Why Does KG Get a Pass For Minnesota?

[knickswin]

I know this comes up all the time here, and I'm not a KG hater by any means. I love his skill and his intelligence on the court, and prime KG would be one of my choices for best second option to put next to Carmelo.

But

How does this dude get a pass for winning TWO playoff series in TWELVE years in Minnesota? And honestly, it's not like the two teams he beat were world beaters. Rookie Carmelo + Andre Miller + scrubs and then the Kings after Webber was injured.

I am not saying there weren't good reasons for him losing some of those series. Most of the time his teams were less talented. That's fine. Very few players could overcome that. But I feel like at some point he has to be held accountable for this. At some point we have to distinguish between him and the players who were able to put their teams over the top. I consider Barkley and Dirk to be better than him because at certain points in their careers they put in some TRANSCENDENT performances in the playoffs. KG didn't really do that.

Let me slip some Carmelo homerism in here. Carmelo had a pretty similar career in Denver. He got out of the first round once (in fewer years though). Many people wouldn't even put Carmelo on a list of top 10 small forwards of all time, while many people would have put Garnett on a top 5 power forward list of all time before he even went to Boston. Some would even call him the best power forward of all time now and many say he's top 2-3. Makes no sense to me.

I remember that idiot Kelly Dwyer put him above Kobe on his top players of the 2000s list. I mean, come on.

[knickswin]

and please don't turn this into the 10th KG versus Dirk thread. I know I mentioned Dirk in my post, but I would rather focus mostly on KG.

[Kurosawa0]

Because his supporting cast in Minnesota makes LeBron's in Cleveland look like the 1960's Celtics.

[brisbaneman]

Because he's black, thats why.

[brisbaneman]

Because his supporting cast in Minnesota makes LeBron's in Cleveland look like the 1960's Celtics.

Nah not at all. And you can easily argue that that cast is what enabled him to post his monster stats.

[Yung D-Will]

Give kg Melo's 04 team and he goes to the finals.

[knickswin]

Give kg Melo's 04 team and he goes to the finals.

I'm sorry, but I don't understand this. Carmelo's 04 team was not very good. They had Andre Miller, Voshon Leonard, and 2nd year Nene as their best players after Carmelo. I don't understand why one would think that KG + that cast would get by the Lakers that year. The Timberwolves probably had a better team that year with Cassell, Sprewell as heady vets who were also capable scorers.

The only thing KG has proven in his career is that he can win a championship with a great supporting cast. He has never proven otherwise. Again, this isn't a BAD thing per se. Most players couldn't have done what he's done. But I don't understand why there's a perception that he's proven himself capable of dragging an average supporting cast to the finals let alone a championship. He has not.

[Kevin_Garnett_5]

[Yung D-Will]

I'm sorry, but I don't understand this. Carmelo's 04 team was not very good. They had Andre Miller, Voshon Leonard, and 2nd year Nene as their best players after Carmelo. I don't understand why one would think that KG + that cast would get by the Lakers that year. The Timberwolves probably had a better team that year with Cassell, Sprewell as heady vets who were also capable scorers.

The only thing KG has proven in his career is that he can win a championship with a great supporting cast. He has never proven otherwise. Again, this isn't a BAD thing per se. Most players couldn't have done what he's done. But I don't understand why there's a perception that he's proven himself capable of dragging an average supporting cast to the finals let alone a championship. He has not.

Opps wrong team I think I was referring to 05/06. Anyhow I'm convinced if it wasn't for the late injuries the T-Wolves would have made it to the finals that year and beat the pistons but this is all speculation.

[Rake2204]

I guess the question would be: how did Kevin Garnett perform in the playoffs? I have to be honest and say I didn't always pay attention to exactly what KG was doing come playoff time. There were a lot of other teams I was thinking about instead. If KG was KG (which is to say, an all-time power forward doing nasty things) and his teams still lost, there's not a lot left he could have done.

