive.org/web/20201024055608/https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/2008-rapm

Using 2010-13 sample to conclude that Garnett is ineffective as a second option is very faulty in my opinion.

Meanwhile, if surrounded with some good defensive players, we’ve seen that Jokic can avoid being exploited defensively while simultaneously getting substantial value from being probably the league’s best defensive rebounder (which is a *huge* deal that people way underestimate), as well as having great hands and smart positioning.

The question remains what is easier to find - Pierce level scorer next to Garnett, or a defensive team like Denver. I am not really sure what's the answer.

Of course, I don't agree that 2023 Jokic has comparable defensive impact to 2008 Garnett on offense as I mentioned earlier - and Garnett was past his best offensively in 2008 (while Jokic had just the best defensive season of his career).

And then to connect that back, I think at the high end of impact, highly impactful offense is more impactful than highly impactful defense—largely because an offense can choose to always include a great offensive player in every action, while on defense the opposing team can try to avoid their opponent’s best defensive player, so there’s just a difference in how often the best player is part of an action. Which means that I think Jokic’s offense is more impactful than Garnett’s defense. And given the above, I don’t think there’s enough of a gap between Garnett’s offense and Jokic’s defense to make up for that.

That's fair and it's not something I argue against. It's fine to pick Jokic over Garnett, I am undecided myself.

[ShaqAttac]

Bro where did Jordan come from lol

uh tldrrr

jaiv made some mj analogy when a dude said kg didnt lead great d without thib

peri said kg didnt make the playoffs

kd said mj was losin more than winning 3 times in a row

home pointed out his impact might bee higher

kd started fightin all the anti kgers with a mj comp

and lessthan started bsin to make mj look better than he is

[Peregrine01]

Bro where did Jordan come from lol

uh tldrrr

jaiv made some mj analogy when a dude said kg didnt lead great d without thib

peri said kg didnt make the playoffs

kd said mj was losin more than winning 3 times in a row

home pointed out his impact might bee higher

kd started fightin all the anti kgers with a mj comp

and lessthan started bsin to make mj look better than he is

Lmao. Probably the most succinct summary of this thread.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Content free baiting post removed, poster informally warned.

Penbeast 0

[Peregrine01]

No. You "just" baselessly asserted that KG's "dysfunctional situation" inflated his impact signals demonstrating you have no clue how impact stuff works.

Just like you threw "kg missed the playoffs 3-years in a row" and "kg's minesotta defenses weren't top x" without considering what consistent application would lead to.

There is skepticism, and then there is using "skepticism" as an excuse to dismiss everything that challenges a poorly conceived prior. You never had a serious criticism of Garnett. Just "skepticism" conveniently pointing you in the direction you wanted to go.

A lot of the arguments highlighting KG's impact in those Minny years were using on/off,

This on/off?


Yes on/off is very very susceptible to situation. The issue is assuming that that variance/noise is biased towards Garnett because his teams weren't as good as other players. On/off can actually go up if a player on a really good team shares heavy minutes with other really good players. (This was actually pretty common with the greats of the 80's/90's where platooning was more common),

This is part of why the drop-offs when players are completely removed from teams for games(or seasons) can often be alot different than what on/off would suggest(lebron in both cleveland stints, and duncan in the early oughts are premier examples of this).

KG could be inflated(well okay he definitely is in boston). He could be suppressed, but you actually have to look at the rosters and analyze things like real-world lineup-rotations, minutes load, teammate signals, ect. It's not as simple as "kg on bad team -> kg impact go up!".

RAPM is also pretty useful but it is ultimately an approximation so it only mitigates these sources of noise.

In KG's case though, even when arguably not optimized schematically in minesotta, pretty much anything tied to winning(raw, adjusted, on/off) views him as candidate for "2nd most valuable of databall". And even "playoff impact" views him as really really good(I mosrly look team elevation/decline and isolating for "production", but you can also use on/off or playoff rapm or aupm or whatever)

You don't have to rank him top 10, top 20, top 30, or top 40 because of this, but if you are going to make positive claims about KG's "impact" that go against pretty much everything emperical, you should have good well-supported justification.

I've also said this ad-nasuem. Bit players who can anchor good defenses and good offenses(2004!) are extremely rare and yet they tend to have a massively outsized influence in terms of both discernable impact and championships.

