Wasn't one upping KG or downplaying Dirk was just saying Dirk had help while some are making it seem like it was a 1 man show.
perfect example of the cluelessness i'm talking about right there. Dirk and Harden are both lousy defenders, George is a great defender, KG though was a legendary defender (best at PF ever, best pnr ever), plus he's a big guy, and an anchor so it's more important anyway (rebounding matters to big guys as well...). What Dirk has though is a coach who is very good at hiding Dirk's faults and a system he's been in for years, whereas Harden (and pretty much our whole team) are on their 3rd system in 3 years. Offensively, well Dirk is better with better range, but we're talking a cpl ppg at similar efficiencies both over the career and at prime here.
AroundTheWorld I think I've said this before: I was always against Nitwitz becuase he plays for Dallas. But when he went en fuego in 2011 I couldn't help myself from rooting for him. That was a legendary performance by a man who really wanted to win and loved to compete Dirk was legendary in that entire playoff run of his It was a pleasure to witness
Comparing KG and Dirk one-on-one doesn't really make sense to me because one-on-one is Dirk's forte, KG is also a mid-range guy so offensively he's like a poor man's version of Dirk. Where KG excels is at team defense, you can make him the anchor of your team and he'll defend whether it's paint D or one-on-one. He might not lock down your opponent but he'll make life hard for everyone of the opponent's team. I think there's a lot of value in that, and unfortunately that's not something that shows in box score stats. Of course offensively Dirk is great, but his rebounding is just average and his D leaves a lot to be desired and that makes him exploitable, if you have a guy who can score in the post like say Al Jefferson or Z-BO then you can send that guy to bully Dirk into submission and wear him down on defense so he can't shoot as much. With KG he's a mismatch at every opportunity so taking him out of the game is practically impossible he'll find a way to contribute whether it's passing, Defense, rebounding or providng spacing via mid-range shots. If I was building a team from scratch I'd definitely pick KG, I think he's just the better player. Just look at the accolades, KG also has an MVP to his name and has 9 first all defensive teams.
Dirk vs KG Offense vs Defense I pick dirk simply because when the game is on the line you can count on dirk to deliver. Dirk's clutchness is way underrated in this debate.
It's close, but I choose Garnett because he wasted much of his career playing for an organization that never took him seriously, unlike Dirk who Cuban adopted as a son the second he rode into Dallas. Garnett was never given that kind of treatment in Minnesota, they never spent much money on the team and they kept him there for an ungodly amount of time while featuring crap players and coaches. Dirk is an underachiever in my book. He's had a great owner for his entire career, he's had plenty of stacked teams so he's never had to think about leaving Dallas for another team or demanding a trade. Dirk in Minnesota would have been total ****, worse than Garnett. There's no way he comes close to ever winning anything there. People forget, that Garnett was the ultimate iron man when he played for Minnesota. He was the team leader on both defense and offense AND he brought toughness to that team. Dirk couldn't guard a screen door for most of his career, and he certainly doesn't bring the same level of toughness or tenacity that Garnett brought to the game on a nightly basis.
This is basically a thread asking if you value defense or offense more. I love Nowitzki (one of my favorite non-rocket players), but KG was the better player. Nowitzki was the better scorer but Garnett was better at everything else (especially defense).
Garnett. For all the "Oh, KG needed Pierce and Allen to win", I'd like to point out one thing. Neither Pierce or Allen had a PER above 20 during the championship season. If you ignore the names, they were good, of course, but they weren't THAT good by the standards of a "2nd option on a championship team", like Pau, Pippen, or Kobe. Now Dirk didn't have anyone above a PER above 20 either, but that's not the same thing, given that his team support largely focused on defense instead. Garnett didn't need that much offensive support to build a contender. Really, all he needed was a decent 20 ppg scorer, a Kevin Martin type of player. But Minnesota was so ****ing incompetent that they didn't even could do THAT. I mean, you realize that in Garnett's entire career as a Timberwolf, he had 3 guys, each for only one season that scored over 18 ppg? And one of those doesn't really count, because it was Ricky Davis? People just don't realize how freaking terrible Garnett's supporting cast was, and it really is an incredible shame.
This is not really true. Dirk is indeed an offensive god, but he sucked on D. KG oth was legendary on D, but he was more than adequate offensively as well. In fact, his efficiency and scoring numbers, while not on par with Dirk are still really really good. Dirk: 22.6 pts, 0.581 TS% KG: 19 pts, 0.548 TS% Please take note that Dirk played most of his career surrounded by good players like Matrix, Nash, Finley and Jet while prior to getting traded KG spent most of his career playing with trash like Stephon "Starbury" Marbury, Ricky "Buckets" Davis and effin' Wally Scerbiak. Oh, and Minny actually got their ass handed to them by Stern and lost 3 first round picks which would have enabled them to build a good team.
Kevin Garnett could never compete for a title without a teammate that could take over a game offensively, period. As many things as he was spectacular at, the ability to put the ball in the hole down the stretch is where stars count most, and KG wasn't on the same planet as Dirk in that regard.
Offense vs Defense huh? Despite KG's defensive prowess, I doubt even he could stop the 2nd most unstoppable move ever since Kareem's skyhook. Dirk was clutch as hell too. It's no surprise MJ himself cited Dirk to be one of only four players who could nearly be as successful in his era of basketball. The rest were Lebron, Kobe and Duncan. Also, you guys make it seem that Dirk's a slouch on defense. Dude's got more defensive winshares than Kobe. Seriously, Dirk wins hands down.
So what, Dirk could never compete for a title without a teammate who could defend, period. Dirk is a great scorer but you can find scorers at multiple positions, KG himself is a good scorer who'll give you 10-20 pts a game every night. There are a ton of scoring big men in the league, guys like Amare, Blake Griffin, ZBO, AL Jefferson, Kevin Love etc. But there are very few guys who can defend the paint at an elite level, and KG's part of that club. I'm not sure why you're making it into an offense vs defense argument, Dirk can't defend but KG can score, just not as good as Dirk.
Oh yeah MJ, the same dude who drafted Kwame Brown over all, I bet he also thought Brown would be an amazing player in his era of basketball. MJ's era allowed handchecking and was way more physical in the old days, you think Dirk would survive getting mauled by guys like Malone and enforcer PFs night after night? In fact if Dirk played in MJ's era he'd probably never become great, in those days big men all played in the post, the thought of camping out at the 3 would've been shot down as soon as he brought it up. LOL, Dirk's got more defensive winshare than Kobe? I should hope so, the dude's like a foot taller. He should be compared defensively to guys like KG and Tim Duncan, because big men affect the D more than guards.
Because great offensive players win titles. You can't win without one, and there are 20-30 guys in the league that can defend the paint at an elite level. There are 3-5 that can be the go to player on a champion.
"Take over a game offensively?" Who was taking over the game offensively in 2004, Sam Cassell? Garnett didn't need someone who could take over a game offensively, he needed a wing scorer who could drop 18-20 ppg on decent efficiency and nothing more - Kevin Martin would have been good enough with Garnett to make a contender. But Minnesota was so incompetent that they couldn't even provide that for him. So Tim Duncan was a "great offensive player?"
this is hilarious not only did he have allen and pierce he also had Rondo, Perkins (who wasnt useless at that time), and PJ brown who was HUGE for them.