Just looking at one year randomly, while understanding this won't represent his entire Minnesota tenure, the '01 Garnett averaged 21, 12, and 4 in a four game loss to San Antonio. In this one particular year, I don't see how he could be held personally accountable for not escaping the first round. KG's battling Tim Duncan and David Robinson inside. Who's picking up the slack for Minny? Well there's Terrell Brandon and 23 year old Wally Szczerbiak. But then that gives way to Anthony Peeler, Felipe Lopez, LaPhonso Ellis, and Dean Garrett. My apologies, but I don't think anyone's going to win much with a team like that.

Often, we'll hear the line "Well, the greats can put their teams on their back and carry them when needed". I find that oftentimes to be true, but only if the team is somewhat capable in the first place. Great players can't always just magically boost their scoring averages by 10 points per game come playoff time. There has to be weapons everywhere on that team to allow a player to operate. If I'm San Antonio in '01, why would I concentrate on anyone else besides KG? Is 26% shooting Anthony Peeler going to spread the floor?

Again, 2001 is just a sample and I'm not suggesting this story duplicates itself every year KG went down in round 1. However, I don't find it to be a coincidence that KG began experiencing playoff success once a real-deal team began coming together up there. Unfortunately, the real players Minny acquired happened to be in their early to mid 30's, which led to a very, very short window for success. I always got the feeling Kevin Garnett did everything he possibly could to succeed for that team. This doesn't mean he always played awesomely in the playoffs. Rather, I just feel the losses had more to do with his team than it did with him personally.

[BankShot]

Because of illegal contract negotiations with Joe Smith, the NBA revoked 5 first round draft picks, which should have been the surrounding cast to grow with Kevin Garnett

[knickswin]

Opps wrong team I think I was referring to 05/06. Anyhow I'm convinced if it wasn't for the late injuries the T-Wolves would have made it to the finals that year and beat the pistons but this is all speculation.

I believe the 06 Nuggets were even worse. They started some very bad players (I can't even remember their names--they were total scrubs) because of the injuries to Martin, Camby, and Nene.

[Kblaze8855]

Because people have common sense.

[Fatal9]

Have you actually um, looked at the teams he was facing in the first round?

'99 - Duncan/D-Rob championship Spurs team
'00 - 59 win Blazers team that was a quarter away from a championship
'01 - 58 win Spurs team
'02 - 57 win loaded Mavs team with Dirk/Nash/Finley/NVE
'03 - Shaq/Kobe's Lakers who were coming off three straight championships (and it looked like he was gonna upset them for a bit)


You want to let me know how many guys with the rosters KG had are upsetting those teams? All of them were championship quality teams. It's not like it was his fault for getting them a lower seed either. He was leading rosters to 50+ wins when they had no business winning that much, but in the West at the time, winning 50 games might mean a first round matchup with Kobe and Shaq's Laker teams, or Duncan's Spurs or the Mavs.

If you want to see KG's amazing value to his teams, look at his +/- over the years. Take 2003 for example, with KG out/on the bench Wolves were -17.1 points worse. Compare it to other stars at the time: Duncan (-6.2), Dirk (-6.5), Shaq (-5.2) and even someone like T-Mac who played on a terrible team himself (-8.9)...you just wonder how such a difference is even possible. And this is trend you see all decade...his teams are just epically bad without him on the floor. And you can thank the Minny management for making bad moves, forfeiting draft picks from the Joe Smith scandal then the breakup of the '04 core immediately the year after (though that's more Cassell and Spre's fault for getting so greedy).

KG gets a pass because he overachieved at least till like '05 with what he was given in Minny. The one year he did have legit help, he got them #1 seed in a loaded conference and took them to the conference finals where unfortunately the second best player on the Timberwolves (Cassell) got injured. And now people are going to revise history and act like he underachieved...expected, the farther you go away from those years the more details people forget.

[Yung D-Will]

I believe the 06 Nuggets were even worse. They started some very bad players (I can't even remember their names--they were total scrubs) because of the injuries to Martin, Camby, and Nene.

**** lmaooo I'm thinking of a team but I think I'm saying the wrong one, Brb basketball reference