It makes no sense to assume an offensive engine is more valuable than a two-way anchor because "offense>defense". Tim Duncan posted better raw splits than anyone from the 80's/90's(magic comes closest), has a case for the best non-lebron apm portfolio, and a case as the best winner since russell. Then Lebron broke the scale as a non-big who could also anchor both ends of the floor.

It also doesn't make sense to assume iq+help aren't very valuable with "bad" teammates when pretty much all the greatest defenders(impact, championships, best defensive ratings).

If, KG's resume sinks him anyway, fair enough. But don't sink him on things that feel true that you haven't actually checked

Nice of you to tell me how I myself am thinking. Ignored.

[ShaqAttac]

A lot of the arguments highlighting KG's impact in those Minny years were using on/off,

This on/off?


Yes on/off is very very susceptible to situation. The issue is assuming that that variance/noise is biased towards Garnett because his teams weren't as good as other players. On/off can actually go up if a player on a really good team shares heavy minutes with other really good players. (This was actually pretty common with the greats of the 80's/90's where platooning was more common),

This is part of why the drop-offs when players are completely removed from teams for games(or seasons) can often be alot different than what on/off would suggest(lebron in both cleveland stints, and duncan in the early oughts are premier examples of this).

KG could be inflated(well okay he definitely is in boston). He could be suppressed, but you actually have to look at the rosters and analyze things like real-world lineup-rotations, minutes load, teammate signals, ect. It's not as simple as "kg on bad team -> kg impact go up!".

RAPM is also pretty useful but it is ultimately an approximation so it only mitigates these sources of noise.

In KG's case though, even when arguably not optimized schematically in minesotta, pretty much anything tied to winning(raw, adjusted, on/off) views him as candidate for "2nd most valuable of databall". And even "playoff impact" views him as really really good(I mosrly look team elevation/decline and isolating for "production", but you can also use on/off or playoff rapm or aupm or whatever)

You don't have to rank him top 10, top 20, top 30, or top 40 because of this, but if you are going to make positive claims about KG's "impact" that go against pretty much everything emperical, you should have good well-supported justification.

I've also said this ad-nasuem. Bit players who can anchor good defenses and good offenses(2004!) are extremely rare and yet they tend to have a massively outsized influence in terms of both discernable impact and championships.

It makes no sense to assume an offensive engine is more valuable than a two-way anchor because "offense>defense". Tim Duncan posted better raw splits than anyone from the 80's/90's(magic comes closest), has a case for the best non-lebron apm portfolio, and a case as the best winner since russell. Then Lebron broke the scale as a non-big who could also anchor both ends of the floor.

It also doesn't make sense to assume iq+help aren't very valuable with "bad" teammates when pretty much all the greatest defenders(impact, championships, best defensive ratings).

If, KG's resume sinks him anyway, fair enough. But don't sink him on things that feel true that you haven't actually checked

Nice of you to tell me how I myself am thinking. Ignored.

u did say kg impact high coz dysfunction tho

[MyUniBroDavis]

This on/off?


Yes on/off is very very susceptible to situation. The issue is assuming that that variance/noise is biased towards Garnett because his teams weren't as good as other players. On/off can actually go up if a player on a really good team shares heavy minutes with other really good players. (This was actually pretty common with the greats of the 80's/90's where platooning was more common),

This is part of why the drop-offs when players are completely removed from teams for games(or seasons) can often be alot different than what on/off would suggest(lebron in both cleveland stints, and duncan in the early oughts are premier examples of this).

KG could be inflated(well okay he definitely is in boston). He could be suppressed, but you actually have to look at the rosters and analyze things like real-world lineup-rotations, minutes load, teammate signals, ect. It's not as simple as "kg on bad team -> kg impact go up!".

RAPM is also pretty useful but it is ultimately an approximation so it only mitigates these sources of noise.

In KG's case though, even when arguably not optimized schematically in minesotta, pretty much anything tied to winning(raw, adjusted, on/off) views him as candidate for "2nd most valuable of databall". And even "playoff impact" views him as really really good(I mosrly look team elevation/decline and isolating for "production", but you can also use on/off or playoff rapm or aupm or whatever)

You don't have to rank him top 10, top 20, top 30, or top 40 because of this, but if you are going to make positive claims about KG's "impact" that go against pretty much everything emperical, you should have good well-supported justification.

I've also said this ad-nasuem. Bit players who can anchor good defenses and good offenses(2004!) are extremely rare and yet they tend to have a massively outsized influence in terms of both discernable impact and championships.

It makes no sense to assume an offensive engine is more valuable than a two-way anchor because "offense>defense". Tim Duncan posted better raw splits than anyone from the 80's/90's(magic comes closest), has a case for the best non-lebron apm portfolio, and a case as the best winner since russell. Then Lebron broke the scale as a non-big who could also anchor both ends of the floor.

It also doesn't make sense to assume iq+help aren't very valuable with "bad" teammates when pretty much all the greatest defenders(impact, championships, best defensive ratings).

If, KG's resume sinks him anyway, fair enough. But don't sink him on things that feel true that you haven't actually checked

Nice of you to tell me how I myself am thinking. Ignored.

u did say kg impact high coz dysfunction tho

No way you responded with a different account lol

[OhayoKD]

Nice of you to tell me how I myself am thinking. Ignored.

u did say kg impact high coz dysfunction tho

No way you responded with a different account lol

[Colbinii]

A lot of the arguments highlighting KG's impact in those Minny years were using on/off,

This on/off?


Yes on/off is very very susceptible to situation. The issue is assuming that that variance/noise is biased towards Garnett because his teams weren't as good as other players. On/off can actually go up if a player on a really good team shares heavy minutes with other really good players. (This was actually pretty common with the greats of the 80's/90's where platooning was more common),

This is part of why the drop-offs when players are completely removed from teams for games(or seasons) can often be alot different than what on/off would suggest(lebron in both cleveland stints, and duncan in the early oughts are premier examples of this).

KG could be inflated(well okay he definitely is in boston). He could be suppressed, but you actually have to look at the rosters and analyze things like real-world lineup-rotations, minutes load, teammate signals, ect. It's not as simple as "kg on bad team -> kg impact go up!".

RAPM is also pretty useful but it is ultimately an approximation so it only mitigates these sources of noise.

In KG's case though, even when arguably not optimized schematically in minesotta, pretty much anything tied to winning(raw, adjusted, on/off) views him as candidate for "2nd most valuable of databall". And even "playoff impact" views him as really really good(I mosrly look team elevation/decline and isolating for "production", but you can also use on/off or playoff rapm or aupm or whatever)

You don't have to rank him top 10, top 20, top 30, or top 40 because of this, but if you are going to make positive claims about KG's "impact" that go against pretty much everything emperical, you should have good well-supported justification.

I've also said this ad-nasuem. Bit players who can anchor good defenses and good offenses(2004!) are extremely rare and yet they tend to have a massively outsized influence in terms of both discernable impact and championships.

It makes no sense to assume an offensive engine is more valuable than a two-way anchor because "offense>defense". Tim Duncan posted better raw splits than anyone from the 80's/90's(magic comes closest), has a case for the best non-lebron apm portfolio, and a case as the best winner since russell. Then Lebron broke the scale as a non-big who could also anchor both ends of the floor.

It also doesn't make sense to assume iq+help aren't very valuable with "bad" teammates when pretty much all the greatest defenders(impact, championships, best defensive ratings).

If, KG's resume sinks him anyway, fair enough. But don't sink him on things that feel true that you haven't actually checked

Nice of you to tell me how I myself am thinking. Ignored.

Did you even read his post?

I think it is one of the least abrasive posts in this thread that does an excellent job at picking apart a statement(s) [In this case yours] and asks for more clarity as to how you actually came to the conclusion you did [And how you have hinted at arriving at your conclusion appears faulty based on the data we have].

It is probably better for you to ignore him though since you don't have anything positive to contribute.

[Peregrine01]

Did you even read his post?

I think it is one of the least abrasive posts in this thread that does an excellent job at picking apart a statement(s) [In this case yours] and asks for more clarity as to how you actually came to the conclusion you did [And how you have hinted at arriving at your conclusion appears faulty based on the data we have].

It is probably better for you to ignore him though since you don't have anything positive to contribute.

Please enlighten me. What was the statement that you think I said?